of the board president. As the board vice president, I'd like to call the meeting to order. If we could please. Um, this is a calling to order for the Matuchin Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, April 28th. Please stand to salute the flag.
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. If we could have the notice of the meeting. Mrs. Alvich.
>> I hereby make the statement to indicate compliance with the open public meetings act known as chapter 231 of the public laws of New Jersey 1975 which became effective 90 days after enactment January 19th, 1976. Notice that this meeting was given by providing the location, time, and date of this meeting and posting the same on the front door
of the board of education offices, by delivering copies to the burough hall in the Matetra public library, the home news and tribune, and by filing a copy with the burough clerk as prescribed by this law. >> Thank you. >> Oh, >> roll call, please.
>> Yes. Mr. B, >> here. >> Miss Cheetah, >> here. >> Mr. Derlinger, >> here. >> Mr. Glber, >> here. >> Dr. Johnson Marcus, >> I am here. >> Miss Colleen, >> she is advised she won't be here today. >> Thank you very much.
Um, Miss Michael Smort is not here today. >> Dr. Spner >> here. >> Mr. Sass >> here. >> Miss Zimmerman >> here. >> I'm sorry. It's me again, right? >> Good. >> All right. Dr. Caputo, we have a
showcase of success tonight. >> We do. Thank you, Madam President. The Edgar Wind Ensemble under the direction of Robin Keith is here tonight. The ensemble is a combination of band students in seventh and eighth grades. Tonight, we'll all hear Metro Dance by Randall Standridge. It's a concert
celebration that pulsates with the urban groove one feels when walking through the busy New York City streets. The Edgar Spring Band concert will be held May 14th right here at Matuchen High School at 7 p.m. And we encourage you to attend. Miss Keys, thank you for being here tonight. >> Yeah, thank you guys. Um um community
members, thank you so much for supporting the arts. It always means a lot. You guys do so much for the community and so we always appreciate doing an event like this. So again, our concert is May 14th. Thank you guys so much for coming tonight. All right, guys. Ready?
1 2 3 4 Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here.
Thank you. All right. Um, first of all, thank you for representing the program. You know how much it means to me that everybody here will go on to every building. All right. You're part of the building block of a big program. So, thank you for that. We got to clear the stage and be responsible. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Keys. Great job,
seventh, and eighth grade Dan. You knocked out of the park tonight. Great job. >> What a delightful performance. >> Great way to start the meeting, right? >> Absolutely. Always. Always great. >> Moving solid.
>> Move that way. Back that way. All right. >> Do you want >> Do you want to mention when the the show is again the performance? So again to see >> again to see the entire seventh and eighth grade um band uh concert uh
that's May 14th here at Matuchen High School 7 p.m. That's the entire Edgar Spring Band concert. May 14th Matuchen High School 7 p.m. We encourage you to come out and see the whole show. >> Thank you Mr. Glassber. >> Thank you for that reminder. Always
nice. I think is such a delight within our community that we get to see our students perform on a regular basis in this way. It's really nice. Earlier today, I was at the Somerset Patriots game where the fifth and sixth grade uh chorus perform. So, that's was really nice. They did the uh national anthem to
open up the game. So, it was always nice to see our students out in the >> touch of music always in motion. >> I love it. >> All right. So, we are at this time open to the public for comments. But it's all good. All good. Uh so if
anyone wants to approach the podium, this is your time. Got to get myself back on track here. >> Just reminder, state her name. >> Just kidding. I thought it was going to be quieter. >> You want to give her give her a break? Yeah.
I love that you would ask. >> Are we live? >> Nice job. Middle school. >> Let me get my place. >> I don't know. I never know which camera. >> Just one second. We need to wait for our tech guy to make sure you're captured.
>> Are we good to go? >> Oh, not yet. Okay, just kidding. >> So, the camera see that one just turned. Yeah, >> I don't know where the right camera is. >> I just look generally in that direction. I hope it works out. >> We're good to go. All right. Thank you
so much. If you could just state your name and address for the record, please. Thank you. >> Yes. Yeah. Uh good evening and namaste to all the board members and thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak. I won't take much time 3 minutes at the most. So my name is Nirja Sharma and I
am a proud resident of Mitachin Burough for about 30 years. My two kids attended all the mitajun schools and uh uh the way they grew up I appreciate a lot to the school system for giving them values and education uh which uh you know made
them succeed. My daughter is uh 26 and my son is 22. So Mr. Kaputo knows Ashima Sharma Arav Sharma. Uh well today uh I am representing uh Hindu education foundation standing here in front of
you. This is a cultural uh organization with uh over 250 weekly chapters across United States. Uh Hindu education foundation is an initiative of Hindu swam seak which is actually 501 uh C3
voluntary nonprofit social educational and cultural organization. Uh during teacher appreciation week in May uh usually we organ uh recognize and celebrate the in invaluable contributions of our educators.
