may I call the meeting of the parcion Troy Hills Board of Education to order on March 13th 2025 in compliance with chapter 231 Public Law 1975 entitled open public meetings act adequate notice of this meeting has been provided as specified
in the act in the following manner a meeting notice was published in the newspaper and on the district website on January 8th 2025 in addition the notice of the meeting was posted at the municipal building in the schools and a copy of the notice filed with the
Township Clerk and transmitted to other newspapers on February 28th 2025 The Daily Record The Star Ledger and parcion focus happen to parcion patch and the district website this regular public board meeting is being video recorded as per
byw 168 the recordings of these meetings will be available on our district website and our video on Theo YouTube channel we ask that you please refrain from using student or staff names in your statement professional professionalism is expected at all times may we have the roll call please Mrs
Abraham here Mr baros here Mr deito here Mrs mayor here Mr Rea here Mrs Chapelle um Dr Wright here Mr chappa here Mrs kogan here please stand for the
pledge to the flag I pled alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay for our student committee
reports yes I'll be doing phhs and PHS today okay great yeah starting off at phhs sorry good evening all let's get started with this month's wiing report starting off with the central student council updates student council recently wrapped up their annual events host
senior standouts held on February 28th and Spike night hosted at PHS on March 3rd just to recap Spike night is a cross toown volleyball tournament which brings students from the hills and high together for a night of Spirited competition all money collected is
donated to the njasc charity AA voice moving on to other phhs events and updates here are some highlights from events and initiatives Happ through our phhs our M our spring musical mam Mia will take place next week March 13th 14th and 15th at 700 p.m. please come
out to see our amazing phhs players and all their incredible work that has gone into making this performance a reality Junior Prom paperwork will be available to students starting March 10th the class of 2025 will be hosting a t-shirt quiles fundraiser ecarts can be purchased for $25 with the $50 value
with 100% of the proceeds going to the class of 2025 the latest date to place an order is April 25th the phh's boys lacrosse team hosted a spirit night with Chick-fil-A on March 11th from 12:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Chick-fil-A donated a portion of sales back to phhs lros from
March 10th to the 13th 11th grade students will take the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment NJ GPA in ela and Mathematics a a key graduation requirement the TV production class reached an impressive 15,000 views on their Eminem Super Bowl commercial
project shattering the second highest video count on par Hills TV by nearly 10,000 views well done the United Club will be hosting an Autism Awareness fundraiser selling T-shirts for Autism Awareness Month for $20 all orders are due on March 18th and all proceeds will
go to United Club activities the phhs boys B baseball team will be hosting a Chipotle fundraiser on Saturday March 15th 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. the Chipotle is located on Route 10 Morris PL 07950 and 20% of all event sales will
get donated the class of 2025 partnered with Duck Donuts for a fundraiser the lucky duck assortments available for $25 per dozen with orders uh du on March 12th phhs will participate in the Relay for Life event on May 10 2025 from 400
p.m. to 10: p.m. at the phhs track students staff and community members are encouraged to join team Viking Nation in support of the American Cancer Society the phhs senior internship program is seeking businesses in more County to partner with us for a senior internship program which runs from May 12th to June
19th and um the FBA SLC event was from March 10th to March 13th and we had one team qualified for NLC from the event Mis all right moving on to phhs athletic updates everyone who wants to stay updated on Vikings sports scores
achievements and events should follow the par Hills Sports Instagram page at par Hills Athletics swiming success at me of Championship champion excuse me a phhs student placed first in the 100m backstroke and third in the 100m butterfly at the me of Champions well
done the 200 midle race up team also qualified for the event three phhs wrestlers placed at the Region 3 tournament and and are heading to States in Atlantic City this weekend congratulations the following are the upcoming wiing games the Color Guard team will be competing on March 22nd at
Hunterdon Hunterdon um Central Regional High School and that's going to be it for this month's pH HS report thank you and now I'm going to do the PHS report yeah good evening I'm Emma Gonzalez from parcion high school and I'm so excited to share this past week's
events with you these past two weeks have been filled with excitement starting off with our red Haw way day each half of the marking period our school loves red Haw way day it is such a great opportunity to get involved with the career fair and partake in community activities like peanut butter jelly
making we all love it so much a few of our student council members actually got the opportunity to host their own Workshop it was similar to the one our student council hosted at the winter conference we gave students the opportunity to complete an escape room about time management and then gave tips
