[Music] berlin County Regional School District is hereby called to order this meeting is called in conformance with the Open Public Meetings Act with adequate notice provided as follows notice sent to the Berlin County Times and the Times of
Trenton March 20th 2025 notice filed with the township clerks Mansfield North Hover Chesterfield and Springfield Townships on March 20th 2025 and notice of the annual meetings advertised in the Brooklyn County Times and the Times of
Trenton on January 7th 2025 i will now call roll mr figs present mrs bond Mrs applegate present mr arminente present mr bucks Mr narwood
Mrs janice here mr spence Mr zimmer here and Miss Pierre all right thank you very much Port at this time I'd ask everyone to please stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence has any board of education member received schoolboard related emails
and/or correspondences that have not yet been shared with the superintendent all right uh Dr zuckerman if you'd like to go over your superintendent report absolutely um on this evening's agenda you will see my recommendation to fill the business administrator board secretary position
um that we have as a result of Mr cat Mr cass's retirement after a thorough search and interview process which I outlined to the board in one of my previous communications it is my recommendation to the board that Miss Jamie Williams fills the position of the school business administrator and board
secretary miss Williams has served in a number of roles within the business office and is currently working as the business admin assistant business administrator in our district i am confident that her background and skills will help her take Northern into the future
april is the month of the military child which recognizes the unique challenges that are faced by those students with parents who serves serve in our nation's armed forces the month-long celebration kicked off on Friday April 4th where Dr
dr stella and I joined a number of our students who attended the the JBMDL proclamation signing both schools have a number of events throughout the month and also throughout the year to celebrate and support these students on Saturday April 5th uh we held the
inaugural inaugural induction of the Northern Burlington Hall of Fame in addition to the Northern Burlington administrators who were in attendance I was joined by Laura Bond and Tina Janice at this event as you may remember early earlier this year we announced that we would be switching from the Northern
Burlington Athletic Hall of Fame to the Northern Burlington Hall of Fame to say this evening was a success is a huge understatement it has always been a very special evening to hear about the impact that Northern Burlington has had on the lives of these extremely successful
individuals we will be working with the many of the inductees to have them come back either in person or virtually to speak with our students to share about their experience this will give our students the opportunity to learn not only about the history of Northern Burlington and also
to learn from the experiences of most of these many accomplished graduates on this evening's agenda you will see the comprehensive equity plan in 2023 state law required us to develop a three-year comprehensive equity plan
that is due by June 2025 before we can submit the plan to the NJ DOE it has to be approved by the executive county and super county superintendent the plan is required to include measures that ensure equitable treatment in the school and
classroom practices this document specifically addresses the district curricula access to the school including activities and programs equitable treatment for pregnant and married students to eliminate all forms of harassment including including sexual
harassment intimidation and bullying and the appointment of an affirmative action officer who the board appoints during our reorganization meeting in January lastly last week Northern Burlington ran a countywide reunification training the
intent of this training is to allow the participating districts to develop and implement a common reunification plan should we have to reunite the students with their families outside of the normal dismissal process this program will allow each district to send several staff members
to the school and or district during a reunification event the shared staff members would help implement the reunification process which would allow the local staff members to support the students instead of having to facilitate the entire reunification this was just the first of
many meetings and training surrounding this topic i am proud of the leadership that Northern Burlington has taken within this initiative that concludes my report any questions all right thank you Dr zuckerman uh Mr cass if you please go over your business
administrator's report sure thank you um excuse me uh good news today uh the state approved our our tenative uh 2526 budget so we will uh advertise for
a public budget hearing at our next meeting on May 5th uh here in the uh main cafeteria cafeteria um at 7:30 so um that's good news uh also we continue
to um implement the spending plan you'll see two resolutions on the agenda one for the uh replacement of the U middle school cafeterium rooftop unit for
$425,000 to CM3 and then uh you'll see the replacement of the marquee out front um that is uh guess over 13 years old and so uh that too is is on the uh
agenda um also on tonight's agenda is the renewal in our u Berlin County Insurance pool joint insurance fund um it's a three-year renewal we renewed last year but they asked for volunteers to help um make it more even the school