As part of this we organize an annual event called guru wandana. Uh in Sanskrit guru means teacher or mentor and wandana means offering respect. So together guruhana represents an expression of deep gratitude and
reverence towards teachers. Um teachers play a critical role in shaping not only the academic journey but also the character and future of our children. Their patience, dedication and compassion leave a lasting impact on
generations. In this tradition of you know Hindu culture there is a saying saying achara devoa which means the teacher is to be revered like god. Uh it reflects the highest respect accorded to educators as
guiding light in society. Uh through the educ Hindu education foundation we strive to build a strong meaningful collaboration with schools and educators. Some of the recent initiatives which you know this organization has taken uh yoga programs
in Edison schools reaching over 700 students a cultural workshop for 80 teachers in Wang Burough school district a dana poster exhibition attended by over 1200 students
collaboration with Woodbridge schools uh where we donated about 10,000 pounds of uh food to local pantries which was done under Diwali you know the culture uh festival Diwali they collect the food
and provide to local pantries so that was one so like that you know those initiatives are uh taken and uh they do every year um so this year I thought you know I have always wanted to reach out to uh our district um showing my
appreciation for all the teachers and educators And you know we get involved in all kinds of stuff and never get to do those initiatives. Now the kids are older on their own. I have all the time to do all of these things. So um that's
why I decided to come and present in front of you uh to bring this kind of initiative. Uh if in coming teacher appreciation week uh if we given an opportunity we would like to collaborate and do some event to appreciate the
teachers. uh you know that's what it is. So on behalf of Hindu education foundation and HSS I extend our great a heartfelt gratitude to all the teachers. Your dedication inspires, uplifts and
shapes the future. So thank you for everything you do. Namaste. >> Thank you for the very kind words. Um, I will pass those along and please feel free to call the office or send me an email and I'd love to talk to you more about uh help helping you help us recognize the teachers sometime in May.
That would be fantastic. >> Great. Thank you, Mr. Caputo, as always. >> Thank you so much for coming out. I appreciate that. >> Thank you. >> All right. Is there any other member of the public who'd like to speak at the podium? Did you just forget a sweater?
All right. Seeing no one else coming to present, I turn it over to you, Dr. Kabuto, for some presentations. >> We do. We have uh four presentations tonight. We'll start with Mr. Prowski. Thank you for being here, Mr. Prowki, to present the uh chronic absenteeism plan
for Matuchen High School. Good evening, folks. Uh thank you for the opportunity to meet with you and share some information regarding the Matachan High School this evening. As you may know, the new New Jersey Department of Education monitors chronic absenteeism rates for all school
districts. Recently, they have implemented a requirement for schools not meeting the chronic absenteeism rate to develop and implement a corrective action plan to guide each student each school through the process of lowering that rate. In order for me to better
explain our plan, I'd like to back up a little bit and I'd like to share that in January of 2025, so that's about 15 months ago now, I had first shared first semester data with the members of the MHS school leadership team. We had been
observing the trend and was concern and we were concerned that we would need to address our absenteeism rate. So, we reviewed the data that was collected back then. as you can see from January. Wow, this didn't come out very well when it uh
translated there. Um it is posted on the website as well for you to review if if >> I know it looks really good. Yeah, it looks good because I have it in front of me and you have it online. So, >> so it doesn't look as good here, but I'm going to keep on explaining as if it does look that way. Folks in the public,
you can check it out online. >> Yes. uh from January of last year through now there has been continuous engagement in these conversations and where you see a lot of overlap in graphic representation from January through April of last year
you'll observe the concentrated effort given as we continued to bring more minds together to discuss the trends that were being observed over the past 15 months you'll notice the number of meetings brainstorming sessions action planning and communication about the
concerns that were accomplished through parent advisory, PTO, school leadership, faculty, and student advisory collaborations. Our goal is simple. Turn the chronic absenteeism rate around to under 10% of
the threshold. You see, last year the the last year's number, we were at 16.9% chronic absenteeism rate. The mandate is under 10% and currently as of March
30th, 2026, we are at 9.9%. 10% equal equates to a total of 18 or more absences during a school year. Examining the data more closely, we noticed that there was a significant number of students who had between 18 to 21 absences last year. In fact, if we
look directly at that number of students, if we were able to decrease their attendance to below that threshold, so even just getting them from 18 to 21 down to 17 absences, our absenteeism rate would have been well
below the threshold itself. Specifically, we would be underneath 8.7%. By 8.7%. As a collaborative team communicating our observations and experiences with attendance, the leadership teams, parent, student, and school leadership
identified that these were the areas that were impacting our attendance rates. In order to confirm our qualitative findings, we conducted a parent survey in the winter of 2026 as well, which confirmed the top three re reasons for absences according to
parents. Please note the insight that we have when analyzing the data. Absence was rarely driven by deliberate school avoidance interventions needed to address medical documentation gaps, family travel planning, and mental
health support. So when we're looking at this information, the leadership's observations, we specifically identified things like parental reinforcement of attendance, medical issues without documentation, mental health or inpatient care, family vacations,
minimal consequences that were given for a lack of attendance, and some academic struggle. when we're looking at the top three reasons the parents identified health and medical issues, family trips and vacations, and mental health anxiety.
