Dr calino here Mr D here Mrs Fano Mr brow here Mr Palama here Mr Peto here Mr raport here M Zuckerman here Dr Mo here miss F here Mr Sun to the flag of the United States of America stand indice the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings at public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or active upon in accordance with the revision of the act the Mel Township Board of Education provided a public notice of this meeting which included the time date and location that was posted at the Mona Township Municipal Building all Mona Public Schools the Mel Public Library the Mel Township Board of Education administrative office building the district website and advertised in the Daily Record and the M will tap into the board's official newspapers on January 28th 2024 super report sorry first okay please thank you uh yeah so we're just going to start off with some things that happened in the past month so on March 8th the school counseling department held a college fair graders we had representatives from colleges across the United States as well as the military available to be with students and this is an excellent opportunity for our students and then on March 8th also was the grand opening of the new chart Wells Mustang Cafe students and enjoyed the opening specials of a fre hot coffee Nitro cold tea or hot chocolate withous of breakfast lunch or pastry and this sming machine is also very popular and then from March 11th to March 13th fpla had their annual state leadership conference trip to Paras in ATL City the conference was a great success and we had 10 students qualified for the national leadership conference which is this Juni Florida also flag football players a viella and Alexis Riley represented M atli Stadium last where they were interviewed for media day and they were being some of the top players in the jersey and then Key Club had their 42nd annual volleyball marathon on March 8th this year's team was around the world and each of the 16 teams chose one country to represent the winning country was Ireland and Brazil won the cost the MTS Theater Company performed Foot Loose from February 29th to March 3rd and this fun the musical was a huge success MTS continued it success in National History Day or NHD at the New Jersey History Day Regional contest on Saturday March 2nd at University this year's theme for the competition is turning points in history people places and ideas we had four projects that qualified for the New Jersey History Day state competition at William Patterson University which is going to be on May 4th 2024 yesterday March 18th we had a group of NS students and former hildale students who spent the day at hildale as part of Junior Achievement and they taught the students about economics careers and financial years the students became teachers for the day and they had a great time teaching for those students so continuing on um the fenics team um completed at the njsl state leadership um competition this past weekend um congratulations to the following students who were mville state champs um at Angeline agell and Sana Krishna in Varsity parliamentary debate Mente and shac B in JB parliamentary debate and the forensics team placed third overall fifth in speech and second in debate um all spring Sports softball baseball girls AC cross boys of cross girls FL football boys tennis and track and field are underway and they should start their athletic official athletic competition soon the classa 2025 is currently hosting Crispy Cream fundraiser to raise money for their upcoming senior events and orders are due this uh next Monday March 25th and now for the future the annual AP Government field trip to Philadelphia will be held this Thursday March 21st students will be touring historical sites such as the Independence Hall and Congress Hall the Liberty Bell the president's house and the national Constitution Center um also this Thursday at 700 p.m. there will be a session at the mths media center for the Journey Begins mapping your root to the Future topics covered will include backwards and College admissions standardized testing the application process and establishing timelines current seniors will also share their experiences about navigating the College admission process this is for current freshman sophomores and juniors and finally Mr butchko's holocost genocide class will take their trip to Washington DC next Monday the 25th thank you thank you very much I heard that the coffee bar is a big success AI also I just want to mention foot was three another Stellar production from high school just same thing every year is better than the one before we just such an exceptional exceptional and I'm probably to say something sh I'm not going to say the school but I saw another another school last week it's a school that has a good just really no compar just [Music] and I would also just mention real quick while we're talking about the Arts uh this Thursday Friday we have laar spring musical $10 for tickets they the high school come and uh support it you'll see their kids are going to be in the high school next year probably so it's a good thing to come in and again those prodctions are also very excellent really appreciate you touching upon all the highlights of all the schools thank you I'm going to hold my report want we have some special guests here uh we have Mr Connelly come on up and talk cl to introduce your students this is the uh ibpf business plan presentation wait before you go is also the recent recipient of the Chamber of Commerce of public service award so congratulations to you on that thank you very much this working uh so as Dr Gman mentioned uh I have a couple of classes now last year you might remember B Energy was in here giving you their business plan presentation this year I have two different companies two great course the students uh start the year and um interview for different positions in a company a virtual company that's part of an economy with other high schools uh they have to come up with a business idea and um get into their positions and then run a company for the uh this year I'm fortunate to have another set of great students U both of which have qualified for National competitions for the first time uh one that you'll see their business plan presentation charge caddy and the other Envision for their marketing plan that they submitted so both have qualified which is great we be in the City next month for the national competition so I'd like to give them a Round of Applause Just for both qualifying for the national and with that being said I'm going to call up first team charge caddy and they're going to present their business plan to you uh we're trying to figure out where's the best place for the six of them would be here right over [Music] the portal mic use the other table raise your hand if your computer is not at 100% well I know mine is and after completing a survey of 175 staff students at M tum high school