How are you doing? Where's your seat? Mr. Vice President Are you sure? Here's our school. It's embarrassing. baseball. I know. Climbing fences. Yep.
Congratulations. All good. Got that baseball talk out of your sister. All right. You all good? Good evening. I call to order the May 13, 2025 meeting of the Matuchan Board
of Education. Please stand for the flag salute. 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. Mrs. Alavage, notice of the meeting, please. I hereby make this 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 of this meeting was given by providing the location, time and date of this meeting and posting of the same on the front board door of the board of education offices by delivering copies to the burough hall in the Matuchin public library, the home news and trabune and by filing a copy with the
burough clerk as prescribed by this law. Thank you. Roll call, please. Mr. Bot, here. Miss Cheetum, here. Mr. Derlinger, here. Mr. Glasper, here. Dr. Johnson Marcus, here. Miss Colleen, here. Mr.
Lifton here. Miss Trista here. Dr. Signner here. Mr. Sus here. Thank you so much, Dr. Caputo. We have a showcase of success tonight. We do. It's always a great way to start a board meeting. Um, the Matuchan High School
Jazz Band under the direction of Mr. John Flynn is here tonight. The group is one of two audition jazz bands at the high school and performs regularly for the community and at local jazz festivals and competitions. Tonight, the band will perform Cottontail by Duke Ellington. And we invite everybody to please join
the jazz band, the rest of the Matuchin jazz groups at their annual Jazz on the Plaza concert Wednesday, June 11th downtown. Mr. Flynn. [Music] Heat. Heat.
[Music]
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]
Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause]
[Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
[Music] [Applause]
[Music]
Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause]
Woo! Woo! That was fantastic. I think we should record them and play them uh as we start every music every meeting. That was spectacular. Parents, you should be so proud. I am consistently impressed by the quality of
the productions of our uh music uh departments here. Last night was our orchestra Edgar concert. Tomorrow is band uh chorus on Thursday. I'm sorry I'm stealing all the announcements, but I'm just so excited to be able to come and hear this amazing work. Yeah, it's
music season. Thank you. They're playing downtown next month also. Yes, July 11th. Yeah, June 11th. June 11th. Yep. It's not July yet. Sorry, got ahead of myself. Wonderful. All right. Do we give them some time to down and Dr. has to
get set up for presentation. All right. Wonderful. And again, we will not cry if you do not stay. We understand you're here to see your superstars. Uh but the meeting is also open to the public if you did want to come and say anything um
to us while they break down their equipment. [Music] Great job, Mr. I can make it to their concert. I I've been before and it's spectacular. [Music]
Sorry I got you up there so early. It's all good. [Music] All right. All right. Welcome member of the public. Hi everyone. It's so great to see all of
you. I think I know most of you. There are some new faces, but it's great to see all of you. Uh my name is Ben Salasi. I live at 17 Mark Circle. I know I have to do that now. Um most importantly though, I am a very proud graduate of the Matuchin public school
system. Um two years ago, I had the honor and the privilege of serving as the first student board member on this board of education. Um, and needless to say that experience changed my life forever. So, I'm very grateful for that. Um, I'm here tonight not with a
complaint or request or question, but I'm with here with gratitude. A um why? Because while our federal government is looking to threaten our education system, you guys are working to protect it. You guys are doing the really
important work that needs to be done. Um, and I mean here in Matachin, we all I think as a town and a community, uh, believe that every student deserves a fair shot at success. Um, and we're so lucky to just have a board of education
that believes in that. Um, and has never lost sight of that. Uh, the board continues to govern with integrity, empathy, purpose. You've all helped foster an environment uh, where people feel heard and students are seen and valued. two years ago, next Friday, I
actually sat right in PCA's chair. Um, and that was I gave a speech, I don't know if anyone remembers that, about a Florida school district that banned Amanda Gorman's The Hill We Climb. Uh, I quoted her that day. So, that's next Friday would have been the day. Um, and
I just want to briefly quote her now. Uh, she said, "We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all." That's what this board's doing. You guys are doing this work. Uh, and I just wanted to come up here to say thank you for your
leadership, your integrity, for reminding us that public service when it's done right still matters. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for your service as our inaugural
student board member. We appreciated your time here and we are grateful to see the adventures you've been up to since then. So, thank you for that. A thanks so much. All right. Wonderful. Dr. Caputo, we have some presentations.