districts that come up for renewal each year um so we volunteered and uh so we'll pass a resolution tonight um to renew for the another three years um and and hopefully that'll make uh some of the implementation with our
joint insurance fund easier in years to come uh also uh on the agenda uh tomorrow we are scheduled for reverse energy auction for our electric um power supply um I've been doing this for quite
some time um we go out to bid and it's uh like a reverse auction so someone will come in and and bid and then someone can come in and bid lower the kilowatt so um the authorization uh
there's a resolution that authorizes me to uh hold the reverse energy auction and then um choose a uh new electric supplier and you'll uh be informed what the results
of that auction is at our next meeting um if the auction does not go well we're not um we're not uh obligated to go with uh those rates but I feel confident in the
electrical supply um market right now that uh we'll get better rates than what we're currently paying uh likewise with the gas supply our gas um supply contract isn't up until next year but uh
with the soft spot market right now we're going to go out and see if uh we can't do better uh if the rates are better uh we'll talk to our consultant about obligating us beyond uh the 26
school year um for uh gas supply rates also in my report um you will see about uh graduation if you plan on attending just please let me know uh for anyone new to the board uh we're going to need
some information about your um college gown and cap so uh that's in the uh in my report and also this time of year we start looking at um the board self avail and the superintendent
evaluation and last but not least uh the financial uh disclosure uh forms are due at the end of this month i think pretty much all but one of you have completed the forms or in the process of making revisions to to the form so uh we're in
good shape uh with the exception of of one of you and I'll be reaching out to you soon that concludes my report thank you Mr cass uh any questions anyone all right uh Dr karns if you'd like to
give your middle school principal report please i can just talk loud i'd prefer that all right good evening members of the board i just gave you you have my uh my board report but this just run through the highlights there we had our eighth grade dialogue we were represented by uh
Heaven Brown at the um um school boards association event um it was actually the last board meeting that we had it was that that evening so we give a shout out to Heaven Brown for representing Northern Burlington there at that event um we begin the process of welcoming our incoming class of 2031 um we had our
open house our parent orientation program on March 12th and then we welcomed um two schools each day we had North Handover in Springfield on the the 13th and then Chesterfield and Mansfield came over to the middle school on the 14th did a little orientation program fed them lunch that's the high point of their day and did some other other
activities took them on a tour and talked to them about their course selections this past weekend was our our spring musical Beetlejuice Jr if you had a chance to get out and see it i know at least one of you was there for for both nights but it was a excellent show and uh the the cast crew directors did a
really nice job um we are coming up on NJSLA testing season um we are going to do that a little bit differently this year to last several years we we've done the testing over half days and this year we're going to do instead of two sections a day we're going to do one section of of testing each day and we
believe that's going to allow us to well it will allow us to to be in there for the full day and the students will get to see all of their classes um some of just a little bit shorter than normal but we're we're looking forward to to doing that um our eighth graders will take the science test April 29th through May 2nd and then all of our students
seventh graders and eighth graders will do the ELA and math sections May 19th through the through the 23rd um our students organized the observance of Day of Silence that was was today pretty uneventful but we had our students you know take you know make a statement about you know working to help students
who are are perhaps bullied or or other you know treated poorly otherwise because of their sexual orientation we had the month of the military child all of this this April um we had one of our military students lead us in the pledge of allegiance each uh each day we had a reception for our military students last
week on April April 10th every Thursday we're wearing purple because that is the uh the color of the military uh child and again acknowledging the the unique challenges that are faced by our students who come from military families this week we are are doing our
annual uh community service project our want to want to thank the the generosity of of the community in supporting this but what we do is we have our students uh work with the the Trenton area soup kitchen we make bagged peanut butter and jelly u lunches that they that we uh
deliver up to the Tinaria soup kitchen again I just can't get over the the amount of of donations in kind our our workroom is is filling up with loaves of bread and jars of peanut butter and um and then as well as donations in cash that I'm going to go use to to buy some of the supplies that maybe we need a little extra for so we're looking
