good evening welcome to a meeting of the Mountainside Board of Education in accordance with the state's Sunshine Law and state regulations adequate notice of this meeting was provided by mailing a notice of the time date location and instructions for accessing the meeting to the Union County local source and the
Westfield leader filing the same with the Berto clerk posting the notice at the main access door of the Mountainside Board of Education building and on the Mountainside Board of Education website these meetings are reserved for for board deliberation and for a review of items contained within the agenda the
board reserves a right to vote on action items the board welcomes the participation of interested individuals we encourage questions about specific School practices incidents and events to be brought directly to school administration public comment will be permitted at the beginning of the
meeting for agenda items only each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement in addition time will be allotted at the end of the meeting for public comments on any items speaker shall limit their comments to 3 minutes
roll call please Bill Dylan Michael Goodwin Dana Petro Jordan Hyman yes Vivian PUO here Candace shano Carmine Venus here at this time I would like a motion to go into executive session
motion second it's 6:31 we will be returning in an hour all in favor I oppose motion carries see you in an hour e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e uh we are returning from our executive session it's 7:55 can we please stand to salute the [Music] flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of
the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay can I please have a motion to approve our minutes from uh February
1826 March 4th so move second any comments or questions roll call please Mike Goodwin here yes Dana guid c Peto yes Jordan Heyman yes Vivian poo yes candano yes carine
Venice yes there's no correspondence at this time um if you would like to come up to the St uh Podium would like to open up the floor for any um participants please state your name and address on any items that we are voting for
tonight seeing none we're moving on uh president's report report I just want to say congratulations for an outstanding performance um by all our students our faculty that was involved our director assistant director I have to say
Mountainside never fails our students put up a show better than high school and believe me it's outstanding um you can go to any other district and say Mountainside rocks it all our students were outstanding so kudos to all and to
the parents thank you I always get excited so all right we're moving on to our superintendent report excellent thank you very much and welcome I'm so excited that so many of you came for our budget presentation this evening very riveting information
as well as Mrs ruo's presentation on our special ed Department um before we begin with those presentations I want to um also reiterate on the play amazing job as always to our cast it is is uh just never ceases to amaze me how many
students are involved both in front of the stage as well as behind the scenes to pull off some amazing opportunities um we also have coming up our teen Arts Festival so that's in Union County many of our middle schoolers will be participating that's
for both music as well as theater and also um artistic talent so um and some writing so all of those aspects will be showcased this that's happening this Thursday we are starting the beginning of class trip season so we have a number
of those coming up there's some on the agenda to approve tonight as well as our fifth graders uh were on a trip just this past Monday and on Friday we have a afternoon of professional development for our teaching staff so it's a half
day for students and our staff will be receiving professional development predominantly on unpacking the newer math and Ela standards so we have a program coming in and it will be geared to specific grade levels so each group
will be getting what they need in order to identify and recognize and begin to really put into play the standards that were started this year and delving into even more use of them as we go um in
addition last week we celebrated read Across America week with which was a lot of fun for a lot of different reasons had an opportunity myself to read um to a second grade classroom and um many others we had community members from our
Police Department fire department uh senior citizens groups all came in to read over at Beachwood which was excellent just great opportunities to bring that Community involvement as the board may remember that's part of our five-year strategic plan we talked about
that as a goal of increasing that that involvement and this is just one uh piece of that as we start to build upon that for our students and um we also had a many activities happening here at
Deerfield and Beachwood also had the opportunity for a guest author who came in and she spoke with the children and brought in a book and the kids had a chance to B purchase it so just really a great time was had by everybody
um and other than that uh very busy in budget prep as you'll hear from Mrs Sullivan in a few moments so for the remainder of my report I'm going to hand this on over to Mrs rolu who is our supervisor of special services and she
is going to share a presentation with everyone this evening a nice brief presentation just really a recap of what's happening in her department and around the district yes good evening everyone I'm glad to be back here after a few years and I'm
going to be sharing with you some of the highlights uh in the special services department so right now as a district we stand at 103 students receiving special education services we have 16 teaching
staff members in the district we have 18 par professionals serving our students across the district and we have five related Services providers serving both buildings we we'll also have these related service providers going at a district to
evaluate our students when they need it so special education programs in the district six years ago we only did have in-class resource and pull out resource which I would highlight in a few minutes but um over the course of time the child study team and myself uh decided to
expand on the program based on our need in the district we started off at Beachwood uh with an lldd program um and now it's grown to Deerfield uh we have seven students uh across the uh District in our program but right now we have
in-class resource where we have students who are classified receiving services within the general education classroom provided by a special education teacher uh we also have pull out resource where students are pulled out for a specific subject uh and they receive support from
a special education teacher and then go into our Le language learning disabilities classroom which was our self-contained program now in this classroom we do have students who go outside they do get um related Services they get to uh participate with their
peers and specials um they do participate in um school plays concerts so it's an all-inclusive program and that is our goal we do want to be able to include our students who are classified in programs across the district so right now for our program
when we did expand to our language learning disabilities program the goal was to have uh our students be able to receive tailored instruction highly differentiated uh very much tailored to the students needs um right now we have 7% of our special education uh
population in the Mountainside District receiving Services through our lld program uh there is a focus on the social skills component um I am very you know very excited to report our kids who are in the lld program here at Deerfield do get the chance to go around the
building doing surveys uh with teachers with their teachers support and so they're very much integrated uh into the larger Learning Community uh there is a high family engagement our teachers are constantly communicating with family members uh there is a newsletter that
goes out to the parents of our lld program so they're very much aware if there are any concerns parents come in meet with the teachers uh and collaborate to solve any issues that may come up so across the district um supporting the various staff members who make up
the special services department um each year I do meet with um special education teachers and I do this along with Miss chrisa Foley and Mrs gobec uh we go ahead and review our I data format of
data Summit of data um this is our Benchmark starting in in the fall and we do this meetings three times in the school year beginning of year mid year and end of year we are able to assess where kids are uh if we need to make any adjustments those adjustments are made
uh in the meantime between those data Dives teachers are daily reviewing data and making adjustments as needed uh so those are the dates of the meetings that we've had so far we do have one more coming up which is the end ofe uh data
Dives um I also support uh teachers in the district now sometimes we do have new staff members they're not necessarily new to teaching but they're new to our district and so in their first year in the district I do have monthly meetings with them just so that they're supported and coached on how to
best support our students in District um there are scheduled meetings that occur with staff members and there are unscheduled meetings because things come up every day and so they always constantly have that support and this year we do have a reading specialist who is is certified in uh various
