Roll call. Dr. Cordelino here. Mrs. Fano here. Mr. Palma here. Mr. Petraino. Mr. Rapaort here. Mrs. Smith here. Miss
Zuckerman. Mr. Dorri here. Dr. Modrack here. Mr. Brookhouser here. Miss Patel here. Okay. National anthem. Anthem. Pledge allegiance. Please. I was just
thinking I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stand indivisibley and justice for all. I was actually hoping you would play the national anthem, but Okay, Miss Lut from
public records. 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 of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provision of the act, the Montville
Township Board of Education provided a public notice of this meeting which included the time, date, and location that was posted at the Montville Township Municipal Building, all Montville public schools, the Montville public library, the Montville Township Board of Education administrative office
building, the district website, and advertised in the daily record, and the Montville tap into the board's official newspapers on April 17, 2025. I believe that we are going to have a selection of music
now. Should we Why don't we start with that first? Uh, if the board wants to go out in the front and watch, good evening and and thank you so much for having us here. Um this is the Montville High School uh chamber band
and we wanted to uh play for you for a couple reasons. One of course you know to add some music to tonight's meeting. Um but also to promote the good work that these students are doing. Uh similar to what uh Ken did at the middle school when he brought the chamber band
up here. Uh our high school students have an chamber band of their own. And uh we have a concert which is on May 19th at 7 p.m. in the auditorium. Um so if you can be there, we'd love to see you. One of the harder things though about groups like this is that they only
perform once. Well, I guess now twice, but we only perform at this one concert. And this concert has a lot of different groups. So the concert starts at 7 and it ends somewhere around 8:30 or 9ine depending on everything. So it is challenging to uh get to these events
for everyone. Uh so we thought we would bring this event to you. The piece we're going to perform is called Sleep by Eric Whitaker. Uh this piece although on paper looks quite simple is actually quite challenging. Uh collegiate bands sometimes play this piece because of the
kind of challenges it has. One of the things that the students also have to work with is the meaning of this. So this piece sleep which on paper sort of looks like the journey of battling nightmares and going to sleep also has a
second meaning uh which really is the journey of death and fighting that and eventually going to sleep. Uh so one of the things we had to do is talk about that and digest it and put it through our instruments and make something
beautiful come out on the other end. So, uh, without further ado, this is Sleep by Eric Whitaker. [Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
[Laughter] [Music]
[Music] [Music] So just want to Mark, am I on? So uh just want to thank everybody for coming. I appreciate that. I love that the friendly competition between you and the middle school's going on. So, you didn't want to be one up, so you guys
came out, but also Mr. Palmer wasn't here last time, so you got to enjoy. So, we feel like royalty when you all come here and you sit here and perform for us. So, we really appreciate that. Outstanding performance. It's great seeing all the middle school kids perform and then now seeing the end result of what you're all doing here.
So, tremendous job. We look forward to seeing you at the concert and then uh the next concerts after that, you know, and and maybe even beyond. So, thank you so much for your time and thank you for your dedication and all the work at the middle school to prepare them for this level two. So, I appreciate you everything. Yep.
Yeah, that's the the full arrangement, but also at our concert on the 19th, which starts at 7. We're also performing this with the uh chamber choir. This is actually originally a choir piece. This is just the band version that the composer made. We'll be doing it together, which I don't think this group
has done uh in quite some time. So, that'll be pretty exciting. I know Whitaker writes a lot, right? And the dissonance in there so tough because it needs to be right on because it's not right on. It just sounds like you're playing wrong notes.
You just got to do very not. That's it. Thank you so much. Thank you everybody. Have a great night. Appreciate that. We'll have you guys go next. All right. We'll do the student report
now. Sure. Ben to you. Good evening everyone. So, as usual, I'm going to start off with the past and I'm going to start off with the sports records. So, baseball has a record of 4 and8 right now with their second round of counties
being this Friday versus Madison. Softball has a record of 10-2 with their second round of counties being today. Boys golf has a record of seven and five. Girls golf has a record of 5-0 and they are hoping to stick with the undefeated record throughout the
whole season. Boys lacrosse has a record of five and six through the season so far and girls lacrosse has a record of three and six with their county game being earlier today versus Morris Nolles. Onto the school related subjects, the cultural diversity club
had a schoolwide egg hunt on April 11th with goodies inside of each egg that that the students found. The 14th through the 19th was Montville spring break with the 21st being our first day back. FBLA hosted an interview workshop during lunch on the 23rd for all members
and non-members to gain work experience. Last Thursday, April 24th, Miss Einstein's AP Biotechnology class took the bass exam, and the Montville Township High School of Rock performed on Friday,
April 25th at 700 p.m. They featured songs from the Eagles, Jouri, George Michael, and more. The event was held in the auditorium, and admissions admission was $10 at the door. Now, I'm going to pass it on to Gia. So, for the present, ticket sales for
senior breakfast and for senior prom will start tomorrow, Wednesday, April 30th, and it'll be sold during both halves of lunch in the rotunda. Ticket sales for a combination package or for senior breakfast only will be available until Friday, May 9th. And ticket sales
for prom will be available until Wednesday, May 14th. Senior breakfast will be held on Friday, May 23rd from 8 to 11:00 a.m. at the Mansion at Mountain Lakes. And the prom will be held on Thursday, May 29th from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. at the Grand
Intoa. And now for the future. The Montville Theater Company presents Broadway night. It will be held on Wednesday, April 30th at 7:30 p.m. and will be a night of Broadway classics and new hits. This Thursday is um May 1st,
which is also commitment day for all seniors. AP tests will start Monday, May 5th, and run through Friday, May 16th. Teachers are currently finishing up course material and beginning to review material for the upcoming upcoming exams. That's all we have for today.
