##VIDEO ID:46h9R45k_WM## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good evening everyone adequate notice of this meeting was provided by sending such notice to the Asbury par press the Middletown patch and the Middletown Township Public School District website and the posting of such notice at the August te minor administrative offices and each elementary middle and secondary school in the district roll Mrs cetti Mrs Farley Mr Fitzgerald here Mrs minu here Mrs skolaski here Mr T here Mrs Wright here Mrs tacco here Mr K here I now need a motion for exemp session to discuss hi and Personnel matters all in favor I oppose extensions be back in little while e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good evening everyone we're going to stand for the pledge but we also need with sadness we share the news of the passing of former board member Mr Robert bucko and former District employee Dr Kathleen McNelis Mr bucko puts away on November 25th 2024 Bob served as Middletown Township Board of the Ed member from May 1995 through April 2004 and held the role of board president from 1997 through 1998 and again from 2002 to through 2004 Dr neis passed away on November 26 2024 clean worked as a school of psychologists in the district for over 20 years before retiring from High School South in 2009 on behalf of the school Community we extend our deepest condolences to the Bucko and McNeil's family please stand in a moment of silence I pledge allegiance to the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice s thank you everyone hey good evening we're going to start off tonight with our student speakers from High School North this is good evening my name is P pen and I'm a junior at Middletown High School North congratulations to our 2024 2025 teacher of the Year Megan Hansen and support staff member of the Year power professional Regina price this honor is incredibly welld deserved and thank you all for all you do for our school high school nors holiday course and band concert an important tradition that displays our M our musicians amazing towns will be performed on Wednesday December 18th at 7 p.m. the North Pole a celebr season event in our media center featuring arts and crafts refreshments and pictures with Santa was facilitated on Saturday December 14th this was a well-intended and enjoyable occasion for our entire Community our student journalists contined developing meaningful And Timely articles for the Lions raar our awesome online school newspaper this digital publication highlights the incredible events and accomplishments across our campus and can be access through High School North website our winter sports season is underway highlighted so far by a thrilling 43 victory over South for our hockey congrats to freshman Amelia baz who performed in Nutcracker B ballet at count basy last weekend great job Amelia Mammoth County Vocational School District presented to entire sophomore class on December 9th introducing them to the shared time vocational programs available to students in grades 11 and 12 the guidance Department presented the entire presented to the entire freshman class on December 10th introducing them to scheduling SLP picking courses for 10th grade and all the academic opportunities ahead for them Middletown High School Nord celebrated a holiday spirit week some highlights include donations for Middletown helps its own ugly 12y day and elf raid pra PRS were submitted for the following individuals that demonstrated kindness compassion respect and Leadership throughout High School North Learning Community for December those students are Gian Santino AA Gonzalez and Abigail Slattery in previous month the following students also received positive praise referrals Blake illingworth Mikey deie Dy Billingsley John pedo Logan Miller Gabby deino Mark con Savannah Rios Andrew domoi Brian O'Donald Edwin Martinez Briel Shak and brenzo binua Casey pastone aelyn zoi Isabelle Attorney Madison kaula Natalie treza Lisa ropi Katie beer Addison Lopez Julie ferelli Shane Moore Kendra a de Ruffo Joshua Johnson and Jessica fero head of the pride nominations are being reviewed for the month of December and we will share those recipients when we return from Brave miltown High School North wishes our entire Community a safe healthy and happy holiday season thank you thank you from high scho South so be cast hello my name is Sophia gone and I'm a senior at Middletown High School South to start DR alon's open for students mire very well many students participated in the Q&A meeting next winter sports season is underway we have over 400 students participating in winter sports administrators have class meetings for each grade level discussing attendance code of conduct cell phone and policies and procedures a conflict resolution assembly was presented to all freshman by our anti-bullying specialist Mrs Katherine Higgins the Tigger Foundation sponsored by Mr Dan duddy to speak to came to speak to our Juniors and seniors about building an in core to over life's challenges students were very engaged in this presentation that touched on the dangers of drinking and driving South's chorus concert was held on December 10th as always Mrs caster and her students did a wonderful job South's winter bent concert was held on December 12th thank you to Mr Rago and his talented students for a most enjoyable concert congratulations to the 23 students that were just accepted into the South chapter of the science National Honor Society the Midsouth academic team came in eighth place out of 30 teams at Mass culture bowl and came in fourth place out of 30 36 teams at the biotech Bowl however they are going back this Friday to complete to compete in the playoffs lastly Sage LaVine South's class of 2018 salutatorian just got her first associate producer credit for biggest Heist ever currently airing on Netflix congratulations to sieg thank you thank you okay this evening we're going to start with a presentation from hman 3 and