--------- and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We appreciate you all joining us this evening. Um, I have nothing additional
for our president report outside of what was already mentioned during our school budget presentation. Uh if you do have time once this is posted uh once the meeting is posted online and you're just joining us, I do ask that you go back and you watch our presentation, you review, and you see all the great things this district is doing to push forward
our budget this year. Uh and if you are just joining us virtually, welcome. Thank you for being here. Let's move to our student representatives report. Hi, I'm Brook Todd. So in sports, both of our boys and girls lacrosse teams are three and three in their division. Um, our baseball team is currently 10 and
three and they won their first game in the Monam County tournament and they in the second round they're going to play RBC on May 3rd. Our softball team is 5-8 and their next game is April 30th against Kingsburg. Our boys tennis team is 8-2 and our girls and boys track
teams just went to the Penn Relays. Um, Leah Starky placed eighth in the 300 meter and was the first freshman across the finish line. And then at the Colts Neck Invitational, Olivia Palutus broke the 400 meter hurdle record. Um I'm Caroline Baraselo and some of our
activities um DECA some of our members are currently at their ICDC conference in Orlando. The Italian club just went on their trip to New York and they have international light tomorrow. Um both the junior and senior prom bids are currently on sale. while junior bids are
$75 and senior bids are $150. Last week, the science club celebrated Earth Week by doing mindful activities for the students at lunch, which included coloring, plant making, and they did a clean sweep after school. Thank you, ladies. Appreciate that
greatly. Wonderful report, Mrs. Walden. Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. Have some fun. Now, let's have some fun. Okay. Before I get to our honores this evening, I did just want to make an announcement. I received an email uh actually Friday from the
department of education uh regarding um some of our per recent performance. The person who emailed me is a data analyst for the NJ DOE whose direct purpose is to identify exceptional performance in school districts across the state. And
they have identified us for our exceptional performance in our multilingual learner four-year graduation rate. We are top 30 in the state of New Jersey. I would just like to congratulate Mrs. Don Kazuba at the high school, Dr. Kicia Morgan, and Mrs.
Cecilia Via who's not here this evening, but uh who does oversee that department and the staff that works there and the students for their tremendous hard work to uh bring this recognition to our district. It was not something I've ever received as a superintendent and I was
quite proud of the work of our district and what we were able to accomplish for our students. So, I did want to make the board aware and the public as well. Okay, on to our honored guests. I would like to ask Miss Kazuba to come up first. I don't see Mr. Titmas here this
evening, but Mr. Titmas is our band director and deserves some kudos here as well as tonight we honor freshman David Ferda. Come on up. David was accepted into the Allshore Symphonic Bands for third chair
trombone. Wow. Unbelievable honor. I'll just add also that Samantha Pagnoni was also accepted into the into the Austin Allshore Symphonic Band, but couldn't be here this evening. So, congratulations to David, to your family. Come on up. Please take a photo
and uh to Samantha as well who couldn't be here. Go ahead everybody get in. Thank you. Very nice. Congratulations. All right. And now I have Mr. Ammano up here so we can honor Mrs. Diane Brandon. Please come on up. Miss Brandon was
named as a 2025 fellow by the organization Fund for Teachers. This summer, Miss Brandon, who works at our Ocean Township Intermediate School as a special education science teacher, will team up with teachers from other states to collaborate with
scientists conducting authentic research on po, the world's largest living organism. Yes, I had to Google it and learn about it when I heard about this. This is at Utah's Fish Lake National Forest. Wow. These teachers designed this fun for teachers fellowship to
develop inquirybased curriculum content and create meaningful connections between teachers, students, and the outdoors. Diane is one of 355 teachers from across the country awarded 1.625 million in fund for
teachers grant. She didn't receive 1.625 million, but she she she did get a good portion of that. And just also to say a little bit about Miss Brandon and and her work at at TOIS. She's been responsible for many programs over there. Trout in the classroom, outdoor
learning lab and school garden, indoor friendship garden, society for science and why laces youth learning as citizen environmental scientist. So and also NJNG champions of sustainability
contest. So, Miss Brandon's work in this area is vast and her commitment to helping our students become active citizens in their own environment as uh is is quite notable. So, congratulations and thank you for all you do.
Trout in his classroom. I love it. Great. Congratulations again and good luck with your project. Mr. President, that concludes my report this evening. Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you, Ms. Welton. M. Brandon, we look forward to
what you'll bring back to us from this because I know it'll be exciting and more wonderful things for our district. We appreciate that. We look look forward to it very much. Your leg, please. Thank you. Uh school business administrators report, Mr. Acings.
Ladies, thank you, please. I have nothing additional, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Acings. I appreciate it. Approval of minutes. Mr. building. Sorry, pardon me. I keep I keep jumping to that for you. I apologize. Board of
Education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest. Public comment is not a question and answer session. Specific questions can be directed to the administration. The superintendent's contact information is
on the podium and available on the school district website. We encourage you to contact her with any questions you may have. Public participation will be governed by the following rules. Each statement will be made by a participant and limited to under five minutes in duration. No participant may speak more
than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard. And the presiding officer may request any person to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable decorum. Would anyone from the public like to make a comment on any item at this time?
Uh, Alex Hayes, Oakst, not shocked you were trying to rush through the the public comment section. Um, I've been lucky enough to be a um, it wasn't lost on me. Um, and I say that actually jokingly. Um, I've been lucky enough to be a judge for the New
Jersey School Boards Association Steam Tank US Army um, innovation invention contest this year. I've done more than 12. Um, and it always blows my mind how smart these kids are, whether it's from
our district or beyond, whether they are first graders or seniors, and we always do exceptionally well, and I can't wait to hear the report on how Ocean students do in like a month or so when the finals are done. So, I just wanted to reiterate
my um my utmost like thrilled and happiness with how what good the teams are doing. Um, I'd like to request a copy of the scope of work for um the prek bathrooms. Um, I know you said they're
not just toilets cuz it made me think of are they like Trump golden toilets or something? But if there are three schools and we're spending $700,000 and grants are going to pay for some of it, but we have to pay for $465,000 to upgrade the bathrooms. I'm just curious what the scope of work
actually looks like. So, I'll be emailing you and this is a physical question. Can I have the scope of work, please? Um, just final comment. It seems there was a lot more time um spent reading the budget pages, those PDFs than, you know,
asking actual questions. I know you all have been asking a few questions here and there for the last few weeks. Um, I do appreciate the dialogue and I thank you. Um, and I actually really appreciate the chance for true question and answer session for once and getting
real responses and real answers. Thanks. Thank you, Mrs. Hayes. Any other members of the public who have any comments at this time? Wonderful. Uh, Mrs. Conway, do we have anyone virtually would like to comment on anything at this time? No, Mr. President. There are no commenters.
Thank you, Mrs. Conway. Mr. Dolan, minutes, please, sir. Thank you, Mr. President. Approval of items 51 through 53. Second, would you call the role? This is 51 through 53. Mr. Brady,
yes. Mr. Dalton, yes. Mrs. Dam, yes. Mr. Gilman, yes. Mr. McGovern, yes. Mr. Schneider, yes. Miss Stevens, yes. Mr. Terico, yes. Mr. McGover, I'm sorry, Mr. McCarthy. Yes. Thank you. Motion carries. Personnel, Mrs. McGovern. Um,
move to approve items 6.1 to 6.9. Can I have a second? Second. Serious. All items 6.1 to 6.9. Mr. Brady. Yes. Mr. Dolan. Yes, Mrs. Dam. Yes, Mrs. Gilman. Yes, Mrs. McGovern. Yes, Mr.
Schneider. Yes, Miss Stevens. Yes, Mrs. Telerico. Yes, uh, Mr. McCarthy. Yes, Mr. Carrie. Financial Management Resource Services. Mrs. Stan, move to approve item 7.1 to 7.21. Do I have a second?