forward to doing that and that'll be April 17th that's our last day before before spring break um concert season is is coming up um our band is going to take the stage on May 7th and our chorus May 14th if you want to come out those those shows are both at 7 p.m and
talking about near the end of the year our eighth grade class night is uh is June 6th the same night as the uh the high school prop so those are the you know main items from my board report are there any questions I can answer for the members of the board when's the last day to accept donations for the April 17th
event if you you want to bring something anybody can bring something in we we did like the counting today like to see what it was there and I've been given my my grocery list but if anybody wants to give a donation we will we'll certainly change our totals to to reflect that anything particularly low um the juice
boxes um desserts and um like fruit cups those are the things they they tend to be a little bit more expensive but um we got lots of bread lots of lots of peanut butter but those are the things that tend to be a little short when we're we're counting them up thank you you're welcome other questions and thank you
all right thank you thank you Dr kurts um 2.04 is consent agenda item for the approval of the HIP reports 2.05 is consent agenda item for the approval of the superintendence reports um committeewise uh Mrs bond do
you have the community relations committee report yeah yeah so the committee met on March 24th we have a lot of exciting news to announce um I'm going to read through a pretty lengthy report so just bear with me um so the first item on our agenda was the
district mission statement update so Dr zuckermanman shared uh data from the mission statement thought exchange to date over 1,800 individuals have responded committee members suggested ways to increase involvement of community stakeholders this includes
contacting each municipality to publicize the request via their social media the timeline will be extended beyond this week all right that was back in March to permit um this input following the engagement time frame there will be drafts of the statement released and opportunities for
stakeholders to give feedback on the drafts in addition the district's historic relationship with Middle States Association to revise the mission statement and profile of a graduate was also reviewed nb is currently accredited through the 2027 school year and the
benefits costs and challenges associated with this process were discussed the district will determine its future relationship with Middle States in the coming weeks next Dr mccann provided an update to the high school arrival to school um and she discussed the changes that have been made this year to shift
locations and supervision to more efficiently coordinate morning arrival expanding parking to juniors has also mitigated student lateness incidents of lateness arrival um to to the building have decreased anecdotally the decreases
all right have um average from 20 students to a small handful next the district's attendance policy all right was discussed uh the consequences um for unexcused late were reviewed and discussed including four
lateates equating to a third uh 3:30 detention uh late from 5 to 7 accumulated will carry no consequence eight lateates will result in a 530 detention the relevant data was shared to contextualize the minimal number of
impacted students and the interventions the high school administrative team is using to improve outcomes so this is all good news um state approved reasons for excused absences were also reviewed at that um point on the agenda so um another item
that we're excited to share with the community is the synthetic turf update and projected timeline um the bud uh the project was approved by the board last week all right and the time frame was reviewed including contingencies for relocating athletic competitions in September
should there be delays substantially complete was defined as done with the exception of punch list items there is no financial penalty for such the details include grading the field revising the long jump and high jump
track resurfacing and drainage relocation outside of the track the high jump will be resurfaced and the shopput regraded the material to support temperature reduction was also discussed and reviewed oversight and management of the space meaning lights community loose
use etc will be a component to be resolved in conjunction with the startup potential changes to the fees associated with the community were also discussed a potential portal for scheduling all right field use was identified as school
space possibly uh communication to the community regarding the project will be disseminated shortly um in addition to that the auditorium project update and projected timeline was also reviewed preliminary components of the site supervision that will be
required were introduced um so all exciting stuff for the high school um also discussed at our meeting was uh the uh use of nurses uh um and on overnight trips so historically the only overnight trip for
which a nurse has been provided is the senior trip to Florida guidance includes adding nurses to all trips an inquiry was made regarding a parent regarding regarding parent sign off of students administering medication a possible
solution could include parent attendance as a chaperone for this year's senior trip a substitute nurse has been hired by the district calendar development for internal nurse coverage and hiring additional sub nurses will be proposed next we also reviewed the comprehensive
