This is the North Brunswick Township Board of Education meeting. I'd like to call this meeting to order. It's our regular public meeting for May. Today is Wednesday, May 28th, 2025. Could we all please stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance 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. Mr. Ali here. Mr. Carter here. Miss James will be here.
Uh, Miss Keith here. Mr. Lori, Dr. Patel here. Mr. Singh here. Miss Toth here. And Mr. W here. We have a quum. Thank you. The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the
meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the open public meetings law, the public notice of this meeting, which included the time, date, and location, was distributed by 300 p.m. Tuesday,
November 26th, 2024, and Wednesday, November 27th, 2024 in the following manner. Posted on the bulletin board, reserved for announcements in the board office, 25 Lynwood Place, North Brunswick. Mailed to the Home News Tribune, Starledger, NJ.com, and the
clerk of the township of North Brunswick, and delivered to the nine duly elected board members. Good evening, everyone. Good to see everyone. We're here for our um May meeting. We are near really nearing the end of this school year and
our meetings for this school year. Uh so tonight we do not have any presentation, Superintendent Shuroka. Uh so at this time I just want to mention two quick items. Um the uh board had the
opportunity to attend the uh Middle Sex County School Boards Association meeting uh in association with New Jersey school boards last week. Um we had six of our board members there in person, one online. That was a great turnout for us. That was our largest that we've had at
least in the 5 years that I've been on the board. Um two of our board members were recognized. Uh Mr. Lori, who is not here this evening, um was recognized by New Jersey School Boards Association a milestone award for 15 years of service.
So congratulations to him. He was there to accept his award that night. And then uh Vice President James, good evening. We uh also had some recognition for her by New Jersey School Boards Association as she became a certified board member.
So congratulations to her. Um yes, perfect timing. So at this time uh we will move to uh our regular meeting as we don't have any presentations. So at this time, Mr. Carter, would you please take item
number six, our meeting minutes? Yes, Madame President. Uh I'd like to make a motion to approve the following board minutes. Re regular public meeting minutes, April 30th, 2025. Conference meeting minutes, April 9th, 2025. and executive minutes April 9th, 2025.
Second. All in favor? I. Is there anyone opposed? All the minutes are accepted. Thank you. Do we have any communications this evening? We do not. I just have a very short administrative report. Great. We will move to item eight then, our
administrative report. All right. Good evening to all our families, guests, and viewers here tonight. Um again, this is a very quick administrative report. So, I just have a reminder for everyone that Tuesday, June 10th is New Jersey primary election day and schools will be closed.
It's a give back day from our snow days. Um, schools will be closed due to those elections in the buildings. Uh, board offices and 12 month staff will be available in their buildings and those buildings will be open for business. That is it for my administrative report this evening. President, thank you,
Superintendent Churoka. Uh, at this time we will move to our second group of reports, our student reports. Good evening, ladies. Good evening. Um, we have a bit of a longer report today. Okay. So, on that sense,
on April 30th, MBTHs held its third TED X youth event where we had nine speakers give talks about resilience. The speakers all did an amazing job and gave great advice to our students and just the overall community. On May 2nd, the Latin American Club presented Somos Unos
where they celebrated our students cultures through food, music, and dance. The Latin American Club did a great job preparing and putting together the event. Um, and then on from Friday, May 5th to May 9th, students recognized the hard work of our teachers during teacher appreciation week by providing them with
an ice cream truck for the staff and small tokens of thank you just throughout the whole week. Um, on May 9th, our South Asian Cultural Association presented Innovation 2025, which involved a skit performed by students, cultural dances, and a fashion show. Their hard work in putting the
show together definitely paid off because they sold almost 1,000 tickets. On May 16th, the class of 2026 held their junior prom at the Pines Manor. Over 200 students attended the floating lights themed floating lights festival themed event. And on May 21st, we held
our final SGO meeting of the year. We thanked our current officers and executive board for their hard work this year, presented a check for $5,000 to Raider Home Plate from our fundraising efforts this year, and introduced the students who will be on executive board next year. And then this past Friday, we
had a lip dub for the first time in 15 years where we basically did a lot of running around the school for the last two periods of the day. But honestly, I could say it was one of the most fun things I've done all of high school. And I should just like really recommend that it's done again in the past. If you
