i'm not in charge what the hell just Heat heat roll call miss Kasalana here mr garo here dr evson Hayden here miss Gunderman here miss Morirana here
mr walsh here miss Zayn here we have a quorum please join me in the flag salute i aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God
indivisible with liberty and justice for all this is a public meeting of the board of education of the bureau of new providence adequate notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with PL1975 chapter 231 in that an actual notice was made in conformance with
section section 13 of the act whenever the business of the board requires it to convene to close session the session will begin no later than 9:30 p.m at the conclusion of the need for close session the board will reconvene to the public portion of the meeting at that time the
board will complete any other business that may be before it and the public will then be given the opportunity to be heard before the meeting is adjourned uh at this time I have no further comments dr zerley thank you Miss Cicaro um I'd like to turn it over to Vince for our student
report thank you Dr zerley uh to start I hope everyone had an enjoyable spring break it's good to be back and we look forward to a great final marking period of the school year saturday March 29th was the PTSA Tricky Trey Fashion Show the event
was a great success with many seniors participating as models in the show uh a special thank you to the PTSA and all those who helped organize an amazing event for our school community earlier this month over 35 MPHS students traveled to France and Spain they went on a they went from Friday April 11th
and returned on Saturday April 19th this was a once ina-lifetime experience for our students and a great time was had by all who were able to attend earlier this earlier this week there were two induction ceremonies where we recognized our newest National Honor Society members as well as our World Language Honor Society members congratulations to
all of this year's inductees today was Take Your Child to Work Day and it was a lot of fun meeting some of the kids of our teachers and faculty um next Friday May 2nd will be the PTSA senior breakfast all the seniors are looking forward to an opportunity to come together as a group and celebrate our
college commitments and spend some time together as a class uh this will be one of many events over the final two months of the school year for the seniors and athletics uh boys lacrosse is 6-2 and 5-0 in the conference uh the team beat St peters Prep at 98 yesterday girls
lacrosse is 7-2 starting off the season 5-0 and baseball's on a was on two was on a twoame winning streak uh we played summit today it was a tough one uh softball is five and two with a win over Union Catholic yesterday uh that
wraps up uh today's uh report i'm looking forward to the last one in May and uh thank you thank you Vince very much Mr ugluro for our enrollment report thank you Dr zerpley good evening
everyone at Allen W roberts we currently have 639 students at Saltbrook we currently have 583 students at New Providence Middle School we currently have 394 students at New Providence High
School we currently have 657 students that brings us to a total of 2,273 students in addition we currently have 36 students in out of district placements for a grand total of 2,39 students thank you
thank you uh good evening everyone um I just have a few comments this evening as we head into the final stretch of the school year there is an unmistakable energy in each of our buildings from our concerts to our art shows to spring sports and senior events our schools are
alive with activity and excitement it is truly a special time of the year as we celebrate student growth achievement and the many milestones that mark the end of the academic year i'm especially proud to share tonight some exciting news from our high school to date over 200
students have been accepted i'm sorry to date our seniors have been accepted to over 200 colleges and universities across the country and the list continues to grow each day among the most popular choices this year are the University of Maryland Boston University
University of Tampa Bucknell Drexel Fairfield Indiana University Forom Michigan State and the University of Michigan even more exciting news is that many of our students have already made their college commitments i'm thrilled to announce that some of our seniors
will be attending outstanding institutions such as the University of Virginia Notre Dame Boston College and Duke congratulations to all of our seniors and their families on these incredible accomplishments looking ahead our final
strategic planning session will take place next Tuesday April 29th and we will focus on finance facilities and security uh lastly I'm very pleased to report that we remain on track with our HVAC project timeline and at this time
I'd like to invite Mr tessa to pro provide us with a brief overview good evening okay so what I'll do is I'll just go over what happened during break we had a very very busy break at all three of our schools um I'll start off with the high school middle school
um the underground trenching and the conduit was installed from the new pole that was put in to the transformer location and then the underground trench trenching and conduit uh continued from the transformer to the switch gear location which was in the garage at the
high school uh the transformer pad has been installed and we're waiting on JCPNL to bring the transformer in and then from there we could set up inspections and then move forward with it having the switch over with the electrical upgrade uh this project was
due to be done in the summer we're on schedule with that and the remaining of the uh project will be done in the summer at Saltbrook we removed and replace the remaining ceiling unit ventilators what this means is that all the unit
ventilators in the building is complete we're way ahead of schedule uh we thought we would have to do most of this work in the summer but we did a lot of it during the school year and we really uh did well last week um we also installed all the cabinets and
