##VIDEO ID:6mTLeO99phM## in its entirety but I want to make sure you're aware of it uh also statement on videotaping of the public portion of today's uh board education meetings as well as public comment statement so thank you very much for that um and then finally I just like to sort of point out that there is no smoking and raping policy on school grounds so thank you for adhering to that and just before we get started with our official part of the agenda I would just like to ask everyone to stand and for the pledge of allegiance to the flag the United States of America stand indivisible thank you everybody so um our first item tonight before we get started will be um sort of a moment of silence uh to sort of Honor a recent passing of one of our teachers um so I'd like to uh take a moment just to honor the memory of Miss Wanda orango uh we're deep s saddened by the passing of Miss Wanda orango an educator who dedicated over 37 remarkable years to the Marboro Township Public Schools beginning at marbor Middle School in 1981 and continuing her impactful work with Sixth and eighth graders St uh at marbor Middle School Miss Rango exemplified the very best qualities of an educator her passion for teaching Spanish and fostering collaboration and Global awareness has inspired countless students Mr Rango was known for having a nurturing and engaging classroom where students thrived and learned and what I love is about they also sang and danced all right Miss Rango is known uh her involvement in initiatives like the community community of caring showcased her dedication to addressing issues with creativity and compassion her involvement uh her Legacy is a sincere care high achievement and joy her influence touched the lives of generations of students and families as we honor her memory we extend our huffel condolences as a board and as a town and as a public school to her family including her husband Alejandro and her beloved children and grandchildren May her dedication want and spirit continue to inspire all who knew her let's take a moment of silence please thank you okay so we are going to get started with our um agenda um let me start with Mr balone um the next items on the agenda are actually I think yours and that will be you know the staff respect certificates as well as student recognition and respect certificates thank you good evening everyone as we do each month we recognize our staff members um our board has made a commitment through board goals and the district as well uh to demonstrate a year of respect and this is uh part of how we recognize that for this year as well um just so you understand how staff members are nominated uh we receive emails from parents emails from other staff members um anytime a staff member goes above and beyond um his or her job duties we do recognize them at each board meeting so this evening we actually have two staff members um one of whom I don't believe uh was able to make it this evening so we'll make sure that uh she receives her certificate um and I'm not sure if the yes the other one is here so I do see her um so the first one who is uh present here tonight is Miss Tracy coff [Applause] [Applause] Mrs coff is uh from marbor Middle School uh thank you Mrs coff for your efforts and going above and beyond and also her colleague from marbor middle school who again as I said was unable to make it this evening uh Mrs Aaron aludo so let's congratulate [Applause] her okay now uh moving on to student recognition and respect certificates for those students involved as well I believe Mr Tajin hor is here from marbor middle school he's the vice principal at marbor middle school thank you for being here Mr Tajin hor if you want to just share a few words on why you're here representing marbor Middle School along with the healthy Futures Club hope everybody got their certificates uh well piece of paper from Sid a big thank you to Mr balone uh M gross Board of Education uh fellow administrators parents family friends and of course our wonderful students my name is Eric tajen hor I'm one of the vice principles over at Marboro middle school I'm going to speak to you tonight on behalf of our principal Mrs Pat Milwaukee and our other vice principal Mr Jim mccan we're going to speak about our blood drive and our healthy Futures club last year was our first blood drive it was a big success enough blood was donated to save 180 lives so that is a true Testament to our healthy Futures club that was advised by nurse Jenna grei who's going to speak to you in a little bit and nurse Lauren gabler of course our wonderful students they started the healthy Futures club last year and it continues this year with 15 members the goal of the club is to teach kids how to help each other teach them ways to keep the community healthy and to teach them how to respond in emergency situations this year our blood drive is so mark your calendars March 1st 9 to3 it's actually the same day as our School Musical uh which is Shrek always a great time that's going to be 12: and 4 and 7 o' the night before so coming out on Saturday see a great show and donate blood for a great cause uh so with without further Ado I want to introduce nurse Jenna grei who's going to speak about the event and about the students involved so thank you for coming everybody [Applause] hi everyone um I am Jenna grei one of the advisers of the healthy Futures club and one of the nurses at marbor middle um I am here today to discuss our blood dve for you the students are going to show you a little presentation and we hope to see you on March 1st at 9:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. for our second annual blood drive M bro Middle School healthy Futures Club the healthy Futures Club is now in its second year at M Middle School we've been busy this year we learned the importance of an AED and how to use one if someone is in Cardiac Arrest we had Mal brro EMS come out and show us around the ambulance and learned how to stop the bleed in case of a life-threatening em bleeding emergency last year the healthy Futures Club hosted a blood drive that collected six pins of blood enough to save 180 lives we are so proud of our results from last year that we are now looking forward to setting our goal even higher and are counting on support from the Maro commity to help reach our goal check out some highlights from last year's successful blood drive why should you donate blood one blood donation can save three lives blood donations are always needed since there is no lab labade substitute for human blood last year all blood donors at our blood drive had the chance to win raffle prizes to local businesses who donated gift cards and baskets this year we are so thankful to local businesses who have again agreed to donate gift cards and baskets thank you in advance to doel ruos the grees Leela's headspa crumble Lola Lola's Fred and Murray's turning point and more to come so in case saving lives isn't enough of a reason to donate blood you can also win some awesome prizes at the same time please join us on Saturday March 1st in the marble Middle School main gym from 9:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. sign up online through the link or QR code on the flyer thank you in advance for helping to make make this successful now please take a moment to hear from the me members of the healthy Futures Club the healthy Futures Club is proud to announce our second annual blood drive every 2 seconds someone in the us needs blood that's a constant and urgent need unfortunately less than 10% of eligible people donate creating a gap that we're hoping to fill your donation can make a real difference directly impacting the lives of patients undergoing surgery receiving cancer treatment and recovering from accidents and traumatic injuries each blood donation can save up to three lives we understand that some people may feel scared but the process is safe easy and usually takes about an hour from start to finish we're counting on you plus as a thank you for your generosity we'll have snacks drinks and exciting Raffles for all of our donors we'll be set up and and ready to receive donations on Saturday March 1st from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the MMS main gym make March 1st the day you save three lives we hope to see you there we encourage you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you to give the gift of Life donate blood thank you so much for coming thank you so much we hope to see you on March 1st if you have any questions you can email myself jeni G um at our middle school nurse emails thank you okay going to read off the names of our Healthy Future club members Ryland Abbott Leila abdell cader lanaa Anastasia Luke Gallagher Sid GTA Claire Hutchins Izzy [Applause] Klay Andrew Novi Nicole Aba Michael Schwarz Jacob shrim I thank everybody if You' like to take up pictures uh come up then for thank you thank you so much and that congratulations to all our students uh I just want to say thank you because I think the work that you're doing with your with your club and your fellow Club mates or club members is so important as a parent of a of a my daughter is actually a Marboro volunteer EMT and she started that in high school so the work that you're doing is so important and so meaningful to what we do as parents and as Citizens so thank you so much and thank you for reminding me and reminding all of us about how important it is to donate blood I'm also the par I'm also the child of a parent who's a heart recipient so I understand how important this is so thank you so much for doing this thank you so much for reminding us thank you so much for championing in the importance of this particular cause and I will do my best to be there on March 1st uh because I think that it is important that we all do our best to support such an important thing so thank you again for doing what you do um I'd like to suggest that we take a recess for 10 minutes we give the parents a bit of a time to sort of you know decide if they want to stay or if they want to go but everyone can sort of mingle um so would anyone like to make a motion for a recess Val second Sue motion uh all in favor anyone no any abstains thank you we'll take a 10-minute recess e e e e e e e e e agenda is artwork on display Mr Bal oh sorry let's do a roll call First Mr Caravel sure Mrs bomo here Mrs Carrero here Mr hayatt here Mr lonsky here Mrs Mendes here Dr MTZ yes and Mr Cohen I'm here thank you okay uh thank you the student students of the David C Abbott Early Learning Center under the instruction of Caroline bollock have been hard at work creating eye-catching winter masterpieces prek students created snowy Rainbow Tree Landscapes that beautifully showcased their knowledge of shapes and colors they crafted three triangle trees using colorful tissue paper squares and glue and demonstrated their painting skills through dabbing and splatter techniques kindergarten students Embrace their creativity by painting evergreen tree branches in a new and exciting way instead of traditional paint brushes students utilize pieces of cardboard and a stamping technique resulting in beautifully textured branches and Evergreen needles to add a festive touch the students use Q-tips dipped in red paint to create lovely red berries we hope you enjoyed the artwork which was on display as you entered the board meeting tonight as we enjoyed creating it and thank you for your continued support of our young artists thank you Mr announ I don't have any I having board committee reports we just formed the Committees um so we will commence with committee reports beginning with our next month's agenda I do want to thank um those members of the board who have um graciously accepted some of the um chair positions so I just like to announce those um the advisory committee I'm going to co-chair that with uh Miss Mendes thank you very much for doing that buildings and grounds Miss Palomo thank you very much for doing that Communications Mr hayatt he will be the chair thank you curriculum will be Dr MTZ thank you very much uh policy uh adidi Gandhi will be chairing that Safety and Security Mr Lansky thank you very much for continuing to do that uh special education Dr MTZ again thank you for your expertise in that area uh and those will be the the uh committees that we will be um doing immediately for um for this coming year um there is another committee that's actually by the board that's a technology committee I haven't seated that committee yet um but that will be um that will be our my next level of work to do so thank you very much uh also under announcements there is uh this new this month of January is the New Jersey Schoolboard recognition month so I just want to say that you know this board U recognizes that and we will continue to recognize the New Jersey school board um Rec uh month uh we want to thank all of the past and current board members for the service that they had provide uh to the education systems across the state and as well as to our town here uh this is um incredible work that you do it has inspired me to be part of this and uh I think it's it's wonderful that we participate in this and we also recognize the work of our um are our current and past uh board members so thank you very much for that okay moving on uh to our agenda uh school bus driver and building maintenance Mr caravell sure all abstracts for run and all have Privileges and good standing thank you Mr caravell uh okay we're going to move on to our uh first uh set of um public comments um so Mr Caravella do we have I do not have anybody on my list but if anybody would like to speak just please come up and state your name and your address good good evening uh Happy New Year my name is Adam Pollock I live on St Lawrence way in Marboro I have two daughters in the district firstly I wanted to congratulate the new board members looking forward to seeing seeing all of your contributions and holding everyone who ran accountable to their Promises of focusing on education and what's in the best interest of our community uh I know not everyone agrees on what's in in the best interest of our community but I'm excited for that debate especially when it can be done in a civil way without uh everyone insulting each other so I sent you all an email today about smartphones and the schools uh as I discussed multiple times in meetings last year I'm concerned about phones in the schools I'm concerned about some of the outdated policies around phones and I'm concerned about normalizing behavior that we know is detrimental to our students I know everyone does not agree with me on this and I know that this is a sensitive topic uh in the context of security within the schools as well but all I am asking is that we open this up as a topic of discussion everyone agrees that there are detrimental aspects of children having access to smartphones and the internet and the context of mental health in my opinion the Mental Health crisis of all adolescent students is going to be one of the defining and most important topics we face over the next couple of years as parents and as people invested in the education of children please take this topic seriously and I please remember that this is a community action problem we will not be able to change Norms about smartphones individually we need to do it as a community thank you thank you Mr poock I appreciate it we know that this is a very important topic that's going on not only here in Morrow but across the state across the country we appreciate that and um we appreciate your thoughts on it and I'm sure the board will definitely want to think about this issue as we progress during the course of the year can I just ask a question yeah sure and Mr Pollock I know there's just one question so I just wanted Clarity I saw your email today just when I know we've been talking about this just to clarify when you talk about the cell phone I'd say ban whatever you you were saying was your thought that the child wouldn't have the phone in school or was your thought or did you have did you get that far in it or is it that they don't have access to it I was just trying to get clarity on that thank you for that question Miss Mendes um I don't know the answer to that I do not know the answer and I'd like to talk about if everybody and figure that out I am not advocating for a phone ban um I'm ask I'm advocating for a debate about it to think about what's in the best interest of the kids about what we want our kids to be able to do to interact with each other um what what what teachers are saying about phones in schools I think that's super important to get teachers perspective um what the security policies are how we handle communication about those things um is it better for kids to be texting with their parents in an emergency instead of looking at at people who are an authority figure and taking direction from them I have an opinion on that but I'd love to hear other people's opinions about that and the pros and cons of each of these things and let's let's have a open dialogue about it try to figure it out together it's a new thing I it's no one had a supercomputer in their pocket until 2010 and it's only 2025 and now they have more access to anything than ever before so I just think it's it's worth a serious conversation from this board thank you thanks for clarifying thank you anyone else for uh who would like to come up good evening Robin Bornstein Marboro New Jersey just one quick question because I saw that um esy was listed on the agenda for a location change I was just wondering if you could say why it was being changed from The Early Learning Center to Dugan thank you thank you for that question I think we're going to answer that when we do get to the um to the actual item on the agenda um but um thank you for answering that and it's a good question and I think it's one that needs to be explained anyone else okay do we have a motion to close public comments Miss Mendes thank you second Mr lonsky thank you all in favor yes anyone opposed stained thank you very much we close public comments all right on to our next item on the agenda Communications Mr balone any Communications I have none thank you very much all right next item on the agenda will be superintendence report hi Hib report from the time period December 13 2024 through January 16th 2025 there was one incident reported thank you very much uh I'd also like to just draw everyone's attention to the meeting dates for upcoming meetings of the board our next meeting will be Tuesday February 11th 2025 that will be a workshop meeting on Tuesday February 25th 2025 we will have a regular meeting on March 11th which is also a Tuesday we'll have Workshop meeting and on March 18th which is also a Tuesday we will have a regular Meeting those are our next four meetings of the board all right moving along to approval of minutes um I you know will have to entertain a motion um I I actually I had a um a change or an amendment that we need to make to the January 7th I don't know if that um has been carried but on I found that there was a mistake on the January 7th reor minutes that we just need to change we do that now or do we do it after the motion's been made um I haven't been brought to the attention of any mistak so that would have to be emailed to me so the minutes can be revised so you would just have to table these then okay uh so then I'm going to make a motion that we table January 7th me Mo uh minutes and I will email you um but we can probably continue unless anyone has any other changes to the December 17th can I ask a question I don't have any changes just if we're voting to to table that one what's the what was the issue in the nominations for vice president the comments that Mr hayatt gave in support of his nomination the minutes read Mr Cohen so clearly I did not give those comments and I just think that the minutes have to reflect the accurate person who actually gave them so we can actually vote on those minutes and I would just correct it okay I with the as amended I'm fine with that yeah okay Mo so then we'll move both uh with the January 7th being as amended to reflect that the vice president comments uh for nomination were from Mr hayatt and not from Mr Cohen can I have a motion to approve the minutes Val thank you for Miss Mendes second Dr MTZ thank you um I would also suggest that um that since both myself and Miss Carrera were not on the board for December 17th that we abstain for that thank you you're welcome all right so roll call please sure uh sorry any other questions or comments or discussion roll quot please Mrs bomo yes Mrs Carrero abstain so you can abstain from December 17th and vote Yes for January 7th if you if you elect to yes for January 7th abstain for December 17th okay thank you Mr hayatt yes Mr lonsky yes Dr MTZ yes Mrs men yes and Mr Cohen okay thank you so this is the submission for the monthly certification for the board secretary's report for the month ending in December and also the payroll certification for the month ending in December thank you very much all right next item on our agenda is going to be thank you very much so I am Jen salach I'm the president of the the Maru Educational Foundation and yes I'm Alicia Thor I am the treasur of the MEF so we just wanted to introduce ourselves and um tell you a little bit about ourselves and then talk about the grants so um next slide please thank you so a brief history of us the marbor Educational Foundation this year we're celebrating 25 years of progress we are a 501c3 we were established in the year 2000 and our goal is to enhance the quality of Education in the marbro schools um we hope to do that by promoting Community participation in participation in school programs so far in these 25 years we've raised um over $650,000 in Grant fundraising um we've funded over 2 50 grants and again 25 years of support from all parents and everyone in the district it's been wonderful next slide please so this is a little bit about our grant process and Alicia is gonna tell you more about that okay sure so hold it I'm I'm gonna hold it um okay so this year we revamped things a little bit um where we actually made the grants uh the Grant application digital so the feedback I heard was that um the teachers and staff really appreciated that rather than going back and forth with paper so we did um as I said a digital application so the mtps teachers were notified that the Grant application period was open and then they also got the date that it would be closing um and they applied online um once that deadline happened the MEF we met as a whole group and we reviewed all the grants and we um then took a vote on all of them and we met for what close to two and a half or three hours yeah we really you know Dove deep into it um at that point we we said you know what we wanted to approve what we didn't want to approve we voted on that and then we um met with Mr balone and we shared that with him as well to make sure he was on board with everything that we were going to approve um also making sure that you know what we were approving is not something that can be funded by the school budget so that's where we come in right we pick up um things that the school budget cannot cover um so we want to make sure that it's not something that we're going to fund that the school can cover making sure it was actually a need um and that maybe the teacher didn't already have that item or whatever it may be um Mr balone also took