When collaborating with all stakeholder groups, we all agreed it's not about establishing further punishments, but building incentives that would inspire students and families to aspire to improving their attendance. This mindset, we're hoping, will make all the
difference now and in the future. Our goals were three-fold. Establishing incentives, facilitating one-on-one check-ins, and establishing early warning communication systems. What is interesting is that these were
constructed in the spring of 2025. The data gathered from the parent survey confirmed that they were on board with the processes that we had implemented for this school year. In our original review of the fall 2024
semester, we were able to see the trend that juniors and seniors in particular had a much higher absenteeism rate than our 9th and 10th graders. As a result, we felt that we should focus two two incentives on privileges that students
would have in their junior and senior years. Parking and senior privilege, whether that's late arrival to school or early dismissal. So this is how we set it up. You'll see that, you know, the baseline standard is 90% attendance rate. They have to meet that rate in
order to then earn the ability to have those uh specific incentives. So for example, in the fall, senior privilege um and parking, say for instance, looking at parking in particular, in the fall, they had to maintain a 90%
absenteeism rate. So, they had to be here 90% of the time in order to then be able to park on campus in our spring semester. Same thing for our juniors. We're trying to incentivize it for them so that they had to maintain if they were getting
their license this spring, if they wanted to park on campus, they needed to have that 90% uh rate as well of attendance here in the school. the class of 2027 as they're hoping to
plan their schedules for 2020 uh 2026 2027. We look at their senior privilege. If they've maintained a 90% attendance rate or higher, they have the possibility of having a senior privilege either early arrival or late dismissal
if it works in their schedule. So that's how we're kind of working that at this point in time. And we've also kind of established it for our sophomores as well, seeing that we are they're working towards this themselves. If they want to as a junior, if they are turning 17 in their junior year, they
need to meet that same attendance requirement. Now, the other incentive that was created through looking at attendance was reinforcing the importance of not only good grades in the class, but earning seat time requirements. As such, we constructed the final exam exemptions
potential for nonAP courses. Why nonAP? Because we already had an AP course exemption practice and we wanted to ensure equity and opportunity across all learners. So note that the expectations
for attendance, academic achievement and academic performance, and most importantly, we are requiring teacher approval for a student to potentially be exempted from a final exam. Ninth graders, sorry, it's
your first year in the high school, you're going to be expected to sit for all of them. In 10th grade, the students have an opportunity to potentially be exempt from one of their exams, the potential for two exams in 11th grade,
and the potential of unlimited non-AP exams in 12th grade. And again, I put the uh slide on there to show you the AP students exemption requirements because that's, you know, not only attendance, not only performance, but they're also
sitting for the AP exam. What I want you to be aware of is that uh everything again I said teacher approval you see exemptions are not guaranteed as the teacher should collaborate and communicate with the
student to make a final decision. So now how are we communicating and addressing attendance issues with parents and students? We start with with the radar early warnings, the review monthly data checks with communication to support services to aid in
communication and the response check-ins with individual students and parents, alerting them to concerns and engaging in dialogue around trends observed and establishing expectations. We've communicated in a variety of ways, including through our handbook,
newsletters, and direct communication with parents and students the process we're taking. Following the guidance from the district policy and regulation 5200, we conduct data reviews at midpoint and end of each marking period. We send out communication detailing
warnings, classes at risk, thresholds students are currently meeting or exceeding, an appeals process, and establishing meetings with both parents and students together. Those meetings are conducted through an ad hoc attendance committee, which is an
offshoot of our INRS committee. After a formal appeal, a decision is made for receiving credit for courses. We then bounce back to the counseling department and CST to determine how to modify schedules, establish credit recovery if
possible, or even plan for next year's courses based upon the needs of the students. We continue to highlight and explain policy 5200's updates and regul to the regulation that were adopted by the board in November of 2024.
We clarify information on seat time. We continue to examine and try to address issues in Genesis regarding how absences are specifically reported. And we also send out bi-weekly letters to families of students who are close to meeting any attendance threshold.
Over the past year or so, we've upped our game with parent communication. My newsletter, the MHS school shorts, continues to provide information about attendance expectations. We have letters communicating dangers of credit loss. Instagram posts highlighting attendance
in the meme format because that's the way our students will read it and respond to it. I highlight the importance through our daily announcements. We have daily automated phone calls, texts as well as the letters that are sent out by bi-weekly.
What we've noticed, however, is the response to phone calls, texts, and emails has been that some parents are starting to turn off those notification options in Genesis, which makes it a little harder for us to continue to
communicate directly with our families. We've also noted that there are a lot of misunderstandings and misinterpretations regarding what the state and district define as excused absences. the states the state's excused absences are more
stringent, but I've encountered many conversations and comments on surveys that lead me to believe that the further that further education on absences is necessary. In fact, in my last newsletter just sent last week, sent to
families and available on the MHS website under documents, probably where you can also see this presentation in its former glory before tonight. I shared an infographic that I created entitled attendance matters, what's
working and necessary clarification points. In it, I defined state and board excused absences, the chronic absenteeism rate, and the listing of state and board excused absences. You see, I had parents telling me things that it's unfair that a student's
illness, a death in a family, or interviews for prospective employers for those entering the workforce after graduation are not acknowledged as absences, which is not true. In fact, we do have these listed as district excused absences. So, we needed
to clarify that information for families as well as for some others. Now, I truly hope that they're reading what I created because I designed my own infographics and I put my heart and soul into the communication and communicating effectively and efficiently. And I pride
myself on my creativity and my communication skills. On a side note, looking at this presentation and whatever it looks like right now, I may have used notebook LM to help me construct these slides based on my corrective action plan report that
I wrote for tonight's presentation. I did so to show that this old bulldog needs to learn how to use it so that I can model appropriate AI usage for students and for staff alike. Just letting you know
as I've shared our goal is to decrease the chronic absenteeism rate and this is going to be fixed is in one year. No, probably not. But we are sure trying. As of March 30th, you see that we were at 9.9%.
I'm not sure if we're going to hit that 10% underneath 10% rate this year, but I'm hoping that we're getting closer to that so that we will see a decrease over time as our practices get better. So, our goal is to sustain momentum with
this plan, to reinforce the incentive structures, provide more communication and education to our families so they understand what our goals are here, and continue to audit the students progress in maintaining a rate that is below that 10% threshold. Ultimately, we are
shifting our thinking. I'd like to publicly thank the members of the MHSSLT, my parent advisory, my student advisory, the MHS PTO, Dr. Caputo, and Dr. Herzog for their continued support,
collaboration, and guidance. I also want to thank the MHS teachers, the administrative assistants, our school counselors, and our CST members for their continued hard work in addressing this issue with empathy, genuine concern, and a dash of tough love for
those who need it. While I'm the one speaking here this evening, it's their efforts that are being reported here. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, Mr. Powrowski. Really appreciate that. Yeah, there may be some questions. Yeah. >> All right, folks. Are there any
questions for Mr. Prowski? Thank you. And I appreciate you as always modeling how to engage and grapple with new tools uh to serve as an exemplar for your uh students as well as your peers. Dr. Spner, one quick question. It's a very good
report and thank you for all of that um information you provided and the uh graphics. Really cool. And thank you for the transparency on AI as well. I appreciate that very much as a governance person. Um there was an earlier slide that talked about an intervention is which is what um one of
the steps was a one-on-one check-in. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? >> Yes, that is check-ins normally with the school counselor uh case manager or uh one of either myself or Mr. Stike calling the student down talking them to to them directly and saying hey what's
going on with your attendance? I'm noticing your route. you know, you need to be here. How can we help you? How can we plan this better for you? What's happening? Is something at home not getting you here on time? Or is something else like preventing you from
being here? Are you are you feeling okay? Are you have you been sick? What's what's happening? And it's a just a conversation, a way for the students to realize that we're watching, we're paying attention, and we want them to know that we're here on their side for them. >> Sounds good. Thank you.