watch the video, it it's a bit chaotic. We definitely should have taken a few more takes or like ran through it a little bit, but it was so much fun just as a student to go through and I know teachers had a lot of fun doing it as well. That's it. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. How many more days do we
have a countdown? I know. Sounds like a whiteboard in my classroom. Well, best of luck with the next couple of weeks. You have a lot of fun stuff coming up, I'm sure. All right, our committee reports. We will start tonight with Mr. Carter. How
about business operations? All right. You ready? I'm ready. Okay. Uh the business operations committee met on Wednesday, May 14th. Uh on the agenda this evening, you'll find the following item. A transfer of funds to purchase an athletic washer and hearing and vision
screening equipment for our nurses in finance section 3E. Renewal of our Chartwells food service contract in finance section 4. Renewal of the district lawn care contract in finance section 4J. Renew our of our copier
contract in finance section 4. sound upgrade for the NBTHs auditorium in finance section 4K and multiple summer projects included in the 2526 budget noted in finance section 4L. Uh we also received status updates on the bond sale
that took place on April 21st and 24th and closed on May 15th. Uh multiple district-wide previously approved projects that will begin at the end of June. Uh the ROD grant reimbursements will begin this month and district-wide water testing was completed and we passed.
Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Carter. At this time, we'll move to our education committee, Mr. Ali. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you. Um, so the education committee met on Wednesday, May 14th at 6 p.m. And we have a few topics to go over tonight. So, in the area of
assessments and grants, we have a few updates for the summer academy institute. We have uh approved our new hires for the summer and are finishing up interviewing some additional staff. Our theme this summer will be a beachy boardwalk theme. So, it's going to be very uh Jersey Shore. Um, so get ready.
The NJSLA testing is all done for high school and middle middle school students and all the grades will be finishing up soon if they're not already done. We have received our NJ GPA preliminary scores and we'll be reporting those out in the coming months. We will not offer the NJGPA test this summer and we'll be
just using the ACUPPLACER to provide our students additional opportunity to graduate. We have finished up uh we have finished up our achieve and morning math tutoring with hopes of these investments providing our students the great returns on their education and that's all for
assessments and grants in the area curriculum and technology. We have 48 high school students enrolled in our STEM aquatic climate ecosystems course and they were able to visit the local water treatment plant. And this was really all in the realm to connect them
to the coursework from the science, chemistry, biology and engineering to bridge that real life gap that some students you usually never ever get. We have also been working on our transition planning and updating the curriculum for
our PK prek and kindergarten. K to2 ELA and fifth through 8 ELA curriculums. We decided to combine a few of our French and Italian sections to ensure we just have enough students enrolled and meet all of the needs for
everyone's all the stakeholders involved with those courses. Additionally, 12 students from the high school will be going on field trip to Ruckers Wakeman students scholar program which is going to be at the Wakeman Institute. And this program is a seminar that only 37 high
schools in the state attend. And we're one of those 37. And the program is going to provide our students the chance to conduct research in DNA sequencing and have the opportunity to submit scientific papers for publication academic journals. We also had one
junior Yashri Patel who was selected for the governor school of science and engineering at Rucker School of Engineering. And just so you know you guys are watching this is prestigious. Not everybody gets this. So, shout out to her family and congratulations to you all. This is a big feat. So, I hope you
really enjoy it. And in the area of pupil and personnel service, we have no updates. And lastly, we only have we have two policies up for second reading. policy 5701 which replaces our previous plagiarism policy and now is updated to
encompass academic integrity and policy 5710 which is our student grievance policy. That's all for the education committee report. Thank you madam president. Thank you Mr. Ali. Human resources Dr. Patel. Yes. Thank you madam president. Uh the human
resources community relations committee met on Wednesday, May 14th to discuss various personnel topics. For those on tonight's agenda who are either retiring or resigning, the board thanks them for their service and wishes them well. There are several new staff for the 2025 2026 school year as well as many new
substitute staff on tonight's agenda. We welcome all of those new members to our district and we look forward to having you work with us here in North Brunswick. We are also discussed several reassignments and we are looking forward to our staff taking on these new roles. As of our committee, any remaining vacancies for the 2025 2026 school year
continue to be in the interview stages and will be posted until filled. All of our current openings can be found on our district website, social media pages, and posted on each of our buildings. For any teaching positions, alternate route and traditional route, candidates are both encouraged to apply.