that um back to the principles and staff just to check with them as well like one of the grants kind of fell under the special services area so Mrs Tyrone you know was approached about that one um once all that was settled um I worked with Chris jalinski very much back and forth um and Mr carvalo and uh we got the approved grants put on the BOE agenda which you have in front of you today um next slide please so for this grant period um well first of all let just talk about the grants I'm sorry so there's three levels to the grants we have the collaborative Grant um the mini Grant and the schoolwide grant so the mini Grant is intended for individual teacher staff usage up to $500 the collaborative Grant up to $1,000 for multiple teachers and staff and schoolwide Grant up to 1500 intended for excuse me intended for usage throughout throughout the school um we received 24 Grant applications 11 of them we did approve um we did our best uh to make sure at least one Grant was given to each school that applied um just for reference only six of the eight schools applied so you may notice that two schools are not on there not that we did not give it to them they did not apply um we also did our best to spread the grants between the multiple subject matters so making sure you know some went to Art music math science all the different areas um so the 11 grants that we approved came to a total of just over 11,000 um next slide please these are the grants I I won't spend time reading them um because they are on the agenda for you um and for those at home you know you can also view the agenda to get that information but um again you can see that you know at least each School of the six schools is represented um some were the minig grants some were the collaborative some were the schoolwide um some are online programs some are assemblies um again different areas is like the cat genetics you know that falls under um like the biology um robotics mad science Living Voices so again there's you know a little bit of different areas um next slide please uh just spotlighting one of the grants in particular um The Living Voices Grant um and the teacher actually wrote us a nice uh thank you um which I will read saying thank you so much for approving our grant Living Voices presentation which is on Anne Frank in the Holocaust uh we are so excited to hold this assembly for fifth graders year after year thanks to the support of the MEF it is such a wonderful program that aligns with our first trade book number and stars so again this is picking up um as I said before where the school budget wouldn't be paying for something like this but it does tie into what they're learning in the curriculum uh I'll pass this on to Jen so this is how you can support us you can always meet us we are um always supporting the the teachers and the students um meet with us anytime that is our email up on the board it's marbor Educational Foundation gmail.com you can come and volunteer for us and then share your ideas we are always up for new ideas anytime next slide please and next everyone's been waiting our Wizards event it is always amazing and it's going to be April 2nd um from 7 to 9: at the high school Marboro high school and our tickets are going on sale on February 7th at 800 a.m. put it in your calendar and get there quick because they go quick 800 a.m on February 7th for the Wizards and I believe that is it next slide just says thank you very much and that is who we are any questions again please email us um marbro Educational Foundation gmail.com thank you thank you miss vachi and miss Thor I actually just have a a couple of quick questions and maybe um if you know if you can't answer them right now that's fine but you know always send it to us by email um the 13 grants that were not approved and thank you so much for the work you do because quite frankly it's incredible $650,000 over 25 years with 250 plus programs funded that is incredible work um so thank you for that that's that's just wonderful and it you know I think it really puts things in perspective for me um and I think for many people here in maror what you do the 13 that were not approved this year I don't want to diminish that um but do you provide feedback back to those as to why they weren't approved or so that they can make it better for next year if they want to resubmit sure sorry but that's okay uh yes so so um after everything was finalized before the board agenda came out we did send a letter a personal letter to each teacher letting them know if they were approved or denied and for the ones that were denied um we gave a brief like description but we did say please feel free to reach out for further information and many of them did and we explained why um you know maybe it didn't meet the criteria for one reason or another um and encourage you know them to you know apply again next year but we we did yes provide a reason to everyone so all understand great thank you that's that's helpful so that they can be better prepared for next year and then I understand six out of the eight schools actually submitted do is it is it any do we know why the other two schools may have not submitted any applications is it so we don't know exactly why um but and again I Echo U Mr Cohen sentiments thank you for the work you're doing and the partnership that we've fostered this year I think it's been been a wonderful partnership um I can only um speculate on why the other two schools perhaps did not apply and and I know we've talked about this we'd like to continue the messaging of uh the purpose of the MEF right we have a lot of new staff members and our our staff members are very busy right from their day-to-day teaching supporting um sometimes they just don't know what they don't know right so I think um I'm certainly willing to help provide that messaging and and getting it out there um Mrs Thor you you mentioned very simply the MEF fills the Gap that the local budget cannot fill and can provide unique uh Innovative opportunities for our students so if there are uh Innovative things that you wish you had in your classroom if you're listening to this the MEF is an Avenue for that provided that it meets their mission so we can certainly help with that messaging and selling what you do um quite frankly I was a teacher here and and you know as a teacher I had a a hard time wrapping my head around what the MEF did and had I known then what I know now I would have applied um so I think there are many staff members who maybe fall into that category and it will be our partnership to help help uh our staff members understand the benefit that you can bring to the school district and and hopefully grow grow the number of um um grants and get people involved so thank you thank you and I I before I um open it to sort of my my fellow board members I just want to end on two positive notes and I think first I think it's really exciting to hear that you've improved the process and made it more user friendly by going digital that's great to hear and and I was really I was very um excited about hearing about the collaborative process that you have that it's not just sort of me you it's not just the MF making these decisions in a vacuum it is about the collaborative work that you're doing with the administration and what you're doing Mr balone with the principles as well to sort of V these things to make sure that they're aligned with what you feel is right for the district or right for the school so that to me is very comforting and knowing that you know this is a a partnership um and I look forward to sort of seeing how that so thank you very much um let me just open it up and see if anyone of the fellow board members would like to sort of ask a question or have a comment I I just want to I just want to thank you for the work you do I I wasn't in marar at the time but I applied for Grants through different districts and through um Education Foundation and I wouldn't have been able to do these things in my classroom without the help of people like you so thank you so much for what you do I'm sure that the teachers that have gotten the grants are thrilled that that they get this extra money there because we can't get it you know we just can't do it well so thank you thank you any other comments or questions no thank you very much we look forward to seeing this item as it gets as we move forward with our agenda yes thank you again so much for inviting us and for having us we were um really happy to present thank you for the opportunity yes thank you thank you uh the next item on our agenda is going to be a presentation of the 23 24 school year audit Mr Carell so I have with me Mr Robert Coleman I mean Robert Mulligan sorry um close enough different Rob um with homman friend Allison to go over our School District audit for the 23 24 school year thank you hi everybody um I'd like to say you've saved the best for last but I think the MEF members would agree the kids always do the best and I can never top them at any of these meetings I go to so I'll do my best I've got good news so um as Vinnie said my name is Robert Mullan I'm the audit manager from HFA um within our audit report uh we have three opinions that we give our independent Auditor's report our report on internal controls and then our independent auditor report on controls and compliance for your state and federal programs um happy to say all three of those are unmodified opinions which is the best opinion that we can give so in summary a nice stamp of approval right there um for fund balance that's the thing that most board members typically care about um the district has a total fund balance at the end of 20 at June 30th 2024 of about $14.5 million um there's no real standard as to what a healthy fund balance is but I would say it's about 15 to 30% of your operating budget is a pretty good spot to be um happy to say you guys are right there 15.3% so um very healthy fund balance um and doing really well there and good reserves uh in both capital and maintenance which I know from talking to Vinnie that um you guys have some projects that uh in future years that you're hoping to do um and you have some good reserves there for that um and the last thing I'll touch on our food service um we have about $1.1 million of net position there at the end of the year another good operating year in Food Service um if you look at the audit went down a little bit this year compared to the prior year a lot of that is just due to funding that you've received in the past due to covid that is now drying up um um so you'll see that kind of year-over-year a little bit of a decrease there but overall um that's kind of across the board all of our districts um and like I said if I can answer any questions for anybody happy to do so uh if you have any questions after tonight please uh Vinnie has my contact information so please don't hesitate and just one last thing thank you to Vinnie thank you to Chris to the entire Board office superintendent balone and of course the whole board for having us um and for all their help it's a tedious process having Auditors come and disrupt your your daily life for a couple weeks so we appreciate their patience so thank you very much thank you Mr Mulligan um you know I appreciate your report it's always very comforting to sort of read a report that's from an auditor that says no material findings and no deficiencies so I'm glad to see that and congratulations to Mr caravello Chris uh for all the work you do because that is not an easy achievement to get and to get it multiple years in a row um it just shows that there's a really good team there and you know comforting from a board perspective to know that we're in good shape so I appreciate that thank you I appreciate that and I couldn't do it without my team so a testament to them if they're watching hopefully you're not um but um just congratulations all around to the just the business office and all of our departments that have to gather information uh for when Robin his team come so thank you any questions from the uh from the board from Mr Mulligan thank you very much thank you very much thank you rob okay uh moving on with our agenda we are at discussion number two for the school year budget Mr caravello you're on [Music] all right good evening everybody I mean the audien is as expected we're going through the budget we're going through the audit so thank you for showing up and attending um today is the tonight is the second discussion for the budget to uh tonight we're going to be going over transportation technology and security again um the way I do this is if you have any questions because some of this terminology may be new or unfounded so just jump in whenever you feel like it and I will be happy to answer any of the questions you may have so just what i' like to start with is a timeline just to give an overview of exactly you know month by month what we anticipate doing what we have to do um the deadlines so as you know last uh last month we gave a presentation just basically a preliminary overview just to just to start the 25 26 budget process so in December what we do is we go over our enrollment projections we work with the principles the superintendent to figure out staffing needs special ed Department um we start beginning those budget discussions with principles we start giving them basically their notices and their allotment based off of what we're projecting for enrollment we start having budget discussions with the board and then January where we are now we'll continue our budget discussions with administrators and the Departments as the budgets come in we may question some things send them back wait on some budgets we have our budget meetings with our department heads um and then we start having individual Department discussions here at the board meetings excuse me uh February we'll continue what exactly what we do in January hopefully this time it'll be different because we'll get our state aid numbers so we usually get our state aid numbers right around Valentine's Day really the the the pie is not complete until we at least receive what our state aid numbers are going to be because if they are projected at what what what's expected then we can build a budget based on what we project if they change then we may have to alternate some things in the budget if it increases that's great because then it means that we may not have to cut as much as we anticipate cutting to build a balanced budget so those numbers will come in it's always like a guessing game we're hoping to get them a little bit earlier hopefully in the future when they figure out a new funding formula but right now it's always around in February March so I believe March 19th is when the uh ATT tenative budget has to be adopted by the board again this is not a final budget it's just a tentative budget where we have to come to an agreement on something to submit to the count County for their review again it has to be a balanced budget once the county reviews and sends their comments in we correct it and once we get County approval we come back in April May for the public hearing on the budget uh the public hearing is the final budget um approval where I would present to the board that is also your official public hearing where the public is allowed to come up and ask questions about the budget before we vote on it I got ahead of myself so in March there's a new thing called the chapter 44 um adjustment basically this was put into effect with the new health care plans ehp and Garden State Health Plan what happens is chapter 78 healthc care plans used to be a percentage of your premium based on the the chart that has Sunset it but we have actually negotiated off of it chapter 44 now is your new educator Health Plan your Garden State Health Plan that is a percentage of your salary the state has been pushing this um what they do is they make us do a cost analysis to see if we're saving money based on people jumping into those plans compared to the old ones the first two years we actually had to appeal what they were trying to uh calculate because we felt like their calculate calculate calculations were wrong so I think at one year they were trying to take $800,000 away from us and we actually got it down to 880,000 a year after that I believe it was about 40 something thousand and then last year there was nothing because we weren't really generating a savings because of how much health benefits is starting to really Skyrocket so again that's something we have to submit and we could possibly anticipate what this is basically they take a cut off of your tax levy so say my tax levy is 10 bucks they're going to say No it should be $8 and then therefore we have to work with $8 instead of the 10 and we have to appeal that and basically say no you're wrong it should be 10 or nine and a half or whatever it should be but hopefully we don't have to go through that again so again since 201819 we have lost over $3.7 million in state aid funds funding and that's mainly due to the S2 cuts that again has Sunset and is over with uh that also includes chapter 44 funding Cuts but it's really not as material as what we've lost through through S2 so the state now only funds about 7 half% of your your total operating budget on the revenue side the rest comes from your local fair share which is your your taxpayers and then you can sprinkle in a little tuition reimbursement or or rental fees but it does it's not material enough to make up the grand scheme of things of your your entire budget as a school district in New Jersey we do have to manage increased costs everywhere just like as we would do in life in the Caps of 2% because that's all we're allowed to do for our tax levy so just like expenses of your home have risen they have risen here as well mainly the cost of health benefits your supplies your utilities and I think everybody has seen their utility bill go up no different for school districts um General Services your maintenance your transportation and of course your special education tuition they set their rates we get those and they're usually anywhere from 5 to 10% of increase from the prior and we're also paying prior tuition adjustments that they give us years later so it's always a guessing game with them that are set by the state also since 201819 medical benefits have increased substantially by I want to say about $4.4 million so that's about a 35% increase so just take that into effect that we've lost $3.7 million through state aid but at the same time since that time period we've increased .4 million in health benefits and that is something unless you cut staff members you cannot cut benefits and we don't like to cut staff members in 2425 the state did come out basically saying that they would give us a one-time infusion of tax of of asking the tax levy I mean asking the taxpayers back for the the funds that we lost in S2 instead of it coming from the state we would ask it from the local fair share they were allowing you to go up to 99.9% as a district we felt we didn't need it I did propose it to everyone in July um and the board came to a consensus that we did not want to proceed with that so we did not elect to take it which we were actually one of the only districts in the in the regional area that did not did not take it everybody else did so this gets to just having a layer of overview of of some of the things we're facing one of the big challenges that we're still trying to accomplish is just HVAC for our schools we've been on a Five-Year Plan since I've gotten here in February of 2020 um we started this 5-year plan about 2021 2022 we've actually accomplished three of our schools out of the five elementary schools with air conditioning um one is in progress two have been completed um some of the history about that is so Dugan and defino were completed first they were actually done through the use of the eser funds where we can actually improve air quality and use them for onetime projects so we utilize that we utilize the Grant from the SDA program and we were actually able to fund a little bit more half of that project out of those two grant opportunities or those two um Federal funding opportunities where the rest came from our reserves um that was a great way to Kickstart this project getting two of our largest elementary schools out of the way uh last year in last year's budget we actually did marel Elementary what we did there is we actually applied for a rod Grant through the SDA I believe they funded about 40% of the project and the arrest came out of our Reserves so that's actually supposed to be starting this spring hopefully would would a start up for May or June um really it's just the lead times on Supply chains that continue to be a problem the last two schools are Robertsville and Asher now we have basically four options of how we can accomplish this that I wanted to bring to the board tonight some of them are the most fiscally responsible but they may not be the most entertaining because I know this town has a history of referendums not passing but we're going to try to change that because I think it is is a good way to use debt it's a good way to use you know be fiscally responsible and actually enhance the infrastructure of this district and and continue on what our long-term plan is so number one what we have is an option called the second question um similar to a referendum along the same grounds but what would happen is we would pose a second question on the on the ballot in the election in November um what we would do is we would pose a second question basically to get partial funding for the project for Robertsville and Asher Elementary School for HVAC um what would what this would do is that this would be in the form of Debt Service Aid where we would actually be able to get the state to cover 40% of the project which is 1.2 to 1.4 million the total cost of the project we're anticipating is about 3 to three and a half million for both schools now the reason we would want to do this both at the same time is because as you know these two schools are right next to each other so we've spoke with our architect and engineer and just the the reason to do them together is just to have the same contractor and go for the same procurement process for just basically one total project if you do it two separate times you're paying mobilization costs you're paying different vendors it could be an absolute mess so you would want to try to make it consistent and also keep the cost as as as reduced as possible um Vinnie before you move to each one can we talk about it for a moment yeah can I ask a question on number one if the money were to come from the capital reserve account for the remainder right I know some would be state funded would we I see that it say Debt Service Aid would we have to pay that back and secondly if we took from the capital reserve would that take from something else or do we have that money allocated so I'll just skip down to I'll go I'll go back to that option I'll there may not be in order but that's fine um as Mr Mulligan pointed out our reserves are in good shape that's at the end of the 2324 school year we got a 2425 budget approved where I think we took out about it was a it was 1.1 million out of capital reserve to fund the the one from RL so you have to reduce that from what he's saying our reserves are plus another 1.6 million on maintenance Reserve to fund a bunch of projects that we have pretty much caught up on