I don't know didn't we can explain why we didn't do it why we didn't upd that's e was on I I turned it off call yes good thank you very much yeah I hope
I have this some people say public speaking and they fear it more than death like some people so like yeah sometimes a now e e
sucking it away from e e especially Middle School I would I would say probably a third of the places do middle schol paper PL and I don't think that's any better
yeah I don't think that's any better yes yes now ours is on a different level we do in the thousands for trips gops but yeah hundreds other places District thank you sir they have
sometimes not event like it's like a fe you could be in any club any sport they have like different models for that right right yeah I know I had to know good evening welcome to the Board of
Education meeting for Tuesday February 25th 2025 so you have the flag salute please 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 aliit notice of the meeting please 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 of this meeting was given by providing the location time and date of this meeting and posting of the same on the front door of the Board of Education offices by delivering copies to the burrow Hall and the matachin public library the home news in Tribune The Star Ledger and by filing a
copy with the bur clerk is prescribed by this law thank you so much roll call please Mr bot here miss cheum here Mr derflinger here Mr glasberg here Dr Johnson Marcus here Miss Colleen here Mr
lton here miss thresa I did not hear from so we'll just say that she's Happ today Dr spner here Mr sth here and Dr Kabuto there thank you Dr Kabuto no Showcase of success that's correct
all right we will open the meeting at this time to the public seeing none closing that section of the meeting next up we will have some fabulous presentations yes Madam president so we continue on with the um the preliminary
budget presentations that we make and what we think is a very transparent uh process throughout the winter months now uh into the spring as we've been working on the budget but now we share in in parts and pieces the budget with the public so uh just to bring everyone up
to speed the governor gave his budget address today we're going to receive all schools receive their state eight figures on Thursday so that's an important part of the budget process as well um we have a prelimary budget meeting on uh March 11th final budget
hearing in April and as a reminder for everybody remember a plan uh the budget is our plan right it's our plan for next year and a budget what it does it highlights the priorities of the district and you're going to hear about priorities tonight in technology and Athletics and curriculum um so if we can
we'll get started yeah and we'll ask Mr Thurman to start us off tonight with technology good good evening everybody good evening how is that everyone before I wow you with uh my 14th year of orary prowess
here I'd like to just uh recognize uh uh the board of ed for all these years uh that I've been presenting um uh for their uh their support um and their continued support uh it's we a lot of what we do here just electronically is
uh because of the big decisions that uh this board has made uh over um over the years to to uh keep uh technology growing in the district um i' like to start off uh this is my 14th budget like
I uh mentioned before uh I'd like to start this one off just by giving a quick uh status of our Network um our cyber security status is solid and you'll see a lot of tools in this budget that help uh keep that um keep that
solid uh our one1 Chromebook initiatives uh initiative continues to to serve uh 12 uh grades throughout the district um it's a uh our infrastructure uh continues to meet modern
standards uh and we've completed our uh one of our goals of a 10 gbit backbone throughout the district connecting all of the buildings and every switch in the building um which is a which is a big goal that uh again this board helped us uh
realize uh and to manage our upside our up time uh we maintain redundancies throughout our district uh and uh those are all in place uh thanks to past budgets uh including a redundant server cluster redundant storage arrays and
redundant firewalls uh and redundant internet service so uh so it's very strong and we're uh we're very confident in uh it's serving us uh for years to come um for our budget uh like to start at the at the bottom line uh this budget
handout represents uh an increase of 6.2% we know that that can't stand uh and we are uh working uh with our vendors to bring the costs down to under the 2% cap for this budget so we'll have some updates on this by the time uh
March rolls around um uh highlights uh from this year's budget or changes uh connectivity uh the incre there's an increase in cost which represents an increase in our uh band with of our Wan links that connect each of the buildings
to the high school uh and an increase in our internet service from 1 gabit to 5 gigabits uh to uh uh we we noticed last year that we were having a lot of uh runs at our 1 gbit limit uh so we
increased up to five and uh that has seems to have eliminated not quote uh everything so uh most of the issues we were having uh subscriptions our incident um incident IQ uh software which uh
supports our ticketing uh and our inventory has gone up uh because we added an events module um so we're going to need uh about 50% more on that next year uh our Gog Guardian um costs uh you might notice have been zeroed out as
well as Gaggle because we are uh proposing a change to a service called line wise uh that change would eliminate those two uh two classroom management and um classroom management programs uh
and save the district about 10,700 uh we're still looking at um the functionality to make sure that we are comfortable with that uh but uh the teachers uh seem to be comfortable with uh with their portions of it that they
use uh in in class so uh and then our RFP annual support has gone up um because mainly we've added new class new phones to every classroom new intercoms new bell systems uh things like that so
there's been a increase in the support cost for that so that's all I have I'm open to questions thanks Chris I appreciate it questions any questions from the board oh Mr sus so um thank you again Mr
tman for showing up here we we gave you a Thor thorough going over yesterday in finance but just to point out a couple things and a couple follow-ups that to make you aware like uh you mentioned about uh go guardium and uh gagle disappearing for line wise uh Mr uh
glasberg wisely asked like you know can we see an evaluation of you know part of that decision we don't want to lose functionality that's a very very important tool certainly appreciate the cost so just noting for the board that uh the administration will come back with
that um I think it's also worth noting if you take a look at the Chromebooks we only have four years of uh one two um six years of Chromebooks compared to previous years I was it all the say one two three four five we have less less
years of Chromebooks and but it's almost the same amount of money because the price of the Chromebooks went up the projected cost of the Chromebooks that we would lease in the summer uh it starts off with a quote to purchase and that gets turned into a
lease it's gone up from $350 per Chromebook to $465 per Chromebook right which is unfortunate and you know one of the follow-up items is given the day and age that we live in high school students do we still really need to give them
Chromebooks just something to you know to think about and I think the um trying to think that and also just worth noting for everyone in the community that um there is some money that we will be getting back through a program called eate so doesn't so some
of the numbers aren't necessarily as bad as as they look that's accounted for in the budget number and the and the 6.15% increase but appreciate you looking to see bringing that down to a 2% number which would be great we definitely can do