Allison Mr Brian wal will come up and do the presentation very much appreciate it uh for again those that don't know me my name is Brian wal I'm a partner with home friend yon beening on the Middletown account now for for many years given the appications uh to pass as well uh I'm just going to go over a very high level brief overview of the financial statements um I know your business administrator has uh supplied those financial statements to you in the draft form uh just to get this out of the way in the front we are anticipating having everything wrapped up in final reports issued by the end of this week uh which is uh one of the faster times that we've been able to do so in the past many years um predominantly as a result of information we've been waiting on from the state New Jersey uh so they're getting faster so therefore we and return are getting faster as well so it is nice to have this wrapped up and done before the holidays for your six and also for our six as well um so I'm going to go through this here if there's any questions during stop me if not uh we can we can go over afterwards um the positive here is that we offer three opinions in our financial statement the first and most important is our independent audits report uh that Financial that report states that the financial statements are materially stated and accordance with generally accepted accounting principles the regulations and requirements set forth by the Department of Education and also government auditing standards uh it's an unmodified opinion it's the best opinion that we can rent to the district uh again so clean un modified opinion no comments or recommendations uh to to know in that report uh the second of three reports is our internal control report uh over financial reporting in accordance with generally excuse me in accordance with government auditing standards uh there's a significant amount of internal controls and compliance that needs to be reported on and completed for testing as it relates to the Department of Education and government standards uh and again for this report we have issued an unmodified opinion uh there's no instances of non-compliance to offer so again best opinion that we can render for that as well and then the third of three is our internal control report over financial reporting over financial and major uh programs since the district receiv receives significant funding uh from state and federal sources what triggers what we call a single audit so it's almost an additional audit that we perform uh to make sure that the compliance regulations with those grants that we ATT test are in accordance with what they need to be done uh so both we had done a federal and state testing this year uh tested uh many grants I think there was five or six in total between the two uh and again no instances of non-compliance uh to report as far as the financial reporting goes so clean unmodified opinion as well so three opinions three clean unmodified opinions the best opinions that we can get to the district so pass off to the board of education and to the business team you know for a great job um as far as our reporting goes uh on the operating statement excuse me our our general fund which is really where we operate all of our expenditures and revenues we had roughly about a 1 and a half% increase in total revenues during 2024 uh compared to roughly a 4 and a half% increase of our expenditures while there's obviously a decrease in that we would like to obviously OB see revenues over the expenditures in the time we live in right now they only have a 4 and a half% increase of our total expenditures is pretty good to maintain within those budget lines um when you look at a big picture we had roughly anticipated to utilize roughly a little over $ 11 million in total balances made up of Prior year expenses Reserve balances that we anticipated that you adopt it in your budget uh we actually only utilized 8 million so we returned roughly $3 million of that anticipated balance back in to your uh total reserves which ended roughly around $7.9 million uh so again those reserves are made up with various different items reserves capital reserve maintenance reserves things that you use in new budget for to potentially use in Futures as well but again so there was a decrease this year but roughly ended around $7.9 million of total balances uh we had one big difference this year if anyone does and it won't hurt my feelings if we don't goes into the reports in full of detail uh we had separated this year uh our internal service fund for our health insurance for a self Insurance Fund uh so what you would notice this year is there was a lot more expenditures in your operating fund that were charged out and what we just say were sent over to this internal service fund to pay for insurance claims uh so presentation purposes will look different this year if you were to compare them for one year to the next but just to point that out you'll see uh we have the balances and ACR liabilities to pay for those Insurance uh claims as they come due uh the other thing I like to kind of touch on a little bit is the only operating Enterprise fund that the district has which is your food service fund uh roughly this year uh the Food Service fund uh had a revenue of rough or excuse me an income roughly of $100,000 uh which is obviously what we want to see we want see a positive income to our our to our service fund and not a decrease from the funding potentially of the board the one thing to note that we do have in our smaller uh what we call our Auditors management report is a recommendation uh relating to what we call the net C resource there's a calculation that's required from the Department of Education and agriculture that you're not allowed to have an excess funds uh on hand in excess of three months of your operating expenditures uh some I spoke to your business administrator B already inform me that she has already proposed and you guys have already