Thank you. Okay, thank you very much and good luck with all the senior activities. And I would also point out to uh everyone all the good news in here. Uh there's a lot of good things our students are doing, building character and helping others. So, thank
you so much. Okay, Dr. Gorman, Dr. Gorman, I believe you're up. I thought the concert would bring a lot more students out, so people out, but you know, we
got He tells me it is. Is this working back there or not? Really? So you might have to do a little louder though. I appreciate it. Well, they all drive. So yeah. So um so thank you. So uh I appreciate it. Last year we did something new when we did the budget
presentation. Uh we did the state of the schools as well. You'll see them on the different uh screens here in front of you. Take pick a choice of which one you want to look at. But, uh, there's so much that goes into the budget and we wanted to show you, you know, what's been going on this past year as we lead
into what we're going to try and start doing next year. Uh, first I want to thank Sue Marinella who's back there taking pictures and she contributed to all the pictures that you'll see in this presentation of and actually helping put this whole presentation together. So, I really appreciate her support. and then
also Andrea Woodring and Casey Sharter who's also provided all the information as well as the data that went into this whole presentation. So appreciate all their work into this. So right now you see you know this we had ReadAcross America. I know a lot of board members were there. Uh Dr. Schwarz was there as
well and this is just one example of some of the great things that are going on in our school district. So we did a survey two years ago with the faculty and just just using some of the words that they they used uh love working with students. Our students are wonderful and respectful. Uh
teaching staff is amazing and welcoming, very supportive of one another. Just amazing stuff. Up there in the top lefthand corner, you'll see uh Toby Cohen, who's been teaching at Lazar for 50 years. Uh her retirement is on the agenda tonight, so we'll talk about that. And then Charlie Grow, who was
also a 30-year veteran here on the board. So, you know, people come here, they stay, they love it, and says wonderful things about the district. We did a survey at the end of last year. So, here are some of the comments that they said that this place is an awesome
school and great environment at the high school. I'm delighted my children had such a positive experience. Elementary, I've enjoyed every teacher my child has had, great educators, and again, very happy with the education my child uh adors her teachers. So, common themes
are seeing throughout. Doesn't matter what grade level, what uh what teachers and things, people are very pleased with the school district. rankings. You know, you live and die by them. We don't pay a lot of attention to them, but it's always great to be uh recognized by them. Uh they change every
year, different rankings, different uh pollings and things like that, but this this is just some of the ones from Niche magazine and their rankings. But again, it just shows you that we're consistently in the top 10%, top 20% depending on what polling is going on out there. And again, it just shows you what a great um school system and these
things are being recognized by whether our scores or people just uh you know, responding to different surveying information and it just says a lot that it's not just us telling you what great things are going on. It's also the parents as well as these outside uh data collection points. Some data that we
have about our post-graduation plans. Last year's graduating class, 96% of the kids went on to a two or a four-year college. And on the lefth hand side, you just see some more data that we collected. Just to give you an idea of what happens to these students, 38% attended New Jersey schools, 58%
attended a private school. And the top enrollment by state, we they go to New Jersey first, then Pennsylvania, New York, Florida, and Connecticut. So, they do try to stay around this area except for Florida, you know, which makes sense. You know, there's a thousand schools within a three-hour driving
distance. So, it does make sense of why they're staying around here. And this this is a three-year average that we have there of the students getting accepted by the Baron's guide. You have most uh most competitive, highly competitive, very competitive colleges. 61% of our students are getting into
them. 61% are getting accepted to the colleges that they applied to. So it's not, you know, they're not totally going for these schools that are totally out of their reach and they're getting in. And then 70% are going to the schools that they really wanted to go. So that shows, you know, they're they're picking the right schools and then they're
attending those schools. So we're pleased with that data. There's a lot of rumors out there and to try to help dispel some of those rumors, we look at this metriculation chart. We have almost all the students that leave the fifth grade of Lazar attend uh leave the fifth grade attend
Lazar. So we're happy about that number. Uh on average, I did this because you know every single year you can have an up or down year. So I looked at the last three years and you're looking at the data 11.6% of the eighth graders decide to attend an out of district high school. That's fine. We encourage kids
if they want to go that's fine. Uh they go for religious reasons, they go for athletic reasons or for uh vot schools. It all depends. 5.7% either reenrolled in Montville or moved into the district to attend the high school. and we seven students who tried another high school
returned back to Montville. So we're pleased with that. So when you look at the averages overall, we lose only about 9% of our students who graduate from Lazard don't attend the high school. And looking at a lot of other schools and the data out there, uh those numbers are very impressive because uh those numbers
for other schools are much higher. So it's showing that parents are very pleased with uh the school system here. We talk about the four A's of education, academics, activities, athletics, and the arts. And we're going to go into them in a little bit more depth of what we've done this past year. For the academics, we have a lot
of new exciting classes this year. At the elementary level, we have amplify, which is a system online um um curriculum that we put in for the English language arts. It had a lot range of perspectives, high quality
texts and a lot more awareness with uh phonetics and things like that. When I was talking to a lot of the students, they were telling me how they they were just getting into the war of 1812. They were getting into the human body and talking about that. They were talking about the Romans. So, the different
grade levels, they're doing this through this program. So, that just wasn't the history classes alone. They're learning these things through the readings that they're doing. Another thing we did was change the elementary schedule a little bit and one of the things we implemented was the win period which is what I need
now. So students then to decide what kind of enrichment or what kind of learning opportunities they want to dive in on on their own. They want to you know move further with certain things that was highly successful. It's personalized learning differentiation and the teachers teach teachers work with them and try to push them with
different uh you know material that they want to move uh and learn more about. At the middle school level we had amplify as well at the sixth grade level. Again the kids were learning uh the teachers were teaching skills through the text. They were building meaning through reading and this was very successful. So we're doing this
from the elementary up to the sixth grade level. Another thing that we tried was departmentalization at the fourth and fifth grade levels. So we departmentalized math, science and social studies. So we have students now just like they do in the middle school and the high school are rotating between
classes and getting a new teacher for those three subjects. And that turned out to be extremely fruitful. Those teachers were were excellent. They really dived into their content and again the kids were learning more in-depth lessons about these three different uh instructional areas and
teachers have seen a lot of positive results with this and the kids as well. For special ed we continue to develop our special ed programs. We have the Lyft program uh and we continue to make this more inclusive, functional and socially enriching for these students with the different environments. Lyft