on how to better their time management skills however According to some students and staff there's been some desire to go back to office ours days not only did it give students a chance to catch up with their teachers after school but it also gave half day of learning so there would be so there
would be school go going on our spring our spring Athletics are set into full motion sports like baseball lacrosse and track are getting their preseason practices prepping for games and tournaments our school is so proud of the hard work that our student athletes are putting in both PHS and phhs hosted
the friendly Rivals volleyball tournament and we are proud to say that PHS won it was a great competition between the two schools and we are proud of everything that they have accomplished we're so proud of the group of students who visited nolwood Elementary School school on seel day/
redhaw way day where they were able to connect with the kindergarteners and a teachers in classrooms while having a great experience as our school gets ready for prom and Junior Prom our junior class is hosting a gerchard Haw sale where the person with the most chocolate sold gets a free JD ticket
what a great initiative thank you thank you very much yeah that's that's both thank you do we have any questions for our student thank you thank you next we will have our presentation Mr Tony solamini for the bond refunding
come on up uh good evening everyone uh Tony Salini from W Goldman and Spitzer uh it's a pleasure to be with you all tonight um I'm here tonight to talk to you about the second reading and final adoption of the refunding bond ordinance that's on your agenda tonight
uh normally lawyers come with bad news but I'm actually coming with good news uh this is an opportunity for the district to save money and assuming that their funding works it's direct taxpayer savings uh because the savings will be apparent in your debt service fund uh so
it doesn't give you any flexibility within your general fund but those savings are just less of a tax levy that you'll raise from your taxpayers um so just to give you a little bit of history in 2006 uh the Board of Education issued about $47 Million worth of bonds those
bonds have been refunded over the years um and the bond issue we're talking about potentially refunding now uh refunded about $12 million of those Bonds in 2015 when those refunding Bonds were issued in
2015 they were issued with what we call a Redemption provision meaning that if the economics uh were beneficial enough the board could take those bonds out of bond holders hands to refinance them at a lower interest rate uh so that's what
we're proposing today um the resolution establishes basic parameters around the sale we're going to sell the bonds competitively that Bond sale is scheduled for April 30th with a closing of May 20th that resolution also establishes
General parameters for the sale um whenever we sell public Securities we have to prepare an offering document which is similar if you've ever bought a stock or Bond you get a prospectus um that the resolution Alo also authorizes your business administrator to work with a financial advisor to get
a rating these bonds will be rated um it'll make them more marketable to the investment Community once they are rated and it this resolution will also authorizes your business administrator to accept those bids on the sale date and for your business administrator and
your board president to sign the closing documents um just a couple important things to note this sale cannot happen unless we achieve at least 3% Net Present Value savings and that's a safeguard in place uh for the for the
public entity to make sure that professionals don't make money the investment bankers don't make money and there's no net savings available um to the public institution so we're not allowed to go forward with this sale even if you adopt the resolution tonight
we're not allowed to go forward um unless we can achieve that 3% present value and even if we have the sale on that day and we don't produce the 3% Net Present Value savings we can't award to that bidder on that dat so there is a safeguard a minimum uh savings threshold
in place um other kind of safety guarantees in there for you we're not extending the life of the bonds so the final Bond matures in 2031 on the old issue these bonds will mature in 2031 so we're not extending the life and
other requirement is we have to take level Debt Service savings throughout the life of the issue so if we save uh 8 or $90,000 in year one that has to be the savings pattern throughout uh the life of the issue um I'm happy to answer
any questions you may have and I I thank your business administrator for being receptive to the opportunity and for the finance committee I know U when I appeared previously to to be welcoming to the opportunity so I'm I'm used to a net present value number being a number as opposed to a
percentage so it's 3% of 15 million or 450,000 yeah so it's it's 3% of the amount that we actually refund is how it's calculated so roughly we had an initial analysis done you were about in our initial analysis you uh that the
financial advisor ran it was about 5% which was roughly $700,000 um which equated to about1 $107,000 a year in Net Present Value savings so it's a pretty substantial yeah savings to the to the
district have the rates changed at all since we did that analysis um so uh the world has been unique um so as we yeah slightly unique um the bond market has been somewhat stable um which is good