acted upon utilizing those funds which we recommend to the districts to create a plan that plan was already created and approved and in action which is great to see um that's I like to point on this but I also want to make sure that the board is aware the I'll say the majority if not all of the reason for this recommendation is related to the funding that the district had received the past previous years when Co was taking place and the funds were coming in as all free students so regardless of free reduced or paid lunch the districts received significant funding that they were to supposed to spend right away uh which is very believe it or not difficult to do uh and has to have a plan uh so again that has slowly kind of crept up and is now going down uh through conversation with the business administrator again the plan has been presented and I believe already being acted on that's just to jump in just to refresh your board's memory that's that funding is what we use to do the project here at North for the uh renovating the whole kitchen so that's how we were able to expend those funds we reinvested it into the program yeah so again just wanted to point that out in case anyone noticed that so it's a it's a recommendation in the small report that gets attached the the bigger 200 and some OD page report again as I stated in the beginning is clean unmodified no Finance or recommendations to report on uh but that's a recommendation that's required from the Department of Education uh because of the calculation that we have no say in so uh it's very common uh I would say about at least 50 to 60% of all districts in the state have this issue currently uh and are solving it little by little um I can go on and talk a lot more information U however most likely will B you and I want you to get on with your agenda uh if there are any questions we specifically uh can answer them are certainly happy to answer them as we move forward again I want to thank the board uh you know for your trust and having our firm present the audit and prepare this for you this year again uh and also your business administrator and the team for the look that they do for the past few months to get this all wrapped up so again very questions that we have take any questions thank you very much bar thank you very much appreciate have a great night okay we move on to our committee reports Mrs Dar for finance and Facilities can wrap it up one do one if You' like uh Finance we met on December 9th and the main topic was an update our health insurance broker on some changes that they were proposing to our prescription plan to uh realize savings uh to start this year and going into next year that is what's on the agenda for this evening the changes to the contract they are not changes in plan design but there are changes to the formulary that we're using and also uh some other parameters uh and protocols uh for the prescription plan uh they are projecting that there will be significant Savings in uh increased rebates and and discounts to the plan so uh we are we have that on the agenda to vote uh tonight and that would be effective April 1st 2024 uh we also talked about an update on the sale of Port M uh we have been in touch with the county to see where they were at in the process uh they had experienced a bit of a delay but they are moving forward at this point uh doing their due diligence uh surveys environmental uh reports and so forth and uh still on target to finalize the sale for this fiscal year and that's the finance report so I can roll right into facilities facilities met on the same day uh December 9th and that meeting was dedicated to a review of the school security report that we had had done uh several months ago by stonate Associates uh we wanted to bring them to the facilities committee to give them an update the administration have received an a presentation of the report and actually you know have started using that report so they reviewed the things that they found in the assessment overall the U the representative said that we have a very a good security environment here we've done a lot of proactive things uh of course their job is to find things that we can improve on which you know they did find some things for us to work on Mr Maguire is at meeting and said that they've already addressed uh several of the things that were in the report uh but again they gave us H marks for our security measures but we're always looking to improve so that was really the Crux of our facility meeting this month thank you Mr Dar moving on to public comment if anybody would like to make a public comment please step to the microphone state your name and address of the record on the gender item Lo stepping forward we're going to move to our reports Dr Al bone with the superintendent report great thank you um the first thing I want to do is just take a moment to recognize Mrs Farley um she um is ending her term with the board of education at the end of December um and just want to thank her for her Devotion to the Board of Ed and her work she's done during the course of her term um and just thank her for her service um to the Middletown School Community I'd also like to congratulate um our educators of the Year our Educational Service Professionals of the year and our support staff of the year if you've been watching our Instagram and Twitter feeds from the buildings um there's been lots of recognition of Staff members over the last couple of weeks um buildings have been honoring these individuals and our formal recognition of these staff members will be on April 23rd at 6 pm at High School North it will be a standalone program this year where we're just doing the honoring of our staff members in all three of those categories it will not be attached to board meeting um we moveed to a different structure this year for both our student recognitions and our staff recognitions so we're excited for that event in April there will be a pre kindergarten and