it other questions Miss sorry so just um and maybe you guys talked about this in finance but the the the two items that I saw that had just the biggest jumps um the Microsoft volume licensing looked like it went up about 22% almost and um the phone
support had a had a pretty big increase too and can you just help me understand what the nature of those increases were sure yeah uh the phone support was I should have clarified uh the RFP annual support uh that I mentioned earlier so we were spending about5 ,000 um over the
last two years per year on support of our administrative phone system um which was a unified system uh that this company RFP put in uh but it was not the classroom phone system so uh last year
we uh uh we engaged with RFP to put new classroom phones in that could call out call 911 from the classroom uh could uh call all the other phones the districts uh around uh so when RFP put that in they added uh they they also put in a
new intercom system and a new Bell System um there are and by the way RFP has been doing phones for the district uh at least as long as uh Dr Caputo has been here um they were they did they used to do the Moss phones and then they
added uh administrated phones in 2018 um so that accounts for the jump though that they' significantly they've added about close to70 phones once we add maybe 200 maybe I don't know what the bottom line is but
they're going to be adding about 60 more phones once all the construction is done so for the number of phones that we have right now every classroom every desk you know everything uh plus the construction it's going to go up from 5,000 to about
was it 14 I don't um I should have done remember here but that's that accounts for the increase in that the other one was the Microsoft volume licensing so Microsoft volume licensing when I was quoted um uh for it in 2020 for the 2024
25 budget it was quoted as about 35,000 the I did not know because my vendor did not tell me was that they were renegotiating the price of the licensing uh so it went up a certain
amount plus we had to add a certain number of licenses as well because we were always kind of hitting our limit uh with the number of leave Replacements that we were bringing in uh different for for new positions that were being uh
that required um accounts you know it would just cost that much more and for whatever reason we couldn't always turn off the old accounts so like for leave replac which we had a I think a large amount of last year um you know we were basically running two accounts for one
uh one position so between the increase in the um in the contract price and the number of accounts that we had to bump up that accounts for that it's it's high I was shocked and that's what it we wound up paying last year uh not the 35
that we originally uh budgeted for and then this year it stays the same and next year it'll stay the same because the contract that was negotiated will be is a three-year contract uh so uh but then after 2026
27 uh it's going to be another conversation for sure so we're looking at just in response to that if I could just um answer that a little bit more we're uh we' started the process of looking at what comes with that so basically we get what's called A3
licensing and that's we pay for that per employee basically uh full-time full-time uh equivalent employee FTE that's how they do it um so there's we have we pay for X number of licenses uh and we get all the student
licenses uh for free so we're not paying like per uh per student um and with the A3 license we're getting the account we're getting uh free downloads of of uh office we're getting our server licenses our Windows licensing our free upgrades
so when we went from Windows 10 to Windows 11 that was all included in our licensing cost so we didn't have to like spend extra money to upgrade from Windows 10 when that was becoming uh due um so there's certain amount of give and take on those licenses we get a lot for
the money but it's still a lot of money uh so we're aware of that thank you thank you if I just might uh add to that that was actually one of the things that we did to discuss I'm not going to have much of a report later um but uh uh
again Mr glorg brought up like we pay for Google we have sheets you know we have um the whole Google suite and we're also getting word office and we talked about you know can we separate the Windows operating system which we need for our server computers from the from
the licensing for the office Office Products uh I don't know if that again something I think you were going to take a look at as well yeah literally we I uh reached out to our vendor today uh and got the First Response um so it's just
we're going to have to look at different ways that we can in order to bring that down we're going to have to look at different vendors different ways that we could break that apart and possibly buy at Alec har um it's just a matter of doing research and seeing if it's possible thank you Mr lifton so I just
want to follow up on the Microsoft licensing question you mentioned that part of the reason for the costs going up is that the old accounts um were founding it difficult to turn them off in essence to abandon them and not pay for them did I understand that right
that when we hire a a uh a sub and the sub leaves the district obviously they had to have an account when they were here that those licenses those boxes those accounts sort of linger uh on uh sort of indefinitely that and is that some sort of requirement no Miss S I
think what he's what he what he meant to say or I think what I heard is that when we have a teacher that goes out um and we bring in a leave replacement that's two people in one position but that person that's still out is still connecting with their grades and their students so there's an extra license
there sure but when uh when the teach when the full-time teacher comes back and the long-term sub then presumably leaves leaves the district do we recover those licenses yes we do we do yeah yeah there's not an inde like we do an audit
uh at least once a year usually twice of all of our accounts and we we do prune the dead accounts that you know people who just retired and things like that uh or of long long-term uh uh I'm sorry leave Replacements uh things like that
it's just a matter of when it's kind of hard to predict how many leaves of absence you're going to have so if we have 25 extra licenses in case of then if it if you have to bring in more Paras who have to have an account and more uh
leave Replacements all of a sudden you're blowing past that 25 that we have there's a certain amount of Grace that Microsoft gives like we can go up like even maybe an extra 25 without them flagging it but then they start to flag it and then we have to take some action
so in this case we added uh I would have to check the number for you but we added a certain number of licenses to put us give us a little Breathing Room past that space we can revise it down but it's just with that caution that do we buy the the licenses in
blocks and do we add them by unit or we buy them 25s we buy them 50s in other words if we if we are keeping 25 extra licenses around is that because we have to buy them in blocks of 25 or that's just the number that we pick no if I said that give me 314 licenses they
would sell me 314 licenses it's just it's just the the round number that we picked so that we'd have some comfort that we wouldn't use all of those but we're not we're not saying give me 300 more we're saying like give me about 25 more you know just to kind of play it
safe because that's you know it's it's like taking a breath I mean you know over the course of the year the the staff size does you know go up and down a little bit so and Ju Just my last question so um if we recover those licenses after long-term subs or people
retire leave the district do we have some requirement to to I mean obviously those people were communicating with with students with other teachers potentially with supervisors um do we have some retention requirement or when we give up those