equity plan development all right and submission to the state is required by June 23rd and I believe that's on uh the agenda for approval tonight the culture and climate survey was also discussed and it's being developed to admin be administered in the beginning of May so that's another great step um that the
school and the district is making and then reviewed timelines all right for that um the district newsletter frequency was also brought up we discussed when those would go out and the last the impact aid funding um clearly uh one of the things that has
been top of mind is the uncertainty around all the funding federal impact aid has been allocated for this year which is good news it is uncertain if federal impact aid will be relocated to another department or reallocated to the states so this was a busy meeting but we
got it all done and um thank you very much uh Dr stella for taking the the great notes any questions thank you for your patience thank you Mrs bond um so for delegate reports Mr
bucks isn't here today mr anything from Burlington County um on legislative there is a new law passed involving sunscreen i'm sure we'll get a policy update in the next alert that has to go into to effect um but in terms of uh sunscreen and uh sun
protective clothing usage at school and stuff like that you know it's not requiring students to use it necessarily and doesn't require doctor's notes or anything like that but it is a policy on I believe encouragement of of sunscreen uh so I said I'm sure that'll be in our
our next stress estimate alert but that one was uh was passed at the end of March so um otherwise some some movement on the assembly and the senate side but you know I'd rather rather list them all wait and see how they get and go anywhere so
um so now I believe we'll move on to the SSDS presentation thank you Mr ben all right as Mr lee is is getting it up and running um this is our our bannual
presentation of of student safety data systems and we go through this hopefully I won't go backwards or mess it up dr mc will take it from me if I mess it up as she should um it's the midyear report so this is from September through December we will come back to you like we do
always in October and we'll give the report on the full year so all all a lot of the the numbers you're going to see are just just from the first part of the year um Steve is not doing anything the operator there we go
so we both have um some slides here talk about the things that we're trying to do to to prevent um some of the issues we report on tonight like violence vandalism substance abuse and and uh bullying but you know middle school we're trying to create a positive climate for our students every day and some things that we do we want to
educate our students to make good choices and and do good things so in our formal curriculum like for example in our um apps for academics it's the computer class that all of our seventh graders take for a semester there's a piece in there about digital citizenship where you know what is it you're posting
online how do you make those choices etc which is extremely relevant as you might imagine health classes decision-making healthy relationships also part of our our regular program um we have some special programs uh PBSIS and no place for hate um PBSIS we're doing we we you
see the the banners in the middle school where we're everybody's going to be ready respectful and responsible we try to recognize students when they're doing positive things build on that and have different rewards programs and again just just focusing on what it is we want them to do and then reinforce it we have the Stop it app you know it gives an
opportunity for students to report on things that perhaps are um you they're uncomfortable maybe going to the office or going to going to an adult they can go online and make an anonymous report and that's been helpful to maybe address some smaller problems before they they grow larger and as I mentioned before we want to recognize positive behavior and
celebrate it the MB3 tickets that's part of our PBS initiative where everybody's going to be ready respectful and responsible we have smart cookies our teachers have the opportunity to nominate a student every every month in one of their classes um for some sort of positive quality last month it was for for being a leader we go into the class
right in the middle of class and present them with a certificate that they can get a uh a cookie at at lunch but again we're recognizing them in front of all their their classmates for doing something something positive and we are we bring our students of the month to you um several times a year and you again see that opportunity for us to recognize the students for doing good
stuff there i'll turn it over all right so for high school a few pieces so first some special programs did it work i mean I don't work okay um we are bringing steered straight to campus during NJSLA testing and we'll have a rotation of grade levels that are
able to attend that presentation um that's something that Mr moss our substance uh use counselor worked hard to bring in he felt like the program looked really valuable for our students to hear about and as you'll see in some of the later numbers about SSDs we are working through um students vaping and things in the building that we want to
curb so making sure that they have um that's a real world uh example from somebody who's made it through some of those challenges um we also have after the fire which comes every year um there uh from the Satan Hall fire that happened a number of years ago there are survivors who come in and talk about their story and talk about um safe