U Dr. Hersz, I think that's it for the Oh, yeah. Close the session. I think so. Just to make sure. I mean, I shouldn't close it because I see people in the audience. Is there any other members of the public who would like to speak? All right. And seeing none, we're closing
that section. I got so excited seeing Ben. I was All right. Um Dr. Herzog, you've got a presentation for us. I do. Thank you. Well, super proud to follow the that
testimony and that comment and proud to be up here representing a district and a board that produces graduates like that um with those values. So, thanks for being here, Pat. So this evening I'm
going to do our annual update on our mental health initiative and um provide some information about how it's going and how our uh board of education and our district are using the funds that the community supported. Um a little bit
um of statistics to start us off about youth mental health and why the mental health initiative in our school district is important. You can see by the two largest bubbles, suicide is the second leading cause of death among um in youth ages 10 to 14. And 20% of of United
States high school students have had serious thoughts of suicide. Um we know that mental health is a huge issue nationally in New Jersey, in our town, it's everywhere. And we also know that early intervention and the right interventions are essential in getting
the most positive outcomes for our students. And that's why we're invested in this program. In 2019, the community, the board of education um supported and the community supported a mental health referendum. At the time, it was um in
the amount of 700,000. It has gone up incrementally each year as um the budget with the annual increase. But just to recap quickly, there were five components of the mental health referendum at the time and that's what the funds still go towards. So, we've
got two school psychologist positions funded from this so that um there's somebody 5 days a week in each of our schools as a school psychologist. We've increased our behavioral support um by way of board certified behavior analysts um and the amount that we have in
districts serving our students. We brought in more therapeutic programs um specifically at Campbell and Edgar with partnerships from community agencies and we added academic interventions, a reading specialist position, a math intervention position, some summer
programs and um various little programs because we do believe that intervention and and wellness and academic success go hand in hand. and we added some clerical support so that the people who need to do this work are freed up to do so. The
goals of our initiative involve prevention, education, and support. And we focus on all three of these areas. Early identification, building skill sets, educating and promoting acceptance, awareness, and supporting
students, staff, family members, etc. This this evening I'm going to present on 12 essential elements that we've identified are now part of our comprehensive mental health initiative.
And I will add that beyond the components that were included in that are included in the $700,000 referendum and we also have additional resources that contribute to our comprehensive program. We have additional child eight other additional child study team
members, several school counselors, additional student assistance counselors, partnerships with additional um agencies for therapeutic clinicians in our schools. So the um referendum only funds part of it. We've added to that. But with all of these resources
combined, we summarized 12 elements that we think really um describe the commonalities across our mental health program throughout our schools um and throughout prek through high school. So those are tiered interventions, social
emotional learning being embedded in our curriculum, having core character education skills, providing explicit instruction in these areas, opportunities for practice and application, staff development, highquality resources, the support of our leadership, engaging our families
and our community, following a model of collaboration like we do for everything else for but that's multiddisciplinary in nature, having opportunities for student leadership, peer mentoring, and now most recently ly added a comprehensive suicide awareness program. So, I'm going to give a little bit of
background on these components and some examples to demonstrate um what we're doing in our schools. So, this is just a quick description of what we refer to as tiered interventions, which is a statewide model. We refer to tier one, meaning the curriculum, the general
programming that all students get. Tier two, the more tailored programs that some students get because they need additional programs. and tier three are specialized, individualized, datadriven services that the smallest percentage of students get. So this is a model that
the district follows and most districts follow for academic interventions, but we're also now following this beyond academics in the area of social emotional learning, mental health, and behavioral health. This is a visual that we put together in 2019 and have been updating
and adding that was our vision for our mental health program. This is a visual of the tiers. Tier one, the green, is what all students get across and then tier two what some students get and tier three are the most individualized datadriven programs. So you can see some
of the things that are included here at in the bottom level con um cell embedded in our curriculum, professional development for all staff, um offering summer transition programs, having student leaders, advisories, celebrations, character ed programs. As you move up the triangle, you get
need-based groups, individual counseling, intervention services, community referrals, and at the top of the triangle are our therapeutic programs, our functionalbased assessment, our crisis interventions, our family components. So, the first component is
cell embedded in our curriculum, which is a a cornerstone of the curriculum here in Matuchen. It was something that brought me to Matuchen, attracted me to this district eight years ago, and it is work that preceded me and we should all be really proud of. But we do um stay true to our our values of embedding core
in our curriculum. We follow we align to NJDOE's framework for this their research that they've posted. Castle which is the most wellestablished um organization around this work. We write it into curriculums. We've trained our curriculum writers. And there's really
three approaches that we take to embedding cell in our curriculum providing explicit instruction in a target skill. integrating it with academic content or engaging it or embedding it in our in our routines and our daily practices. We also have adopt
