Mrs. Seawart here and Mr. Cohen here. Thank you very much. I'd like to just point joint point excuse me like to just draw everyone's attention to our agenda today. We have um some statements in it at the beginning on sunshine law uh and our open public meetings law where we have our notice of our meeting which
thank you Mr. Taravela for making sure that gets published. Our our meeting is being videotaped so I want to make sure everyone's aware of that. Uh we will have a se a separate section for public comments that will occur twice this evening. And again because we are on school property, our policy is for no
smoking or vaping on school grounds. So thank you everyone for that. And now may I ask you to please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I understand we have a students or students who are going to help lead us tonight through that. Who's that going to be? You're going to lead us. Thank you.
Let's get you the microphone. Everyone, please turn and face the flag and go right ahead. Thank you. Go ahead. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one
nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And would you like to just tell us your name? Um, I'm Arf Araf Sha. And your school? Uh, Marbor Memorial. And what grade are you in? Seventh grade. Thank you very much for leading us tonight
through the pledge. Okay, we're going to get started with our uh agenda for this evening. Um I will start with Mr. Balone who's got staff respect certificates. Thank you. Good evening everyone. As we do every month, we recognize staff members for
their um unwavering commitment to our school district and we recognize them uh with a respect certificate. I do have um a little write up on each staff member this month. Um so, uh the first staff
member that we are recognizing um is uh Miss Nicole McDonald. Today, we would like to honor someone. Can you give her a hand? We would like to honor someone who not only teaches the children mathematics but also builds character, inspires confidence, and shows unwavering
kindness and integrity. Her classroom is a place of safety, curiosity, and growth where every student feels seen, heard, and respected. Miss McDonald is the math coach at Robertsville, providing RTI tier 3 interventions to students who need support in mathematics. She also
inspires her peers to grow in their craft through creating and facilitating professional development opportunities. Nola is not only a remarkable teacher and colleague, she's a pillar of our district, a mentor to students, a leader, and a true example of selfless service. Whether it's
supporting new district and building initiatives, stepping in whenever there's a need, or being that steady, caring presence for students and staff alike, Nicole does it all and without asking for recognition. Well, she's getting it here
tonight. It's not just the work she does, it's the way she does it with passion, compassion, and a relentless drive to make things better for the students, teachers, and district as a whole. She has not only supported academic growth, but has been a driving force
behind projects that bring our school community together. Her work in leading parent academy sessions for our multilingual families has been nothing short of inspiring. She's opened doors for parents, giving them the tools, confidence, and connection they need to be active informed partners in their
children's education. Her work reminds us that education does not stop at the classroom door. Nicole, your work reminds us that leadership is not just about knowledge. It's about heart. And you lead with both every single day. So today, we proudly say thank you. Your respect and
dedication does not go unnoticed. It is both an honor and a privilege to recognize Nicole McDonald with one of our respect awards for this evening. [Applause]
Okay, our second recipient. I wanted to recognize the head custodian at Marorrow Middle School, Mike Shern. Mike, are you there? There he is. This is an email that came in from Dr. Stacy Gallon. And it is uh with
respect to all of uh Mike's help that he uh recently uh gave his time, his personal time with the hate ends now cattle car exhibit and mobile artifact display that we had here in the district. Without Mike's hard work and dedication, this multi-week project
would not have been such a success. He went above and beyond to ensure that we had everything we needed at all hours of the day. Whether it was showing up early to help move heavy generators to power the cattle car, switching out tables to make sure that we had the exact right
size to display the artifact so that the kids would have the best views, or setting up tents when it started to rain, because it did. To keep community leaders who were coming in after school hours dry, Mike did it all with a smile. He checked in multiple times a day to
make sure we had everything we needed and constantly offered to help with anything regardless of whether or not it fell within the bounds of his job description. In addition, as the parent of a seventh grader who met Mike during baseball triyouts, I also attest to how
great he is with kids. My son came home raving about Coach Mike and how helpful and supportive he found him to be. Middle school baseball triyouts are not easy, but Mike made each kid feel special regardless of whether or not they made the team. This is truly an
accomplishment that warrants recognition. I just wanted to let you know how much we appreciate Mike and I hope he will be recognized for his outstanding efforts. So, Mike, come on up for your certificate. Sorry. Finally, the third certificate uh
goes to Dr. Baskin of Marbor Memorial Middle School and she's right in the back [Applause] there. Dr. Baskin is the general education school psychologist here at Memorial. Some of her responsibilities
include 504 coordinator, anti-bullying specialist, peer-to-peer, and RAD club adviser. She has been the driving force behind our school culture and climate initiatives for many years. Dr. Baskin facilitates classroom lessons and
outreaches not only at Memorial, but to the sending elementary schools as well. In an effort to engage more students, Dr. Baskin started the differencemakers club. This club meets during the school day during student lunches and works on infusing district character pillars and
initiatives into the culture and climate here at Memorial. Dr. Baskin's commitment and dedication to making Memorial a welcoming place for students and staff is to be commended. Thank you, Dr. Baskin. Come up and receive your certificate.
Okay, Mr. Bologn, let's uh let's continue with your uh your hour. Um how about we do student recognition and respect certificates? Sure. And as we just heard um from the the last respect certificate from Dr. Baskin and the differencemakers club. Um I
welcome up here uh Mr. John Pacificico. If you'd like to introduce the differencemakers club and what we are about to witness. Mr. John Pacificico. Thank you Mr. Balone. Members of the board. Thank you everybody for coming out. Um I'm joined by our vice principles, Mrs. Tardio, Miss Labuza, um
our activities coordinator, Mr. Osborne, who you're going to hear from in a minute. Um and our general education school psychologist, Dr. Baskin who's going to talk a little bit about uh our differencemakers club and our students that are receiving respect certificates [Applause]
tonight. Is it okay to stand kind of over here so I can Okay. Uh good evening. The DifferenceMakers Club is an inclusive leadership program that empowers students to plan and execute school climate enhancing initiatives. As
you heard, we meet during the school day during each grade's lunch and advisory period. And this was done intentionally so that we could ensure every student has a voice and an opportunity to be a leader. In total, we have approximately 80 active members participating across
grades six, seven, and eight. Our difference makers are having a very successful year with impactful projects such as their sixth grade welcome assembly, monthly character pillar initiatives, our hash choosekind week, the creation of a new sixth grade group
aptly named friendship frenzy, and our April diversity and disability acceptance activities. In fact, if you look over there at our bulletin board, you'll see one of our Walk for Change initiatives. It's a thumbrint banner. Um, and it reads at the top, "We may all
be different fish, but in this school, we swim together. Every Memorial student contributed to our banner by adding at least one thumbrint. And our thumbrints are unique, just like each of us. And we explained to our peers that diversity
adds color and beauty to the world, or in this case, to our memorial ocean. [Applause] The difference makers that are specifically in attendance this evening took on additional responsibilities.
They are the students who volunteer whenever there's an add-on initiative or project to be done. Um, and in this case, these students took on the challenge of scripting dynamic interactive classroom lessons inspired by our responsibility and kindness
character pillars. Our seventh grade difference makers integrated aspects of the nurtured heart approach to help their peers identify their unique qualities of greatness and how they could capitalize on these qualities to become more responsible and to make good
decisions. Our eighth grade difference makers incorporated a powerful crinkled heart demonstration to show their peers that our words matter. Their kindness lesson emphasized the importance of being kind to one another and avoiding hurtful stereotypes and jokes. They also
taught their peers how to recognize when they are crossing the line and introduced them to our new 30- secondond rule. Both of these lessons were facilitated entirely by our difference makers in every sixth, seventh, and eighth grade classroom. The students
being recognized tonight continue to set a positive example for their peers by being kind, celebrating our diversity, and standing up for themselves and for others. I am so proud of these students and really truly appreciate the opportunity to recognize and celebrate
their accomplishments. So, I'm going to begin by calling up the seventh grade difference makers that are here this evening. You ready? Okay. Okay. So the first student we're going to
recognize is Vivan [Applause] Agural, Angelina [Applause] Barry, Hunter Goffin,
[Applause] Thomas [Applause] Lyle, Vihan Mutretti, Nikita
[Applause] Rajkumar, Adve [Applause] Rastoi, Sisha Setia, [Applause]
Arav Sha, Arnav [Applause] Sharma, Adriana Terishkin and Sish [Applause]
Vutla. Do you want to get just the seventh graders or wait till the eighth graders come up? Okay. Yep. [Applause] Okay. So, now I'm going to call the
names of our eighth grade difference makers that are here this evening. Hey, Louie Chin, Rabab [Applause] Chopra, Pollock, [Applause]
Jaw, Daffhne Kazala, [Applause] Melanie [Applause] Kazala, Sabrina [Applause]
Kazala, Reit Raina, [Applause] Julieta [Applause] Sakalowski and Adella Jiao.
[Applause] [Applause] I'm now going to pass things over to Scott Osborne, who's going to take us through the second part of our presentation this evening. Thank you very much.
Uh good evening members of the board, Mr. Balone, Miss Gross, families, and community members. I am Scott Osborne and I am very proud to be here tonight in my capacity as activities coordinator for Malber Memorial Middle School. Responsible Actions and Decisions or RAD
is one of our most popular clubs with 40 students across grades six, seven, and eight. Under the leadership of Dr. Baskin, they meet weekly to participate in fun interactive activities focused on making safe and effective choices. Members explore real life scenarios, develop strategies for positive
decision-making, and provide peer-to-peer education, including conducting outreaches to elementary schools. I was with the RAD Club when they conducted their outreach to Asher Homes last week, and I've prepared a short video highlighting their time with the fifth graders. After the video, I would like to introduce five members of
RAD who were with me to speak about the club and their experiences. Try and bear with us. There's a real peppy tune that goes with this. It's going to be worth it. I promise. Listen, if you need to be, I can certainly beat box this.
[Music] [Music] What decision has made the decision as to not like my name is James and I'm looking forward to be a lot of [Music] Okay. So am I
having what are my options? What are the consequences? Good and bad of [Music] each encouragement. First off, sleep over and one of your friends pulls
out. So now we're going to try that again and see how they solve the problem differently. [Music] Yeah, sure. Emily and Katie are trying to Great job. What was the problem? The problem was that one of
Emily in this case was banging. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music]
Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music]
[Applause] I know the music made it right. It was to uh I want to thank uh Mrs. Sili, Miss Clanovich, and the wonderful team of fifth grade teachers who uh not only welcomed us but allowed us to film. That was really nice of them. Uh I would now
like to introduce five of the RAG club members who are with us. Amelia Sisterness, Angelina Cooper, Allara, Isabella Orin, and Barini Shriram. They're going to share why by all means. Yeah. They're going to share why RAD is such an important part of our community.
And then we'll invite the board members into two breakout uh groups for five minutes to explain a little bit more about their outreach process. Hi everyone, my name is Vini Shriom and I'm really proud to represent the RAD club, the responsible actions and decisions club at Malbor Memorial Middle
School here. Um this club is important because it helps younger students get ready for the big changes that come with starting middle school. We visit fifth graders and we tell them about stay um making choices that help them stay true to their values and to help them think
before they act. These lessons help them feel more confident and prepared as they enter a new environment with more freedom and responsibility. Rod club doesn't just help them, it helps us grow by leaders and as role models, too. By guiding younger students, we're making our school community stronger, kinder,
and more supportive for everyone. Thank you. [Applause] Hi, my name is Amelia and it is important to do outreaches to the elementary schools because it is challenging to prepare the fifth graders for the difficult decisions middle
schoolers may have to make. These fifth graders do not know what's going to happen the in the year following unless they have an older sibling. Moreover, visiting them breaks the ice for middle school. Plenty of fifth graders are scared to go into middle school. But after we visit the schools, a variety of
fifth graders are excite excited to go to middle school and are ready to make the best decisions for the challenges ahead. Thank you. Hi everyone, my name is Gomez and when I was in fifth grade, I was always curious about what it would be what it would feel like to be in middle school.
I looked up to the older students and wish I had someone to guide me and answer my questions. Then my teacher told me that there was a group called RAD that was be that would be visiting. When the RAD students arrived, I realized they were exactly what I needed. People who could talk to me
through what to expect in middle school. By the end of the presentation, I I felt relieved and excited knowing I had someone to look up to who had been through it. Now that I'm old enough to go back and be a part of RAD myself, I feel proud. I get to be
the person I once looked up to, helping younger students and sharing my own middle school experience with them. Thank [Applause] you. Hi, my name is Angelina and my favorite part about RAD was definitely the opportunity to meet new people as
well as going to the elementary schools and being able to interact with the younger students. RAD is part of the reason I have the friends I have today and also why I'm confidently able to say I know how to make and teach good decisions. [Applause]
Hi, I'm Isabella Orin. One thing that I learned in my three years of RAD is the impact and importance of making a decision. What I'd like to share with the community is your decisions can affect you, good or bad, in the future. And there are many ways to try and prevent making a bad decision. But
people are human and mistakes are bound to happen. [Applause] Okay, the members of RAT are now going to invite the board members if they'd like to go into little breakout rooms for five minutes just to talk a little
bit more about the experience and get a little firsthand taste. Okay. Thank you again uh especially for being good sports and jumping into the breakout rooms. Uh we couldn't be more proud of our Rag Club members uh and the impact they have on our community. Please join me in celebrating their
contributions with one more round of [Applause] applause. Okay, that was really exciting and um so unconventional. So, thank you so much for doing that. Uh we may
incorporate these breakout groups into our board meetings in the future. Right. Um okay. U continuing Mr. Balone with student impact. Sure. Student impact in keeping with the theme of climate uh and safety. Uh this uh month student impact
comes out of Frank J. Dugan Elementary School. Uh the Dugan School climate and safety committee created the caught being a dragon program as a means to acknowledge and encourage students encourage students character development. Students can be caugh c caught by an any staff member for doing
the right thing, respecting themselves and others, acting as a role model, or going above and beyond. Being nominated three times means earning a token for the school's book vending machine. The Dugan PTO generously purchased the book vending machine for the school, allowing
students to redeem a token for a book of their choice. And we do have a short video for you. [Music] At Frank J. Dugan Elementary School, the students work hard and play
[Music] harder. Their copying a dragon program acknowledges and encourages character development throughout the school day in the following areas. Do the right thing.
Respect yourself and others. Act model. Go above. Own your actions. Negotiate problems peacefully. With the amazing help of parents in the
PTO, Dugan has a book vending machine to incentivize students to get copying a dragon at least three times. Being caught three times earns a token to redeem at the book vending machine. Now, students who are selected as student of the month also receive a
token for the vending machine. Not only does the program encourage character development, but it also combines students love for reading We got copying a dragon. Okay, thank you very much for that.
That's actually exciting. Um, and so good to see the the good work of the PTO. Um, may I ask you to continue with artwork on display, Mr. Po. Sure. The artwork on display um that was run before the board meeting um was Miss Lawson's seventh grade general art
students at MMS enhanced their technical drawing skills by creating a radial symmetrical tile. The students studied the different characteristics of radial symmetry in art and design. Additionally, the students learn how to mix tints and shades of color to create a three-dimensional illusion using
paint. The artwork exhibits the students effort in creating meaningful art. Thank you. Thank you. Um we've had, you know, this was just a very special day to have all these presentations. So, thank you very much to everyone who joined us today and
congratulations for your good work. Is that video going to play? We're good. [Music]
I'm not sure about the other board members, but My first reaction was wow. I mean just absolutely incredible, beautiful work and such talent that are here. So thank you for sharing that and and for um such being such incredibly talented and creative students. Thank
you. Um okay, so we do have a lot of people here tonight and um and we have a lot of different groups represented. I would like to suggest that we take a 10-minute recess. Um can I have a motion from the board to do that? Anyone? Miss Gandhi seconded. Miss Carrero. All in
favor? I. So, we're going to take a 10-minute recess, let everyone get together, take some more pictures, and then we'll come back into session. Thank you, everyone. Mr. Caravella, will you please call roll? Mrs. Balomo here. Mrs. Carrerero here.
Mrs. Gandhi here, Mr. Hyatt here, Mr. Alonsski here, Mr. Seawart here, and Mr. Cohen here. Thank you very much, everyone. And we're going to move on with our agenda. We're up to announcements. Mr. Balone.