multi-sensory reading um approaches and so that has really boosted our program and support of our kids who need any uh reading support uh child study team support I am available to all child studies team members across the district I'm either
at Beachwood or Deerfield um supporting them they are my door is always open we have we attend various PD opportunities throughout the year here so that we are up to date on any uh practices legal
guidance uh so we are able to support the diverse learning needs of our students in the district uh I do also visit us out District programs with our other District case manager just to see how our kids who are at a district are doing and if they need anything uh to
support them in their current programs um so this slide is one that excites me because it really does highlight um a full multidisciplinary team that's supporting our students in District outside of the child study team so this year we were able to bring on a
bcba uh she is a behaviorist this year she supports we moved from a two-day uh model of support to a five-day she is here four hours a day but Monday through Friday and so students and teachers are able to get support from her on a daily
basis uh right now because of this expanded support 80% of our students who have behavioral needs uh are showing Improvement they receive direct support from her and indirect support in terms of like consultation social emotional
support our social worker our guidance counselors are always available to address the needs of our students uh there is Real Time Crisis that happens in the school um but with our guidance counselors and social worker we're always ever ready to support them we
also have social skills programming in the district it is a little different at the Beachwood level because our kids are a little younger there and so our school SK psychologist uh Miss Summers is the one who does the social skills at Beachwood um over here we do have Mrs
Antonio who does the social skills support hers is more integrated so that kids can generalize those skills uh in different settings uh par par professional support as I mentioned before we do have 18 our Professionals in the district they do
receive training from our bcba uh we also have two fully certified RBT trained par professionals and staff and they provide specialized support for students who need it Mental Health Services this year we partnered with
Care Plus and so we do have a Care Plus mental health clinician on site twice uh a week she is able to complete any risk assessments that come up during the school day uh she is able to do clearances uh for students and Care Plus
also offers uh monthly parent workshops so we also continue to um collaborate with G this year what's new is that um I am able to meet with the uh leadership over at GL we meet monthly we
review um student information anything that comes up that needs to be addressed it's addressed add in real time and one of the things that supports this um collaboration between us is a newly uh developed spreadsheet for this year it is a real-time document any changes that
are made at GL is updated in the spreadsheet and so we are able to see it here um and make any updates on our end we no longer have to wait uh we also have annual articulation meetings with GL this happens every year in January so
the GL team does come over to our our building over here and we meet to discuss our Rising ninth graders any needs that they may have so that they can prepare uh for our students when they arrive in the fall self- advocacy groups so we started this here a few years ago at at
Deerfield there are sessions for students to empower them to be able to advocate for themselves support them with executive functioning skills uh last fall when we did have GL come over we discuss this a little bit more and moving forward we are going to be
working very closely with them because they also want to begin a self- advocacy session for sessions for their students over there because we're seeing the same needs across the board uh and so we are going to be aligning our ideas uh moving forward discussing any barriers to um
students when they go to high school and being able to advocate for themselves so beginning the spring um my six through eight case manager is going to be attending those meetings at GL um they have a focus group there and so we're going to be aligning our ideas so that
we can support them uh before they get to 9th grade collaboration with families this is a big one for us because um of The Homeschool partnership and so we continue as a team to share monthly newsletters um there is communication
with parents via email phone calls meetings um our documented communication continues to strengthen our homeschool part Partnerships in the following ways we do have the annual consultative model Workshop meetings with GL they do
organize it and they hold it virtually each year um my case managers still do three times a year check check-ins with parents uh it's phone calls in the fall phone calls uh mid year and phone calls at the end of the year now in between
those phone calls structured phone calls we do have IEP meetings where all needs are addressed uh if there's a follow-up meeting it's scheduled so address any needs um like I said before we do have the parent workshops through uh Care Plus we do hold a lot of meetings uh we
have over 200 IEP meetings uh that we hold yearly and over 95% of those uh meetings result in successful collaboration and implementation uh of services for our students that is a number I'm really proud of um of the numbers that we have in District of kids
that were're Ser uh servic in to be able to have that higher r gr of um collaboration with parents we also continue to work with parents sometimes they do have outside information uh we never say no we review
uh the information uh we reach out to outside providers so that we are meeting the needs of the whole child and we also continue to collaborate with uh the CAC the CAC is the special education parents Advisory Group we've had a very good relationship
with them uh in April of last year the child study team and I did meet to discuss how we're going to um celebrate neurod Diversity Awareness Month and we did come up with a plan we did celebrate it last year however this year I'm very excited to report that the cpag has
reached out to us and they do want to work with this child study team to plan what we're going to do for April this year so that's a big one uh the cpeg also meets with Administration uh several times a year to discuss any concerns and have any plans that we have
uh work together on those uh we also work very closely with the CAG on back to school night for special education um they do have a slide each year um for our presentation and they do show up and present to the parents as well so looking ahead while we have a
lot of great things happen in our district I am very proud of the robust programming that we have in District and provid provide for our students we continue in our discussions of what we will need as a district to continue to be able to move toward this path um of
success for our kids we're working on resources for our teachers um programs that offer a full scope of resources that support all aspects of learning for our students um we are planning to grow by each grade level um every year in our
LOD program um our LOD teacher here at Deerfield has started to explore mentorships for our students who have so for our older kids to Mentor our younger kids and that's something that we're very excited about professional development training opportunities
because there are different uh best practices uh Innovation things that are coming up uh I don't like to mention it AI but uh how to leverage Ai and use it uh to our students advantage and so just looking to be able to develop those
things uh for our district also creating Hub lld is new to us right we do have two um classrooms one in Beachwood one here but just in working with my teachers I realized that there is to be able to help them plan uh longterm just
having a hub for them to be able to share resources and so that they're not working in silos so that is one thing that um I am looking forward to working with them on thank you do you have any questions any questions from from the
board maybe just one quick um thank you it's a terrific presentation I appreciate it um and I feel like uh I learned a lot um interested in the in the the GL component um and really encouraged to hear the that collaboration um it for some reason
maybe just sounds Sounds new to me that maybe there's more of that that's happening uh at different levels both the the consultative meeting that happens um for the conative model and even the um the uh the the case manager that that is from 6
to 8 that is having are those monthly meetings um we do have the consultative model Workshop yeah that's been happening for three years now it happens virtually so that invitation is sent out
to uh parents of n um eighth graders um and it's hosted by um Mr MOA and this year was Mr MOA and Miss rush it actually started When Miss Gardner was here uh so it's been held yearly since then um and the self- advocacy actually
it was a conversation that came up with GL SE several years ago but it came up again this year in the fall they were interested in what we were doing here for self- advocacy and so uh Miss Rush joined them this year so she did reach out to me and said let's talk more about this to see how we can align what we're
doing for our eighth graders because some of the challenges that we see uh when our eighth graders get to 9th grade at G they were seeing the same things and so we decided it would be a good thing to share resources and talk about what we were doing so we met uh it was myself um my six through eight case