>> Of course. >> Other questions? Uh, Mrs. Zimmerman. >> Thank you. First of all, great um great job engaging the community and and really pulling everyone in to tackle this problem and and thinking about it from all sides. So, well done on that.
Um, I had a question about the parking incentive. So, for sophomores who have summer birthdays and wouldn't unlock parking privileges in their junior year, is there some alternative incentive for them? not necessarily for that particular incentive, but I think that
the other incentive specifically with the exam exemption is definitely much more appealing to our students, especially as they're walking through the hallways now, stopping me and saying, "Oh, Mr. Powki, what's what's my attendance rate and what do I really need to have in order to uh consider
that I could be exempt for a final?" And I just keep on reminding them, it's not only your attendance, it's also the the approval by your teacher and you they they have to make that decision. So hopefully that is going to uh show its dividends and we're going to do well
with that. >> That's great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Other questions? Mr. Glber, >> thank you as well for the presentation. Um, I think it it's so it would be so easy to say this is just a state and
national trend and this is just what we're dealing with now postco. Um, but what I appreciate is that you're taking some creative approaches to it. I appreciate the um incentive type strategy over the over the punishment strategy. However, uh you did also
mention credit recovery and I'm curious what what would trigger credit recovery and what does that look like? So credit recovery would end up being they have missed an excessive number of there there have been excessive number of absences in a course. For example uh for
a halfear course if they are over the threshold of 10%. >> We closely look at their attendance rates. we say, "Okay, is there a way for you to um make up that seat time and continue doing your work in the class or
are you like progressing along so far that we need to have you retake the course or complete credit recovery?" It's never like a specific number because we're looking at the student, we're looking at the situation, we're talking with the parents and making
decisions together um that are in the best uh that we can do our best to uh ensure that our students are learning, growing, and uh attending school as well. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other questions for Mr.
Prowski? >> All right. Wonderful. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Have a great evening. >> Mr. Powki, great job. could you just pass the um the clicker over here? We're going to do the next uh budget presentation from this spot. Thank you. >> Great job, Mr. Prosky. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Thanks, Mr. Neik. Appreciate that. So our next presentation tonight um madam president is our final budget hearing. I'll do the first part of the presentation. I'll we'll switch clicker and Mr. Harvey will take us through the second part with the financials. Um I
want to talk a little bit first about the budget timeline. We start in last summer. So we started in July and August with the budget preparations in the fall dece um up to December. The principles prepared their schoolbased budgets. >> I need a motion to open public hearing
>> before that. Uh, sure. >> Okay. I motion to open public hearing on the budget. >> Is it that M Mr. Glassber seconded? All right. Now we're good, I guess. Thank you. All right. >> Yes. Appreciate that. Um, I'll just continue from there. In December, um, Mr. Harvey and I review all the
submitted budgets and in beginning in January, and that happens at our January through April meetings, as you know, presentations from Mr. Prowky, the other principles, uh, Dr. Bonisa, the Mr. Cathkart, Dr. Herszog, all the budget managers uh make their presentations and
interact with the board. We received our uh state aid information on March 10th. March 24th was our preliminary budget hearing and tonight is what's called the final budget hearing where the board votes on the the budget for the 26 27th school year. So we'll take you through some of the highlights. Um so a budget
is not just a list of numbers, but it's really a um expression of our values. >> Um and so what does that get us? So at Matuchen High School, um Mr. Prowki listed a couple of the the rankings. So we ranked 45th in New Jersey and 126th
in the New York metro area and that's top 5% across the nation. Um we were ranked number two in in niche in the county. Um we received a silver award in sustainable Jersey. Number of schoolwide initiatives, community outreach, academic highlights. I'll just mention
that 91% of our students in the class of uh 25 pursued higher education. We had seven commended scholars and one semi- finalist in a national merit scholarship program. And you know, I'm awfully proud of our advanced placement program. We received the AP school honor roll of
bronze award. And we had 555 AP exams taken last year. Almost 84% of those students received a passing score of three or higher. So, it's just it's just outstanding. um athletics, a whole list of um champions and repeat champions, and of course our co- extracurricular
highlights, and you always see those presentations. Um of course, this year we you saw the Crucible and and Shrek from the high school. Um we just really proud of that the the work that comes out of the high school. Switching to Edgar School. Um Edgar is a sustainable
Jersey bronze level recipient. They also received a grant for a hydroponic system, which we're really excited about. a number of schoolwide initiatives. Uh we talked about last time the the excellent um spring musical they presented. Uh they've had speakers, student advisory board um modeled after
uh the one I have here. A number of community outreach uh efforts including the bulldog briefs and adopt the family and also academic competitions. The first Lego League competition, it's important at Edgar. Um students were selected for regions honors orchestra band and jazz. and our math school team
finished in second place this spring in the uh AMT&J middle school competition at Campbell School. Uh they continue with their motto um with children, families, and teachers, and it's listed there for you. Uh a number of additional schoolwide initiatives. We received
another award from the American Heart Association. Um I've heard that we may be in line for another award this year um for next year. um monthly bulldog Bike Brigade, which has just been supported amazingly by the community. Um and we have our book swap and our
bimonthly surveys to find out how we're doing. Um our food pantries, our Campbell Friday 3, and of course Dr. C's um coffee or tea, and that's sponsored by our great partners at our PTO MOS school, a number of awards. Uh
they're currently a state school of character. They're currently a national school of character. They received uh Jersey certification uh Jersey sustainable schools bronze level. Uh and of course our one of our major highlights this year was the opening of our first full day kindergarten ever. Uh Miss Asperola and her staff. Yeah,
you're welcome. We're really proud and happy that we're able to provide that. Certainly our updated facilities um part of the referendum project. They're listed there. We've enhanced our assessment tools with Dibbles and Fontis and Panel and I Ready. We have additional uh foundational skills
instructional materials including Wharton Gillingham and Heggerty. Um and we also received the New Jersey focus grant, differentiated math approaches and community outreach again with our book swaps, our assembly programs, our food drive, our clothing drives. Uh we
hosted um our friends from Africa uh and uh the preschool fashion show was just one of the highlights of this year. Just outstanding. The budget also supports our special education um budget and our focus areas there around specialized programs and
related services, counseling and behavioral supports and literacy intervention that includes reading intervention, targeted PD coaching and progress monitoring to get the best of every student in the district. Um with the help of the 2019 referendum,
our budget also supports our mental health initiative. Dr. Herszog will have a full presentation uh I believe the next meeting on that uh and she'll go into more about the our our model of prevention education and support that involves students and parents and staff.