Thank you. I do have three announcements for you. First one is a recognition of our successful Hayden's Now Holocaust exhibit that we had at both middle schools. our students were able to experience it. Um we also had a
dignitary event um afterwards and um attendees were able to um experience an immersive um exhibit where uh whereby they entered a replica of a World War II cattle car that was used to transport um
individuals to concentration camps. Um in that cattle car in the exhibit was um a 360 degree view video uh by two Holocaust survivors who told their story. So it was very impactful. Um and then following that um or I should say
coupled along with that exhibit was uh a genuine artifact exhibit um actual uh artifacts from the Holocaust that our students and dignitaries were able to see. Board members, thank you uh for attending as well. um very impactful
event and um just you know another um another way that uh we here at MTPS are showing um how we are dedicated and uh unwavering to our year of respect. So that's um a very successful event and I
I do want to thank um Dr. Stacy Gallon who partnered uh with the district to help bring that event to the district. Um so that's the first um announcement I have. The second one is we um had a a visit from the New Jersey Department of
Education's Office of Preparedness and Emergency Planning. Um Dr. Gambino uh heads up that division at the New Jersey Department of Ed. Um this was very different than a CUSAC visit, right? CUSAC is really looking for things you're uh you know, they looking to see
that you're doing everything right. And if you're not doing everything right, um you they they tell you. Um he came in and did a field visit in two of our schools. Um but it wasn't um again it wasn't a Cusack visit. It was
more uh informative, but he still would tell us if we were doing something wrong. Um and I am happy to report uh without specifics, right? Because we don't really talk about security in public. Um, I am happy to report that he travels throughout the state of New
Jersey and visits school districts to um offer his advice and and his expertise in the area of safety and security. And he was blown away by the level of security that our schools have. Um, and I'm going to welcome him back um to do
more site visits. But the two schools he did see and you know our schools are generally the same, right? said, "We have the same protocols that happen in every one of our schools." And um I'll quote him, I'll paraphrase by quoting him. And he basically said, "I wish I
could give you more. You know, you should see the things that I see around the uh state of New Jersey." And Marbor is not one of them. You are uh you know, he said, "You should be commended by the level of safety and security that we have for our staff and students." So, I'm very proud to report
that. Um thirdly, um you'll see on the agenda this evening an $88,000 grant awarded to us for the Abbott Cent's playground. Mr. Caravel, I don't know if you want to add to that, but um that was a a big win for us so our youngest
learners can benefit from from that uh playground. Thank you. So it was um a competitive grant process that comes out every year. we submitted for uh the Abbott Early Learning Center large playground in the back and also the Marbor Elementary
playground just to see how much we would be able to obtain. It looked like the max grant that came out to districts was about 95,000 and we received about 88,000 and I believe the stipulations are you have uh for three years to utilize that grant, but you're allowed to keep applying for every window or
every cycle they go through each school year. So, we're going to apply next year and the year after that and then we're going to compound that towards one goal or we're going to just utilize that and spread it across the district. But that was that was nice to see for us to finally get a competitive grant approved because usually we don't meet the
qualifications for for those because we're not technically one of the Abbid or underfunded districts or certain criteria that they set forth. Thank you. Um just get ahead. So I also have an
announcement uh just an update on our food service program. Um so we've been working with with Chartwells and and Vinnie Palro and and Mr. Palmo. Thank you for bringing up the the questions about the um the food that was being served at the elementary school level.
So, in June, we are going to be making a presentation basically just going over the breakfast program, how it's going to look for next year, which we're anticipating going districtwide. Um, because right now it's just piloted in the schools that were required to have it. Also, we're going to go over
basically just a brief overview of the food service lunch program and how it works and how funding works and what we have to do to qualify to achieve that funding, but also just updates to the lunch menu. So, we began to pilot um over certain elementary schools and
just basically in general just elementary schools and see how basically cycling through different menu items to see how they would um they would fare and they've actually been very very successful. Um so with the help from extra funding uh Mr. P Mr. Pomero was
able to request um USDA fresh fruit and vegetables through a program and we've been able to introduce all fresh fruit and vegetable items as part of lunch and we eliminated any canned fruit or cupped fruit and any canned vegetables in the um in the
servings. So these are words from Mr. Palro. So the students have loved the changes. In addition to that, we have introduced a few new lunch items that will be offered all year next year at the elementary schools as their premium items. So, middle school has a premium option. We're going to do that for elementary as well. Um, and they're
already being offered in the middle schools. So, some of the new lunch items are there'll be grilled chicken Caesar salad, chef salad, garden salad with grilled chicken, buffalo chicken wrap, Italian and turkey and cheese sandwiches. Some of the new fruit and vegetable options are fresh blueberries, fresh strawberries, uh fresh fruit
baskets like apples, oranges, and bananas will be available for students to to take fresh broccoli, carrot sticks, celery sticks, and fresh salads. And this will all be on like a circ like basically a rotating basis. And then also, we're looking into bring in organic milk. We don't know how well
that will fare, but we're looking as an option just to to bring it in to see how we'll do. um limited juice beverages and alo cart items as as part of lunch and again working with Chartwells to to offer this all next year and then he's always as always Vinnie's awesome when
it comes to just getting feedback and trying to you know cultivate something or update something to meet the standards of what the school's looking for so individually. So, just a little update, a food for thought, no pun intended, but um
um but we'll have more information and and a visual in June. Thank you, Mr. Carol. Um I'm all of a sudden hungry. So, uh just I just wanted to comment um just a few things and any of the board members would like to comment
as well. I I just wanted to comment on the hate ends now um display. Um I had Thank you for inviting the board. Um it was so immersive. It was so meaningful um for me emotional as a as a person who
has family who have gone through the Holocaust and who lost family members that way. um and to watch my wife's grandparents grow up um surviving that was just it was just really to see what they experienced really left me um truly
um speechless um and I think that that's been the general sentiment from what I've heard from many of the people including our students who saw that. So um I hope that's something that we have the opportunity to continue for many years ahead. I I also just want to make mention and I want to thank you know Mr.
because I know um you were part of sort of this opportunity initially as you know in your in your private capacity and I want to thank you for for working with our district and working with with Karma to help bring that forward. It was um again something
extremely emotional um for many people who attended. That's just um my first comment. My second comment is congratulations to the district and to the schools and to the superintendent, Mr. Mr. Lansonski, your leadership on the security committee for that report that Mr. Balone gave us because that is
very comforting I think for everyone regardless of what school you're in to hear that is just an amazing uh accomplishment in this day and age. Um and then again, congratulations on the grant application. I know it was one of the first things we I actually got to
vote on as a board member um this year. So, it's exciting to sort of actually see it happen so fast, so fast, and to sort of see it um in a great way. So, thank you for that as well. Um that's my comments. Um anyone else want to offer any other comments before we move on? Yeah, I would just like to thank the
administration, Mr. Blown in particular, for I think the hate ends now exhibit is a prime example of a community partnership. If it wasn't for the Jewish Federation in the heart of New Jersey and Marbor school district, that that doesn't happen. So, thank you for embracing that and making it happen within our school district. I think it's
vital. It's important and it was a success. And not to mention our religious leaders because I know you know our the rabbis were there from the from different temples and right there were elected officials there. It was really it was just a real powerful statement overall. Thank you.
Okay. Um very welld deserved. All right. Um we are up to the next item which is uh bus driver and building maintenance vehicle abstracts. Sure. All abstracts were run and all have privileges in good standing. Thank you very much. Uh we're up to the next
item, Mr. Caravilla, which I believe is yours, which is the discussion item from the bond referendum and a uh presentation by Laura [Music] Communications. All right. So, thank you for giving me this time to
um basically discuss what we've been discussing the past few months. Um and that's basically the referendum that we're gearing up to go out for in December. As you know, in the previous meeting, we had um Tony Salamini here who is actually going to be our bond
council. So, there's a lot of players when it comes to putting out a referendum or going out for a second question for additional funding. So, it really takes a team to really drive that home and try to, you know, navigate that successfully and also have
it successful. Um, Marorrow has not had a successful referendum in quite some time, possibly, I think, since 2001. So, on tonight's agenda, you'll see item number 14, which is your DOE application project submissions to um basically to
get approved for for the the projects before we can actually even go out to referendum. Second question, we need to have those approved. And also on the agenda is to partner with the communications company. So I've invited out here Laura Bishop Communications who's actually done about 80
communication campaigns um and has achieved successfully funding for two for school improvements about $2.2 billion. So um I believe you were just in Manalopin as as well which they successfully passed about a hundred million dollar referendum. So, with me
tonight is is Laura Bishop and Renee Janowitz. And um I just wanted us to basically have the same approach before we vote is to open up the dialogue, let them explain exactly how their their services work, what they offer, um how
it all comes together and and what we're going to be doing in the in the months months coming leading up to to voting. Um, and then at the end, after you meet everybody, we're all going to stay in contact because everybody works together some way or another when it comes to to
pushing this forward and and making successful as possible. It's It's on. Okay. Um, so I'm Laura Bishop. Um, I have Uh and this is Renee Janowitz. Renee leads our um referendum practice um area. We have um a firm of
about uh 15 to 17 of us. Um we we um have developed we work with school districts statewide from Kate May County to um Bergen County. Um we've we work in general communications, but we develop a niche uh practice in our referendum
work. And it's um primarily because we have referrals because of our um not only our success rate but our ability to work with as part of the district's team and with your other team like um your bond counsel, your architects, your financial adviserss. So uh as
communications firm, we um at we work hard to communicate with the entire community and and anformational campaign. Um Renee just we just uh wrapped up our 86th uh referendum. Um we
have an 85% success rate working with districts to get to communicate with the communities and get and the referendum passed. Um Renee can explain a little more about the most recent referendum, but um we work with districts of all sizes in all different communities,
rural, um urban, and um we we've had a as I said a high success rate. Um we bring a team together uh to work with every district. So part of our our work is to bring three or four members of our team to work with work with the
district. We also have our own um an art department that works with us. So all the all the material is uh branded reflects your brand and but it also communicates very clearly explains this very uh complicated process with and all of them are nuanced. What we always talk
about is um we understand how to work with the school district on communicating a referendum, but we don't know your community and we don't know your district as well. We'll get to know you over the time we work with you, but we still every every referendum we work on, we learn something new and we tr and
we make sure that we uh customize all of our approaches and um pivot when we need to. And Renee can explain a little more about that and sort of more about our referendum process. Thank you. One of the things that we do is put together a list of um what we
call tactics, which were very strategic and the word tactic is appropriate to meet your community wherever they are. Now, that might be PTO meetings and it might be um a 5K run in in September. It might be um uh pizza box stickers that are used the weekend or two before the
vote. All of those ways we try, as Laura said, to meet your entire community. It's very easy to meet your parents. You can email them. you have a list of emails, they'll open your email. Reaching the rest of the community is more difficult. It's also become more important because voting by mail has
really increased, especially since the pandemic. And because of that, people will get a ballot about four to five weeks before the vote with the full price tag on it and not a lot of explanation. And if you have people who don't have kids in school, they're going to read that as their first thing. We
need to reach them before. We need to provide a way for them to get information for us. That's a website accessible to everybody. Um, we also have suggested for Marorrow and uh short video. You've used video here tonight. So, obviously your community recognizes
the value of that way of presenting material. Um, social media we make use of. And then things like pizza boxes. Um, we've worked with local coffee shops. We've put magnets on the back of cars that are very prideoosting as well
as bring attention to the fact that the district is looking to build on its successes with this uh plan that you have for a referendum. You have if you have questions for us, this is your opportunity. We're both here to answer anything you've got for us.
So, just elaborate more on the um so like the in-person events and the and the virtual forms and then talking about the um the referendum communications committee that you like to put together. So, how would that work here? Because I I think the board would like to
understand basically how that's going to all transverse into like us getting our message out and just keep keep getting the message out because it's going to take all of us to to really pass this. Not really just having Mrs. bishop show up and and and do stuff. We're all going
to have to take part in it somehow and collectively work with them to really to push our message. So, some just go over some of the other, you know, factors. I'm going to let Laura talk about the communications committee that was established before I joined the firm and then I will cover the the uh forum. That sounds great. Yeah. So, um the
communications committees are um are key to the referendum campaign. and we bring together um members from the school district and the community that represent, you know, everybody in the community. That's what we want um that's who we want to bring to the table. It's
around 15 to 20 individuals. Um typically the first meeting is a couple of hours. We'd like to have them in person because it just encourages everybody to talk. We actually, you know, we'll have we'll bring together possibly the architect if that's appropriate, but um the financial
advisors, bond counsel. So this committee understands the the bond referendum process and the communications process and we also look to them to um you know bounce those messages off of that committee and say does this resonate and with would this
resonate with your community. Uh we look to them to identify um the clubs and organizations that they're part of that we can uh share the messages through those organizations um and those individuals. Um it's it's a key
component. they typically meet monthly. Um, for example, the idea of this car magnet that Renee mentioned or uh that came out of a committee, right? So, we were working with a a district on a referendum and we they needed to boost community pride because they had a
failed referendum the year before and it created a lot of um animosity in the community, but we wanted to bring people together and we found that this car magnet was designed by a member of the committee by her husband who was a graphic designer. we started to see those magnets on cars throughout the
community. So, we knew that they were, you know, it was boosting community pride and it and it um so that came directly out of the committee. We we get a lot of uh great ideas. We also get feedback from that committee about what they're hearing that may be misinformation or rumors,
misunderstandings, and we can address that and and reach out um to to uh the community through that committee. Um we we encourage a lot of discussion. We stay pretty quiet in those meetings because we want a lot of discussion. We also run things by them like the video
or the flyers and does this does this um is this communicating will this reach your community? Do you have any input to share? So that committee will bring together um we're talking about a December vote. So, um, we'd probably
bring them together in September or maybe this maybe a August or September depending on your community. And for example, one thing we look at a community for is some communities everybody's everybody empties out and the leaves for the shore in the summer.
Other communities everybody stays around. So, we tailor everything to to meet the needs of the community when we're going to meet. Um, we we have meetings in the either in the evening or late afternoon. sometimes um communities come together more easily. So we definitely is it's definitely a very
tailored and very important component um of the referendum. So we actually that you bring that up. We have a communications committee with the district. Okay. So that's something that we'd be able to partner with just with the communications committee also. Um
and we also have an advisory committee which we can pass through to to utilize that resource as well. So, um, there's a lot of options that we have when it comes to trying to to get this message out and to also make make
it very successful and to have an approval, right? Yeah. So, we we the communications um I serve on the comm so and full disclosure, I do what you do for a living, pardon me, I do what you do for a living, but okay. I work in healthcare, so my clients are pharmaceutical companies and hospitals
and things like that. But we did meet as a communications committee. Um, and we're fully invested in supporting you. I read your we read your proposal. I think the values there. It sounds like you're in it from uh setting the strategy, the messaging, helping us deliver the tactics. Um, I think
importantly evaluation of those tactics, refining that. So, as long as you guys are in that, I think the proposal you put forward is certainly of value from my experience. So, but you'll have our commitment is is the point. Yeah. And as Laura said, we learn something from
every referendum. So we've already gone over that learning curve for you. What we'll bring to you is the experience of 86 now referenda that we've run. So we bring that. Um let me step back and talk about the uh forum that we run which many times is a virtual forum rather
than in person. Again, a different district might choose to be an in-person forum or even a hybrid forum. We started doing it during the pandemic when you couldn't gather without face masks and six feet apart. Um what we found then was about three times as many people
joined the virtual event and three times as many watched the recording. Far more than we would see if we had something in an auditorium where people had to get a babysitter, rearrange dinner, sit there and listen to the architect and then go through a tour or something like that. We've really seen a lot higher
engagement. So we've kept it around. Um what LBC does behind the scenes is manage sharing slides. We manage receiving questions from the public and routing those to the correct person on the panel. Um we we take the recording and sometimes even modify that
recording. For instance, if the financial adviser had a great explanation, 30 second soundbite of how you can pass a referendum, use your capital reserve, pay it off, and and end up with a zero tax rate. Let's just say
that would be something we would take that 30 seconds that would become a social media post. It would become a link on the website. It would be an outside person with a a real um acumen for financial advisement explaining a very tricky thing that maybe not a lot of people would buy into. So we make use
of that forum multiple ways. It it becomes very handy to have the recording of it. And I really do believe more people can make it. I've been a mom with two kids in school myself. So I can, you know, I can imagine me trying to figure out how am I going to get to the school for two hours and homework is still going to get done and who's doing
dinner. Instead, I could just be watching it and that that's really turned into a much higher engagement. It's become a a signature um tactic of ours at LBC. So thank you so much for um being here. I I do have just a couple of questions.
Um what I saw in your proposal, you had several strategies obviously that you're recommending that we consider. I assume that your recommendation based upon the ones here, everything from the inperson to the video to the website, right, to
the infographics that would have to be developed. You're working us through that from start to finish, correct? Yes, start to finish. We actually build the website. Do you also maintain it? has to get changed and updated and things like that because most often what we use is a
Google site and um if you're familiar with Google sites, they have a really long address which we dispense with. We have it go from the district site. So, um I I don't know the ending of your website, but it would be it would be that your regular website address with like slash vote or something like that
so that people would already know what the website was and they could add slashvote and get there, right? But we maintain that Google site because it's so easy for us to make changes and it's, you know, a website is not like um a flyer that you spend a lot of time making sure there's no mistakes. You send it to the printer and it doesn't
change. We can change a website extremely quickly. And we just found that it's actually easier for us just to do it than to work with like the tech team and call them up and say on this page, the third paragraph, see how there's two spaces? You need to, you know, we can just do it in about 10
seconds. So, um, we do that. It's translatable. It It branches right off of the district's website after the referendum. If you choose to hire us, we'll continue maintaining it. If not, someone from the district will be able to maintain it very easily and eventually even fold it into the regular pages. Great. So, you're going to use
aliases and redirects and everything else. I appreciate that. Right. A seamless redirection. It's like you wouldn't even notice it just Yeah, I appreciate that. Um, and I also I guess from the the one the question I had because you you talk about the messaging you
helped create um and I know that there was a a caveat as to whether or not multiple messages were going to be needed and I think in the context of our community there are multiple different audiences that are very interesting to this. So I guess the question I have is are you
contemplating as part of this proposal already the fact that there are different target audiences which may need to be addressed in the context of the referendum. Want to take that? Sure. Um yes, we definitely we we'll have um maybe three to six key messages, but then we tweak them and we make sure that
we're reaching the audience. For example, a um a community member without children in the district maybe is more interested in the tax impact and um and also home values. And so that we we would change that messaging. We also
know that um you know if if there's any controversy or there any um conf there's any confusion we kind of pay attention to what's going on in social media or even what what that's what's this committee may be hearing and we may you know tweak a message or turn up a
message. Um you know there was one district where there was a lot of suspicion or a lot of concern uh unrelated unrelated to the referendum. So the community on social media we were hearing we're not really happy with the district right now but we're getting
we're getting state aid for this work and our children need it. So I'm voting so I'm voting yes. So and once Renee heard that that's the message we started really turning up that the the state aid message. So that's what we would do.