we found that 74% of people often forget to charge your laptop and 79.5% of people often do not have their Chargers with them so with this problem in mind what if we told you we had a solution so you never have this problem again introducing charge cat selling charging computer cases we redefine how the world stays powered hi my name is panie and I CEO of charge paty and joining me is rooa marketing Vice President tusty Chief marketing officer fire chief operum officer teniser fin Conor Smith the Chief Financial Officer in the rapidly evolving digital world we live in a pressing issue has emerged which is the forgetfulness to charge one's laptop coupled with the natural battery integration of computers this leads to Shorter durations of power retention this poses an extem exem threat to our productivities as computers are necessary for work and tasks in response to this problem we propose charge CAD charge CAD is equipped with a battery that lasts up to 24 hours and is made out of polycarbonate plastic which is extremely helpful for the environment the way the product works well there's a battery that is attached to the back of the computer case and can be there's a port that can be plugged into your computer while the battery does need to be plugged into a wall to keep it charged it lasts up to 24 hours as I said before which makes make sure that your computer will never die in the workplace or the castle now I will be talking passing to to talk about how our company was founded charge county found in October of 2023 by 17 High School Visionaries op S corporation as an off limitted liability protection pass through taxation and potential tax AES for business owners as we dive into the SWAT analysis charge C strengths L three key areas ease of use customization and versatility in terms of weaknesses the main weakness that charge Cy faces is the fact that our product only only um caters to the top two laptop companies in the country those being apple and Chrome laptops therefore we're missing out on some sales for the minority that owns the other companies moving on to opportunities as computer covers update their model this causes customers to buy the updated charge Cy to fit that new computer also the business and educational sectors become more technological based in terms of stress the risk of our catching on fire or exploding would deeply harm our education and additionally technological advancements may make our product obsolete to new new inventions lastly uh sorry lastly the uh a reduction of the py polycarbon classic in the environment May refute our mission statement that is that we are an eco-friendly part now the target market we target students aged 13 to 24 as this includes middle schoolers all the way up to postgrad education we also Target Millennial JayZ work genz workers in the uh middle income range also we target suburb and urban areas through the high budet of businesses schools and universities psychic attributes we target are people who be a busy lifestyle and extra charge to get to your day so in terms of our product charge caddy uh is a portal charging laptop case that carries three sizes for both apple and Chrome laptops when charg full capacity our charges can last up to 24 hours keeping your laptops fully charged all day and in terms of the physical attributes of our charging cases you can get a charge Cy with with solid colors patterns custom monogramming and custom supports the charge C ranges in price from $64.99 to $199 $1999 depending on the customization and the model we use a penetration prices strategy in order to obtain a high market share and Rel raise prices at a later point of time so lastly in terms of promotion uh due to our Target marget of teens to young adults we plan on advocating for our product and promoting it on Instagram and Tik Tok additional to this we attend all impersonate online trade shows in order to obtain that one-on-one connection with potential customers entertain as much sales possible now let's talk about the stting of charge CAD charge CAD had initial funding of $50,000 from be we also obtained uh $150 $150,000 worth of investments from three annual investors and $150,000 worth of loans with a fixed rate of 10.5% over 5e period moving on to the break even char broke even in December of 2023 due to our outer sales of $1.6 million from Sanford our average selling price is $741 and our average cost of good sold is $36. 35 giving us an estimated gross bucker margin of 49.1% as our profit and loss analysis shows charge Count's outstanding Revenue stream of over $1.6 million will lead to a net income of over $64,000 our first bu year we have also implemented Gap principles such as the straight line appreciation method to achieve maximum accuracy in our financial records and ructions our decision to debt Finance over a 5year term for $150,000 was in order to raise enough initial Capital to tackle earning on cost our current ratio of 1.9 reflects on our ability to handle short-term de commitments which assures charge CAD stakeholders and our ability to Gra thank you for listening we are now open for questions if you haven't you guys auditioning for Shark Tank really L shark thing it was really entertaining and you guys did a great job on it and um I just said this just so many things we offer in this District that are just going beond just Sting the class through T and I think it's just so important my kids get involved in activities become well function so does your product the laptop or is it plug of like R yeah so like the actual case I don't know if you have like a computer case on your computer it'll basically look like that just a bit [Music] biger it'll just look a bit thicker it's um 0.9 lb but but there will be a that does into your computer to charge it so this is kind of what it looks like it just looks like a regular computer case it does protect your computer as well but it charges it um we have an out of network Warehouse that manufactures our products and we buy them whale and then s how do you find changeable investors well um we were tasked with the job of finding great Angel Investors and so we basically just um emailed people for our case it was a business teachers so we pitched their idea and um they asked us many questions and we got $50,000 each from them how did you initially come up to the idea is there anything slightly um so Mr commy in the beginning of the class kind of did a lot of exercises to kind of rack our brains on like what kind of products we can do because we are starting this company from scratch so we kind of came up with a list of problems that us students have and us we know people who have and we came up with like a list and we decided as a class that this was the most important problem that a lot of people's computers do not last the whole day and this is a unique idea we did a lot of research because we did have to talk about like competi competitors and many of our business plan and our executive