stands for learning independence for tomorrow. Those stu students move up through the grades into our ACE program and then we have the advanced ACE program for students that are between 18 and 21. These programs have only continue to grow and we're very excited and we continue to make them stronger
than ever. Last year we we offered a summer academy for students that were multilingual. So students that are moving in from other countries, maybe struggling with a little bit of English or something. We allowed them to have some more learning during the summer. This academy again was very positive and
proactive with these students because you need to build that foundational base to build on the learning and we're going to continue to grow that this summer. At the high school level, we have 82 students enrolled in nine different types of courses. Genocide,
principles of marketing, physics, phys uh psychology, calculus. These kids are getting uh high school credit as well as college credit, helping them later on with some costs, but also exposing them to a little bit more rigor of what they're going to experience at the at the college level. These classes are
just again continuing to grow with more kids taking these classes. They're getting this through the FDU uh school system. For the third year, we've been uh pushing kids and they're accepting and they're taking this challenge, the seal of biiteracy. These are two years
results right there. But we had 79 students that are proficient in English and another language. And then we had seven students that are proficient in English and two other languages. Of course, uh, Spanish being the top one. We had 39 students pass this test. This
is a statewide exam. 11 with French, eight with Polish, seven Chinese, and the list goes on down to the bottom of of German and Arabic. So, it's exciting that these kids are now getting credit for what they're taking. and they get to put this on their application when they're applying to college and they
have this stamp of approval that they are literate in another language which is very exciting to see. We know these numbers are going to continue to grow. We've seen them um increase by threefold each year so far. Testing results. So, I don't have
the county results this year, but we always exceed the state and the county and also our district factor group, but I just have the state for right now. But our English language arts results showed you that 80% of our students met or exceeded achievement that level was flat. Just showing you with the state
comparison only 53% of the students uh last year um passed that exam or were met or exceeded the achievement mark. With math the same thing 74% met or exceeded and that was a a plus 4%. Science we went up 4% as well and again
achieving higher than the state. typically with our district factor group or with the county average we are typically about 10 to 20% higher uh of of those school districts as well. So, it's showing that there's quality here with these outside measurements, whether it be the seal of by literacy, whether
the parent survey or with these state tests that you're seeing great results with our students. For the activities, another A of our 4 A's, you have 29 field trips at the elementary level going to the Liberty Science Center, Planetarium,
Turtleback Zoo. 12 were at Lazar with the Science Olympiad, Carnegie Hall, and the Aquarium. and 104 field trips. A lot of them were decorative uh competitions at the local and national level, forensics, but also the Holocaust Museum, the Science Olympiad, and uh
just recently to the Independence Hall down in Philadelphia. But 104 field trips, further enriching the curriculum that we do here in the school. Also with the activities, we have a lot of clubs. We have 71 clubs for the students to pick from. 31 at
Lazar and 10 at the elementary level. So these students then after school or during lunch can get involved in things that peique their interest and they can learn and further grow with things that they're very interested in. Athletics, we have 12 female sports
plus one club. The one club is flag football next year. Uh it will go to a full uh sport. So that will that number will move up to 13. We have 10 male sports and we have four co-ed sports um plus the one club cheer. So these
numbers continue to grow. We're also going to be looking at girls wrestling for next year. So we're excited to bring bringing that on as well. As you can see out there, you know, our kids always do well in the county, the state competitions as well as the league. The arts, the other a we have uh 21
students, their artwork was accepted from over 600 pieces that were submitted from 20 different school districts. So 21 students artwork is hanging at the Morris Museum right now and you can see that on display and then they'll be doing awards shortly thereafter. So we're excited about that and just
rounding out all the different great experiences of our students. You saw tonight one example of the arts of what's going on. But you also have more music res uh recognitions. Five students were recognized for music and choir. We
have put on phenomenal plays. We have them coming up shortly at the middle school as well as the high school um level. And then for nine years in a row, we've been recognized by this national uh national association of music merchants. So just showing the quality that we're doing out there, putting a
nice another stamp on things. And then we we can't do this without the parents, the support of the parents all along the way, but also with the donations. This year we received $40,000 in gifts in kind. This is just one example of the students putting together packages. This is the club at I
think it's a Lazar and they were putting together um goodie bags and gifts for our troops overseas and those bags were then being shipped over there. But we receive all these gifts from the parents every year. It's a little bit different. They put on these fundraisers and they
give stuff to us and uh we're just extremely fortunate to have all this. So, let me just stop right there because there's three parts to tonight's presentation. I want to take a deep breath and we're going to ask you any questions or any uh comments for that
first portion. Hi Tom. How when do we know if we can uh start a a girls wrestling team? We talked about it the other day. Um we're posting for a position right now and we're hoping to have that in place for this uh winter. That's the plan. So
I'll let you know probably in the next month or two. Uh it's it's a small group, a couple of girls right now that that are interested. Uh so we may have to talk about co-oping with another district. So you join up with another surrounding district to say they have
four girls, we have four girls. You put them together and then you'd actually have a team to be able to compete with other schools. But we'll see where that goes. Yes. Uh, I just want to comment on how important the um state of the district
presentations are because it's an opportunity to see all at once what the district's accomplishments are. Um, and I think it helps us as board members, but more importantly, I think it helps the community uh to see how hard
everyone works in trying to bring innovation and quality to our schools. I appreciate that and and you're exactly right. I mean, we we talk about all these things in snippets all throughout the year and it's good to take that one, you know, review of the whole year. This is just one year or actually eight
months of school that we've talked about so far. So, it's incredible what we've done so far. Uh, and all the planning that's gone into this. Yes. Sorry about that. Um I just wanted to know do the parents get to see this wonderful um yes so it'll be posted
probably tomorrow on the website and as I shared the last board meeting although we don't have that many people in the audience we do know sometimes up to 60 to 100 parents or people worldwide do view our meetings afterwards so uh so
it's not just just here amongst this our group here. So we people will see it and it's up there for years. So it's it doesn't go away. Do we also attach it to our weekly things you sent out to the parents? So uh Miss Marinella is going to put together our super update and
she's going to condense a lot of this information to try to put it in digestible format for people to and then give them the links if they want to catch the rest of it. Yes. All right. Pause is over. Then we're going to move into the second portion. So, what we decided to do was come up
with a new branding campaign. Um, and because we're very proud of everything we've talked about, uh, the the each quarter I update the board. Uh, and I just did that again with the third quarter results of our um of our district goals and what we've achieved