Once in my life I was a DJ. I'm not kidding. And I think of um you know when you you have lots of dials that you can make it a little more bass, a little more treble, a little more background, a little more reverb. And that's what we do when we listen to the communications committee and what people say at the
forum. The questions they ask what's on social media. So in the case Laura brought up the last two weeks of the campaign when we saw that on social media that a woman said, "I will hold my nose and vote for it for the state aid." Well, we just went to our state aid plan and turned down a bunch of messages and turned up state aid. state aid became
the leading message for the remaining two weeks. No one thought that would pass. It passed. The second question passed. It passed well because that message really were really resonated with people. We knew that and so we made sure they understood what state aid meant for that district. Social media is
obviously going to be a blessing or a curse, right? That's right. How do you how do you propose or do you not propose controlling that message because so that people do get the right information and not necessarily misinformation or disinformation.
Um we accept that it is a a double-edged sword. We advise the communications committee on when they should and the board as well on when they should step in and when they should not and even how to step in. For instance, um I say don't get into a tennis match. the more you hit the ball back, the more it will come back to you. At some point, you have to
walk away. So, we suggest that they, you know, maybe repeat something that's correct and then don't don't engage more than that. We also suggest they share posts from the district so that it reaches a different audience. And also, when you share a post, you've just increased the the um tendency for that
post to show up again and again. You know, like Facebook will say, "Wow, people are sharing this. They this is a really good message." And they will amplify it. So, it is it's a it could be a curse. I can I can't think of many districts where it's really run the campaign. It's important that and and we
guide people to this. It's important that people realize you you will not win an argument there. You need to put information out and then be willing to walk away. So, we have lots of ways to guide both the communications committee as well as the board on that. Then I um I would just add too with social media
if if there's a a lot of controversy, there's a there's not that's not the root of it. There's something there there's a root cause for that. So remember that. Like if if something's being amplified on social media that's negative, you need to also pay attention that it's not just coming from social
media. There's there's a reason for that. Mrs. You have a question. I I have a few questions if you don't mind. Good. Um first, hello. Welcome to Marro. I just wanted to know if we will have a consistent contact point from start to finish like you're here with us till the
end or do does this get redirected or or we would work to assign a team that matches what Marorrow has and what you need and as Laura said it's it's usually three to four people including someone from our art department. You would have one account manager and that is the one main contact for you. Okay, great. Yeah,
you may get emails from the other people on the team, but you you have that one contact from start to finish. Okay. And I'm sure you know we're seeing so much state aid cut across the entire state. So I um I happen to be the liaison for
Freehold Regional District, which is our high school district. We are K through 8. Freehold Regional is our high school district. It seems as though they might be going out for a referendum as well. So, have you ever worked sim simultaneously on two referendums within one community? And how would you
differentiate target audiences and you needs for K through eight versus needs through high school? Like I'm afraid that the referendums might go against each other, so to speak. Do you have any experience with two referendums going on at the same time in a district?
Great question. I know. Welcome. At the same time, I can I'm sure there have been some that have been the regional district and then ascending district. That had to have happened. No, it did actually. Just um not too long ago, we worked with um in um Morris County, the
regional high school went not simultaneously, but they were right before it and there was concern about that. And we heard that from the K8 district that was going out afterward, right? and they had and they had two questions and there was a there were a lot of concerns and we had to get over
it that when you voted recently you did not vote for the it wasn't this referendum it was the regional district so we did have to get past that message and the regional district had no tax increase but the K to8 did have a tax increase and two questions and the
second question was for um to build an auditorium with no state aid they both passed oh by a wide margin congratulations so And you know what that's sort of us taking advantage to of all the um resources. It happened that the architect had gone to school there. He
had been in the performing arts. So we had him as part of the tours in involved and it was he was great. He was like he was like the star. It was great because he was un I would never have put him as a performing arts guy and here he was.
And you know I almost had to like tell him don't break out in song. Actually, he could have broken out in song if he wanted to, but that's what I mean. We kind of took advantage of his talents and his interest in the community, but but so they were they were piggybacked. They weren't simultaneous, but they were close. Thank you. Thank you. I
appreciate it. I'll say that um just in general, not directly related to your question, but in general, I'm very impressed that the voters of New Jersey, who are the pay the highest taxes, right, in the state, I mean, in the country routinely, 85, it's actually 86%, not to brag, but it's 86% of the
time when we're involved, they go to the polls and they volunteer to take on more property taxes for their schools. That's very impressive to me. Um, so you might go into it with hesitation, but you also just can take some solace in the fact that 85% of the time when they work with
us, they have volunteered to take on more taxes. One final question. This even you don't even have to answer it tonight. I was just wondering as far as um compensation goes, right? So let's say we put in all this work, all this time, energy, and effort, and the referendum does not
pass. Is this like an attorney situation where we're still paying for your services regardless of the outcome? Yes, you are still paying for our services. There are some professionals that bill after the fact if it passes. We're in an awkward position. We can't do that
because we run anformational campaign. We are not allowed to run a pro-y yes campaign. So, it'd be inappropriate if we said you only pay us if we if it passes, right? We we put in the time and we do we do believe that not only do we think, you know, every referendum has its value, but we improve your
communications pipelines and your strategies while you're working with us, we we feel like we leave a district with better communications than we before they worked with us. Thank you. Thanks so much. And a lot of these costs can be built in to the referendum if it's
successful. So you could get at least 30% of your your funds back from from what you're putting out for all the additional services. Um, thank you so much. Does anybody have any question? Any other board questions?
Um, thank you so much. I do think that um Oh, go a question. Did we put out an RFP or a request for bid? So since so we did not need to because as the QPA it
anything that exceeds 44,000 we would usually go out for but this was under that and this is at 40. Yes. And it's a not to exceed amount correct. So there's chances are it might not be at 40. It's just a a limit a cap.
Oh is it is it off? No it's on. um we have a not to exceed amount and if but we're not going to come back to you and say oh we hit that amount we're finished if we if we exceed it if if we know our time has exceeded that amount we just we'll work we we know what it
takes to the time that we we have to put into a after doing uh working on 86 referend I hope we understand the time that's required but if if our time goes over we're not coming back to you and saying we need a new we need more more money. If it's not to exceed, we're
gonna and we we don't slow down. We're not gonna drop the ball. So, I I thank you. I I I just had one other question. Did you have any other questions? I did. So, just a followup. How did we come to the service provider? So, the service provider comes highly
recommended by a lot of districts who have utilized them through the referendum process. One being Manalpin. Um and so I I know I know Mrs. Bishop from NJSBO and from her attending some of the meetings. And so this is like a a certain niche where we want we want the
most successful service we could find. And I'm confident that working with them, we could actually have a successful uh campaign, a successful referendum. I do not know too many companies outside of here that have the reputation that they do when it comes to success rate. So that's really how I how
I determined bringing them in. Thank you. Anyone else have any other questions? Jenna, it's not it's just a comment. So, um, when Chad and I, we went to the NJSBA communications forum, they were on the panel and it was very impressive
work and we got to see it and, um, it's excellent. So, I just wanted to throw that out there that it's not just like pulling someone from a a hat or whatever. It's um, it was very impressive work. Thank you. So, so um if I just I have one other
question which is from your perspective and from the referendum's success, who do you see as being your for the purposes of making this referendum successful? Who do you see as your primary point of contact within the
district here? And what role do we as the board have in this particular referendum from your from your communications point of view? And what do you mean as the point of contact with you? Well, you have to work with someone. You have to sort of be able to say, "This is the person I'm going to be
working with on a day-to-day basis." Um, we we have I just want to see make sure that we know who that person is. Well, we it depends on the district and um you know, one district not too long ago, we worked with a um primarily a board committee. They had an interim
superintendent who was supportive, but um the the attitude was this is a boarddriven referendum. It could be the BA and the superintendent. It it really does vary. Um and the board's role is critical because um believe that the
community has to know that the board stands behind this at least the majority of the board. We we it's much better when it's unanimous decision to move forward with the referendum, but maybe um a board member may disagree or two.
Um, we had one recently. It was two questions and a few of the board members did not agree with the second question, but it was a it was voted they voted to move forward, but they did not work against it in the in the community, right? So, it it both questions passed
and we very often we're not always, you know, hund we're not 100% sure all the time for any of these. Sometimes we're very skeptical about the second question like this recent referendum but um the second question passed by a wide margin and everybody was pleasantly surprised
but um that the board's role is very critical because we also have worked with districts where the board does not want to participate in anything is not out there talking is not part of the communications and and that those referenda typically do not pass because
the community gets the message like they voted for this But why aren't we hearing anything? Why aren't we seeing them involved? So, it's important. So, so I hear you say the board is the executive sponsor, the board is the face of the referendum, and a board member or board
members, if it's a committee, are the going to be the primary point of contact in working with you. Go ahead. Go ahead, Renee. I think our primary point of contact is most likely to be Mr. Caravello. he would be the one we're going to and and
from him we would say we need some information. Can you connect us to the facilities manager or you know we'd like to speak with the director of curriculum to find out you know classroom environment and how that affects people. In that case we may even want to speak with the school nurses to find out what
they see like in heavy pollen times what's what's coming into your your office. So this would be our point of contact if you're willing and then um from there we would branch out and get what we need. And then you may have a a group of people that are the reviewers of things like um the flyer or the
website or a design for a framework of social media. Does that answer everything you need? Yeah. Great. That that I just I want to make sure Mr. Carell understands his role. Yes. Absolutely. And Mr. Balone. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. Those
were my questions. Anyone else? So, one other thing aside from the communication. So, thank you so much for standing up here and taking questions. Um, the DOE application pro project that's being submitted as you saw in
your green notes um provided a little bit more of an update regarding costs. So, the architects, the engineers, they once we get this in motion, they did a thorough walkthrough of the buildings and they saw that you do need significant amount of electrical upgrades to take care of that or handle
that load capacity of hand putting in split units. So the referendum is going to be more than $ three and a half million dollars, but it's not changing the scope of work. It is still only Robertsville and Asher schools for HVAC, and it's only the classrooms. It's only
the rooms that do not have it. So it's not like it's you might see a higher dollar amount, but it's not that we're adding anything. It's just that when they actually do their in-depth review of the schematics when it comes to the engine, the engineering piece, they saw that we needed electrical upgrades.
Also, the tariffs are not helping. The anticipated tariffs on equipment is going to they're just padding the estimate a little bit just to in the event that the bids do come in a little bit higher than anticipated. Again, this is a project that goes out to bid. So,
whatever the estimate is, it can either come in over or or under. We always pray that it's going to come under, so you don't need to ask for as much. Um, but with that being said, I just wanted to reiterate we do anticipate funding this solely through reserves and through the
the SDA when we if when it is successful when we get the the funds. So, this will not be an increase to the taxpayer. Um, what's going to happen is we're going to be a little bit more aggressive at the end of the year when we put in our surplus or our fund balance. We're going to allocate that to capital reserve so
we have enough to cover for this project. Um, but when you see the higher amount, I don't want anybody to think, okay, well, now how much are we on the hook for? We're still under the same guys that we're going to do it with just reserves and also with whatever we get
from the state. And like uh Mr. Solomony said when he was here, you know, it's our time to start utilizing and tapping into those resources because we pay taxes into that those funds and it goes to other districts when they have successful referendum. So, it's about time we get some of that that money back
for us. So, if that does change, I will definitely along the process keep everyone updated. Miss Bissip, um that's sort of a different message in some ways to what you're probably seen in the past. I mean, one is obviously we want to make sure our district gets this the
full benefit of state aid like everyone else, right? But we're also not asking our taxpayers to increase their contribution to this because we are using our reserves to do it. So does that change any of the strategies that you recommend?
Great. Great. Thank you. Any other questions from the board? Nope. All right. Thank you very much. We're going to continue with our agenda, which is we are up to um public comments. So, Mr. Caribell, do
we have I have two on my list. Shimon, is this thing on? There we go. Okay, you guys hear me? Mr. Balone, administrators, board members, good evening. Every parent carries one central worry more than grades, more
than test scores, more than even college admissions, and that's will my kids be ready for the future. We can't predict what the future will look like, but we can recognize when the world shifts beneath us. There's a name for that moment in mathematics. It's called the
inflection point. It's when a curve bends sharply and the path that follows moves faster than the one before it. So what am I talking about? Well, careers that once felt stable, software, law, medicine, finance, media, are being
rewritten by artificial intelligence, disappearing, morphing. At the same time, entirely new roles are emerging. Not in generations, not in decades, in months and weeks. We've got prompt engineers. We've got AI safety coordinators, synthetic content
moderators. These aren't hypothetical. They're job descriptions. And if we prepare students for the old curve, they'll be unprepared for the world that replace it. Our students aren't preparing for a world shaped by AI. They're already living in it. They're using it to write
essays, solve problems, ask questions, often without oversight and usually without context. The curve has already turned beneath them. The longer we wait to adjust, the more we risk letting them slip behind the bend. They're walking into an
exponential world with linear preparation. They're adapting fast. We need to catch up. For me as a parent, this isn't theoretical. I see it with my own kids. The curve isn't coming. It's here. This is the inflection point. And
I'm not willing to let them face a world shaped by AI without the judgment to meet it head-on. We need more than access. They need discernment. We don't just owe them information. We owe them wisdom. So some schools have already recognized the curve. There's the case
of Alpha School in Austin. Their entire model is using AI to support learning. All of their core education happens in less than two hours a day. The rest of the day is collaboration, creativity, leadership, life skills. Their students now rank in the
top 2% nationally. That's what it looks like to turn when the curve does. They didn't wait for a mandate. They read the slope. They didn't chase the hype. They built strategy. Yes, we've got technology
committee, technology policies, different rules, but this isn't about devices or bandwidth. AI is not a tech issue. It's a thinking issue. We have our three Rs: reading, writing, arithmetic. We need the fourth, AI readiness. And here's the most dangerous
turn of all, the one we don't see. When students stop learning how to think critically and start outsourcing their thinking entirely. So, two more seconds. Uh, here's what I'm proposing. Form an AI task force.
Not in a year, two years, three years. now before summer begins. Let that team work over the summer to design a focus pilot or program or whatever form you think is best. Launch that in the fall. Chat GPT was
released three-ish years ago. That's three years lost. Let's not lose more. Bring in educators, family members, parents into the conversation. And they've even got a great name, AIM AI in Marro. So, it's not about recognizing
when the curve turns. Uh, it's about refusing to move forward as if it hasn't. Thank you. Oh, and I do have a joke. Uh, what is the opposite of artificial intelligence? Real
stupidity. Thank you. Thank you. uh that that was um very powerful statement and I appreciate that and it's someone who sort of understands and speaks into itself. So, thank you so much for sharing that and thank you for
also offering some really concrete ideas um gives us an opportunity to sort of you know bring that to several of the board committees and to our administration to sort of think about a path forward. So I appreciate that.
Jenna Shimoon, where is the alpha school? Where did you Austin? Thank you. I'm actually um I I know some of the um the leadership in for the unified district in Texas for Austin, so we may be able to sort of tap into some of
that. Um thank you, Mr. Caravella. Sure. I believe we talked with him at break, but Pavan M. Okay, seeing none, that's it from my list. No more on my list. Yep. Okay.
So, if anybody else There's There's some hands going up. Yeah. So, if anybody else would like to speak, please come up individually and just state your name and address. Hi, my name is Angela Colby. I'm from Marorrow. I have a couple questions and a little scatterbrained here from the um
agenda that has been posted. So, please bear with me. Some of my thoughts are not as well written as Shimoon's today. Have a question. Since we haven't been talking about budget um at all this month, I wanted to have a couple of questions answered. Um, on the agenda
today, there was about $1,500 worth of spending for the entire board of ed to go to the NJSBA conferences. And I just wanted to know what um the thought was about the entire board going if they're splitting up or
um why we're just not sending a couple of members and then bringing the information back to the rest of the team. There was about $66,000 on the transfers for electricity. I wanted to know what the status is and if that's related to the
um solar panels that we have that um are on the school. There's been an increase in amount of contracted services for teachers and substitutes. Just want to know the rationale. are we not having enough teachers um subbing or we don't
have enough teachers at all and we're using that contracted services company what the difference is between the eight armed police officers at the schools versus two resource officers if that is just for certain schools or if
it's duplicating efforts um the has there been an evaluation of the current um bus services that we are using as um additional providers and not by in in Marorrow district. So what the
um evaluation looks like for that and if that can be adjusted for the budget and if we have um evaluated a change in the staff benefits to see if that can also be a possible um savings
of the budget. Um a question also related to the resignations. I wanted to know if all of those resignations, not the retirements, but the resignations, if that is related to reallocated staff and if they're being replaced. I know last
month it was mentioned some of those staff members um their positions were being eliminated and they were going to be doing an increasing amount of work. So, I wanted to know if those resignations are also in the same capacity. And then just one suggestion
um you have included amendments in the agenda and those are not available to the public. So if you could post those um somewhere online for us to see or bring those to um the front uh front table. I think there was like amend
amendment one two and three that are not included. That's it. Thank you. When you I'm sorry. Sorry. When you said amendments, we're we're all looking because we we're not aware of any amendments. Are you referring to the references or the appendix?