summary and there's no company that sells this exact product so there's no direct competitors we do have indirect competitors cuz there are Chargers and uh portable chargers and other things like that but we are a company awes so um ask yourself this how often do you become how often do you find yourself becoming distracted at work whether surfing the internet are losing focus on what you started and losing productivity well this is why we created a vision hi I'm AA F and I'm the chief executive officer I'm Berman I'm the chief marketing officer I'm hady way I'm the Chief Operating Officer I'm Matt Mark I'm the Chief Financial Officer so the problem that Envision aims to solve is that 2third of high school students get distracted while doing their homework additionally 74% of students get distracted within 40 minutes of doing their homework and 40% of students get distracted within 10 minutes of doing that the solution that we created is Envision which is a personalized tablet that comes built with an personal AI assistant has no blue light and no access to web browsers what this means is that we have our personal AI assistant that adapts to each user's uh functions and how they use their computers and it adapts to the way they work so sry so um it will become smart and learn their study habits make them a better student um going on the no blue light blue light strain eyes so we made our tablet without blue light so there's no eye strain with uh studying and what I mean by no access to web browsers is that students will be able to use um say schoolly uh blck but they won't be to use Google Chrome or any other web browser such as um Bing or yo giv this increases internet Sur and so this is our logo and our Logan is Inspire innovate and Invision so our company overview so we are an innovating technology firm that was established in October 2023 uh we are an S Corporation our and our headquarters are located in Mel andur finally our mission statement which is redefine the way individuals engage with technology with with our tablet we aim to elevate focus and person and productivity by integrating intuitive interfaces and personalized productivity tools harnessing the power of artificial intelligence here Vision we have figured out that this organization chart works best for us increasing our productivity we work from the bottom up some of our short goals include increasing traffic on the company website as well increasing social media posts do at least four times a week some of our long-term goals include establishing a household name throughout the nation increasing the overall productivity in students and expanding our product line to be better suited to lowincome households our cor social responsibility policy includes producing paper usage because we are a tablet minimizing our package waste and using alternative energ resources so we found a couple risks these are our top two risks a small returning customer base and change in Trends we have mitigated these risks by increasing a monthly subscription which gives us a common um a revenue stream and also having software updates included monthly which Give us new features and also AI is constantly evolved so this is our competitive analysis this comp with our competitors can scribe market and maret and our main difference is that we have artificial intelligence and our competitors so our psycho Graphics um we mark it towards those who are val who value education our goal oriented lifestyle and we Market to um Junior High and high school students which is an age range 12 to 18 years old and those who have a mle high income through our program which is be um we Market towards those of a younger generation and Tech individuals and those who live in the US and Europe as well as busy cities so the price of our main product which is our wireless tablet is $299.99 and then our app at AI monthly subscription is $19.99 monthly um for our product our wireless tablet these are just a few of best features which charging open web browser Ai and Light which does so that it doesn't strain your eyes and we position it in technology Market um and our personized AI sets our product our competitors which I said before um our products are sold on our company website which can be accessed through our social media Instagram and Tik Tok which is also our main form of advertising information Instagram and Tik Tok um they share our Miss to audience across the country and we have Merion that's available on our website toot our company even more so now highlights um these are our sales projections from November of 2023 through January this year um this only accounts for our website sales and our our contct now for the breing analysis our bre point is just under now now um as of April 30th 2024 which is the end ofal year projected milon with gross profit of $960,000 therefore we have AIT margin of just under 46% um our expenses our cost sold of $1.1 million and our Opera expenses is just $8,000 this will give us a net income just under $140,000 now for the balance sheet as of February 29th 2024 our total assets are val at about $57,000 maity cat um we also just under $200,000 in liabilities our stockers Equity is valued at about $38,000 and that's add liabilities our assets now that you've heard about our Cutting Edge technology are you ready to inspire innovate and buy our product Envision thank [Applause] you questions I just love where you produce these yeah we also Outsource um and we buy our products um we put it in our corpor social responsibility how um we aim to reduce uh greenhouse gases um and we use alternate energy sources and that is through our manufacturer I definitely am one of those people that has a hard time focus in as well I need the Internet when I work so how I can't access the internet it's not the internet you can't access so this will our product will connect to Bluetooth but you don't have access to web browser so you can't search the internet if um so you basically stay focused and you can only use school apps so you can't get off task by say like uh Googling like the worldle for the day and the New York Times like it won't let you allow it won't allow you to do that but you can get on to Google doc School sheets Microsoft Word um schoy which mville uses so it makes you stay on task how does the AI featur work like tell you to stay awake um so a lot of high schoolers tend to struggle with getting like a schedule that works for them which allows them to be most productive and that's where the AI assistant comes in um that is somewhere like it will learn from your trends and evolve with you to like learn when you are most productive um when you should be studying about your schedule like when you have this when it's the right time to focus that will make you the most productive I was worried that maybe there were two little wires that came off and attached to your ear or something and anytime you started getting out of focus it would zap you