countertops in all the rooms um we completed all the duck work electrical piping and controls to the units that were installed over break all the roof supports um were put up on the roof uh the patching flashing and it's all ready
for the equipment and uh what our plan is is probably in the next couple months we'll try to start getting some of the units onto the roof on a Saturday so then we could get going as soon as school's ending um the pole has not been installed by JCPNL JCPNL yet at
Saltbrook and um our hope is to get that in by June so then they can do the electrical upgrade over the summer finally at Roberts the underground trenching and the conduit was installed from the new pole to the transformer
jcpnl set the transformer pulled all the preliminary wire and the transformer from the pole our electrician pulled all the wire from the transformer to the switch gear in the building we are having an inspection tomorrow and if we pass they
will give us what they call as a a cutting card and you need that so you can have the electrical upgrade switched once we get that um which we're thinking we'll get the cut card within the next week or two uh we're going to schedule the switch over of power on the weekend
um we'll do it on a Saturday and then once that's done um HNS will come in test all the AC and we're hoping that it'll all be working by May 19th and we're on schedule any
questions okay thank you very much Mr ta and that's all I have miss Kakaro thank you Dr zerkley at this time I would like to call up Mr joe Walsh to present the certificates of excellence okay I'm going to call the kids up and
then I'll I'll read it out here but I got to put on my glasses sure all right michael Oronda Sophia Cadmus Adam Moy Cameron Better Mia Montero and Rama
Boore tonight we are happy to recognize the 2024 and 2025 school year recipients of the Certificate of Excellence in Visual Arts students who excel in art and design routinely think outside the box to create new and exciting works these skills in creativity and
innovation are essential for success in college and in the workplace the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards a national competition awards regional and national recognition to students who exhibit originality technical skill and emergence of a personal vision through
their works for the year 2025 over 5,000 works of art were submitted in Northern New in the Northern New Jersey region to start I'd like to recognize this year's Scholastic Art and Writing winners our first student has been awarded a National Silver Medal and a Gold Key in
digital art from Scholastic Adam Moy our other gold key recipient is Cameron Better next I would like to recognize those students who received a Scholastic Art Writing honorable mention michael Rhonda Sophia and Mia well I was
supposed to have you come forward i wanted you come forward earlier so I messed that up uh and I'd also like to call forward but Ramy you're already here uh our first ever middle school Scholastic Art and Writing recipient and we can give a round of applause for that there we go we recognize these talented students
for their artistic achievements during the 2024 2025 school year your Providence is very proud of these students achievements and encourages them to continue with their art education okay Michael there you are keep moving congratulations
this time I'm going to wait okay will the students who represented New Providence and region music ensembles please step forward here here they come come on over here i'll move over okay students who excel in music exhibit a high level of motivation and
work ethic to develop their skills those who perform in ensembles become outstanding team members and experts in collaboration new Providence takes pride in providing opportunities for young musicians to fully develop this musical potential within the school program as well as in auditioned honors ensembles
the New Jersey Music Educators Association divides the state into three regions the Central Region SJMEA sponsors auditioned honors bands orchestra and choirs at the intermediate and high school levels every year hundreds of students throughout the
region who are sponsored by their schools music teachers prepare and audition only the highest scoring applicants are accepted this year 18 students represented in Providence in regional ensembles abigail Bosart Olivia
Hang Abigail Kim Mia Partardo Naomi Woo were selected for intermediate region orchestra jared Becker Lillian Kai Asher Chow Leo Etner and James Tan were selected for intermediate region band tyler Lee was selected for the
intermediate region percussion ensemble alexander Giggliotti Sha Krueger Natalie Tom were selected for the high school region orchestra and Dan Rosco was selected for the high school region symphonic band julia Held Dorson
Sophia Scott and Rachel Zach were selected for the high school region chorus these students have earned special recognition for excellence in music performance your province is very proud of their achievements and encourages them to continue their music education congratulations now will the students
who represent New Providence and all state ensembles please step forward do you want to give out the Yeah they're right there very much there you go you take Sophia there you go okay we're going to come together we're going to try to Guys want to come over
okay I think some of you may be coming back will the students who represent New Providence and all state ensembles please step forward maybe not come on over here all the way over there here come on up here we'll do a little park
there keep going got more there we go all right along with regional ensembles NJMEA sponsors auditioned all state honors ensembles at the elementary middle and high school levels every year hundreds
of students throughout the entire state who are sponsored by their school music teachers prepare and audition only the highest scoring applicants are accepted membership in all state and ensemble is a prestigious distinction in collaboration with NJMEA the New Jersey chapter of the American Coral Directors