The references. So, the superintendence report A1, A2, A3, A4. Thank you. Um, Mr. Carl, do you want to respond any of those at this point or do you want Sure. Um so for the NJSBA conference this is if you go back to all
the agendas this is an annual conference that's afforded to the board members. The process that we're taking is so there's a group early bird registration fee. So what needs to happen is we divide that total registration fee by everybody who's attending. So right now that would be their registration fee if
they elect to go. But we're not paying that yet. What happens is whoever does commit to going will fill out a full travel authorization form and then tell us if they're staying over the meals basically how the standard accountability regs would work. And then you'll see later on in an
agenda the amounts might be higher or the people might be less depending on who's going to be committing to going and who's not. But it's a workshop afforded to all of them um through their their school boards association. um the transfers for utilities. So utilities have been it has
nothing to do with the solar panels. If actually if we didn't have the solar panels, we'd be in a lot bigger hole than we are when it comes to utilities. As you know, the rates have been going up every year and we're anticipating them going up astronomically in June again. Um I think it was about 20% they
were saying by June 1st. So, we're just making those transfer transfers conscientiously just to cover our basis and also just to meet the the demands we're seeing now in the in the bills. Um the increased amount of contracted services for substitutes. So, with the
expanded sick leave law, our employees are allowed to take off for pretty much anything um which includes sick mental illness um things for child care. So, the the law has expanded the the the use of sick time. So you start to see, you know, you you may be covering more
through substitute services, but this is also inclusive of like um maternity leave replacements or daily subs that are needed. So once those occur, we also have to fill those as well. Um so where you'll see the transfer coming from is usually the salary lines it affects and
it goes to cover in a in a sub form. Um the eight armed police officers and the the two SSO th those contracts are standard. We put those on every year for approval. So how that works is the the one contract is the is the eight
officers per school and then the two SSOs are for our for our district as a whole. Correct. If you want to add anything I can I can add to that. So the the SRO's are school resource officers. You can think of them as uh police officers who are teachers. Um we have
two of them. One covers both middle schools and the other covers all elementary schools. the and that's that's agenda item nine. Agendum item eight are police officers, armed police officers who are there strictly for
safety and security. So not duplicating efforts and then your the evaluation of bus providers. So we did have to contract out routes, one with the jointer and then one we actually had to go through for. So that's the one you're
referring to. do basically when we're when we figure out if we're going to have how many open runs. I think right now we have 10 open packages. We try to get those filled by the beginning of the school year. If we cannot, then usually we go out to MOESC for a quote. And usually by law, we have to take the lowest quote or we can deny it and go
back out. Seeing that we've been getting some complaints about the the current provider we have, we would literally just deny that quote and and have a different contractor come come on board to serve us rather than continuing getting stuck with the same possibly the same issues we've been having with the
one. Um, but unfortunately sometimes you're you're bounded by the lowest quote. So if they're the only ones that submit, sometimes you get stuck with being stuck with with with that provider. Um, but our transportation
department does coordinate with them when it comes to any issues that they may may be related to, but we have to coordinate them with with Moesc or whoever they're they're working for. Um, the change in staff benefits. I've went over this a couple times when it comes
to we run our claims experience every year with the state health benefit plan. If our claims experience is not good enough, then no other competitor or no other company is going to quote give us a quote or even provide us a quote to even get out of that. So unfortunately,
if we're deadlocked in there because of our claims experience, we just have to continue to run it until it's until it's better. And it's really on the prescription side, not so much the medical side, but and by law, we can't just go and do prescription only and then get out and do for medical. they have to do all or nothing and and have
it equal to or better as as it is in the bargaining unit contracts. So, we we do look at that every year and that is definitely a a thing that we we continue to monitor. Um the reallocated staff and Mr. Bologone I
think most of those positions don't go unfilled. They they are posted and and we need replacements for those positions. Yeah. Just just to add on, I think you specifically were speaking about the resignations. Um, resignations are employee generated, right? So, they reach out to us and and tell us that
they are no longer coming back for for a variety of reasons. Um, that has nothing to do with the five FTEEs that we eliminated out of the budget for next year. And then you got me with the references in the agenda. I'm not sure the references in the agenda. Are you
are you asking to see them or The references are online. They're not. They're not. They should be. Let me let me check and then we'll correct it for for the following meeting. But I believe all the attachments do get posted online. So if they're not online, we'll we'll put them
on there. Right. Can I say one other thing about NJSBA? NJSBA there's multiple multiple sessions going on in many rooms not one big conference room where everybody attends together. So even if all eight of us was there at the same time we can be in eight different places learning eight different things. So if one person or
two people want it be impossible to cover the whole thing anyway and report back to the board. So kind of thing you you attend what you want to get more information on. You're going to miss something else but you can attend what you want to see more information on. Everybody usually winds up seeing something different. It's usually what happens sometimes or together. So, as
someone who has not attended one of the NJSPA conferences, I I've asked a lot of people about it. It's in a lot of ways it's it's a professional development of the board members so that we're better prepared for the the district and the role that we have. There's so many different sessions going on, it's
impossible for one person actually or two people to actually get the full benefit of the program. So, you know, I would hope that we divide ourselves up and we sort of each be able to bring back something that we may have not been able to sit through. So, it's really a joint effort. Um, and I think it's highly recommended by the NJSBA that
board members do attend this in our own responsibility associated with being a board member. Um, so I, you know, it's it goes to sort of our the the um the learning experience that we're supposed to have. So, um, it is a commitment of three days personally of us to attend.
So um I'm you know I'm looking at this and saying it's really it's it's an important part of what every board member should be doing at least and since each board member is in different various stages of their term there are different parts of their learning and their professional development they're bringing back to the board as well. So
but I'll defer to anyone else who's sort of gone to it and may want to share something. Uh first let me tell you that I am not going this year. Sorry to disappoint you but it is my exit year so I don't really um There's a lot of moving parts to spending three nights out of your home
during a school week. So, I just don't see the um headache, for lack of a better term, being worth it for me and my family this year. I do agree with Michael Wansky, though, there are over 40 breakout rooms. So, in addition to walking the floor and networking with
vendors and getting to meet face to face with people who we we um hire through the district, which I really loved, there's also massive conversations happening in that area of the convention center. And then every classroom is filled and most
of them even lock out. So, I remember last year I registered. I got there a minute late. That room was locked out and I was able to go to the room next to it. Even though it wasn't something that jumped out at me as far as interest goes, I did like sitting in on a room that I spontaneously got to sit in on.
So, there is a ton of opportunity to meet your NJSBA representatives. You network. Um, even just bonding with your fellow board members is a nice experience just because it's better to bond through happy times than trauma. Um, but I'm speaking for myself. I'm not
even able to go this year, but I do understand the efforts that Vinnie's making because of other times that we would like to have professional development and then those sell out and we get locked out of those. It is better to register early in the just in case instance. So, I hope that answers some
of your questions. Thank you. Um, anyone else? Nope. Okay. Thank you. Is this on? Yeah. Okay. Uh, Scott Somaya Malro. Uh, by way of introduction, my name is Scott Samaya. I have an 8-year-old daughter and a at Dugan and a
four-year-old son who has special needs. He's in an inclusion classroom at Abbott. Out of necessity, I've learned a lot over the last two years about navigating the IEP process and how to advocate for my son. It's opened my eyes to how many children there are in this district who have similar needs and who aren't lucky enough to have the advocates on their side like my son
does. While walking the hallways and volunteering for special events at Abbott, it's clear from the moment you step foot in the building, the theme of inclusivity is vibrant. Creating this type of culture has a positive effect on all stakeholders within the Abbott community. I see children as young as three and four years old treating their friends with differences, with kindness
and respect, and truly learning inclusivity at such a young age is a beautiful thing to watch. Seeing how the administration, faculty, staff, and PTO all work cohesively together within the school and other outside organ organ district organizations like scope is something to strive for all of our
district schools. However, this isn't the reality for all and it's a real shame. For example, recently scope had their annual walk for change event. I'm aware that scope leadership communicated with all district PTOs and administrators to assist with getting the word out to families in coordinating activities for the event. It was clear
that some schools understood the importance of the event and went all out to make it a meaningful experience. However, other schools like Dugan fully ignored communicating with about this event until my wife reached out to the administration PTO to remind them email/communications were never sent
out. She was told from school administration that it was an oversight and an email was sent out that day. However, we were informed by Dugan PTO that they would not promote the event due to their policy that they do not promote outside organizations. Not only did this not make sense, I was deeply
disappointed. Scope isn't an outside organization. Walk for Change is a district-wide event, and by purposefully not promoting the event, the Dugan PTO willfully disenfranchise the Dugan community by excluding participation and hurting fundraising efforts. In the future, I implore the board and all PTOs
to work cohesively together with all outside organizations such as Scope and MEF, which support our children in a positive way. I would like to see all schools in our district promoting and embodying the pillars of inclusivity. Additionally, at a previous board meeting, there was some unnecessary controversy with a few
members attending the equity expo simply because of misinformation. I remember there was a controversy surrounding a DEI task force. There was no DEI task force presenting at the expo. The conference focused on districts on how districts can ensure every student has the best opportunity for success and how
administrators, educators, and board members can continue building more inclusive, supportive environments for all. How is this a bad thing? I have no idea. I applaud the board members who attended, board members who voted against this. I implore you to see events like this as a positive instead of shutting them out because you were
triggered by hearing DEI or similar terminology. It's unfortunate that words like inclusivity and equity have become controversial in today's political climate. I want to emphasize that this board is supposed to be apolitical. There are no Republican board members or Democratic board members. Diversity has always been and will always be present
in our schools. Two seconds. We have we have children of different races, ethnicities and religions, varying abilities and many neurodeiverse learners. We have come a long way to ensure all children have an equal opportunity to succeed and all are included. This is a major part of DEI in
schools and to shut out events, conferences, etc. involving inclusivity is frankly discriminatory and should not be tolerated. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Samaya. I appreciate your coming up and speaking tonight. Um, anyone else?
Good evening. How you doing? Charles Balo, Malro, New Jersey. Uh, full disclosure, I'm Danielle's husband. I've come to these board meetings a few times. Uh, never actually took the time to come up here and speak, but I just feel the need to to set the record straight on a few things.
Um, the Dugan PTO has always been inclusive at all of the events that I've ever attended and it's been nearly every one of them. Um, furthermore, with regard to sending out um, information, the Walk for Change uh, flyer was sent
out via the school and the information reached a much larger audience than just the the PTO. It's a policy that has been in place from the PTO for for many years. They don't send out um you know communication to other people. Um I'm a
little bit unprepared to speak. I didn't actually come here and take the time to write up a one-page um you know computer printed uh typo to go at a specific person, but I just wanted to come up here and set the record straight that the Dugan PTO has always been inclusive
in in the past. And uh yeah, this is just it's very disappointing comments that have been made tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bulmo. I appreciate you also coming up and speaking. Let's make sure it's at a good level. Okay, can you hear me? Thank you.
Alicia Thor, Marbor resident for 30 years. I have some concerns with Danielle Balomo. Danielle, you say you're not a politician, yet you are currently running for political office. You are out there shaking hands and kissing babies for photo ops. Prime example, Scope's recent Walk for Change.
As Dugan's PTO president, you did not blast out Scope's flyers promoting the Walk for Change or promoting the t-shirt sale. You got wind that people were complaining about you and your lack of inclusivity. So, in order to save face, you asked Mr. Balone and Mr. Pagglearo, if you could attend the Walk for Change
at Dugan as a BOE member. Your husband doesn't need to record me. It's on YouTube. Mr. Palone and Mr. Pagler, uh, if you could attend the Walk for Change as a BOE member to see the event, to which they agreed. But to no surprise,
you then twisted this online to boast, brag, and pat yourself on the back that you dedicated your entire day to volunteering at the Walk for Change. Entire day. Let's fact check. Let Excuse me. Let's fact check that. School was only a half day on that day. The walk
itself was only about 15 minutes. All of the events and activities for the Walk for Change at Dugan were done the week leading up to the event, not at the actual event. I also confirmed with Mr. Pagliaro that you were only at the event as a BOE BOE member to see the event and
that you did not volunteer. So like a true politician, you were caught in a lie. You also continually spin the results of the most recent BOE election saying that you won by a landslide. Let's fact check that. Yes, you did receive the most votes out of the six
candidates, but you als but you were also in the number one spot. The number one spot typically gets random votes as a default from people who don't know much about the candidates and either just vote one, two, three, or don't know they have to pick three names and just pick one, usually picking the number one
spot. Brian Cohen in the number four spot received the second most votes. He received just under 2,000 less votes than you did. You were running for reelection. He was not. So, considering the random votes that you received and that more voters were out due to it
being a presidential election, I don't think your win was that impressive or that of a so-called landslide. If you want to talk about a landslide, let's talk about your running mates who came in fifth and sixth place. The sixth place person coming in dead last was also up for reelection. Would it be fair
for me to say that they lost by a landslide? Lastly, if you want to get into politics, you don't you have to be able to handle the criticis criticisms that come along with it. Community members have been asking about your qualifications and have not received any answers. Just you deflecting and playing
the victim that you are being attacked. Please tell us what your experience experience is. In one breath, you are a young mother and in another breath you have decades of experience. So, which one is it? When is the last time you were employed? One more second since I was interrupted by her husband. Thank
you. So, which one is it? When one when when is the last time you were employed full-time in a paid position out in the workforce? And how long were you employed at that job? The constant lies, boasting, and bragging needs to stop. Stop always playing the victim. Instead, why don't you focus on actually doing
something productive on this board for once? Thank you. [Applause] Thank you uh Miss Thor. Um I I my comment basically is again these I'm these issues are not a board related issue. They're
not directly affected to the work that we do as a board. Um you have your chance to sort of speak at the podium like everyone else does. Um but I I don't have any specific response to it. Did
you? Okay. Thank you, Lenny Thor. Marorrow, I want to start off by telling Danielle Balma to stop being a pathological liar. How dare you say I have woke desires for children. Do you have proof of this? Everything I've ever stated about you has been backed up by receipts. You may not like what I
say, but I have proof for everything I say. I also want to add that I am not an elected official or a public figure. If you continue to spread ridiculous lies about me, I will file a defamation of character lawsuit against you. Danielle, you are not qualified to be the county clerk and you're not qualified to be on
our POE. You have done nothing productive for our district. You are great at playing victim, lying, and crocodile tears. In fact, your county clerk campaign page ended up sending people to an to a inappropriate website. You are the same person who wanted to be
the head of the tech committee. God help our kids if that ever happens. You have been horrible with inclusivity of children with special needs. Recently, concerns have been shared from families of children with special needs about you. In fact, you even spoke with one family and told them you had a personal
issue with scope. You then magically decided you wanted to attend the Walk for Change, an event you were not welcome at. It is sickening that you use volunteering as an opportunity to publicly pat yourself on the back. Many people in this town volunteer and they are humble about it. You use it as a
photo op for yourself. Let's also not forget the time you publicly thanked yourself when the Dugan PTO update was being read earlier this year. I have major concerns about your conduct while at Dugan in your capacity as a PTO president. Last year, you ended up screaming at another PTO member in front
of children. While I was not there to witness it, many people have said that you were so out of control that Mr. Paggleo had to intervene. Let's also not forget the photo op you took during the Walk for Change and used as a campaign propaganda. When parents send their kids to school, they do not
expect them to be used for a campaign whether they are blurred out in the background or not. Safety and policy committee are there policies policies in place for this type of conduct. If not, then you need to look into this. This is very concerning conduct. One more
thing. You claim you never wanted to file charges for someone trying to clean up campaign signs your slept your slate left all over town. I have screenshots from social media that say one thing and the body cam footage of you saying another. I will be sharing this on social media soon. The Nicks are on.
I've got better things to do. Have a great night. Thank you, Mr. Thor, for coming forward. Um, again, um, I I I don't personally have any response or any comments to this. I believe that these are not board matters and they're definitely not issues that are are in front of the the
board tonight on an agenda. I I assume the same. Thank you. Um, Mr. Pollock Adam Pollock uh 52 St. Lawrence Wayne Marboro
um I wanted to first thank Mr. Balone and the board for the support of the um the Holocaust uh event. I thought it was great. I appreciate everybody coming together and supporting that. Um, I also
thought that the uh presentation from the um firm that you guys are going to be voting on around the referendum, I thought it was very strong. It seemed like they were very competent. They seemed like that that would be a good fit for our town. I also liked the uh
success rate that they had. Um, I do wonder um if we're asking for enough and I do want there to be a dialogue around the potential for a tax increase. Not that I
am saying that we should 100% do that. I understand the implications of that, but when other districts are passing things for hundreds of mill$$und00 million dollars and then we're consuming all of our reserves um while simultaneously
having a situation like where Freehold is going to oblige us to raise all of our taxes anyway. Um it just there's a a a a disconnect in the community around
um on what's happening in you know even just you know tariffs and things like this that are happening and the amount of funding that we're getting and I think that are uh set in the right way with the right support from professionals that we can get people to
understand what's going on and the need for funding and I wouldn't 100% uh just assume that we shouldn't be thinking about other ways besides the reserves and the state aid. Um the whole thing that just happened
here um with the accusations about the PTO and you know the personal assaults on certain board members and things like that. It it belittles us as a town to
have those conversations in public, to act. Um it's one thing to express yourself about issues. It's another thing to um attack people personally. I have um um I know all the people that are involved in in what was just being said.