and yeah if you forget your charger is it compatible with the c actually um we actually just launched a new product our own charging case they're [Music] not they're going to get sued we'll see what happens in I'd love have you included Inspire in there you know follow I'm the model of the district so I want toe um how do you guys handle outside distractions like cell phon right next to Instagram that's kind of like user not like user error but we created an Vision so that you like you'll get this products to stay the most focused and these are for people who like want to like do well and I mean we can't help that people have their phones next to you but our tablet make sure that you stay on T little wi expanding was saying did you think of expanding your it seems like it's defly a student tool but it is true that adult get distracted and if you could get their um tools or programs or so for on you know have you thought eventually standing out to be able to stud so maybe somewhere in the future but which is the program that we work off of really only middle school students outstanding great job thank you Mr colie thank you students that was wonderful thank you [Music] so we will not be having speak tonight and she she usually has you know great comments very support for our so just for my superintendent report I have a number of things I just want to bring up um medle will be uh expanding So based on recent survey data Med will be offering Med program to the district when it is closed this means that parents May sign up for medick during the spring break on E or even Passover this year medick enrichment has expanded and it's going extremely well there been a lot of work to get the new program off the ground but it's been paying off we believe uh we believe that we are profitable in both programs right now uh with 13 to 15 students which is great for the first time around we feel the program getting better going to be able to off you know what we shut off the the town is uh putting in a new sound system and hopefully that'll be up in the next mon or so um so uh so these new programs so stay on the lookout we're going to have more coming up before the end of the school year and hopefully offering some more during the summer regarding the school calendar since we used to CH emergency days of this year there will not be any give back days in the district so we build in four for this school year and we used two this means that students will be in school for 182 days and teachers will be working 185 days as for the contract we still have these two emergency days still built in if they're needed before the end of the school year the wording on the calendar at the very bottom was a little bit confusing about give back days so we removed it and that's on the agenda tonight so we're asking the Board of Ed to approve this agenda and we move this rewarding as we move forward and we'll clarify that in the future move uh over the next few years regarding cell phones there was a Community member that came forward the policy committee met uh about a week or two ago and we discussed cell phones but just in general I just want to bring it to everybody's attention that K through 8 students are not allowed to use cell phones during the school day although the students would love to use them whenever they can uh not having them has not caused any problems at the high school students students are allowed to use them while they're not in class and some teachers do ask them to put them in a phone CAD on the wall others ask them to put them away and then still others ask them to incorporate them in some of the projects or assignments that they're doing in class uh there is a discipline code uh for infractions the Administration has stated that hasn't really been any problems with cell phone usage regarding these infractions at the high school level regarding building and program changes the administration had several special education meetings recently regarding changes that will occur next year due to the changing needs of the district for the shortage of classroom space in different buildings some programmatic changes will have to be implemented next year all preschool and prek integrated programs will be located at valy this means that the integrated preschool lift full day preschool and pay five lldd programs will be Consolidated at valy view uh the two existing programs that are at C the hill will be moved over to valy view n this summer this will enable the district to consolidate resources and better utilized Personnel in addition to lift andd multip multiple disabled programs will move to Willie Mason of both move from Willam Mason to Cedar Hill because of the increased in enrollment the Cedar Hill program will now have three classes devoted to this program again this move will enable the district to consolidate resources and better utilize Personnel a letter will be sent out to the effective families tomorrow explaining these changes in Greater detail last steam week is this week this week many of the schools will be hosting a steam week and different projects the elementary schools and the high school will be devoting time to projects all week Valley View uh due to outside presentation scheduling and stuff like that will celebrate steam week next week and Lazard will as it always does celebrate steam week uh in May this year will be occurring right around May 31st the monville Education Foundation supported steam initiative this week the MEF has provided more than $200,000 in educational grants for the mount Township Public Schools over the last 15 years and this year they provided a districtwide grant to all the schools that was approximately $60,000 in stated the art tools and resources for all schools and they will be uh seen in action this week and that's my report so I have one more thing that I'm just going to read right now that'll be a resolution we have a walk-in resolution that the board will be voting on a little bit later so I'm just going to read it now uh resolve that the mon Board of Education upon recommendation of the superintendent hereby waves District policy number 2430 the co-curricular activities as it relates to mckel high school student ID number 106 495 for the 2024 spring athletic season that's thank you Contin you have anything to talk [Music] about so while we're getting that going um the administration and the board of education has been working on compiling the different programs that we will be instituting for the 2425 school year that process begins back um the latter part of last year and we continue to work on it all the way up until actually this week this year has been a little bit more challenging than most due to the fact that the pressure financially to stay within the 2% cap is becoming more and more difficult back in 2009 the governor put forth a restriction on school districts that they could only raise their taxes by 2% if they were not going to have their budgets