have for years had a common framework that's a social problem solving model that we apply to academics to social problem solving and to um work that we even do as a problem solving team of adults. And we sustain this work by embedding these um these uh skills in
our new teacher orientations, our three-year new teachermies, our inservice days, our department meetings, and all of our professional development. So throughout all of our grades, we and all of our schools, we are identifying core charactered skills which we know
are related to positive mental health. Students have to know how to problem solve. They have to know how have coping skills. they have to have awareness and self-management for themselves and others. Um so we have our core skills, we explicitly instruct in them and we
have frequent opportunities to practice and apply those skills in all of the schools. Um we have going back to the core skills, we have the cell competencies that we're all um stay focused on. Different schools have some have identified monthly character traits
that they explicitly teach to throughout the month in various ways. Our elementary program has included a month also included a monthly wellness focus for their morning meeting instruction as well as a cell scale. And our high school for example has a touchstone
based on um pride, purpose, respect, integrity, diversity and empathy. So all schools have their core identified skills. They all provide explicit instruction in these skills in many ways. This could be a combination of assemblies, guest speakers, launching
whole school awareness, um, events, class meetings, morning meeting in the elementary, advisory lessons in the middle school, daily announcements in the secondary that educate, inspire, challenge students, call them to action. And then there's many opportunities to
practice and apply these skills that we have in the high school interactive bulletin boards. take one, you know, leave one practice, take what you need, spreading awareness, challenging students to um to use these skills. The elementary, we have morning meeting
daily activities. We have lunchtime events uh for educational awareness led by our clinicians and our student assistance counselors. We're always working on restorative practices when somebody might make a poor decision and how to repair relationships. We're reinforcing these skills through
different programs like pause up certificate or bright bulldogs at Edgar or the fish and student of the month awards at the high school. And then we're always doing observances, celebrations that are f and celebrations that are focused on belonging, inclusion, acceptance, joy, culture, and
all of that. So, we're teaching these skills in many, many ways and practicing them. The other the next three components that I'd like to focus on are the staff development that we've been providing, the high quality resources we're utilizing, and the support of our leadership. In terms of staff
development, we are now um this year we focused on bringing lifelines trilogy into our schools. That's been a very robust professional development program, which I'll talk more about. For suicide awareness, um we have had sessions for our new teacher academy. We've done a
core we've trained a core team on threat assessment training. Our BCBAS are always doing training and our clinicians are always doing training for staff. In fact, we've had several training trainings that all staff for all schools have received related to mental health this year. And then we incorporate staff
wellness activities um whenever we can, especially at inservice days. We always use evidence-based high-quality resources. this. There are a few listed, many from Castle, some endorsed by the NJ DOE, um, Lifelines, Wingman, those to
name a few. And for our leadership support, we now have a mental health leadership team that steers, advises, and collaborates to help guide us moving in um, moving forward and continuing to evolve. This year we've expanded that
with um with community experts and parent representatives who are both parent some parents who are experts and some who are just stakeholders utilizing these services. We have um school and district student support teams. So each school has a support team of counselors,
child study team, administrators who make decisions about their building and their students and what's needed there. and then we come together as a larger group throughout the year to make other decisions. We are aligning this work with our district goals. Um we're staying aligned to the whole child
philosophy and mental health and wellness and trauma-informed instruction is a district priority along with staff wellness. We're proud of our partnerships with parents and our community. Um we're proud of our multiddisciplinary collaboration and especially exciting is our student
leadership and peer mentoring which has really evolved over the last few years. um for parent and for family and community engagement and partnership. We've have continuous programs for parents. Tonight there was um having hope session on on suicide prevention
for any caregivers or interested friends who want to learn more about it. We've had presentations on the impact of social media and wellness. Our own people have done trainings. Ruckers has done trainings. We're working with the Matuchin Police Department on collaborative trainings. Whenever
there's mental health um issue that involves students that they get involved with, we're working really nicely together. So that's been excellent. And we always collaborate um in all of our models. We use a framework for collaboration and we do that with our mental health work as well. Dr. Caputo
has been leading hot topic forums. Mental health is one of the topics for about four years that we engage different participants with varied expertise and we engage in problem solving and that leads to specific goal setting and action planning that we implement in our district. Our
partnerships with our mental health agencies have contributed to generating lots of great ideas and great content and great PD. our own staff members, our student assistance counselor, child study team, our clinicians co-plan a lot of the lessons that I talked about during for the explicit instruction and
we take this multicolorative approach to our intervention teams who are often dealing with issues related to mental health, anxiety, depression, wellness and all that that in terms of our student leadership and peer mentorship. Bulldog Buddies is a new program in our