Um you'll hear a lot more about that. The next slide reminds us of the components of our meth mental health referendum from November of 2019 that allowed us to bring on behavioral supports. right now. That's the Ruckers uh Nest program, additional school psychologists, therapeutic programs,
academic interventions, and and a tiny piece for clerical support. In short, the mental health referendum is on slide 11. Um the bulk of that goes to our therapeutic programs set next equal amounts between academic supports and the school psychologists,
small amounts behavioral supports, uh the health insurance and the clerical support. Our proposed budget around curriculum uh is in five areas. Curriculum writing and revisions. PD with consultants and vendors. We've listed a couple of there
um for the public to see. Um we prove that you see us approve those on every uh board agenda. Our systems management like front line and link it. Our PD which is led by district experts and those are teacherled sessions for inservices, mentoring and PD related to our district goals, mandates and um
areas of need and then supplies for the curriculum office. In the area of technology, our 2627 budget allows for one-to-one devices for our rising third and 9th graders, hardware upgrades throughout the district, and in a savings through
choice of laptop and desktop platforms, various interactive whiteboard models, and the extension of our Chromebook life expectancy beyond what we've used to uh up to at least six years now to get more life out of that. And our tech uh department does a great job around that. We also at this point when we talk about
the budget uh there's a lot behind the scenes. So we always give it each year the status of our network infrastructure. Um so we have our wiring, our switches, our servers, our firewall which will replace next year. Our internet services going from 3 gigs to five big gigs bandwidth. Um access
points. Um we we revise uh older ones with newer ones and all of our new construction has new equipment. um a fiber backbone with 10 plus gigs throughout um the building and the new construction maintains that standard and our WAN uh across the the building links
as well. Our budget allows for facility and safety um which is continued proactive maintenance of our beautiful buildings and our beautiful athletic fields. And I can't tell how many times visiting folk come and they say just we're just so impressed with your fields and now the with the new fieldhouse. Um, so we're
fortunate, but it it doesn't happen by accident, and we commit u um public money to make sure those we're maintaining those fields. Continued parking lot maintenance at all of our buildings, HVAC upgrades, and roof repairs. Um, and I'll switch with Mr. Harvey to turn you over for the current
school budget, starting with fund 10. >> Uh, thank you, Dr. Caputo. Um the first slide just gives an overview of the four funds for the school district. The four accounting funds. First one is is the general fund and
that's where the majority of the accounting takes place. Uh the 2526 budget appropriations is 54.3 million. 2627 is 53.5 million. The reason for the decrease is last year we transferred a
lot a lot of about 1.9 million into capital reserves. That's the reason that it it went down from this year to last year. The uh special revenue fund that's where all the grants earmarked for a specific purpose are accounted for. 2526
appropriations 1.55 2627 is 1 million.511. So a a slight decrease there. Uh the federal grants are a little bit uncertain at this point. That's that's the reason for the decrease. Fund 40.
This is where we account for the the funds to pay off the bonds that we have outstanding. 2526 the appropriation was 6.1 million. 2627 is 5.9 million. And that's just a decrease that was in the
amortization schedule that uh we agreed to. uh summary of appropriations. On the next slide, this gives you a summary of all the appropriations for fund 10. See at the bottom, it totals 53.5 million.
The first three lines make up 83% of the budget. That's salaries, health insurance, out of district tuition, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech make up 83 about 83% of our budget. And education is obviously a
laborintensive budget, a laborintensive industry, and that's why it makes such such a big percentage of the budget. Um the next slide just is a graphical representation or of the um or pie chart representation of all the appropriations
and you see, you know, salaries and health insurance taking up most of that. Next slide discusses our revenue and fund 10. Local tax levy is 47,16904. State aid is 3.5 million. Budgeted fund
balance is 1.6 million. Transfer from capital reserve 554,000. Transportation revenue 325,000. Miscellaneous revenue 266,000. That's interest earned on our uh cash.