Association sponsors auditioned all state honor choir at the elementary and junior high school levels this year 21 students represent New Providence in all state ensembles anna Sophia Alva Sfante Sha Aurora
Serena Lure Aurori Misra Olivia Salazar Ariana Chararma and Evelyn Thai were selected for the elementary allstate chorus isabella Arius Abigail Boschart Rhina Kamoth Sharet Cotay Anisha Kumar Annie Louu and Shria Raalo were selected for
the junior high allstate choir and Olivia Wang and Naomi Woo were selected for the intermediate allstate orchestra alexander Gigglani and Natalie Tom were selected for the high school all-state orchestra dan Rosiko was selected for
the high school all-state band and Julia Hord Hall Dorson and Rachel Zach were selected for the high school all-state chorus these students have earned special recognition for excellence in music performance new Providence is very proud of their achievements and encourages them to continue with their
music education congratulations can you speak in here there you go scooch this way yeah very good thank you thank you Mr walsh and congratulations again to all of our recipients at this time I would like to call up the New
Providence Education Foundation did they disappear on us so as the Ed Foundation makes their way here I'd just like to share a few words about the foundation um over the years I've been involved with the foundation in my many different roles but this is the first year that I've been involved
as the superintendent of schools with the foundation and on behalf of myself the board of education as well as all of our teachers we are very grateful and we thank you for all the time that you spend each month looking to raise money and funds for various grants um for our
students so that we could see them achieve succeed and also have opportunities so thank you so much um this here is Mr nton this is Miss and I see in the back we have two other members Miss Hansen as well as Mr strapford so thank you
hello um thank you to Dr zerley and the rest of the board of education for having us here today the MPF is a board primarily made of parents many like yourselves our goal like Dr zerley said is to raise money and to fund teacher
initiated requests these are requests directly from the teachers and the staff for items and programs to enhance their classroom and to further push the curriculum throughout the year we work with local businesses we host events to raise money and we collect donations
from um many people like yourself and throughout the community we're so grateful for the support that we receive from the town and from all our businesses all the money we raise and donations we collect go directly back into the
classrooms this year we received a record number of teacher requests which was great um teachers wrote um I think we had almost 30 grant applications this year um everything from science to language arts to counseling um across
all schools from prek all the way up to the high school um we're happy to say that we spent every dollar and we funded as many as we could um including an annual financial literacy grant that we fund in honor of a former board member
and parent Dennis Nter who passed away um suddenly a few years ago uh next year with your help we hope to raise even more money so we can continue to fund even more teacher requests that we get next year um so it's our honor to
present a check for $62,3522 to the school district at this time I would like to introduce Joe Walsh who is going to present the 202526 school budget it's right here can I use this or no
hello no yeah that'd be a little that'd be helpful if I could testing testing okay thanks J okay so good evening everybody uh can
you hear me yeah no what did I do i can use this that's working okay so okay i got a couple things going on here so um so yeah so uh so I'll go through the budget presentation um for those that
have seen it before very consistent um structure of the presentation to last year i think first off I need to thank Jim or Lauren Jim and the team um for doing this process if you haven't gone through the budget process with them they have very organized the entire team
it's excellent and uh and and we owe them a big thank you uh for for walking us through this and getting us comfortable with it uh throughout the year so here you have the uh the budget goals which are consistent year-over-year but I just want to go through those to kind of set the stage and the foundation for it so maintain
educational programs and goals to support student achievement review and analyze staffing needs maximize operational efficiencies continue to maintain security facilities and equipment consider the burden on the taxpayers and maintain the culture of
the district um this budget focuses on on monitoring all of those very closely and continuing to look at the um continue to manage the increased costs that that we face in different aspects and one thing that I think uh uh Lauren Jim and the team do very well is looking
at it over multiple years so we're while we're budgeting for one year we're considering multiple years in that process the first item here is educational aspects to the uh budget this year so the first one is implementing a behavioral and disabilities program at
Saltbrook um then continuing all the programs we have offered and along with updating the curricula um writing this summer and the like so um I guess the new one on here is the behavioral disabilities program at Saltbrook and that'll allow us uh to be able to
provide more services within the school district for kids and not have have them have to leave the uh the district for for services so that that'll be a benefit to the kids and the district um and those are the main things this year from an education
perspective updating of the curriculum so uh a couple different things here so um from a high school perspective the uh rebrand rebranding of fabric arts to the intro to introduction to textiles fashion design and construction that's
focused on trying to looking to make that course more focused uh from a career and post high school perspective and being able to position the the the students um better in those areas and uh and rebranding that uh that course the