manager Miss Reed and um their case manager ldtc at GL and we talked about what they've been doing so far uh it's new to them as well um and so we talked about for them right now they're using the focus group to decide like really uh
pair down to like what the needs are and really in our meeting the needs are really the same we have ninth graders uh struggling with executive functioning being able to navigate the high school World um and so seeing that we just want to be able to align what we're doing uh
for eth graders here and also at um in their District it's great yeah it definitely feels like that self- advocacy piece is is is the probably the most critical component to to with with that consultative model and it's it's it's been a conversation that I think since they launched that a couple of
years ago they because of how much students have to be able to own that process and be able to advocate for what they need um and and then there are ways to do that successfully right and we're finding that they're not being able to do that um just for various reasons um
they're ninth grade it's high school it's freshman year it's a new building it's bigger they're more people and so we we find that the ninth graders are struggling with that I'm glad they're including us as as a district it's good to Year yes yes and I'm glad so like I
said the their next Focus meeting will be in the spring uh and they did invite Miss re to attend thank you I want to say thank you and with Jordan they do have meetings I personally attended them um well virtually because everything's virtual
but that drives me crazy um you're right I don't think our freshman are ready this program was thrown at them and it wasn't done slowly a child bless you a child if they're coming up with some type of IEP they don't know how to
advocate for themselves so it should have been done slowly let's start it in fresh at freshman and move on to sophomore year so that's where my um I strong I have strong feelings over that um something else is once I did
attend that consultative method uh meeting there were some questions that still weren't answered such as and maybe you can get answers from them how um have they looked back and said you know looked at results are are students driving using the consult consultative
meth method I still haven't heard anything so yeah so I actually I definitely will get that information to you because I believe I so many meetings but the that data was shared now they have data uh regarding how the that me
the model is going how successful is the student using it yes they do have that data so I reach out tomorrow and I'll follow follow up okay yeah and the one thing I was going to add as we talk about that is we're also not in our collaboration with them but internally we're talking about expanding those
sessions to our seventh graders because I did get some parent feedback on that thank you and one last thing the cpeg if you ever hear if you hear something can you let the board know I would love to includ it okay yes thank you sure other questions thank you very much
Mrs R and happy birthday by the way happy birthday birthday thank you very much that's the gift she gets a [Laughter] present okay and now we're done and now
for the big part yep we're going to take on I'm going to turn it over to our business administrator's report business administrator rep again start right to the good stuff go to the beginning let's go all
the way back all right so first of all so happy to have changed our opening slide and including our national Blue Ribbon um information that is there I'll take that from you
thank you and uh as well as our wonderful Wood School sign that was donated by the PTO and the Watts foundation so just a good symbol of where the district is going where we have come and the communication
and the community that we have grown together so as a district we are committed to academic excellence and providing an equitable whole child education that is evident from our special ed department down to our
general Ed and to us as a board really looking at the whole child for their education all the way from preschool through 8th grade to truly ensure that they're well prepared for high school and just as we were just talking here even down to our executive functioning
we're looking at all aspects for our students making sure they're empowered with knowledge literacy and skills for social and emotional needs for lifelong Learners and shaping the world around them so I'm going to give it to m
Sullivan to share a bit about the budget itself and uh how it's built so yeah as I'm presented a couple months ago the um timeline for the budget we start working on the budget in October um and it's a
long process that gets us to March and then we'll finally end in April um so the budget consists of obviously revenues and expenditures the revenues are mostly made up 95% of our revenues are state aid in local taxes so those
are given amounts whereas the expenses are projected based on historical data as well as looking forward to enrollment and other requirements state requirements that are that we know are coming um for the following year so the
expenses are more of a planned approach where the revenues are more um set amounts and of course the district's priorities and needs are foremost um Mrs Walling just read the mission statement of the district and of course that's always what we start with as our um
basis for building the budget I'm sorry I'm having an allergy attack right now so so as I said we do start this process in the fall um our enrollment is set as of October 15th and that's a requirement
set by the state um that's enrollment for the current year so we do use that enrollment to project forward into next year um which of course then will inform our staffing for next year as well as supplies and other needs of the district
um we do spend a lot of time verifying those salary information verifying our employees and the need for those employees next year and where they will be charged um within the state guidelines um we do have a number of fixed costs which of course would be all
of our utilities um and things of that nature Insurance costs um that we don't have much flexibility on um and we do meet with the department heads the the supervisor special services the
principal at each School the supervisor of buildings and grounds the supervisor of technology to review their requests to review again um fixed costs in their Department um and to project for the next
year um as I mentioned about 95% of the revenue is from tax taxes and from state aid the state aid information we received last week from the the well the week before February 28th I believe it was um from the state we did lose
$27,000 um and that was mostly in special ed Aid and that was because we had a decrease in the number of students um that qualified for special ed um and then our taxes went up slightly more than the 2% and that was because the 2%
tax levy cap was adjusted for our health insurance costs our health insurance are projected to increase about 10% um so we were allowed to increase the tax levy over 2% due to that and then the other tiny parts of the revenue budget are
miscellaneous income such as interest income um tuition from prek program and transportation for subscription busing those are minor parts of the revenue budget the expenditures um about 20% a
little less than 20% goes directly to Governor Livingston Berkeley Heights for your high school students um a small portion of that goes to the vot tech for the for the high school students that go to Union County votch um and then as it
should be a large part 34.3% of your budget goes directly to instruction and pupil support so those are cost directly for in the classroom um large part of the budget 14 and a half% is employee benefits um that again did
increase substantially um that's based on the state health plan that we're in um the projections for that increase and then the other parts of the budget 88.5% of that budget is special ed tuition and those are for students that are in out
of District placements due to their IEP um so again that 88.5% we have no flexibility in um those are mandated costs for us um the other parts of the Budget Transportation Central Services admin um
transportation we did make some adjustments this year that saved us some money and we're projecting to continue those savings for next school year so Reserve accounts um these are restricted by the state on how much we
can have in each of the these different Reserve accounts the unassigned fund balance account is an account that we can keep for emergencies it's just as it's called unassigned so it sits there um in case of an emergency that is
limited to 2% of our budget so we do currently have $471,000 in there and that's the max that we can have in there um and you know that's not a lot on a 20 million plus budget tuition and Reserve we have nothing in that account right now um
Capital re Reserve we have 376,000 in that account um I do want to note that in this budget we are anticipating using 2011 of that 376 to do a replacement of the sanitary
sewer lines in the locker rooms here at Deerfield um as you know we've had issues with this for several years but kind of this year has gotten even worse um so we really have no choice at this point but to dig out those lines and
redo them um we're planning on doing that probably in June after the the baseball season softball season is over um we will probably do that um but that's going to use a substantial amount of the money in that Reserve account