voted upon and as a result the board has been living under that particular cap this entire time what that means is that although it has gone to the 2% cap each year over that 15 16e period it can only bring the taxes up to that 2% marker every year over the course of the 16 years the amount of tax levy has increased by about 4 42% that's the compounding effect of 32 over 16 years but the problem is that you have particular costs that are increasing much faster than that areas like special ed salaries and health benefits and transportation are all areas that have been increasing much faster than the 42% rise in the tax levy in the case of special ed it is increased by 50% over that same period salaries have increased by about 55% benefits by 62% and transportation is increased by 90% over that same period so the problem you have is that you're only raising the tax ly by the 2% but you have all these costs that are increasing at a much higher rate and over the course of the last 15 years the district has changed its programs it's built efficiencies into VAR ious um programs throughout the district in order to try to accommodate that cap now so the board faced that issue as it built the 20242 budget the other issue that it faced was projected enrollment um as was mentioned when the presentations were being done on the referendum uh we're in a process right now where enrollment is growing currently the enrollment for the 23 24 year is at about 3400 students however the projected enrollment for 25 for 25 is expected to be uh 3565 which is an increase of 127 students as you can see there are ups and downs some buildings are experiencing more growth some buildings are experiencing Less in the case of Lazar and the high school they have made some flexib ability to absorb students much easier and that really is due to the fact that their schedules um are gting blocks where they have the ability to increase kind of flex a little bit as they go the place that's more difficult is at the elementary level where your classes are stagnant student is assigned to a home room they pretty much stay in that Home Room the entire time and as a result they don't have flexibility to move about particularly in some of R locations such as Woodmont you have a really large expected increase in the enrollment which is going to be difficult to manage when you only have so much space and that was the third problem that the board faced as they put this budget to get together this happens to be a picture of Cedar Hill if you remember presentations during the referendum you probably recognize this picture because it was one that was used at the time to go and represent the the areas that were going to be under renovation had the referendum passed but we used it in order to show how we manage the enrollment so after placing all of the different elements in such as rooms for art and music Media Center and then begin to place the students in classrooms what you find and this is true in every single buildings you only have so many classrooms that you can actually put students in and and as a result there is a limit to the number of places that students can actually take their classes because of that limit you're going to see as enrollment increases class sizes are increasing because we don't have any additional places to put them for them to actually have that Home Room experience that I mentioned earlier what we did do this particular year is we looked at all five elementary schools we evaluated their average class sizes at the K to2 level and the K 3 to 5 level and attempted to stay right around the mark of about 20 kids that doesn't mean that every single classroom is always going to have 20 kids in it it's on an average however what we did find is we had comparability across all five elementary schools but the board had to address the issue of space so as it then moved into formation of the budget it took all of these pieces into consideration the proposals from the principles and supervisors to add programs to the educational programs across the district and from that we will be implementing a new Elementary program and that Elementary program is going to look a little different than what we've been doing in the past however that program is going to cause adjustments in Elementary staff Additionally you have adjustments for Bazar and the high school due to enrollment changes we will be expanding the preschool and multiply handicap programs at the elementary level and the district will be adding American Sign Language and expanding the college credit offerings at the high school in addition to the instructional programs we will continue to go and offer programs that address social issues and Stress Management as well as behavioral social and emotional support to students with needs as I mentioned if we can the increase of only 2% on the revenue side means that we have to make adjustments on the expense side and one of the areas that we made adjustments was in the administrative Services we specifically focused on scaling down those services and reorganizing them basically trying to provide the same or more service to students but in a more economic way and so that is part of this budget and then finally in the area of operations as we have seen over the last few years we do expect Transportation costs to be rising um as a result of shortage of drivers and the economics of gasoline and parts we will be doing work on all the schools as part of the long range facilities plan and as part of the comprehensive maintenance plan and a lot of that those different projects will begin over the summer the board will be doing a presentation called a public hearing on the budget on the 30th of April that presentation will be held here at 7:30 and we will be able to go into more detail after the budget has been finally approved does anyone have any questions thank you for the presentation I is always I am gly concerned this is the first time seeing these numbers that wood is going to go 25% next year almost these are all the projections we sharing with the ref 391 so just how do we plan to educate 400 kids it just seem like an inred well with with the defeat of the referendum we said we be you know increasing class SI and if we have to we'll have to put music or art on a park into the hallways you know they moving not into the Halls moving around classic class and uh try to figure out the best way we can concerned that more [Music] school well that that is something we can discuss as a board you know one district one school is receiving more students than another and we can look at some other options as well that's just for this year remember we have to look at the next 5 years and have effected so I can't just come over with one year fit so we we we'll talk about with is that I'll be sharing ideas stra concern objections that Mike is concerned about are they projections or do we know no so these are projections right now uh so right now