and usually some instability is usually good for the bond market because people usually um flight to Quality and flight to kind of being conservative uh so rates have been somewhat stable I think I think the premise was rates were going to go down this year they haven't really
gone down they pretty much stayed stable when you say rates which rates are you talking about government like say the 10year bond or you're talking about municipal bonds municipal bonds okay yeah so the rates you guys will pay back okay on the
debt any other questions great thank you guys thank you thank you and thank you at this point we have a hearing of the public for the bond refunding only there will be a hearing of the public later in the meeting for any other topics but the there will be a hearing of the public
for this Bond refunding only okay it doesn't look like anybody would like to do that so we'll move on to the next presentation which is the 2025 2026 tenative budget Dr Suter and Mrs Tedesco thank you
evening everyone as uh we've been saying for quite a while the budget's tight money is tight and we've uh done our best to balance this budget for the upcoming school year um with that being said we'll go
through the presentation budget timeline you know uh it's the Board of Education meetings tonight's tentative adoption the total budget amount cannot change items within the budget cannot be altered so we have a public hearing and budget
adoption schedule for April 24th but in the interim there's Board of Education meetings on the 27th of March and April 10th we have the parci det Troy Hills mission statement which is the mission of the parci det Troy Hills School District in partnership with families in
the Greater Community is to challenge and nurture all students academically and to develop confident Learners who are compassionate generous appreciative and invested in their diverse world this will be accomplished through Innovative opportunities that Inspire lifelong learning critical thinking and problem
solving creative exploration and Democratic collaboration among students and staff our strategic goals for our fiveyear strategic plan our first goal is that the members of our Learning Community will design student centered opportunities that require active
student engagement and the authentic connection to real life experiences that's strengthen creative problem solving critical thinking leadership community service and social impact and our second goal is that members of our Learning Community will receive support
for social and emotional awareness mental and physical health in order to flourish demonstrate empathy and celebrate the diversity of all we have uh 2025 2026 budget directive and that is to adhere to the following goals in the construction of
the 25 5 26 School operating budget first order of businesses to maintain and control expenses in the operating budget with the goal of achieving an end of thee Surplus and optimized capital reserve provide adequate funding that does not diminish to the greatest degree
proc current services to students including facilities we're going to upgrade where feasible security and support of the goals of the Strategic plan to ensure a tax levy of 2% inclusive of sgla spending growth adjust Investments and Bank cap and support
current expansion projects we have our budget development parameters the district cannot sustain its current spending patterns due to the following reasons there's a tax levy increase of only 2% salary increases of more than
3% health benefit increases of more than 12% Vocational School tuition increases of more than 4% Charter School tuition increases of over 21% and state aid was increased by
$231,100 Charter School increase of $237,300 16 so that left us withus $66,000 so balancing the 2526 budget was not easy the initial draft of the budget was approximately 3 million do over cap
the administration is proposing the following actions to bring the budget into cap and that's going to be the elimination of two administrative positions four teaching positions one nursing position four maintenance and custodial positions re secretarial
positions we are no longer going to be able to continue with our lead teacher stiens as they're no longer sustainable and they will be removed from the 2025 26 budget and our secondary substitutes will be eliminated and replaced with internal coverage at our
secondary schools I would say that when we eliminate those positions what I will tell you is that there's two administrators that are retiring so we're not going to hire those we're not going to put those
positions back in the budget we're going to move people the four teaching positions their retirements were just not going to refill those positions we just can't do it um the nursing position is also retiring and we're not going to refill that position the maintenance
codal positions are currently posted so we have nobody in those positions currently but we're going to take them out of the budget however the three secretarial positions there are non-tenure teachers there so we're going to have to you know do something there it's not really
Pleasant um if we go back at the revenue St oh wait I'm sorry balancing the budget the administration is proposing the following Revenue sources to balance the budget the use of a health care cost adjustment of $270,200 at the high school and $25 at
the Middle School uh field trip transportation fees we're going to have to start having people pay for those trips because we just cannot afford to pay for those trips any longer with we're negotiations with local 32 we have issues with you