We discussed any current vacancies such as ab leaves of absences and how those positions are filled via daily subs, long-term subs or six teaching periods. And Miss Kea shared that there is one remaining virtual fair job fair for this school year which took place on May 22nd. Lastly, the committee reviewed the
positions for district summer programs were almost all filled and will be appearing on the agenda. And that concludes my report. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Uh last Mr. Lori. Obviously, we know he is not here tonight, but he is our liaison for New
Jersey school boards, the county school boards. As I mentioned, um at the beginning of the meeting, uh some of our board members attended that meeting. It was last Wednesday, May 21st. Uh they covered a variety of topics. Um, one we
uh heard from the Middle Sex County teacher of the year, a uh middle school history teacher from Carterette did a a wonderful uh you know talk and speech with us. Um really insightful and just very inspiring. Um we had uh one of our
own um Julie Mercier up there a couple of years ago. So it was great to um you know see uh the representation of North Brunswick a couple years back as well. Um, we also heard uh a legislative update. We heard a bit about um the
workshop 2025 which is in June, excuse me, which is in October in Atlantic City um which some of our board members will be attending. We'll make sure to get everyone registered for that who is interested. Um they spoke a little bit about um updates from our field service
uh representative and um the uh county had honored individuals that had gotten um certified board member, board leader um and then a variety of award recognitions on years of service. It was a great meeting to be a part of and we
had a great turnout like I had mentioned. So that should wrap up our committee reports for the evening. Um, Miss Keef, would you please take item nine? Yes, Madam President. I'd like to make a motion to approve the administrative, student, and committee reports. Second. All in favor? Is anyone
opposed? All the reports are accepted. Great. Thank you. At this time, we will review our agenda for this evening. Um, as previously mentioned in our other regular public meetings, the board has received the agenda prior to tonight's evening. So uh anything changed or added
is in bold and we will just go page by page starting with pages 2 and three. Pages four and five. Six and seven. 8 and 9. 10 and 11, 12 and
13, 14 and 15, 16 and 17, 18 and 19, pages 20 and 21, 22 and 23. 3 pages 24 and 25 26 and 27 wrapping up on 28 and
29. So at this time we will have a public session on agenda items only. If anyone from the public would like to address the board, this is the time to speak on agenda items only. We just ask that you please come to the podium, state your name, and you'll be given three minutes.
Seeing none, can I please have a motion to close the public portion of this meeting? So move. Second. All in favor? Is anyone opposed? This session is closed. Thank you. Mr. Elli, would you please take item 13?
Sure do. I would like to make a a motion to approve the following consent agenda items. Personnel one and two, curriculum one and two, miscellaneous finance items 1 through 4, policy and
transportation one and two. Second. Okay, I'm going to do a roll call here. Uh, Mr. Ali, yes. Mr. Carter, yes. Miss James, yes. Miss Keith, yes. Dr. Patel, yes. Mr. Singh, yes. Miss Toast. Yes. And Mr. W. Yes. All the motions are
approved and accepted. Thank you. Right. At this time, we will jump over to page 28, item 16. Okay. Um, at this time, we will have a public session on any matter. If anyone from the public would like to
address the board, this is now the time to speak on any matter. We just ask that you come up to the podium, state your name, and you'll be given three minutes. Good evening. Hello, my name is Crystal. I'm not sure. We can hear you, but make
sure just pull it out and make sure the buttons on the side there. We just want to make sure the recording hears you. Hello. There you go. Much better. Can you please restate your name? Yes. My name is Crystal Caukins. I have a second grader at Jud Elementary School. Um
today I wanted to talk to you guys about how much we enjoyed the soar program this year which is um the gifted and twice exceptional services at the elementary level. Um we wanted to express appreciation for Miss Varga the
soore coordinator and teacher at Jud um who has challenged my son's learning in language arts math non-verbal and socially as well. He's always coming home telling us oh I did this at soore. this was so fun or oh I got to talk to these friends at Soore. Um so that's
been great to um hear from him about Miss Varga has been really responsive and communicative with us um not just about what she and the classroom teacher are doing to differentiate the learning but she's also um constantly checking in with us, checking in with my son every
time she does a lesson with him and saying, you know, is this too hard? Is this the right level? What do you think of this? Um, so we've really appreciated that. Um, she's done a combination of pullout groups as well as pushing into the classroom and we're thankful for how