elementary which partners first graders and third graders, second graders and fourth graders to work on the monthly theme and practice some of the activities together and students mentor students and build relationships around social emotional learning and wellness themes. The middle school has now now
has mental health ambassadors that are training under our clinicians and our student assistance counselors to spread awareness to help friends to help identify needs and make sure students know who to go to for help and when. That's been wonderful. In fact, they're attending you'll be approving a
conference students are attending um in the in the high school also to be little ambassadors and go learn more. Our wingman program has been here for several years. We have a unified program that involves mentorship, many advisory boards, and the last two years, part of our district goals has been leveraging
our co-curricular clubs, our athletes, our coaches to have some studentled programs that really support kindness, empathy, and inclusivity. As I mentioned, we implemented lifelines trilogy this year. That was a very comprehensive program
that was implemented throughout the year. We had a core team trained in three aspects. prevention programming, intervention programming and post vvention which is following which is our response following a crisis. Our PE our secondary health and PE teachers were
trained in the curriculum component and um they implemented they launched it for the second half of the year. They implemented these lessons in health class for sixth grade, 9th grade and 11th grade. So students are now learning in their health programs how to identify warning signs what who is a trusted
adult, how to how and when to seek support for yourself or a friend and specific problem solving skills. Part of this program is identifying trusted adults. Our secondary schools had a trusted adult campaign where teachers identified themselves, talked to kids
about what that means. Clinicians and um and specialists talked to teachers about being a trusted adult for students. And um all staff was trained on the warning signs and strategies to support students, how to lead a student with a warm handoff to another adult who's more
of a specialist. We offered parent training on the lifelines. We had the program tonight and we've also been working on our traumatic event plan to make sure that it is best aligned with these is aligned well with these best practices. And we launched a memorialization committee to continue to
make sure we're doing um the recommended practices. So, a few annual highlights of the mental health initiative for this year is that we added to our mental health leadership team with community experts and parent representatives. The lifelines work has been tremendous and
we're really empowering students to identify warning signs, seek assistance for themselves and their peers. We've done we brought in a consultant to do targeted professional development for our teams that serve on the I intervention and referral services committee, our 504 teams, our child
study teams, and they sat through training on tiered interventions beyond academics. So, how to take interventions and strengthen our tier one core program, our tier 2 program for some, and our tier three program um for for um
some students as well. And that is following the uh New Jersey tiered system of support framework which we'll be focusing more on next year as well. We've been doing training at all the schools. We got all the instructional staff trained again on mental health
strategies and and practices. So that is great. Increasing awareness throughout and the actionable items that have come from the forums with the superintendent have been exciting and have helped us um implement our district goals and the
support of our our athletes and our extracurricular students and their coaches and advisor advisors have been wonderful as well. Looking ahead, we'll be focusing on continuity and sustainability of all of our uh programs and services. We're one big item on our
list is planning for the realignment and what our mental health services look like and how these supports evolve further when our schools are reconfigured. And um one thing that has been identified throughout the year that we put on our list for next year is getting more strategies out to support
students in navigating sensitive topics in their classes and in the content especially based on their prior experiences. will continue implementing the New Jersey tiered system of support framework beyond academics and always focusing on fostering kindness, empathy,
coping skills and problem solving skills. So, thank you to all of you for your support, the community for its continued support and all the people who are involved in the daily implementation of this work. And a special thanks to
Dr. Denine Bonacisa um our director of special services who has been a partner with me in these presentations. She's here this evening and Alana Cirten our supervisor of school counseling and Heather Mills her interim replacement. Um we all work together very closely
with our mental health partners, our school administrators to make sure this work is rolled out and our child study teams, our counselors and our clinicians. So we certainly now have a lot of expertise in house and this work has really permeated our programs.
Thank you so much Dr. Herszog for reminding us all as Ben kind of alluded to earlier about how excellent our district is in having this foresight and planning to ensure that we support our students across the board. So thank you for that. Are there any questions for Dr. Herszog? Mr. Glber just just some
comments mainly. Of course. Um, so thank you for all this level of detail. I was going to make a joke about wishing that you went a little bit deeper, but um, you went plenty deep and I appreciate it. So um, you know, we sat here on the cusp of on the cusp of
COVID, not knowing that um, with you and the team and the board advocating for this with the public. And I remember sitting out here with um former President Justin Manley at a public information session where some people were fully supportive of the need for
mental health supports in schools, adding to them. Other people um open-minded but not so sure about whether or not this is the role of of schools. Um, and we're so thankful for the support of the public, but we're
equally as thankful that this was not just money thrown at a problem. Uh, a problem that we didn't even know this the scope of. This was more than money. And your presentation shows that it's really a lot of work. Um, so it's it's a
good amount of money, but it's a ton of work um to make this sustained and and worthwhile because this isn't just hiring a couple of people. This is daily uh work and a ton of hours that go that go into this. So, um, the public was