Second. Mr. Hastings. Thank you. 71 through 721. Mr. Brady, yes. Uh, Mr. Dalton, yes. Mrs. Stan, yes. Skilman, yes. Mr. Mrs. McGovern, yes. Mr. Schneider, yes. Miss Stevens, yes. Mrs. Telerico,
yes. But notice 7.11. Sorry. 7.1 one one. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Mr. McCarthy. Yes. Motions carry. Thank you. Instruction, Education, Student Activities. Mr. Dalton. Thank
you, Mr. McCarthy. Move to approve items 8.1 through 8.5. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Hastings. Would you call the RO? This is 81 through 85. Mr. Brady, yes. Mr. Dalton, yes. Mrs. Dam, yes. Mrs. Gilman, yes. Mrs.
McGovern, yes. Mr. Schneider, yes. Miss Stevens, yes. Melico, yes. Uh, Mr. Mia. Yes. Motion's carry. Negotiations. Mrs. McGovern. Um, I'd like to move to approve item 9.1. Do I
have a second? Second. Thank you. Seriousness. This is 9.1. Um, Mr. Brady. Yes. Mr. Dalton. Yes. Mr. Stan. Yes. Mr. Scaleman. Recuse. Uh, Mrs. McGovern. Yes, Mr. Schneider.
Yes, Miss Stevens. Yes, Mrs. Telerico. Yes, Mr. McCarthy. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Policy, Mrs. Gilman. Yes, Mr. McCarthy. Resolved that the board approve the third and final reading of the three policies noted. Thank you. Do
I have a second? Second. This is item 10.1. Mr. Brady? Yes. Mr. Tolton? Yes, Mrs. Dan. Yes, Mrs. Gilman. Yes, Mrs. McGovern. Yes, Mr. Schneider. Yes, Miss Stevens. Yes, Mrs. Telerico. Yes, Mr. McCarthy. Yes.
Do I have any old business from any members of the board? Mrs. Gilman. Yes, President McCarthy. Just wanted to uh reiterate uh what you had mentioned previously. Our legislative committee met with uh Senator Gopal to discuss the
uncertainty and the u unstleness of funding and directives that are being uh thrown out almost daily to K12 schools and um we do face many challenges. But I
came away from the meeting and I believe we all did with a sense of not hope but at least the fact that we are on the radar as being a very responsible district offering wonderful
things to our students and therefore worthy of funding and worthy of their attention. So I think we're doing everything right now. All we need is for our federal government and our state government to realize that and to
continue to support us. So, we will continue to act fiscally and meet with uh the town for shared services and do whatever is uh in our power to make things right for every single student in
our district and staff member as well. Thank you, Mr. Gilman. If you don't mind, I I will add a few more comments about uh some specific things that Senator Gopal agreed to look into. You know, he's he has an entire legislature that he has to get on board with these things. So, he did not pledge to
anything and these are things he would evaluate. But things that that I think are beneficial for us and things that we asked him to look into. Um but before I get into that too, we were proud to share some of the things that our board has pushed our administration to do with uh with nutrition in this district. We
were proud to share with him what our district has done with wait till late uh with with our mental health support for our students and how that is going. Uh and Senator Gopal was very interested in in those things and and excited to hear about them from us to see where he could utilize what we've done as a case study
to u give out as an example to similar districts which I think is something that as a school Ocean Township should be proud of you know as a school district that we are trying to pioneer the way in certain areas. So, um, it's very easy to stand behind and and point at us and question what we're doing, but these are things that we're doing well.
And so, I think that we should all be proud of that. Um, we asked Senator Gopal to consider what we are spending in busing students out of district. He said that that is a difficult road to to navigate, but that he would evaluate it and we're going to provide him the data of the amount of money that our district
is spending on those things and that he would uh utilize his his district to to consider those things. utilize his powers to consider those things. We asked him to um touch on what was going on with the S2 funding formula. It it seems as though you know that that is
kind of at a standstill and so it's time to move on and find other areas where we can be effective as a district in the current situations that we are in. He pledged to consider uh providing any sort of funding for us or considering
what we could do with the town or with other agencies in the county with this property, which is another benefit to us that he was willing to consider. Um there was one other major point, one other thing about the uh the dyes. Yes. And that he has bills pending uh to
outlaw many of the dyes that are already being included in um food for everybody. But I think uh we made it clear to him that we had that as a priority for our students to offer more healthy and nutritious
food. So yeah, he's got those bills pending. And thank you, Mr. G. You gave me time to consider my my final point. Um we voiced our concerns uh regarding enrollment decreasing and what districts are facing across the landscape of
education here and and his position as the the chair of the education committee affords him the opportunity to uh interact with this in a unique way. And Senator Gopal did claim to us that he is evaluating and pushing for consolidation with specific uh um gubernatorial
candidates of very small districts. so that districts like ours can benefit from that. Um, but there's, you know, that is a that is quite a a hill to hurdle for a legislature to consolidate districts, but he did say that it is something that he is pushing for for districts with less than 500 students.
Yep. That was it. Questions from the board regarding that meeting specifically. Mrs. D. Um, thank you for bringing that up to Senator Gopal. I very much appreciate that. Um, I'm very happy to hear that he has bills pending. That being
said, in the conversation was it talks about for schools who have that at the forefront of their minds such as ours of what he could possibly help us with like are there grants or are there programs that are being made or we can be part of
to keep our um momentum going on this or is it just he just has this bill going? I I believe that was uh as far into the conversation that we got at this time, but should we meet again with our legislative committee, and of course we
will, we can ask more of those questions about grants and programs that might help our district. Great. It's a good start. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. Other questions from the board? Yes, Mr. Schneider. Mr. McCarthy, was uh Mr. go pal leaning more towards like funding from the state level or federal level or
versus just creating more opportunities for us to tax our residents here. I don't know that we got on that specifically. I think that uh I think that Mr. Gopal Senator Gopal has has claimed to us in meetings in the past that you know there are issues with the
S2 funding formula. He's aware of it and he's put bills forward that that have not made it out of the Senate into the Assembly and that and you know we've we've we've called him to the carpet on that and you know unfortunately he's fighting an uphill battle with that. Gotcha. And and Brian the u you know the
federal funding is so unclear at this moment as uh Mr. Hastings said that he really they don't know what's going on. Things change almost daily. So he's always on the lookout for grants for us in different areas. But Miss Weldon also
made clear that, you know, a grant that might come to us uh doesn't mean that a person that we hire is going to be the answer because when the grant runs out, that's the end of that. But we did make good use and he asked about the mental
health grant that Ocean received and Miss Weldon explained to him everything that we used it for. Thank you, Miss Gilman. And gave feedback on where it could be improved, which is helpful. Comments or questions regarding that
meeting. Wonderful. Any other old business for the board? Any new business from the board? I have a comment. I don't know if it's necessarily new business, but I just wanted to share that I had the opportunity last week to go to the arts and innovation night at the middle
school with my family and my son who's a kindergartener and most of the stuff was far over his head. He had an amazing night. We're currently buying physics experiments and robots and he's got a birthday coming up. So, we have a long list of things that we're now going to
do at home. But, it was a really great night. Um, the kids and the teachers there did a fantastic job. There was some performances and it was a really nice evening. So if anyone if they do it again, I would urge everyone to go out and take a look at it. Thank you, Mr. Appreciate that. Any other new business from any members
of the board? None. Wonderful. Can I have a motion to adjourn? Motion. Do I have a second? Second. Speaking is ajourned. Part: 2
meeting will come to order. Adequate notice has already been uh provided but prior to executive session. We'll reserve the flag salute for the regular meeting uh per normal practice. And uh for I have nothing in my president's report. Board committees revised. This
has been presented. Any comments or questions regarding board committees? Okay. Wonderful. Um superintendence report. Mrs. Welen. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Good evening. Just want to make the public and the board aware of some upcoming
events. We have tomorrow night. We have international night at the high in the high school cafeteria at 6 p.m. On Thursday night, we have at OTES night of the arts which will include a book fair, chorus concert, and art show that starts
at 5:00 p. p.m. at OTES. We have our elementary track meet coming up for our fourth graders. Our Ocean Dance Theater show is at the OTHS auditorium on Thursday, May 8th. And the Wan Massa night of the fine arts and
chorus concert is Monday, May 12th, um, beginning at 4:30. That may be set up. 5:30 may be the actual event. Um, I will double check that. But, uh, a lot of great endofear activities. You know, this is
always an exciting time. Uh, I had a wonderful night last night at the TOIS Dancing with the Stars. Um, if if you uh hear from anyone, it really was a tremendous event. The students did a phenomenal job. My kudos to the teachers
who participated and Miss Schultz for helping coordinate the event and for the administrators that participated. I think the students had a great time and I think it's the type of event that brings the school community together and has the potential to be a tradition making event uh for years to come. So uh
it was wonderful to see. That sounds fun. And um the other my other reports will be later on in regular where we get to recognize some outstanding achievements from our staff and students. Thank you, Mrs. Waldman. Mr. Hastings, school business administrators report. Thank you, Mr. President. Um,
we'll take this time to go through the slides we have for our uh 2526 uh budget adoption, our public hearing. Miss Conway, if you could Oh, thank you. You've already broke the vote. Yes, I should see that.