boxes those their their emails and their actions sort of get destroyed and moved on and we have no requirement along those lines I think the state has a requirement for retention so I don't think we have a requirement for retention but I mean that could be if that was a policy we'd follow it but I don't think there okay no I was I was
just asking I I didn't know how it worked so yeah no I mean there's no if the I know like 10 15 years ago that it was being banded about that the state would start to require um a retention of like all emails sent and received and so on on separate servers but it never came
to pass so I think everyone was kind of um uh under the assumption at that point then well if they don't want it then we don't need it okay thank you thank you Mr dman any other questions for Mr all right follow on actually Mr lton so do
we have a m retention schedule for data I mean do we actually delete stuff on a regular basis so so we have the state puts out a retention schedule and we follow that retention schedule emails from s you know from that wouldn't be considered that wouldn't be considered
something we would have to retain email between teacher and students but we have we definitely have a state mandated retention schedule that we follow as a matter of fact we're in the process of going through our records in the main office getting shredding stuff that we don't
need and digitizing stuff that we we have to keep if you remember we went through this maybe last year at a finance committee meeting where we digitize a lot of our records thank you Mr harier thanks good thank you Mr thuman uh moving right
to Athletics Mr kcart thank you everybody thank you first thanks for having me here this is always a pleasure to come in and speak to the board um I know money is not always the best thing to talk about but uh we're going to do the best we can
with it as you know the budget that we're going to talk about tonight covers our 21 Varsity Sports and 12 Middle School sports it covers most of uh the the uh the salaries of the of the uh the
coaches the supplies the Transportation uh and miscellaneous things that the scho these students will need during the season this has been a really exciting uh first two seasons this year and I think in March when we have our Showcase of Excellence you're
going to see a whole lot of our kids up there we've done been very successful during the winter season uh and I think mainly the of course we had a great weekend in track as most of you should be aware of or would be aware of uh and this Thursday we have a double header
where our girls and our boys will play in the state playoffs which is a girl game at 5:00 and a boys game at 7 so it's been very exciting the entire winter season the budget will cover 21 Varsity Sports as I said 12 Middle School sports
and one ice hockey Co-op that we have with Edison and JP Stevens uh as we go through the list just so you know um a comparison of what we have and during The Fall season we averaged about 210 or so athletes which is what this budget covers the winner is
slightly less at about 200 athletes and the spring is somewhere around 210 to 215 so about onethird of the school is actually involved in athletics during each season now obviously there's multiple athletes or multiple sport
athletes in this uh but there are a lot going on and when you throw the band in there I think we have half the school during that time in the last couple of years uh last three years actually we've had 16 divisional championships two GMC titles four
sectional titles two group titles and five Coach of the Year Awards so our coaches work real hard with our kids uh they're very dedicated to uh to our program uh and the kids return that with the respect uh that they give our
program the budget line uh if we go to the first page and I know this was a sticking point last night uh because we had a 3.8% increase however which I forgot last night because it was a nine o'clock meeting and I don't think I was
half awake uh the part of that is the fact when we start uh looking for uniforms and equipment and things like that we're looking at retail value of that equipment we always get uh and depending on which uh vendor we go to we
could get as much as a 30% discount so that money that 3.8% will reduce uh as we go along the other thing that we talked about last night was the fact that uh we don't have enough girls for our flag football so that will also
reduce part of this too the second page of that is the high school budget uh the the sports are all listed to the side and a number of coaches follow right along with that as you can see I'm not going to read all of them obviously that wouldn't make much
sense but uh for each team we put in for whatever level as many levels we have we're hoping that we have varsity JV each year for most of our teams which we do uh occasionally we have lower numbers where that doesn't occur but uh we
prepare for it each year and smaller schools tend to go in Cycles so uh when you make get you may get small numbers one year and in another year or two all of a sudden they just swing back up uh and you get some higher numbers and which is what we're pushing for right
now the estimated number of events that takes place each team is given a certain amount of games during the season for example soccer uh whether it's boys or girls the maximum number of games they can play in a season regular season is
18 games however you're going to probably end up getting as many as two or three GMC games uh and if you go completely to the finals it could be four games uh NJ AAA the state playoff game could add another two three or four
games depending on uh how far we go in that so all that is taken into consideration as far as the number of events that uh we transport our kids for coach's salary is uh well obviously this contractual so uh that is listed there
that that Mr Harvey always puts together for us uh medical supplies again uh nothing goes down everything goes up so we try to keep up with it and we try to keep a little bit um in escrow for our kids uh but sometimes there are just
things during the season that we have to order uh and those things for example a box of tape has gone up almost 15% so you know it's tough to keep up with a lot of this the uh reconditioning uh is listed
there most of the reconditioning goes into football as you can imagine cleaning the uniforms reconditioning the helmets shoulder pads uh and every other pad that goes along with it thigh knee uh and and anything else that's attached to the body officials fees have gone up again
this is a two-year cycle so they've gone up uh just for example we were talking last night uh each football official there are six officials on the field and that has gone up to $125 an official you have a chain crew there are three
officials there they are $70 a piece in a in a uh clock operator which the team has to have otherwise the clock or the scoreboard is not considered legal and uh coaches have no idea actually how much time they have because the officials most of the time refuse to tell
them uh uniforms as you can see on this well I'm sorry I should have gone right to supplies supplies are uh just a very basic things that we uh we need during the year uh could be anything from as simple as baseballs up to new football
helmets uh everything is you know is based on uh Sport and and each sport need has different needs and we try to supply them with everything we can to be as successful as we've been uh over the last few
years uniforms have a rotation to them the uh uniforms that we have right now most of the uniforms are in pretty good shape the only ones that really take a beating uh are the the teams that play on grass which are mostly soccer uh and the white uniforms really take a beating
there so we're constantly have to re replay them and baseball and softball which that's probably the hardest field on the planet uh when they slide we tend to have to replace their pants a lot jerseys hold up pretty good so everything is listed all the way across