My kids go to Dugan. Um, I consider me uh uh these people that my friends and people that are community members and people that I respect and care about on and and I understand that um things get very emotional about this, but um
personal attacks is just so unhelpful to what's going on. Um and um I just it's very upsetting for those types of things to be going on in um especially when there was a board meeting up until this point that was
just so supportive and positive about our community. So I just again would implore everybody to remember that there's more that we agree on than we disagree on and to find those commonalities. And um if there's
anything I can do to help uh broker a conversation or to help with that type of compromise or outcome, I uh would love to be a part of that discussion to uh help with that. And um I think we as a town can do better. So thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Pollock. and uh thank you for your offer, but also thank you for your thoughts and your ideas on some of the other areas including the referendum and um the feedback on the communication strategy. Um very appreciative and very
helpful. Does anyone else want to speak? I don't know if you're I I if it's quick, but I I don't know if you're allowed to get up twice in the same public comments. That's the only No. Well, I don't think this is a generator
response to the original public comment, but we do have a second public comment. That's when you'd be afforded the option to speak. Yeah. And and I apologize because if we deviate from the rules, then it's going to be the the newer rules, the new norm. So, I' I'd like to
just stay with the rules. Okay. Anyone else who hasn't spoken want to get up and speak? Okay. I would like to ask a question to Mr. Pollock. Um, you're heavily involved in the Dugan PTO. You have children there. Um, and other programs. And I
would just like to know if you ever witnessed the behaviors that were said or any behavior by the Dugan PTO over the last, you know, five years. No, I haven't. Um I've also tried to understand what the concern is around um
excl and inclusivity and um and kind of where those concepts are coming from around why people um are upset about it. Um listen, everybody has different perceptions of different things. In my personal experience, I've never seen
that. Um I've made that point clear to different people that have been interested in listening. Um, with that said, um, I think these types of things get resolved by communicating and talking with people and not, um, by, um,
um, by not communicating. So, communication is great. There was an hour and 20 minute phone conversation of communications that went on, but it was still brought here tonight. So just to uh you know because the attack was personal to me by name um the
conversations that I had ended with you know very cordial thank you and understanding the non-ifferiating from the norm um and that as soon as emails received by me personally to my personal email address they were forwarded
directly to administration the day of um so just to make that clear and and the same processes were followed that I followed for the six years that I've served in Dugan and nine years that I've served in the district volunteering in three different schools. So, in my experience with the Duke and PTO,
I've never seen anything that would make me think that there wasn't um the the concept of of ex inclusivity and support and respect of everybody. Um that's my personal um uh opinion uh based on my
own experience. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else for public comments? If not, okay. Motion to close public comments. Miss Seart second. Mr. Wansski. All in
favor? Anyone opposed? I'm sorry. Let's just close public comments. And if you have a comment, we'll I'll ask you. All right. Public comments is closed. Mandi, you're asking to be recognized. Yeah. I just a comment. Um I know Mr. Paula came
up and and shared his experience. Um but I just want to say that different people can have different experiences. Meaning if one person has a positive, I don't think we can discount the other parents that came up and spoke about their experience. That's
all I have to say. Thank you. Any other comments from the board? Okay, we're going to move on to communications and our agenda. Superintendent report. Superintendent's report. Uh,
harassment, intimidation, bullying. From the time period March 14th through April 24th, there were 14 incidents reported. Thank you. Um, I will make note of the fact that our next meeting is Tuesday, May
6th. That'll be a workshop meeting. It'll also be our budget hearing meeting. So, um, notice was going out or has gone out on the for the budget hearing. Yep. So, the budget is advertised in the A. Um, and then our public hearing is scheduled for May 6th.
Thank you. Um, and then we our next meeting after that will be May 20th. That'll be a regular meeting of the board. Uh, the next one is a approval of the minutes. I'll also move on this. This is the uh the minutes for March 11th, both workshop and executive. March 18th, both regular and
executive. Can I have a second on this item? Mr. Hyatt. Any discussions on this item? Mr. Carav, roll call, please. Mr. Alonsski, yes.
Mrs. Seart, yes. Mrs. Balo, yes. Mrs. M Carrero. Yes. Mrs. Gandhi. Yes. Mr. Hyatt. Yes. But I'm abstaining from the March 18th meeting. I was not here. Okay. Thank you. For the minutes.
And Mr. Cohen. Yes. Next item on the agenda is the secretary and business administrator's report. Mr. Caribella. Yep. So, this is the monthly uh board secretaries and monthly certification for the month ending March 31st and the payroll certification. Thank you very much. We're up to committee reports. Um
I will start with the advisory committee. Um and we're doing this alphabetically, so it's not that I'm just going first, everyone. Um so the advisory committee did not meet this past um month, but we did um say in our last report that we
would provide a quick update to the board as well as to our our public on how the advisory committee is planning on operating. It's a brand new committee this year. is um the membership includes the board president, the board vice president for this year and it also
includes the board president and the board vice president from last year. Um we had all met agreed to and developed a um a charter to sort of guide us in the advisory committee and so I'll just order offer a few comments and Miss Mendes who's co-charing it with me is not here today. She does know that this
is actually being um given she's seen the comments so um she's she's perfectly on board with it. I invite Mr. Winsky and Mr. Hay if they'd like to add anything as well. So the purpose of the advisory committee is really to connect the board and the superintendent with nonpartisan adviserss who provide
professional expertise to enhance our decision-making and planning effort. Um we want to strengthen the board and district priorities through expert and community engagement. That's our purpose. Our composition of the committee includes the board members I just mentioned and Mr. super and and our
superintendent who is a non- voting member of the committee as well as the adviserss who are not members of the committee. They're actually experts who advise the committee members but they're not committee members themselves. Uh the roles of the committee include selecting adviserss um based on their expertise in
diversity. Um diversity in their skill set is very important to us. Maintain and update the pool of adviserss that can be tapped into as we need to. to respond to requests from board committee chairs or the superintendent when an adviser is needed and to communicate the
importance of the confidentiality and the ethical standards that advisers are often um expected to uphold. Most important they may be subject to information that we share with them that we don't want to um have you know given
out uh un inappropriately. As far as adviserss are concerned, we view the adviserss as being unbiased guidance guidance. They have to honor our confidentiality agreements that our board attorney would be drafting and avoid conflicts of interest um in their
role as an adviser. And we ask them to sign the confidentiality agreement and stay in our viewpoint nonpartisan like us as board members and avoid conflicts particularly around if there's a situation as far as procurements are concerned. Uh as far as requesting a
board a advisor um the committee chairs for the board would actually or the superintendent would submit a request. The advisory committee would try to match an existing adviser to that particular expertise that's being se sought. Uh and if not we would obviously go out there and try to find someone who
has some of that expertise whether they're from within the district preferably within the district because they have then a tie to our community. But obviously sometimes you're looking for expertise that we don't have. um and we would have to go outside the district. Um adviserss can come from
anywhere and can be outreach through outreach directly to us or there could be a nomination of advisor a recommendation of adviser for the advisory committee to sort of um to sort of consider and quite frankly um the more the better for us as far as
adviserss are concerned. And then just to focus on where we think the key initiatives for the next year should be. Um and when we think about advisors, um we think about them in the areas of safety and security, crisis management, technology and community relations and community relations obviously is a very
important topic because that comes up in the context of the referendum that we're thinking about running um or we are going to run for this next year. So that's sort of just a a brief overview. this charter has been shared with the board um for their comments before um
this actual discussion. So there that those comments that we've received were incorporated into the final version of the charter. And we also understand that you know this is a learning experience for us because we're just starting out as a committee. So we know that we'll be um looking at the charter and saying how can we make it better for the district
and so that we can operate in a better way. So uh I'll stop there and see if the board me if Mr. Lansonsky or Mr. how you want to add anything and if there's any questions for me. No, I'm good. Thank you. I'm good. I'm going to touch on it in my technology
report again. So, great. Any other questions, comments? When I read this um when the advisory committee uh was proposed before the new board members came um I was really excited for that and expanding the network and I think
you captured that very well and I'm excited to see the networking efforts uh with the community members because there is a lot of resources especially with our parents um and I think it's going to be an exciting opportunity for the community. So thank you. Thank you. Um,
and I do I agree with you that there is tremendous wealth of expertise in this town professionally and and from experience and it's great that we can tap into it. Okay. Um, moving on on our committees. Um, Miss Balma, you have the next one. Buildings and grounds.
Yep. Sorry. Yep. So, the building and grounds committee met on April 21st and we discussed facility maintenance updates. The HVAC project at Morell was ongoing during spring break and we'll be looking to have the startup of the units by the end of May with overall
completion set for midJune. The Dugan exterior door replacement project was delayed due to not having all of the materials being delivered and will be completed in June during uh second shift hours at no cost to the district. So, they'll be doing it after after school ends. The Abbott Early Learning Center
generator replacement project was completed over spring break. So that is up and running now and looking to close out. The fiber optic installation that has been two years in the making was complete at the transportation building. This was the last of the fiber upgrades needed around the district uh buildings.
So that's um that that that's a that's a positive for the IT department to be able to to get through all that and and finish that. the memorial paver project that was put out to bid for a third time will be uh rejected again due to the pricing
being too high. So the plan for that is to just obtain pricing solely for the drainage issues that we know are there and rather than the the aesthetics of it. We will have to put that off and possibly find a more creative solution. But um just fixing the the drainage with
what we have budgeted in this budget will will be key. Athletics are wrapping up. Um, maintenance is going around to start fixing potholes created from winter. So, after athletics wrap up, we like to just go around to all the playgrounds, all
the fields, all of the the sidewalks, and just repair where needed. The HVAC project for Asher and Roberts Pool, as as discussed tonight, will be uh submitted to the DOE by our architects upon submission after approval is obtained by the board. Once the DOE has
given the project approval, we will be able to move forward with our bond council to work towards submitting a second question for the December of election date. Marorrow school district received the approval for the local recreational improvement grant submission and was awarded $88,000 towards the replacement of the large
playground at a uh Abbott Early Learning Center. Again, the district has three years to utilize these grant fundings and we look forward to applying for the next round of grant funding next year. The district will be rolling out an automated and electronic format for the building use applications. This will hopefully
streamline the application process as we move away from paper applications. So, that roll out is set to be worked on during the summer with the September 1 start date. But, we will not be rolling anything out until we are able to demo it and make everybody comfortable with going paperless with that with that
application process. Thank you, Mr. Caravilla. Um I will just mention that you know for the members of the public who are listening or or today many of the items that you talked about are actually physically on the agenda tonight for vote for the board including the referendum um the evaluation the um
the playground grant for us to recognize and I believe the um the paper project actually as far as cancelling. Right. Okay. I I I just quick question and I I probably should have known the answer to this question. Um, do all of our schools now have generators?
Yes, I believe all our schools have always had generators. It's just the the they get to the end of their life cycle. So, I believe a few years ago, I think when I first got here, we replaced the memorial generator and the middle school generator. So, it's really just keeping up and being able to continue to expand
them whether if things are not covered under it or not. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, next up is communications committee, Mr. Hyatt. Sure. I'll read you our update. Uh we did meet this month to discuss a bunch
of topics including what we as a board should be doing proactively for communications. Uh we talked about the hate and now yeah can you not hear me now? Sorry I'll lean in a little bit. Uh we talked about the hate and now exhibit and the communications around that that we discussed earlier. Um we also talked
about the upcoming budget referendum and the proposal that um LB Laura Bishop communications LBC had uh previously done to us. So on the first part within our role as a board what we agreed to um are two key things I think that we are moving forward. Uh the first is
providing regular updates via township weekend updates. So, for those not familiar, if you're listening or in the audience, the township sends an email out every weekend and they include a comprehensive update of everything that's going on in town. That includes everything from rec center events to
road closures, you name it, right? Um, so Mr. Lansky reached out to the township in his role as the le liaison and they agreed to include after every board meeting a very brief summary of what we discussed during that board meeting so it can get out to a wider
audience. So these summaries, just so we're clear, they'll only reflect what was discussed in a public forum. They only reflect items that were on the agenda. So we did run that by Mr. Gross, our legal council, and he said that's completely appropriate. So the idea is to get this out to more of the
community, especially with this referendum coming up, more visibility for what the board does, its function, and conversations that we have. That update reaches thousands of people. Um, we will be able to get some data back on that to understand if people are actually opening that, if they're clicking on our updates. But the idea is
that just a couple concise bullets of what we talked about and then you know as you can imagine click here for more and then we will have on our website a little more comprehensive update on what was discussed at our board meetings little preview of what's coming up the next board meeting so that the township
parents um taxpayers in general um would know. So the deadline to get that out is Tuesdays at noon. We have to get it to the township by then. Um, I'm suggesting let's get it out next week for this meeting. Um, given that it's very concise, I think we'll be okay moving forward, but I want the whole
opportunity for the whole board to weigh in on that communications because it's going out to the whole town and I want to make sure that you guys know that. So, the second thing we're focusing on is updating our web presence. So, if we're driving people to our website for these updates as this Fuller Township Communications, we should update our
website to be a when I say website, I mean the board section of our website, not the MTPS website. We have a page on there. The idea would be um to update that so that it better reflects our current work. Um provides a home for these updates. Um but overall just better awareness of the board and its
its function. Um and to sure and to ensure that we do look at the usability of it. Maybe there's some navigation things we can change to make it a little more user friendly. If you've ever been on our board website, it's it's a little bit clunky. Um that said, I just want to be cautious that we are confined within the content management system of our
board website, but we'll do the best we can. So, our goal is to get that done um certainly by the end of this school year. So, moving into the next school year, we have an updated web presence. We have more frequent communications um to the community. So, that's what we discussed and and that'll be our focus.
And I know we've done things in the past on Facebook, but the one thing we did discuss and I do believe this is the use of social media. what we should be doing as a board is supporting what the district is doing, what Mrs. Gross and um has does on social media
and amplifying that as board members and and showcasing what they're doing. So, with that, we're going to pause on any board direct social media. We're going to focus more on getting it right, communicating out to the community through these through the township channels, frankly.
Um, sorry, the next thing. So, we did discuss the Holocaust. The only thing I want to say, and we talked about this before, is just thank you to um Mr. Balone as superintendent, but also Mrs. Gross, who is our um administrative representative. I think you guys did a
great job in pushing out what we had did for the hate ends now exhibit. And you guys know this was, you know, personally very valuable to me. Um but you were able to get media coverage, you're able to work seamlessly with the um Jewish Federation, and I I think you guys did a great job and you focused on it. It was
good to see that unfold. Um and then lastly, we did talk about the budget. We we kind of talked about this, but um as a committee, we are we are more than supportive to um Laura Bishop communication should we approve their contract tonight or however we move forward in referendum communications. We
anticipate that and we certainly want to be a part of that to help drive that engagement. I think it's going to be essential if we want this um to pass. That's that's my personal opinion. Working in this field, you do need that dedicated support. Um, and then we we also talked about the importance of
tapping the advisory committee, which we will be doing as a communications committee as this referendum sort of moves forward so that we get community members in who can help us communicate about it. We can do all the stuff they talked about, message testing, you name it, enlisting them as advocates. Um, so I know that was a lot. Um, did I miss
anything, Mr. Lansonsky or Mrs. Gra? So those are that's our path forward. That's what we talked about. Um, if there's any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Yeah, I have a couple questions. Um, the interception of town and board of ed, do you have any other references for towns that have done this
before? Uh, push it out through town vehicles. Board of Ed, uh, updates through township. I have a lot of references, um, including Colts that push out communications briefly. Col Township pushes out board of ed. I don't know if the township I'm not subscribed to. I'm asking like for townships
communicating board of ed business. Yeah. Can we get that information if any other districts are doing this? I I would have to call a bunch of town random townships. Yeah, I think it would be happy to call a bunch of random township intersection of the board of ed and the township especially with all the
shared agreements um that we do have. I would like to see um references to other towns doing this before we initiate this um you know before we kind of start this initiative of um managing communications through an entity other than the board of ed because we are supposed to be
operating separately um and alongside of one another. Yeah, we're not operating with the township. They are they are including our updates as the board of ed and they'll make it clear in there this is an update from the board of education. For more information, click here. It'll lead to our website. So, we're not suggesting the township were
just included in their channels. I think it's appropriate that we're not voting here. I'm just asking you as a communications committee if you could get some information to me about or to the board um about other towns that are that are doing this that are pushing out board of education
through township uh communication channels. Just for reference. Sure. Just I'll just jump in. The reasoning behind it is we're only reaching our own clientele. We're reaching the parents who already know about us. The parents already know what we do in this town. Mostly pay
attention. Uh we're not reaching the vast majority of the residents of this town. And there's no editorial involved in their side. Just simply whatever the communications committee puts together through what happens in the meeting, like Chad has said, it's going to be a
few a few u talking points and then click here for more. So So understood. and you know if that's something that the communications committee wants to bring back to the board um you know to discuss here in the meeting I would just
ask that you provide some references to other towns and a couple of case studies of if it helped with board of education or did not so we can kind of just assess and and maybe see if that is reasonable so you want examples of districts providing these updates to the community
at large regardless no no not the community at large it's not coming from Marorrow Township Public Schools. I'm asking to provide examples of other towns that communicate board of education through their channel of communication. That's all I'm asking for
just for my own information. I just want to add to this. Um so I see a lot of value in what Mr. Lansonsky and the communications committee has done because I do think that you know again even when we were campaigning for the board of ed seat I know that a lot of people are not as involved. I think
using this channel is just going to give us a a bigger reach. What I'm worried about is and absolutely Mrs. Balmo can ask for um any information that she wants. I just don't want to pause this. Meaning I know that the communications committee was going to put this out on
the next um newsletter that goes out. So I just want to be careful that that that doesn't stop. No, we're moving. I'll I'll follow up on the information. It's it's fine. I'm happy to get that. you know, there may be some, you know, just going down MLM's questioning is that there may be some good ideas that come
out of this. Um, at least it'll inform us. Um, but I I'll share and if you're okay with me sharing this this conversation that you and I had about the kindergarten registration. I mean, one of the one of one of the recent at our last meeting, we talked about the kindergartener registration that we
wanted to make sure we we get students, parents registering their students early. Um that was a communication that went out through Marorrow Township. Um and Mr. Malone told me the other day that we've actually at this point in time have the largest number of kindergarten registrations that we have
had since in past. So it's actually been an effective tool to sort of get the message out to people that normally would not be getting our messages because there may not be parents in our system yet. So it is an effective tool from that perspective. But I do think that, you know, it's good to inform the
communication strategy and and understand where we're where we can make it better or where we need to deviate or or change plans. It's an essential channel for us. Now, I have looked at what other districts do and a lot of them put together these, you know, whatever you want to call them, board
briefs, board updates that are a little because nobody's going to go through this agenda in the meeting minutes, but they will go through a one pager and but it still creates the same problem because I understand that this board boards prior to us, boards prior, several boards prior use some of these
tools to do, you know, videos or board briefs or things like that. The problem is that we still have a a finite set of of our audience that we're reaching. We're not reaching a larger audience. And that's where our goal was to sort of get the message out there so that people
understand what we're doing. I think that's what we always want to try to do. But, you know, it's got to be again like I I think the most important for me for me is is that we we're appreciative of using the the highway that they offer, but it's our content. It's our message.