know Transportation the cost of fuel um we're going to be charging for high school parking permits $25 to park the car at the high schools and Student Activity fees of $25 at the high school and middle schools I wish we didn't have to do this but if we don't do these
steps other steps would affect uh programming and we just don't feel that that's appropriate we just can't in my opinion I'm I'm not an advocate of of affecting programs that's just not something that I would want to
do we tried our best all of us to come up with a solution that we thought was fair and Equitable for all parties uh we made what we think is the best of the worst decisions that we could make and it's just unfortunate but we cannot
continue down this path with a 2% tax levy it's just not going to it's not sustainable and I've told everybody from the beginning of the school year in my letters that I wrote it's just not sustainable um with the building that's happening in town to it's it's going to be difficult and um we're trying our
best here this board has been excellent at what they've done to try to ensure that people uh can keep their positions that we are giving our students the best education possible it's getting more and more difficult I can tell you
that Mr TCO okay our next slide is our Revenue sources this slide shows how the budget is funded here in parcion um 86% of the budget is funded by local taxes followed by state aid which makes up about 8% of
the revenue federal and state grants make up 2% of the budget the rest of the budget is funded by miscellaneous revenues the budget appropriation slide shows that 42% of the Appropriations in the budget are for instruction employee
benefit is approximately 18% 12% goes to support services such as media child study team guidance curriculum and supervisors 8% of the Appropriations are allocated to maintain
our buildings and 6% is to transport our students 6% is for administrative in including our tech department the final 8% of the Appropriations is to fund capital projects equipment Health legal and audit
services in the 2526 budget we have capital projects that include hbac Replacements door floor Paving and concrete Replacements districtwide Elementary classroom space addition
techn technology infrastructure upgrades security camera Replacements and instructional equipment next SL so how are the taxes calculated here um the tax levy for 2526
is 161 m985 350,000 including the debt service on a home valued at $314 $365 the taxes will increase $163 43 just a reminder the upcoming dates to
discuss the budget are March 27th and April 10th with a public hearing and budget adoption on April 24th thank you does the board have any questions I just want to make a comment first of all thank you very much I know
this has been especially tough and you're you're facing a lot of headwinds for example the 2% cap on revenue is a huge headwind and we've got inflation and this is the second year in a row that we've had inflation that exceeds
the the uh tax uh Levy cap so and then I saw there was I believe it was a 12% increase in health benefits so that's a huge headwind for us so again I want to thank you for for all the work that you've done to get us
to this point because it was it was very difficult and and in general when I spoke at uh the state refunding uh hearings a lot of towns are having the same problem and they've had the same problem for a number of years
as far as like the you know the mismatch between the the tax cap and and expenses because of inflation so again want to thank you thanks Jack I appreciate it um I also want to thank you and and
your teams for trying to uh seems like almost doing the impossible but so thank you thank you for the work um I have a couple of questions can you explain to
me why this distri or what is the necessity of the district to pay Vocational School tuition cost and Charter Schools tuition cost both that went up because there's resident students in
in the district school because there's resident students that are in the district that attend vocational schools The Vocational School Mars County votch and um charter schools so if a student from Pary goes to mois County votch we
have to pay that yes okay and following up the charter schools can you explain that to me please there's students that enroll in the charter school it's mostly Unity Charter right and we are charged a a rate by the state for those students
to go to that school so this is this is a mandate of the state well it's it's the charter school they run their tuition through the state the state um I guess approves the their tuition okay
um so then I guess the next question is maybe you you may or may not know this is that even though the state aid increased there was the offset of the charter schools um the offset was that a number that based on
any calculation like how did we come up with the 237 316 for the charter schools so when the day that we got state aid you get the state aid number and they tell you what your increase or you look at it and you figure out your increase but also that day you get your Charter
School tuition and when I did the estimate for the Charter School tuition I didn't know that it was going to be increasing that much so I found out because it comes in the same packet that I got an increase in Charter School tuition and an increase in state aid that did not cover it so we just made it
a point that yes we did get the $230,000 in state aid but it didn't even cover the state mandated Charter School tuition H interesting I have one more question Madam president um so do you