uh including the number of students that we had now the number of students that you're looking at on the right hand column all the way to the right uh is accurate for the fall and for the winter season we're using last year's numbers for the spring team
because we don't have haven't had our organization meeting yet so we can only go by what we had last year uh we may have more we may have less uh but you know it it usually stays pretty close to the same number the middle school budget is is
not much different than what we just talked about with the high school talks about the coaches that we have on the Middle School the events that they have the estimated number of events the big thing this year is we were able to provide them with busing and I know the people and especially the parents uh of
the middle school kids really appreciate I know the coaches do for a fact uh appreciate the fact that we've been able to transport our middle school teams I know busing is a is a problem and that's not just here obviously that's throughout the state probably national
uh it just seems that every player you go like we'll have people call us up and say hey our bus is going to be late we're not going to get to your game till 4:30 quarter to 5: uh and that happens all the time especially in the middle school so we've been lucky and our transportation people have been great with it and our kids have been able to
get to games on time so uh we definitely thank uh Marissa for that and the work she's done and that's pretty much it I mean the numbers are all laid out in front of you so anything that you see there uh average for the middle schools usually we have about 100 athletes per season so
we're you know we've got a lot of our kids involved in athletics and we hope to keep them there uh and keep moving on that thank you any questions for Mr cgart Miss G just one thank you very
much we talked about this a lot a lot last night but uh just for clarification for me you had said uh you expect the am I hearing you correctly you expect the athletic supplies equipment line for both the high school and the middle
school to come down slightly because of uniform prices yes uh there's a couple of things on there and I think that we we actually talked and I wanted to explain that piece to you with the Huddle piece we talked about last night uh we last year uh we increased our
huddle uh subscription because we weren't able to actually film our soccer teams either boys or girls or or softball or baseball which really is an important factor because we've got a lot of our kids that actually move on to college and they use those films to sent to the college coaches where the coaches
will uh ask just send them you know one game or two games and that's huge last year what we did was we had it split between between two different um two different accounts so what we did was we Consolidated that and put it into the uh
misscellaneous account which is where that increase came from the good thing is we reduced it by $500 because we didn't have to pay for the tripod again which we talked about last night also so the camera is outside on the field it's allowed it's able to live stream our
girls soccer games our boys soccer games baseball softball um so we've been able to really and that thanks to the board for allowing us to do this that we've been able to uh show those games to parents that can't make a game grandparents people that don't live in the state I mean it's really been a
benefit to us I hope that answered your question yeah I I appreciate it I just looking at the math for the because the um the supply line it looked like the uh High School one was up about 18% the middle school one was up about 26% on on
their cost so I'll be interested to see how that when they come down how that impacts your overall um bottom line for the athletic budget so thanks thanks for looking into that yeah we'll know better when we get the data uh pieces back because that's how you know that's where it all comes
down thank you any other questions Mr sus yeah um one thing we didn't talked about last night was you know we obviously the worst thing we could ever do would be to cut a sport but we do need to hit the 2% number um
with terms of the middle school could we would cutting the number of events help like do we need you know 16 baseball games 14 uh basketball games if we cut that down to 10 is there a league requirement or is there something we can
do in that space yeah I mean you know those are just numbers that we've used uh as as an average uh can they be reduced yeah I mean the the state does as you know does not govern Middle School sports so realistically when they tell you that baseball at the high
school can play as many as 25 games and those coaches say I want to play 25 games the middle school is a little different because obviously it's a learning experience winning and losing as much as it's good to win don't get me wrong but the reality of it is it doesn't matter I mean they're there to
learn they're to learn the Love of the Game to uh appreciate the come rerie that goes along with the team so yeah it can be reduced it's not like this is not written in stone that can happen we can do that right I'm just trying I mean again I'm just trying to get down to that 2% bogey I mean we yeah it'll help
bring we just saw technology at 6.15% we saw uh last board meeting um custodial supplies that you know that was I think that was over 2% as well so just anything we can do yeah we're going to look at everything including what you just mentioned
okay thank you thank you okay thank you any other questions from the board all right okay thanks guys thank you thank Mr cathar Dr Herzog curriculum good evening good evening thank you for allowing me to present the
district's sorry the district's curriculum office budget for the 2526 school year the curricul ulum budget reflects the district's commitment to high quality curriculum instruction and professional development for our staff there are five distinct areas
represented in this budget they are as follows curriculum writing curriculum office supplies professional development provided by outside vendors or Consultants systems management programs and professional development services provided by District
staff start with the first area curriculum writing accounts for $ 229,230 this is the amount of stiens projected to be paid directly to district teachers who write and revise our curriculum documents this is allocated so that we
can remain focused on a cycle of continuous Improvement as our Educators collaborate review resources and enhance our Collective expertise committing to a process of ongoing revisions helps ensure our guides remain current relevant and responsive to the needs of
our students at our Educators the next area um is in the amount of 22,500 that's planned for our contracted Prov for contracted providers or vendors the fees that support the growth of our
staff so more specifically this goes to registration fees for workshops for our supervisor staff when they go out and bring back the best practices and help our district grow it includes expenses for a few teachers each year to go to AP Institutes
when either courses are updated or we have a new teacher teaching a course for the first time they this also includes the cost of training our staff to be trainers in areas like CPR and AED we do that training ourselves through our own
staff so we have to keep them current and then also um PG Consultants to provide departmental training in specific areas of need so we try to have an area or two each year that we can bring outside people in and and and um Target a department goal the next area
is systems management within our curriculum office so we have that budgeted for the amount of $ 20,23 and this includes our District's annual contracts with Frontline and that houses our staff evaluation system and our professional growth system for our
staff new this year in that area we've added um a feature for linkit which is our data warehouse and we're budgeting for an advanced feature that helps us with grouping our students so this will allow us to be more efficient with analyzing various data points that we