There's no editorials. You know, there should never be that. That's still our it's still our message. We have a right to sort of write it and and say it and share it. And it'll be very clear it's coming from us and not the township. Chad, can the update be fluid in the sense of like I I understand the deadline is Tuesdays at noon. So, it's
kind of we're behind the April on that. Thursday. Did I say Tuesday? Thursday. I'm sorry. Thursday. You did say Tuesday. Thursday. Thursday. Oh, I misspoke that. It's Thursday at noon. Never mind. Because being our meetings are so close together, maybe it would help if people knew what was coming up at the next meeting. That's what I was going to suggest. You know, like this
coming Tuesday is our budget vote. Maybe Sunday night the township blasts that Tuesday is the budget meeting instead of like this is what happened. Part of the thing we did speak about putting on that blast what what the great thing is coming at the next meeting. People know. Yeah. Yeah. That's part of the idea. I
So instead of like hey this is what you missed. I think if we all agree I like where you're going with the budget because it's coming up next Tuesday. We have a conflict though. It's it's freehold regional budget meeting as well. Do you have any good news about budget tonight? No. I got no good news. I have
one sentence that's good news. Nothing else is good news. I love where you're going. So, let me suggest this. Let I want you guys to be able to review as a board the entirety of this idea where it lives, what will be included more depth, but however, you're not going to have enough time to do that if for the
Thursday noon. So, maybe the township just does a very brief thing which I can email you guys after this meeting or tomorrow update. The budget hearing is happening on Tuesday, May 6. They can include it in their weekend update. The board of education wants you to know this. And for that update for this week, let's just leave it at that and and we
can we can build. But I love your idea of updating the district's board website. So even if it's just a link to our website where we could provide the updates, like even that would be, you know, a a a conducive way to work together, but also working independently. Yeah. Because we used to get board
briefs with the previous administration. We would get those. We talked about that, I think. No, no. They would send out a blast after a board meeting with important points that took place and there were cartoons and links and references and all that good. I swear there were Lady Gaga quotes. It was it
was it was an interesting time. Um during the previous administration's r I don't want to get in trouble. He's in enough trouble. Um, but I'm just saying as far as, you know, upcoming meetings or previous meetings, maybe just keep it open to because a lot of times people don't really even pay attention to when
the meetings are. You know, like they're on the school boards, you know, you see, oh, you know, May 6 is the next meeting, but no one has any idea what's going on at the meeting. So, I like the idea of maybe just Yeah. No. And trying to catch your attention how we're going to do it like with the transcript. Like you can
even timestamp it back to the actual like live stream. So, like if people are interested in watching the discussion around, here's where you go on the video. Yeah, I love that. And the podcast podcast. No, but it's a good idea and
it's it's why Mr. Losi brought it up. We should preview what's coming up next. But you're right, the budget hearing. We have tonight, May 6th, and then May 18th, whatever it is, like in the next three weeks, we have three meetings. So, it it would be helpful to know even just maybe a schedule of the meetings for the month and what we're going to discuss.
Hey, even though because I'm with you on reaching more people, the better the more people we could reach, the better. Okay, I'll I'll follow up, you know, by latest early tomorrow with what we can include in this. It's a great idea because we we just have to get back to them by Thursday at noon. I imagine we're going to be a week behind, but it is what it is. We want to get fuller
input. But I like with what you're going with as well, especially because we have three backto-back meetings. If someone wants I mean, maybe a parent can't attend all three, but they may want to attend one. So knowing what's coming up in those meetings would be beneficial for them to say, "Hey, you know what? I can't attend all three, but I'd love to attend this one because this kind of
speaks to what I'm interested in know knowing and learning more about or even if Yeah. Right. So, I like it. All right. Oh, that makes I'm I'm up next. That means for curriculum. Uh any just a comment which is this is a great
conversation and now I'm going to go on to the curriculum. Yeah. Uh so I'm going to speak Dr. Msawitz's report. I'm just gonna I'm gonna be Dr. Sue Msawitz for the moment. So I'll speak about my person myself in the third person but then I have something I need to add. So
USA the curriculum committee met on May 19th. Assistant superintendent Morgan Gross presented the MCPS data process presentation that has been shared with the Mammoth County Superintendent and his staff. The intent is so we as a committee member would understand how the district utilizes internal data
which assists the instructional staff in their daily interactions with students. The data also provides information for curricular decisions. It was pointed out that our intentional data is more vi viable a more viable way of informing instruction immediately unlike data from
the state which becomes available to the districts months after the test was administered. Mrs. Gross also shared a portion of the 232 24 school performance report which will be presented at the May 20th BOE meeting. Case in point, I would like to encourage parents and the community to either attend this meeting
or watch it so you will have a better understanding of the numbers. Next on the agenda was a discussion of a very touching and informative Holocaust exhibit which our eighth grade students had the opportunity to view. Many board members as well as community members had an opportunity to view the exhibit as
well. Feedback from our students was incredible. You can read many books, but until you can actually see and hear from people who have actually witnessed this part in history, it doesn't make an impact. We hope we will be able to provide an opportunity for other students to share
the journey in the future. Mrs. Seart expressed an interest in providing similar types of learning experience for our students. She has investigated an opportunity for our students to learn more about the 911 history event through a mobile exhibit entitled 911 never forget mobile
exhibit which is available through the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. Many of us lived through this part of American history and it is one that we should never forget or shall I say I will never forget. The administration will be investigating how we can provide this experience for our students. On a very
happy note, imagine Dr. Msquitz. I am very pleased to let you know that team turtle was a finalist in the steam tank 2025. They will be presenting to the board in the very near future. On a personal note, I have to once again thank Mrs.
Seart, Miss Jenna Carrero, and Miss Morgan Gross for a wonderful meeting. The meeting lasted over two hours, but we were so engrossed in conversation that we just kept going. Thank you to our superintendent, Mr. Michael Balone, and our board president, Mr. Brian Cohen, for their incredible knowledge and input in the
conversation. Marorrow, we are on a roll. We are doing wonderful things in Marro. Stay tuned. If I would have closed my eyes, I would have thought it was Dr. How could you not, Miss Seart? I mean, that was probably like an out-of- body experience. You know what? When she sent it over, I was like, "Oh, this is worse
than when they made me say Doogie." Okay, you did you did you did her report justice. I hope I did. I I just want to comment because I know you were reading your own um offering and I and I want to just comment. I mean, do you want to say something more about that? I do because I I I do want to expand on the fact that
the Holocaust exhibit was very inspiring and I don't I'm not writing any type of cotales whatsoever. I just know as the parent of an eighth grade student, knowing friends that I wasn't able to make it to the exhibit personally, but I just know the profound impact the immersive experience had on our
community and how it brought so many people together and it gave the students a better understanding of what they're learning in their history books versus the actual experiences of what had happened. So, being the daughter of a 911 survivor, I know a lot about the Steven Siller Foundation or the Tunnel
to Towers Foundation. Uh it was started by the family of uh Steven Siller who was a fireman lost on September 11th, 2001. And they have a traveling exhibit as well. So I thought maybe the district can look into aligning the history lesson of September 11th, 2001 to
another immersive experience which so many of the children are also directly affected by. We have we lost many Marble residents on that day and now their families are you know the grandchildren of that generation are in our schools now. So, I did reach out to Tunnel to
Towers as a citizen just asking for some more information as far as the traveling exhibit goes. Um, there's a Google form that we have to fill out, but they were able to give me a little more information. It's an 1100 square foot traveling exhibit with building artifacts and stories of sacrifice and
survival. So, I just thought the kids maybe would and and the community members would also have a little more empathy towards the events of September 11th if they were to be up close and personal with it. But I just it's not my place as a board member to you know plan for the curriculum. I just threw it out
there. It was very wellreceived and I appreciate the support. I I just want to as we sh as I shared with you during the the curric during a curriculum meeting I get emotional about this thing. Um this is a um I was not
only a survivor but I was also a responder. So this is an extremely um emotional thing for me personally. um my kids who were not born at the time have lived through 911 through my my stories and my experiences and telling them. So
I think that any way that we can sort of share this from a historical learning perspective, the immersiveness is amazing. Um I thank you for raising it and for Mr. Malone and Miss um Gross for
considering it because I think it is just Yeah, and let's look into other ways that we can have other immersive experiences. This isn't limited to just September 11th. It's just something that No, there are so many other personal to so many people. But like I said, it was just inspiring to see um you know this
the end hate exhibit come and see the impact that it had on the students and let's invite them back again. That's not that shouldn't be a one-off. That should be something that happens on a yearly basis for us since it was such a pos well I don't want to say positive. That's not how I meant it, but it was it had such a positive experience on the
kids. Um, but this is collaborative. If anyone else knows of any other traveling exhibits, if there's anything else any other things that we could tie to the curriculum, maybe we could just put our heads together and see what else we could do for the kids because we are I think it's a great idea. I really do.
I think it would benefit the kids. Um, it's one thing to read about it. Um, and it's completely different when you're actually there. Even though you're not really experiencing it, you really are, right? So, I think you just learn very differently. And I think it would be it would be really nice to actually do that. So, I think that's a great idea.
Like, thanks. But when you were a student, I'm sure you remember the trips that you went on. The trips are even limited now. You know, they go to aair and they go to Washington Crossing and they have a great time, but when they get older, the trip, the eighth grade trip is to, you know, I play America, which is great. And I hope they have a great time. But it would be nice if we
could have those field trips come to them, you know, no busing, no no rigomearole, but at least they get the experience of, like you said, seeing it with their own eyes and understanding that it was a real thing that happened. And to your point, tying it to the curriculum is super important. So I I mean, I can't speak for what the
administration can do, but I like Well, yeah. A lot of these type of experiences for school districts that that are don't have the wealth of resources. so close to it that we are because we are so close to New York in this particular case. No, they use a
augmented reality and virtual reality type of things to sort of experience it. Like our students may use AR or VR to sort of experience the Grand Canyon because they're not physically located nearby it. But this is an opportunity where we really can bring that directly
to them. I think it's a great idea. I'm Thank you. I I do think that we could extend this out if again if it's possible to even the community because like you said there were a lot of people in this country that were affected and even in Marboro. So I I think it would be great.
The 911 museum in downtown Manhattan is a super somber place to be, but they are people wrapping around the building seven days a week. It's not it it hasn't gotten old yet. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Thank you, Miss Seawward. On behalf of
Dr. Msquitz, um moving on to policy committee, Miss Gandhi, u the policy committee met last week. Um we spent several hours reviewing policies to ensure that we remain on track to meet our QAC goal. Um the technology committee also submitted the
technology policy for our review. Um so the policy committee did begin the review and we're going to reconvene next week to complete um the full um full review of the technology policy before it comes to first read for um at the next meeting. I think it's going to be
actually the May 18th meeting, right? Not May 20th. May 20th meeting. Um I know that um Brian, you had previously shared the technology policy with the full board. Um, and what I'd like to kind of just remind everybody
again if you want me to that was pre the technology getting it. Pre technology committee getting it. Um, there have been very um few changes if any. Um, so what I'd like to do is I'll probably just send it out to the full board. Um, I'd love to get any feedback that you guys want. um any updates that you
potentially would like to make to it because what we'd like to do is we we want to consider that when we meet next week um as a committee and to pull in anything that we think it's it it is important. Sorry.
Um the only thing I request is um that we get any feedback by this Friday um just so that we can I can pull everything together and send that over to the um policy committee ahead of our meeting. And um that's it. That's the only update.
Thank you. Any questions for Miss Gandhi? All right. Alphabetically, the next one would be security, which is not going to be u Mr. Lansky. I think we have it on for the exec. Did you have anything else you want to add? Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Um next one will be special education on behalf of Miss Dr. Msquitz. Uh Miss Gandhi, I think you have that. I don't know if I can do it as well as Annette, but I'm going to try. Um, on March 5th, channel your channel your document. I'm gonna try.
On March 5th, the special services committee convened with the administration to follow up on several agenda items that were unable to be addressed during the February meeting. The committee received an update on the expansion of the ERRI program, which will now serve students in um grades K
through five at Marorrow Elementary School and grades 6 through eight at Marorrow Middle School. We reviewed the idea process with the understanding that the grant amount will not be finalized until the summer. A discussion was held regarding extraordinary aid, including
the district submission process and the significant discrepancy between the amount requested and the amount of aid actually received. We discuss at length at length the importance of preparing students for the adjustment of middle school students going to the high school. That's a difficult time for many
students. So we want to assure that our students will have the skills necessary to handle the change. Additionally, the administration provided a comprehensive breakdown of data related to students with IEPs and 504 plans as well as classification distributions across the
district. The committee also followed up on the special services goal for the 2025 2026 school year discussing the plans for imple for implementation and achievement of these objectives. Lastly, the committee discussed the upcoming disabilities awareness month in Marro,
focusing on how special services collaborate with schools as well as with scope and CPAC to ensure successful coordination and participation. Thank you, Miss Gundy. Questions for any comments or All
right, we're moving on to the technology committee. Will that be Miss Carter or M tonight. So, we're going to be keeping the advisory committee me busy. So, we're as well looking to reach out to the entire school community to ask for input as we develop the technology plan.
We're looking to uh connect with many various communities in the community as well as AI specialists. At this point, as per our board policies, we'll be handing over this to the advisory committee who will facilitate in finding these advisors. So if you're out there in the community world, look for communication in near future from the
advisory committee or reach out and um there will be that's one of the first jobs I guess of the advisory committee as follows through the the committees recommend the policy committee policy committee finds the people. Um the policy committee is as well as M. Gandhi said is working on the cyber security
policy as well. We're looking forward to reviewing that once it's completed as mentioned. We discussed the importance of including special education as part of the plan as well. And lastly, in an upcoming board meeting, Mr. Malone and Mrs. Gross will be presenting a status of where we are and the highlights of
the tech plan as it stands. Great. Thank you. Any additional comments on technology, Mr. Lansky and Miss Carrera? I mean, it's a it's a really nice tiein to the public comments from Chimoon about AI and great opportunity for the
collaborative work between both curriculum and technology really to sort of address some of the ideas and address and policy and policy of course can't have AI without policy, right? All right. Um, I'm going to wrap up with
just um a quick update on the um ad hoc committee that was created to address um voting in our schools. Um myself, Mr. Hyatt, Mr. Lansonsky, Miss Seart all met with virtually with the Mammoth County
Board of Elections recently um in which quite frankly we were outnumbered. Um so it was good that they were all there and it included um the executive or administrator for the um the board of elections. We expressed um our interest
in being able to sort of find ways in which we can um keep our schools open during election season um specifically because we closed twice this year. once for election and one for primary. Um and
they um suggested some ideas to us and we are exploring those. Um it would be premature for me to sort of bring those up in more detail. Our attorney is actually also in contact with them to get some documentation and once we do that then we'll bring it to the board.
Um we may have to do this with an exec because of security discussions. So, we'll seek guidance from our board attorney as well as on where the conversation goes, but we are at least making some progress in our communications on this. Any questions or comments on
that? Okay. Um, moving on to next item of business, financial and business matters. Um, Miss Gandhi, would you do this? Financial and business operation matters. One, oh, the superintendent of
school submits the following resolutions for approval. One, transfers. Two, list of two, list of bills. Three, secretary monthly reconciliation reports. Four, travel.
Sorry. Five, harassment, intimidation, bullying, hip report. Six, home instruction. Seven, amended resolution out of district placement for the 2024 2025 school year. Eight, approval of contract with Marbor Township for police
officers for the 2025 and 26 school year. Nine, approval of agreement with Marbor Township for school resource officers for the 2526 school year. Approval, sorry, 10. Approval of contract comprehensive joint custodial services with Marbor Township. 11.
Submission of child assault prevention application for the 2526 school year. 12. Submission of safety grant. 13. Approval of 2526 school year non-public technology services agreement with Mammoth Mammoth Ocean Educational
Services Commission. 14. Approval of submission of school facilities project application. 15. Acceptance of the local recreation improvement grant award. 16. Approval of transportation agreement 2024 2025 SY. 17. Approval of
transportation agreement 202425SY. 18. Resolution rejecting all bids for 25 courtyard pavers. 19. Settlement agreement. 20. Approval for agreement for Laura Bishop Communications. 21.
Approval of professional services agreement with Spasel Architectural Group, Inc. for sanitary pump station evaluation and replacement at Asher Homes Elementary School. 22. State contract purchases. I so move.
Thank you. Um, can I have a second, please? Miss Her, thank you. And just a quick comment for item number four, travel for board members. Um, if
you are voting on this item, please abstain from specifically your line item. Um, since we're all listed here, simply just Okay. Um any discussion on any of these
items? Mr. Caribella, Mrs. Palmo. Um yes to all. I've seen from four where I'm listed and no to 20. Mrs. Carrero. Yes, I abstain to where um I have a
conflict. Thank you, Mr. Hyatt. Uh yes, so I'll abstain where I have a conflict as well. Mr. Alonsski, yes, abstaining from number four from my travel conflict. Mrs. Seawart, yes to all except number
four where I am not even going. Mrs. Gandhi. Yes to all except for um the conflict with my travel. The only thing I'd also say is my last name is spelled with an H. So it's G A N D hi. That's all.
There's multiple people. But I do vote yes. Sorry. Um Mr. Cohen. Yes. And I abstain from the way I am listed as an item number four for travel.
Right. Thank you. Moving on to personnel matters. Mr. B, would you read M personnel matters? The superintendent of school submits the following resolutions for approval. One, retirements. Two, resignations. Three, employment instructional assistant.