have what was the district's net net on this was it a net loss as far as Aid or was it a push or like how did it work out so we got perent we lost $6,000 of what you're asking
right so the district lost $6,000 $6,000 which doesn't sound like a lot of money but it is a lot of money when you're trying to to squeeze things uh together yeah thank you thank you very much and again thank you for the work it's seems impossible but you did
it t right hi I have actually a uh statement from uh Miss Chapelle um and I would like to jump on her eloquence as well so please I'm her on her quot heels here thank you Mrs Tedesco do Dr Suter and the entire
administrative team for preparing the 2526 school budget in a time when funding is limited and expenses are soaring you have managed to craft a strong responsible budget that prioritizes the needs of our students staff and our schools the challenges facing public
education today are no secret Rising costs from insurance utilities and supplies to transportation and Technology are putting immense pressure on our resources simultaneously funding is limited to a 2% increase cap forcing difficult choices and demanding Creative
Solutions this will only become more difficult over the coming years with the influx of students expected from the new construction in our community despite these obstacles our administrative team has delivered a budget that demonstrates both fiscal responsibility and a deep commitment to educational Excellence
this isn't just about numbers on a spreadsheet it's about the future of our children they've worked tirelessly analyzing every line item exploring every Avenue for efficiency and advocating for every dollar that will directly benefit our students this budget reflects their
understanding that a strong education is an investment in our community's future they've demonstrated their commitment to transparency and accountability ensuring that every dollar is spent wisely and effectively their work is often behind the scenes but their impact is felt in
every classroom every hallway and every student's success Mrs Tesco Dr Sutter and everyone involved your hard work dedication and unwavering commitment to our children's education are truly appreciated thank you thank you job
thank you m Dr R I appreciate it and listen again if if there was another way around this we would do it but we think that this budget is the best of the worst we think that this budget does not
affect programming for our students does not take away to the greatest extent possible their programs and their education while some people were not filling positions there's a limited number of people that are losing their positions which is which is for me
important I don't want to see anybody lose their jobs um it's just a difficult situation and and I want to thank Robin and everybody that's on the staff here that helped us and the board for your support it's never good but we tried to do the best that we
could any else I just have I'm definitely not going to be as eloquent as Mrs Chappelle was um but I just wanted to see some of the numbers obviously the vocational school and the charter schools are not kept to the same 2% cap that we are which is why they
cost could go up 21% is that true they're obvious I do not know the answer to that question okay I'm I mean I don't know how else it could go up 21% if they're the Char schools the charter schools are not held to that same 2% cap okay
believe the vocational schools have a different um areas where they can increase but they generally are on the 2% cap okay and then the health benefit increase of 12% in in numbers my understanding is
that's pretty close to the same amount that our actual tax cap can go up is that am I close on that or is they they're not can you repeat that the 12% the health benefit health benefit yeah increase is is like over a million
dollars like it's a really big number I mean you have 12% in here but I just want to get a sense of the actual dollars two almost three million $3 million right is it 12% of 32 million yeah it's it's 32 million now well what
I'm proposing okay or 3149 I think you have 32 in the budget okay in the budget presentation yeah so that pretty much eats up our entire 2% tax cap that we're allowed to use so all
the other increases of inflation of you know our contracts every other one of those increases has to pretty much be taken from some other expense in our budget because there's no Revenue to cover any of those expenses that is
correct okay um and then the last um comment I just want to make is we've heard from the township during all these pilot agreements that the township that the school district gets every
penny that we ask for which I agree with however we are obviously very limited in the dollars we can ask for and and those dollars do not cover as we just they don't even cover cover or they cover just barely the health increase never
mind the increase in everything else so I just want you know the public and everybody to understand that these tax increases and nobody wants to increase taxes I just want also to make that clear that was also you know that's
never an easy decision either however that doesn't even cover our general increases in our expenses so I want to just appreciate the hard work that you guys have done because it is you know
we've had years where we have been tightening our belts and tightening our belts and tightening our belts and there's just nowhere else to go at this point that is so correct thank you anyone