house and helping to align our students to specific interventions or tiered Services the next area is in the amount of 11,840 and that is designated to compensate our teacher leaders who share their own their expertise with our own
staff during our ins services and different professional development sessions throughout our year these are workshops that related to our district goals our mandated areas of training and specific areas of departmental need or otherwise um as well as PD for our
mentors who support the success of our newest staff the last area is a small amount of ,000 allocated to basic supplies needed to run the curriculum office and provide supplies for INS services and professional development sessions throughout the year um not on
your sheet but also the curriculum butd is supported by Federal grant funds through Title 1 title 2 a title 3 and title 4 a funds that help provide additional instructional support e a little bit of all of the above um I
think we can meet the needs within this and I think our needs we could do a little more professional development so we moved a little bit from that from curriculum rating to that area to professional development um and um I guess this is a loaded question I
don't know whether we could I'm not sure exactly but uh you mentioned in there about Federal some of this being supported by federal funds their contingency plans if if we don't that goes away so we've been talking about that Mr harier Dr Pudo myself and
identifying kind of prioritizing areas of need within each Federal fund and what that would look like and some difficult decisions we'd have to make but we've already started that contingency planning in case we're faced with such a scenario all right thank you
for staying on top of it yeah thank thank you any other questions from the board Miss Kim just curiosity I was looking at this it's the 2425 totals are a little bit um there's just four items
in there and there's five items in the 25 26 and it looks like the systems management purchase Tech like the front line was that someplace else last year no the front line was in there I split it differently let's see what did I split differently I split the um yeah I
pulled I pulled the systems management separate yeah yep I had bundled with contracted PD and systems management and I just itemized them further so made that area into two thank you any other questions from
the board just making cheer all right thank you everybody thank you Dr Herzog thank you Dr Herzog all right now we turn to report uh the president does not have a report
today does the superintendent I don't either thank you madam president all right now we get to committee reports it should be a bumper evening starting over to my right with Mr bot from Equity uh yeah so the equity committee
met on uh February 18th uh to keep it high level uh I think there's a just reaffirmation and commitment to two primary phrases I think all students uh critical and in alignment with New Jersey state standards uh for emphasis
and then just continuing to lean in and partner with the administration and the district on uh everything from calendar and events to homework and assignments uh and then also partnering on Outreach with the broader Community uh the next meeting will be March 18th and where
we'll also have some representation from the district and the county excellent thank you m Mr bot Mr glasberg construction all right construction kicked off the triple header last night with our uh open public meeting um during the Open
Session uh we were joined by our representatives from greyhawk uh construction management company and spel Architecture Firm um they discussed the progress at each of our schools uh at the high school um entire completion of the project is expected um for December
uh you can see that the steel of the gym has been going up outside there um their the cafeteria completion is expected for May 1st that's the add-on to the cafeteria and will be the temporary space of the bard of Ed um offices until
construction is completed of their the new part of the gym there where the offices are attached to um there's some HVAC uh switch gear that we're waiting on that we're trying to speed up there um although all the unit ventilators are in the classrooms at Campbell the
completion of the entire project including the HVAC and playgrounds um by the first day of school um there's efforts there to speed certain things up as well and you know with with some luck there'll be access to certain areas uh before September
1st um and then we also discussed the potential uh for addressing uh water issues out by the ball field at Campbell just really briefly that was not part of the ref referendum the referendum was to deal with um the water issues right outside by the playground area that was
preventing students from being able to fully utilize that um when it had been raining that is certainly addressed automatically as part of the project but we are also looking at funds to be able to um help the area out further back in
the field by the ball field at Edgar um January and February um have not been the greatest at Edgar to be honest um we've seen some delays there uh so we had the report on that last night um the
completion of the entire project at Edgar could be delayed although the HVAC is still expected uh on time that's the air conditioning should still be for the beginning part of the school year uh greyhawk our construction management company is working with the contractor
to try to get them back on track uh there's progress on the roof on the interior work including the drywall um but there's been some minimal progress over the past several weeks uh our professionals recommended letting
the bonding company know that um that they're having some issues with epic construction company and that we could use their assistance um and that is potentially happening next at Moss uh we're still on track as
I reported last time for full day kindergarten um in in September uh they're working on the exterior skin of the building the masonry interior partitions uh the HVAC air conditioning is still on track for be by the start of
the school year um full completion of the uh building is not until November that does not impact full day kindergarten for 2526 but does impact the grade realignment which we discussed
last night um will not be happening for 2526 um because the timeline is going to be too tight to ensure a smooth transition there so we would be looking at the grade transition uh grade realignment for 2627 even though we are still able to do
full day kindergarten for 25 26 um we also discussed drainage issues there that had been part of the initial part of the construction um with some properties in the area and that seemed seems to have been solved at this point
we took some comments and questions throughout from the public um some of those included just to give you a brief overview um there was a question about the window in the art room of Edgar um and we are installing skylights in that space as part of the plan um there's uh
partic there's ventilation in the art room at Edgar um the unit ventilator is specific to the art room so that they can control the heating air conditioning and ventilation uh at Moss a resident who was present last night confirmed that water has not
been an issue on the property um since they did all of the parts of the construction that were related to the retaining system um and other things to help with the drainage um there's a question about temporary lights on the site um which
can be kind of bright and whether the Finish lights would be similar the Finish lights it was clarified would be less bright um you know they could still be visible of course but they're not quite as bright as what is being experienced right now
in the closed session uh after that ended we met briefly in Clos session we discussed a fire suppression system in certain parts of Campbell school um we discussed uh the budget update uh for the project and there's a contingency