Okay, welcome. want to thank everybody for coming out to uh whether they're here or online to hear about our budget for 2026. I would say it's the culmination of of months of effort uh in in putting this together, which is true. Uh but
it's not really a culmination because the budget's sort of a living breathing document that uh continues to change as we go through the year and as priorities tend to shift uh through transfers and and other issues and through grants that may come out that we may be awarded. So,
uh, it's not the end. Uh, but it does reflect a lot of work that's been done, uh, by the superintendent, by the board, and by our administrators in terms of, uh, reviewing programs, uh, reviewing accounts and and determining uh,
successes and things we may want to change. uh as well as looking at uh other expenditures that uh we may need to increase and or decrease based on need and and usefulness throughout the course of of the current year. Um Miss
Connley, if you could go to the next slide. Uh our approach to the budget and and to this presentation is really to talk about um our students, our current and future academic needs. we are are going to talk about initiatives uh to
meet our students needs and also about programs uh that we will use to inspire our students going forward. Uh we want to talk a little bit about our population trends and our enrollment data. As you are aware, enrollment drives funding through the state. Uh so
that's an important component of the budget. Uh we'll talk about staffing needs and and some state staffing data uh each year around December. Uh the superintendent and I are invited to go out to the county office uh to meet with uh their personnel, the county
superintendent, the county business administrator, and talk about the district, talk about our financials, uh talk about our academic programs. And part of what they do is they ask us to look at about six different metrics uh for the district and compare those to uh
state averages uh basically on a regional basis. we have those in there. Uh but we took a look and instead of sort of a regional average, we took an approach to look at like districts. So when we get to that slide, you'll see that we're looking at K to2 districts throughout the state uh that have
enrollments of approximately 1,8001 to about 3,500 students. So uh we'll we'll touch on that uh and and try to decipher a little bit what that means. And then we want to talk about our facilities and operations uh that are going to create uh positive
atmosphere for both our students and our staff. Next slide, please. Uh a bit of a mission statement for us. Um but but maybe a bit of a guiding light as well. Uh, in spite of multi-year budget cuts, the Ocean Township School District is committed to
implementing an outstanding comprehensive educational program designed to meet the needs of every student today and for their tomorrow. And now we're going to talk a little bit about our academic highlights and our academic goals. Next slide, please. Uh, we'll start uh at the very
beginning, which is our early childhood department. Uh over the course of the past six years, uh the district has developed a thriving early childhood program. Uh it's available to every uh three and four-year-old residing in Ocean Township. Uh it's continued to
grow and as you can see on the next slide, looking at our 25 26 enrollment, we're looking at approximately 375 seats spread across our three schools. So at uh Ocean Elementary, at
Wanomasa, at Wayside, currently we've got 22 classrooms. We're looking to expand those to 24. Asero, which is our Head Start program, has two classroom this year, and we're looking to push that back to one uh for total number of
sections uh going from 24 to 25 uh for approximately 375 students. Uh now preschool classrooms are limited to 15 students per classroom and districts look at that 15 and have a little flexibility on the mix uh in terms of
seats that are saved for general education students and seats for our special education uh students. Uh right now we're looking at about 303 general education seats and 72 special education seats or approximately uh 12 and three
as as the breakdown of a 15 student classroom. Next slide. And again graphically you can see uh back in 2019 looking at about 45 uh preK3 preK4 students to 2025 where we're
uh at 300. the 2024 web 360. As you can see on our projection here, we're looking at about 375 for next year. We want to talk about our ESL initiatives and the commitment we have.
Um we'll talk a little bit later about our enrollment and our enrollment changes. Uh but one of the changes to note is the um different mix of students we have and and what those needs are and how they impact the district. Um, the district has committed to redesigning
the way we deliver our instruction for multilingual uh, learners. Uh, we continue to collaborate and make adjustments to the district in order to better serve all our students and our families. Next slide. Thank you. Um, looking at the bilingual program, uh, in
K to2, we have 12 ESL certified educators districtwide, an ESL instructional coach, a bilingual instructional assistant, we have bilingual parents advisory committee, uh, we have a multilingual community outreach coordinator, uh, and we have
districtwide PD, uh, that also includes, um, uh, various forms of of, uh, professional development for our staff. to make them uh the best that we can. In our K to2 ESL program, we've increased participation in the seal of
biiteracy. So those are students that uh uh speak not just one but two are fluent in two or more student uh languages. Uh and we've extended collaborative partnerships in all of our content areas. And we continue to build our community awareness
As we move on to our elementary uh students, uh as you've heard in the the past few meetings, uh academic initiatives in early literacy and mathematics uh which have been highly successful change the changing the outcomes for our students. Um our Ocean
Township teachers and interventionists, our instructional coaches have all been highly trained in the science of reading and are closing literacy gaps. uh for all of our students. And again, in talking about the science of liberty uh of liberty of
literacy, um we talk about the science of reading, science of writing and knowledge building. And again, are committed uh to our Spartan early literacy journey and providing the tools that our staff needs to be successful for all of our students. And as you can see on our next
slide, that includes our Wonders program, our Orton Gillingham comprehensive training and partnerships with Ruckers to again support our staff so they can be successful in what they need to do. On the secondary level,
uh we talk about our vertical articulation uh for our business and finance programs, our visual and performing arts, the esports program which is in both the intermediate and high school uh technology and computer science uh areas that are introduced at
the intermediate level uh to pull our students through to the high school to continue to have active participation in our Spartan schools. Um that's done so that we can uh you know capture those students early, peak
their interests in those areas and continue to move them through as they go through high school to prepare them for a um a skill base that makes them marketable once they graduate. Next slide, please. And again, uh that's done in part through our
eighth grade preview days, um so that we can uh maintain those programs to uh really keep people informed about the Spartan schools and make them aware of them. And um again, you can see in our technology area and our visual performing arts. Uh those are just two
areas that uh again we have in the eighth grade preview. Like to talk a little bit about our AP program. Uh last year we talked about this as well and we continue to be successful in our AP honor role. Uh receiving last year the AP honor role
for silver award uh for developing AP programs that create a collegegoing culture give students the opportunity to earn college credit. Um as I said we were uh honored to receive
the 2024 AP access award. uh as well for ensuring AP coursework uh and making it available to all students uh no matter their backgrounds. Uh in terms of our AP uh courses and AP coursework, you can see
participation rates uh career readiness areas as well as dual enrollment and dual credit courses. Uh if you look for example on the left at our AP enrollment in science, it's increased 35% in English AP 71%. You can see the rest of
those. Um and again career readiness looking at a 5% increase from uh 20 2022 23 to 24 25 uh of uh 32% of our students belonging uh to one of our
Spartan schools. Next slide, please. Uh, another area that we've talked about is, uh, the high school scheduling. Uh, so that's been a project that's been ongoing for quite some time. That's moving away from the block scheduling, uh, to the rotate and drop.