so far. And when I share that out publicly as well, but then, you know, you don't know where it all goes. So, what we decided to do is put that all together, talk about what we've accomplished this year, and then come up with our three to five year plan moving forward. We decided to come up with the
catchy name of I Montville. Um, and you're going to see the theme run throughout. So, today's the new launch, the inaugural launch of all this, I Monontville, and uh you'll be familiar with a lot of these things that we've talked about already, but again, it's putting it all together and putting it
into this one uh format. So again three to five plan that accelerates the district in all disciplines through all the different departments. So on the left hand side you're going to see all the different eyewords that we're incorporating into everything that we're doing. So for academics we're doing inquiry based learning interdisciplinary
learning igniting the you know the interest in the students uh informational instructional but the elementary curriculum that we just talked about the amplify curriculum that we put in that was very successful this year. We're going to continue to do that next year and the years to go. Another
system we're just going to be moving into is uh the a lot of the teachers were excited about Google Classroom. So, we're going to be using that as a platform for they were going to be able to enter their grades and communicate with the students with different assignments and and post things. And we found that this is going to be a much
better way for us to move uh using the Google classroom. Um, Miss Woodring is working with special education and some of the principles with this pilot action-based learning program for kindergarten through 2 grade. So, we're going to experiment with a couple of different classrooms. And with this is
going to be a little bit more of flexible and action-packed type of learning for students that uh, you know, some of the students that might not be able to sit still or they're a little bit more energetic. But we're going to try and get different types of furniture in there that will allow them to, you
know, release some of that energy while they're still learning, make things a little more comfortable, a totally different environment as opposed to just sitting in the traditional hardback chairs and staring straight forward. So, we're going to experiment that. We have a couple of teachers that have said they want to sign on. We think this is going
to be very successful moving forward and um and we'll be reporting back to you next year on that. Moving forward, we're also going to be looking at the new science program. Uh evaluating that as well as a new social studies program for the uh middle school
curriculum. You know, trying to get uh interdicciplinary again impactful instructional. We're going to evaluate uh the schedule. We've been looking at that the past year or two. Can we come up with a better way to uh you know run the whole school system with the different schedule times and blocks of
periods we have? We're going to expand the writing and research classes for six through eight. So, right now, our English classes at the middle school level are backtoback. They're tied together with the same teacher. We're going to split that and we're going to have different teachers for reading uh for writing and and for research and try
to have a stronger program that way for the students. So, they're going to have um a more enriching program that way. Uh we're going to adopt the Google classroom as I just said at the middle school as well. investigating more ways to use AI into our academic program and
then looking into the middle school identity in the years to come at the high school. Same thing with Google Classroom. This year we offered sign language that will continue next year. We're looking into that. Uh and kids are signing up for that right now. So, we're excited about that. Uh we had
a number of parents uh when we were talking about Mandarin back in December, they said, you know, can you offer some more classes? We've offered them to the students. We're going to see if those programs will continue to grow. We're looking to uh grow advanced studies in Spanish, Italian, and French as well. I told you about the FDU dual enrollment
opportunities. We're going to try and continue to grow those programs. Again, AI in the academic program and increase participation with the seal of literacy test. For special ed programs, going to continue to expand the ERRI and LLD
programs. These are the ones I just talked about a little bit. uh improve structured integrated programs for all these students with the uh special ed programs include action-based learning programs as I just talked about a little bit accelerating the different requirements for the gifted and talented students and that uh multilingual
program during the summer with more family support is going to be offered this summer for the arts and athletics. Again, trying to be inspiring, interactive, instructional, intentional. Uh we have increasing staff to address the rising part uh participation in the
arts. We've had a number of kids sign up more and more at the middle school and high school level. Encouraging innovation for program growth, continuing with all our different arts programs. So just for an example, two years ago, we put in the STEM program at the high school. It's been great. Students have been signing up for that.
And we've have two uh teachers now for the STEM and the wood shop program at the high school to ac accommodate that need. talking about the girls wrestling program that should be going into this school this year. And then flag football next spring should be coming of sport for the women as
well. Also with activities, we're going to be expanding our afterchool enrichment programs. That's been through the Medlick enrichment. We've started that a little bit last year. We're continuing offering those programs this year. We're going to offer a basic skills boot camp during the student during the summer for students that are
maybe struggling with some of the basics and tr try to you know get them up to the grade level or speed where they need to be. And we're this year and we think this one's going to be a big one. We're going to offering a theater arts summer camp for grades 6 through 12. I think the theme I think the play is going to
be frozen and they're going to be doing that. So the kids will all be working together this summer. I can't remember exactly how many weeks, but it's at least four weeks long. And they'll be putting a production on at the end of I think July, maybe early August with that. And Miss Lunt and I are working
very hard on trying to get this aerial adventure program. You might know it as Project Adventure or some type like that. That's when you put the telephone poles up, zip lines and things. So, we're working on that and we hope to have something like that installed by the end of next year, if not
sooner. Staff development. We're trying to empower them, invigorate them, you know, again with the Google classroom, amplify, AI, all things we've been doing a lot of PI uh PD for throughout the year. We've had different people come in. We've had teachers share with each other. Uh we're training for advanced
study in world languages at the high school and we're trying to do more team building programs to retain the staff. uh you know there's a lot of competition right now for teachers you know throughout the state and we're trying to do everything we can to make sure we retaining them keeping them here and
developing them and it's been working pretty well so far for our technology we're enhancing our software applications uh Mr. Thompson has been doing a great job as director with our cyber security. I don't want to jinx us, but so far we've doing a great job making sure people aren't breaking
through our systems. Our website continues to grow each month. You can see new developments on there and it's more easily accessible, more friendly on your on your uh cell phones and easily used for parents to get the information that they need. And we've been
responding to a lot of community input. So when we get a lot of things, we don't just, you know, put it to the side. But we do take it um we value that input and we try to integrate that into whatever we're trying to do to make it a better experience for all. Regarding facilities again trying to improve things uh
inspire things. We have the security festivals being uh finalized this summer with all the remaining schools completing the painting and hallway upgrades, landscaping uh playground upgrades all across the district, the HVAC systems and hopefully the the auditorium. That's from years to come.