unfortunately and that does show in the um budget document because we're required to show that in the document but it's kind of a pass through where we take it out of reserve and then put it in the budget maintenance Reserve we have $131,000 um again not a lot of money as
as you know of the expenses we've had in the last couple years between trees and HVAC work and whatever um that's not a lot of money for these two big buildings to maintain so the budget overall the general fund budget overall increased
$534,000 um you can see the bulk of that is in salaries and benefits that's the bulk of where our our money is spent is on um teacher salaries and and other staff um and the benefits for them so that's where the bulk of our increases came from transportation we do have a
sizable increase in there even though we did save money this year and we were able to reduce the budget this year we're still anticipating an increase next year we will try to limit that as much as possible but transportation has been kind of um one of those areas where
we have had too much control over in the last few years we did thankfully save some money and tuition to uh Berkeley Heights as well as to add a district placements we had several students graduate that were in out of District placements um that we didn't have to
budget for for next year and then we did do have five less students projected to go to uh high school next year based on the number of students in eth grade and then the all of the other areas of the budget which are many different budget lines went up
$68,000 and our capital outlay is went up $86,000 which is partially due to that 200,000 was talked about um the tax impact on this budget so I did mention that there's a 2% cap on the tax levy increase but because of our projected
increases in health insurance we were able to exceed that so the tax levy is going up 2.43% um and that comes out to be about a $178 increase to a home an average homeowner and an average home in
mountain side is assessed at $633,000 so obviously if your homes assessed more than that your increase would be more than that and if it's assessed less it would be less um so just really to take a look at this overall um approval of this budget
will allow us to add an additional teacher grade three because of the large number of students in second grade that will be moving from Deerfield o or from Beachwood over to Deerfield also adding in an additional power professional
based upon student needs um it allows us to maintain all existing staff and instructional programs which we are thrilled with this is very different than where we were last year um so we're very happy to see that maintain the IND District specialed programming that we
have talked about that expansion that that happened this year over with our second lld class so maintaining that enhancing our gift and talented basic skills programs maintain curriculum and PD for staff members our health supports
mental health these after school programming that we have for academics as well as our other stipended programs as was mentioned by Mrs Sullivan replacing the sanitary sewer line in the
field locker rooms and continuing to cover the costs for full-time Class 2 officers for Safety and Security in both schools so the timeline um tonight the board is asked to approve a tenative budget that will be submitted to the
county that's due next uh Wednesday the 19th um they then have about a month to approve that budget um it'll get advertised on April 24th and our public hearing and final approval would be on April 29th anybody have any
questions hi um is there any new ratables that will offset the increase to the taxpayer the the $178 calculation is based on the ratables as
of 2025 so any new ratables that went on the books as of January or whatever whatever date that is set are already included in there if there are any that doesn't incre that doesn't impact our tax levy 2% at all that would
just impact the tax rate but that's already figured into that calculation so fig yes well I was thinking next to the 7eleven they're building quite a few condos or that that would probably be
next year's roles of yeah okay yeah well I'm was close yeah but that would that will help because even though the tax levy may go up 2.4% then the tax rate would go up less than that that's what I was saying yeah
okay I have a couple I don't want no I just I'm happy we're not cutting any existing staff that's very important yeah and not having to go to the public for for more money this this year and not taking anything away from our kids so yeah that's big so thank you for that
I three questions one transportation and we talk about this every year so last year I was just looking back our increase was 199k or at least we budgeted that which like 16 some OD percent this year 138 um do we think that that that
Improvement even though it's not a great thing but still an improvement that's mostly but some of the creative work that you've been able to do to yeah yes with basically parents helping us essentially from a transportation perspective correct um and and I'm still hoping that we're not even going to use
all of that that I budgeted but I also have to be careful you know because I don't really know what's going to happen I don't know if if a student will go out of District that we don't anticipate going out of District or something like that so I'm still hoping that we're not going to use all that money okay and I
assume we're assuming uh renewals on on those who who did did that contract with us this this school year that that those who are still in District would would basically do that again we're hoping hopefully yes yes and we're also hoping that the bus companies that we contract
with will renew with us um at the right the at the state calculated CPI um because if they don't that will cost us more money you know what happens then you go out to bid and they wind up being the only biders and their price goes up
yeah we've had that happen before singular bid yes when Happ we know that um we'll probably in April we usually will talk to them it's it's too early right now for them to set in stone the contract because they're waiting for the
State numbers the state CPI changes quarterly got it so after the March 31st CPI is set we'll negotiate with them and hopefully get a renewal of a contract okay um on on the sanit on the line that
we're going to do for 201,000 got large public turnout tonight how do we ensure that this doesn't happen again maybe that's a question for Janet and maybe that's just more of a because it this's a big hit and I know we've we spent more we spent not as much of it but we've been spending money over a window of
time to keep everything operational so I'm just you know want to make sure that it's a we don't have to because we can't we can't afford this on a every other year what sort of thing so curious about that absolutely and it's a fair question and it's one that quite honestly we both
posst to our architect who then posst it to their Engineers yeah so when we first knew of this issue we started to look at we've probably gone through three different iterations of ways to best address this maybe rerouting lines maybe
looking for other areas and different ways to do it um we scoped the full line and determined that there are issues in two separate places so some of it has to do with settling some has to do with the pipes so these are all pieces that they
are very clearly aware of um I actually was under the impression because the first time it was worked on was when I first began here in the district and I was under the impression that the almost the whole line had been replaced at that time and it wasn't it was only a short portion of it and it was much much lower
in cost yes than even I expected that it was that had been spent at that time um again any money on it is takes away from something in the budget so it's something we're very clearly aware of but we have been very much in contact with our architect we are going to be
making sure from an oversight perspective from a planning perspective all of these pieces because there's multiple lines that tie together right and you know pitch and what your availability is so we are aware of that concern is the same concern that we have got it got it okay um the only other
question which I ask every year too is is um the the the kids going to GL so it looks like we've got um 226 uh5 well it's actually 232 232 it's actually 232 but we got a
credit because there were less kids this year than what we projected got it and the credit was like 5.5 kids I guess I guess there was a kid that didn't stay all year I have kids who do half their homework sometimes oh there you go we counted them as half but I guess that
that is my question essentially how do we ensure that we are because it's great but if that goes the other way not great so how do we ensure that we are as closely aligned with with Berkeley Heights when it comes to that number and I guess we feel good right now yeah they're putting the same number yes I've been back forth with them several times
they're putting the same number in their budget and then next year if if we're off on the projection it'll get adjusted next year got it got it I I know we've asked you this John about kids 8th grade now but we're so we have we've gotten very very good over the past couple of
years of really tracking and maintaining where our students are going so we know that Union County votch is getting close to the point of announcing their children we know that a lot of the privates have already determined so we have spreadsheets sheets where the parents have let us know if we're