And again, we had a presentation uh, around uh, December uh, highlighting this change. uh we've had some delayed openings at the high school to prepare our staff uh for this uh new schedule and it does present a lot of uh advantages that weren't available to us
in the block schedule uh that we hope to make great use of uh and again I won't read them to you but you can see uh principal Kazuba had presented some of the highlights of the program and positives terms of community we remain committed to our community outreach
reach. Next slide. Um, I think we should take great pride in being a leader in the state on our cell phone initiative, our wait until 8th uh program where we encouraged and partnered with parents to uh limit
the use of cell phones in schools. Um it's been highly successful in terms of of um its impact on academic success and also in in lowering our our disciplinary issues. Uh next
slide again as a commitment to our parent outreach. Uh you can see flyers that go out preschool community resource fair and educa a special education resource fair innovation night that just happened. So again, the district remains committed uh to community outreach and
community participation. Next slide. Um I don't think I have to say too much about our student recognition. I think uh we've all seen over our past two or three meetings the outstanding achievements both academically and
athletically that our students have uh excelled at and and I think it's something that we all can take pride in and uh commitment by the board by the superintendent to continue uh to push on those programs and to make those
offerings available to our students. Next slide. So, we also want to talk about our enrollment and and get more into the uh financial uh section of of how we're going to continue to build these
programs and build the successes uh for our students. Um you can see in this graph total enrollment uh from 2015 where we were about uh 36 almost 3,700 students uh to uh this past October
where we're down to 3,200 students. Uh this is uh critical to us in terms of state funding because the state determines funding on a per pupil basis. So, as you can see, uh, as is, uh, been the case across the state, enrollment,
uh, in school age children, uh, has declined. So, that's not just an Ocean Township problem. That's a statewide problem. And, uh, also in terms of of birth rate and things of those nature, if you look across the country, across the United States, uh, there has been a
significant decline in that area. Next slide. Um, again, our special ed enrollment, uh, looking at 652 back in 2015 to 590. Uh, next slide. Our multilingual learners, you can see a
significant increase there, uh, from 170 to 275 as of October. And, uh, I understand while I don't have the exact number for you right now, that's increased again, uh, by a significant amount. So, uh, that, uh, area also continues to grow for us. uh and the
next slide are economically disadvantaged or sort of free and reduced eligible students. So again, we were looking at a,000 in 2015 and we're looking at,00 here in 2024. Uh and the one thing I
think I would note is you can see some moderate uh uh increases uh or what you might want to call flat uh charts there, but that's all against a background of a decreasing enrollment. So, uh these categories represent a larger portion uh
of our of our enrollment and uh uh the associated needs uh financial needs that that go along with providing our services uh to all of our students. Next slide. So, I talked a little bit about the county meetings that the
superintendent and I attend uh each year. Uh and and part of that, as I said, is reviewing ratios. So again, the data below is just an extract of a couple of the ratios that we're asked to look at and go out and discuss with the
county. Um so again, these are um based on K to2 schools in New Jersey with a population similar to ours and the breakdown for the state is 1800 to 35 and at 31 obviously we're in that group. There are 74 schools in that group. So
if you look at these ratios, the first ratio is number of students to teachers. So here in Ocean Township, we have nine students per teacher. Uh the group average uh for that category is 12:1 and
our 9:1 places us 73 out of those 74 schools. So you could sort of look at that in terms of uh we're trying to maintain as best we can uh a low uh ratio there. Uh but when we talk to our
local representatives, when we talk to the state and the count the uh county and and state DOE offices about funding, uh these are some of the things that they point to and say, um well, you're asking us to increase your state funding or to allocate more funds to Ocean
Township. However, um you know, we're looking at ratios where we're a little bit out of line with the median or the average. So, um these are some of the challenges that we face. When you look at number of students to support staff, we're at 55 students to support staff
member and the average uh for our group is 67 to one students to administrators, 132 versus 145. Uh, and again, those last two are are um from an economic standpoint if if that's how you choose to look at it a little bit better in
terms of being 56 out of 74, 36 out of 74. And then um this should be reversed. It should be faculty to administrators. So again, we're at 17 uh faculty members per administrator and the group average
there is 15 to1. So again, we look at these averages. Um there's a lot that goes into these and I don't think you could pick any one and and say it's good or bad. Uh there's there's uh ways to look at them in in both lights. Uh but again, these are
things we're aware of and and some of the challenges we face uh when we look at what we're trying to provide to our students in terms of programs and and supports uh but also what we're looking at when we go out to the state and ask them for more funding. So it sort of cuts both ways for us uh on these
measures. Next slide. So our budget planning as I said the budget planning started uh uh basically when the students came back if not a little bit earlier over the summer. Uh BAS always talk about working in three budgets. So we're always
closing out one budget and getting ready for the audit of that budget. You're working in the current budget to get this year's stuff accomplished and then you're planning for next year's budget. So um it's always a bit of a challenge but uh with the support of the board and the administrators uh you know we make
good progress. Next slide. And again some of these you've seen before. Uh we talked about budget challenges for 2026 and some of the red flags that were put up for us um in the state and challenges that we'll have to address and and look to try and
overcome. Those include increases in health care costs. Uh as you may have heard recently uh because there's a bill out that uh is looking at utility costs. Uh the state approved an increase in utility cost through the BPU. Uh so um
recently we were at a meeting and had some professionals out in that area and they talked about 20 to 30% increases in our gas and electric costs. Uh part of that is due to the decommissioning of plants in our generating region and
those u kilowatt hours and uh not being replaced uh as efficiently or as quickly as they would have hoped. So uh we're at a deficit in terms of what was decommissioned versus what's coming online. So, um, we look at our out of
district placement costs, um, and and tuition, uh, for those schools that that is on the rise as well as the transportation cost associated with sending our students to those, uh, uh, uh, schools. Uh, we look at the consumer price index. Uh, the Northeast region is
up three and a half% from a year ago. three and a half% may not sound like a lot, but when you're looking at a budget that's flat or maybe has a minor increase, you're really talking about a decrease because all the costs of the services and supplies that we're buying uh throughout the year are going up uh
and our revenues are not going up as quickly. So, so that creates challenges for us as well. And then as you again may have heard recently in the news, uh reductions in federal grant funding. Uh so uh we were instructed uh prior to the
new administration to look at uh instead of budgeting 85% of our typical allocation to 75%. Uh and now in the news we're we're hearing other things about states across the country that are uh um calling into question the ability to get some of that federal funding
based on uh some of the um stances that the the governors are taking on different issues. So, so again that creates uncertainty for us and um you know it's yet another challenge for us to to try and overcome and try to budget for uh sort of in this changing u
unstable environment. Next slide. So, uh, again, we've talked to our administrators, uh, through this whole budgeting process and ask for them for their needs, um, and look through those needs, and we had to go through
and call out some items that we we didn't think we could do in the 2026 budget. Those included some capital requests, um, and you can see them there, but things like a heat curtain for the high school uh, main entrance, um, new turf, um, some interior doors.
Uh, so those were cut from our budget. We asked all of our administrators to go back and look at their supply lines and to really uh go through them with a fine tooth comb and and see what they could do there. And that resulted in some cuts. Uh again, technology is another key category that that we need to invest
in. But um you know, the question again is always where do we invest that money? Um and what do we get the biggest bang for the buck there? Uh so some of the things we denied were large room projectors uh some additional radios uh large screen TV monitors uh and and some
of the other things you see there. Uh and then u obviously personnel issues. So uh the next slide if you can go forward to the next slide just for a second. Uh go one more. So this is our operating budget.