like asphalt repairs a lot of those things we actually we've been funding a lot out of that the last three years to really catch up repairs that really may have not been able to been we have not been able to been due the last couple three maybe couple years before I was here so to continue to ask me to continue to just deplete the reserves for this project is not the most responsible thing to do because there are things that happen with 11 facilities that we have here that may require us to make an emergency maintenance Reserve withdrawal or to plan for in the future when it comes to Capital reserving uh or taking that money down so I don't know if that's the most fiscally responsible option to do anymore um you could do that but I I can guarantee you it's going to take longer than five years to do because we have to continue to build up our reserves while also making sure we build a healthy fund balance to navigate these these costs Without Really changing the programs and the environment and the and the district we have here because again costs are never are going down and they seem to be going up at a rapid Pace where hopefully there's an end in sight but right now we just want to navigate that so we don't have to cut anything in the operating budget to squeeze things in that we may be able to do creatively somewhere else um so so just I'm sorry back to then thank you for that the 14.5 million that we were told was in the fund balance is that where you're talking about this Reserve would come from so your reserves sep reserves are separate from your fund how much is in the capital reserve so I think right now there's about 3.3 million in capital reserve account and what we're estimating is this project to be exactly that okay so then that's what you're saying we would deplete it if we were to use that correct and then the other question on that one is The Debt Service a I'm sorry would that be something we'd have to pay back or that's just in the form of state aid that we don't have to so that's in the form of Aid where you would you would get 40% funding that would be called your your debt service fund your fund 40 that would not go into your operating budget of fund 10 when you're building your budget that would be budgeted separately uh in fund 40 so no that would not be any any basically any more weight on the taxpayers so so you wouldn't have to request you know additional funding for your operating budget to fund that that project that would be in the form of of state aid what you would be doing from the taxpayer side is you would actually be putting up the money you would be taking out of the reserves that you've accumulated over time to fund the portion of that project the 40 the remaining 40% would come through de service which I believe is the SDA thank you so to be per so to be clear the 40% from the state would be Aid to complete the project but Aid we have to pay back correct okay and then and J also just the question in regarding the reserve if we depleted the entire Reserve to complete this project what else does the reserve usually get used for um that we would need to be aware of as a board we may not have the funds to do so you're so we've actually been pretty good with catching up for our long range facilities planned but there are always you know items on the horizon that may need be addressed quicker rather than later um you know things like any different types of Capital Improvements that you want to make around the building so it would be roofs uh Windows yeah it would be like hot water heaters boilers chillers a lot of that stuff was done through the EIP program but again something can always happen where you have to be prepared for and be able to navigate because without a functioning boiler you can't have school or without you know hot water you cannot have school so those are always things that we've always been creative in in navigating but again you never want to be in a position and I've never been in a position N9 years AG is a VA wanting to deplete your reserves for one thing um usually it's a culmination of things just it's not so much a rainy day fund but it's just to prepare for the future fund instead of just getting something that we all desire and want if there's creative ways to try and get that um and then just one of one of the questions just so it's clear for all of us especially for me as a new Portman how do we replenish our reserves so every year as uh Mr Mulligan stated so when we have a fund balance or we have a surplus usually when we have a surplus at the end of the current Year's budget he'll tell me what my Surplus is I will tell him what how much I want to designate to each Reserve account and then the rest after that will go into your fund balance you'll see every June we put on a resolution that basically says a not to exceed amount going into your reserves doesn't mean it has to be that amount but it just I can go up to that amount so I think this year you saw not to exceed like 500,000 or a million I probably didn't get to that because I remember we wanted to build our fund balances to be able to build a solid base for the budget that was coming because we knew we were going to have to navigate increased costs um so that's how your reserves get put in thank you you're welcome another option is an equipment lease um you can do a five-year payback with the district but we would actually pay the full cost of that but you would not have to pay it upfront fully you would be able to divide that over a fiveyear plan fiveyear period in your budget so you would essentially take the total cost and budget 600,000 each year in your budget to pay for the project so that is another option sorry I know I said this to prepare you I'm going to ask questions on each bullet point for number two does that mean that we would be able to proceed with the service like a loan and you pay it for five years or do you have to wait a period of time for the purchase leas for number two so you would actually go out to procurement um for for bid um you would do it in the form of a purchase lease they'd give you the total bid amount and what would happen is we would actually procure that I mean we would actually divide that into six to five payments and PID over a fiveyear period and we would build that into the budget for over the 5year period we would see some sort of amount being paid back towards that correct correct so say it was $3 million we would budget 500 Grand I mean 600 Grand each year for a 5year period okay and then on the first one it says it would be done by the end approximately of 2026 when then when then would number two option approximately same time frame so number two is just if we did it completely out of the reserves I don't think I would be able to do two and have it done by the end of 2026 I don't I don't think that would be feasible I think we would have to strongly consider just doing one rather than two thank you just so you don't deplete your full reserves from one project he and a lease again is going to be like any other lease they not giving us free stuff up front you're going to pay over time going to pay the same amount of money you're going to be paying more you're going to paying interest time exactly thank you Mr ask the same question so that $3 million project may actually be 3.25 maybe a quar million doll interest over fiveyear period of time correct depends on what they're the financing deal is it's really your time value of money um and you'll you'll definitely be paying more over a fiveyear period the last one is a is is one that we learned about at our County meeting um we were also able to actually you know listen to a presentation from them we were hopeful about this one we actually met with um Bond Council that we're very familiar with just to get their interest on basically where we stand and if there's this was a possibility um Mammoth County Improvement Authority was offering the form of basically like bonds or notes of which you can apply for for for capital projects in which they would fund how this would work is you would actually submit a proposal you would get the board to approve it and you would get the township to approve it and what would happen here is that this is almost like a a way around having to go after to referendum for voter approval instead you would just go to the board to the town and then to the mammoth County Improvement Authority for approval then the county would also sign off on it if they if they want to fund the project this would work similar to uh number one where they would actually fund 40% of the the project and the rest would come from us since since this has been an option we have heard that they're really not keen on doing it this way anymore and the county is trying to remove themselves from it and not sign off off on it anymore because they do feel like the politics involved in it is getting a little is is getting a little messy um because again you don't have to go off a referendum we just have to go to the board and we have to go to the township but this was also another option that we we saw and we felt like it would be wise to present to the board as an option to try to to finish these two projects um we do have a letter to the mammoth County Improvement Authority just as an FYI to see if it's it will be going out tomorrow just as an FYI to see if they would even be interested in funding this project or is it just is it a dead end and do we need to be creative in in a different way I know you're going to proceed so thank you first of all for answering all these questions you're wonderful always when it comes to the 25 budget that we're going to be set to approve what is the expectation then with these options I know I appreciate you presenting them is the thought as we're going through this that we have to make a selection to approve with this budget at the end in the next two months that we have to talk through these yeah so I wanted to bring this up tonight because we haven't gone over the building and grounds Department budget there's going to be a list of projects so the three options that I see is that you can either um I would have to really think about putting off this project for a year to try to build your reserves for one more year if that's the route we want to go is that's completely funded out of reserves because I don't think it would be sustainable to take more out of reserves this year when we've been doing it the last couple years um so that's your first option where I think you would have to just put it off for a year and both those schools would not get uh HVAC until later on down the road your second option is if the board can come to a consensus we would start the process of going for a second question on the on the ballot and you know what if if it if it if it passes we would get the funding and try to complete the project if it doesn't pass then we would be back to option one where we would have to figure out a different means of trying to get these projects approved and get them funded um and then your third option is really a purchase lease if that was something that we wanted to explore or navigate if we went that route you know uh going for a referendum how how much do you think the taxes would go up I would have to calculate that for you um I don't have that information in front of me but so you would have to be budgeting for a fund 40 um I don't anticipate much because the aables in the assessed value continue to go up so the tax rate itself will not be that High um we were also pretty low because we didn't go to the 99.9% as opposed to other districts around our area so that was something that was something we will be able to to calculate for you in the next budget presentation if that was an serious option that we wanted to go with I really I hate having some kids have air conditioning and some kids not I said that last year when we were planning it just doesn't seem for me it doesn't being fair why should some kids be hot and why should some kids be and I know one of those schools they house some of our most sensitive programs so you would want to right and the staff too yes everybody it's it's hard it's it's very challenging when you are in the in a classroom so I just wanted to children and staff to see where the board was at and just present this to to everybody and see where their interest was at with with with some of these options I mean I don't think option four is really going to be on the table but it's something that we were exploring just wanted to to let you know about but if option four is not on the table I'd be hard pressed not to recommend to try to at least go for a second question and get 40% funded for for two schools rather than have to flip the whole entire 100% bill over the amount of time Mr carella just a quick question on on that I mean I personally I don't think we should take any options off the table until we know for sure which direction we're going to go to and and I agree with Dr MTZ that you know um we should not have um students in our district who are not able to benefit from the air conditioning or even teachers in our district we're not able to benefit air conditioning especially as our summers are or our school semesters are getting hotter and hotter um if we chose and I'm just curious if we chose one option let's say for instance the lease option right and we then found out that the M the Monmouth County Improvement Authority option is on the table for us can we continue with the mammoth County Authority option for that and use the funding to pay off the lease so can we move forward with one and potentially get the funding through the other sources to pay off the lease if we did that so that we not stalling so I believe with the the mammoth County Improvement Authority in order to get approved I think you have to have show proof of the funds for your portion of what you have to invest in so if we don't show proof of the funds and we go through like a purchase leaf and get get funds that way I don't know if they'll approve it because we're getting funds from somewhere else so I I would have to really creatively look into that to see if that would even be an option but I know one of the the sticking points was that they want to basically okay I have 40% I want you to bring what you have to the table and show me um we do have it in our reserves but I don't know if they would need to see like it committed or designated for such purposes before they would sign off on such such a such a project we won't get the result we won't get this the the funding through a purchase lease until we went through that Avenue first so we we definitely have more work to do with Mammoth County Improvement authority to find out what the parameters are if they're willing to proceed and how we can potentially use that correct and I'm hoping a letter will at least you know warrant a response to tell us if we even stand in the same ballpark as getting something from them or if they would even entertain what we're trying to do if not then it would really just be a purchase lease fully funded through your reserves over the next two to three years um even to the point where if you want if you wanted us to start now we would have to just maybe do a quarter of school or half a school but we would not be able to do the full School in um in one budget so quick question just just one other question and then I'll the um other than these four options have you done a scan of let's say other options like grants like Energy Efficiency grants things like that because I mean obviously if we replace the old systems or actually in this particular case we're not replacing single systems but obviously there may be opportunities for us to sort of look at Grants has that been explored has that been scanned as far as what's available so we actually got lucky the last three years when we went we went through the Avenue of the SDA Grant which was for like HVAC improvements um we got that the last three years but I have not seen anything out there that they're offering it again um because that is a a quick infusion of funding where they give you 200 you know 250,000 towards the project which which always helped I think we applied for two to put towards Marl so it was like an additional quar million that went towards it um which was helpful but I have not seen anything anything like that coming down yet I don't even see any offerings of more Rod grants because that would be another area that we would look into it's 40% um but last year was their first cycle probably in about 10 years and I have not seen another cycle or refresh of of them offering more Dr question can you can you use your microphone yes thank you thank you this might be for uh Mrs Tyrone do we have any children in special ed that need air conditioning I I can do you have that iner I can answer that so what happens is um if anybody has a medical need we receive doctor's notes and if they receive um say they need accommodations for a window unit we put that in for them in that classroom and then it follows the student for the life of their of their uh tenure here but we're wasting so much time getting well the window units itself are just they're not efficient at all and in the long run we actually pay more and in energy than than if you were to put something in that might be more energy efficient that's I just comment that if we decide to go with a second question that we just keep it to air condition because one of the things in the past what has done is start with a second question and oh but nice to have another new basketball court it be nice to do the auditorium over just bullet point what we need and what we really need and what we want make that the second question period I would and I agree with you because the history of looking at what referendums have went out for you know it started with something and then it was always stuff was at like it was a shopping list and I think if we are serious about committing just to these two things then we just keep it at that and we might have more when do you think you'll hear back from the Improvement Authority I'm hoping I'm hoping soon I'm going to send it out tomorrow and then we'll follow up in a week or so but I'm hoping by at least by the next meeting at least we have some indication if can you tell them we have a meeting at a certain date and get it back to us by then I mean we could we can call them see hey have you received my letter have you received my letter and then we'll see do your best I get it yeah Vinnie can we just ask and and I don't want to put any extra work on anybody just for the next meeting similar to what you've done before is a cost comparison of what some of the options are if you're ruling any out though I agree with Mr cooh and I wouldn't rule any out so we know the cost and what whatever it could be but a cost comparison is helpful of that and also if there's any implications to the taxpayers just because I obviously always want to be cognizant of that and and know that before I then the cost comparison you want to see like what how much it would estimate to be a purchase lease compared to yeah like the four options kind of like in a table like you've done for us before and then if there's any impact to obviously the community also uh because I want to obviously be aware of that okay so I'll present these four options next time um so I'll try to get an estimate based basically from um is it ESC andj a lot of them do purchase leases I would just have to architect where we could find an estimate for like a purchase lease it would really just be based off the interest rate that they're giving out leases right now for like a mechanical equipment and then um the capital reserve one is just going to be whatever the architect estimates that's going to be 100% of what that's going to cost us for our reserves it however you're going to lay it out but kind of like as I'm envisioning like a table and then in one column to say where the fun funding would come from right so hypothetically you said 40% would come from here it would come from the district and it would be this dollar amount just so we knew what we were responsible for whatever you're going to do but something similar option two and three would strictly be at a reserves or operating budget and then option one or four will have that tax rate impact which we would be able to show you because it' be com out of your fund 401 surface now thank you so much thank you okay so actually let's get on to the the budget um um so the first one we want to just go over is the transportation budget so this is just a breakdown of some of the high level areas of the transportation budget so you'll see the variances whether it's increased or decreased um you have your joint agreements which is basically your contracted services for your added District placement your special ed students you have your your bus leases so um again the next slide goes into some of the why the variances have went up I'll just speak to them as I'm looking at them the lease the the lease buses go up mainly because we did not budget for purchase leases of new buses as we like to do a cycle because we actually got them through stabilization Aid the year prior so we didn't need to budget for them we were able to free that up in the operating budget so we're going back to our cycle and we're purchasing five buses and two wheelchair vans and then what happens is the buses that can no longer be commissioned will be decommissioned and I believe there's some actually on tonight for approval to actually sell so if you added an additional Comm to this the 2324 we would assume the number to be higher in 23 24 bues correct okay yeah because um we were actually able to I think fund two cycles through the use of stabilization Aid thank uh gasoline and Diesel has gone down this is mainly due to you'll see at the bottom contracted Services has gone up this is really due to us not being able to find drivers um so we've had to contract more out so therefore in relation to gasoline and Diesel go down maintenance and repair is slightly up uh due to the cost and services your aen L is also up again this is just an estimate we do not have the final number of aen L we won't get that closer to the school year but the payment has marginally gone up through the state I think it's $1,165 per student now where they actually get for aen L for the year we actually do that through a shared service with Freo Regional they handle our aen L and handle man Alpin they handle CeX they handle basically all the the regional krough rates your equipment your miscellaneous expenses um that's basically like your cameras um for your buses that gets purchased in there and then in maintenance repair is where we pay for the cameras to be installed and the licensing I believe right okay um non-public transportation is basically just your nonpublic transportation for your non-public students we actually do that through uh MC so we would also budget for that for the estimated increase and then you have your total transportation budget you see it's it's going up about $287,000 which is it's it that that is normal we try to effectively manage what we do not need and what we do need um but historically you'll see from prior PR presentations that that's normally where the number you want to be at when it comes to Transportation budgeting and how much it goes up for because there's only so much you can cut in there so your