sending out records so we knew early on about how many children might be considering an alternate high school choice from Governor Livingston um and then we're starting to now have the parents respond confirmed choices got it
um Union County votch is always the outlier but we know about the average so we know about how many students are usually accepted and how many go so we base from there then we look at the privates as we're getting that information back so I would say over the past couple of years we are very
comfortable that we feel that we're within three students or so y plus or minus which is a manageable amount when you're dealing with it from the budgetary aspect as well as working it from there got it got it thank you I I have a question doesn't affect the stve
funds but are there any ramifications uh if they cut the Department of Education funds come coming back to the district or will they come directly from the state do you know anything about that so the federal funds that we get now which is mostly the idea
funds that we get comes from the state anyway so what happens is it flows through the state and we report to the state so it would be my understanding that that that would continue to whatever extent they continue to fund
these programs um it's from our standpoint as at a local level we wouldn't see a difference because we we only deal with the state when we get audited on federal funds it's through the state it's not through the federal government that's how we get it we we get nothing directly from we get nothing directly from the federal government it
all comes through the state okay yeah any other questions okay we're moving on thank you um Mr Dylan is not here and I do not have a Berkeley Heights leaz on report so we're going to move move on to
Administration can I please have a motion to approve items one and two item number one is as amended to include case number 242 511 and case number 242
512 so move second any questions or comments roll call please Mike Goodwin I abstain from uh the administration number one and yes on number two
yes Dana c Petro yes Jordan Heyman uh I also abstain on item one uh yes to number two Vivian poopo yes cesano yes carine Venice
yes can I please have a motion to uh approve under budget and finance items 1 through 8 so moved second any comments or questions roll call please Mike Goodwin
yes Dana gu catro Jordan Heyman yes Vivian poopo yes cesano yes Carmine Venice yes can I please have a motion to approve under Personnel items 1 through 10 any questions or
comments um I have a comment I am so happy for Mrs Cardone I'm so happy for Mrs Cardone but so sad to see her go all three of my children had Mrs Cardone and she is just
a wonderful teacher an asset to our community and she will be dearly missed um all three my kids had her and I I could I can't Rave about her more she made the whole transition to deerfields so much easier for my kids I I just I
adore her um so I wish her all the luck and she will be truly missed absolutely and we will be sure to share that yeah Y and I wish Mrs yosinski a very baby number two it holds baby
number one too about that she's got her hands full but wish her a lot of luck as well all right any other questions or comments roll call please Mike Goodwin yes Dana catro yes Jordan Heyman yes
Vivian poo yes candano yes Carmine Venice yes can I please have a motion to approve under curriculum just item number one second any questions or comments roll call please Mike Goodwin
yes danu C patro Jordan Heyman yes Vivian poopo yes candano yes carine Bennis yes can I please have a motion to approve under policy items one and two so moved second any questions or
comments I I have a comment um which I mean won't necessarily slow the vote necessarily uh but I it's something I I raised with Vivian which is um for 5111 I guess for some reason I and I could be completing Berkeley Height's
experience but the the language that we're that we're being asked to revise uh that speaks to the the um the children of of non-resident staff members uh I guess my question maybe it's mostly for for if there's anyone on the board who wants to engage on this um
is uh I I guess I I I I think it's it's an interesting opportunity right now for us to maybe think about this and they're probably pros and cons to this uh about about discussing the possibility of of uh staff members who would ever want to have their children attend Mountain Side
um I've done no research on this I'm not that there's no one who's expressed interest that I'm aware of I don't even know that anyone would ever take advantage but I do know that this this came up Once Upon a Time initially in Berkeley Heights which is probably what prompted my my initial thought on it um and and they went from not allowing uh
staff to allowing staff who would want to take advantage of it um again I I there are other questions that would come with it um when I raised this before this meeting just uh to to M poopo for perspective she raised a lot of good points but I thought I'd raise it because I I do think that um you know
in a district where uh obviously we sometimes struggle to attract and retain um especially you know on the on the lower end of the guide younger teachers this could be an interesting question for us to think about so I'll clam up but just wanted to put that on the table and then see if there's anyone who wants
to we had that option I'm going back maybe 10 15 years we had this as a policy is that you're saying yeah but and uh not many takers from what I remember so we had it as an option and we and moov the other way no I don't think we removed it I think it may still be in
there and my understanding is that our current policy does not allow for it and we're updating did you read that it did did state it now you you may have me there if someone removed it yeah so the I mean the current language which is on on the policy for tonight um if if you
look down at at 5111 children of non-resident staff members any staff member who does not reside in the school district will not be permitted to enroll their children in the educational program of the school district an exception may be made if there is space available in the district's tuition preschool then it probably just changed but it was there was a a possibility
yeah I mean it's just interesting because I mean I think other districts surrounding districts may have different policies um you know may offer like a percentage of the tuition cost that sort of a thing and again maybe it's a mood point maybe it's it's not worth time could we look to find out why it was changed when it was
changed if it was changed I don't remember that but it was available and one of the reasons was to attract teachers in that working here keep it here yeah yeah that that would be the reason to do it to
ultimately I don't recall it being removed but it could have been but the current one does say that if if it if the enrollment allows they can preschool only Peak only yeah so my my if we were ever to if I were ever to make a motion
here which I'm not saying I'm ready to do that yet this is only first reading it would be to to motion to open that policy up for all grades the question that we have to think figure out first if there was ever interest would be what are we charging and we'll take a spot from the
mountains like take a spot from Mountain resident and then we would also have Mountain Side residents if they if their students if the if the out of District student is cost tuition cost is not being covered fully then it's cost in
res tax dollars I don't think personally is that we should be having our taxpayers pay for students that right that's the question you could charge the full amount I don't think it takes a spot it adds another person it could take a spot depending on how many
people want to have their children go here and then then we have face an issue as well and we need to make our classroom can go from size 20 to 25 and we pride our having more oneon-one tension it again
it's the only motivation is is would be staff retention and and and obviously recruitment for sure um considering that that there's seems to be an annual conversation about what we are able to afford at the lower end of the guy so
again it's it's a it's a question for the group and that's and I did I did review just for uh Clarity sake our current 5111 policy does not have any wording in it um in regards to
uh staff and tuition rates or anything along those lines and and currently does not does not allow for there there's IT staff is completely omitted from this our current 5111 is specific to students
um of Mountainside residents or parents of students of Mountainside residents for residency it is not it is silent on anything regarding staff at all so is the language that we're being asked to approve tonight this is setting policy that would this
is setting this is setting policy and it's based upon some uh again anything in bold is wording that comes directly from Strauss Esme right so they were adding in these pieces that we did not have in a prior policy now there was some stuff that was
out that was lined out where it says children of District employees on page six that is blanked out or is you know um cross through if you will stri through um which means that it may have existed in the prior one and therefore when this policy was 5111 was adopted
years ago the board made an a determination at that time not to include that wording that was there um and current policy has been was originally adopted in 2008 revised multiple times across the
years but the original adoption of that policy was in February of 2008 so are you say joh then in 2008 that's that's when we revised the policy to not allow staff to have their I can't say that for a fact I'd have to go back and see each