Um, and this sort of just takes a couple issues, a couple categories out of the budget and breaks it down for you to see. Um, but in looking at this, you can see that salary and benefits, which is the red and the yellow, is about 78% of our budget. Our out of district is 5 and
a.5% transportation three and a half utilities 2 and a half our insurance just about 2% which then leaves uh 8% almost 9% for everything else. Uh so that's get to that number for
you. So that's talking about just under $8 million to available to the district for all the other things that we need to do. uh um here to keep us operating, keeping us functional. So, Miss Conway, if you could go back to so when we look at personnel with
personnel representing 78% of our budget, you know, that's the area that we have to look at where cuts may need to be made uh so that we can balance our budget going forward. So when we looked at the um the staffing and looked at
positions, we determined that there were 27 positions that could be eliminated. So again, those are 27 positions, not necessarily 27 people. So through retirements, through resignations and then an evaluation of those positions and our class sizes and those sorts of
things, we're able to look at 27 positions and determine that we didn't need those going forward. Those broke down to about 18 professional uh staff members which are administrators, elementary and secondary teachers uh folks in our counseling and guidance
area and nine support or or basically non-certificated staff members uh which are in our grounds uh instructional assistance in the IT department again where we had positions that uh were not filled that were again not going to fill going forward uh in the secretarial
area. Um, additionally, we looked at some stipended positions. So, these were positions where we pay out stipens uh that were budgeted, but these were for programs that were not run because we didn't have uh sufficient participation
from the student body to to move those forward. So, again, we're able to look at those and and make those adjustments and and pull that money back into the regular budget. Next slide, please. In terms of budget improvements, so it's not all bad news. There is some
good news. Uh we are striving to to continue to provide uh top-notch services to our students and give them the best that we can. Give our staff the best that that we can get for them so that they're able to provide those services to our students. Uh we look at
our capital accounts uh requests and have included improving uh the cafeterias. So we talked about new cafeteria program at the high school with that new schedule. So again, we're investing in new equipment uh to make that successful uh and to make it a more
uh pleasurable experience for our students. Um a pole vault pit cover uh which isn't very exciting, but it's something we need. Exterior doors, again, not exciting, but again, stuff that we need to maintain our buildings and maintain our security. um new
bleachers going in at uh Ocean Elementary and we're redoing the fifth grade gym floor over at uh the intermediate. In technology, uh we really are looking at security and security measures uh to improve and I won't really go into those uh because we
don't want uh folks to necessarily know what those are, but again, we're allocating funds to improve security throughout the district. Um, we talk about uh academic programs and and what's working for us and and how we maintain the academic improvements. So,
again, we touched a little bit about the elementary literacy programs, uh, intervention, uh, programs, uh, ESL platforms. Uh, so again, we're going to continue to invest in those so that we can provide those services and continue our successes. Um, and on the personnel
side, we added an ESL teacher and we're adding two preschool teachers and two preschool instructional uh assistants. Next slide. And next slide. So, when we uh talk about the budget and the tax levy for our
community members, uh we're looking at a 2% increase, which is the cap for us and cap for all districts across the state. uh they do make available waiverss that we're allowed to take uh that could push us over the 2%. So uh if our health care
costs increase more than 2% were allowed to uh absorb that difference into the budget. That's a $314,000 increase or a 42% uh addition uh to our to our tax increase. And then
uh there was a opportunity to take $200,000 in in tax levy in the past which is called cap banking. You're allowed to bank three years of of potential increases that the district may not have taken. And uh that's sort of on a rolling three years for every
year one is dropping off. So if you don't take it, it drops off and and goes away. So we're looking at an increase uh uh for 2026 of 2.69%. Um, the average assessment, and I double checked it after our last meeting, the
assessment is $931,676. Um, that's an increase annually of $173 or $1443 a month. Uh, and the rate is about 79 or 79 per $100 of assessed
value. Next slide. So with that, I'd be happy to take any questions from the board and then uh from the public. Thank you, Mr. Hastings. Um before we open this up to questions just for the the process of this, we'll allow the board to ask their questions, make their comments first,
then we'll open it up to the public. Any members of the public who are present here are able to ask their questions to Mr. Hastings, then we can give an opportunity for any members on on Zoom. Uh I would like to make a comment here. Tonight we have had an opportunity to touch on and celebrate all the amazing
things that our district has to offer in terms of academics, athletics, extracurricular activities, and all of the things that give our students in Ocean Township of a full and a rich experience. But as a board member and a proud citizen of this town, I'd be remiss not to drive home a few very
important points. First, we as a district are seeing rapid growth in our English language learner population and a rising number of economically disadvantaged students in our district. These are students who need more support from us and not less. At the same time,
our state funding is going down and New Jersey limits our ability to raise local funds to cover the gap. Add rising costs for energy, inflation, and facility maintenance and the math just doesn't work. The budget we're presenting tonight reflects tough choices. Some
things that we had to forgo, other things that we were able to preserve. But looking ahead, if nothing changes, we will face more cuts, fewer programs, larger class sizes, and less of what makes this district so special. We've met with our
commissioner, Tom Arnon, with our state senator, Senator Gal. We've met with our mayor and our district. We've looked for creative ways to deal with these problems. You'll hear later tonight from our legislative leaison committee that Senator Gopal has pledged to us that he's going to look for ways to consolidate smaller districts to solve
these problems. But we are watching as towns around us such as Jackson, Tom's River, Lacy, Middletown are already closing schools and slashing programs. We are in a good position, but we are not immune. So I ask the citizens of this town, anyone who chooses to
watch this in the future, anyone who is watching online, anyone who is present here tonight to discuss this situation with their friends, with their neighbors, to talk to their legislators and their leaders about this because in the future, we may be forced to make difficult decisions like that. And as always, I remind us all that we are
Spartans. We have a legacy to uphold and one to leave behind. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hastings. I'd like to now open it to the board for comments and questions. Mrs. Gilman, Mr. Jesus, can you tell me a little bit about how you arrived at or
how the district arrived at the nine to one student teacher ratio? So, got all the students and all the teachers and it comes to 9:1, right? So, these are this is in the it's called the taxpayers's guide to education spending. So, that's
a report that's put out by the state. uh it's probably a year lagging uh from the data because they take their information from the audits that are published um um by each school district and then they uh uh put the data together and then put
out the report. So uh that's where that data comes from and then they provide based on the various categories K to8s uh there may be a K to5 uh category as well and different enrollments and and compare those across those different metrics and there's probably about 20 or
so different metrics that they publish but these are the ones that uh have been brought up to us numerous times uh as we go out and have those meetings. Um there's also definite I'm sorry it is 232 24 data what it says on that slide
but that's state information. We submit reports and the state then ranks the districts and determines the numbers. Okay. Can I ask a question about that? Oh I'm sorry. Go ahead. No just it's still on that topic. On that topic. Yeah. To me, nine to1
seems like a nice ratio. But then to say that we're 73 out of 74, that's what it didn't seem to match up to me because it seem I mean 9 to1 seems like a that's pretty nice. Go ahead, Mr. Please. No, I agree.
That's you know, two ways to look at it. That's I you could say you could say someone could say that's ideal. That's an ideal learning environment. It is a costly learning environment. So that's why the rank is where it is. Okay.
Does that answer that question? Absolutely. Because that is a confusing metric there. I just like to add a comment that um you know you could have a class size at the high school of 20 students. You also could have a special education classroom where there's only five students in the class. So and of course we have a teacher in that
classroom. So that also will lend itself to skewing that number a little bit. Right. Well that's you're right Stevens. I thought maybe they gathered all the students, all the teachers, divided it up and yes, of course there are smaller sizes too, but the state is the one generating the metric.