uh tuition students and rental income that we a little amount of rental income we get. And the last item is is uh Medicaid reimbursement for a total of 53.5 million. And the next slide just shows those
numbers in a pie chart. State aid special for state aid we got a total of 3.5 million. The breakdown of special education is 2.8. Categorical transportation aid is 362,000 and
categorical security aid is 346,000. The next slide shows the t tax impact for fund 10 and fund 40. The ratables are 1 1 billion 97 million. They went up slightly this year. The total tax levy
is 51,478096. The tax rate is 4 4.69 69 per 100. School taxes on assessed at 211,000 is 9,898. That's an increase on the house assessed at 21143 or $330 and the percent
increase is 3.45%. This has been one of the more difficult budget years in a while, probably since 2010 2011. The main reason is because of the drastic increase in health insurance. We were actually lucky that our health
insurance only went up by 12%, there's districts where the health insurance went up by 25 and 30%. Uh so 3.5% is is a is a high number. Um okay, the next one is the tax levy
analysis fund 10 and fund 40. For the last 15 over the last 15 years, the average increase to the taxpayer is 2.4%. Just to highlight a couple of items that that 2.4% 4% the average of 24 4% over
over the 15 years. That includes the mental health referendum and it includes uh the the the referendum that we had, you know, the the payments for the referendum, current referendum. Um next slide just shows some budget efficiencies. I won't go through all of
them. I'll highlight a couple of them. We're participating, the board's going to approve it tonight. We're participating in an energy savings improvement plan. This what we we will be doing is we'll be implementing we'll be contracting with our architect SPEL and we'll be
implementing some energy conf conservation measures that the board of public utilities identified through their audit that they did of our district. We're also going to the board is also approving the uh solar paralle solar
panel in uh panels on all of our roofs and we also as mentioned earlier we also completed the energy audit. So that completes the slides. Are there any questions? >> Thank you Mr. Harvey. Appreciate it. Um
>> Mr. Sus can go first. I know he's it's our financial chair. Do you want to go first or Mr. Sus? >> So, Mr. and uh actually the whole administration um thank you for all the work you the whole board sees it. I'm not sure the uh public sees I know uh
Dr. Kudo you mentioned this all started in uh January but >> really starts last July but yes in earnest public sees it >> the number of phone calls that we've had etc and questions is is is uh thank you for answering all of them. A couple
questions. Um this slide 19, there's a new item that didn't show up last year. So we have um speech mental health charter school is the third item. Then there's another charter school item at the bottom for 55,000.
What is that one? Slide 19. >> Charter school 55,000. That's for we have a couple of students that go to charter schools and the the district is responsible for the tuition pay the tuition to those. >> So what's the difference between you
have charter school and the on the third line? >> Is that different? >> Yeah. No, that should that's a typo. That should be in there. >> Okay. >> So the totality of the charter schools in the last line,000 >> is in the last line. >> Okay. And then just a question just to
highlight for the um for the public. So you're estimating transportation and this is on slides that was 1920. This is slide 21. >> There's no number but you go advance two slides. >> I'm sorry I I was question which slide.
>> Uh two slides. Stop. Yeah. This one. So um transportation revenue you're expecting $325,000. >> Yes. A and how much are we and how much should we um budget for uh courtesy busing
>> about 775 >> so I don't my calculator quick math 775 >> 450 >> 450 >> so the the just for the public's record we're uh basically losing $450,000 on
courtesy busing that we're picking up >> that's why we call it part partial courtesy busing. Yes. >> Yes. Part >> partial subscription courtesy busing. >> Partial subscription courtesy busing. Yes. >> Is it? Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Sus. Mr. Glasber, I know you had a question.
>> Yeah. So, transportation, that was one of mine as well. So, it would it would probably cost somewhere around $1,000 a child if we were to break even on uh >> on subscription busing, >> maybe a little higher. That was that would be assuming that all the students
that currently take busing at the lower amount took it at like $1,200. Yes. >> Right. Right. Okay. So, we're we're subsidizing it by about 400 450,000 somewhere in that range. We've collect and we're expecting to collect 325.
Okay. And we added the extra uh school. >> We did >> for the for this year, which is >> that's part of the budget. >> I know that was a big struggle to work out some of those details. So, I'm glad that we were able to do that. um question slashmainly point for the public about the house assessment
because somebody might look at that 211,000 and say my house is not 211,000 how much more is my are my taxes really going up can you explain why we use 211,000 and why this is applicable to the average
taxpayer >> yeah so this is the this is the assessed value not the market value of the house so whatever the value at your house is assessed for tax purposes and the average house is between 211 and and the average assessed value, not
market value, the average assessed value is between 211 and 214. For consistent consistency purposes, we just use the same number we used last year. >> Okay. So, there hasn't been a reassessment in town in decades probably. I I don't know the exact but
many many many years. So, this is used for consistency because regardless of what >> regardless of what our house is valued at today or what you might sell it for, it's still assessed at approximately that number on average. Okay. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Mr. Glasburg. Any other questions on the budget, folks? >> Mr. Sus, >> that's just a comment on what Mr. Glasber said. though everyone should have received a postcard from the bureau for their for their taxes and on that card is the assessed value and that's
what's used um for for these tax purposes, >> right? And you can compare that to the 211 number. If your number is higher than 211, right, your taxes are higher. If your number's below 211, it's less than the number that we have up here, >> right? So was a green and white postcard. Should have come in like January or February.