else thank you guys thank you thank you okay sorry about Mrs Tedesco was there any correspondents to come before the board no there's not all right so we're up to unfinished business is there any unfinished business okay committee reports uh Dr Wright with
teaching and learning yes uh the teaching learning committee met on February 24th uh uh present were Mr dito Mrs mayor Mrs kogan Dr and myself um we reviewed several books uh for English 4 mythology and English 4 True
Crime uh there were updates to uh following curriculum um or two series of curriculum listed uh in your Buon um uh I think one of the longest chunks of discussion was the work that Dr morone is doing uh it's a committee of Administrators and teachers uh working
on AI they're meeting monthly to uh evaluate different teacher facing AI platforms and figure out how can AI uh best be used to support uh teachers work at this time um in the future kind of one of the questions uh following policy
that uh the policy committee is doing there will be um uh on what the student facing side of things will be but this is particularly what Dr Mar was discussing was how teachers might be using Ai and how they can best provide professional development in that area um
also we got an update on summer program planning and we also as per the board's Collective goals worked on creating due diligence questions thank you do we have any questions for Dr wght all right Mr baros for
policy thank you m president policy met March 6 2025 in attendance with myself Mr DeVito M Chappelle Miss kogan Dr and Miss benos um so key discussion points we
reviewed a comp we did a comprehensive review and discussion on the following policies there was a new policy introduced P 2365 acceptable use of generative artificial intelligence AI That's a new
policy we also reviewed uh policy P 5460 which was high school graduation uh that was a revision uh we did a review of p8500 Food Services uh it was
revised and there were two policies 8540 and 8550 that were abolished um we reviewed policy 9163 spectate spectator code of conduct for
interc Scholastic events uh that is new uh we did a review on that um we also discussed our uh our due diligence uh questions and we then um talked about and was going to be brought
up that um we were looking at trying to put a priority list of priorities together of policies together or even bylaws to review every year um I Believe Miss benos may have mentioned or maybe was someone else at
the at the table there's a list of like 25 policies that uh all the staff has to be given every year we thought that might be a good start uh to start there um if anybody else has any thoughts about that I'd be more than happy to
hear um this was something that we started talking about in 2023 uh excuse me 2024 and um is is put back on the uh on the table so and that is my report any questions from Mr
varos mrito just just a quick comment so you know I was on teaching and learning about talking about Ai and then we brought it into policy um I wanted to thank Dr Mone and his staff for going through very diligently going through and trally comprehensively you know
finding a good good policy that we're that we're doing here tonight so just wanted to thank them for all that work on that thank you yes thank you it is a big undertaking for sure all right Mr Aya um just a general question would would we consider the AI policy kind of
like a um we're not speeding ahead but you know we've kind of we've got some looks like we've got some cautions in place some some breaks if we want it so would you
characterize it that way uh Dr solder or yes I would say that we're trying to regulate what's going on in the classrooms okay great okay thank you all right Mrs Abraham do you have transportation yes thank you uh
Transportation met yesterday present were myself Mr beros Mrs kogan Mrs Tesco Mrs Tiffany Pisa and Mrs benos and the committee discussed the following we discussed route renewals for 25 26 school year and the district was
contacted by sta to renew the home to school routs for the 25 26 school year and the district and sta negotiated a 3% increase the new vehicle purchases for 25 26 school year as well the district will be using the least purchase funds to buy one 29 passenger van and one nine
passenger Transit van uh moris County votc routes were also discussed and the district is currently driving two late bus runs for um Morris County votch as well as several athletic runs and District hopes to drive these routes into the 25 26 school year other than
that the uh Township of parney has contacted the district to once again do their roots for summer camp this coming summer and in addition to that we discuss questions for enhanced committee due diligence as per our Bo board goals thank you any questions from Mrs
Abraham all right Mrs mayor do you have a superintendent search update uh what superintendent search update uh we met with uh um our person oh where is it we met with Kathleen uh this evening
and she went over our next steps as well as telling us that she met with the administration uh the public um uh who else would she meet with PTA and she talked to them and got some of the concerns or some of the things
that they would like to address so she was very thorough with that she said they were very open and welcome and they welcome the opportunity to do that uh I think it was the the public was very appreciative that they were included in that and we had our time with her and
you know she's collecting the different um uh people that are applying and she's going to weed through them and at our next meeting with her we will look at some of the resumés and kind of see if there's anyone that we want to weed out