practices both now and then going forward um we're also bringing in the drive alive tour so something that we were asked about was where does that junior senior parking money go from parking spots that's going towards paying for the drive alive um program to come in and students will get to use a simulator before prom and um really see
what it feels like to be under the influence in the hope that they realize how scary and challenging it is um and make wise choices um going forward press it nope okay um in addition to that we student recognition some of the same things that you heard from Dr karns we have those
smart cookie awards um we give out teacher recognition um which is the golden apple at each faculty meeting to recognize staff that are going above and beyond um we had our day of silence today um and then our no place for hate group organizes other activities throughout the year so our door
decorating for Black History Month um celebrations around Black History Month uh Hispanic Heritage Month and Women's History Month um we have the pledge signing and the paw prints that are over on that wall and then multicultural day which students are really excited about which happens on Thursday and it's always the Thursday before spring break
um where students during PE class will be able to go down students have submitted uh post or trifolds with information about um their cultural heritage or um for some of our you know students that are in the military maybe somewhere they've lived that they learned a lot about the culture there that they want to share with other uh
students in the building and that's all vetted through the adviserss to make sure that it's really positive information and the kids have an opportunity to then visit all the tables during that day um in addition to that we have climate committee meetings with staffer they're able to come and bring up questions comments concerns um in a way that is directly with me so we can
kind of think through how to brainstorm um potential challenges and how to work through them and we also use the stop it app like you heard from Dr ks um so next we're going to talk through some of the summary from um the SSDS report that gets uh submitted so there's five broad categories that
you'll see the statistics about violence HIV harassment intimidation and bullying vandalism weapons and substance abuse um and this gets submitted using the information that's been inputed through discipline into the state system um so these numbers are really small um certainly you can kind of look
the the nice piece about this chart is it kind of shows you a year-over-year um so both for high school on the top row and then middle school for each of the the categories of violence vandalism weapons and substance abuse um you'll see that those numbers kind of eb and flow um throughout the years but I think
a good way to to provide some comparison for where we're at now versus where we've been in other years yeah why why do you think the drop off um I mean I know it's mid year but any thoughts on what might be why violence
is down and substance abuse is down or nothing really con I don't I don't know um and having no years to compare it to it's harder for me I don't know if you have any ideas on your end you're you're um I
mean I know it's mid year but I mean you see a trend where violence has gone down and if you look at substance abuse in the high school um sub it's gone down over the years any thoughts on what might be causing that just random
or hated over yeah back on that i'm glad I asked him if he had an answer that was That's fair no that's fair that's a good answer thank you anything else on this slide you have
okay um so this is just our breakdown of the individual categories and the numeric value for each of those and how that kind of breaks out throughout the year this provides you with a little bit more information related to what those instances were um and how they were categorized into the report um right
right i think sometimes you hear like vandalism and you're like "Oh my gosh what was happening in the school?" Like somebody messed with a paper towel dispenser that's not that that is not problematic but if we're thinking about like what could vandalism look like I think sometimes it's helpful to have some of the categorization that's on the slide
get the screws out of the why would you want to begin with and also next one I think um again just a summary of confirmed HIPS that wasn't broken out um year-over-year in the previous slide but it's broken out here um and again I
think some years we see a spike I think sometimes the stop it app has made it so that kids now maybe have a different way that they can report that's a little bit more anonymous um so if in the past they were maybe concerned about repercussions of that i think also that um this is the number of HIS that are confirmed so
we've had substantially more that have been submitted but only if they're confirmed and they end up in this report so that um is kind of how we end up there um this we just like what Dr mccann just described we get ones that are investigated and this is through December so this is not What are we in
April this is not through April but there were four at the point submitted in both schools and in both schools two were confirmed any other questions that's sort of the end of our our slideshow yeah thank you for the presentation i had a question about the stop it app where would students find it and then
how how does does the school get an alert that a student submitted something like how does that or how many students are using it i couldn't say how many students use it and I certainly let Dr we can address it from the the high school as well but but it's something that we um we talk about early on in the school year and you can tell when we