revision right we know why I don't I was I mean 2008 we're going back quite a few years so I don't have that history on it with it about that um are you for or against that I'm
personally I'm I'm I'm for again I'm for a discussion that would get us to a place where we would have a number that the board agrees on in terms of percentage of tuition per pupil tuition that would allow would allow teachers the option staff the option to have
their to have their students attend again I think it's an interesting point you made that we didn't have a lot of interest in the past and I would not expect that we go from 20 to 25 that would be oh my God that was me I'm Sor in a class you might go from a grade of 60 to 62 and might go from a grade of 70 to 72 but I don't I would be surprised
just based on the numbers I mean but isn't this the beauty of policy we can always revisit it if we have to so we vote today and this is something we can discuss in the future I mean and this is first read yeah
right so roll call M Goin yes Dana c Petro Jordan Heyman I'm gonna vote no on 5111 and yes to the other three three yes to 8500 and yes to number two
okay Vivian poo yes candano yes carine Venice yes okay do we have old business to discuss new business I can speak on uh behalf of the finance buildings and grounds committee
committee reports okay any new business new business I'm jumping ahead all all day tonight everybody wants the floor all right committee reports rock paper scissors excuse me I was
still talking new sorry the PTO Le report thank you very much the PTO spring fundraiser March 27th tickets can still be purchased until Friday so get your tables in um I would also just like to say that Mr
Rosenblum did it again um every year I say that he can't outdo himself but this year he he did because he actually was Shrek for Thursday at the senior show so he did actually outdo it himself this time um but great job to the cast the
staff parents it really was amazing this is my first year participating in it because I finally had a kid interested in it um and it's just it it was just amazing and um congratulations to everybody yeah second that before you go to committees I just want to piggy back on something you just said the senior
show um just for the board's knowledge every year we the mea the Teachers Association does a senior reception where community members are invited they have snacks and then they have an opportunity to see the show for free we had over 50 seniors who joined us this
year so it was a really a great great turnout I think that everybody enjoyed um I appreciate you know I know Carmine shared some of the Flyers with others got them to miss morak and really I think the word got out this year and it
was just such a really nice turnout to watch were so and they were so excited to come seniors I think the Flyers worked I think uh I mean we always announced it but uh there was information available to them and uh
Flyers better than email work and thank you to na for providing that service that you know they really enjoyed having food before they went to see the show it really made them made their night they do a great job every year now committee rep Comm rock paper scissors shoes come
on do I have two committees if you want to go first sure so I will report on the finance buildings and grounds committee we met last Friday which was March 7th um the bulk of our meeting you guys
probably I sent out notes to the board um was really around the budget and the 2025 to 2026 preliminary budget that Mrs Sullivan just went over uh and reviewed um just overall uh the committee was
very happy with the bu proposal and we all felt like we are in a very good place I can even compare this to last year um we're in a we're in a good place and and thank you Dana for for all the work um she's put in a ton of work to get us to this place so um yeah that's
it from my committee okay um first committee report that I have is the curriculum committee committee um and we talked about the math track um in Berkeley Heights they're looking at at their middle school changing their math track um so in eth grade um students
would get math 8 we um assessed ours um we right now currently have our students um Mo majority of our students um in in eth grade having algebra one some geometry um we are looking at our data our scores and realize there is no
reason for us to change our math track to have majority of our students just take math 8 um we feel that our students are thriving in Algebra 1 and eighth grade and they're even at a higher level at geometry that's not um withstanding the fact that we may have certain
students that we believe should potentially take a math eight but that's not going to be for the general population that's just going to be for certain students that we deem necessary take a math a um but otherwise so while we like to be aligned with Governor Livingston and Berkeley Heights in our
curriculum um decisions this is one decision that we're going to stand steady on with ours because um having our students majority of our students take algebra one and then get to Governor Livingston and as a freshman take geometry we're pretty comfortable and confident with with our scores and
how our students are doing so why change something that's not broken in our district so that's where we're at with that um we also did um during the curriculum committee meeting have a conversation about the policy um so that that was a discussion um a deeper discussion about the residency and
policy and having um out of District uh students staff Etc also students that move Mo um after a certain period of time um and um if they are depending on their time frame of when they're moving or when they're coming into the district um and when we would allow them to come
into the district for tuition costs if they're you know at the end of the school year do we let them stay and things like that so those were things that we discussed with policy as well um on March 20 nope excuse me on February 24th um the negotiations committee also had a meeting um we are in negotiations
currently right now with the Nea um we have exchange proposals at that meeting um I feel like we did get a lot accomplished there were certain items on the proposals that we agreed to so we're moving in the right direction obviously other items which I can't disclose but
other items that we're still working on but um I'm feeling confident that um we will we will come to an agreement um we have a couple sessions scheduled um our next one is on March 25th um there may be conversation between now and March 25th between the NJ and our attorney
just discussing certain items um but otherwise um I'm feeling positive that we're going to be moving in the right direction those are my reports thank you thank you any other committee reports and now like to open up the floor for
public participation please come up state your name your address um and that's it on any anything you would like to discuss hi thank you uh my name is Michaela way my address is 295 New Providence Road um thank you for the
opportunity to speak here and thank you for um the Mountainside soccer Community who came to support me today um I have lived in Mountainside for nearly three years I'm a mother of three boys I'm also a volunteer soccer coach and I'm
the founder and president of Mountainside FC which is a nonprofit soccer club based in Mountainside some of you know who we are um we were formed and had our inaugural season in the fall we are nonprofit 501c3 we're all
volunteer parent coaches uh we were formed with the mission to fill gaps uh where for Mountainside Rec Soccer um our mission really kind of revolves around three things which is uh the right coaching for our kids by coaches who
know who they are Mountainside kids playing together in Mountainside um we want to try and offer the lowest cost possible um and provide a really good program which meets the kids um both at just a intro to soccer but also the kids that are really into
soccer need to be pushed and offer them different leagues to participate in other than in-house and Suburban use soccer league um the demand for soccer is growing in this town I asked Rec to provide me with the um you know the
historically the last few years of participants and I didn't cherry pick but I'll just give you an example because because it's illustrative of the trend um in Spring 2022 there were 66 players signed up that was five teams um
this spring uh Mountainside FC is running the soccer program because wreck is unable to do it as of today we have 114 players and that's nine teams so it's a it's a big big big growth um in the winter which was the last season
Mountain Side recck did not provide soccer we stepped in to do that um because there's demand winter 2022 there were 31 players and two teams this winter we had over 110 players and six teams um our biggest headwind to
providing a robust soccer program to the use of Mountainside is field space it is an issue there are only three soccer fields in Mountainside one is burrow Hall that's owned by the municipality uh then there's Deerfield which is owned
by Boe which is right here and echol Lake Park which is a county field in the fall those three fields are available Mountainside FC held permits from uh Union County uh for the fall for the entire fall for all days Monday
through Sunday however in the spring it is a different issue um bur Hall is not available all these fields are grass so bur Hall gets really torn up and it needs to rest and have maintenance um Deerfield is not available because of