voting on the money, but they got the money and they got a lot of effort and work and commitment and, um, refocusing how we approach things and a really comprehensive, uh, plan for working with
mental health issues, um, but also how academics and mental health intertwine um, and that was all presented here. So, thank you for the for the hard work, not just for the advocacy, but for the hard work that you did to put all of this together. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Glber. I will echo that as well because it is, as you alluded to, not just you, not just your supervisors, it's every single person within our district is being empowered to support our students across their mental health and
well-being. So, that is deeply appreciated. Any other questions or comments for Dr. Herzog? I look at you so I said it right. Herzog. Dr. Sper. Yes. Just wanted to underscore all of what was said and how important this initiative is um across the board
and happy to see all the levels of involvement including the incorporation into the curriculum as well as the um like peer support and the buddies and all of that. I'm sure there's a lot of research behind that how effective it
can be. So I'm um every slide I saw that I wanted to ask a question on you kind of answered and um provided the insight into it and it's really lovely to see um the uh research to hear or the undertone of the research that goes into all of
the resources and the way you've you and the team have um approached the the initiative and the work with for students. So thank you and kudos to everyone. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Sper, any other questions or comments? Mrs. Jetum. Yes, I'd like
to echo what everyone else said. This is tremendous. So, thank you so much to you and all your team for everything that you do. Um, I just had some questions because I can imagine, um, as we all know, there's a shortage of mental health providers currently for both children and adults. Um, what are you seeing the capacity like with the
current school psychologists? Are they fully utilized or what does that look like? Yeah. um with respect to that shortage that reminds me that's why it's so important to have these services in real authentic settings where the students
might have the need on the spot um and have access to those services because those statistics on the first slide they get better when they have the services early and so many people don't access the services so providing them in school is so important I would say our school psychologists have been critical in
influencing the culture of this work permeating throughout in trainings, in consulting, in supporting. So, they do do some direct service work. They have some students they counsel, they have students they write behavior plans for,
they do risk assessments, they all of our teams now are trained in risk assessments, they write safety plans, they um provide recommendations and referrals. So they do a ton of this work, but also I would say they're pivotal in building capacity of others
to have bigger toolkits because now as you mentioned this is the work everybody's doing. Our classroom teachers are doing this, our par professionals are doing this work. We're we're demystifying it and now it's the work that everybody does every day. Thank you. And then when you talk about community referrals, can you elaborate a
little bit on that? Sure. So there are sometimes that students need additional level of services that we can't provide at a school. So we might make referrals to um partial care programs um sometimes hospitalization. We have students who
utilize those services. Um our Ruckers clinicians have a direct connection with the Ruckers um services at those levels. It could be just um providing resources. Um there's the NJ4s resources now that we're starting to bring in for our
middle school and we could explore for our high school in the future. Provide more groups in on site by by other county community resources. So just making um sending out resources when student has a need. Here are groups in the area for anxiety, for depression.
Here are um other resources. Wonderful. Thank you. That's terrific because we know sometimes people don't know where to go. So, it's wonderful having that warm transfer, right? Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Jetum. Any other questions, comments? Apparently, the gallery outside has some
comments. All right. Thank you so much, Dr. Herzog. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Herszog. All right. Dr. Caputo, you have something? I do. I have a short report. um as required by um um the Department of Education, every school in the state
has to report out and post the results of the school's self assessment for determining grades under the anti-bullying bill of rights. This is a final report of all those interim HIV reports I've given to the board. Um we we submit the self-evaluation the we
send it to the state department of education. and they review it much like CUAC but this is for HIV and they confirm or or modify our score. So I have our scores these are posted right Miss Malavage on our website already. Thank you. The district score and by the way this is at a 78. I don't know why
it's 78 but um our district score is 79. I'm sorry. Our district district score is 74 out of 78. Um each of the schools is selfc scores and is checked by the state in nine core elements. At Campbell School, those nine core elements add to
75 out of 78. At Edgar, those nine core elements add to 73 out of 78. At the high school, the nine core elements add to 74 out of 78. And at MOS school, the nine elements add to 72 out of 78. That's where our district uh grade of 74
out of 78 comes in. Um this is the that report that I give. It's on the agenda and Mrs. Alvich has posted it in case anyone wants to see the scores in those nine elements for each of the schools. Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Kabutoo. All right. Now, we are moving to any
questions about that before I moved to the next section. All right. Wonderful. Uh we move to the president's report. I have none today. Superintendent, no report. Was that all for you? All right. Um and I don't believe any of our committees have met since the in last
board meeting. However, if there are any updates anyone wants to share or just perhaps share the next meeting date, I know you enjoy doing so, Mr. Glassber. Well, enjoy. I don't but uh just to make sure everybody stays informed. Um in case you didn't hear the previous