Four, employment school aid. Five, reassignment amended hours and salary non-certificated staff. Six, stipen longevity kindergarten basic skills instructional assistant. Seven, stipen mentor teachers. Eight, substitute
teachers. Nine, substitute instructional assistants. 10, substitute nurses. 11, paid medical disability leaves. 12, unpaid leave of absence. 13 amend amended resolution leave
dates 14 jobs description I so move thank you can I have a second please Gandhi any discussions on any of the items here can we just read um under retirements can we just list off the oh do you have notes for everyone you have
notes he does I was going to read that little paragraph of everyone's service years but we'll just we're going to tee him up right after the the be here till 2 a.m. Any other questions or comments regarding this discussion? Nope. Mr. Caravello, please. [Music]
Mr. Hyatt. Uh, yes to all. Mr. Lansonsky, yes. Mrs. Seart, yes. Mrs. Carrero, yes. Mrs. Gandhi, yes. Mrs. Palomo, yes. And Mr. Cohen,
yes. I'm now going to ask Mr. alone if you would please provide us with retiring comments. I sure will. And uh the first one I'm going to read um is for Michelle Sherman because she's sitting in the audience here. So in case you would like to leave, Michelle, I know it's been it's been a long night. Um I'll read yours
first. Retirement comments for Michelle Sherman. Today we celebrate the remarkable career of Michelle Sherman, who is retiring after 20 years of dedicated service to the Marbor Township School System. Michelle's connection to Marbor runs deep. She didn't just teach
here. She was also a student here. She began her educational journey at Marbor Elementary School, continued on to Robertsville and actually went to Marboro Middle School. Fun fact, her principal at the time at Marbor, her vice principal at the time at Marbor
Middle School was none other than Steve Shiffron, who became her principal when she was a teacher at Robertsville. Michelle always knew she wanted to be a teacher. for her love for children and passion for education were evident from the start. In 2005, she
returned to her roots and joined the Marbor district as a part-time ESL teacher, working at both Marbor Middle and Marbor Elementary. Her dedication went far beyond the classroom. She served as the district's ESL family literacy coordinator, a power facilitator and coach, and contributed
to curriculum writing and ESL testing. Her involvement in various committees including INRS, the planning committee, Sunshine, MTEA demonstrates just how deeply invested she has been in every aspect of the school community. Michelle's warmth,
professionalism, and commitment left a lasting impact on both her students and her colleagues. She has been a true asset to the Marbor community, and her presence will be deeply missed. Congratulations on your well-earned retirement, Michelle.
We wish you happiness, relaxation and new adventures in this new chapter of [Applause] life. The next comments are for Katherine Brrizzy. Kathy Brazie began her career in 1985
and has dedicated 40 years to the students and staff of our district. Her legacy is one of compassion, leadership, and love for learning. Throughout her tenure, Kathy taught grades six through eight, inspiring a love for reading and writing for students at all levels. She
was deeply respected by colleagues and students alike. She was a beloved fixture at MMS, known for her warmth and wisdom. With her signature wit and well-timed oneliners, Kathy could bring humor to any moment and light up any
situation. As a longtime union representative and head delegate, she was an unwavering voice for fairness. As you can see, all of us will surely miss Kathy. We wish her the best as she begins her well-deserved
retirement. Congratulations, Kathy. Retirement comments for Barbara Byer. Today we honor Barbara Byer who is retiring after 21 years as an instructional assistant at MTPS. Barbara shared that she's most proud of being part of the Marbor
community and working with dedicated educators, cherishing the relationships and friendships she built. Her service at Marbor Memorial Middle School and Defino Central Elementary has been a gift to us all. For more than two decades, Barbara supported students in grades 5 through eight, finding joy in
watching students learn, grow, and succeed. Her steady presence in the classroom helped countless young learners thrive. She leaves behind a legacy of care, collaboration, and commitment that strengthened our schools and community. As she steps into
retirement, she plans to catch up with family and friends. On behalf of the Marvar School District, we thank you, Barbara, for your 21 incredible years. We wish you a retirement filled with happiness and connection. Congratulations on an extraordinary
career. Retirement comments for Michelle Coyle. Tonight, we take a moment to celebrate Michelle Coyle, who's retiring after an an amazing 20-year career as an instructional assistant in our district. She spent 11 years full-time, two years part-time, and seven years substituting,
making a difference across our schools. As she heads into retirement, Michelle's got big plans. She's ready to fill her passport with stamps and toast to all of her hard work. She's earned every bit of it. Reflecting on her time here, Michelle says she'll miss the talented teachers she worked with, many
of whom taught her own kids during her 28 years in Marorrow, including me. I taught her some. Uh Michelle, thank you for everything you've given our students and staff. Here's to a retirement full of adventure and happiness.
Congratulations. Retirement comments for Caesar Growl. Caesar joined the Marbor Middle School faculty in January of 2002 as a teacher of Spanish. He fondly recalls creating activities and projects for students to embrace learning another language. Memorable experiences
including having students create and perform original plays and having uh singalong sessions for sixth grade students to learn vocabulary and the language. Caesar and his wife Elsie plan to travel to Colombia to spend time with their extended families. When his
children asked him what his immediate plans were, Caesar responded, "For the first year, I want to do nothing." After working two jobs, studying to obtain his master's degree, and working for the Puerto Rican Association for many years, I'm ready to relax a little. Caesar
wants to express his appreciation to all the colleagues and fellow Spanish teachers who have worked beside him for 23 years. We wish Caesar a long, healthy, and happy retirement filled with new adventures and memories. Congratulations, Caesar. Retirement comments for Glenn
Healey. Glenn Healey has devoted the past 25 years of his career to the students of Marboro Township Public Schools. He began his journey in 2000 as an eighth grade social studies teacher at Marboro Middle School, later transitioning here to Marbor Memorial
Middle School when it opened in 2003. In 2008, the Gilder Lurman Institute honored Mr. Healey as the New Jersey History Teacher of the Year. Reflecting on this recognition, he shared, "As a firm believer that we as
human beings can never learn enough, I not only strive to expand my knowledge of American history, but also inspire my students to do the same. By connecting them to the past, I aim to sharpen their critical thinking skills and help prepare them for the life ahead."
He makes it a point to find students each year who share his passion for his beloved Denver Broncos. In addition, he's a familiar face at school events, regularly attending Memorial Athletic competitions and the Hershey music in the Parks trip to support student
athletes and musicians alike. A supportive and dependable colleague, Mr. Healey is known for the positivity and encouragement he brings to those around him. As he wraps up his remarkable 25 career in education, Mr. Healey is looking forward to adventures,
continuing to connect with students as a part-time school bus driver for summer camps, and cherishing more time with his children, Jonathan, Nathaniel, and Jessica. His absence will surely be felt, but his legacy will remain a lasting part of the Marbor community.
Congratulations, Glenn. Three more uh retirement comments for Cheryl Rhodia. Mrs. Rhodia began working for Marbor Township Public Schools in 1984 under the leadership of Superintendent Frank
Defino. At the conclusion of the 20242 school year, she will have completed 41 years of service. When asked about her favorite memory, Mrs. Rodia recalled when her class surprised her and visited her in the driveway for her birthday during the
pandemic. She stated that it was moments like these that made me realize why I became a teacher. In the next chapter of her life, she plans to dedicate her time to her family and her new grandson. For Mrs. Rodia retiring from Marell brings on a bittersweet feeling
with a sense of gratitude knowing the accomplishments she has made been able to achieve in such a rewarding profession. We wish her the best and thank her for her inspiration. Congratulations, Cheryl. Retirement comments for Deborah Tierney. After an impressive 27 years of
dedicated service, Mrs. Debbie Tierney will be retiring from the Marbor school district. Mrs. Tierney began her career in 1998 as the district substitute caller. In 2004, she transitioned to a full-time role as a school bus driver.
After 12 and a half years of service as a bus driver, she was promoted to assistant transportation coordinator alongside Mrs. Nancy Walker. In June 2024, Mrs. Tierney was promoted to transportation coordinator where she navigated the department
through various challenges and oversaw its operation with professionalism and dedication. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Mrs. Tyranny for her unwavering commitment, reliability, and loyalty over the years. As she embarks on this exciting new chapter of her
life, we wish her good health, happiness, and many cherished moments with her family. Mrs. Tierney, you will be greatly missed. [Applause] And finally, retirement comments for
Maria Yazo. It is great great with great appreciation that we honor Maria Yazo as she embarks on her retirement. When reflecting on her proudest achievement, she shared it was making a difference in the lives of children. For 28 years, she
has been a cornerstone of educational community, shaping young lives with unwavering passion. As she steps into this new chapter, Maria looks forward to cherishing time with her family and friends, embracing the beauty of the outdoors, and indulging in a bit of
travel. Yet, what she'll car carry with her most vividly are the memories of children succeeding, learning, and developing alongside her remarkable colleagues she worked with over the decades. On behalf of the board of education, the schools you've graced, and the countless students and staff
you've uplifted, thank you. Congratulations on a phenomenal career and best wishes in retirement. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. Balone. Um, did you add it up? I didn't, but it's a lot. So,
over 200 collective 235 years of experience. um which is amazing with two of our retirees having over 40 years alone individually 80 years combined and
some of them I'm sure like many of you here or like me my kids some of these people were my kids teachers and when I told my daughter that Mr. Grow was retiring she was like she was like oh my god and there's a connection that we didn't even know about with Mr.
He was related to one of my earliest babysitters in Staten Island. So, it's like you never know who you're going to meet um from these these experiences. So, congratulations to everyone and to we wish you all the best in in your
journeys and next steps of your careers and growing up. All right. Um with that, we're going into liaison reports. Um oh, I'm sorry. You're right. Policy number policy and development matters. I
was trying to move us along. Jenna, Miss Carrera, would you mind reading that? Policy development and communic community relations matters. The superintendent of schools submits the following resolution for approval. One, second readings. I so move
and second, please. Miss Gandhi, any questions or discussions for this item? Nope. Mr. Caribella? Mr. Hyatt? Yes. Mr. Lansonsky? Yes. Mrs. Seawart? Yes.
Mrs. Palomao? Yes. Mrs. Gandhi? Yes. Mrs. Carrero? Yes. And Mr. Cohen? Yes. Okay. Now we'll go to liazison reports. Um we'll begin with um freehole regional high school and as we've done in the
past if you would also miss your when you do that would you follow with Abbott? Yes but I have memorial as well for Val. Do you want me to do that one too? You sure I'll check it off. All right. Thank you Mr. Messenger for this dismal update. Okay. I am literally
reading the one and only sentence that I'm happy to read tonight. So just don't shoot the messenger. Uh, since we did not utilize the snow days this year, the school will now be closed the Friday before and Tuesday after Memorial Day weekend. That's it. No, I'm kidding.
Okay, his words. His words. Dday has come for Freehold Regional. Due to the massive cuts in state aid, we are either going to have to go out for a $249 million or less referendum or potentially raise our taxes more than
2%. There has been no investment in facilities in the past seven years of S2 state cuts. In the first year, post S2, we were cut $900,000 in state aid. Back in 2016, state aid was 26.5% of our
budget. Now it is 15.6%. The state department of education is allowing districts to increase taxes to make up for their funding cuts. To receive approval for this tax hike, you have to file an application. On Thursday night, the board voted to file the
application. So, this was sent on uh April 14th, so the uh I 9th. Uh the board voted to file the application. We are not locked into increasing taxes, but have filed the application to see what would happen. On May 6th, we are
going to have the public hearing on the budget for the 2526 school year. And that will be when the board votes on whether to go with the tax increase or the referendum. The estimate potential tax hike for Marro residents would be 13%. This is just a proposal for
something that has yet to be approved by the state of New Jersey or voted on by the board. The tax hike potentially could be $29 million. The administration says that the money would be spent on 349 classroom ventilators, $12 million. Boilers,
$68,000. Gym floors, 1.1 million. Student support 1.9 million for Chromebooks, instructional materials, and IT firewalls, and door replacements, 3.4 million. 1.1 million would be spent on staffing, nurses, seven teachers,
guidance counselor, and a special education supervisor. This application for the tax increase is only for districts that are spending below adequacy. We spend $14,512 per pupil. The state average for a high school student is 20,000 per
pupil. Let me know if you have any questions. Um, moving on to Mombro. Actually, let me do Abbott first because that would come okay. Thank you, Mr. Perno, for this update. The Walk for Change was a huge success. Parents and teachers collaborated to organize a
variety of activities that promoted understanding of a variety of disabilities. Kindergarten students will be taking a field trip to Fraual Woods Park to learn about local wildlife. Our butterfly hatching program begins next week. Students will be observing caterpillars
as they go through metamorphosis process and emerge as butterflies. Once the butterflies had matured, the classes take them outside and have a butterfly release celebration. Our annual spring fling is scheduled for May 14th. This event is hosted by the PTO after school.
There is music, dancing, and a variety of games and crafts. A good time for all. Okay, then let's go over to Memorial. I'm reading this on behalf of Val. So, thank you, Mr. Pacificico, for the first part of this update. Uh, Officer Drum presented on bullying to
our eighth grade students the morning of April 29th. Seventh grade spring concert is Thursday, this Thursday evening at 7 p.m. The RAD Club will present to the fifth graders at Robertsville and Zafino in the next few weeks, which let's
elaborate on how great they were this evening. It was so nice to meet them. Uh peer-to-peer family night is May 14th at 7 p.m. And the science symposium on May 21st at 8:00 p.m. Board members are welcome to attend. Then thank you Ivonne
and Fiona for the PTO update. Memorial put on a wonderful school musical of Mary Poppins. We hope everyone enjoyed our concessions. Thank you to all who who purchased. The spring donut sale went very well and the kids loved it. Our clothing and book book drive was
this past Saturday. Thanks to everyone for their donation donations. The PTA is putting together all of the items for teacher appreciation week. Thank you to all our families for their generous donations. And the PTA is getting eighth grade planning and sales done. Lawn science and lockoggram sales are open
and tickets for the eighth grade dance will be on sale in the next few days. I also have NJSBA. Should I just nail them out? Okay, this is this is the Miss Seawward hour. This is it. No, this is it. None of them. This is this this is efficiency. We're going to get an old
This is it. The last one for me. Uh this article was published on April 22nd in school board notes. So, we all received this, but Val wanted to highlight this on April 21st. The New Jersey Department of Education Commissioner Kevin Delmer testified before the Assembly Budget
Committee concerning the education components of Governor Phil Murphy's proposed budget for fi for fiscal year 2026. He covered the overarching themes of this year's budget proposal along with the new changes and additions to prek through 12 school funding, including the new tax levy initiative
and an aid program, caps on overseas and decreases in year afteryear state aid, and changes to special education funding. The full fiscal year 2026 budget in brief can be found on the office of management and budgets website. Good night everybody. Thank you
Miss Seart. We're going to move on to Marbor Education Foundation and Dugan. Miss Gondi, you have your mic on. Thank you. No problem. Um I'll do the MEF first.
Um the Wizards game was a huge success. Um they want MEF wants to thank everyone who participated. They wanted to thank administration again for all the support. They wanted to thank the board for the support. Um they're planning a lot more fundraising events. And um you
know I'm excited to say that we had um you know school principles and we had the board there. We had the superintendent there um supporting um this great foundation and um it was a soldout event. I mean it was kids were
sitting on the floor. I mean the amount of fun that I saw these kids have in one evening. They all stayed super late. I'm sure they were tired to come to school the next day. But it was such an amazing event. Um so I just wanted to say thanks to everybody that's from the MEF. They
wanted to thank everybody that participated and supported the event. So, thank you. Let me go on to Dugan report. Sorry, I have it on my phone. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Paglier, for the
support. Um the principal's report is Dugan acknowledged April's disabilities acceptance month introducing several fresh ideas in the week leading up to the walk for change which was held on April 11th. During related arts classes our students participated in activities highlighting how people with
disabilities complete daily tasks for example operating a wheelchair to get around using braille or sign language to communicate and overcoming environmental distractions to focus. Students collect collected stamps on their Walk for Change passports signifying not only
their completion of each activity, but their understanding and true meaning behind the um culminating event. Despite the poor weather, on April 11th, our staff and students made the most of the walk, including an alternate plan for having students share positive messages and images using chalk.
Rounding out the month's activities, Dugan had its spring book fair. Our fourth grade students visited Aera State Park and our fifth grade graders went on their annual Washington Crossing Park field trip where they learn more about our nation's revolution. Fourth and fifth grade band rehearsals have started
as our Dugan musicians prepare for their upcoming concert scheduled for Thursday, May 15th at 7 p.m. The Dugan PTO report. Um, April's Battle of the Grades continues with Wacky Wednesdays. April 30th is silly sock day. Um, double
points will be awarded if your teacher dresses as wacky as you. Staff appreciation week will be May 5th through the 9th. Uh, where Dugan staff will be recognized for coloring our world. We plan on showing our amazing staff that Dugan would be nothing but a blank canvas without them. Oh, that's
pretty cool. The stuff and snack event will be held on May 20th for grades K um, 1, and 2nd and on May 21st for grades uh, third, fourth, and fifth. Um, registration is required by May 1st and it is $25 per child. Make your own stuffed dragon complete with birth
certificate, wishing star, and a take-home bag. A nut-free snack will be provided. Dugan science fair science fair will be held on Friday, May 9th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Discover the magic of science with hands-on experiments that will wow and amaze. Attention fifth grade parents. Celebrate
Dugan friendships and memories with a special day of fun and activities at Black Bear Lake Day Camp on Tuesday, May 27th. The cost includes transportation, lunch, snacks, activities, t-shirt, towel, and string
bag. Um, t-shirt, towels, and bags will be distributed before the week of the celebration. The picnic lunch will consist of an unlimited choices including hamburgers and cheeseburgers, hot dogs, black bean, veggie burgers, grilled chicken, macaroni and cheese,
fixings bar, potato salad, pasta salad, um chips, pretzels, watermelon cookies, bottled water, iced tea, lemonade. The camp is nut-free, but foods may contain other allergens, so please um contact the PTO via email with allergy concerns.