talk about it because all of a sudden we start getting all these stop its like that that later that afternoon but um kids can download an app on their on their phone and you you can download the app on your phone if you wanted to you select the school and then you you submit the um the information once once
students submit an an issue depending on how serious it is sometimes we've had um an agent from the the stop at company reach out to us you know at some crazy hour because they see something that's that's very concerning or other times it's something like somebody's throwing something on the bus and and that you
know when schools open we get a we get a text message we get an email and it's anonymous it doesn't say who who sent it we have the ability to message them back and sometimes we'll we'll send them you know I'd like to know more about it can can you tell me you know which who who's involved what's going on and sometimes they'll respond to us other times you'll
get you'll get nothing back um and it's helpful to you know like someone's throwing something on the bus when we get on the bus we be sort of you know work work that through and and hopefully that prevents it from turning into a fight later on or maybe there's something more significant and we're able to to address it so it's on the students phone it's not like on the
district website i think I think there's a a link to it on from our our website as well um but again you're you're you're it's anonymous um you can't tell a couple times we've had some things we we would wish we knew who sent it in but there there's no way for us to to trace that back and that's that's the
intention yeah the only other thing I would add is that we have signs up on the inside doors of the girls bathroom stalls not every single one but in in various bathrooms so if they were you know looking for a way to to reach out they can scan the QR code that's on the flyer as another way to to get to it um I think it's also been helpful for us
about like we you know we had one about like you know are kids gambling we're concerned about these websites and we can just go to Mr lee and say can you just block these right so sometimes even if they don't provide us with more information there's like a roundabout way that we can get something done with it at least if we
know yeah yes [Music] thank you october thank you very much Mr lee check if there's any comments on agenda items all right thank
you all right i'll now move on to the consent agenda items on the consent agenda are believed to be items of routine nature requiring no discussion and which are to be voted upon a single roll call vote to the board any single member of the board
may have any of the items on the consent agenda removed and placed on the other part of the agenda for discussion merely by so indicating prior to the vote to be taken on the consent agenda items removed from the consent agenda are identified by an asterisk and will be subject to discussion by the full
board right uh 5.02 is approval of the work session minutes from March 17th 5.03 03 is approval of the regular meeting minutes from March 24th 5.04 is approval of the executive session minutes from March 17th 5.05 is approval
of the financial report the board secretary for February 2025 5.06 is approval of the treasurer's report for February 2025 5.07 is approval of the budget transfers for February 2025 5.08 08 is approval of the
cafeteria report for February 2025 and 5.09 is the resolution of the board regarding budgetary major account fund status are there any questions or comments in section 5 all right section six is approval of
the bills list for April 14th 2025 any question for section six all right section 7 business and financial 7.02 02 is approval of board and staff travel uh 7.03 is approval of
professional services contract 7.04 is approval of professional services 7.05 is approval of the purchase and installation of HVAC unit 7.06 is approval of the ward of contract KC signs and awnings 7.07 is approval to
renew membership of the BCIP GIF 7.08 08 is authorizing the purchase of electric supply services for public use on an online auction website 7.09 is approve authorizing the purchase of natural gas supply services for public use on the
online auction website and 7.10 is acceptance of donation for NHS any questions or comments on section 7 all right section 8 uh 8.02 is approval of out of district placement
8.03 03 is approval of home instruction services 8.04 is approval of option 2 for the 2526 school year and 8.05 is approval of guest guest speaker any questions or comments on section 8 section 9 personnel appointments 9.02
is approval of certificated appointment 9.03 is approval of high school extracurricular advisor 9.04 04 is approval of additional work assignments and 9.05 is approval of mentor any questions or comments on section
9 right we have no items in section 10 this evening section 11 is approval of leaves of absence any questions or comments for section 11 section 12.02 is approval of resignation any questions or comments on section
12 all right section 13 uh 13.02 03 and 04 are approval of job descriptions um 13.05 is approval of classroom observation any questions on section
13 section 14 14.02 is approval of the comprehensive equity plan any questions or comments for section 14 right section 15 15.02 02 is the approval of policies for adoption on the second reading and 15.03 is the