meetings, uh school is going to start on time next year. There's nothing that's getting in the way of that. Um we're on track for air conditioning at all or most of the schools right around the beginning part of the year. um that continues to be in flux, but things are
looking pretty good overall there. Um construction is really uh continued in a very positive way. If you drive by Moss or here at the here at the high school um at the high school now, the foundation floors in there at the for the new gym and that classroom wing, a
lot of steel has been erected. So, um it's been very positive overall at all the locations. Um the board of ed office has moved. Um in case you're looking to uh come see Dr. Caputo for any reason, he's over here at the at the high
school. You'll see some signage out front that Nice signs courtesy of Mr. Prowski. Y Oh, perfect. From Mr. Prowski, uh indicating where to go. So they're working out of the extended cafeteria. Um so things prog are progressing well. Our next meeting is on Monday. That one is uh a regular
committee meeting. The next open public committee meeting is on June 16th and that's at 7 PM in the Matuchen High School library. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Glasburg. And I also want to say that as I have driven around to some of the schools, I'm very impressed at the
progress and I am grateful to our community for your patience and your grace as we have gone through these transitions. We are almost there. uh knock on whatever material this is but things are coming along nicely and thank you all for your patience and your grace
around that. Um any other committee chairs would like to share anything of import fantastic missa. Hi guys, how are you? Good. How are you? Good. I know it's it's been a very busy month for all schools, but I would like
to start with the elementary school. Um I know that we talked a lot about the special person tea coming up, but it happened. Um I went it was like a truly heartwarming event. Like just seeing all the kids with like their special person, whether it was like their uncle or like
their cousin. Like I saw this kid bring in like their piano teacher and I was like that was like the sweetest thing I've ever seen. Like it was it is very sweet. It was like amazing. Um, and I think at the elementary school, the kids were also making things for Mother's Day. And I always think that's great. I hope everyone who's a mother had a great
Mother's Day. It's amazing. And at the middle school, I think we talked about it. The they had their orchestra performance, too. And I heard it went really well. So, it's amazing. And they have their eighth grade dance coming up and it's going to be really fun. And also talking about dances at the high
school, we have prom next Friday. Very exciting. Um hopefully it won't rain. The weather has been very muggy recently. Crossing my fingers. Yes. And then um after that the AP exam was hybrid this year and I think like it I
was I think a lot of us were like oh like would it be harder and stuff for like especially topics like math because it's like it'd be helpful. It's like right but it really wasn't that bad and I think like a lot of us actually like liked it more too. So I mean it's a really good upgrade on that. And other than that, those are all the things as
of right now. But yeah, thank you for listening. Wonderful. Thank you, Miss Shesta. And and Prica, um I was looking through the printed version of um the Bulldog Bark. Um it lists a lot of future plans. Um uh for seniors, and I
see that it lists you um uh planning to go to Ruckers in the fall. And as a two-time graduate, his son went there and his daughter is going there for graduate school. I'm proud of everybody on here, but certainly congratulations on your decision and wish you well. Thank you. Yes. Congratulations. Wonderful. Any questions or comments?
All right. Wonderful. Is there any old business from the board? Okay. Is there any new business from the board? Turn your mic on. I just wanted to mention, I'm sure everybody has seen this, but I noticed a couple of postings on um some social
media sites. one of our former students that was part of um our 18 to 21 year old program um has been hired by Manisquan Bank now and I just we talk so much about collaboration and community partnerships and it's a
really heartwarming example of how our school is working with community businesses to create opportunities for our students after they leave our walls and so I'm just so proud of the work that you guys are doing here in that department to create those partnerships and very thankful tomatoes bank for um
providing the opportunity for our students to really um flourish once they leave our our buildings. So, thank you so much for everybody that was involved in that. Miss Cleaner, so nice to that you shared that with us. I immediately shared it with Dr. Bonosissa who that was her program coming here and we're so
proud of the work that she's continued to do through with the staff she's brought in and uh it's great to see our our our kids doing great, especially when it's in our own community. So, thanks Doc. That was lovely. Thank you so much, Miss Colleen, for bringing that up. That's wonderful. Well, thank you guys and thank Manisquin Bank. Thank you
all. That was great. Thank you to our community partner. That's awesome. All right. Any other new business? All right. Good people. Um at this time, I'd like to move to approve the minutes of the board of education meetings from
April 29th, 2025, special business meeting one, special business meeting two, as well as the board meeting. Do I have a second? Mr. Bot. Any questions, concerns? All right.
Roll call, please. Mrs. Zavich, Mr. Bot, yes. Miss Cheetum, yes. Mr. Derflinger, I abstain. Thank you. Mr. Glasber, yes. Dr. Johnson Marcus, yes. Miss Colleen, yes. Mr. Lifton, I abstain. Thank you.
Dr. Sper, yes. Mr. Sus, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. At this time, the meeting is open to the public for any topic. Seeing none, I close this section of the meeting. All right. Now, we move to the
recommendation of the superintendent of schools. Oftent times, it may appear to members of our audience that the board of education takes action with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote. Before a matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting, the administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the
superintendent of schools. If the superintendent is satisfied that the matter is ready to be presented to the board of education, it is then referred to the appropriate board committee. The members of the board committee work with the administration and the superintendent to asssure that the members fully understand the matter.