kindergarten information session on January 29th at 7 pm this will be held virtually um just to make sure that we have the greatest number of people able to attend and a link will be available on the district website as we get closer to the event and this event is applicable to registrant for the 2025 26 school year and it's always a very very informative night for some of our newer parents to the district um based on recent feedback from students and parents we have decided to make some important changes to our midterm and final exam structures at the high school um the first change which I think will be a really positive one is that midterm and final exams will not be administered in all courses um these high stakes assessments which comprise 20% of the year average will now be reserved for all advanced placement dual enrollment World Language as well as selected core subjects and we do have a list that we've published out um the rationale for this is offsetting the load of students having to prepare for upwards of eight midterms and eight finals um so that students can really con concentrate their efforts on preparing for midterms and finals in those core subjects and higher level classes that are considered technically graduation requirements the other change that we're making to this structure based on feedback from students and parents again is that 11th grade students who have earned an average of 90% or above can now be exempt from their final exam and this was a privilege that we previously had only reserved for our 12th grade students or those students in 9th through 12th grade who also were taking an advanced placement exam the rationale here um and the feedback on this was very resounding is that the junior year is the busiest year for our students in taking the SATs college applications um the list goes on and on applying for scholarships so students that are already high performing we felt it was important to recognize that through their average versus having them have to prepare for all of those other things and then take a final exam um our ninth and 10th graders will still prepare for their traditional midterms and finals because there is certainly a skill in learning um to prepare for an assessment of that breath of information so um this was based on feedback from students and the student forums that I've been holding um certainly we've had our parent stakeholder groups one of them focused on the college experience and we've also had um an assessment committee running and all of this has kind of come together to create this plan which we feel will really really benefit our high school students moving forward without conceding some of the important pieces of why we still give midterm and final exams um staying on the theme of high school students um high school students can begin to put in their requests for electives in World language courses beginning this Friday um and continuing through January 19th student students will complete this process through the Genesis portal and that's for current 9th through 11th graders um this actually is an extended time frame of two weeks we've given the students more time again based on feedback from lots of different areas that I've already you know referred to um this way that students can have the winter break to really look at the course selection guide discuss some choices potentially with their families and then still have time to come back in January and meet with their counselors if they do have questions or need any kind of clarification before the window for selecting those classes closes um our freshman incoming freshmen our current eighth graders they will start their registration after this window concludes for our current high schoolers the reason being is they first of all have very limited things that they're actually going to be selecting um because a lot of their courses are already pre pre pre sub subscribed for them based on the fact that they're freshmen um so they have core subjects they do have to take the Freshman seminar so they really get limited choice on electives um we are going to be having the guidance counselors at the middle school working with them to educate them on that process which will start towards the end of January I just want to remind the school community that winter break will begin um after Friday which is a full day school will resume on January 2nd um when we return in the new year and I just want to express my wishes to our entire School Community for a wonderful holiday season with your loved ones we look forward to seeing everybody back in the New Year in 2025 thank you thank you Dr alone moving on to our approval of meeting minutes I need a motion to approve 9 A and B second discussion all in favor I oppose extensions you a motion to approve number 10 a through H business office consent agenda second discussion all in favor I oppose extensions I need a roll call vote on 11a motion to approv Second am can roll call Mr Fitzgerald yes Mrs minues I'm voting yes on the unfounded and no on the founded Mrs skolaski yes Mr tulk yes Mrs Wright yes Mrs tobacco yes Mr Kone no need a motion to approve 11 B through I second discussion all in favor I oppose extensions now moving to Old business does anybody have old business to discuss do we have any new business us just to wish the community a happy holiday season and our students to enjoy your winter break Ryan Megan anything to say yeah thing um I know Paige touched on it a little bit before um said how we would be doing an elf raid on Thursday I kind of just wanted to say what that was uh the student government basically were bringing in a bunch of candy canes and uh dressing up as elves and then we're visiting the preschool classroom for the AM and PM session and giving them candy canes and dressing up as elf so it's a good we did it last year is a good time coming yes Santa is coming yeah yeah very good it's good to hear Megan anything you good we're now going to open up