or people that we really think are worth seeing but uh she has a really good handle on what she's doing she's spoton with meeting with everybody and I think that all of the com people that she's met with appreciate the fact that
they're included in this so I think it's a good thing and the surveys are still open I believe so the survey you know is out there and you know please feel free to fill it out so that there's more information coming in and
and thank you J you left out one important part um the consultant went to gra links to say that in the years she's been doing this the accolades of the community the staff towards the
superintendent were were Bar None Dr Sutter you are definitely well regarded in this District well so thank you not after tonight's budget but I really I mean I I I appreciate that that comment because this is a wonderful community and I really have enjoyed my time here
and I tell you all the time that I consider you friends and I've met a lot of nice people in this community and it's just awful that have to end like this but I think again we try to do the best we can for the people here thank you are there liaison reports or
anything else anybody would like to discuss Mrs Abraham sure yeah I just want to mention that there was an event that I wanted to talk about uh it's called imaginary pets it's ongoing right now from March 3rd to 26th at the parcion library and is basically
Littleton Elementary kindergarten drawings that were reimagined into ceramic sculptures by The paron Hills High School Advanced ceramic students and it's an exhibition that's going on right now at the at the parsipany library and um on the 26th there's a closing reception outside the children's
Library where you can enjoy some refreshments meet your high school artist and take home your sculpture so it's a very um sweet EX exhibition thank you Mrs mayor um couple of things uh I want to just mention that uh on the 28th
I went to town hall for the Ramadan um celebration it was kind of last minute so I don't think many people knew about it but it was a really nice celebration um they were very thankful that they're being recognized Again by the town so it was just a very lovely
time to be there um I also went to see Moana Jr I hope it was awesome it was so good I don't know if anybody got to go but the choreography the singing it was just it was really well done um U Mrs
kogan and I went to see the steam Pathways and impact Gallery the walk that was here and we saw some of the things that the students had designed and they are impact Gallery it's things that they've designed to kind of handle
issues that are on goinging um for example there was one person who did something about shaken baby syndrome where there was a monitor that she created that would monitor you know babies there was another one there was just the wealth of knowledge that these
these students had was amazing they worked so hard and this was all from them you know they did this all on their own um and the last thing I mentioned was the mount Taber read across America Amica I was there yesterday and you know
the kids really appreciate when people come to the school that aren't part of the school you know they have visitors and that was just a really wonderful time to go anybody else with the liaison report all right um as you can see there's been a lot
going on in the district there's a lot on the bulletin um I am very pleased that the contract with the teachers union has been extended through June of 201 27 and i' like to personally extend my thanks to the union Representatives that worked with the district on that
and I believe in the 12 years that I've been on the board we've never had a contract you know ready to go before the last one expired so this is a really big deal um as Mrs mayor mentioned I attended the stem Pathways project and
she did a very good job of describing it I do have their program so if anybody wants to read about their projects I do have that um so you can get a sense of what they were working on I did not attend the centralal day last Friday but I heard very positive feedback that the students
really appreciated having the time to connect with one another and as a business owner who works with a lot of clients and businesses I know that soft skills are critical and these types of activities are helping students realize that positive interactions can happen
without a screen in front of you which is you know doesn't happen very often at schools anymore more and then this morning I was at Mount tabber for read Across America where I read meline Finn and the library dog to Mrs benetti a second grade class while while wearing a
green cape I don't know if you got to wear the cape too um but it was it's a good experience that you know I really appre appreciate read superhero reading yes and then I just also like to remind the board members that you know we discussed the budget and we will discuss
the budget at the next few meetings um but questions are always welcome Mrs Tedesco you know is used to answering questions at the budget because we definitely want to make sure that all of us understand you know what's in that budget um so I just want to remind you that it doesn't have to be just
tonight's presentation um okay so now we're up to approval of minutes for the regular and executive minutes of February 27th 2025 can I have a motion miss m co can if for a minute
um didn't we not have two executive sessions I think they were separate times so we we vote on each one separately we I believe we had a before and an after right yes so should we vote on the I guess