joint agreements that has decreased substantially um that is basically due to your added District students a lot of your your your High Flyers your eighth graders that really went to um that really cost the district a lot of money when it came to what schools they were going to um are now going to Freehold Regional so that has decreased substantially and we should have a fewer amount of kids that will require that that are added District placements your Aiden Lou um again we estimate we just increased this based off of what we're estimating for students to be so we have not seen from Regional yet of how many students we have but we go by the the most recent one we have and we estimate accordingly from that your contracted services so again this includes those three additional packages um due to us not being able to find bus drivers that we were forced to contract out some of the bus routes so in relay so in relation to this increasing your salaries um for bus drivers decrease and then if we are ever to find drivers we would just take this the money from contracted services and bring it to salaries to to basically even it out balance it so so I guess the question I have is if we wanted if we were able to get to the point where contracted Services is down to zero how many bus drivers do we need to find and to bring that I believe we had about seven vacancies um so you would need seven drivers and then that would decrease substantially and go back to the salary line would that take away from the MC then contract we wouldn't need to contract with them any longer yeah we would not okay um one of the things that I also wanted to propose regarding that um I don't believe it's for executive so I'll just say it here is that so we have some money earmarked this year that we would like to you know get the board to to think over and maybe give us a consensus at the next meeting of proceeding and that's to basically do like a a some of the districts have had success with this like a bonus and a referral program for for new drivers so we would think about you know possibly giving a $5,000 bonus to any new drivers that sign on and a $2,500 bonus for any referrals from exist existing drivers um that's something we wanted to propose and just see how that would how would that any I just tell you that in my business that was very successful we always had sign on bonuses as well as as referral bonuses um found to be very successful and you could cost you a lot less than that number up there yeah I think that's a one way an incentive to Kickstart it we do a lot of advertising we've done it at maror day um we still can't seem to attract drivers so we wanted to try something different and hopefully that would be you know a creative approach to try to you know Garner more interest and have more drivers you know join our team I think I saw in the when you sent us notes there would be though a time period right where they'd have to say employed I think you said two three years or something two years is usually the normal before they'd have to pay back that sign on bonus correct normal range we would have hashed that all out when when we were when we were able to Kickstart that but that would be a modest approach is two years to allow them to stay and then you know we have to try something because what we're doing right now is not sustainable um and so we wanted to bring that to everybody's thoughts also I I I think it's I agree with you Mr ly that it's I've seen it being very successful programs like this with referrals and of course you do need to have some parameters around to Define how long someone stays or how long a referral employee will you know when they get their referral bonus and things like that so I I think that's that's very effective tools to do this and the cost settings is enormous to us for this um I I guess the question I would have is is there any other restriction that you're seeing I mean I I've seen in the past that sometimes retired employees have restrictions on how much they can earn if they're working in the districts or working for the municipality are there any other restrictions that we're seeing that may interfere with us being able to look at retired people who are currently retired uh no so usually I think you have to stay away at least 180 days once you retire with a pension um before you can be um looked that for for a new employment in a different role they can always become a subd driver um unfortunately we just don't get a lot of subd drivers that that sign on a new ones other restrictions that I can think of they just have to really have a valid CDL it has to be updated their criminal background check has to be reared they're updated they have to be in good standing with the DMV they're abstracts but other than that I don't see why there would be any restrictions of anybody who retired if they wanted to come back and and drive for us because we've had retired bus drivers that come back as sub sometimes um same thing with attendance so I don't think there would be that many the state also allows you now to just have an S Type endorsement to drive small buses and vans so you don't need actually a CDL so that's another way you could be creative and try to free up CDL drivers for buses but sometimes that's not the most safest approach because we have a standard here and we would rather have everybody have a CDL than just have some type of endorsement if you're driving our most intensive children thank you again so your lease PCH purchases we went over that includes your your buses and vans that we're budgeting and then the gasoline and Diesel of course decreases because unfortunately we have to budget for the increased in in the contracted Services Vinnie I just I have a question how many and this it might not be a it doesn't it's not an important question but how many females versus male bus drivers do we have I don't I'm not sure off the top of my head because I was what I was thinking is that you know um younger yeah there's only like 20% female M 20% male most of them are female they could do it you know yeah part time you know that that's the problem yeah the majority of our bus drivers are female but we do have have some male drivers yeah no because I was we we have to maybe focus on the um the clientele that we're looking for maybe more women get you know making them more aware of this kind of a position that's part-time that they could maybe do yeah we we've tried with the Outreach at Mar day the advertisements we've worked with the township nobody came um we we've actually been able to get a couple it's sometimes we get people and they just they're not a good fit they may have their CDL but once they go through the interview process they're just not a good fit um we tried we've tried a lot but I think it's now it's it's an incentive time a little bit and so hopefully that'll that'll work um so the next budget is your technology budget so you can see here so I wrote some of this stuff down because can't remember all of this lingo all the time um so your technology budget you'll see again the variances so like your um your software maintenance that has increased um that's really a lot of stuff Incorporated in there is your firewall renewal your your VMware support renewal your virtual cloud backup renewal so those those are all things that we purchase um and have to renew so you'll see that's why that's that's increased substantially your equipment supplies um so this year it actually went down because there are no domain controllers included in there so that's why that you see such a such a decrease in equipment and supplies your your tech services has also went down uh last year we did a a cyber assessment this year it's usually we we do that on a cycle we do not do that every year so this year you won't see that budgeted in there and then your miscellaneous that includes like your PD your travel your office supplies um your equipment and supplies that also includes like your Chromebook Parts your iPad Parts um parts that they use to to swap out for devices and then you'll see your Chromebooks and laptops your Chromebooks and your laptops have decreased last year we budgeted for teaching devices this year we actually had to take that money because we were not ready to proceed with devices so we actually took that money and and allotted it elsewhere through a transfer so we're hoping by the end of the year with a surplus we can get back on that and and just um because it's about time for the cycle for the teachers to receive new devices it's been four years so we would look at doing that at the end of the year with some of the Surplus we have what you'll see is what we do every year is we budget for Middle School Chromebooks so I believe we budget for 8th grade Chromebooks then everything trickles down to the to the lower grades some of the key things that are included in the technology budget so again we utilize our Category 2 eate funding so we will be replacing a lot of the Aruba switches at the elementary schools um this is partially funded through eate so we get based on our free reduced lunch allotment a certain percentage funded by by the the federal government through the form of E rate and then the rest gets budgeted by us same thing how I was explaining with the 40% another thing is we've been doing this since I've been here is the wiring projects all of our techs inhouse do all of the wiring so they've been running new cat 6E wiring throughout all the buildings the last buildings that are remaining are Memorial transportation and admin so we budget for that accordingly as well your support renewal um is up for your additional District firewall I believe that is at one of the middle schools so that is why that is is approximately about 50,000 and then you have your Middle School sixth grade Chromebooks and again the possible replacement of the teacher devices that's not going to be included in the budget I don't know if we would have any room for that so we're really going to try to do that at the end of this year can I ask a question on two questions one is the continuation of the Middle School sixth grade I know when it starts in the middle school they can pay a fee to take them home at night and so forth but what does that actually mean the continuation of their Chromebooks oh just the continuation of the refresh so of the refresh of sixth grade devices because each year we we go out to bid for new Chromebooks and then they start in the Middle School level and all the older ones start to trickle down so it's just a continuation right recycle the eighth grade back to and then they upgrade got it and then the replacement of teacher devices because that's important are they do you have a number well we originally budgeted for Chromebooks but we felt like that's not going to really work for our staff so they want um or we want for them to have laptops similar to what they have now you know unfortunately it might be a little bit higher than what was budgeted but that's something that we wanted to hold off on because we want to make sure we get the device that's going to be most suitable for the for the classroom can I can I go I just have a question so last year Mr balone you came up with you want to start a technology I know and Brian and I we talked you talked to me about technology committee you're going to get to that but I'm a little concerned because I'm guess you Mr balone and the rest of the staff like Mr Anie is this technology budget going to cover what you're going to ask for because you're going to you're going to drive that technology plan with whoever however that looks with the board members with your recommendations of what you need in the district and with the board members correct so I want to make sure that we in this budget we're looking forward to needing what you if everything is here fine if you don't think it's here now is the time to say something thank you for that um so yes the the um Hardware that we're looking for is included here and and I will I would be remiss if I didn't share this um the refresh as Vinnie calls it um of the sixth grade Chromebooks is essential because if you even pause for one year that's happened before here which has happened before it doesn't seem like a large impact now but what happens is as the years progress it compounds and it puts us into situations where and I'm not I'll just use one example I'm not saying we buy Chromebooks for State Testing but just one example is the updates for those older Chromebooks are no longer supported by State Testing which requires us to shuffle Chromebooks around at especially at the elementary level because those older ones get pushed down so the third grade may be testing for an entire month versus getting it done over the course of a week so that was one adverse effect that actually did impact us and we have finally um climbed our way out of that hole so refreshing Chromebooks in sixth grade is certainly essential part of in my head part of the technology plan Mrs gross and I have as you know we we started working on that last summer um a big portion of that um includes our artificial intelligence and what that's going to look like in our school district um as that unfolds um but in terms of to answer your question the hardware that is included I don't see I don't foresee anything additional I've been working also um from the hardware perspective um not so much instructional um Mr enie actually Tom actually puts together a 5-year Tech plan too to monitor all these things to what we're going to go through for e to what we're going to be replacing what's at the end of its useful life so we can get ahead for it and budget it and when you see like a decrease in a budget don't let that alarm you as if we're taking it away because when I originally start these conversations it's we are a zerob based budget District we go by what we need for that current year it doesn't mean we're taking anything away just means maybe something that was budgeted last year is not going to be budgeted this year because there's not a need or a use for it such as maybe you know the um the cyber security testing or the you know some Ren R are on two year or three years so it may not be budgeted for but um as far from a hardware perspective we've done a pretty good job is utilizing our category to funding through rate and being able to pick out what we want to work on based on the funding and our rate consultant does all that procurement for us as well can I just ask just back to the needs of the staff because I want to make sure that we hear that on I think you said something about the I think it's the next slide about the um they want to be able to use different devices can you just share that cuz I think it's important to hear how they could work more efficiently or better or whatever their feedback was how they work now is we've not had any complaints about how they work now we just want to make sure we get them a device that's Mo most suitable for what they currently have because what happened was we looked at Chromebooks and it just it was not measuring up to what we're used to them having and we felt like it would was actually going to diminish what they had in the classroom now currently so we just want to be consistent with them and give them the device that they're they're yeah and we have we have no desktops we got rid of printers in the classrooms desktops um so really we want to give them a an ultimate device that they can utilize move around with um and Chromebooks were just not that unfortunately great and then you would share the cost of what that would be and and all of that in your plan right because I think that's important that they have what they need and well yeah so what's going to happen is whatever device we set up on it's going to be similar to Chromebooks where we're actually have to going to go out to R Fe for it so similar to how we do the Chromebook bid we'll do uh a laptop bid for that as well depending on what we're looking for we'll spec it out anything to or equivalent and thank you you you'll be seeing a bit on there to approve one more thing cyber security I know you said you're going to take a Hiatus this year but cyber security those guys on the other side they don't take hiatuses so what do we doing to make sure that we're keeping up to date on what we need to keep up to date on on our side of so we Ren all of our contracts in here so all of our firewall contracts what are we not what are we not doing then you said we're not doing something this year well because we don't do it every year so what we don't do every year is it's just it's just last year we did a third party cyber assessment we don't do that every year that's Bas basically to test our internal controls yeah I I would say that other than that we have preventative controls in place where we continue to monitor all that I I would say that you know um we should probably have a conversation about cyber in exec so that from a security perspective because obviously we have we want to make sure that we're not creating any additional risk and vulnerabilities um so we should just have that conversation yeah I mean yeah I never try to go through the programs in detail but just to give you a heads up on the renewals or what it actually and the only the other part I just want to pick I want to pick I want to just pigy back off Mr lans's question which I think you've answered but you know this and and you've answered as well this is a budget that basically says this is where we're doing a zero sum budget in the context but what I think is not included in this is that if you and this I think picks up on what you're asking is where are you going to make or how can you make investments in technology where would you be wanting to make investments in technology to grow our either our academic use of it or our administrative use of it or even our you know our our goal to sort of you know improve the Excellence of our of our of our district from a technology perspective so that we're not just zero some fund budgeting but we're also zero some fund budgeting with a view or a perspective of investment so I think that would be very helpful for us as a board so that we're thinking about this we're thinking that there is an investment fund and that investment part is going to be made toward technology and this is how you plan to spend that technology whether it be teacher laptops which quite frankly I I I agree that laptops are much more powerful and much more substantial for teaching than Chromebooks Chromebooks have tremendous amounts of limitations in the operating system and what you can do with it all right but also where else would you make investments um so that we can continue to grow as a district and I know in the last meeting because that's another key point I think we talked about about potentially licenses for AI right that I know we've talked about before um putting some not saying that we're going there I'm just saying that we talked about it a variety of times and I think that was part of your plan right to put that in somewhere in the budget in case we want to purchase a Gemini for the children hypothetically again I know we're far from I'm just saying okay yeah I think it's great I think you know and those all get triggered with you know with just an AI I let's face it we also as a district need to think about what our policies are going to be around AI from an academic perspective and from a use perspective so I do think that you know these are things that we want to start planning for over the course of this year and I I just want to attest that that sounds like it's more from the instructional it side for instructional curriculum purposes but from an infrastructure standpoint we consistently always try to update and make sure that our buildings are equipped with the the most advanced technology and are suitable for for everything and that's a testament to technology department not many districts can say they they do their own wiring in each building a lot of them contract that out so um we try to do through that angle we try to always continuously update that thank you okay the last one is um School Safety and Security so again this budget has uh slightly went up so you see it's went up a little bit over 10% um your first one is your contract contracted services that is basically your shared agreement with the township with your sro's and your class 3s so that's the cost that we that we pay to the township for those Services um your repair and maintenance um your software contracts your equipment and supplies so your repair and maintenance are a lot to do with cameras door controls um window film repairs so a lot of those any of those repairs that you would deem a security issue would be budgeted in there um software and contracts that includes your renewals for a lot of your your your services so whether it be your your camera Services your license renewals your uh door control service contract um your Security Alarms contracts a lot of those things are incorporated into the the software and the contract all the systems that we utilize to monitor all those items your equipment and supplies is the one that is up substantially and that is um due to us budg for basically a new camera server which would come with new licenses um we actually had a demo with with a company regarding basically new servers new cloud-based servers for per cameras I don't want to get too much into detail but the the the problem was the overall all-in cost was about a half a million dollars to upgrade the whole District what we want to do creatively is because there's a lot of Grants out there that we feel like we're not going to qualify for and they just don't offer a lot to to cover what we what we need so we're going to start budgeting you know per school just to try to get that update and this um would include a budget of one of those schools I don't want to get into detail what school that is but basically we would essentially budget for this and then start to shop for you know new camera servers and this will allow you the capabilities and a more enhanced version um just different features that we can go through at the security committee and I'm just going to keep this very simple just to say is anything related to Lobby guard in here I know we talked about that before yeah so that would be under your um again that would be under your contract of services so that would basically just be um so the equipment itself we could go into the security committee and talk about but yeah it's really just updating the renewal and the licenses and and working with the company to get the the newest and the most latest services that they offer in the the software it's really on the software side not much the hardware side thank you you're welcome and that's actually a great cost savings for us not being on the hardware side okay so your repair and maintenance and your software contracts it it decrease slightly um that's due really just to the repairs going down because a lot of the repairs um are volatile so we do a lot of the repairs when they come up as needed um a lot of the repairs were handled last year so you you don't have to budget as much in that area your equipment and supplies your professional development and your increase is basically just for $500 and that reflects like CPR training or anything that they need to have their security monitors handle so basically anything regarding um CPR um