When the committee is satisfied with the matter, it is presented to the board of education for discussion before any final action is taken. Only then is it placed on the agenda for action at a public meeting. At this time, I'd like
to move items A1 through six. Personnel items A1 through six. May I have a second, please? Mr. Derlinger, are there any questions or comments about these personnel items?
Mr. Sus, just just a question to uh educate myself. What is the limit for the number of days uh you need to have a substitute that we have to approve a leave replacement? Is it like 30 days? Is it 20? So, we can have the um subs
can do 20 days in any classroom consecutively. If it's going to be 20, we need to get permission from the county superintendent, which we do from time to time. Um and they that's usually for another 20 days. Anything beyond the initial 20 days without approval is
considered a leave replacement position. So, um, sometimes we have teachers that may spend the entire year, August through June, in a leave replacement position. Sometimes we have teachers that start the year, end the year, or work the months in the middle of the year. Um, and sometimes we even have
leave replacement teachers who may go directly from one leave replacement job to another one. If the um the the tenure teacher or you know, the employee teacher who's going they're going out, they may they may align. So, um that's those those are the reasons that we ask
you to approve them. Um for a while now, we've we've appointed our leave replacement teachers at the PR-rated um step one of the salary guard, whether they have a an advanced degree or multiple years of teaching. Um we think that differentiation between the daily
sub rate and this leave replacement rate um is well well earned and well deserved. This person is the teacher of record. They do parent meetings. They do grading. They do lesson planning. They attend all meetings. And so that's how we differentiate between a daily substitute who's an atill employee and
you know a daily employee and a leave placement who's in for a long period of time doing everything that the teacher of record would do. I'm not sure if that's your No, that's perfect. That's and more information than I want. Great. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Sus. Any other questions or comments on
the personnel items? All right. Seeing none, roll call, please. Mrs. Alavich. Mr. Bot, yes. Miss Cheetah, yes. Mr. Derkinger, yes. Mr. Glassber, yes. Dr. Johnson Marcus, yes.
Miss Clean, yes. Mr. Lipton, yes. Dr. Sper, yes. Mr. Sus, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Mr. Sus, finance. I'd like to move items one um B1 through B14. Is this on the agenda? All right. Thank
you. Is there a second? Mr. Glber. Any questions or comments on the finance items? Mr. Sus, on the finance items, yes, just want to point out a couple things. Item two um is the busing fee for the next year. I think I mentioned it from the committee meetings. The warning is a little it's little legal
ease, but uh it meant it says move to approve the partial subscription busing fee of $6 $610. Um it's partial subscription because that's the parent component and the school district subsidized the rest.
So um parents won't be hit with another charge. It's only $600 $610 per student per year. And also want to mention that we will be busing to uh Edgar and Campbell for the next year. The other item I just wanted to point
out um was item 10, the resolution that um is in support of a a a grant for planting trees. Uh kudos to the administration. I think we mentioned it before that we hired a grant writer. Um I actually saw it and I did my usual
nagging and they were already on top of it and this is just to support that if we do get the grant um that we will use it. Kate Lemer, our secondary STEM teacher, has been all over this. that this will have all her fingerprints all over it. In fact, we had another meeting today. I met with her in the hall. She
gives me updates. It was due today. We uh or due Yeah, due today. We submitted that and we're really excited. We applied for a pretty large grant, but we think we have the right components in to get that. So, we'll certainly keep the community and the board informed. Oh, but this is great. Yeah. Wonderful.
Thank you. And I especially appreciate the clarification with respect to busing so that folks understand the structure of busing in in our district. Ms. Thanks. I have a quick question on number 13. Um, one of the change orders here. Um, it's change order 15 and it
says there is a modification to the exterior steers at cam school to a dimensional issue. Um, is that something that the architect is responsible? Like was it an architect issue that so you want to go Mr. Harvey? Yeah.
Okay. It probably is an error if that's your question. Well, actually the deeper question is if it's the architect's error, should the architect be from the cost of the So, we're um we are planning to address some of those issues
um at the project's completion. So, there um we want to keep the project moving. Um but there's different things that go on between the contractors, the architect, and us where there's different points of view on some
different things. And the advice is to address them in uh meetings near the end. So we'll be getting so there's potential for us to be getting a refund or like a some kind of credit. There's various potential. Yeah. On various different
items. Um where there might not have been clear enough language. Um where the contractor might have misinterpreted something when they uh bid on it. um how the architect wrote the plans. Exactly. So, there's a lot of moving parts like
that that could work out in the end um that are going to need to be negotiated with the uh with with the players and with the attorneys. Okay. And so, I guess that'll become up as like another construction update. Is that how that comes out or in terms of
how that will resolve itself? Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be all the way at the end of the project though. Um, now there's other elements here. You know, sometimes there there things like that that we just have to keep moving. Then there's other things in here that are
just actual um changes that um that we decided to do like adding um uh the bathroom into the cafeteria, you know, into the into the cafeteria kitchen space kind of things like that. Um but something like that. And then some of
the um AV work as well. Um there's just some question about the clarity of the plans and whether who's responsible ultimately for that, but the goal is to keep the project moving forward within the contingency monies
that we have. And this is a massive project. So as you can imagine, there's going to be errors. And as Mr. Glberg said, we don't want to fight now. We want the project to keep moving and then we'll address it at the end of the project. As Mr. Glber said. Thank you.