But these things are still on our list of things to do. So, I'm going to pause right there. We're going to take a breath, ask for any questions or any comments. Joseph, um the aerial adventure program, where would that take place? We're
looking at the first baseline of the uh softball field. Okay. So, there's a tree line right there and it seems to fit really well out there out there in the outfield and it wouldn't interfere with anything. Okay, thank you.
Okay. Uh, first I'm hearing about the theater arts program for the summer. That's fantastic thing. I mean, to anybody who knows anything about theater, we have a literally a premier theater program at the high school as it is and a great theater program at Lazar.
So, it's just going to be better. Uh, now just by way of kind of following up on what we what we heard a couple minutes ago in the center of the room here, has any thought ever been given to having a videographer come in to film
our concerts and then edit the film like taking out the breaks and stuff like that and then putting them youtubing it do a nice little thing have at beginning of the song put the here's the name of the song the composer it's just a nice little video out there so people can actually see what we're doing. Yeah. So
to answer your first question, uh so the advertisement for Frozen went out just about a week or so ago, but that was the community input when we put that survey out last year. There was a big demand for people saying they would love to do more of the theater arts and so that's what came out of that. We'll see if there's enough people to sign up. I
think there's going to be and we're very excited if we're going to be able to offer that. As for the other thing, I could look into that. I'm not sure if there's um copyrights rules to all that kind of stuff, but I will find out and see what we can and can't do. I'm not sure if you al also may have a problem with um needing, you know,
written consent forms or stuff like that from the students, but I know some schools do. I know JP Stevens does it, I believe. And I I'll find out. Okay. Anybody else? Anything? I have one question, Dr. Gorman. So for the extended stu extended school year
students um for a special education they generally have a it's six weeks or four weeks during the summer whatever their program is. Is there any talk of possibly giving those children a camp as well? because I know um you know as a
special needs parent um before my son went to um you know out of district for his needs you know would normally end and I would have four weeks to you know work with him and play with him and it was very difficult and then
kids can regress. So, I'm just wondering if this wonderful program, this um this musical theater program starts, is there possibly any type of maybe future of maybe doing something similar just for a
couple weeks um in August uh for the special needs population. It's something we could look into. We'd have to see if there's demand. Uh the only the only thing I will say the caveat to is I know a lot of the teachers as well as students, they're in school so much and they try to get like one or two weeks
off before the school year starts, but we'll look into that. The camp for the theater arts and things like that and a lot of the enrichment programs are done later on in the day so kids can go to whatever they have to do and then it doesn't start at 8 in the morning. So, uh it'll be a little bit later. So, we
could look into that though. I I'll I'll see what we do. Good. All right. So these are the wonderful things. Again, you've seen a lot of these I mindful things before. We've talked about them through a lot of different uh meetings, but this is a way
to encapsulate it, to brand it, and show you the wonderful things we're going on. Now, do you want So, we're going to get into the budget right now with Miss Lunt. As we uh proceed forward, we are exiting the end of what is considered budget
season for uh public schools in New Jersey. It generally begins somewhere around December, January and runs through the winter. One of the things that you probably have seen in the newspaper is a lot of districts who are
uh struggling with the funding formula, meaning that the amount of revenues that it that the districts can create is not enough to actually fund the programs that they have. And that process that you're reading about in the newspaper is
the budget process that that district is going through. We then did a similar thing in terms of the budget. The budget is a financial representation of the strategic plans of the board as well as
the academic um expectations of the district and it is divided into two balancing pieces. one being the resources that the district is able to raise to to support the programs and the
cost of those programs to run them. And according to statute in New Jersey, those two revenues and expenditures, those two pieces have to balance in order for the budget to be able to be adopted by the
board. In order to do that type of balancing, you really need to be running an efficient budget. And so one of the things that all of the administrators are doing within the district are trying to find ways to do what they're doing for the students in a more effective and
efficient way so that we are you using the resources that we have in the most efficient way possible for a purpose of ease. What we do is we present all these transactions and all these events that are occurring
in four different areas and we take all of those different programs and we break them into four areas just for ease of use. The first being instruction then support service administration and operations. So the first area of instruction this includes the largest
portion of our budget. Um this is what is going on in every classroom throughout the district whether it's special ed, regular ed, it also includes all the co-curricular events. So these are your plays and yearbook and the newspaper as well as all the athletic
events. And then for those students who we are not able to educate within the district, those students their educational um costs are included in this area. Most of what Dr. Gorman just presented on is funded through this
particular section. So in terms of some of the high points that he mentioned, we will be continuing the amplify program at the elementary and at the sixth grade at Lazar. We will be introducing a new
action-based learning pilot that we will be implementing as a more kinesthetic program to supplement the programs that are going on in the district. We are expanding a number of different programs related to special needs students. As AI
becomes a bigger and bigger topic that our students are um coming up against, learning how to use it effectively in the classroom in a productive way is going to be a new initiative this year. This is where the girls uh wrestling
team is being included to the athletic program. This is where the expansion of the music program is occurring. Um, this is where we are doing the second year of American Sign Language as well as expanding some of the offerings at the
high school for uh, Chinese culture and language programs. All of that is occurring in this area. And as you review it, the balances are increasing over um
the years presented. Um however, there we're also enriching a lot of these programs as each year passes. The second area is support service. So these are areas that affect
the students directly however are not necessarily in the classroom. These are things like nursing services, your child's study team for students with special needs, the related and extraordinary services that they read receive, guidance or counseling services, the library, the training that
goes on for staff members within the district. And this is one of the other larger areas of the budget collectively that when you add those two pieces together, instruction and support service, two pieces that are affecting
the students directly, this is more than 50% of our total uh budget. And in terms of some of the programs that Dr. Gorman mentioned we talked about expanding professional development as we expand the types of offerings that the students
will be getting. We are developing our staff to go and offer that. Google Classroom is being introduced as part of this professional development in this area. And we're very cognizant to the fact that we need to be working towards retaining our teachers and providing
more opportunities that are um engaging and would re interest them in staying here in Montville versus going somewhere else. Um again, you're seeing a moderate increase over the three years in this