Security Supervisor goes out to conferences or PDS um safety specialist training basically a lot of that stuff is covered in there okay so that is the three departments that that um I was going to present on I think next time we are going to do um special education and curriculum at the ne at the next meeting so if you have any questions you know feel free to email me and then uh this will actually be posted on the website if anybody would like to view it thank you good job thank you Mr caravell um and thank you to our you know to our board for being so engaging and asking the questions because this is extremely important and extremely helpful to me as this has been my first budget presentation so thank you for the level of detail that you go into um as you do these presentations it's extremely valuable and important um that everyone has sort of you know transparency into what you're thinking and what you're planning as a district any other questions for Mr Caravella no okay thank you um we are going to continue with our uh agenda we are actually at the point which is financial and business operations matters M Mendes would you mind sure the superintendent of school submits the following resolutions for approval number one transverse two list of bills three secretary monthly reconciliation reports four travel five harassment intimidation bullying HIV report six home instruction seven add of District placement for the remainder of the 2425 school year 8 2425 uniform State memorandum of agreement nine audit report for the 2324 school year 10 donation from marbor Educational Foundation 11 donation 12 acknowledgement and approval to dispose of vehicles 13 submission of a FY 2025 local Recreation Improvement Grant 14 State contract per oh yeah State contract purchases is so move thank you second Mr lonsky thank you um before we any discussions so just sorry it's okay so there has to be a correction done for number so number six home instruction so the student number 29756 4 so the dates need to need to be amended from 1325 to 13125 that's it thank you thank you um um and before we go to vote on this as amended for item number six um item number four which includes Miss Mendes Miss Dr MTZ and Miss Carrero they should abstain from that number as to number four since they're on the the agenda as it applies themselves y okay good all right um roll call Dr moodz whoops yes on all except number four just for yourself right yes yes I'm abstaining just for myself Mrs bomo yes Mrs Carrero yes to all except number four for myself thank you Mr hayatt yes to all Mr alansky yes Mrs menend do yes all abstaining from number four for myself thank you and Mr Cohen yes okay uh next item is curriculum matters Dr misit would you mind yes the superintendent of schools submits the following resolution for approval amended 2025 extended school year program location change and I believe we were going to talk about that let's move it in second let's move it then we'll do it in discussion okay okay um is so move thank you second Miss Mendes thank you discussions um Mr balone I I think the question that was posed earlier was why yeah so uh as you see item number one here has a location change for the extended school year program for this year starting uh this summer on July 7th and the reason for that is um there is an increased number of classrooms uh needed for the program and um thank you Mrs Tyrone and your team um Miss Mrs mortar for um looking at that very carefully right and and I know I pushed you on a few questions a why B why Dugan um and not other places um so there are a lot of considerations that need to be taken into account um bathrooms for students especially our younger students being able to get into the bathrooms without um extensive additional equipment so you know housing them at the middle school really well could be done and we have done it in years past it just makes it more challenging so Dugan has enough room the Abbott Center does not have enough room for this summer um so that's why the the change was made thank you any other discussions on that I just have a question as far as the the change in location for the students um will there be some form of you know communication Outreach socialization for that for those students so that they understand that they're going from a place that they may be familiar with to a different location for the summer program thank you Mrs tyr do you want to come up and speak to that hello okay hi there um so it's not on the website yet because we weren't sure about the location so once we now once we have the location set it will go up onto the website for the application for summer so if a child is going to be receiving the esy program that's told to them in their IEP meeting that's decided with their team and then the parent then fills out the application whether or not the child will be attending the esy program so in that it will be the Dugan location um students come from all over the place uh normally during the school year the only students who typically would stay in their home school are the preschoolers because that is where our preschool program is housed um so depending on the student need sometimes we do social stories um sometimes we do Transition plans it really kind of depends specifically on the student and what their need would be for the esy program but we'll have pictures and we'll have things like that more so for our younger students because that's the biggest change um but staff I staff won't have a problem with the I don't think with the change great that's that's thank you very much I appreciate that and I think that's important to the parents as well to understand that there's going to be a program or some process that you'll have to sort of familiarize them with it any other questions for this item Mr Caravella roll call Mrs Balo yes Mrs Carrero yes Mr Hyatt yes Mr lonsky yes Mrs Mendes yes Dr MTZ yes and Mr Cohen yes Personnel matter is Miss volma would you mind the superintendent of school submits the following resolutions for approval one retirements two resignation three resend an employment offer four employment certificated staff five employment instructional assistance six employment bus driver seven employment head custodian eight employment mechanic nine transfer non-certificated staff 10 stiens maintenance worker 11 curriculum leap nurse curriculum 12 curriculum substitute leap nurse 13 curriculum rise coach 14 curriculum Professional Day presenters 15 stien non-certificated staff 16 amended extracurricular activity advisors 17 stien Mentor teachers 18 student practicum 19 substitute nurses 20 substitute instructional assistant 21 paid medical disability leave 22 unpaid leave of absence 23 resignation ISO move thank you um second please Dr misit thank you any discussions uh sure just a another reading correction uh number 15 so you're non-certified staff so on page 22 in the middle of the um the section uh Gale cats will be um be removed and Ronnie pole will be added so that's r o n i Ronnie p p o l a y can you repeat the first name that you mentioned sure so um Gale cats cats thank you page 22 and that's being replaced with uh Ronnie so r o n i p p o l a y thank you same [Music] score any other discussions on this item Mr Mr Cohen would you mind if I go right ahead mentioned something so item number 19 for the board um just want to highlight that uh for all of you and to also thank you for approving an increase in our substitute rate for our nurses I know you also increased the long-term rate for our teachers but item 19 is a direct result of your agreement to approve and increase those rates so these people we have 1 two 3 four five six seven eight brand new substitute nurses so thank you for that I I I just want to say you know to the prior board you know thank you for having that you know foresight and wisdom to sort of do this this was extremely important and you've actually seen the results of your work so congratulations and thank you any other discussions on this item thank you Mr Caravella would you do a roll call please Mrs Carrero yes Mr hayatt yes Mr aloni yes Mrs Mendes yes Dr MTZ yes Mrs bomo yes and Mr Cohen yes thank you before we uh go on to the next item I just want to give uh Mr balone an opportunity to sort of make some retirement announcements thank you I have three sets of retirement comments the first one is for Elaine Hill Elaine Hill has announced her intention to retire from the Marboro Township School District after 25 years of service and education she has served the students of marbor for 23 of those years all of them being at Asher Holmes Elementary School Elaine has worked with both students and staff throughout our district as not only an elementary school teacher but also in the capacities of Mentor facilitator leap instructor curriculum writer and student teacher Mentor she has certainly left a lasting impression through her classroom instruction and collaboration with colleagues across the district elain's dedication and talent have made her a respected member of our faculty Mrs Hill is known for her high expectations as a first grade teacher and for her ability to encourage her students to recognize their own strengths and talents during their time with her her students enter Asher as kindergarten babies right out of the ELC but they leave her class as independent and self assured Learners ready for their next academic challenge Mrs Hill has called room 17 her home at Asher for 23 years Yes you heard that correctly room 17 at Asher has been Mrs Hill's classroom for the entirety of her career here even when she shined as a second grade teacher for a short blip how will any of us walk by that corner room without catching a glimpse or hearing a snippet of her expert teaching Asher will certainly never be the same and neither will the district's Energy bill Elaine liked to keep that room hot so while we are losing one of the absolute best in teaching we are also gaining some Energy savings for the district Mr caravello no longer will the main office or head custodian get a call sharing that her bomy 82 degree room is freezing it's baffling that her first trip after retirement is going to be to Alaska we were sure it would have been straight to the equator on a serious note the entire Asher Community wishes Elaine well on this new journey and we cannot wait to hear about her traveling adventures with her husband and her two sons and their families cheers Mrs Hill to your health and happiness in retirement we know that you will keep yourself busy with friends traveling and of course shopping but we also want you to know that no matter what you are doing you will always be a Danielson 4 that's on on their evaluation rubric if you don't know thank you for the 25 years you have dedicated to education you certainly leave behind a Legacy of Love dedication and professionalism Asher Holmes is a is a better place because of you thank you thank you we and we hope that we will see pictures of Alaska next are retirement comments for Gregory kinesi Mr kineski was hired as a school bus driver in September of 2019 during his six years of service to the district Mr kinesi has done an excellent job throughout his years of service he has been conscientious and aware of the great responsibilities of his job he proved to be a proficient and thorough in the performance of his duties year after year Mr kin's Commitment to the safety and well-being of the children in the district has made him an asset to the transportation department we thank him for his dedication reliability and loyalty over the years we hope that his retirement years are happy healthy and fulfilling Mr kinesi will be missed by everyone in the transportation apartment and finally I have retirement comments for serica Bernar CA Bernard joined the marbor team as an instructional assistant in 2002 following her assignments at the Early Learning Center Marell and Dugan she joined the Middle School in 2013 as an instructional assistant for the autism program over the past 20 years she has served the student population as a kind warm and supportive role model encouraging them to do their best work and show kindness to each other serica continues to establish positive caring relationships with children and collegial relationships with her her own colleagues CA is looking forward to spending precious time with her mother in India she will continue to pursue her Hobbies especially cooking and spending lots of time with her husband asoke and her sons Rohan and aanas we want to congratulate Sara on beginning her retirement in June and thank her for many years of devoted service to our staff and students thank you to Elaine Gregory and and and cica for your service for so many years and and for the all the great work that you've done in supporting our schools our students our teachers and our families We Wish You a lots of success in your retirement um thank you Mr B so uh we're going to continue with our agenda the next up is a presentation by our uh board attorney Mr Michael Gross on school ethics and code of ethics thank you good evening everybody um normally I would I could give this uh dissertation on the Ten Commandments uh it would take several hours I don't think we want to go through that this evening so what I would like to do is just go through the uh 10 Code of Ethics that you have both in your agenda and I have provided to you a separate copy uh straight out of the statutory uh Provisions uh the one thing I want you to notice right away is that you will see that this statute was adopted in the year 2001 you will also note there have not been not has not been a single amendment to that statute since 2001 so you're being asked to follow these codes of Ethics these 10 Commandments um without having any change over the last 25 years just about at this point uh which is kind of ironic and I was actually watching something the other day and so in the year 2001 when this was adopted we were just learning how to use iods not iPhones not iPads but iPods so you can see that the change in technology over the last 25 years the change in just just about everything that we do in schools has changed so dramatically over 25 years but yet the state legislature has decided and its infinite wisdom to keep this exactly the same as it was when it was adopted in 2001 the reason I I bring that to your attention is I don't think that's necessarily a horrible thing but it just shows that you are the only elected officials in the state of New Jersey that have any codes of Ethics that are written in statute by the way and it has hasn't changed at all so how we have to look at this is the way that we look at our Constitution that has been in effect since the founding of our uh United States back in the 1776 and how our judges interpret statutes and constitutional law for Constitutional Amendments and the Bill of Rights that were adopted over 200 almost 250 years ago now uh they have to take those words and interpret them under new technology uh obviously when the Constitution was written we didn't have airplanes we didn't have automobiles we certainly didn't have social media but yet the judges are asked to interpret those under those laws and those Constitutional Amendments that were adopted decades and centuries ago um so we have to look at that because that's what the school ethics commission does also and in that same vein I want you to also understand that the school ethics commission has gone back back and forth multiple times on the same issue as to whether something is okay not okay sometimes okay sometimes not okay because they're they're hamstrung also because they have to deal with this uh 2001 statute that has not been changed so they change over time also so you will see that there are sometimes decisions that over a two or three or 5year period they literally do a 180 degree turn with regard to the result from their decision based on the facts but also based on the change in in society for nothing if if nothing else so we want to go through those and and what i' like to do at best is to go through each one of them individually sometimes as part of your qack you're supposed to go through this process and that's why we're doing it here today normally you would each read one of them uh when you have nine members here somebody would read one twice and that would be the end of it and you met your qack re en but I don't think that's a good way of doing it because if you just read it it just goes in one ear out the other and we're not really going to pick it pick up on those uh nuances that are important here um so what I'd like to do is I'd like to read them out loud with your permission and I would emphasize those words that I think are important uh so that it changes perhaps a meaning that you may not have ever thought about when you have read these over time or for the new board members uh your for your first time and you they may take on a different meaning and a different interpretation once I highlight those important words in some of these some of them are rather easy some of them are you know simplistic and easy to understand other them other ones are pretty complicated and you can see why the school ethics commission has a very big agenda every month because there are some uh rather vague uh and ex quite expansive uh Provisions here that people try to put hooks into and try to grab onto in order to find that there's a violation so I'd like to go through those one last point before we go before I go through it with you you might have a lot of questions and what I would suggest is I'm gonna I'm giving you just a general overview this evening uh the reason we're doing that is because of the qac requirement as we I know historically you've done this with your Council in the past but I will remind you that many times you're going to ask me my opinion on things or my interpretation on things those things are attorney client privilege when I give you my legal opinion on a specific issue that should remain in executive session because it's my legal counsel to you tonight's presentation is a general term that you wouldn't find any place else I'm not going to be giving any uh legal interpretations that would be specific to any one of your questions once you start asking me questions that would then caution me to give you a response in public we can give those responses in executive session so that's how we kind of deal with those two problems that uh are important and and sacred when it comes to uh my attorney client privilege to you with regard to interpretation of the statute but but still just for my own knowledge for this exercise we could still ask questions if we have any understanding that you're not giving any legal advice just exactly EXA from experience what you've seen happen of course yeah but I just wanted to make sure that you like if you start asking specific questions or nuances under this and it's going to come to a particular issue we'll do that as my legal counsel to you as the board counsel in I'll close session and what about the board members that aren't present are they just getting emailed a copy of this and obviously they can ask questions sure of course the same way and they'll they certainly have access to the presentation to the recording thank you through the uh worldwide web out there okay okay so let's let's start and as I said uh the statute is 18812 d4.1 it's been adopted as of 2001 and it says a school board Al uh uh a school board member shall abide by the following code of ethics for school board members couple couple easy ones to start off you they start off with these uh softballs I will uphold and enforce all laws rules and regulations of the State Board of Education and court orders pertaining to the schools now that used to be really easy and we had ran into a little problem around covid time when we were deciding whether we had uh all executive orders could were constituted as laws and orders and regulations and rules Etc and uh again this you could see how sometimes the interpretation can then be changed when we have this other issue because you don't really see the word executive orders in that number one but again if we want to abide by the spirit of it that means it's all rules all laws all regulations all court orders pertaining to the schools desired changes shall be brought about only through the legal and ethical procedures meaning that we're supposed to enforce it we may not like the laws we may not like the regulations maybe like the court orders um this district is under one right now but we would but we have to abide by those we have to follow those because those that's you know that is number one on the Hit Parade uh b is another easy one I will make decisions in terms of educational welfare of children and will seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race Creed sex or social standing you're all elected officials you all are uh members of the community here and you have been sent by your representatives to represent the board on those kinds of issues and again that's this is the general catchall that it's easy to understand that we're here for the the good of the children for the uh to make sure that we're here for the best welfare of those children and but you still have that flexibility and that public debate as to how you want to achieve those goals but you're supposed to just seek and develop and maintain that the schools meet those individual student needs two easy ones right off the bat and then they hit you with the big three and the reason I call them the big three is under c d and e they really mold into each other when you take a look at them and you read them separately they really still say all mostly the same thing and you will find that most ethics charges that are filed or even advisory opinions that are sought one footnote on that let me talk to you about a difference between an advisory opinion and a complaint obviously anyone has the right to file a complaint uh with the school ethics commission against any uh School official um that complaint goes through the process of a filing and then there's a response and then there's a possibility of either uh the ethics commission making a determination or sending it to a hearing to an administrative law judge which would then have a final decision by the uh School ethics commission there are also something under the statute called an advisory opinion and an advisory opinion is before something happens and if you're contemplating doing something either as a board or as individual board members you can always request an advisory opinion from the school ethics commission before you do something that you're not sure you would be permitted to do or not do and they are rather quick when it comes to providing those advisory opinions because you're asking them you know we're ready to do something am I able to do this or you're telling me that I shouldn't do it and uh districts sometimes utilize that a lot and I think it's always a good idea to remember that that's there um you could do it as an individual board member you can do it collectively as a board uh but those advisory opinions sometimes come in handy so as to avoid somebody filing an Ethics complaint against you if you think that what you're doing is okay but you think that somebody might not think it's okay before you do it you can't do it after you do it but before you do it if you're contemplating doing something uh if you think you do I have a conflict