for public comment please step vote state your name and address of director right just one announcement sorry that's just wanted to announce that there will be unified basketball and cheer a couple dates some where for now are January 31st at Neptune at 4M and February 10th at High School South I encourage anybody who can to make it to a unified basketball game there really are an awesome experience thank you Mr um be safety HR Drive Middletown first I wanted to um just uh for Mrs barley to thank her um I enjoyed working with Kate as she was lays on to um MTF odl um always appreciated her input and all of her efforts so thank you k um also TR touching on UniFi cheer I wanted to give an update on that and thank everybody for putting this in place last year um this year the interest was almost 60 students from both schools um far far surpassing last year um once everybody saw the schedule and it's a little because you have to practice at different schools and kids come from each school they have around 35 kids committed which I believe is double from last year um the kids have voted to rename it Middletown United Cheer and um they're going to be designing some um some clothes or you know shirts for fundraising um they have started practicing already which is much earlier than last year um they have quite a few games listed and they are actually they won't have a lot of practices in but they're actually going to get to the um North South um basketball games that are at the uh I believe they're like the third and fourth of January so they'll be uh performing very early so they not only do UniFi basketball but they do the basketball and they wanted to start early with the uh North South games so um so thank you for everybody that you know got it in place and it's great program thank you would anyone else like to make public comment each step po that your name and addressers hi good evening my name is Franchesca Lino and I am the mother of an incredible 3-year-old neur virgin child within the Middletown Township School District I am speaking to you this evening in an attempt to turn what I perceive to be a negative experience into a positive one as one of the district's core beliefs is fostering Partnerships with the greater Middletown Community as well as strong parent student educator relationships I'm coming to you all in that vein of partnership is my hope and expectation that that partnership is reciprocated as you are all all are aware an ethical investigation was recently facilitated under Dr alone's advisement and I believe the outcome of the investigation arrived at the conclusion it did based on a lack of policies for teachers and support staff well I believe the impact of this conflict of interest case does correlate to existing policies such as policy 2110 philosophy of education philos philosophy 2132 uh School District Lo goals and objectives Mission Community Partnership and policy 41383 4238 do3 outside activities it seems based on my evaluation of the current policies for teachers and support staff that the social media policy 06902 which is extended to board members such as yourself is not extended to teachers and support staff and is because of this that I believe the ethical investigation arrived at the conclusion it did if I am incorrect in my assumption then I would like to set up a meeting in private to discuss that as I originally tried to do but I was referred to this public forum instead for example our neighboring District Homedale does include a policy around the use of social media sites policy number 3282 for teaching staff members with the inclusion of while the board respects the right of Staff members to use social networking sites staff members should recognize that they are held to a higher standard than general public with regard to standards of conduct and ethics it is important that a staff member's use of these sites does not damage the reputation of the School District employees pupils or their families as I stated to Dr Al phone in an email on November 7th the use of Social and online media in this very unique situation has greatly blurred the boundaries the report identified and the established boundaries in the Consulting work minimize potential conflicts and adhere to District guidelines for avoiding conflicts of interest that the report identified no longer exists in this hyper connected Community we now live in our spaces and places of being are mer into one continuous identity that is accessible recordable and persistent so I come to you all tonight in Partnership how we can work together to align the district's value of fostering Partnerships within the community and make the necessary adjustments to policies that are reflective to the online and offline world that we live in I also come with to this request with a bit of unique background in this space I received my master degree in instructional technology and media from Teachers College Columbia University focusing on both designing online educational experiences and understanding how spaces and places of both learning and identity really don't conform to traditional ways of understanding so-called established boundaries I have worked for over 20 years in the informal educational space both as a designer and a learning facilitator I have always loved the possibilities that education can bring to both the individual and the community and is because of this that I ask the board to recognize how outdated policies are working against maintaining the trust and integrity of community and parent Partnerships thank you thank you would anyone else wish to make a public comment I didn't know that's not anyone El make public seeing no one else stepping forward I'm just going to end up by saying a very happy holidays to everyone Merry Christmas Happy Hanukkah and we'll see you all in the new year with the blessed new year ahead for everyone I need a motion to adjourn the meeting all in favor extensions have a great New Year everyone