regulations for adoption any questions or comments on section 15 right we have no items in section 16 this evening section 17.02 is the approval of use of facilities for the CTAA track program
17.03 03 is approval of the use of facilities for the Mansfield Township Youth Recreational Track Program 17.04 is approval of the use of facilities for the Northern Burlington Relay for Life Teams any questions or comments on section
17 all right with that um we will do the consent agenda vote can I get a motion for the consent agenda can I get a second second all right Mr can if you could please do a roll call vote certainly 1801 consent agenda
resolutions yay nay or abstain mr figs yay mrs bond yay abstain 5.02 abstain 5.04 got it this is applicant yay mr arminente yay mr bucks mr narwood mrs
janice yes mr spence mr zimmer yes all right thank you motion passes all right thank you Mr cass mr if you please public comment ladies and gentlemen this meeting will now be open to the public for comments please note that the board
is here to listen the public comment period is not designed to be a discussion accordingly please do not expect the board to respond to your concerns and questions this evening we take your concerns and questions very seriously and want to have sufficient time to allow our administration to process and research issues if need be
we will however respond to your questions and concerns at a future meeting or have the proper staff member get back to you at the appropriate time also please note that if your questions or comments pertain to litigation students personnel or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since
we do not discuss these items in public please keep in mind that the public comment session is an opportunity for you to share your opinions and remarks with the board and it is not a question and answer session we also recognize that our community may be polarized on some issues we want our schoolboard
meeting to serve as an example to our students that each member of the board and community can deal with controversial issues in a civil manner and demonstrate mutual respect for everyone's views in that spirit we ask that all speakers please address their comments to the board directly rather than the audience and all speakers and
members of the public show respect for others views and maintain civility during the meeting please state your name municipality of residence and group affiliation if applicable comments will be limited to 3 minutes per person and the total comment period to 30 minutes only those who have signed up on the
public comment signin sheets will be allowed to speak this evening the individual time limits will be enforced so that as many members of the public who wish to speak may be allowed to do so luke Klein board uh my name is Luke Klein i live in Columbus New Jersey and I'm here on my
behalf of my child i'm here again to ask the board to follow up on the allegations I made to the board about two months ago i did receive a response in writing from you Mr fig Mr figs and Dr zuckerman i have heard absolutely nothing since and I was expected to get
a response and the way I read the law it's supposed to be in a in a in a reasonable amount of time you know it's supposed to be done quickly there's no set amount of time but 2 months is enough to give an opportunity to investigate we have continued to have challenges with the administrators
regarding our services to give our child the free and appropriate education public education she's entitled to a the administration has attempted to deny rights that our daughter could have had under 504 causing a back and forth to making making us repeatedly advocate for
our child's rights in our most recent conversation with Dr mccann and Miss Cullen Dr mccann does not seem to have knowledge and be informed about students with mental health needs this is evident by a statement made on a recent phone conversation when trying to not provide
support she stated that Amanda she sees Amanda from time to time in school and she seems to look fine that statement alone is beyond ignorant and shows no understanding of mental health this is not the only employee that has a lack of awareness and understanding of individuals with anxiety and other mental health needs
this was previously brought to the attention of the superintendent and he was supposed to investigate as brought to your attention as the whole board during the meeting with the child study team earlier this year we had similar interactions and not everybody understand and their lack of
understanding of individuals with mental health needs is evident and there's a great need professional for professional development by your staff lastly I'd like to bring to your attention the violation of student rights that has recently occurred we had asked the district to record and provide a copy of
our conversation that we had with Dr mccann and Miss Cullen we picked it up only to learn that we were not provided with copy of our child's record we were provided with an hourong conversation of another child's record i'm going to give it to you if you give somebody a student
record you should probably verify it's that child's record said uh we asked that we would like to know what happened to our copy of my child's record if we were given this other family's record where's ours who has ours you guys should be looking into
that and I'd like a written response on that thank you for your time thank you Tara Klein all right thank you christina Drum
christina Drum Springfield Township and I am a Springfield Township Education Board of Ed member all the opinions are of my own and do not have any reflection of my board um I want to thank um I guess Dr mccann