of interest because of the following scenario and you just ask them you know because my my mother-in-law's sister's cousins Aunt uh used to at one point uh have an interest in this company that uh is has a bid in before the board am I allowed to vote on that and they they will try to get you a response beforehand um now that's an example that may have maybe more time sensitive but you get the idea that if you know something in advance before you go ahead and do that it's a good idea to either talk about it as a board and you can send out an advisory request through our office or the administration or you have every right to send it on your own just a good point of reference because CD and e as we go through it you will see um how com how complicated it could get and how you can start to get into that interpretation of the law situation where one lawyer can find it one way one lawyer can find it another way and a third lawyer can find it a third way um and that doesn't necessarily mean anybody's right or wrong again depending on the factual scenario depending on the uh uh provision that you're referring to it's it sometimes gets a little complicated and cumbersome so let's go through that but again we're going to go through the general aspects of these I will confine my board action and the word action is what's important in that your board action to policymaking planning and Appraisal I will help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them what does that really mean well that means we work as a board we don't work as individuals we can't go out and do anything and have any board action without us doing it collectively with the the nine of us five wins that's how we do it sometimes four wins if there's only seven of us here if you have a 4-3 vote there are certain votes that don't require five yes votes but majority rules and that just means we only are confined to our actions to policy planning and Appraisal but even those policy appraisal and planning are confined to board action and board action means as a collective group we we will help frame the policies and only after the board not just the individuals not just the committee but after the board has consulted with those affected by them and what does that mean affected by them that means we are we we deal with the board deals with not individual board members deal with our stakeholders with things with our administrators uh with things and we would then go through our board attorney with things our staff with things these are all the different people who may be affected by the things that we are going to ultimately make an action on under SE and then we will take the appropriate action as a board not as an individual not as a committee but as a board and you'll see D pivots a little bit but really stays on the same theme I will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board members and that's the important part of that sentence there to see that they are well-run it doesn't say that you as an individual is going to make sure that this the district is well run on it says a f along with my fellow board members and you're supposed to confine your responsibility not to administer the schools that's the administrator's jobs it's your it's your job just to make sure that the stool schools are run well again makes sense but you can see where we start to move into an area where people are going to claim that you're uh micromanaging that you are not uh doing the things that the administrators are recommend now we'll get to that point of where you don't have to follow everything that the administrators say or the everything the administrators recommend however we're supposed to listen to them first and then you make your decision based on what E and F are going to say but let's go to E I will recognize that Authority rests with the Board of Education again the same thing it's not any individual and will make no personal promises nor take any private actions and this is the key part of this that may compromise the board you can't do anything that even it doesn't have to compromise the board it may compromise the board so if you do something that could or would perhaps potentially put the board in Jeopardy or put the board compromise the board in any way that's the violation that most people don't realize that there doesn't have to necessarily be a consequence to the the board it just if there would maybe be a consequence to the board as to what your private actions are that's where you can run into problems how do you run into problems by that personal versus Board member it's it's it's the analogy that I try to use all the time we all wear several hats in life right the hat that you wear as a board member and we've most of you know this even new board members I'm sure have no have seen this around but when you have your board member hat on you got to let everybody know that I'm talking about this wearing my board member hat you can't try to disguise yourself as somebody else and say I'm doing this uh maybe as a board member maybe not as a board member I'm doing it as a private citizen no you've got if you have your board member hat on you got to let everybody know you have your hat on how we do that when we do any letter to again la change laws don't change but the facts change and Society changes but we really could apply the law to the way that we used to it used to be a letter to the editor okay so if you wrote a letter to the editor and you assigned your name to it and you wrote it on it Michael Gro member of the Board of Education that was my disclaimer that I was able to do when I did a letter to the editor because I'm telling everybody I'm a member of the Board of Education and if I just said that that means I'm speaking as a member of the Board of Education now times have changed letters of the editor are as obsolete as the newspapers and the magazines we don't read anymore but now we can post things on the internet you can have a website you can do all these different things that you uh do through social media disclaimers are important disclaimers you put on there to say that it's Michael Gross member of the Board of Education and if you want to put that board of education label on there you're either going to have to say I speak on behalf of the board or I don't speak on behalf of the board and you better be very clear and specific as to how you're disclaiming your membership because if you just wrote Michael Gross and you didn't say member of the board people know you're the member of the board you still should disclaim yourself because it's not like the old letters to the editor because there's probably a thousand other posts on the same site where people have already let everybody else know that you're a member of the board so when you're posting something as just Joe uh citizen but everybody knows who you are and you are a member of the board you almost have an obligation to put on that post I am speaking as a private citizen I am not speaking as a member of the board despite the fact that everybody else knows I'm a member of the board now School boards has a very interesting disclaimer that they recommend and I will share this with everybody obviously separately but it's it's a good disclaimer to have and I apologize because I had it circled here on social media and it's a good it's kind of cumbersome but if you put it at the bottom of all your posts School boards is saying that this is something that they find to be reasonable and acceptable from their as uh their standpoint and that the the uh School ethics commission would find it as well and it says the following statements are made in my capacity as a private citizen and not in my capacity as a board member these statements are also not representative of the board or its individual members and solely represent my own personal opinions I will share that with all of you you will cut it you will paste it and you will put it on all your posts so that we will have our protections from anybody claiming that we are representing anybody but ourselves when we're putting these things on social media um because we don't want to run into the ideas of CD or E where people are telling us that we're not acting as a board we're acting as an individual board member violating either C D or e um going back to the hat so we have the Hat as the board member and you have it on now the most important hat that all of you wear are parents hats now some of you have students in the district some of you had students in the district some of you may still have students who are coming into the district that parent hat is always the Paramount I will never tell anybody despite the ridiculous idea that you ran for a board of education that you still should somehow shed that parent hat that parent hat is Paramount but again when you are wearing your parent hat we got to make sure we got to be clear because if you're going into a parent teacher conference and the teacher knows that you're a member of the Board of Education we don't want to run a foul of C D or e or even F at that point because you're going in and meeting with a parent uh with a teacher who knows that you are a member of the board it's great for to walk in and just say I just want to make sure you understand I'm here just as Johnny's parent I forget about everything you ever hear or know about me being on the board of education I'm here as Johnny's parent and that is Paramount and that's really all you really need to do and it's good to also say it because it will make the employees of the district feel comfortable in meeting with you without having any reservation um or at least you're trying to make them feel as comfortable as possible because just put yourselves in the in the inverse position and and you could understand how that would uh be kind of troublesome for an employee but you still have that right you it doesn't mean that because you're a board member you can't meet with the teacher it doesn't mean you can't have a complaint about the teacher it doesn't mean that you can't deal with that issue the same way that every other parent is permitted to deal with any issue but you also have to follow it in the same course of action and the same chain of command that every other parent in the district needs to follow meaning you don't get to just go to the superintendent and say I got a problem with Johnny you should be going to the teacher first and the teacher goes to the principal and the principal goes to the superintendent in that same way because otherwise you would be running a foul of either C D or E because you're you will actually be running into a problem because you're in trying to undo influence on the superintendent as well but you're also circumventing the chain of command so this idea that you wear these multiple hats is something you always have to remember now in in this community again that goes to the issue I was almost I was referencing before there may be other hats you wear I mean you may have a hat as a business person in the community there may be certain things where you're going to be uh dealing with interactions as the community uh member uh the business owner a PTA person a booster club something of that sort uh you have to remember that those hats that you wear are identified and identifiable as opposed to the board member that everybody identifies you as so again you got to because if you're going in as a business if you wanted to have a booth uh at uh Malboro day but you're sitting at the booth with the Board of Education pin on your lapel and you're also dealing with it with your business at malro day you can't really wear both of those hats or both of those pins make sure which pin you're wearing at each time and so if you're at the booth for your business there shouldn't be any board stuff by your booth same idea it's hat pin same idea um again I don't want to take too much of your time but let's go because now the next the next few are pretty easy and self-explanatory but I always want to spend a lot of time on CD F I will refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interests or partisan political groups makes sense I mean everybody knows that's the rule right here's the important part or to use the school for personal gain or for the gain of friends well sure we understand that but that what that means is I can't call the superintendent and ask him to do me a favor I can't call the superintendent and say you know got a friend who is looking for a job I can't call the superintendent and say uh I want to have my my sister-in-law is looking to uh do something can you even write a letter of recommendation you really shouldn't put the super intended in those kinds of positions even though it's not monetary gain but it's going to put him in a difficult situation again because you're his Superior and that's where you may run a foul of section f section g I will hold confidential oh but I want to say one other thing about that you look you guys are elected officials and you're going to make decisions about things and all these words make it sound like you really what can I do and the what you really can do and you really should do at all times is you you do what's right in your heart what your decision is what comes from you as long as that decision comes from you and doesn't come from anybody outside or any person who would have uh were you surrender your independent judgment or you go deal with the decision because of the special interests or partisan political groups that's when you run a foul but if you can in good conscience always say that this decision or this Vote or this uh recommendation that I'm making is coming from me and my heart and it's coming to the board and we go through the right channels you can't go wrong you can't go wrong so just keep keep that as the Mantra most times that but you are you're allowed to listen to your constituents you're allowed to hear your constituents you were elected officials you're allowed to do these things so don't be running away from your constituents because you're worried about partisan uh groups or political groups you're allowed to listen to them but your decision making is from you and your decision after you gather all your information because that's that's part of of your job uh G I will hold all matters pertaining to the schools which if disclosed would needlessly injure individuals or the schools that first sentence is the Las Vegas rule you know what is said in executive session stays in executive session rather clear and easy to understand the next sentence why those two sentences are together I don't know because they are not really related to each other in all other matters first we talked about EXE cutive session confidential issues in all other matters I will provide accurate information and in concert with my fellow board members you'll see that that's again we can't do anything as an individual interpret to the staff the aspirations of the community for its schools again goes back to the elected officials you're supposed to interpret to the staff the aspirations of the community of your school who sent you here what your beliefs were what your agendas were when you came you're allowed to have agendas when you get on the board now they got to be agendas that stay within the parameters of the four corners of the Ten Commandments but you're you're allowed to have issues that you want to press you want to have again with public debate not as an individual not with Breaking the Chain of Command but going through those the process of committee and board and discussion and vote those are the agendas that you're allowed to bring up if you want to bring those things up up if we follow the right order and how we go about trying to get those agendas passed officially and correctly and that's really what the second part of uh G talks about where you're also held to a higher standard and you also have in your um and that's the second sentence in G you're also hold held to a little bit of higher standard than the regular citizen because you're an elected official and because you have these statutes that other elected officials don't have but in your social uh media policy uh you will you would notice that it says um nothing in this policy prevents a board of education member from using social network however a board member must avoid conduct on social media that would violate the school ethics act which includes the code of ethics board members shall be advised communic Publications uh Etc while this policy respects the right of board members to use social networks board members shall recognize they are held to a higher standard than the general public with regard to standards of conduct and ethics a board member's use of social networks shall not damage the reputation of the school district employee School District employees students or their families board members should exercise care in setting appropriate boundaries between their personal and public online Behavior understanding what is private in the digital world often has a possibility of becoming public even without their knowledge or consent so you could see that you are held to a higher standard than anybody else who posts something why are you held to a higher standard because you took an oath here and part of that oath is to abide by those Ten Commandments which means you got to abide by The Ten Commandments um even though everybody else doesn't is it fair sometimes things are unfair but that's that's the second part of G which really has nothing to do with the executive session Las Vegas rule moving on to the last three which are pretty quick and easy I will vote to appoint the best qualified Personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief School administrator clearly understood meaning that and we've had this discussion before before new board members superintendent has a statutory uh obligation to uh recommend employees for hire Personnel matters are all at the recommendation of the superintendent by Statute you have every right as a board member to vote Yes to vote no or to abstain you don't have to just rubber stamp and vote Yes every time the superintendent recommends somebody what you can't do is say uh I'm voting no but I want to nominate Mr Jones for that position you can't do that it has to come from the rec recommendation of the superintendent it can't come from the board when it comes to Personnel hiring and that you would vote for the best qualified person and if you think that that person is not the best qualified you can vote no even if you know who the best qualified person is or you think you know who the best qualified person is you can't vote for that person until the superintendent recommends him or her I I will support and protect School Personnel in proper performance of their duties what does that mean it means we shouldn't talk badly about our employees in public there's a state law that basically prohibits us from saying bad things about our employees in public if we want to say something bad about our employees we're going to give them the appropriate right notice not uh notifications we're going to talk about them in executive session if they want us to or then we can talk about them in public if they want us to but we can't do it without their consent and that's really the simple part of us and then of course the last one number 10 is I will refer all complaints and the word all is the word all it doesn't say some it doesn't say the ones I want to it says all all complaints to the chief administrative officer so that means again if you take in conjunction G with all the C D's and E's and Fs that we talked about that you're not an individual something comes to you you're supposed to send it through the proper channels we're supposed to deal with with the chain of command we're supposed to go to the superintendent with anything that we have that we think uh needs to be dealt with we can't deal with it on our own in an attempt to resolve it because you could see it it also says and I will act on the complaints at public meetings shouldn't be having anything private only only after failure of an administrative solution you take it to the superintendent he or she is supposed to deal with it that's their job you take it to Vinnie he he is supposed to take care of it if he can't take care of it not to your satisfaction you're not going to deal with it as an individual we're going to deal with it as a board in public that's clearly what it says um it also means that when you have any complaint about anything as an individual board member you should always CC the board president and the superintendent because those are the PE again because as an individual board member you don't have the authority to really do anything on your own board president gets involved the board president has a little bit more flexibility and more authority to deal with issues because of your bylaws that hand the president uh a significant amount of authority when it comes to talking to me about an issue because only the board president under your policy can uh talk to me without your without his consent you can't talk to me so you get it to him he will then get it to the and the superintendent they both get these emails they then have the ability to farm it to the right area deal with it again if it's not to your satisfaction when you when all the Des the the dust is cleared it says you're allowed at a public meeting after a failure of an administrative solution to your problem we bring it back here if it's an executive session issue we'll talk about it in there if it's a public session issue we'll talk about about it out here but that's the process that we're supposed to go through um and I did want to read one last part because all of these things are just again statutes uh the legislature makes decisions on the verbiage but it really comes down to uh what one of the members of your public said before and he's been saying it for a couple of meetings now we just need to learn how to get along with each other and talk civil to each other because a lot of times it's all in how the uh message is sent if the message is sent you know with guns and knives people are going to put up their defenses and they're going to look for something in one of these 10 uh sections to try to nail you right I mean that's it's just common sense you have a public decorum policy your public decorum policy should be professional in dealings with School District staff members community members attending board meetings representatives from other federal state or local governmental organizations constituents from other outside organizations students and any other representatives from organizations approaching the malor board of education on School District matters in addition board members should maintain a proper decorum in dealing with fellow Board of Education members members during board meetings and during other times serving in their role as a board of education member a board of education member should be respectful of a fellow board member who expresses an opinion that may differ from their opinion a board member should be courteous to fellow members by being polite and considerate uh uh considerate in manner simple common courtesy you may get more you may get more with honey than with vinegar right we've we've heard all these Expressions before it it works sometimes and when it doesn't work we have the Democratic process that we deal