area. The third area is administrative. So this would not be something that is occurring directly in any classroom, but it is all of the elements that keep all of the things moving. So this is your general administration, the board of education, as well as the superintendent's office, the school
administration in each of the different buildings, their main offices, your business office, as well as your district-wide technology. And in terms of pieces that Dr. Gorman mentioned in the 3 to
fiveyear plan. This is the cyber security measures that we've been expanding. These are also areas that are moreformational based trying to get information out to the public through the website through other forums, emails, and being able to package that
in a way that is useful to them and easy to use. The other piece that's included in this area is districtwide employee benefits. These part this particular area relates to all staff members. This is not specific to administration. It is
covers all members of the staff who are in the district. These benefits include medical, del, dental, vision, and prescription. Um, and this is one area that has been a big stumbling block for
many districts, um, including ourselves because the increases in health benefits are significantly higher than the increases that we can raise the revenues. Um, one of the biggest reasons that we did not
struggle as much as we might have was because of us switching out of the state health plan and into a private carrier. That enabled us to go from a 20% increase in benefits down to a 5% increase in benefits. When you are
talking about a base of $14 million, those are really large numbers, that variance of 15%. we had the benefit of being able to outsource that and that significantly helped us in terms of being able to move
forward. The last area is operations. Operations is all the pieces that kind of make the gears run. They are. This includes your maintenance and custodial services, security services uh for the vestibules, transportation, getting the
students to and from school, food service in the cafeterias and at the elementary schools, bringing food in. And then capital improvements, the constant improvement of the uh facilities and the structures that house
the students. One of the big areas that we will be working on this year in terms of capital improvements is the security vestibules. So three of the seven schools have security vestibules already completed. We will be completing the
last four remaining schools which has been one of our uh key goals over the last few years is to finish all those security vestibules. So that is included in the 2526 number. And without a doubt,
a large component and a large impact on the growth and change in this area relates to the improvements that we're making to the buildings that are included in this section. If you take all four of those areas and you add them together, that
gives us our total uh expenditure or appropriations budget. and that budget is increasing um by about 3% over the previous years. Um when I talked about
the fact that it has to be a balancing event, we've gone through all of the costs to support all of those programs and now we're going to turn over to the resources that help to fund those. Like most suburban districts, our largest
revenue source is our tax levy. We then provide um additional funding locally, things like tuitions and transportation fees that help to support the program. State aid has increased by a good amount
over the last few years. And then we always put money in from our savings. Part of what funds all of the construction that we do every summer is us to go and reinvest back into the program. And the way we reinvest it back
into the program is by maintaining all of the buildings. And what you'll notice is for the years that we've shown, everything balances. The revenues that we're taking in equal the same amount as the costs for the programs that we are
running throughout the year. There are two other areas that are also part of our budget. Those include special revenues, which is just another way of saying grants. And those grants come from local, state, and federal sources.
These are areas that definitely we have seen change in over the three years that are being shown. Back in 2023 24, we still were running off of all the funding that was coming from the federal government related to the pandemic.
Those monies have now been fully expended and uh those grants have now closed. And what you're now seeing is us kind of going back down to a much more regular normal level of grant funding. The second area is debt service. Debt
service relates to the actual payment of the debt that the board had taken on as a result of the 2017 referendum. What you're seeing here is us paying down that referendum amount that was from
that two 2017 vote. All of the pieces added together collectively make up what is considered the operating budget for the district for the year 2526. In terms of impact, for the average assessed home
of about $540,000, the increase is going to be about $213. Convert that to um averaged assessed house $100,000 increment. So you look at your tax bill, whatever your
tax bill says your assessed value is, for every $100,000 marked there, it's a $28 increase. So you there's a lot being funded in terms of program and benefits to the students in Montville for that
very small increase um base and that's pretty much the presentation on the budget. Does anyone have any questions? Sure. Um so one of the things that you'll notice when you look at the state aid number which is in that second
box right in the middle you have a increase that occurred um from the state aids from 2425 into 2526. That increase was directly related to our enrollment. It was based off of
the number of students we had transporting, the number of students we had in special ed. And that is an impact that as we absorb more students, we have the ability to gain a little bit more in aid. The other thing that was a
significant change is when you look at the tax levy, we have the ability to raise taxes above the 2% for very specific reasons. And one of them is enrollment. And that enrollment waiver, the ability to raise above and wave the
2% cap was something that we did exercise. Um, and that was a over a $700,000 increase. And again, that was directly tied to the number of students that are coming into the district, not solely from the new
developments, but definitely the new developments are affecting it. Okay, I have a couple. First of all, thank you for you do. I mean, for those in the audience who is listening to this don't know what a great job Kina is.
We're so lucky to have her. Um there's so many districts that are in the soup right now and you've always done such a great job with the budget and uh we just we owe you a lot. You've done so much for the district. Um just a couple questions. There's one. What's the difference between general
administration and school administration? because I saw the general administration went down from like 2 million to 1.5 million. So general administration is you all and the superintendent. The reason that that number dropped so much is because in
2023 24 it included the costs of the referendum. Um, school administration is the individuals who are the administrators in each building. So, the high school administration is included in that school administration number. The
administration for Woodmont is included in that school administration number. And then for business, it's the business office and for technology, it's the technology department. Okay. Uh, no, not necessarily.
Okay. Um, just looking at the education numbers I just saw, it looks like looks like a pretty large discrepancy between regular ed over two years, looks like it's gone up about 4%, special ed 14%. Um, is there a reason for the
disproportion? What's contributing to that special ed costs? Um, we've had more students who have required special uh, assistance both as programs within our district, which
is the second group, the second line, as well as students going out of our district because we're not able to meet their needs, which is the line just before the total. Additionally, in the case of the out of district instruction, there is not a cap to their
ability to raise uh their rates. Those rates for 2425, for example, over those rates for 23 24, some of those schools raise their rates as much as 20%. And we have to absorb it.