new curricula for the AP computer science course is to uh to enhance the to enhance that to be aligned with the college board and the AP requirements um for that course middle school French and Spanish uh with the middle school bell
schedule uh there's more time for French and Spanish so that's uh updating the curricula to be re to be aligned with the time that we have for those courses and then the last is the elementary schools um the foreign language for elementary schools we have uh Spanish in
kindergarten and with full day kindergarten we're able to provide uh an updated curricula in relation to Spanish for that so that's up updating that in relation to the length of the day for the students think
I Nope okay got it here sorry my pages are a little messed up so uh the technology items there's nothing new here i'll I'll walk through a couple of these uh year-over-year these are the same items obviously from a technology perspective it becomes more and more important to the school district as we
move as a society and a school district to rely more on technology um we have the purchase of the iPad cases which is we have that every year and then we continue to have to monitor the projectors and uh interactive boards in the classroom and then network switches
and the like from an overall technology perspective from a staffing uh from a staffing um uh perspective this year the we'll have decrease of one staff member due to retirement um and we'll be able to
absorb that into the existing team and we will um and that'll still keep class size within the board policy and the like and um and we'll be able to manage through it that way from an overall district perspective
the next couple pages hit on the capital items from a facilities perspective i'm not going to go through each one i'll keep them up there so everybody can read through those and see those um but these items just looking at these items and comparing notes from prior years again these items are um either items we
needed to we thought we could take care of last year or we pushed them this year and moved them around and andor the purchase of different machinery to um to to operate the school on a day-to-day basis um here's the three items from a maintenance department
perspective okay this slide has a lot of numbers big pie chart um this what this does and I'm sure many of you have seen this before but what we have here is we have the operating budget broken down by the different categories and um I from a personal reviewing this
perspective every year I go through and I look at it on a year-to-year basis generally speaking unless we're doing something significant it should be relatively consistent and this year um I think everything with is is within a couple ten of a percentage point to last year other than um uh primarily the
employee benefits we anticipate the employee benefit premiums going up this year so that went up I think 1.4 basis points year-over-year everything else is pretty directionally aligned with the prior year but always something that's good to look at from an overall
perspective and to the point I just made here uh just we highlight the the key drivers of the budget you'll see at the b the bottom the the increase in the general fund expendure expenditures is 1.865 million that's primarily driven by
that benefits uh budgeted increase that we're anticipating of the 1136 um for uh 25 and 26 this slide uh is is another good good one I think from a uh I think from a KPI
type perspective and good from a relative perspective to look at where are we now I think there's two factors to consider when you look at this slide one is we all have different costs each school district has different costs that they have to consider we have things that other districts have and other districts have things we don't have um
things like busing and the like so when when I when I look at this I compare I look at it year-over-year when you do when you do that on a district basis it's anywhere from 3 to 8% increase across all of these districts we're at 4.7 so that we fall out quite well in that regard and in relation to state
average you could compare it dollar for dollar but I think that can be a little misleading but when you look at it on an increase basis I think that that that helps provide perspective where we are and um I think all the years I've done this we've always been the lowest or the second lowest continues to show um that
we manage the budget quite well here in New Providence uh this is the the tax levy which I which I just touched touched on um in relation to the increase but the uh the total tax levy for 2025 and 2026 in the budget will be
$45,192,000 this shows us how we get there in relation to the state cap levy so you'll see the allowable 2% increase one thing we often say here is we don't budget to the 2% cap this year we are at the cap um in relation to what we need and with some of the uh percentage
increases on some of the costs we're at that 2% but um and then we have the healthcare cost adjustment which is um calculated by the state for us and that's how you get to the uh and we we're using the $17 of the bank cap
that's available to us um to get to the 45192 cap banking not that we're using much of it but just as a reminder for everybody uh it occurs when the school district does not increase the tax levy by the full 2% um we have $1 left in our cap bank um and uh so not much to cover
there in relation to the impact of the budget here's the state aid you'll see um uh a $97,000 decrease um and uh two years ago the number was 2.8 million it went up to 3.2 2 last year and now it's at 3.1 so a
bit of a decrease um in state aid yearover-year which we did anticipate as we put the budget together here's the ratables or the ratables I should say they they uh increased by just.1% um and went up to
one one bill 483 531 i won't go through all the numbers for you but um that's uh and then that is used to then get to what the what the tax increase would be so based on the average home market value of $790,000 the total tax increase will be