the town housing has not moved as quickly as was anticipated a lot of the housing was supposed to be done months ago so right now there's only about a 15 10 to 15% occupancy rate and not all done so that those numbers might not come to fruition right away over the summer based on you know the housing market but we also have to prepare for the worst case scenario but it might not be as bad come September we'll see what happens this summer uh my understanding though what you were saying about that was um took in average based on how you distributed resources in classrooms amongst the five elementaries to try to keep the class for this year my understanding it's kind of a fix specific for this year um to keep even with the increase in W am I right understanding there's still going to be around the same F size the other schools correct right correct so that that average of 20 will occur at woodmon to so as a result you had to be more creative I didn't bring all the pictures but we had to be more creative in the use of space it wont to in order so that we could keep that class size the same across all the elementaries you're running an average around 20 for both K to2 as well as 3 to 5 and then the idea would be that each year based on the objections you see actually you're going have to make the adjustments into the space correct so if we let's say the referendum passed and we had all the space that we wanted we would have to fill those classrooms with new teachers have teachers been added to this bu that's two different things so we would have handled the way the teachers some of them would have been through attrition I might not have had to hire new teachers I guess just say if I a teacher retired in high school I might not have hired back and would have just uh I wouldn't hire back there but I would have hir teacher there so wasn't we going to add necessarily more uh to the budget uh staff wise does that make sense and because given moment the high school's decreasing so that was one way to solve but um what was second part of question the I guess my ultimate point is can solve the issue if there even is one they still just based on projections uh with just more teachers using the same space well the problem is there's no space or rooms so again the only way you would do that is by put art or music on part and then put a teacher in there and that teacher would have to move around to other areas so space is always going to be the problem for the future so for example I just put up the Cedar Hill one again what we ended up doing this was the first time we've ever done this we actually started building the budget by looking at the space first we first took the number of students projected for that particular building and began to spread them out trying to keep that class size as low as we could 20 was the best we could do and we moved things around in order to get that number to work so for example if you look you look at this particular at Cedar Hill you have the multiply handicap program in this building if you look at Woodmont Woodmont has no additional programs within its building because we knew we had higher enrollment we needed all the classrooms you could possibly get to go and actually utilize for students if you notice on this particular one there is that box that's blue that says grade four it's right next to the media center that's supposed to be a small constructional area that was what it's was intended to be when we were looking at the referendum we pulled it off of that and made it into a classroom meaning we're not going to subdivide we're going to reorganize those small groups into some other way in order so that we could utilize that classroom as a regular Ed classroom those are the types of things we did in order to accommodate and again we looked at all the five together to try to find that number that worked for all of them and the number was 20 this is going to be this is going to be a puzzle piece every year when we look at this so just for example when I read the earlier with my comments we moved you know to get more space Valley View had a little bit more space right now and that's why we're consolidating the preschool program over to Valley and then moving also uh programs out of Willam Mason over to Cedar Hill to give us a little more space and really Mas that's going to buy us a little time and moving things around we're constantly this puzzle years so if we when we look at the cedar schematic we see in the BT left corner number of students projected for each classroom if we were to look at the rest of the the remaining four schools at their allocation of classroom sizes would they be similar so would not the C classroom sizes similar well the classroom enrollment actually we have whatever the projected enrollment was now in the case of Woodmont you have three sections of every at every single grade you don't that they are the only building who has three sections at every single grade many places have three sections but only in certain places were necessary and what we ended up doing is we adjusted so maybe this year you might have three thir grades but we don't need three third grades next year we need three fourth grades so we're going to shift staff and and that's why one of the comments that I made in terms of when we looked at the elementary across all the areas we're adjusting classes and Staffing in order to accommodate en so when you did this was getting a sense that it was a holistic approach you you remov programs from one school that was teering on Space issues other schools have had more space um and I mean it sounds like something Innovative that did it was the first time yes the other thing we looked at in the case of moving programs was consolidating programs because we could build efficiency for that so for example by putting all of the preschool we usually would split the preschool between it usually the value by putting them all together we could get a comedy of scale and have all the resources that were necessary for preschool program to be in one location which meant that we could reallocate resources to other things that were also necessary that type of moving things around that is falling under that Administration element that I mentioned as being one of the things that we made changes to we are administering to students based on their needs and consolidating services and improving those services in order to go and provide better service to the kids and Dr said this is this year may not work next year so you're going to be constantly we're always going to be going back to the same model of take the kids see what's happening in that building and then make the decision that's the best for that building trying to keep it com compatible to the other form and we'll be adjusting the projection numbers that theer gave us because now the housing didn't happen when we thought it was going to happen the numbers going to be offset a little bit so it might