Uh, last thing. Um, do you know how much foid we get? Yes, it's a it's a little short of a million. And where it's included is it's part of that second first box, second
line, the state and federal grants. Most of that 2 or 1.2 million that you see 42526, about a million of it is federal. Kina, I have a question. Food services, that went down a lot, too. Can you explain
why? Yep. Um, so food services, we do not participate in the national or the state lunch program, which means that we do not receive funding from those two sources to fund the lunch program. we
have opted to fund our own lunch program. So we still evaluate we provide the the uh parents to submit and establish themselves as requiring or needing free or reduced lunches and then the district pays for those particular
lunches on it own on its own. So in other words, our community supports our own students in need from year to year. We do provide additional funding for different things going on in the food service area. The
base amount of $75,000 is us funding the free and reduced lunches. As I just mentioned, any amounts above that relate to us um purchasing equipment and and things like that. One of the items that we purchased in
2324 was the coffee cart that is at um that is at the in the lunchroom um here at the hos at the high school. At this point um that coffee cart by the time we get to the end of this year, I was mentioning it to somebody. Um it
will have grossed $100,000 in sales just the coffee cart alone. And that's not just they're not drinking that much coffee. Um that also includes all their breakfasts. Um we're doing 12 dozen do uh bagels a a day. Um selling 12 dozen
if you calculate that. That's a lot of bagels. Um it's it's everything from breakfast to them grabbing and going for sports. Um it does include coffee, but it also includes refreshers. Uh they're starting boba tea or and bubble tea next
month. Um, so a lot of it is specialty things that the kids um participate in. But that's an example. We purchased that card in 2324 and it would have been included in that total. That's great. Yeah. First of all, thank you very much for
not uh thank you very much for the presentation. Uh I would have to echo my colleagues that you've done a wonderful job over the past few years uh working with this budget trying to keep us in line and keep us afloat.
Um, can you possibly talk about the other obstacles that we're going to be facing? Yes. So, this was the positive part of the presentation and now I do the negative part of the presentation. Such a downer. I know. I'm such a Debbie
Downer. Um, we have been successful in dodging the the what is called the fiscal cliff. It is the idea that you cannot raise revenues by 2% which is what statute
allows and have costs rising by 20% in the case of some of the things that we've mentioned today and expect that over the long term that's going to work. Now one of the things that I commend the board for um you have run for more than a decade. You have been a district that
has always gone to CAP and what that does is it builds the base. It enables it to be a bigger number to build off of and that has kept you going. The districts that are really in trouble are probably if you were to go back and see what their history was, I would not be
surprised to find out that they were not going to cap back a decade ago. So that is a compliment to you as a board to recognize um that how important that was particularly in those early years when it was easy to say ah we could just go
to one and a half% we don't have to go the whole way but you didn't you kept going all the way and that really has made a big difference but that being said now what we're doing a lot of is I had mentioned to finance and facilities tonight that we are going to pause for
maybe about six weeks to two months and it We we as the administration and we as the finance committee will begin the process of budgeting for 2627. It will be a very short break. And the reason is because we need to
continue to squeeze down that appropriation side as tight as we can make it in order for us to avoid getting to that fiscal cliff. And even with that being said, there's no guarantees that we're not getting there. What we have
already done is we've projected out what a possible picture of what budgets would look like for the next three to five years. And starting next year, I'm already in the hole. I can't close the gap. So, I'm going to start to squeeze down and we're going to be coming to you
with different ideas, innovative ideas, more ideas that are more uh cost-effective in an attempt to just squeeze and squeeze and squeeze a little bit at a time and a little bit at a time. And hopefully collectively with a whole bunch of moving parts, we hope to
go and try to fit ourself into the uh the the space that we have to get oursel into in order to keep it that those two sides balance. Uh we will be looking into opportunities for more revenue gaining um more contracts with other
districts to try to share services. We're going to be looking at a whole bunch of stuff. So, we unfortunately are going to be doing budget for most of next year as we try to manage our way through the next round. Yeah. I just wanted to have that
explained because they really do a great job of trying to make sure that we stay solvent. They plan for the future, which many districts don't or didn't seem to be planning as much as they should have been. And just from working with you, I can
see that you're very innovative. Your attention to detail, your concern for the health and well-being of this district is just, you know, commendable. I I really do value all the work that um the business office and the administration
do to try to keep this district going in a positive way, including fact that we have such positive results from our students. Our education here in this town is very good and that's because we have a strong dedication to it and so again thank you very
much. Anyone else? Karen. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. I guess do you have anything else to add, Tom? Are you done with Okay. Uh we'll move on. uh section
uh G fi uh committee reports and liaison we'll start with Karen facilities finance [Music] thank you Dave Um on tonight's agenda, you're going to see that tonight is a
public hearing on the um public hearing and adoption of the budget. So the items that Mrs. Slant was talking about will be contained in what we are going to vote on tonight and and
adopt. And like my fellow board members have said, Mrs. slunt and the business office really do a a yman's job of managing
um the district's dollars. And she does it not simply by and I've said this before, but I think it's an important point. She just doesn't take one a a budget from one
year and turn it over and that becomes the budget of the next year. She scrubs every line. The folks in the business office identify areas uh that can be merged or
uh not become part of the following year's budget. And that must uh that just takes a lot of time and a lot of effort and and they do that and and do that work so that we can not only face down the
challenges but we're expanding our programming and that's just amazing considering what the financial um what it looks like out there financially. So anyway, I I just I
wanted to make sure that you all got the uh recognition that you deserve. Anything else? No. Uh no, not really. I mean, we spent the committee time just reviewing a bit of
the um of the budget. Um as Mrs. L said she's going to be starting review of the 2627 budget shortly. Uh which and and what was also said was how far in advance she projects the budget which is
really uh unheard of um that she does that. Um we also talked about uh completed projects for this year and projects that will be taking place over the summer and next year. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh Michelle's not here. Uh
policy. Uh John's not here. Communications. Joe. No report. No report. Okay. Christine safety. Okay. Uh back to you Karen with delegate less on New Jersey School Board. Uh thank you.
Um so we've been gone a month. A lot of things have happened uh at school boards. I'll try and keep it short. On uh April 1st, the resolution subcommittee met and they recommended for adoption at the May 10th delegated assembly. Three resolutions uh with
substitute clauses. Um these will likely pass without difficulty. On April 2nd, the Mars County School Boards Association will present their unsung hero, I'm sorry, did present their unsung hero award. Uh, I think we've
mentioned before this award is for students who sometimes get overlooked. Um, do good work but get overlooked. Um, we uh traveled together, Joe and Mike and I, and they may want to add to the
Mars County report. On April 11th, we presented uh our inaugural equity expo and um, this was well attended. Um we had wonderful breakout sessions.