still remaining of about $2.3 million we discussed bathroom change orders um and the plan to convert a bathroom on the first floor at Edgar to a single stall bathroom for student use and at Moss we're identifying the cost of
renovating some older bathrooms of course it's full of new bathrooms in the new space at Moss um but we're looking into the cost of re renovating some of the um very old bathrooms at moss in the older part of the building and we're also awaiting cost of uh adding air
conditioning to the Edgar JY gym um all of the classrooms are covered by our air conditioning um but we're looking at the cost for the Edgar gym that was the end of our meeting our next meeting is on March 17th that one
is closed meeting our next open meeting is April 21st open to the public 7 p.m. matachin High School library thank you everybody for your patience with the report thank you for the very thorough report Mr glasberg we appreciate getting all of those details as important for us
to stay on track with this thank you Mr derfer curricul thank you Madame President um curriculum met on Tuesday the 18th um we just discussed a a small change to our cusac visit was supposed to be on February 12th but we had some
weather issues so that's pushed back to March 5th um new learning for me um didn't realize that there was actually State policy around multilingual learner support our district has kind of reached a threshold that required us to Pivot in
our multilingual learner um supports we've reached a threshold where there's now more than 20 students that are Spanish speaking um and according to this policy sorry my phone is acting up apologies according to the policy once
we have that threshold met of 20 students or more we have to decide whether to either um create a bilingual program which means means that the courses are taught in both Spanish and English or we have to submit a state waiver for an approved program option
that supports those students so the district's plans to apply for the waiver which will leverage our existing staff resources to enhance that multilingual Learners support um this will include an immediate plan for providing high-intensity English as a second language instruction to this group of
students and creating a plan for targeted professional development for our regular education certified teachers um to better assist and support those students in their classrooms um additionally uh weda testing which is the um the testing provided to our MLL
students to um assess their English proficiency um that testing is currently underway as well we reviewed a recommendation for the sixth grade language arts um program uh from their department at Edgar school
which was requesting approval for a new novel called can you see me um it's a Coming of Age story which follows a middle school girl with autism and was selected for its focus on character development and theme analysis so that that's going to be a great addition to the program Dr hazar
shared that our um AP Stat statistic teachers say that 10 times fast our AP statistic teachers and our supervisor Kate lemic are reviewing new options for a new textbook the last textbook is outdated so review is in process at this
time um the matachin high school environmental Club will once again be facilitating a tree ambassadors program this will be a burrow connection to matachin is America and we're excited uh to introduce our second cohort to the program there was a proposal that we
reviewed um about matachin High School's music Department's trip to Disney which would take place in March of 2026 uh Dr Herzog shared that we have extended funds that will be used to continue with high impact tutoring um staff members from the district will be scheduled to provide those tutoring
sessions to students in need Dr hazar shared information about a news article that was published on Sustainable New Jersey which was written highlighting the accomplishments of our District's sustainability efforts led by supervisor Kate lemich it was a very exciting um
article to read and congratulations to Kate and and the district for this amazing recognition Dr Herzog announced that the district will once again administer the New Jersey school climate Improvement survey this will be done in collaboration with Ruckers University as
we have done in the past and we'll get some guidance on how to carefully analyze that data and um determine appropriate next steps we received a quick preview of the curriculum budget that you heard tonight and finally Dr Herzog reported that the
district will be conducting a comprehensive review of all of its intervention services um we want to take a look at how these services are organized within a tiered framework of support which follows the multi-level um
support systems tier one tier 2 tier three um and Dr Herzog will keep us um informed about the progress of that initiative that concludes my report our next meeting is March 18th thank you Mr derflinger Mrs Killy extracurricular thank you uh
extracurricular met last night we uh Mr kathar was uh present to review the athletic budget that you all uh just heard about some components that are included in there though that we didn't talk about tonight are the third coach for wrestling dedicated to girls
wrestling which is exciting um um addition for uh this year change Improvement for this year um also note that um flag football is not included in the upcoming year D um due to not having the number of students to
support the team for the um upcoming school year and we discussed as you heard the uh overall budget figure trying to get it down to closer to 2% and um we discussed as Mr cgar mentioned like the
Huddle subscription and other things that uh may may come into play um when we're looking at the numbers um then he gave us a winter sports update and talked about uh the accomplishments of the athletes and coaches uh for the
teams that we will be celebrating in March right Dr we celebrate that in March um we have some really great accomplishments for our teams uh boys and girls uh basketball
um boys so um boys basketball is the state tournament um girls basketball GMC coamps in the blue division um the we've got two uh wrestling athletes moving on to Regions this upcoming
weekend so we we just have so many accolades um boys and girls swimming made the state tournaments a lot to be proud of with our with our team so congratulate congratulations all around we can celebrate them uh in a couple more weeks we had an update on The
Spectator code of conduct policy um and uh you know although this is aligned with what is required for njsiaa you know we talked about how that only covers grades 9 through 12 and there's still uh we acknowledge the need for oversight and security even at the middle school level despite that night
falling not not falling under the 9 through 12 umbrella um and Mr cgar noted there's two security Personnel at each Middle School game um and there's also a recorded statement on sportsmanship played after the national anthem for every game uh but just just to keep that
in mind um we we have a um approval on the agenda tonight for a volunteer for mouan high school baseball so you'll see that coming up for the agenda and then we discussed the Disney trip for
um 2026 and there was a request uh to see if we can have cheerleaders uh at the basketball playoff games and that was our meeting um our next meeting is March
24th all right thank you m Ken um and I think I may have boys and girls track sectional Champs all right thank you I feel like Dr Caputo is ready to add that in so I'm glad you got it all right Dr spner policy yes hi so policy uh met on
the trifactor night on February 18th um and my first sorry a little bit closer s sorry so we met on February 18th it was my first night as policy chair of the committee and it was a packed agenda we
had about 12 alerts from our St smme um uh service and we were able to prioritize at least the ones first related to directly related to the students and those were the 5,000 ones and it was related to like high school