Thank you. Did you have more questions, Mrs. Gilman? I do, but please go Mr. Schneider, please go ahead. Go ahead. Uh, thank you for the definition. So, we validated that to to see if that 9:1 and all the other ratios seem to fit. uh I
know the state calculated it but yes that's that's approximately uh correct you know again these are taken from audits uh that are conducted every year and we're providing the information to our auditor who's then uh you know uh putting that together and publishing it
uh and again the state is simply taking those reports that are generated by us and putting them into these metrics that those ratio did I would also just caution and you can go to the site it's on the DOE site uh if you go to DOE finance you'll uh the taxpayers guide when you look at
the definition sometimes uh you know it's sometimes a lot more complicated in terms of what goes into the ratio. Uh so something as simple as how many teachers you know per student again you get involved with different requirements from different class sizes and different
types of classes that we're running and it skews the number one way or the other but they standardize that across but that is standardized for everybody. So that it it jumped out at me is it's closer aligned to like private school ratios that that you would think not necessarily but public schools. So I
didn't know if we had target ratios from a district that we'd like to you know manage ourselves to especially with these impending this you know budget discussions that Mr. McCarthy outlined. Right. So I would say that we're at 9:1
I believe the average was 12 to1. Um so uh if you're looking at what the state believes is sort of an average or adequate um ratio that's that's one place to start. Um I would think it also as was
previously mentioned depends on what what class you're teaching and and what the needs are of that particular class. So, if you're looking at a special needs class and what needs to go into that versus maybe just a general algebra one class versus, you know, an English, you know, or an AP, uh, you know, it it
would vary. So, yeah. And then my last point was that I think all those ratios look like based on where they're at, they they could do some potentially improvement. So I didn't know like the averages are the averages based on the school selection that we chose versus a targeted approach that and again I think
based in our budget on you know again this is sort of two ways that that was mentioned you know from a strictly financial view you know you probably want to maximize class sizes as as best you can based on the budget that you
have but then you know we're not here strictly on financials we're here to educate children to provide services to children to make them successes and successful citizens. So, you know, we we want to try and hold that number um as best we can to provide those services
and provide successes for our students. Understood. Thank you. Of course. Other questions for members of the board? Minimum. One second. I do. Mrs. Dan. No, go ahead. Please. Okay. Okay. Just uh I have one question and one comment. Um, for the 27 positions that were
eliminated, were all of those resignations and positions that weren't filled or were there some that we did have to eliminate the job for? Okay. So, we talked about 27 positions. Yes. That we're eliminating and those
were eliminated through, as I said, and uh you mentioned retirements, resignations, people just leaving. um that only equates to three people being impacted directly uh in terms of of job loss. Uh so uh I think um
Superintendent Yman's job of of working through those numbers and through those class sizes and and and uh the concern that was expressed for our staff and trying to do the best that we can to maintain staff uh where we can uh really
is reflected in those numbers and and we will continue to work through the remainder of the year and through the summer if other openings become available then that number can change. It's fluid. That's great. I mean, three out of 27 is probably was not easy and we did a good job with that. My comment
is I want to commend you on this presentation. Um, as John said, it talked about the pros and the cons, but I think what it showed is the heart that was put into the decision-m that was made here and the heart of what you you
guys are trying to do, what we're all trying to do for our students, and it wasn't easy. So, thank you for this. even it's only my second year being here, but this presentation was very clear and concise and could follow along very nicely. So, thank you for that. Thank you to the superintendent and thank you to the board for their support
and uh to our administrators for all the hard work they did. I get to stand up here and present it, but a lot of people behind the scenes that did a lot of hard work uh to to get us to where we are. Mrs. Gilman, well, my comment was kind of like what Mrs. Dam said. Of course,
you see the number 27 and uh right away you think 27 people are going to be losing their their jobs, but I know that you and Miss Welding and the administrators worked extremely hard to retain the kind of staff members and
that is just so commendable uh to me as well. So, thank you. Thank you so much. My other question or comment had to do with the utility rates. Don't we belong to a a consortium where we sell things back unused energy and and I just Yeah.
So we participated in a program called ACES uh which is run through New Jersey school boards. We're required to participate in that program and if we don't participate in that program we're required to show how we can generate a greater savings using some alternative
method. um they go out to bid and bid uh the commodities uh for the districts across the state that participate in their program. Um and um so really don't want to get too technical, but two costs. One is the commodity, so the
electricity itself or the natural gas itself. And then there's the transportation, so the electric power lines through JCPNL or the gas lines through New Jersey natural gas. they go out and do the commodity side of that and bid that uh and unfortunately the
bid was up this year so they had to rebid uh and we're rebidding in an environment that is not favorable to uh to us right now. So thank you thank for that clear explanation. Unfortunately even personal personally we've seen uh increases in
natural gas and electric going up. So right, so the news has been out there effective June 1st, folks will start to see increases in their bills. Great. So thanks for the good news. But really again, thank you for your presentation. Very important. Other Thank you, Mr.
Gilman. Appreciate it. Other comments or questions from members of the board? Mr. Trico, please. Thank you. And thank you, you know, for everything that you've done to put this together. It was amazing. Um, mine's a three-part question. It's about the 27 people that
were I'm sorry physicians that were eliminated. How many were mental health counselors? That's one. Uh two, how are we what's the plan to cover the students that were affected? And the third question is about summer counseling. Are we still having summer counseling or has
that been eliminated? So, we're still going to conduct summer programs that will include counseling services. Um I I mentioned in the slide there was a counseling yeah uh position that was going to be eliminated. Um I don't want to get too far into specifics about
people because we haven't riceed uh folks and I don't want to talk about specific individuals. Um so um yes we're touching those various departments that you mentioned and sorry the third part of your how many this summer and how are
we covering the students that are affected by the counselor that's position that's being eliminated. We'll be doing that with existing staff. Can I ask a fourth question? How how many mental health counselors will we
have at the end? I can't I would have to that right now. I'd have to review the staff lists to give you an accurate number, but there would be support at every school. Okay. Thank you. Uh
um I just had I just had a a comment. um you know watching the news very actively and seeing how um so many towns um their tax levy increases you know 10% 15% 30%. Um I I truly commend you the work of all
the administrators um this was this budget presentation was very thoughtful and um I know the work that it takes to to get here. So to have such a limited tax levy increase to our community is is huge. So it's commendable. Thank you,
Mr. Stevens. Mr. Sher, yeah, I want to thank you uh Mr. Hastings for the budget presentation. It was very informative and highlighted some of the positives that were doing. I I did have two questions. So, related to the challenges that you highlighted, did you already take a look um as a roll forward budget with
[Music] assumed tax uh implications on the levy to see where where our budget may look like in 2526 based on some of these increases that you highlighted? Good question. Right. So those increases that we highlighted, the utility costs and
and the others, the health care costs are built into the budget that we're approving. They're already built in. They're built in there. Yes. Thank you. The challenge was getting the balance the budget to balance with those increases. Other comments or questions from members of the board.
Thank you. All right. So at this point, I would like to open this up to members of the public who are present here in the room if any of them would like to ask questions. I would like to be clear these parts these questions are reserved strictly to subject matter in the presentation or pertaining to our budget. If there is anything that the
administration cannot answer tonight, they will take down your contact information. They will get back to you at a later date. Uh sorry, you you will be able to contact them. They will be able to get back to you at a later date regarding those questions as they may not have all of the data or metrics on hand. So, we'll start first with members
of the public. I do ask that all people maintain appropriate decorum when addressing the administration regarding these matters. Uh and that we try to retain all of our questions to five minutes if possible. Uh and give other members of the public an opportunity to ask
questions. Any members of the public who would like to ask any questions pertain pertaining to this topic? Mrs. H. Sure. It's no no shocker. Sorry, I didn't know if you could see me over there in the corner because we're always hidden. Um, Alex Hayes from Oakurst. So,
these are just my budget comments and questions. Um, similar what Miss uh Steven said, you know, there are some districts in New Jersey that are seeing 30% increases that they're going to have to uh implement. Um, so that district that I'm talking about, it was 33%. They're
calling it like they're falling off a cliff. I don't see that or hear that urgency so bad in this room. Um, you know, it's bad, but you're going to make it work. So, I'm trying to rationalize like, you know, are there, you know,
what are the positives? How how how can we rationalize that? It's not it's not horrible. But I still have pause that I firmly believe and we've discussed about this when I was on the school board. Um, there's going to come a day, I think, in the next 5, 10 years that you're going to be faced with closing a
school because we just don't have the students. So, I still don't think you're planning ahead that far in this budget. So, uh, about the number crunching, thank you so much for all the hard work. I know it's never easy. Um, I do feel like the president's stump speech, you
know, blaming rising school costs on ESL students and special ed students and not first mentioning the crazy school formula funding that we have in this state. That is what your opening statement should have been. Instead, you chose to alienate ESL students and
special ed students. And unfortunately, I find that insulting. And I wish you had mentioned um staff count, salary counts, salary costs rather. And if you compare other districts, we have a lot of um supervisors and administrator
salaries here that are a lot higher than in other districts, but we're not going to discuss that it seems. Um I'm wondering how do you possibly, this is where my questions, those might have been statements. Here are questions. How do you possibly expect um to be compliant in the statutory mandated um
requirement to engage stakeholders? There were no notices sent out about this meeting. Um nothing about budget cuts. We're going to talk about it tonight at this meeting. Um I didn't get a um ROOC call. Um you didn't ask
parents to chime in. Most people don't know that you could actually come up and speak. You know, I know you put the kaibash on that for most meetings. um there was no alert uh so I don't know how you are meeting the stakeholder engagement for this piece so I question
that and I'd like to know what your answers for that would be thank you miss so um I'm not done I'm just you want to go in order you want to go through all of them you I'm just going to answer that one so the last meeting I made a announcement in in our meeting that we would be conducting this presentation
believe we did two I was the only one here right now okay so I'm just going to answer the question and then um recorded we did an entire media community and we did an Instagram and a Facebook post about it. So that's answer your question. Those are the also the requirement is that we
advertise the budget 5 days prior to this meeting. It's not on the main page. It was in the um Park Press on Tuesday. It was in the coaster on Thursday. Uh that's the statemandated requirements. Um you talked about the fiscal cliff.