uh would on an average home will be 2.24% or $214 i think that's it any questions from any of the No thanks yep i have to turn this off
okay at this time are there any questions from the board uh for the finance committee or Mr ta no at this time I declare a public hearing on the proposed 2526 school budget the present
um open for public comments seeing none I declare the public hearing closed now is an opportunity for the public to be heard on any specific agenda item seeing none I declare the public portion of the meeting closed uh at this
time I need approval of the minutes for the business meeting and the closed meeting on March 13 2025 second roll call miss Costalana hi mr cara hi dr hayden
miss Gunderman hi miss Morano hi mr walsh mrs a hi i also need approval of the minutes for the business meeting and close meeting on March 27th Kristen got a second
roll call miss Kelano I miss Karaain dr epson Hayden hi mrs gun hi miss Mareno hi mr walsh hi mrs zayn action items mr walsh finance
i would like to move items one through nine as listed on the agenda no comments beyond what we've already talked about i think the budget's on here and uh the MPF uh grant so I will leave it at that
roll call miss Costalano hi Miss Gara i Dr eson Hayden hi Miss Gunderman hi Miss Moreno hi Mr walsh hi Miss Zayn hi Mr walsh this is the big night for you of facilities i think this is the last time
I'm speaking um I would like to move item one on the agenda second roll call miss Costalano i miss Carol i dr eson Hayden hi miss Gunderman hi mr morano hi mr walsh hi mr zayn hi
education dr epson Hayden i'd like to move items one through four as listed below second um the main one I'm going to highlight is for um approving following resolution in observance for teacher recognition
week starting on May 4th through May 10th uh whereas the week of May 4th through May 10th has been declared teacher recognition week throughout the state of New Jersey and whereas the faculty of New Providence School District continue to provide excellent instruction tutoring encouragement
counseling and understanding to the students who pass through their classrooms and whereas in addition to the regular educational programs many of the staff provide advice direction coaching and sponsorship to extracurricular activities now therefore be it resolved that the board of
education acknowledges with pride and sincere appreciation the efforts of all the teachers and its staff and be it further resolved that the members of the board extend to these teachers their best wishes for the future firm in the belief that they will always perform in the same fine fashion approved this 24th
day of April 2025 and signed by the order of the New Providence Board of Education thank you roll call miss Galana i miss Gara hi Dr hayden hi Miss Gunderman hi
Mrs morano hi Mr walsh hi Mrs zayn hi Mrs gunderman personnel uh I'd like to move to approve items one through nine as listed uh and then Dr zerley I think you'd like to point out a few special names on
there yes thank you Miss Gun first I would like to um acknowledge um Miss Wynard who's here this evening uh she is going to be our next department head of language arts we're very excited uh for her to come on board she is a new teacher to the district so she just
started with us this year but she um had I think about 16 years teaching experience in East Brunswick High School um she went through a committee of uh other department heads as well as language arts teachers mr henry of course and she rose to the occasion so
we're very excited for her to start effective July 1 as the new department head of language arts uh the next person on the agenda that I would like to acknowledge is Mr michael Chrysetello this evening Mr chrysatello is on the agenda for the approval of middle school
principal uh Mr ugluro along with a team and committee interviewed six candidates a out of about 21 applications that we received um two finalists did come to me mr chrysatello again rose to the
occasion i'm very happy for him um that he is taking this step right here in the same district that he started as as a teacher we hired him in 2016 and I believe it was Mr keiny who recruited him out of Kain University we were
starting our STEM program and we were looking for an energetic um young person to come in and really inspire students and he did just that he taught AP compsai for us um he also taught in the middle school as well during that time
from that time he became an edtech specialist so he did that for some time here at the high school he then moved on to be a department head of STEM education he was then the assistant principal at the middle school and currently the assistant principal at the high school so we are very excited for
him as well and I know that he's going to do great things down in the middle school and that's all I have roll call most I miss Karao i Dr eson Hayden hi
miss Gunderman hi miss Morano hi mr walsh hi mrs zayn okay congratulations thank you mr walsh board policy please i lied uh I'd like to approve or approve the uh
move item number one i'm reading the thing sorry I'm reading it uh forward or Yeah put forward item number one on the agenda there we go thank you Amanda i have no comments they're all on second reading
roll call please miss Castana I mr kara I Dr hayden hi Miss Gundererman hi Mrs morano hi Mr walsh hi Mrs zayn hi committee reports curriculum instruction technology
uh we had our first meeting as part of developing new goals for strategic planning and how our second one in a couple weeks so moving along finance mr walsh anything to add there we're meeting on the 14th for our first meeting
personnel morning thank you everyone um anyone old business no new business um the only thing I would uh like is to get a an idea of who may be marching in the
Memorial Day parade one two three four four and a half amanda's a yes kristen's a yes laura's Laura is a yes thank you now's an opportunity for the public to be heard on any any subject
just state your name if you come to the mic seeing no one I need a motion to recess to close session for student matters related to HIP okay a motion to adjurnn