softball and baseball and echol Lake Park I spent the last two months negotiating with the county with Westfield Soccer Association and Springfield soccer club to share the use of that field um it is you know unfortunate that
I had to kind of spend a lot of hours negotiating with other towns to use a field in Mountainside just to provide a program for the kids that want to play um and this is not just focused on elite players this is
also the recreational players um and thank thank thankful to the uh board of education for proving us to use the field behind Beachwood for our youngest players which are like our sixu 7u and we're even going to hold the practices for 8U and nineu there because we were
only granted the permit at echolake Park for Monday Wednesday Friday there are no lights there so we are Lim we are limited in working in all those other teams to share the to share the field space um you know it's it's it's
unfortunate again I'll just say that other other we have to compete with other towns to just play here um so as you can see you know with the growth our demand um very much outpaces the space of the fields available and instead of
scrambling each season which spring is particularly um challenging we really need to come up with a long-term solution um the most viable spot for additional field space in Mountainside is behind Beachwood um I understand that
in 2015 there was a plan put forward by the town and the Board of Education um it was to put a field behind Beachwood um that plan was talked through it was approved and I understand there was a disagreement with the Board of Education about moving forward and the plan
ultimately stopped so that plan was to put a 110 by 65 yard field it would have included lights and irrigation uh it would have required regrading drainage receding soing um
removal of approximately five trees um we have the original costs for that and we have asked uh or not that I have asked but I know that Mike disco is updating those figures and when we get those uh we'd be happy to share them
with the board so you can see the actual costs so the ask tonight um is that we'd like to put that proposal to put a field behind Beachwood back on the table um Mountainside FC as a nonprofit wants to
help with obtaining grants doing fundraising for to cover the costs um the project is not just for mountains side FC right this would benefit the entire Community um there could be programs that use that field um the
school could use that field um I know that flag football there's going to be a program there in the spring running the back um so it would benefit more than just soccer um I think and maybe my understanding is not correct but I think there may have been push back in the
past that you know oh you could have tournaments there there would be people using the parking lot parking on the street no we would not be having tournaments at that field this would just be for the youth soccer program for Mountainside residents um you know I imagine like big
picture is that you know we'd have a you know if this plan goes forward you would have a similar Arrangement that you have with MSBL here with the baseball fields where it's really a volunteer organization it there's fundraising and volunteers to cover the cost for
maintenance um to to allow it to you know live on into the future um so I'll open it up to any questions you guys have Also if anyone else if I miss something and anyone wants to jump in here you know and supplement what I've
said I'm Alex vendu and I'm a councilman here um so I just wanted to reiterate the one point she said is that um one of the other conversations that would be ultimately had and it was had because this is where the it was suggested to revisit this plan is again to go back to Mountainside wreck and there's just a
number of programs um again a a lot of our children can't play with their own friends whether it's black football whether it's you know some of these Sports we were trying to make arrangements and another basis for of course the Our Lady of Lords fields which we unofficially use but we don't
have an official field for our own children to play in town sports with their own friends and direct Rec Department Frank was the one who said well yeah we did have a proposal and we did have this and it was put forth um this is the most viable option this is
the long-term option so ultimately this is about our children and really providing them with the resources that we as a town have we have this wonderful benefit that we didn't have we didn't have this issue years ago because we didn't have the sheer number of young families with the children to
support these programs and so it was encouraged to go to other municipalities but now that story is different and we have a very robust Community with lots of families and children and as you can see from this turnout this is just a small subset on the council I've had this question and many people have
approached me saying how at Mountainside municipality we don't have the capability to support our own children with our programs so I think that's the key to understand this isn't a Mountainside FC issue this is a children of Mountainside uh proposal to set forth and I understand that we have
some budget items that and we have some big Capital outlays to make but this is something that um I've talked uh with some of the board members already about and we do have the plans as we talked about we do have some estimated numbers and we're happy to share that with the the board so that we can consider this
for the future but I think the key thing is to think about our children and supporting our own children here in Mountainside so we don't have to send them to other towns and they don't have to not play sports or activities and be pulled away I mean even the families themselves people don't want to travel
to Summit for an hour people don't want to travel down to sville for all for our own team this year we lucky to have such a dedicated person to support this but we're going to have to send our some of our soccer uh teams all their games away
that means as a parent you have to drive an hour plus for half the of the games this year so we really want to consider this for the town for the long term thank you thank you does anybody have any questions I I just miss Willie I just want to say thank you you took the first
step coming here um this is obviously something that Mountainside is lacking is space um hopefully they're not knocking down any more trees and building more homes because then that would be even a bigger issue this is something that we will definitely you know we'll talk um but
you took a big step I appreciate you coming in today thank you I have a few questions sure that's right um it sounds like as you said grading and stuff um Grassfield not turfield Grassfield okay um do you have the original cost from 2015 yes you're just not willing to
share that cuz you're updating it I I have it I shared it unofficially with uh some of the board members MERS and the next step was to actually send it to the entire board and so they have not only the original documentation U sorry I'll stand up I have the original uh plans
with I I shared with uh some of the board members um but I will resend the uh entire uh plans the 2016 numbers as well as the proposals there's three different proposals as well as an estimate of 2025 numbers that would be able to support this and there's still
estimates bear in mind sure last question question um you said 110 by 60 that's 11 V1 right yes yeah I think that's football field yeah and that's another thing just to remember is that um burrow Hall does not support a full
11b 111 um Beachwood and its current state does not support 11b 111 um so we really only have one option here in our town to do for a location and we are we don't have much more space uh for other
developments so this is really this is really bit well I imagine part of The Proposal knowing that 110 by 60 would fit back there um that's kind of where my head's going is in a full full-blown 11 the 11 field rather than just the
younger younger ages I will share the the documents and and it is very viable we can absolutely fit that field and we can fit it with uh walkways and uh space behind so that it's not it's not like it's going to completely occupy the school system it will actually fit the proper way and we should have enough
room for basically supporting this one of the things I just want to briefly uh clarify I was not here in 2015 um and so I you know apologize in advance if I get this wrong but my recollection is um that this was not a fully joint
discussion at that time as you're recommending now which I truly truly appreciate because when it was first brought it was not a joint conversation that fell by the wayside so the fact that you are bringing it to us first as a conversation to be had thank you it's
very much appreciated thank you that was actually my comment as well um I was on the board at the time and it was brought to our attention as board members that it was not a a conversation between the town and the Board of Education superintendent it was
not necessarily agreed upon and working through I think that this was a little bit of misinformation that you received um that it seemed like of just kind of let it fall to the way side um it wasn't necessarily agreed upon yeah no I mean Venture it was something that was
proposed it was something that Mutual parties were agreeing on looking at and moving forward but ultimately there was a disagreement around some additional items I think it was um if I if I recall correctly it was the board of education's Superintendent at the time