there were different people at different ones so correct that yes there's different so let's first we'll do the first exe we'll do the regular meeting and the first EX executive session and then we'll have another roll call for the second executive session that's right
sure okay so this is roll call for the regular meeting and the first executive minutes of February 27th did we do a first and a second oh that's that we didn't okay Mrs Abraham and Mrs mayor thank
you I was looking down I was like ready Mrs Abraham yes to both yes Mr baros yes Mr D yes Mrs mayor yes Mr Rea yes Dr
Wright yes Mr chaa abstain Mrs kogan yes all right and now I need should we have another motion for the second executive session correct this would be a motion to approve the uh minutes of
the second executive session of Thursday February 27th 2025 all right so can I have a motion for that Dr Wright and a second Mr Reya and now the roll
call Mrs Abraham yes Mr baros recuse myself Mr DV recuse Mrs mayor yes Mr Rea yes Dr Dr Wright yes Mr chappa
obain Mrs kogan yes motion carries okay superintendent bulletin number 14 Dr Sutter uh thank you president kogan good evening everyone the CMS science department is hosting a
stem family night at CMS on March 20th 2025 all are encouraged to attend speaking of the stem I want to thank everyone for their contribution to our stem path impact showcase at the board offices on March 4th it was quite I wasn't there unfortunately but Mr Ricker
told me it was quite spectacle read Across America we had our read Across America celebrations continue to take place throughout the district I applaud the efforts made by our district Elementary staff celebrations include dressing up like superheroes for their reading as a superhero theme an
international reading night collaboration with middle school students and one book Community reading program and reading week which incl includes seal activities I want everybody to know that our district administrators will be meeting next week for our annual Staffing meeting and during this meeting we will address staffing needs for the
25 26 school year uh the month of March begins and it's extremely busy and I want to thank Mr Ricker for all that he does to ensure that we get this done properly tonight for your approval we have superintendent bullettin items 1 through 29 with addendum and readin items 30 through
50 are any questions on the superintendent's Bulletin okay so the secretary's report mesco hi everyone on tonight's secretary's report we have our regular business motions including the approval of the 2526 tenative budget for
submission to the county do anybody have any questions thank you uh new business Mrs mayor did you have something yeah I just wanted to mention the um Mars County un unsung
heroes um J I've never had a problem with my voice not carrying but I guess um the unsung heroes uh program is scheduled for April 2nd and it's going to be at the marals high school um if
you were there last year um it was it's a very moving experience it's very long but it is very moving to hear what these kids have done um the things that they've gone through to get where they they are it's just incredible um I sent
out everybody that uh email um we're trying to buy um uh gift certificates for all the kids so you know whatever you want to contribute would be greatly appreciated so that I can put that into the pot and they can do whatever they
need to do to get these GI gift certificates um I really would need it before the end of the month like by the next meeting so that I can give it to them to buy the gift certificates but I hope that you can put it on your calendar to try to be there we do have somebody nominated from the high and
from the hills so try to try to come okay so we are up to the hearing of the public at this time if there's anyone who would like to address the board please come up sign your name and address in the book at the lectern and state your name for the record and please address the chair each person
will 3 minutes to speak to the board it would be helpful if you would like to address the board to please come up now and sign in so you are ready when the first speaker is finished as a reminder we are video recording this meeting if you are a student who wishes to speak we ask you that you not provide your home
address but rather give the name of the town in which you live if you're a parent wishing to discuss a specific matter pertaining to your child during this portion of the meeting you may request that the board temporarily suspend the video recording alternatively please consider speaking PRI L about the matter to the
superintendent after the meeting speakers should refrain from using specific student or staff names in their comments and are referred to bylaw 168 for further information regarding the videotaping of our meetings is there anyone from the public who would like to
speak we don't bite you can come up okay seeing none we will move on to our roll call vote for the superintendent's bulletin number 14 items number 1 through 21 with addendum items hold on number
30 through 50 through 50 and readings may I have a motion please doc Mr DeVito and second Mr Rea ready roll call yes sorry that's okay Mrs Abraham yes Mr baros recues on
number eight yes to everything else Mr D yes Mrs mayor yes Mr Rea yes Dr Wright yes Mr chaa yes Mrs kogan
yes okay there being no further business I need a motion to adjourn the meeting Dr Wright a second this mayor all in favor I meeting a j