graduation some uh changes in uh policy there uh student smoking some policy changes that we had the language changes that we had uh use of electronic communications devices some regulation changes on that one academic Integrity
student grievance and Hib and some of those were minimal language changes and some of those had a little bit more meat on those and we discussed those at length and um we have those on the agenda tonight for uh approval for our first reading and a couple others that
was not directly student related as well we' got through to those cooperation with law enforcement agencies and regulation options and changes there and spectator code of conduct for Scholastic events so we got through at least eight of the 12 and we have about four left
for the next meeting which will be on March 18th and uh yeah that's my report thank you wonderful thank you uh it was quite the bumper meeting for your first meeting as chair indeed so well handled thank you Dr sner um Mr sus Finance yes
Finance met last night as part of that Trifecta um we had a huge agenda which we did not get through because because we spent a lot of time talking to uh Mr thuman about the tech budget most of the things that you know we discussed I
mentioned at the meeting um couple of other things we talked about is we t uh um the school district uh received a letter from the NJ dooe that the biggest reduction in state age that we can get is 3% guess that was sent to the entire State uh we'll have an idea of state aid
in the next week or so we talked again we talked about the technology budget uh Mr Harvey went through a preliminary analysis of the um what he thinks the budget where the budget's going to land um it's very preliminary um we talked about the
energy bill audit just to be clear this is the bills that we pay not necessarily different than for example the audit of looking at our lighting Etc um unfortunately the uh Bill audit uh or fortunately um we are optimized as much
as we can P so there's no savings there we talked about I think this was brought up at the last board meeting the potential for demographic study I think we've um looking at the costs I think we're we're going to pass um we're just an FYI we're going to
have another Zoom meeting of the committee uh before the next board meeting just to kind of discuss we'll have more information on the preliminary budget for example the state aid and I think that's pretty much it that we covered great thank you Mr sus all right
any questions or comments on any of the reports Mr lifton thank you um discussing the various Sports in in extracurricular led me to think about um the new gym which we going to hesitate to call the new gym because you don't
want the old gym and new gym uh monikers but just for clarity the new gym um I believe as I said on on on construction is anticipated to be done sometime before the end of 2025 we we certainly hope earlier in the year than later but
um certainly by winter break it it should be completed I don't even know the seasons of the various Sports we don't offer but has there been any thought about for example the new gym will accommodate volleyball where the old gym does not because it's not a high
enough ceiling um that's the only sport I can think of off hand that the new gym would facilitate that the old gym can't handle are we deferring any any thoughts of new uses for the gym until the following year budget or have we talked about I don't even know if it's I don't
even know even know volleyball may be a fall sport for all I know and then the Gym's not going to be ready I I I don't know but I just wanted to know if there was any discussion in extracurricular about there there hasn't been volleyball in for um um for boys is in the spring and girls is in the fall we have we have
no plans to add volleyball at this time just lack of numbers I don't think we can support more Varsity Sports um but to your first point yes um coach cardello and coach glutz from the basketball teams are are have their fingers cross they'd love to even if
it's their you know the last week of home games next year to be able to play in the new gym so whether it's you know December whether it's after the winter break whether it's you know early February the idea the Spectre of being able to have home games in the new
Fieldhouse uh is very desirable for both boys and girls girls basketball so we have our fingers crossed about that okay thank you on just on that same topic um I'm hopeful you know when we have a first game there whatever it looks like that we can make it a real spectacle you
know that we could uh do everything we can in the town to promote you know filling that Stadium as much as we can um I think that would be really really awesome thank you for the question and the the spectacle promise I love that
I'm very excited already um all right I have another I was going to say any other questions for either Mr derflinger or Dr Herzog I'm not sure on the multilingual Learners so that's 20 20
students of the same World Language same language correct regardless of grade level regardless of grade level in The District in District and that's the same regardless of the size of a school district correct that's correct okay okay and um and maybe this question is
premature but like did those numbers start to Warrant whether we do some sort of Summer like whether we're going to have a summer program kind of thing for for students who are multilingual Learners so depending on our title three
funds we could look at um the summer program that we ran last year for multilingual Learners that was title 3 funded so if that looks like that's coming in that's something we can um look at again when do we find out that pretty
late pretty late but hopefully we'll know that we're getting it and there's not major Cuts with enough planning time right and just a followup heads up we also talked about a growing population
um in our community of Indonesian speakers as well so we haven't reached that 20 number yet but it's growing and it's getting there pretty close so this is kind of a good pivot plan for that group as well we're
also anticipating the need for supports for that group of students as well all right thank you both we're also looking at summer professional development options for staff to support sheltered instruction in some grades right we have some some staff that were trained in
that we do we do great thank you um I don't know who was first who would like to go first Mr lion Mr lifton thank you Mr sus um I did want to um I I actually got my question answered about
this in an email I'd sent to the to uh Dr spner regarding policy one of the policy items but I did just want to highlight for the public something that I was not aware of which is that um one of the new policies will be adopting based on I guess a change in state law
regulation is that a one of the graduation requirements for seniors moving forward will be that their families the student and the families will have had to have filled out either the FAFSA or I believe there's a New Jersey um aid form that can be filled
out as well I I which I'm not familiar with I think there's a example of a waiver that can be filled out in place of the FASA so um I wasn't aware of that um and I did ask the question you know is this some you know why would we choose to do that it turns out we're not actually choosing to do it it's it's a
state law where uh all graduating seniors and their families will have to fill out the FAFSA or will have to be uh fill out a waiver the waiver doesn't seem particularly honorous to get it just seems you have to ask for it but um I was surprised by that and and so uh I
I'm sure other people will be as well so um even if your child is not planning on attending college I guess even if you're going into the military or getting a job which FAFSA would not have any applicability to you still a requireed to fill it out or get a waiver which you
know we you know that's above my and our pay grade you know the state uh education department in the state um legislature passes laws so we'll of course follow it but um it seemed a little odd to me so it it also applies even if you're not eligible to fill out