Just if I could comment on that. Um I think when they talk about the fiscal cliff, there's sort of two different areas. One is um the 2% cap, 2% levy, tax levy cap, uh that that districts talk about that that representatives talk about in terms of um what is that
increase reflected in terms of a 2% increase in the local levy versus salary increases and other things that are greater than 2% that 2% funding. So that's part of the fiscal cliff. And then I would say that um if you look at some of our surrounding districts, our
Abbott districts that were highly funded through the uh through the state and and the push through S2 to shift now uh the funding away from the state into the local community that again is is where you have as you mentioned 33% increase
in the levy and and and the cliff where the state has really backed out of of of funding those districts over the past six or seven years. So, um, that's the cliff that's finally been reached in some of those areas. Okay. I still maintain we're we're going
to get that to that cliff at some point. I appreciate you responding about the social media efforts. Um, I'd like to know how many people opened the emails that you sent about this. um how many followers we have. You know, there's a difference between a robocall about
schools closed tomorrow, 3,500 parents are going to open that or listen to that, but nobody's going to care about a school board meeting and talking about budget if you don't make it that obvious about what is at stake. We are now at a third economic disadvantaged students, 1120 kids on your graphic. So, I'm
curious how you can justify raising taxes 3% and making these cuts that are going to then, as you mentioned, and admit will increase class size. Um, you know, we have 35% math proficiency, 45% English, or maybe I got that reversed,
but it really doesn't matter. Um, so turning programs and not backfilling retiring teachers. I'm just wondering how that makes sense. if our goal as a district is to raise scores and make kids more future ready and ready for college. So that's a question. The 930
average house house cost I asked you that at the last time because it last time it was like $850,000. So suddenly it went up $80,000. So I I would Where did you get that from? I I'm sure is it Zillow or something like that? No, no, that's from
the uh uh Mr. Garts over the town hall. The town hall. Okay. town hall person said that. Okay. Yes. And I did confirm that's the assessed uh value, not just the sale value. Okay. Yeah. I know it's it's the uh the when you look at the tax rate going down, but the average
assessment and the total assessment values sort of skyrocketing over the past several years. Well, the tax rate is not going down for everybody. Um the PDF mentioned address your question about you mentioned multilingual learners. That number is
not 1120. That's 275. No, I said economic disadvantaged students 1120. Okay, if I misspoke. Sorry. That's okay. Because we are adding staff to the ESL department. I I think you asked how do we intend to service the needs of the students. We we are adding staff in that
area. Okay. But maybe sorry. Okay. Um let's see. And then just to clarify, the tax rate is is the tax rate for the school portion and that's applied equally across all the values. However, if I have a home that last year was, you
know, 500,000 and now it's 900,000, obviously the decrease in the rate does not offset the increase in the value. So true. That's okay. In terms of dollars, yes, that's there's an explanation. I think I get that. That I get. Um, the
PDF mentioned feds told you to expect a reduction on the federal uh funding. So, I'm wondering where you got that from, like was it an official DOE? If it wasn't a memo, if it was from the state department of ed saying the federal is
going to cut it. So, there's two things there. One is um in talking with the county uh their guidance to all districts was uh previously that we would budget 85% of our federal funds. So our title one, title two, title three
funds. Uh from year to year we'd budget 85% of what we previously received. So in the prior year, do you any of the data of when they told you that? If I can if you can get it to me at some like January versus a week ago makes a difference to me. But yeah, and you
know, now they're talking to us uh and instructed us for 2026 to estimate 75%. So that's uh where that information came from in terms of what we're budgeting. Now, what we actually get, I don't know. Hopefully, it's more, but uh
again, if you watch the news, you know, the administration's issues with with some of the states uh and and the threats of withholding federal funding, um not sure what's going to happen there. Thank you. Um I think I'm almost done
except unless anybody here is g I they're probably here for the 8:00 which is awesome because I know you're getting a word. Um I don't know what's more sad that that either people didn't know or nobody's here and maybe there's people online which would be great but we're talking about an $88 million uh budget
and am I the only one here making questions in a town of gracious living of 2,800? That's remarkable. My last comment will be just because the average house cost is $930,000 does not mean that we all can
accept a 3% tax raise. Uh $200. You know, a lot of people on this board sit in million-dollar homes, but there's a lot of people in our schools that live in apartments in this town. So, it's it's a dichotomy of the wording
sometimes of when you say like this is a town that's $950,000 average home. That's not indicative of all of our students. Thank you. We're very aware of that. Very aware. Please, I ask that the board members maintain decorum. I
understand. Thank you. Um, any other members of the public who would like to ask any questions? Okay, wonderful. Mrs. Mr. Conway, do we have anyone in the queue? No, President McCarthy, there is no
questioners in the queue. Mr. Aces, I would like to thank you very much on behalf of this board and this district and this administration for the wonderful presentation that you provided. I would like to thank the administration and its staff. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Public comment. Board of Education
recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest. Public comment is not a question and answer session. Specific questions can be directed to the administration. The superintendent's contact information is on the phone and
we encourage you to reach out to her with any specific questions you may have. Public participation shall be governed by the following rules. Each statement made by a participant shall be limited to 5 minutes in duration. No participant may speak more than once on a single
topic until all other members of the public have had an opportunity to speak and the presiding officer may request any person to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable decorum. Would anyone from the public like to come in on any item at this time? Alex Hayes Okress. I'm starting to truly
understand why that second public comment got nixed a while ago. Um, okay. Uh, special education chief hire. I believe there was a posting and we had we have an interim person. So, I haven't heard any update on where we stand. Do
we still have an interim person? I I I've been coming to these meetings for how long? I don't think this in the last 8 months I've seen a special ed presentation. So I'm wondering where that position stands. Um last week I sent some of the board members some information on the facilities fees that
you all talked about. Um and I in my email, you know, delineated the true record of what was happening two years ago when when the facilities uh committee, if you will, you know, tried to talk about how to fairly increase the
prices of facilities fees. um you know, not really in line with the untruths that were said at the last meeting by some schoolboard members here saying that emails weren't sent and they were. I mean, I have all the emails, but um so I thank some of you all for responding to me. If you still want them, I have
them. I'm happy to give them to you. My offer still stands. Um it does show that due diligence was made two years ago to try to raise revenue. Um but this board kind of nicks that. I know it's not a lot of money, but it could be more.