>> Thank you, Mr. Sus, for that helpful clarification. Uh, any other questions or comments on the budget? All right. Seeing none, I think we're also also supposed to accept comment from the public. Yes. But seeing none,
>> I will motion to close the public hearing on the budget. All right. Do I need a second for that? >> Yes. >> Sure. Why doesn't Why not? >> Somebody want to give me a second? >> What? >> Dr. Spner. All right. So, now we move on to the
district goals update from Dr. Caputo. >> Yeah, these will be a little shorter. I'll do these from the um the podium so I have a look at >> all good. District goals. Here we go. >> Thanks, Mr. Ul queuing these up. So,
every moment matters. Uh that's been our motto for the 2526 school year. Um we I present these in August or September, give you an update around Thanksgiving, a second update after spring break, and we'll do a final um analysis, final
update in the second meeting in June. But the what you're seeing today is the um the school's input up through spring break. So there's still a lot of time um for these goals to be even accomplished further, but I'm really happy where we are at this kind of spring break second
update of the year. So our first slide today reminds everybody of our priorities. Um Dr. Dr. Herszog spent a lot of time going through past district goals um and formulating this one pager around inclusivity, collaboration, communication, celebrations, the whole
child seal partnerships, mental health and academic achievements and enriching experiences. We use these from everywhere from our goals to our interviews of new candidates. Uh this is kind of what guides our work from year to year uh and spans the the um the year
of the district goals. This year, every moment matters. We have five goals to remind everybody. Goal one is around classroom and community engagement. Goal two is around building forward together, a play on the the um the construction project year. Goal three, sky's the limit. Another play on
words with New Jersey sky data. And I'll have a little more information about the current school year sky data. Um I'll include that in my user email tomorrow for everybody. Goal four is around information literacy when it's really important to me. And goal five is around the best me. Being the best adults,
being the best students, being the best staff, being the best community that we can be. So, here's how we measure our progress. This is a self-designed uh scale. We went through a couple in the early years over a decade ago. We settled on this. We we created ourselves. If you see a
score of one, that means we didn't do it. Something's prevented us from doing that. Go um a score of two means some progress has been made. it's been minimal or not yet at the student level. A three is good progress but it's not completed or it's limited evidence of student impact. Goal four, we did it
well and there might be some goals. That's where it ends. We did it well and there's some evidence of impact at student level. If we can have district goals that impact the student, we're doing something right. And that's our four. Our five is a is is hard to live in. We visited sometimes. That means we
did it well and there's significant evidence of impact at the student level during this school year. District goal one, as I mentioned, is classroom and community engagement. Um, we have three key actions for this year. Teach students about food equity, reduce waste, uh provide reliable sources of
nutritious meals for those in need. Uh, that includes share tables, donations, and community partnerships. The second key action is empower student leaders, and engage the community around environmental stewardship. That's tree related education, benefits of trees, strategically planting new trees. Those of you who pulled into the high school
today, um saw 50, 40, 50 new trees planted just last week. Um really all through the work of our our tree ambassadors under the guidance of Kate Lemer, Yokoono. So happy to see those going in. And three, to enhance critical thinking and deepen understanding of ST
and STEM subjects. um that's strategies, book studies, uh facilitating differentiated um centers and using real world contexts. So what I did for each of the district goals, uh I asked the principles to score themselves in each of the three areas. So for goal one, we
had um three scores from each of the four schools. I averaged those scores. The mean score is 3.5. It ranged though from one to five because you know some some some of these are spring projects some have been completed major impact on students and for each goal I gave you
one example just one of something happening at each school so at Moss there's planned collaboration with the high school honors math classrooms around authentic learning experiences um Mrs. Cole talked to us at our meeting today. She talked to us around, you know, the success having the math honors
classrooms, having the student readers from the basketball and wrestling teams, and how important that is to her and her staff and her students with those collaborations. At Campbell, students are independently selecting strategies, revising their thinking, sustained academic discourse
with a high level of cognitive demand, and importantly, an ownership of their learning. at Edgar where this our shared tables began. Uh students continue to collect unused food during every lunch period every single day. Students have visit the farm stand throughout the afternoon if they're hungry. That's what
the their farm stand is available for. And they also bring food to the nurse's office for students who are in the nursurse offices and you know and and and need a little nutrition. At the high school, I already mentioned the tree ambassadors reviewed and provided feedback on final tree plantings across the district. Uh I'll talk a little
about tomorrow in my uh community message about the number of trees being planted as a result of Miss Lmer's um securing of this $167,000 grant which we've celebrated before and now we see the actual trees going in. It's going to have a huge impact. I told the students
who were overseeing the um the installation of the trees last week that they've made a tangible improvement to their school district and their community and they could see it. They were really proud. District goal two is building forward together five key actions standardsbased
report cards and aligning grading and reporting practices. Reimagining the instructional spaces that extend the core clarifying a common understanding of collaboration. And we had just a fantastic day on Friday with our district leadership team which included
administrators and teachers and three board members uh down at Ruters. And we were really I was really proud. We were held up as a a model for the state and beyond. Uh we had two presentations there. Um so we're we're we're not resting on our laurels. We are that's we
made that a district goal this year. Uh key action four was coordinating staff assignments with input from those staff members to ensure transition between schools continuity of instruction and consistency in student support. And fifth uh action was to plan for the use of new spaces to maximize opportunities,
support teaching and learning and really enhance student engagement. The mean score uh for goal two up to this point up to spring break 3.3. Again, a wide range of 1 to five. At Moss, a highlight was the reimagine of the K2 specials. Um we're going from
a half-day now a full day kindergarten program to a comprehensive prek to two program with the appropriate specials and is collaborating um a collaboration around the programming in all the new spaces. At Campbell, one of the highlights was the fifth grade team participating in their school leadership
team since last year, knowing the fifth grade was coming and not necessarily knowing which teachers, but representing grade five. Um, special meetings were added the fifth grade team to ensure that they were included and prepared. At Edgar, the SLT collaborated uh on
this year on a brand new self-designed by Miss Evans AI chatbot that was geared to helping students identify careers of interest. It's been a big success. we didn't know. When you kind of experiment like this, it's been a huge success. The results were shared with teachers and they've made connections between the
content they teach and careers that students may be interested in. Dr. Herszog and I visited and we saw in action teachers administrating administering this um survey with the chatbot uh and the product that it put out really led to a lot of good work that they're really proud of at Edgar School at the high school. Um they're
looking at their grading profiles. Their grades obviously changed from letters to numbers. Um, and the appropriate first semester grades and GPA were reported to colleges and universities. Um, and it was seamless, but it wasn't without amazing amount of work behind the scenes
by Mr. Powki and his staff. Goal three, sky's the limit. Two key actions, and it's really about collaborating with parents and students and school leadership teams and committees to analyze that school climate data that we collected last spring. Uh and secondly to engage in shared decision-making around the data
to develop and implement action plans. So I'm I'm happy with the the mean score is 3.75. It's a tight range. We're in the three to four range. So we're seeing impact at the student level. Um right now goal three is the highest goal and also the highest increase since I last talked to you around Thanksgiving.