with but it's always good to try and start it off that way and I think that's really what the code of ethics really talks about in theme is if you're you're you have the right to have your opinion you have the right to disagree and as long as you Pro follow the proper channels and follow the organizational chart and don't do anything on your own that will bind or put the board in any Jeopardy you'll be fine if you do it from your heart it's really what you have to follow and I've talking enough it's a quarter to 10 sorry but again if we have individual questions I'll take them now specific questions I will then answer under attorney C preg in the exact session any questions no Mr BR thank you for reminding us all of what we signed up for and um the rules that we should live by yeah and I wanted to make it yeah I wanted to sound more like a Dutch uncle than I did like a lawyer because people don't listen to the lawyers but you listen to your Dutch thank you uh okay so um moving along to our next section of the agenda uh policy development community relations matters M Carrero would you mind so the liaison reports uh no this is uh policy development committee relations we start out with the superintendent of school submit resolution sorry um okay so policy development and community relations matters sorry approval of the 2025 to 2026 school year calendar and approval of the amended 2024 to 2025 school year calender so so move what is it just say so move I so move I so move yeah thank you and and number one right for a code of ethics oh yes can I have a second Mendes thank you any discussions roll call Dr MTZ yes Mrs Palomo um in discussion can we talk about the calendar quickly and revisit some of the questions that were asked previously like an update on the voting in the schools as well as um some of the other issues that were brought to uh Brian last meeting when we talked about the calendar so um just so I'm clear for my purposes so in the regard to the calendar I think you're referring to the election day as far as moving of the voting locations right okay so I understand that um previous board under M mendz was um reaching out to Town and County to seek some relief for the voting locations and that has yet to be sort of responded to is that correct from your previous correct I've received one response who said that um Mrs hanlin was not the person and that somebody else would respond to my email I know I then forwarded it to you to say how would you like to proceed do you want me to continue following up or do you want to and I don't know where you stand on that piece yet yeah no and and I think as I mentioned to you at the last board meeting when we were going through reord um I'm a strong component of proponent for continuity so I I would definitely appreciate the fact made the initial rather few people with additional people who would continue that Outreach but copy me on that so that I'm aware of it um and then this way I can also engage by sure I can continue then I know I send an email so I'll just continue then with whatever that was thank you m we were also revisit uh we also I had mentioned in the last meeting uh discussing Veterans Day Off where did you land on that so in in looking at our calendar um we did not include that right we don't include all of our federal holidays that's a matter of practice um we we look at other days um to accommodate uh the needs of our specific specific community and I know uh we've had you know specific uh Community organizations um reach out and ask us to consider and I know under uh the prior board uh we did agree to that and and we kept those to remain the same um the bottom line is we have to have 180 days of student student contact days in school so any day that we add as a school closure it just impacts the school calendar whether it be adding another day in June um and and figuring out what that looks like I know in planning uh with the extended school year program we'd like to give our students and staff ample time at the end of the regular school year to at least give them about a week or so uh before esy starts uh we also have um many of our students in the community who attend summer camps so we really try to look at all angles uh we consult with Freehold Regional although we don't perfectly align with them we we try to align where we can um so you know could we uh include Veterans Day as as a day off we could it just has adverse effects later on um what I'll say about Veterans Day specifically is um many of our schools do a really good job on that day and they U they bring veterans in and and it's recognized very well um I was at many of those uh assemblies this year and um you know although it is technically considered a school day it's very beneficial to our students and our staff for the recognition of the sacrifices that our veterans have provided to our country both past and present I um I would like to respond to there she does her thing Mrs blomo I I appreciate you um focusing on the veterans and I am the spouse of a combat veteran and I have to tell you my husband and all the men that and women that I've seen at the local at the schools on Veterans Day they are they are beaming they love being honored by going to the schools I you know I hope that we can a you know ask veterans that like I find out from my grandchildren if there's a program and then you get an invitation you know like you know you have to sign up and so forth I'd like to um maybe in the future um notify the senior citizens that are in the town or the you know veterans organizations so that they can get an invitation to the these different um you know concerts that they put on singing and but I have to tell you my husband and the other gentleman that I've been sitting with they are beaming they are absolutely beaming when they leave the these things that they feel that they've been honored and then you see all of them going over to Apple for for free lunch because it's it really is special for them so and and I do appreciate you to you know bringing this to our attention but I can say that it's been you know that they they are they are very happy to be there and celebrate you know they feel that they are being celebrated I agree which school did they attend for the celebrations I've been to um Abbott and to Morel okay so there's V that are invited to our schools for assemblies with the children what they saying aside from the presentation at Robertsville and nire this goes on at every school because we weren't made aware as board members that that was going on that's something that I would have liked to attend um so in the future it would be nice to attend those if we are going to be in session for those days uh because I wasn't even aware that they did that at well I did not attend as a board member I attended as that's great I didn't know that that that was going on thank you veter I do appreciate that very much to Echo Mr balone sentiment of the children do need um you know that we do need to meet that 180 days I think that is even more reason to continue our efforts to remove voting from our schools and give the the children the continuity of learning of having that November break be extended um and I would hope that Mr Cohen you would be um you would accept coming back and revisiting this if we were given the option to remove voting from schools and looking at some of those other days that we can give back to families either for vacation time uh at the end of the year and shortening where the kids end school or of course something like Veterans Day because well I understand that some uh community members were invited or however they found out about going to the schools uh there also has been some expression that it would be nice to Echo the other districts and have that day off to just recognize um the service of of our community members as veterans so I would appreciate that if you're open to that I I am I'm I'm definitely open to it and likewise I share your sentiment as a son of a veteran um I equally think it's an extremely important holiday that we recognize whether it be in school through celebration or by giving our students and our staff the time off to sort of you know reflect as well so as long if if it's something that we can achieve to find that day so that we don't impact it then I would ask that Mr Bel and the administration do come back and sort of offer that as a an amended calendar for us in the future for us to consider as a board since we all have to vote on that thank you and the and the other thing I just want to add to your sentiment and I appreciate you raising it because it's such an important part of the conversation you know picking up on on Mr gross's um discussion about ethics you know we may want to explore ways and figure out how we consult with our community as to what their Community preference would be in this particular case so we get guidance that way um and you know we also need to understand the impact other than just sort of if we said let's extend the day by one let's extend the school year by one day what's that impact not only to the parents who may have children who go through other programs outside of school but also contractual and cost wise for us to sort of keep the schools open for next sort of the standard school so those are just some things I just want to make sure that we we look at this as a total picture um so that we understand it and we fully understand the impacts yeah just to clarify I would never suggest adding an additional de to the end of the year I was hoping that this could um kind of substitute one of the two election days that we give um our children off for their safety which is is Paramount um but I would never I'm not proposing to add to the end of the school year thank you that's a I appreciate that clarification and that's helpful for you when you're when you're looking at that so I appreciate that thank you any other further discussions on this topic on this item sure yep roll call vote I'll restart um Dr MTZ yes thank you I don't even know what we're voting one two and of polic the code ofs the draft agenda the draft um okay then yesal Mrs bomo yes Mr hayatt yes Mr lonsky yes Mrs Mendes yes Mrs Carrero yes and Mr Cohen yes thank you um I want to suggest given the hour um that we slight adjustment to our to our agenda um I would like to suggest that we move public comments up to be the next item and welcome people who are actually either on the list or anyone who wants to speak sure and then we can continue with the last parts of our agend yeah not a problem so I have on my list uh Miss Lanna Vitali thank you um I just had a few questions regarding um topics that you mentioned before I know you mentioned like the bus drivers and the issue of not having like enough bus drivers so I was wondering I have a couple questions also so I was wondering first are they receiving proper benefits that includes like health insurance and the pension for them to be drawn to the position um furthermore I also was wondering like how have the special needs children been affected by the bus driver shortage because I know with special needs children in particular um it's great for them to see like a familiar face often and it could be discouraged when not met with that um and then another thing would be um just what is done with the Chromebooks when they're no longer fit like for use for students I was wondering like do they get thrown away or they get donated um so those are just some of the questions that I had thank you thank you those are great questions and I appreciate that Mr carel can you yeah so if if um so I can answer some of those now some of those if you want to just leave your email address I can get back to you with some of those responses so for the drivers we do offer they are a pensionable um position the benefits they get a cost up to certain benefits so I believe I don't know the I think the amount is in the the contract but it's about 1885 um that they get towards benefits so a plan that of their choosing then they pay the difference if it if it costs more um for the special needs question those are more joint agreements so any added District um placements we do have contracted routes we have done that in the past the increase in the routes that we're seeing are for General Ed um that we've actually had to contract out and not have our own in-house drivers doing those those runs for the district so um one of the things we always look at is the time for those routes for the special ed students so we never want the time to be greater than it needs to be for them to get to their added District placement we always want it to be in a reasonable time frame and then the Chromebooks usually we trickle them down to the lower grade so we actually put them in carts and we actually transfer them to elementary schools and other other grades that utilize them and then when they become at the end of their useful life where they're no longer supported by like Google or the license renewal then we unfortunately have to dispose them because no use to really anybody when it comes to that that license not being supported by Google anymore all right thank you for the questions I'm sorry Mr car um I don't know if I miss it or didn't hear it where were you from is there there state where she was from I'm born and raised in malb um Morganville Park thank you thank you good questions anyone else for public comments anyone else on the list PA welcome back great meeting so far um Adam poock St Lawrence way I just want to say that I think it's wild to me that there's some schools in the town that don't have air conditioning and I I just want to say on behalf of a Community member here that I definitely think that we should do something about that it's like definitely as Dr misit said not fair to some of the students and the teachers definitely think we should make that as a priority um and I guess the reason I'm saying that and this is more for the people listening I guess also is that like there's only four community members at this meeting right now like that are sitting here besides the the folks from the the I think four um who are are not salaried here um and that's just like a bad showing from a town perspective of people who like hair and are coming to the meetings and stuff and I get it that it's like hard to come to these meetings and because people can watch it on YouTube also but for the amount of talk about our school board it's just it's a little disheartening that people don't come to the meetings more and I definitely think just as someone who used to watch the meetings and now comes to the meetings that you definitely miss something by not coming and you're not seeing people's interactions and facial expressions and things like that so I think it's a super important we're spending a lot of time on this a lot of talk in our town about the board and I they just think that more people should come so as a person who is here I just want to say that as a community member it's important that we get um HVAC in and air conditioning in all of the schools and I also think just as I was talking about Community Action problems before about the phones this is something that we should be like evangelizing around and making sure that everybody in the town even the schools that aren't affected like rally around this topic and do something and maybe even from an Administration perspective because I just think about when we're actually if we option one's the best option in my opinion and I think we should uh do that um but I could see why people might vote against it right because they think their taxes are going to go up and things like that so it has to be we have to like really explain it to people as to what's going on and and why it's important so I think that's a community action problem um as well that we should all take on as community members and make sure the community understands the importance and and why we should be doing that thank you thank you Mr poock um we sometimes lose sight of the fact that something like air conditioning should not be an option right where in the past it was and we hope as a board I hope as a board that we find a way to help make this happen and I imagine that the rest of the board really does too any other comments or questions for the board motion to close public comments then the second Mendes all in favor oppose so move okay we're going to go on to we're gonna try to wrap this up um we're up to uh liaison reports um so I know in the past you used to do the the aison reports followed by the school updates um in the interest of time maybe we can do if you're a board member and you have a you're doing an external AG organization as well as a school we do them both together just one after the other if that's okay so um with um let's start with you know with freeo Regional High School um District liaison I think that is um Miss seart and she also has Abbot does anyone receive Mrs sews you have would you mind reading that M Mr H yes yes I don't mind uh yeah net sent this to me today she's traveling so from avot for Mr perno our character pillar of the month is responsibility students are learning to be responsible readers by participating in an incentive program students are asked to read or to be read to daily and log their time as they reach certain Milestones they can receive a gift certificate for ice cream uh the PTO update the PTO is sponsoring an author visit later this month they're all looking forward to learning about the creative process and how an idea becomes a book and that's um I'm passing that on behalf of Miss work thank you very much um I assume that we didn't have a threee Regional High School District update then oh no we didn't I didn't receive one great thank you yeah uh so the next one on the agenda is maloro Education Foundation and um I believe that's Miss Gandhi as well as hugan does anyone have Miss Carrero then please all right so for the principal report um as we welcome 2025 Jan staff and students embrac the new year with dragon Pals uh a school program where the upper grade students paired with their younger peers for a read aloud of the Mitten tree this inspiring story also served as a spring board for a schoolwide winter clothing Drive Dugan students collected hats gloves and scarves to donate to the New Brunswick School District where one of our Dugan parents Works furthering the spirit of giving in community additionally in early January Mr pagliero and Mr Lavoy held schoolwide assemblies to review our school expectations they discuss possible consequences for the choices we make including including assigned and natural consequences and emphasize the value of learning from past mistakes our youngest Dugan dragons have recently completed their mathematics benchmark assessments taking important steps in tracking their academic progress as the final weeks of the marking period approach signaling the halfway point of the school year all of our students are working diligently to finish strong and set the stage for continued success the Dugan PTO report uh so the Dugan PTO executive board and its members continue to help make uh the school is a Place full of kindness creativity fun all while working closely with their phenomenal staff members January was a blast for the dug and Dragons we were elated to donate hats gloves scarves and winter accessories to No Limits Cafe the yearbook committee has been busy with the cover design contest we can't wait to see the designs and vote we also had our first ever light up Dugan event it was a hit there were lots of smiles hot cocoa and even some snow next on the calendar is Dugan's talent show which will be held on January 30th tickets and booster gifts are flying off the shelves we are also gearing up for our Valentine's Day dance on February 7th registration is open don't forget that Dugan PG just wrapped up a t-shirt sale to kick off the battle of the classes this month's theme is wear your heart on your sleeve thank you I just wanted to add something um because I am in receipt of this report it does seem like you misre the PTO report it reads first from Mr Pago first of all a huge thank you to Dugan PTO president Danielle bomo for preparing this report for me the Dugan PTO executive board and its members continue to help make our school a Place full of kindness creativity and fun all while working closely with our phenomenal staff members I just wanted to add that in there because you misread it okay this is what I re received thank you very much Mr L for adding that and clarifying um okay moving on to the next one which is marazon Mr and would you also mind doing I have MS m yep got it from the Township summer camp registration opens for residents on February 5th at 700 p.m. make sure your community pass account is accurate before registration opens commun parking permit renewals is are now open if you're current permit holder you will have and have gotten an email reminder the deadline to renew is on March 31st the 2025 pet licensing portal is now open dogs and cats must be registered each calendar year a reminder was sent in the mail for all those that had a pet registered last year and the recycling calendar has been mailed to your homes new this year's a free web-based app program called recycling coach find your Zone learn what is recycled and where to set up reminders via text or email and From MMS thank you to our PTO Who provided ice cream treats to students and bun cakes for the staff for a holiday treat before the winter break the PTO is also promoting a Valentine's Day fundraiser send a sweet treat to your child this Valentine's Day your student will receive a voucher for free order churos from the cafeteria as well as Airhead candy the Valentine's gram voucher will be handed out during first period on Friday 2:14 students will get their churo and a head in the cafeteria during lunch that day Valentine GRS will just have a message that says wishing you a sweet Valentine's Day students will not know who send it unless the send it tells them it'll be a fun surprise orders can be placed at MMS PT Board website eighth grade students will begin the process as scheduling their ninth grade classes at Colts Neck and Maro high schools we have already begun planning for graduation in June we are entering playoff season for basketball good luck to all of our teams uh The Musical Shrek Junior set for Friday February 28th at 700 p.m. and Saturday March 1th 1st at 12:00 noon and 4:00 p.m. tickets will be sold February 18th it is a great show we invite everybody to ATT the performance p as well attention parents and guardians of eighth graders please join us virtually on Tuesday January 28th for our next meeting if you have not done so already and would like to join the committee or have questions please reach out to marbor middle PTO gmail.com if you have an eighth grader please join we would love your input ongo Fund Raisers include the birthday Locker grams root line shopping discount cards and PTO membership that's it got it thank you Mr you're welcome MTH County School Board Association and Asher Mr H please yes I wasn't able to actually connect with the mammoth County but I do want to add this isn't from them but they have a webinar coming up on February 4th with senator gopel who is the education chair so and I know we don't have a board meeting so if anyone could listen in on that it sounds pretty exciting that was February 4th February 4th I think it's a Tuesday