We had a terrific keynote speaker Leerk Horn um who spoke to us about his own journey through special education and how he uh has become an author uh and professional speaker. Uh school finance met on April
23rd. There'll be a meeting of the um of the Cal committee on May 5th and then May 10th will be the delegate assembly. You're welcome. Uh yes. Um on April 2nd, uh Joe Karen
and myself traveled to Morris Nolles High School to see the unsung hero student recognition ceremony. Um, and it was uh a great uh opportunity to see uh each school district put up a student
who uh has been through some uh hardship or has accomplished something amazing within their community and they were honored for it in in front of uh everyone uh that was present at the the ceremony. And it was and it was really
nice to hear everyone's story and uh and what each of the students was able to accomplish. Um and it was really a great great opportunity. Um and the other thing to mention is is that the Morris High School uh their auditorium is
really nice. You walk into our auditorium you can see where another capital project is is waiting in the wings. Uh our our uh the next meeting for the uh uh Morris County School
Boards is uh May 7th. Uh we had a meeting um uh earlier this month just uh basic general business going on uh approving the school calendar for next year and the shared service agreements. We also are in the process of doing the
superintendent evaluation. Yeah. Oh, and next one, drug awareness. Yes. So, uh we're meeting next Tuesday and uh they're they're working on doing the um lawn sign fundraiser for the seniors and the
eighth graders. Thank you. Yep. No, I was not laughing at anything you were saying. I'm just I'm just killing the microphones up here. Yeah, you're going through them. I'm on to my third one now. I don't know what it is. Give me one with a battery, please. Okay. Uh, John's not here. Uh, Karen,
back to you for Cedar Hill. There's something wrong with these. No, no, mine still. Mine still works. Let me get the hand. Hey, Mark, are there any more batteries at all? add money into the budget for technology. Yeah, they're not in the
budget. Kine got too zealous. I know. We have no money for batteries. This will work. So, I'll Karen, please. Cedar Hill is having a tricky tray um on May 14th, which I plan to attend with my daughter and um they're next they have a meeting
next week which uh I'll be attending. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh Christine Hillale, no. Are you yours died too? Caitlyn meeting May 8th. May 8th. Okay. Thank you. Uh John, uh Mike Palmer of
Woodmont. Uh next meeting is I believe the second Yeah, second Monday in May, which I think is May 12th. Yeah, I think so. Okay, this is good. Um Joe Lazar, no report. Thank you. Um,
Mike Rapaort High School. No report. Okay. Thank you. I just hope mine lasts long enough. Public participation. I'm going to just close it right now because there's no one here. Oh, you want to cut up? Most of you want
Okay. If we can find I was gonna say if we can find a mic for you. Okay, folks. This is getting Okay, let's go to consent resolution. Items are sections I through N. Motion, please. I'll make a motion. You're the one with a mic. Second.
I'll second. Okay. Thank you. Uh uh section I minutes. Any questions? Section J. Any questions? Nothing. K, that's our facilities and finance and that's where
you'll find All the batteries dying at one time. No, there's something. Mark is having fun back there. Okay. Uh policy section L. No questions. Good. Um M curriculum. Any questions on section
M? Okay. Nothing in policy section N. So, roll call vote, please. Let me just do the retirees, please. Oh, sorry. Retirees. Oh, that's right. We have Toby. All right. So, we have uh three retirees on the agenda tonight. Um we're going to
start off with Toby Cohen. Uh Toby Cohen is retiring after an incredible 50 years of teaching math at Lazar Middle School where her unwavering dedication has profoundly impacted countless students by fostering a love of learning and providing invaluable support. Beyond the
classroom, she served as the respected mentor and advocate, leaving a lasting leg legacy on the school community. The district expresses deep gratitude for her remarkable contributions and wish her well in retirement. We have Trudy Kapola who has been a
cherished member of the Cedar Hill community beginning her career as a kindergarten par profofessional before returning to school to earn our New Jerseys teaching certificate in both general and special education. A passionate educator and leader, Trudy spearheaded our character
education committee, guided students in organizing impactful schoolwide initiatives, including the beloved annual Veterans Day program. Her dedication, warmth, and unwavering commitment to our school's values have left an indelible mark. And Miss Barmore
has served with distinction for 27 years in a role at Valley View School nurse as and as district head nurse. She creates a safe and nurturing learning environment for students tending to their medical needs and emotional needs. She also offers expert advice to parents
with regards to their children's well-being and to the staff who have inquiries regarding the health curricula, CPR, EP and EPA EpiPen training. We wish her happy retirement and thank her for exemplary service to our learning community. And just think
about that. I mean, you know, as I mentioned before, Charlie was 30 years on the board. Uh Toby was 50 years. You know, Barrymore was 27 years. I mean, people stay a long time in this district and that says a lot about that about this whole district, the community, the
students. It's just wonderful place to be. Yeah. Killed another one. Um, okay. Roll call vote. You need this. Mr. Yes. 17 and also from M1. Mr. Rapaort.
Yes. Dr. Cordelino. Yes. Mrs. Fano. Yes. Mr. Palma. Yes. Mrs. Smith. Yes. Dr. Modra. Yes. We did it. Okay, thank you all. Um, before we go though, uh,
another So, we have, uh, old business, new business, general board comments. I have something to say. Um, I'm really, really pleased and thank all of you. Um, we're we've almost reached the goal that
we set of $1,000 for relay. We have $900 and change. I'll I'll do the last hundred. How about that? I'm not looking at you. Um, thank you all. Um, I really appreciate it. It's going to a good cause.
It is. It It's a very good cause. Any other board comments? General board visit. Yeah, Dave. Um, I just want to tell you I was hitting You're just [Laughter] at the team that
came. They were such nice boys. Oh, they were saying, "Excuse me." Very, very polite. And they were from Montville Township. And they had their hats on. And I said to them, I didn't let them know I was on the board. And
I were just so nice. So the coach Any other comments? Okay. Any public participation, Melissa? No. No. Okay. I ask for a motion to adjurnn.
Second. Okay. See y'all in a month.