Um, I bring up the facilities fees again because it makes me curious. Um, last meeting there was uh facilities fees that mentioned 50% off fees for a staff member and that was $250. This meeting there's a 50% off
fees for um a camp and it says 50% off for a staff member and that's $950. And then in parenthesis it says for a camp above 30 people, but at the last meeting $250 was charged for a camp that is like
bringing in 200 kids. So I'm kind of curious where where the schedule of fees lands. Um why does some staff get a $250 fee and some get a $950 fee? When did you change the facilities fees? Because it's not real um it's not online
reflected. There's no mention of staff 50% off fee. Um, one more thing. Let's see. Um, and as the daughter of a physical therapist, an academic uh, PT professor, I I'm just curious how
we are paying $400 for a physical therapy evaluation that is virtual. And I'm often wrong, so I'd love to be um, entertained how that's going to happen. Speech, I might understand, but PT, it's hard to
understand how that's virtual. in your new um what is it called? Um you're voting on it today. Thanks. Thank you, Mrs. Hayes. Mr. Dolman, presentation of minutes. There any virtual comments? Oh, I apologize. Thank you. Uh any other
members of the public that are present here that would like to make a comment on any item at all at this time. Wonderful. Mrs. Conway, any virtual commenters? Yes, President McCarthy. We have Kathy Hackler. Please go ahead.
Hi. In reference to what Mrs. Miss Weldon was saying about events coming up, I just wanted it to be known to everyone that we have our 9th annual poem in your pocket weekend this weekend all across town. We've got record
numbers of businesses uh participating, including the historical museum and some of our new businesses in town. And we expect hundreds of kids going out reading their poems and
sharing that with the community. and just wanted to make you aware that that was this is our ninth annual and we're very excited um to have it um happening again this year with all the help of the
librarians all across the district. So thank you. Thank you Mrs. Hackler. Mrs. Conway any other virtual commenters this evening? No, President McCarthy. There are no further commenters. Thank you very much Mr. D. Presentation. Thank you Mr. McCarthy. Presentation of items 71
through 73 minutes from um the March 25th and April meeting. Thank you, Mr. Dalton. Any questions from any members of the board pertaining to the minutes? Wonderful. Personnel, Mrs. McGovern, we'll vote in the next meeting. Vote in the next meeting. Thank you, Mrs.
McGovern. Financial Management and Resource Services. Uh Mrs. Dam, I think we're voting all that in the next meeting. 91 to 9:14. Do we have any comments or questions regarding any of those matters? I do have a question. Mr.
Trio, my question is for 9.4. Are the physical therapy and the occupational therapy uh services being done online through tele health? I'm not aware that we're utilizing I'd have to check with our our special
services uh person. Uh it may be there because that's awkward but may not be utilized in in uh in our case but it's uh I'll check for you. Is there a way to table that to find that out before we Can you I'm sorry. Can you speak up? What was the question? I'm sorry. Um is
there a way to table that to find out because you were able to make a motion to table motion to recommend you do it when it comes up for a vote. Mrs. Tiggo. However, you could do it now. You'd like to make bring a motion forward. Feel free. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to
table 9.4 to find out because it does state that direct therapy is through teleaalth services for physical therapy and occupational therapy. I would like to make a motion to table that to find out if that is the case. Do I have a second?
Second. Yeah. Sher second. So now we have a motion on the floor to table 9.4 remove it from the agenda until the following meeting. We're going to discuss whether or not we would like to table 9.4 for a future meeting at this point. Before we go to that discussion,
I would like to give the administration an opportunity to address the question. Thank you. Often at this time of the year, we are approving agencies should we need to use them so that they are board approved and can be used.
So although I do have to verify exactly how this is being used this time often when we are signing for a year contract Mr. Hastings we are setting that up so that should we need it we have access to use it thank you we do that with nursing
agencies we do that with a number of other agencies at this time of the year Mr. And I just want to clarify, there's a distinction of the per hour for the actual services versus the 400 for the evaluation does not seem to include anything about
being done virtually. There's nothing about virtual in the actual evaluation because that was part of a question that had come up. So, I just want to clarify that when I go to the actual document to the attachment, the $400 for the evaluation says nothing about it being
virtual. Thank you, Mr. Dolman. Mrs. McGovern, I was just going to say the same thing. It says includes therapist, clinical assessment, standardized testing procedures, parent interview, and written results. I would also think that our, you know, I'm I'm going to leave it at that. That's what it says there. Any
other comments from members of the board for or against tableabling 9.4 so it is not voted on tonight? State that again. Any comments for or against tableabling 9.4 so that is not voted on tonight. So that is the motion on the floor which we
are debating right now. You are debating whether or not you are going to vote on 9.4 in our regular session. Mrs. Gilding, again, uh I I feel like we're tying the hands of our administrators if we were to uh deny this. Uh this is something that we have
done time after time at this time of year and two board members have just clarified that nothing is being done virtually. So I would say that uh we have no need to vote on it. So that was
a comment in the con saying that you do not wish to table this. Do we have a comment in the pro? Mrs. Terico comment in the pro. So for occupational therapy and physical therapy, it's an interactive physical interaction. So I'm just wondering how that can be done via
teleaalth. And that's why I bring this up to table. If you know we found out that the tele health services for the PT and OT were not the case, I would have no issue here. It's only because PT and
OT are physical interactive. It's like chiropractic. Like there's just it's a hard pill to swallow that that could be teleaalth even for the evaluation. Thank you, Mr. Tygo. Any comments in the con? Mr. Uh, President, I would ask that
maybe we consider discontinuing our comment because I believe when you table a motion, uh, we should go immediately to the vote rather than, uh, having discussion. Wonderful. Let's let's put it to a vote. Please call the role. This is the table motion 9.4, Mr. Brady. No,
Mr. Dolton. I'm sorry. What am I? Negative. Negative states that he will not as a point of information. A negative says that you do not desire to table the motion table the the discussion point on the floor. No. That is a no for Mr. Dalton. Thank you.
Mrs. Dam, no. Mrs. Gilman, no. Mr. McGovern, no. Mr. Schneider, no. Based on the information, uh, Miss Stevens, no. Miss Telerico, yes. M. McCarthy, no. Wonderful table. Thank you. Motion has been overturned.
Any comments or questions regarding financial management resource services 91 to 914? I would just like to point out that we're approving uh the appointment of a vendor to uh uh install in-classroom bathrooms uh in all three of our prek uh
all three of our elementary schools in the prek. We're installing three in-classrooms at Wanasa, two at Wayside and one at D. So I think that's terrific and that'll be done over the summer. Thank you, Mr. Aces. Yes. Wonderful. Instruction, education, and
student activities. Mr. D. Yes. Discussion. Uh we already handled uh 10 in executive session. Uh any discussion on 10 2, 10 3, and 10 4. And we always keep our field trips uh confidential because we're sending children out to
different places. Any other questions, comments on none. Wonderful. Policy, Mrs. Gilman. Uh, yes, Mr. President. Uh, the three policies are up for approval for a second reading and we will vote on them
during our regular session. Thank you, Mr. Skill. Do we have any comments or questions on the policies being read? Thank you. Old business. Do we have any old business from any members of the board? I do, Mr. Rico, it it just went
by so quickly. So, this was a question actually for the preschool facilities expansion. So, the money for the toilets is coming from the preschool expansion grant. Is that correct? 40% of the cost will come from the preschool expansion grant. And then we have the following
resolution uh showing a withdrawal from our maintenance from our capital reserve to pay for the balance. So, the total is about $72,000 I believe. That's just for toilets. That's for building bathrooms into those classes. Building the bathroom. So, not just toilets, per se.
Thank you. Any other old business from any members of the board? Wonderful. New business. Any any new business from any members of the board? Mr. Schneider, I just want to thank the uh maintenance department. Uh we had a
need at at the baseball field and over our spring break. There was some dirt that got delivered thanks to the administration and then that maintenance crew did one heck of a job on on the field making it really really pop. So I really uh wanted to thank them. Great. Mr. Schneider, thank you very much. I
appreciate that. Any other new business from any members of the board? Mrs. McGovern. I just want to embarrass her because she's here but uh Caroline Barisella cry one of those days. It's been a long week but Caroline Bariscella just um signed with um Franklin and Marshall for field hockey. She's one of our students tonight. I didn't want her
to be here and go out and she can be embarrassed and that's fine. So, congratulations, Catherine. We should be wearing the hat, right? Put that on and walk in. That's right. Wonderful. Thank you, Mrs. McGovern. Any other new business from any members of the board? Thank you. Can I have a
motion to adjurnn? Motion. Do I hear a second? Second. Morning session is adjourned.