buy us a little more time but we have to constantly reust those numbers as we see the housing market move what is it tou programs out of schools what programs would you can have wood scho woodon hasn't had anything at their location in a number of years neither same with hildale both of those had things pulled out many many years ago um what we were able to do though with Woodmont is we were able similar to on here with the box where grade four is next to the media center we were doing things like that in where we are putting consolidating some of those small group construction areas that are currently in place now and allocating them back to CL full classrooms so that that way then we could keep that average number down so where those small instruction class well what we ended up doing was we ended up changing the way that those programs were being offered so um um some of it is utilizing spaces like media centers when they're not being utilized some of them is utilizing different rooms for specific purposes it was more changing the way we thought about the program and how could we do it better by doing these consolidations similar to the preschool program at Valley View but now do it within a building How Could You consolidate it differently how could you move into a different location that would free up quality real estate a place where I can put a class of 20 students and move the small group instruction to some other space that's maybe not that is being underutilized in some way these are not programs that like one school gets over another these are Standalone programs like preschool for special education I think kind where the question was it's not like one school getting something that school not get there Standalone programs that fit and correct correct the 30th yeah just say thank you seem like all task and Sol yeah no it's it's uh again we've been talking about this for a while it's getting more and more challenging each year I she showed you with the different costs that are going up much more than 2% and then we also have the space issue that's going to become a real challenge as well so these two challenges are what's going to we're going to start working we already talked about this summer about how we're going to build next year's budget based on all the data we have so we're going starting a lot earlier each [Music] year you're exactly right you get a huge influx CH system yes if both of them are taking uh mil Creek as well as Avalon D taking they're about 15% occupied and as far as we know they're about 70 80% uh done in completion with their certificate of occup so we're expecting by the summer you should see 100% opening and then you will'll see how move how much Movement we have with people moving in I'm just if wood has an increase in almost 0 kids based upon 15% occupancy what's Happ get well that the the projections were still based on 100% occupy so the projections are still a little bit off based on the timing of what's been happening with the movement of the construction so that's why we'll be seeing over the summer how much movement do we really have people moving in so those numbers might be uh adjustment but we have to plan that part this is a plan as though everything is fully uh operational it's not 10% it's 100% occupied additionally it's taking into consideration we know that last year last summer there was a shortage of housing within Mona there was demand but there were no houses to buy if interest rates drop which is what they're projecting then people are going to begin opening up their homes they're going to sell their homes and now you're going to have new flux where someone who didn't have any children in the schools is going to be selling their home to someone who does and even aside from the new construction we're expecting to see additional children coming in across the board due to the movement of housing stock if interest rates drop a lot of the focus has been on know space and enrollment too but that one point you made at the beginning by going to the 2% cap every year which I know we're not unique in this District in all the years that I've been here to you know a parent my kids going through and so forth the majority of the years there's always been that space for through programs keeping um keeping everything that we've had now but looking at the rate of which salary and benefits have been increasing that's like what 8 85% budget so I mean eventually it seems to me like this is not going to be pable and I know I've been hearing this a lot of you know are you concerned in the next few years of that being even a bigger challenge than en R just they like what are your it seems like w that edge a little bit yeah we are concerned and that's why Dr Morman mentioned that the budget process which usually starts in November and December is going to start in July because we have to begin to find even new ways to be Innovative that have cost savings and in order so that we can continue providing the programs we provide but doing it in a more cost effective way um the goal always is that we figure out a way to do it better do it cheaper but that the kids never notice the difference thank you ptin and thank you Diane and thank you the entire business office anything else no okay let's move on then uh section g the ason reports Finance facility okay good uh curriculum we just had a meeting for April ail uh policy Joe we had our updates policies and regulations and also have discussion on existing policies the first Mee of7 Communications School Board since it's been a month uh February 24th New Jersey school board tell SCH board member orientation weekend um was very successful this is a weekend basically of boot camp for new board members we have the F mandatory training February 27th uh was the governor's budget address and I feel very fortunate that I was able to be in the assembly chamber to witness uh that report um tomorrow night is mors County's UNAM HERO program this is a program that ID and celebrates and awards uh St seniors uh High School seniors um who maybe are not that U that stupid that always gets recognized someone that perhaps has overcome challenges in their life um and is always ready to help someone or provide some service um and the program is I always say it's and our Direction so tomorrow we will honor one of our own unome Heroes uh there was a legislative committee meeting on March 9th Senator Angela mcnight and Sen woman B noi were both with us uh they're both freshmen in their positions although Senator mcnight was an assembly woman assembly woman back noi is a current superintendent of schools so she uh definitely has her pulse on education and understands the challenges that uh we Face they both sit on their respective education committees uh March 13th Elite group met and um we got a chance to meet the new acting commissioner Kevin danger he seems to be someone that is very interested in making New Jersey schools the best they