for uh you know finally having like an answer to where the money goes towards for um all the parking spots that the seniors pay for um to know that there's cuz we've had this conversation prior Dr zuckermanman as far as wondering you
know that safety program and and you know we never saw or heard or anything of it so to us it was just money being collected and you know what was that being used for um but I am kind of curious n you know
if you have 300 spots $30 a spot that's $9,000 i don't know if that is in fact what that program actually costs or you know and if so or let's say this if not um you know ex coming to
that amount is there any residual monies left over and if so what is that money you know then get used for and how do the students benefit from that um and then outside of that does every senior get the privilege to be able to use the simulation you
know how is that handled um or is that only for those who want to use it um and then I know this applies to the agenda item but I'm just going to say that um the marquee replacement um I'm just you know curious to know like what
is the lifespan of the marquee and um I know I've seen it probably glitch maybe one or two times but um you know with replacing and having you know a new one being put out there like what what is the typical lifespan cuz I it seems like a whole lot of money to be spending on
something but um that's just you know from what I know and I would just be curious to know like you know what that investment is and how much long are you you know getting that out of that um and other than that I'm you know coming to the end of my years here as a
parent um at Northern um I've had many experiences over the years and um as we're you know approaching graduation you know my daughter currently um is playing lacrosse and I one of the things that um it's kind of like a pet peeve I
guess I can say is that but it's also it's a bigger than that it's actually a safety issue um you know we've done a lot of upgrades in the school and it surprises me that um with this the standards that are out there especially for handicap safety purposes like the
fields that are in the back how is it that we do not have a set of stairs with railings leading down to the field um to where the walkway is the only area that is safe to enter you know to go to those fields in the back to go to like field hockey and lacrosse or soccer um the
only area is like when you're really close to where the blue barn is that's probably the only area that's fairly level other than that the majority of the people who park in that back parking lot it's it's a steep incline going down um and it opposes you know to me it's a
huge safety especially when you have like grandparents and those other individuals that you know you're you're potentially putting you know people at a risk of a fall um and then I'd like the school to also look into or maybe put on their plan as far as what it is that you
do when you have parents or grandparents those individuals coming to the events how are they to get in hold of um like the athletic director or whoever is driving the Gator to then provide those individuals um transportation to
the fields i know we have it but I'm going to say it's really not very um apparent as far as how that is supposed to take place for those who who need that service thank you thank you very much and we'll close
public comment all right uh future dates um May 5th is a curriculum committee meeting prior to the work session meeting um as Mr cass mentioned there will be u budget presentation and I believe that uh May 5th and May 12th we have the buildings
ground finance transportation meeting prior to our regular board meeting um and uh for the superintendent valuations um as you guys know they are mandatory we do have to get them done to turn them in um I know Dr zerman will give us a
little more information um during executive session in that May 5th um so if you want to wait till that after that session to do the evaluation and then I'll encourage you all to try to do it in the the first two to three weeks after that so that I can get them processed through NJSBA um does anyone have any old
business or new business they'd like to refer to committee or to request from Dr zuckermanman or Mr cass i have one so we we just heard some testimony on um the thumb drive were we aware of that
that they got the wrong drive had something like that happen that's a pretty big miss on our part any thoughts that you're willing to share i agree and I just learned about it so I need to look into that got it fair enough thank you
all right um I I have a general um share amongst the board so Relay for Life is coming up and um I was happy to make a collection last year working with the board members so I'm happy to do that again this year and I want to encourage you all to come out it was a fun night i
know um it's going to start a little bit earlier this year so um you know please consider coming out but I'll be reaching out to you guys about collecting a donation on behalf of the board thanks all right yeah yes saturday May 17th it's not going to go overnight this
year it's from 3 to 10 hopefully outside weather cooperating all right 3:00 i didn't get a correction from Dr mccel i'm assuming that's correct 3:00 relay for Life four o'clock thank you i
did get a correction yeah got that Frank all right all right uh thank you thank you everyone uh if I can get a motion for adjournment second all right all those in favor yay all opposed abstensions right have a
great night everyone