Don't forget to order the 2024 2025 Dugan yearbook through their website which is dugatanel.ptboard.com. Thank you, Miss Gandhi. Um, Marorrow Township Leaison and Marorrow Middle School. You got it. At Marorrow Township, the big rig rally this
Saturday, May 3rd, from noon to 2:30 p.m. 2 to 2:30 is quiet time at the rec center. A hands-on experience with the big trucks. It's free and there's no registration required. Mother's Day Farmers Market and Makers Market on Saturday, May 10th from 10 a.m. to 2 PM.
Crafts, candy, pastries, flowers, and food. The event will be held inside the recreation center the day before Mother's Day. Reminder about property taxes. Second quarter property taxes must be received by Monday, May 12th to avoid interest. The Marble Water hydrant
flushing. The annual spring hydrogen flushing has begun with anticipated completion of Friday, May 2nd, 2025, typically between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Discoloration of low pressure may occur and does not affect the water quality. Simply run the cold
water until it runs clear. From uh principal Milwaukee at MMS, spring sports are still underway. Spring concerts are set for April 30th, May 7th, 14th, 21st at 7:00 p.m. The peer-to-p peer parrot night is scheduled
for May 22nd from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. Sixth, 7th, and eighth grade trips are planned during this month. Graduation cap and gown pictures are set for May 9th. The music ensembles will be traveling to Hershey Park for the annual competition on May 30th to 31st. This month is the month of digital
citizenship. Dr. Sable will share her monthly presentation with all students on responsibility abuse and technology. Officer Kelly Drum, RSRO, has planned an assembly for all current eighth grade students focuses on HIV and student responsibilities. Counselors are beginning the process of selecting
conflict managers and peer-to-peer students for next year. All interest all interested current seventh grade students should contract their counselor. May 5th to 9th is staff appreciation week. We're looking forward to celebrating the hardworking, devoted staff with the support of the PTO. And
from Lauren and the PTO, the eighth grade dance tickets are now on sale. The MMS PTO is thrilled to host the eighth grade dance for the Marbor Middle School class of 2025 at the Grand Marquee at Old Bridge on Wednesday, uh, June 11th. They are sure to have a great time. There will be a DJ, photo booth, dinner,
and dessert included with your ticket. Class of 2025 lawn sign, and towel fundraisers are coming to close the end of this week. Show your pride for 2025 MMS graduate by purchasing a sign for display on your lawn and or swim day towel. A locket decorating fundraiser for graduates is still available for
purchase. All lockets will be decorated in June before graduation. Decorations will be MMS class of 2025 themed. Our last PTO meeting of the year will be in person MMS on May 20th at 9:45. We hope to see you there as we begin to close out the current school year and look
ahead and start planning for next year. Birthday grams are one of our most popular ongoing fundraisers. Don't forget to order yours. We will be we will decorate the front of your students locker with a happy birthday sign that includes their name and birthday as well as some 3D embellishments. Please continue to check the PT board for
weekly updates. Thank you, Mr. Lansky. Um, next up is Mammoth County School Board Association and Asher. And Mr. Hyatt, will you give us your best interpretation of Dr. Msawitz with scope and morale? If you're listening, Dr. misquit. I
apologize. I I cannot compete with that enthusiasm. All right, here we go. I'll start with Marl. As always, Marl is on a roll. Before I share the events planned for May, I wanted to send a big in all caps shout out to Marbor Elementary School's amazing PTO president, Dana
Vera. Mrs. Verga was the MC at Marorrow's annual talent show. Dana was on fire that night, and she also worked behind the scenes. She had the crowd clapping and dancing all night long. The students were phenomenal. When you when you thought you couldn't be smiling any broader, along comes another act
inspiring the audience to continue their excitement. Thank you to the PTO for inviting me to the talent show. I'm still smiling with four exclamation points. Mustang Matchups is an ongoing event where older students visit with and help the younger students. This program has been ongoing since the visit
of Piglet to the Marl School. Just a refresher, Piglet is the is the blind and deaf pup that was brought to Marl as they prepared for disability month. Dr. Melissa Shapiro, the veterinarian who adopted Piglet and many other pups that faced challenges, shared how she helped
Piglet learn to function so very well. Mrs. Gross and I had the opportunity to see the assembly for the fourth and fifth grades. Moms and dads, you can be proud of each of your children. The students were so well behaved in spite of their excitement that they knew what Dr. Shapiro had to share was important
and truly paid attention. for other schools that might want to have this unique opportunity. I'm sure Principal Shhatz will share information as needed. Now, on to May events. May 16th is the PTO sponsoring is sponsoring a movie night. May 2nd is pajama day. The students will be raising funds for the
police unity tour. Marbor Middle School band orchestra course will be visiting Marl uh in May to show the fifth graders the types of music groups they can join in middle school. The kindergarters will be visiting Aair Community Farm in May, May 20th. The fourth and fifth grade
band concerts will be held at 7 p.m. Ma Dame, a child Holocaust survivor, will be visiting with the fifth graders. I don't have a date for that. Uh May 22nd is the Marl annual art show. Time to be announced later. The fifth graders will be having their fifth
grade picnic. Date to be announced. May 5th, 6th, 12th, 13th, and 14th. third, fourth, and fifth graders will be doing the NJSLA testing. Thank you, Mr. Shhatz and Miss Mrs. Verger for coordinating all of the events for me to share. Okay, on to Scope. Um, so this is
from Dr. Msitz as well. Scope is thrilled to share that thanks to the incredible support of our community, we have raised funds that will support our special ed community through our walk for change district initiative. Exclamation points. We extend our heartfelt thank thanks to our teachers for engaging students in
meaningful activities and to our principles and PTOs for helping to promote the event this evening which I know some of us got to see. We are honored to host the night of inspiration presentation by Ben Hartramp, an inspiring autism advocate and that was
one of the most inspiring things I have seen probably in the last few years. So if you didn't get a chance to see that, Google this guy and look on YouTube. He's an absolute masterpiece. He's very inspiring. Um we are especially grateful to have been able to secure the Circle of Friends program to present and
provide catering service for the special event. So for those that wasn't there, if anyone's listening. Um Circle of Friends is a business that employs people with autism. Um I think it's I forget where it's at. Belar maybe. Um but anyway, it's also another very inspiring thing and they came and and
supported this. Thank you to everyone who helped make these initiatives disability awareness month a success. Your support truly makes a meaningful difference in the lives of our students and helps to ensure our schools are a place where everyone feels a sense of belonging. Okay. Asher Holmes Elementary
School. Uh this this is for me. April was a short month, but it was full of fun happenings. Back to the end of back at the end of March, the PTA held its annual bingo and basket fundraiser, which was a huge success. Thank you to all who attended and to those who donated toward the baskets. We held our
annual science fair for students in grades three, four, and five. We had a great turnout of projects that really showcased the Asher scientists in action. The first Wednesday of April was PAR professionals day, a huge in all caps. Shout out to Asher's instructional assistant who provided vital support to
our special education students and teachers both in and out of the classroom. Thank you to Jill Cohen, Mary Ang Sue Lepino, Jessica Meyer, Sema Pat Lman, and Sue Pner for their Pausner for their dedicated for their dedication and
patience. Prior to spring break, we packed the PTA grade 5 social dance, the PTA department's ninja warrior unit, and a fantastic art show. Thank you to Asher PE teachers, Mr. Akani and Mrs. Higgins as well as Asher resident artist Mr.
Silva who worked hand in hand with our PTA to bring these fun events to life. Asher held its walk for change at the end of the special services department spirited week for disabilities awareness month. A huge shout out to Asher teachers Dana McCall and Jess Smenta for their efforts in organizing our yearly walk for change to
benefit scope. As a school we focus on celebrating our differences because we wouldn't be a world we this is great. Wouldn't the world be so boring if we were all exactly alike? And the last shout out to Asher's powerhouse front office secretaries in honor of administration assistance day. Joanne
Zangolia Valpinto, you're the heart of Asher and we can't thank you enough for all you do to keep our trains running on time. Stay tuned for the fun that May brings which includes teacher appreciation week, NJSL NJSLA testing, the PTA color run, and
the grade five picnic. And then finally, um, last, I have Mammoth County School Board Association. And this will take two seconds. They're having their annual meeting, um, on May 6, which will honor the Mammoth Count Mammoth County Teacher of the Year, Sarah Mazone, um, from Redbank Regional High School. So, if you guys want to sign up and attend that
meeting, it's a hybrid meeting. Go to the NGSBA NJSBA website and you can see the location, all that stuff. If you want to go in person, great. You want to join the hybrid, go for it. I'll join. I will not be joining that meeting unfortunately nor the freehold meeting.
Thank you Annette. Thank you Mr. Hyatt. I will throw Nobody should be joining that meeting. Let me be clear. I'm going to be throwing my vote to Miss Seawart on her um her channeling of Dr. She's she she had you beat. I'm sorry.
Um Robertsville, Miss Carrera, thank you Mr. G. Um April was a and fun month at Robertersville. We kicked the month off with a fifth grade social. The pajama party themed dance party had game, snacks, and most importantly, laughter from our fifth graders.
Beginning April 1st in an effort to kick off disability acceptance month, Robertsville collected change in anticipation for the Walk for Change, which took place on April 11th. Students also learned about different disabilities in their related arts classes during the week of April 7th.
Even though the weather did not cooperate during the Walk for Change, students had a blast walking inside of the building. As a part of their great work fundraising for February's Glow Run, students earned the opportunity to duct tape their principal to the wall. It was hilarious. Um, we incorporated
the duct taping into the Walk for Change and it definitely brought smiles and laughter to all the students. Grade three was the winning grade for our school collection. May will bring us teacher appreciation week, NJSLA testing, the annual art show, and the fifth grade trip, as well
as the grades 1 through 4 globe party dance. As we move closer to the teacher appreciation week, it is so important to reiterate how important our teachers are to our students and families. From their profound knowledge, empathy, and ability to understand, teach, and take care of our kids to their willingness to go
above and beyond, Robertsville shouts out its staff and the teachers of Marorrow Township School District. Lastly, we congratulate Mrs. Bono and her students, Arya Kadakia, Hamscini, Kusamanji, and Waraman. Sorry
if I mispronounced anything. Um, who are moving on to the finals for the NJSBA Steam Tank Challenge. These students planned, executed, and presented a brilliant turtle saving device to prevent these animals from being caught in fishing nets. We also congratulate Arya Kadakia,
Wuriman, Arya Kayaza, Adavan Rajuk, Kumar, Ar, sorry, I'm like exhausted. Our our man uh Shri Vistava for having their mini sagas published through the young writers contest, a wonder in the
woods. what lies ahead. Robertsville excels in the arts and sciences. Always a thank you to our PTO for its support of our students. Thank you, Miss Carrero. Um, Miss Balomo, CPAG and Dino. Sure.
I'll start with CPAG. Thank you, Angie and Robin, for this report. Um, please continue to check the CPAC Facebook page as webinars and resources are constantly being added that parents and guardians might be interested in. If you aren't a member of CPAC Facebook page, this is where we provide additional resources
for parents in between our regularly scheduled CPAG parent meetings. CPAC would like to thank the Marro Library for working with us to highlight disability awareness autism acceptance month in April. They displayed a collection of disability themed books in the children's center.
Now we have Defino's report. Um, thank you Dr. Stratic and Nicole Nadell. Um, the return of the Defino Science Fair was a great success. We had over 40 students complete projects and have the opportunity to share their learning with families, students, and staff. Students received a certificate and participation
ribbon for participating. A big thank you to our PTO for organizing and planning this great event. Tomorrow we have our Dolphin Dash fun run. This has been an incredible fundraiser for our school with our families and extended families raising a lot of money for a new addition to our grounds. There is a
plan to add shade and seating to our playground. The mock-ups look really incredible and I know it will be enjoyed by our Defino students and families for years to come. Kudos to our PTO for putting the fun in fundraiser. Our students and staff are excited to participate in the Dolphin Dash tomorrow. Next week is teacher
appreciation week. We can't wait to celebrate and honor our incredible Defino teachers and staff. Our PTO has an incredible theme and our staff is always blown away by the thoughtful and generous showing from our families and PTO. Finally, we are preparing for NJSLA. We will have our fifth grade
NJSLA science test this Thursday and Friday. The following week, we have our ELA test on May 13th and May 14th, and we will finish with NJSLA math on May 21st and 22nd. Our students are ready, and we are excited for them to show what
they know. Thank you, Miss Balo. Um, okay, that wraps up our our leazison reports. We are up to old business. Any old business? Thank you. Any new business? I do have some new business on the vote. Um, I
just wanted to add a comment um about the communications firm. Um while I do believe that it is important uh to get the message out, um I really wish that we could have kind of um shopped around and pulled um some internal resources.
We do have staff members that are paid uh to communicate um via social media and other networks um as well as a communications committee as well as an advisory committee who could have solicited some outside help um and then kind of filled in the gaps with a paid
service. I really implore um the board to not exceed that $40,000 cap. Uh even though you say that we can put 30% back to the taxpayers, our taxpayers don't need to pay any more money um than what they're already being asked to approve
um and pay. So I really hope that we can keep it there. And you know I if this since this is a service that we have voted on now um to implement I really hope that we are responsible uh with the amount we spend on offering uh you know
getting this assistance for this uh campaign to push the vote. Thank you. Any other new com any other new business? Okay. Um this is round two of our public comments. Is there anyone
signed up? Mr. Caribel, does anyone here want to speak for public comments? Mr. Bommo, please come to mic. Charles Balo, Mro, New Jersey. Just a question for the board. Um, based on some of the unfortunate public comments
made here earlier as I was sitting I was just reading through board policy came across policy 0167 public participation in board meetings. It says the board of education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the
public to express themselves on school matters of community interest. The significant amount of the comments that were made here earlier had absolutely nothing to do with the school board and they were just personal attacks by name on a board member who happens to be
pursuing something outside of her role at on the school board. And you know, I don't think based on this policy and the way I'm reading it, it's appropriate. I'd love to hear uh Mr. Gross's input on that. Um, it also says here further down
that the presiding officer may interrupt, warn or terminate a participant statement if it's abusive. And you know, I think by any definition, a significant amount of what was said earlier fits that definition of abusive. I realize that members of the
board have recently been in elections against one another and are on opposite sides of the political aisle. And today it's Danielle. But another day, it could be any one of the board members who pursues an interest outside of this board, whether it be a promotion at your job or something to do with your business. And it just doesn't seem like
a good precedent to set that somebody can come to this microphone and waste the public's time talking about a matter completely unrelated to the school board. So, I wanted to ask that question and raise that issue. Um, and to you Danielle, I just wanted
to say that uh when when these extreme left-leaning members of the public are coming out here to the school board to speak this way to you and to attack you, that's how you know you're doing something right and to stick with your convictions. It's
like getting booed on the road. The best players get the loudest booze. Thank you. Thank you. Did you anyone want to respond or comment? Okay. Would you let us let us close our
public comments first and then you can respond? Okay. Anyone else want to come up? Yes. Angela Colby Marro. I just wanted to um thank the special education department and scope for putting on um an amazing
event tonight to close out autism acceptance month. uh the Circle of Friends Cafe and Ben who was here I think should be invited um just like the traveling 911 museum every year and
incorporated into the school's curriculum um whether it's during autism um month or whether we're talking about any other kinds of pillars within um the community
or within the district. I would also like to bring the point that he mentioned veryheartedly that social skills are an very important part um of
how he has grown personally and um professionally I can say with his uh job skills that he had and every day I read on social media as you all are on social media how many Kids are struggling in
school, kindergarten through 8th grade, and in high school to make friends. They feel lonely. They're getting bullied. And we need to have more social skills put into the day of a child, whether it's during lunch, after school, school
clubs. We have social programs, but that is something that is really needed for every child within the district, whether it's in general education or if it's in within special education, and to integrate them all together, sense of
belonging, and to learn how to speak to each other and be acceptant accepting to each other. So, I would really hope that you would work with the curriculum leaders um to be able to put more social skills into um the daily lives of the
children in Marro. Thanks. Thank you. I I will just say that I was in completely just touched by the whole Ben presentation and he has more social skills than half the people I probably know and he should be inspiring not only
to our students but to our to to to so many people that can sort of really learn valuable lessons from him. So thank you for pointing that out. is such an important lesson. Um, he was great and yeah, if we can do anything else to sort of incorporate him into the
experience here in Mororrow, that's really an awesome opportunity. Thank you. Anyone else for comments or public comments? Okay. Motion to close public comments. Miss Carrero. Second, Mr.
Hyatt. All in favor? Anyone opposed? Thank you. Public comments are closed, Miss Gandhi. Okay. Thank you very much. Um I will make a motion now uh to actually, you know, before we make a motion, I just wanted to say something. I was really um I got to just
find my note. I I just want to say, you know, usually I try to find something inspirational over the day and Ben was extremely inspirational for me today. There was one other thing that came out of today that I thought was really inspirational for me which was the memorial grad student presentation which
was really great and the fact that one student and she made a statement that I will never forget which is what will my future self say or think about my actions today and that is something that is written down in my mind and it's something that I'm going to continue to think about but it was really it touched
me. So, thank you to our students for bringing that to our attention and thank you to our our school leadership for for presenting it today. So, those are just my my closing comments. Um, I will make a motion for executive session. Um, we expect to sort of go into executive
session, not come back out for any public action. We anticipate executive session will be about 90 minutes in which we will discuss matters of attorney client privilege personnel matters and safety security matters. Can I have a second?
Miss Gandhi. Any discussions? Okay. Roll call. All in favor? Anyone opposed? We're into executive session. Thank you everybody. [Music]