can keeping them that way um on March 15 director met pass a budget um and yesterday I had a very exciting day I was able to attend a conference of the women's leadership conference where two of our own supervisors Tomar drar Spencer and Dr Sandy Schwarz U presented a program called I'm too busy and the Liv that we tell ourselves it was quite interactive a lot of fun basically taking stress and turning into something positive um also there to support them was uh Andrea W wooding as well as the supervisor of Elementary education uh just the Nathan I know I hear you that ends my report oh on the 21st uh this Thursday group is meeting with Governor so have SC school boards last meeting of the Year [Music] hline Educational Services yes we met on March 13th and met on March 7 and aurity station any want to go and see what they have check that out um we also going to be hosting a community program withot of on April 25th at the senior house at 6m we going to have some great there and also on May 17th is the New Jersey conven Network's annual conference Inc I'll [Music] beenden on Hill Charlie Joe Val yes I met Thursday 14 Char program this week There's discussion of the fundraisers and program playground as well as the save the date for the trick trade on November 15 nor Country Club one question was brought up to me at the Mee program considering into doing option par [Music] John okay Michelle they met last night um schedule and course planning for the next school year while way field trips at the ending you already mentioned that the musical will be this Thursday and Friday and also looking for living lessons on okay M for high school yes we met on March 4th it was a fairly quiet meeting um so just a couple of highlights from there first is course selections for next year for World grades and I think you have Mar parents Lo denes and see what the different courses are for their child uh and make any suggestions or recommendations to change change the uh change the sched um NJ GPA testing occurred uh March 11th and mon for S GRS um also uh midterms there the survey for the midterms uh came out uh there was a about 340 or so people who responded to the the survey which is a good 200 people less than last year so they're taking that as a sign that people are generally happier with the schedule how how it went this year than last year um but the administration is going through the survey and the feedback um and they're going to continue to make uh adjustments and changes for for next year as well with the terms and final schedule um teacher appreciation lunch is coming up after spring break probably around May 7th or so um and the next meeting is May 6 and May 6 is going to be a a virtual uh negotiations Karen M so since the last board meeting of the association and the boards teams um met twice on Fe 27th and March 14th um I believe that both the association and the board teams felt that we made good progress at the last meeting and I I just want to thank the association for um their continued professionalism and friendliness um negotiating can be hard but um we just have a I we just have a terrific working relationship and I I and the team are appreciate okay mtaa Charlie so I'm sorry I just add one thing on negotiations uh we do have two more plan me on March 25th and april8 and Jo NS and while we're on the ason and all that I'll just mention that Tom myself Charlie te we met with the township committee and we discussed a number of important topics um we're talking about getting sidewalk on Woodmont Road so that kids can walk to the elementary school uh June Wy Council committee mentioned door locks mentioned as well uh they're also planning on doing some pedestrian safety upgrades overhead flashing lights um this should be completed over the spring summer this year and also going to be installing on an ongoing basis over the next few years push button at all schools um talked a little bit about uh snow removal share of services um there are any options for share of services we're always willing to talk to about it we also talk about existing housing projects these would be the mil outla ones that mention a few times um and we also touched on the fair share housing starting or fair share housing negotiations starting next year year in 2025 um there been a number of rounds of ver housing negotiations that occurred over the years and we're going to starting another round next year so we obviously care a lot about housing issue in town it does affect the schools tremendously um it's nice to see that the township committee took the initiative and entered into negotiations with Bridge Gardens to try to preserve some of the that's un see how much more any counc moving on to public participation the first section of public participation this is for the public to come and uh tell us what you think about any items on the agenda you reserve it on the agenda microphone seeing none let's move on resolution items i [Music] n ask a question on the agenda real quick for the benefit of some of the members in the public here tonight K4 useful facilities request I know we had an email recently from graci Z Foundation is that request in the it's beened is it is included we were just waiting on people great thank can I go back and start with i minutes any questions on the minutes section I section J SE K oh already have a question thank um section uh so in section K ad okay uh section L Personnel in questions section M curriculum instruction technology any questions and section n policy any questions on the first reading of the policies that are listed okay okay please Mr gr yes on everything except Mr raport yes Dr Corina yes Mr do yes for Section K1 7851 Mr Palmer yes Mr pettino yes missman yes Dr L yes there's no Clos session tonight CL session so SS q and R old business new business General board comments uh just that U I had the thrill of reading to kindergarteners and second graders on March 7th and I couldn't believe how much the second graders were learning I hope they the third graders um so that was exciting and I I wanted to extend my personal condolences to the family my daughter went to school with Kenny and um they just Liv down the street from us and it's a real loss [Music] f [Music] [Music] more parents comments I don't know how many other of us were at Woodmont for reading I had pleasure of kindgarten other was nice okay moving on then to the second public participation section if you have any comments at all about anything in particular that you would like to address to the board please come to the microphone state your name address and what you're thinking we just wanted to give a heartfelt thank you for approving the gra Army Foundation 5K that we're going to be holding in September which is pediatric cancer awareness month so our community should be so proud gra my heavy hitter cancer survivor so thank you so much appreciate you I look forward to Running Y okay um there's nothing [Music] El