much support and enrichment that he's been able to get through her investment. Um, we also I wanted to share about a project that they recently did that we were really impressed with. Um, second and third graders got to work on a project together about tiny homes. So
they had lessons about tiny homes, learning about what they are, and then they got to design their own uh 3D projects in groups. Um so Miss Varga incorporated a lot of different disciplines, architecture, mathematics,
um art, even um environmental impact and things like that. Then Miss Varga invited parents and teachers to come and have the kids present about what they learned. And then um we got to go around um to each group and each group got to share about how they designed their
house and what details they included. Um it was just really delightful to see how proud the students were to share and answer questions um and also to practice public speaking um with a real audience. We really liked how um yeah it
was really a celebration of the things that they were learning. Um we yeah so we just wanted to express that we're really supportive of the sore program and in the future um yeah I don't know like what budgeting is like and everything but consider supporting and
investing more in the sore program. Thank you. Thank you Miss Cawkins. If I do recall, you've been at our meetings before to address the board and I, you know, feel support every time you come and address us and I appreciate, you know, the positivity that you're bringing to the
board and you're bringing to the public on um what is happening in your child's school. Um we, you know, as a board has, you know, some of us don't have children, some of us have children of young age, some of us have children that are graduating. And so, you know, for us
to hear um from a parent standpoint, what is happening in your child's school, the program, how enriching it is, how much you are all enjoying it, and you're able to see that through, you know, your son is great. It's so important to us. And budget is hard. I
will say that. But, um, it gives us a chance to look into our student achievement. And that is something that we never want to um you know cut within budgets or you know put at the you know the bottom of the list. That's you know
one of the tops of our list out of you know all the different things that we have going on um and the different happenings in the district. So really appreciate you being here and bringing us some positive news um every once in a while. So we really appreciate that. Thank you. And I actually would like to
add in there just about how the board has supported the sore program the last few years. You know, it's the G&T program and we were very much um you know, we had an afterchool program for many years and the state came out with requirements that we we do that during the school day. Um and so the board
supported adding staff in um we started with two staff and now we've we've added staff into our program and have extand expanded to Lynwood. Um, you know, it's been a gradual increase in the programming. Um, but it's very innovative and very cross uh
crosscurriculum uh planning. Uh, it really involves lots of things that you want your children to be involved in. And honestly, the North Bunwick program is truly considered in the county one of the one of the leads um in the G&T programs. So, we're very proud of it. So, thank you for coming and speaking on
that. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Seeing none, can I please have a motion to close the public portion of the meeting? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Is anyone opposed? The session is closed. Thank
you. Vice President James, would you please read our motion to go into close session? Sure. Whereas section 8 of the Open Public Meetings Act, chapter 231, public law 1975, permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting in certain circumstances. And whereas this public body is of the opinion that such
circumstances presented exist. Now therefore be it resolved by the North Brunswick Township Board of Education that the public shall be excluded from discussion of and action upon the here and after specified subject matters. The general nature of the subject matter to be discussed is as follows. Personnel matters and personnel matters for
superintendent annual evaluation. It is anticipated at this time that the above state of subject matter shall be made public at such time as the need for non-disclosure no longer exists. This resolution shall take effect immediately. Thank you. So moved. Second.
All in favor? Is anyone opposed? We can go into post session. Thank you. have a motion to return to open session. So move second. All in favor? Is anyone opposed? We're back in session. Thank you. And at this
time we don't have any motions um from our closed session. So we will just adjourn our meeting. Can we have a motion to adjourn this evening's meeting? So moved. Second. All in favor? Is anyone opposed? We are ajourned. Thank you.