a FAFSA um based upon your nationality and things your your citizenship and things along those lines um and then there's also a a c a staff member could also fill out out a waiver on their behalf in certain cases right yeah just just an
interesting point I think the public might be interested to hear because as I have a rising you know will will be a rising senior but and I wasn't aware of the requirement but I assume I assume I guess question for Dr Caputo I guess but I assume that the staff members in the counseling department or some other
department will follow up with the students to make sure that that they've either completed a waiver or completed a fat oh oh yeah Mr praski and U Miss Curt SL um Heather Mills ponus they're well aware of the requirement they've been doing this you know throughout the year not waiting for this policy because
we've known the policiy Laing but we've known about this law since the beginning of the year right I don't want parents to families listening to this to be uh any more concerned than they need to be in the sense that that uh we're not going to let them fall through the cracks and not graduate yeah thank you
for raising that Mr lton and the reassurance that we're on it Mr sus actually just f up uh so Mr uh Dr Caputo how would uh just parents get a waiver because if you've ever filled out FAS
it's painful right they should talk to their counselor and the counselor will help them with that um there's certain criteria which which automatically qualify you for waiver and then there's other choices where the counselor can intervene with their expertise so okay thank you uh actually my
question was uh for Dr herzo CH the microphone um what What's the timing of the climate survey the end of March and beginning of April right Dr kuto we have three three surveys there's a staff one a parent one
and a student one that's grades three and up so they'll each have um a different slight timing like The Faculty one will be given at a faculty meeting and each school has a different faculty meeting date but it'll be towards the
end of March beginning and April um the student one will be given and the parent one will be given within a few weeks of each other parents will be given two weeks notice to review the survey before it's given as well if they plan if they
want to opt out for any reason if they have any concerns or to get those concerns addressed by their school principal or me that's great I mean I I actually hope all the parents fill out the survey um I
being blunt I've been disappointed by the amount of parent uh participation in the survey it's a great opportunity to provide feedback um to the administration to the schools and you know hopefully we'll do a really good job of advertising it and really do a good push on getting people to
participate in it thank you thank you Mr sus any other questions or comments on the report all righty then uh is there any old business from the board any new
business okayy at this time I'd like to move to approve the minutes of the Board of Education meetings of February 11th 2025 special business meeting 1 Special business meeting to as well as the board meeting from February 11th
2025 is there a second Mr derflinger are there any questions or comments on those minutes seeing none roll call please Mrs Ali evich Mr bot yes Miss chetam yes Mr
derflinger I abstain thank you Mr glasberg yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss Colleen yes Mr lton yes Dr spner abstain thank you Mr sus yes motion carries thank you at this
time the meeting is open to the public um see seeing none I'll close that section of the meeting uh at this time uh the recommendation moving on to the recommendation of the superintendent of schools oftentimes it may appear to members of our audience that the Board
of Education takes action with very little comment and in many cases 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 apport appropriate board committee the members of the board committee work with the administration and the superintendent to assure that the members fully understand the matter when the committee is satisfied with the matter it is then presented to the board of education for a 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 Personnel items a 1 through N9 is there a second Mr s
any questions or comments on those Personnel items all righty roll call please Mr bot yes Miss cheetah yes Mr derflinger yes Mr Glasper yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes
Miss Colleen yes Mr lifton yes Dr spner yes Mr sus yes motion carries thank you now moving to finance Mr sus yes I'd like to move items B1 through B3 is listed on the agenda wonderful is
there a second Mr bot any questions or comments on finance wonderful roll call please Mr bot yes Miss chetam yes Mr derflinger yes Mr Glasper yes Dr Johnson larus yes
Miss Colleen yes Mr lton yes Dr spner yes Mr sus yes motion carries thank you so so much uh turning to Dr spner for policy yes I'd like to move uh in section c items one through three yes
for approval today thank you is there a second miss cleen any questions or comments on policy item C1 through three seeing none roll call please Mr bot yes Miss chetam yes Mr derflinger
yes Mr glasberg yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss Colleen yes Mr lifton yes Dr spner yes Mr sass yes motion carries wonderful Mr derflinger I'd like to move items D1 through two as listed on the agenda
please is there a second Mr bot any questions or oh yes Mr sus yes just uh one question I was just looking at the field trips and there's a column called board cross- transportation
is that strictly just Transportation so for example if we have to pay for the subs or if if the if the column to the right if it says one sub needed we're definitely paying for the subs that's strictly the transportation cost if when the sub is listed there we
pay for the sub when there's cost to the board they're listed there so when we have you know teams presenting or moving within the district our own folks the district pays when um classes go on
class trips or grade level trips the parents absorb those costs right that's what I'm trying to understand so I'm looking for example at the Atlanta Georgia National Orchestra Festival so the board transportation board cost- transportation says zero and it says one sub
needed are we pay so are we paying for the sub or not yes we pay for the sub we do pay for the sub when a teacher is out whether it's sick or a personal day or professional day we pay for that sub that is 50pp rules when it's 50pp money and it's beyond one day but when it's one day it's always on the board to pay
for that okay good thank you all right thank you uh any other questions on curriculum items D1 and two that was very dramatic all righty roll call please Mrs
Ali evich Mr poot yes Miss cheum yes Mr derflinger yes Mr Glasper yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss Colleen yes Mr lton yes Dr spner yes Mr SS yes motion carries
thank you so much uh the meeting is open to the public for our third public comment section but seeing none I will close that section and turn to Mrs tum for the announcements hi everybody I'm going to keep it uh brief this evening
there's not much new to report um as discussed last time for the mesan high school The Rock and Ray spring fundraiser is um being held soon May 2nd early bird pricing and tickets do go on sale next week on March 1st um following that just head over to Edgar Middle
Middle School um the main update here is that the fatherson top golf event date has been moved um at our last meeting I reported it was on March 25th but it has been moved up to March 18th um so those that are interested can refer to the bulldog griefs for more information on
how to register um with that that's all I have for the announcements wow awesome sauce thank you all right so I at this time move to adjourn the meeting is there a second Mr lifon all in
favor thank you all and have a wonderful night for