Okay. So, we could I could certainly say though that we'll be there will be an update on those kinds of things um at the appropriate time when when we get there, but right now we're just we feel like we need to pay for them and and move forward with it.
Thank you. Yep. Absolutely. Good question. Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments on the finance items? Seeing none, roll call, please. Mr. Bot. Yes. Miss Cheetah, yes. Mr. Derlinger,
yes. Mr. Glber, yes. Dr. Johnson Marcus, yes. Miss Colleen, yes. Mr. Lifton, yes. Dr. Sper, yes. Mr. Souse, yes. Motion carries. Thank you so much. Uh, Dr. Spner, policy. Yes. Uh, move to approve
items C1 through two on the agenda. Solicity on the agenda. Thank you. Is there a second, Mr. Sus? Uh, any questions or comments on the policy items? Seeing none, roll call, please. Mrs. Ellavich, Mr. Bot, yes. Miss
Cheetum, yes. Mr. Derflinger, yes. Mr. Glber, yes. Dr. Johnson Marcus, yes. Miss Colleen, yes. Mr. Lifton, yes. Dr. Spigner, yes. Mr. Sus, yes. Motion carries. Thank you, Dr. Johnson Marcus. Thanks for um to the board for supporting the field trips. Just just
wanted to point out uh one of our teachers, Caroline Ford, um she received an Applebee's award. So, they're actually throwing a um um above and beyond teacher 2025 party for her class. So, you approved that just now. So, that was the last item on uh page 10. So,
thank you for that. Should I not? Yeah. Should I have abstained from that because my daughter was going to be very angry if I didn't vote for that. I think you're okay. Am I okay? All right. Okay. We'll get clarification, but you're okay. Thank you. I I think you should abstain. You were a little ahead of the game, Dr. Kaputo. We did not actually
curriculum curriculum now. Oh, did I get ahead of myself? Well, it was information for the board then. And yes, you should have stayed. I'll stayain. I'm going to stayain. I dropped the I can't come home if I vote differently. Okay. Sorry about that. No worries. I'll kudos to you, Mr. Glasgow, for trying to
keep ethics in government. And so, thank you. So, we were good on policy, right? Did we roll call there? All right. Wonderful. Mr. Derlinger curriculum. I'd like to make a motion to move item D1 as listed on the agenda, please. Wonderful.
Is there a second? Mr. Sus and questions or comments? Now you'll vote on the exciting uh honor for Miss Caroline Ford, Edgar, sixth grade teacher for the Applebee's Above and Beyond Teacher Award. Wonderful. That is
fantastic. Congratulations, Ms. Ford, for that award. Um, now we are turning to any other questions or comments. All right, roll call, please, on this last item. Mr. Bot, yes. Miss Cheetum, yes. Mr. Derlinger, yes.
Mr. Glber, yes. But I abstain on Applebees. You were holding out for McDonald's. Why? Oh, Lord. Dr. Johnson Marcus. Yes. Miss Colleen, yes. Mr. Lifton, yes. Dr. Sper, yes. Mr. sauce. Yes. Motion
carries. Thank you, Mrs. Aliage. The meeting is open to the public at this time. Just making sure there's no one out there rushing to come give us commentary. All right. Uh seeing none, I'll close this section of the meeting and turn to Mrs. Chetum for
announcements. Thank you, Madam President. I don't have too many key announcements today. Just as you mentioned earlier that it is music season, so um I could go on with all the dates. I'd probably mess them up because there's about two per week per school um for the next couple of weeks. Yes. So, I encourage you to look at your
available resources. There are plenty of emails and texts going out from the school leaders that try to keep us all engaged. So, take advantage of those reminders and hope to see you at the concerts. Absolutely. And indeed, oh, the next meeting is May 27th. All right. Good good catch. Good catch. I got that.
Thank you. And indeed, you're correct. There is definitely a buzz in the air with this music season. I encourage you all to check out the concerts. All right. Fantastic. So, at this time, I move to adjourn the meeting. Is there a
second? Mr. Derlinger. All in favor? All right. Good night, everyone.