uh it's on their website so if you go to Mammoth County School Board associ I registered for it I think it starts at 6307 yeah you have to register yeah uh and then from Asher I will try to read this with the enthusiasm that was delivered to me because they are excited but it's also 10 o'clock at night so I'm GNA try uh 2025 has been a busy has been busy so far and we are loving it we rang in the new year at Asher with an awesome magic Show sponsored by our PTA as well as an electrifying grade five talent show congratulations to all our fifth graders who participated in the Showcase The Acts were superb and reminded us of how talented our kids are wow I'm trying uh a shout out to the PTO for keeping the tradition alive and for the time and effort they put into the event to showcase our kids another big shout out to the Asher homes 2025 spelling be champ Gian Saha and I hope I said that correctly the competition was was fierce but he came out Victorious we wish him luck as he moves into the next level competition we have no doubt he will represent Asher in the best way possible and I also hope he does move on uh as we move into February we look forward to a PTA pretzel sale a Valentine's Day dance another school store event in our next chapter ated education pillar kindness parents please keep an eye out for our school and PTA emails which will give more info about these events including registration spirit days a community food drive and chances to win prizes from random acts of kindness throughout the month finally last but certainly not least we are excited for Asher to join the February Board of Education meeting oh so they will be here next month as we bring our fifth grade students ambassadors to Showcase their leadership roles with the building and how they have helped to spread the word that Asher is a place of respect responsibility helpfulness and honest leaders watch the Boe meeting next month and to Mr Po's point please show up and welcome to the Asher kids so they got a lot going on it was exciting thank you Mr Hy and I look forward to uh ashers being here um at next month's meeting that's pretty cool um next one is Dr MTZ would you please do scope and um mar mar Elementary and and before I do I do want to have I have a shout out to the Middle School uh music department because I was able to attend two of their shows this the uh seventh grade and the sixth grade music shows and they were spectacular and I just want to recognize Mrs dois who uh who is in charge of the orchestra Mrs Jay who does chorus and uh Mrs Bingham who does the band The these kids will blow your minds every time I've gone to a show there and it's so close you know it's very close to me so I just go around the corner and I'm I'm I have a um love for middle school because that's what I did most of my career in so I um but when when you hear these kids from Marboro they are second to none they are they are with you know really super good and these and I uh the uh teachers just you know they they have such patience and the kids love them so much I think that's really important besides just learning that these kids love their teachers so much that they you know they're they're hanging on them as they're walking out they you know so I'm I'm so impressed with these teachers with this with the kids you know so I just you know I just want to make sure that I got that in there let me say that real quick because I was surise and strings those kids go from zero to concert in a few months Mrs dois gets them at zero they have never touched a string instrument yep and they're doing the concert it's amazing you know am Mr J at sixth grade concert Mr J helped because Mrs B was out sick and she was able to take care of the band as well she stepped in and like a rock star and took care of the band so just amazing the whole the whole thing is just great they they are fantastic well maybe we can convince them at some point in the future to come to a future board meeting that sounds like a good idea that sounds like a very good idea scope and marel okay um for scope um scope would like to express sincere gratitude to all the special education and service providers for submitting thoughtful and Innovative Grant requests the the scope board is diligently working with the special services Administration to carefully evaluate each application recipients will be announced shortly stay tuned for exciting and inclusive spring events including Bagel making and walking for a worthy cause to become a scope member and enjoy the benefits please visit our website it at scop mar. PT board.com thank you Jenna Jessica Alicia and Victoria and now thank you Mr shatz and Mrs Varga for the update on the upcoming activities for marbor elementary school as January comes to a close and February begins a short month being a short month you might be thinking what is happening in marbor schools well the students at Morel will be busy and warm with their and with their various activities turttly awesome positivity presents all students will have the opportunity to purchase a positivity Turtle to share with a special person at home student council members are working to facilitate the Assembly of the turtles as well as assist creating the positive messages that will go along with them all proceeds uh will be donated to the marau Township police canine unit in particular for canine officer bolo as he as a get well present for his recent surgery that is really sweet Miss is Vitz is that how you pronounce her name gwi TZ you think I know how to say that Vitz is that it whatz gitzits gtz Mrs gtz and Mrs Pollock class are working on a project titled the serial box domino challenge to knock down hunger their goal is to collect enough serial box is to create a line of cereal box dominoes that will be lined up and knocked over the class has set a goal to make the line stretch throughout the halls of the entire School the boxes of cereal will then be donated to a local food pantry which is a great idea the PTO PTO will be uh soon selling pizza kits from Pizza Pasta Factory on February 7th Mel will be celebrating winter with their Winter Dance the theme is snowflake spectacular February 20 is bingo night with an 80s theme and during the week of February 24th to the 28th the PTO will be hosting their exciting uh book fair the book fair is always a big hit with the students stay warm maror thank you and c and defoo sure uh before I give these reports I would like to say thank you to um cpad co-leaders Andrew Colby and Robin Bornstein as well as uh take a second to thank Dr Stradic and PTO president Nicole Nell for making time to meet with me today uh we got our Lees and reports uh late um about who we'd be reporting for and it was really kind of them to turn around a meeting um and their liaison reports to the new liaison um so that I could have them here tonight so it was wonderful hearing about the things happening at toino um and also about what is happening with cpeg uh for cpeg uh cpeg is looking to have have another collaborative meeting with scope Special Services Board of Ed special education committee members and new board of ed members this is the second meeting where the teams can collaborate discuss upcoming activities and discuss any issues additionally CP has extended this meeting to include new board bed members to understand how these three groups function um as uh someone who was newly elected I'm really looking forward to that uh I kind of found out from the liaison report that we would be included so um excited to go and see how the three groups will be functioning um there are some upcoming webinars and events hosted by outside organizations related to special education for parents and Guardians the information related to these webinars and events can be found on our Facebook page with information related to them if you aren't a member of the cpeg Facebook page this is where we provide additional resources for parents in between our regularly scheduled cpeg parent meeting the next cpeg parent meeting is scheduled virtually for February 27th at 7:30 please see the the cpad Facebook page closer to the meeting date for the link and agenda for the meeting um now on to the dinino Dolphins liaison report um first I have a school update from defino Principal Dr Stradic the band in chorus demonstrated the incredible musical Talent we have at defino our band was playing music that is normally earmarked for seventh and eighth grade students and they played flawlessly the fifth grade chorus was equally impressive with several Brave students singing solos thank you to our band director Mr Young and our music te teacher Miss CI for putting together a great concert looking forward into February on February 14th we have our first annual we have our annual first grade love bugs music showcase this music showcase is led by Miss ki our Music Teacher and is one of the highlights of the Year our first grade fam has joined us in the defino gym for this special Valentine's Day performance which includes a number of Love Bug themed songs now an update from Theo PTO again thank you to PTO president Nicole Mell for for preparing this great update for me to share February is an exciting time at defino we are kicking off kindness month with a special run of our defino dolphin spread kindness spirit wear reminder to order yours before the cut off next week this will be worn at our spirit day days and the character assembly February 3rd defino makes a difference in its fourth year we are excited to collect all the ways our defino staff makes a difference and share them via our certificate program new for 2025 we will have defino kindness counts program for all students as well on February 7th the February school store Valentine's Day themed defino Spirit day and our February PTO meeting on February 13th we are excited to welcome speaker Cory Jones for a schoolwide assembly on February 14th we celebrate Valentine's Day with a special Duck Donut treat for your student and capture a cute picture of your student at our Valentine's Day photo pooth during lunch both on sale through PT board now on February 21st we have our Li lip sync performance we are so excited for all of our students and staff performers always the best Night tickets tickets on sale soon on February 28th our students get to channel their inner Picasso at paint night with Mr D only a few seats are left for this fun event thank you thank you M and M Carrero would you please do um robertville sure thank you to Mr G for uh writing this report we are excited to share all the great things happening at Robertsville on January 30th the PTO will host a family game show night fifth grade hot chocolate social is back to Robertsville on 120 on January 24th coupled with the fifth grade chocolate sale uh which will help to offset the cost of fifth grade activities in February the PTO and Robertsville Community kickoff The Glow Run fundraiser which is which always benefits our students both in activities and donations from the PTO that directly impact our students and staff shout out to PTO for all their work in December especially decorating the outside of the school and such such a festive way and for the holiday Boutique our students got a real life lesson in budgeting our book clubs have started once a month a group of students and staff volunteers meet to read and discuss grade level appropriate books our first meeting was held on January 16th and everyone had fun we sincerely appreciate our staff volunteers and PTO parents who helped to make this happen special thanks to Mrs stafflinger and the fifth grade teachers for organizing the spelling be 17 student excelled at the classroom level and Advan to the school spelling be these students went head-to-head successfully spelling difficult words such as ogres Amnesia gargoyles and algebraic in the end it came down to four super spellers and sorry if I pronounce any of these names wrong but Savia josi uh Adavan Raj Kamar araman shrivastava and Camden wiin shank bouncing back and forth from Championship round to Championship round it was one of the most exciting beeses in Robertsville history but all the spellers uh all the spellers displayed Poise confidence and good sportsmanship beyond their years after 21 rounds including four Championship rounds Savia confidently spelled the word Harley Quinn to claim the victory our teachers worked highly to teach engaging and meaningful lessons we are proud of all the work our staff and students do daily thank you Miss perero uh that concludes I believe the we have I'm sorry one we have one more uh and J asba and I am so sorry Memorial that's okay I just don't want to leave Memorial out I apologize no my my apology I just skipped right over no problem is njsba and sure Memorial uh for njsba so my goal for the year as the liaison is to bring um njsba updates the board members and a variety of emails and so forth Just for everybody to know and so my goal is to kind of retrieve some of or extract some of the key updates that they provide us sometimes they'll give us things that happen in other districts um in other counties and so kind of look through that and share those updates with you but also share some um opportunities and so for the board members I know we have a level of governance training for each of us um that Mr caravello has enrolled Us in so that's coming and I know some of us signed up for some professional development which I thought was really great and so we'll keep taking advantage of those um but so that's my goal for njsba for Maro Memorial uh thank you Mr Pacifico the sixth grade music concert is on Thursday at 7 o'c there are the upcoming boys basketball playoffs I know everybody's really excited they're underway the eighth grade Memorial Boys versus the Marboro middle um boys team at 3:30 on Thursday here at marbor Memorial sixth and seventh grade boys will be on Friday at 3:30 at marbor Middle School uh different makers difference makers are currently holding student Le meetings to encourage peers to make good decisions and take responsibility for themselves and for the PTA thank you to uh Ivonne and Fiona the first doughnut sale with the for the Broad Street Donuts um happened before winter break and sold 550 Donuts in one morning they were delicious and all different flavors and really cool um also just had a planetarium event EV that's banned 3 days it was a 3-day presentation called what's out there um and those funds it was paid for by funds from the wathon so big shout out and thank you to all the parents that donated that money then went to the Planetarium event that the kids and staff love so thank you thank you thank you m Mendes and again my apologies um my eyes jumped completely over I apologize for that and to Memorial for skipping over them as well uh okay so I think that conclud cludes now our leaon reports um any old business okay new business any new business so um sorry Mr B this will be quick just a new business so what I discussed with the the driver incentive do we want to is that something we want to proceed with this school year um or do we want to wait to ask for the full board to get back but if we have if everybody's in consensus now we wouldn't need if we delayed it I'm just asking the question if we said we'll wait till the workshop meeting hypothetically would that delay your timeline I'm just curious no I mean we're going to we're going to start um promoting it and advertising it as soon as we get the authorization to do so and then it would just be a later month but yeah I I would think the sooner the better if we have the funds earmarked for for such a program or an incentive I just wanted to make sure that we were okay with it before you start seeing advertisements or things things posted that are being advertised for that that incentive so are you just opening up to discussion or are we just taking a formal vote what what did you need from I me just not a formal vote but if there was an overall consensus of that it was okay to proceed with that given the shortage we're facing and a pretty desperate need for you to retain and recruit Talent I'm for it so I agree I agree I agree all right I'm with you too I I and just you know I appreciate you raising it and I think there is and I'm hearing consensus from the board members present today that we need to solve this problem so I'm very much in favor it I just think that the only thing we need to get from you is just the the foundation of the program right so if we're talking about $2,500 or a $5,000 type of bonus what are the criteria associated with that and the length of time is it going to be two years for the driver to remain and if the referral is from an current employee how will that be paid out will it be paid out six months and six months one year or immediately you know how would that's the only thing I would just want is just make sure we have some definition around the program so it is going to be two years that is something we discussed before even coming to you um that would have to be a two-year minimum for the new driver to stay and the referral would um it would just be paid before the end of the school year it was over to the existing driver and is it is it capped Vinnie with the so for full my answer is sure I'm all four right to our positions are filled so we have seven open so we've allotted that the maximum exposure would be you know 5,000 per the the seven that are open so that's 35 and then if you you tagged on a r like a referral fee for that you'll get another 175 so we've e marked about like 52,000 for that and that would be Max exposure that's if everybody got referred that was new so so 52,000 could be the the max correct and then if any of those bus drivers left right then they would potentially be responsible for paying back the 5,000 sign on bonus before the two years is up if they left though within that year hypothetically would you then and I know they'd have to pay it back but would you then say that 5,000 sign on bonus is recurring so it's every time not saying you would but if there were a loss of an employee then you'd still have that 5,000 coming back correct correct yeah it cannot be a game where someone leaves and then comes back um it would have to be time barred so you can never have an employee just leave and then a year later come back um you would have to have you would really have to be a new employee for this District you would have to be a brand new employee signing on I just make on on that note what we usually did was pay over time like you have to give somebody the money up front and then they leave in a week and you got to chase your money back so over the two-year period you might say every six every three months you get a piece of that CH a chunk of that change you know the two years when that's up they got the the total amount so it works for them they're getting money as they're working extra money and they have an incent of the state to the end you're not chasing somebody that works for one week and got whatever money you're going to get yeah and these are all things that can definitely be added into that when we administer it um right now is just to see if we want to if we want to proceed with with offering such an incentive but we can definitely work out the framework of you know where there's the best controls possible in place so we do not get yeah you know one over on almost if that's what you're going to say but yeah just because of I'm all for it but I want I don't want to see $552,000 Max turn into $120,000 you know not saying it would but to to Michael's Point I've seen where they've had at at Banks where you get $250 to sign on but you have to ex meet X criteria they get it up front they never meet the criteria and then the company is chasing these people down so to your point I would hate to see that happen not that it would but I understand you're going to map that out yeah and they would have to actually be on boarded properly how all of our drivers are to even be considered for that so that means you know having a CDL that means passing their abstracts being a certified driver and they would have to work a certain period of time yes I since we up the salary for the um nurses The Substitute nurses and it seemed to and it work I think this is a great idea you know I'm well for it and I like your idea Michael you know doing yeah yeah absolutely good idea Michael it's is great that was a good idea yeah and it'll fall within the time frame of how we want them to stay no and that's actually what me and Mr BR were talking about whether or not we need a a motion or a vote at this moment when you have when you have the details andal that's when this is just giving them guidance guidance to move forward and get get those issues answered and put it on thank you okay Mr W um I would like to I just direct this to Mr balone um as I'm sure a lot of people have read uh the state of New Jersey and our governor has rolled out um some new guidance on hiring uh standards for teachers in the state of New Jersey including eliminating um some Assessments in basic skills uh I would like to know how the district uh plans on uh confronting these new gu this new guidance and what your plans are for that with our teachers um I did see that um so I'll say on the surface we are not uh lowering the standards of our teachers right so I refuse to do that um my understanding is the elimination of the general content knowledge assessment would be removed for it's almost like the the state feels like they're over testing our employee so if someone I'll just use an example if someone is um has an English certification and and passes that practice exam the state's view on taking the general content knowledge which is a lower level test is not needed so that's the spirit of what I believe they're doing um however not withstanding that statement we will not lower our standards for our teachers so you will still be uh expecting any applicants that you consider for employment to have passed the practice absolutely okay great thank you as I understand it I mean and I appreciate you're asking that question because I think it's important um it does not change the requirements of college degree and and other requirements associated with being able to qualify as an educator in our district and be licensed correct the spirit is really to um remove staff members of taking a lower level assessment so if they can pass the English practice they certainly can pass General content knowledge although you know I I took the practice that's not necessarily true um so that's why I kind of brought this to light to make sure that our practices for hiring we're going to M be me like remain consistent what with what has always been because I do believe that we have some of the very best teachers in the state and I was I'm hoping that we keep that standard of Excellence in our district we absolutely will thank you any other new business okay um next up on the agenda is the executive session um I'm going to um move that we move into executive session pursuant to open public meetings act we're going to uh discuss matters of attorney client privilege the MTA grievance and some personal matters um and that we anticipate that the executive session may take up to 90 minutes but we also don't anticipate as a board that we will return to the public after the executive session and no further action would be taken so can I have a second on the moving tu all in favor anyone opposed thank you [Music]