The MOS SLT paired with Campbell staff who are moving next year to define um um and select a focus. The focus was the moss school way and it's assisting students through the tiered systems of supports around academics and behavioral supports. At Campbell, action steps were
based on the winter data which included strength and learn learning for all uh expanding the enrichment and steam opportunities and increasing challenge and support across all levels. At Edgar, they've completed already two no place for hate buildingwide lessons. They were developed collaboratively with the
student support team based on trends seen in the uh sky data from last year. The bulldog values came out of the sky data. They were created in collaboration with the union leadership again as a result of that data. We'll be administering the survey this um this spring again. Um and some of that
information has gone out that'll be going out for the school from the schools. I'll include tomorrow just a summary of those um those dates so you know when to look at home when students, staff, and teachers will be taking those uh surveys at the high school survey results. that
you heard a lot about today about attendance was taken from the parent survey reviewed by their advisories and teams ways to be better homeschool connect to ensure better attendance practices. Mr. Prosky takes I was glad Mr. uh great questions from everybody Mr. Glberg mentioned how this is just
one of those state mandates and I'm sure in some places it's taken as a here here's what we're doing and it's we wanted to really highlight this as as shared work that's that's incorporating students and parents and staff and the administration and again as noted by the
board members not around more punitive um actions but around positive reinforcements for student incentives. So that's all out of this um the sky data. So, we're really looking forward to again a high-end number. Um, students will be provided time in school to do
it. Staff will be provided time at faculty meetings. And we really depend on parents to take a few minutes to complete the NJ Sky survey. Um, we use this data seriously. You'll get a um a summary again before summer of the results that we collect. Uh, and then
we'll be following this data throughout the year again next year. Um, looking for these impacts. This was the results that we shared and we keep coming back back to this. Last year 486 3 to five students took it over a thousand secondary students took it. Over 200
staff took it and nearly 400 parents and caregivers took it. We want the as high or higher end numbers this year. Goal four is around information literacy. Three key actions. um collecting, analyzing and interpreting real world data and in using
representation tools like graph stats and other tools guiding students in evaluating the reliability and limitations of data sources in the flood of misinformation. We can't do enough of this and I'm really happy that a number of the examples point to the first action
there. implement AI plan with tools for screening and curating resources, pick your own path for staff, PD opportunities, and a really exciting prompt engineering and responsible use tools that have been put out by Lindsay Omar and Caroline Ford and our um AI committee. I mentioned before on Friday
we were asked to present around challenging behaviors and all the work that we've done there and also around u AI planning and um Lindsay Omar and Caroline Ford knocked out of the park um representatives from 13 district different districts across the state
involved in some collaboration work were there and it was a really proud day for us and thirdly our key action on information literacy emphasizing voter rights and registrations and that's to build readiness around civics grounding instructions in primary documents,
current events, um, and fostering respectful debate in how geography influences culture, society, and nations. Our mean scores here is 3.42, and I'm excited that this is only up to spring break, and there's a number of months uh, and um, an opportunity to to raise that score. The range is 2 to
five. Moss is really proud around their morning meetings and the inclusion of a daily bar graph uh, using student votes around would you rather. So, it's a great opportunity around voting and data representation and involving students in that is is fantastic. Campbell students
are engaged in analyzing data sets connected to real world data, graphs, visual representation, looking at trends and drawing conclusions. And they also discuss the accuracy and limitations of data. Teachers prompted them to consider source and reliability. It's never too young for students to look at where the
data comes from and is that reliable? Students can understand that is can we trust this data? Can we trust in this information? At Edgar, all students have been trained in district AI. Really, it developed out of um Edgar school. Every classroom at Edgar has the district AI guidelines posted. Students and staffs
were all trained on the use of Notebook LM. Some of you noted today that Mr. Prowski used Notebook LM modeling at the high school as well. But everyone at Edgar has been trained. And at the high school, Share My Meals data is shared out monthly in the newsletter, which is curated by our environmental club
students. um district uh teacher has lessons on reliability of AI. They're January and service sessions on media literacy and reliability using slow real reveal graphs. Another um uh tool brought by Mrs. Lmerch. They're being used in our classrooms helping students
engage in interpreting data and identifying strengths and weaknesses in in those data sets. And finally, goal five is the best me. Three key actions. school-based teams reviewing and setting behavioral expectations around positive student interactions, but also empowering
students with the strategies they need to have healthy relationships, aligning our interventions, our services, and our character ed programs to the NJTSS framework and providing PD and tiered interventions for areas beyond academics, mental health, social emotional learning, behaviors, mean
score of 3.5, range of 2 to four. What are we most proud of at MOS? We've had these rotating lunch bunch groups on target interventions, coping skills, building friendships, anxiety, um the ability to to um participate in story time when students need it. At Campbell,
the light bulb lunch club has been a uh big success developing expectations around their new touchstone. Edgar's been focusing on tier one character Ed through their advisory lessons, the aforementioned no place for hate lesson.