had the money allocated that they were getting for the playground correct versus there was there was a there was a shortfall that they wanted funded for the additional playground items but I don't think it was I know stated before that there was a disagreement I don't think it was disagreement I think it was just there's a disagreement about that
particular piece which led to the ultimate total proposal not being pushed forward that that's that's the honest that's what I was told right and that's what I'm saying I think that might be a little um misation it wasn't it was it wasn't a disagreement that the board of EDS said hey no absolutely we're not
putting soccer field in it was a disagreement on the you know the whole discussion talks they were having around all the elements that for this sorry I can't speak to that personally but um I know that it was it's great that you guys came here included the Board of Education members because again when
that was discussed it was not yeah there is a the we following the direction of one of the board members who said the most important thing to do is come back to the board and present this properly so that all parties can really talk this through we applaud you for that no problem took the first step I just have
one one question so um don't have I don't my memory is hazy a little bit too from from 2015 16 uh but I I if I if I recall I mean I think at that point the the the town the burough had had done a little had at least um thought of coming
to the table with some dollars grant money perhaps at that point again don't know what it was how much it was how much even got to that point Mela you mentioned something have you guys is there any early stage like homework that you guys have done and that you know that there's certain money out there I'm just curious and and that might be just
a just a seed plant for when you guys submit the the estimated thoughts around cost just just to get the wheels turning because I I think that's knowing some of the conversations that have happened for example in Berkeley Heights and and some of the grant conversations there too that's probably a factor for us to be thinking about right here right now I
don't know if you want to answer this no go ahead so um what I understand is yes uh at the time uh the council and the town had funds that they were putting forth for this so that we could move this forward um however um just answer
this today obviously the budgets and that has not currently in the town and I'm not on that particular committee for planning uh but I know it's not because we did go before the council as well to talk about this and they said well we're going to have to first follow the process which is go back in front of the
Board of Ed to talk through this um I have not talked with debie vanarin who handles a lot of our brants um but there are absolutely grants and programs that exist for this type of endeavor so that's something we certainly be exploring as well as fundraising through
the the found the soccer club that's great and I I think there's again being this is another um blind comment but I think we've been a Deb's been able to secure grants for other projects in the past uh on on school property so there's there's probably some I mean the Deerfield courts which
we know that are being redone with the lighting um she was able to secure some uh grants for that and we're seeking additional grants so I think working together we could absolutely solve this issue for the mountain side community and our children I think that the issue is is you know coming together in good
faith and really having I think the starting step is you know can we do this and from at least the plans that I see and the work that's already been done so we don't have to hire an assessor and a consultant to do all this work I think a lot of that's already been done it's going back now and saying okay how can
we find the resources to make this happen for our children here are you interested in getting money from the county for the Green Acres like fun to do this I don't have enough information about that um I know that I just was
recently in a meeting that were're talking about some of that Green Acres funding but I don't have enough information at this time I to comment on that because I know they gave money to a lot of towns for diff things like you're talking about they did but I I also and
I could be mistaken but if you used the County's money then they have the right to schedule County other Town County stuff that's that's a good point that's a good point money from tied into the county in
certain towns that then are because that brings us to the E correct I think it's really important right now we control our own destiny for our children and they have the resources that we know it's not going to be bumped by another soccer program or having scheduling because this is this issue uh in a good
way is only going to increase we're only going to have more families with more kids more interest in soccer programs or LaCrosse or flag football um and so we can really do a great thing for the community here I'm sure you could but I'm I was thinking of Berkeley Heights
on Snider Avenue I believe that that's a Green Acres County that's why Heights can't um schedule alone on those fields because of that but I I know of they did it a football field at
rowy Park and roadway High School uses that feel only so I mean there there are ways that you could do it if you you know they you do it be that's all I'm trying to say listen we have a completely open mind
about how to accomplish this we do want to be careful about putting the situation understand I understand what you're saying because anybody can come in but that usually I don't know how they word it but they manag well I mean the situation in eeko you know again
just a reate what she said we're literally competing with other towns who are own we explained to them that we could not have a program and they were still pushing back on us in some regard because they still want to use the field only for practices for a few subsets of
teams so here we are not able to have a program these other programs are coming which bigger Westfield and some and saying basically hey County we need those fields and they're getting priority so we don't want to be bullied and have our children bear the brunt of
that because of some policy that exists thank you those are private clubs not the Town recreation one one last question just and again this is um blind because maybe this the ship has sailed as other open lots of land go o fields has that has
that ship sailed is that an ongoing in terms of the fate of of that land back there just curious I I don't mean to put you on the spot I'll just say unofficially I can't comment on any of the negotiations or discussions that are going there but I can just say that that is we're still
using those fields today for mountain side purposes I don't think that is necessarily going to change but the official conversations are still happening and they're I can't comment it on any
legally thanks thank you thank you thank Youk you thanks I'm clapping for you [Laughter] anyone else would like to come up and comment yes I just please state your name and address Alex B Mountainside resident 537 Woodland Avenue really
familiar Council before um just uh one question on the busing I I think it's a fantastic job that we're doing and trying to really be good to the taxpayers and curb some of that spending where appropriate I understand that we don't want to get into a situation where we have to bid that out and then be on
the end of the situation where we're paying more but the busing has been a real issue here in Mountainside a big giant issue I was on personal calls on business trips because of lack of bus drivers showing up bus driver routes do we have a concern that if we're working
with these organizations and their cutting cost that it's going to affect the actual busing because it's a it's a I mean there were a lot of unhappy Mountainside residents and I believe you miss maing you were on those WS with me
where we had to deal with these are we talking about last year at the very beginning last year and we also had it this year as well and we still have current issues I have children who use those buses and there's there's issues still weekly Ju Just to be clear the bus companies aren't cutting costs we're
cutting costs by doing things other than than doing normal Transportation through bus companies the issue that the bus companies are having is the a nationwide driver shortage so that's the problem they don't they simply do not have
drivers um which is what's causing most of the problems that they have which is why we've been trying to move away from the traditional busing that we've been doing okay you know that every school district has been doing for years and years um I think it's getting a little
bit better but that's it it's not a cost savings right thing the bus companies are actually spending more money I I drivers I think as a resident um more Communications about you know how that's being improved as well as the pro the
the efforts we're taken to do that um would be helpful on a a regular basis or at least somewhat basis because it just I I know we still deal with it weekly it seems like there's still issues this bus driver late the bus driver having a route issue it just doesn't seem like it
it's gotten somewhat better it doesn't seem like it's gotten a lot better okay thank you thank you anyone else all right thank you um at this point I don't think we
need to go to a second exec um can I please have a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor opposed have a great evening thank you for joining us good night