Thank you. Welcome to this public meeting of the Princeton Board of Education. The board is an elected, unpaid group of 10 citizens who set policy and make decisions on educational, financial, and personnel matters for the Princeton public schools on behalf of all residents. We're always pleased when members of the community
attend our meetings. The board and the school district operate under applicable New Jersey laws and under regulations of the New Jersey State Board of Education. Each meeting includes opportunities for those attending to comment on items on the public agenda or other matters of interest to them. The board reserves a
right to limit the time allotted to public participation. Law limits discussion of individual personnel and confidential matters. We hope our meetings provide useful opportunities for communication between the board and the community. Thank you for attending. >> As required under the open public
meetings act, adequate notice was given for calling this meeting. It was authorized by the board of education and forward it to the municipal clerk, Princeton packet and the times on January 9th, 2025 and distribute it to the schools and others on the standard distribution list. The board reserves the right to enter into executive session during all meetings of the board
of education. Board policy 0168 recording devices requires that we inform those attending this in-person meeting that proceedings are being recorded. This meeting is being livereamed. Notice on votes pertaining to sending district. The representative of the sending district is authorized to vote on such matters that affect sending
district students or affect the governance of the Princeton public schools as more specifically designated in NJSA 18A 388.1. Sending district votes pertaining to personnel actions refer to high school, central administrative, and districtwide staff
only. Votes otherwise are considered abstensions in the event that NJSA18A38-8.1 is amended. The law shall take precedence over this bylaw. >> Thank you, Mr. Harris. >> Do you want to call the role, please? Thank you. >> Daffany Kendall
>> here. >> Susan Caner >> here. >> Beth Baron >> here. >> Adam Beerman >> here. >> Mara Francheski >> here. >> Elellanar Hubard >> here. >> Arai Meiselle. Christopher Centarpio >> here. >> Erica Snder >> here. >> Katherine Lara >> here.
>> We have Cor. >> Thank you, Mr. Harris. Can I please have a a motion for the approval of the minutes for December 16th, 2025? Mara, second. Chris. >> Right. Roll call vote. Beth Baron, >> yes. >> Adam Berman, >> yes. >> Mara Franchesky,
>> yes. >> Elanar Hubard, >> yes. >> Katherine Lren, >> yes. >> Christopher Cantarpio, >> yes. >> Erica Snider, >> yes. >> Um, abstain. >> I can Okay. >> Sorry. I'm sorry just because you weren't here. >> December 16th.
>> Yep. >> And Susan Caner. >> Yes. >> And Deaf Kendall. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> Can I get a motion for the approval of the minutes for January 6, 2026? Beth second. Alanar. >> All right. Beth Baron. >> Yes.
>> Adam Beerman. >> Yes. >> Abstain. Laura Franceski, >> yes. >> Ellen Huard, >> yes. >> Katherine Lara, >> yes. >> Christopher Sanpio, >> yes. >> Erica Snder, >> yes. >> Susan Caner, >> yes. >> DNA,
>> yes. >> Motion carries. >> Thank you, Mr. Harris. Um, welcome everyone to our second meeting of the new year, but happy new year just in case. Um, we moved some things around on the agenda, so we're going to start with our um board ethics training in a minute. Um, but I did want to say um
thank the community. Um but first our amazing facility staff for the tremendous work they did clearing um the snow and ice. Um some districts had two full snow days and then a half day. So um it's pretty remarkable. Um and I'd like to thank the community for their
understanding. Um the most important thing we do is teaching learning, but we have to make sure our staff and students get here safely. Um so thank you Dr. Lusa for making uh the early call. I think everyone enjoyed that. um and appreciate you're following the weather
and it looks like more weather uh snow of the snow variety is on the way. So we just ask that people uh just check their emails and um understand that the decisions that are being made are being made in the best interest of the people in our buildings. So thank you. And now I'm pleased to welcome uh Mr. Lepira,
our board attorney, who is going to present our um annual ethics training that is required. Yes, please. Thank you. Yeah, >> Miss Pac-Man reference. Nice. >> Miss Pac-Man reference.
>> Not on my bingo card. >> Okay. All right. So, once we So, thank you for having me here again to present on school ethics. Um, it is an important presentation. Is it the most exciting presentation? I don't know. We're going to try. Um, but we're going to give the abbreviated version this time because I
know that we've given this a couple of times now and um, you know, most of us are very familiar with it. Some of things are self-explanatory, but we'll kind of go through that once we kind of get the thing up on the screen. There we go. So, um, in terms of school ethics, the role of the board members and board
governance. So, if we go to kind of this third slide here. So, you know, a lot of times people are confused as to what boards of education do. um you are required by law uh to enforce the rules of the New Jersey State Board of Ed. You may amend and repeal rules for the
government and management of the schools and their employees and do all the things that are necessary to essentially uh have the school running. But as we go to the next slide here, what we see is that you know you have to approve curriculum. There are various requirements that you must do, but you
are doing these as a whole, as an entity, and typically almost everything that you do is going to be based upon the recommendation of your superintendent of schools. So, you're not doing things just because we think that we want to do them. Um, typically your superintendent is going to u make
all those recommendations. And your actions, I think, as we'll see on the next slide as we come through this, generally speaking, we're talking about highlevel actions, right? Um when you act, you act when you're here at a public meeting. You uh many of the members of the public will know that
there are committee meetings. Those committee meetings are going to result in recommendations to the full board. So while they can make those recommendations, ultimately it's the board as a whole that acts and they act only at public meetings. Um when since
kind of reinforcing this kind this this idea of acting as an individual unit individual board members can have their own ideas but the board acts as a single entity right so when things are voted upon that's done that is the position of
the board regardless of how individual board members may have voted. So if we go to the next slide what we can uh see here is the relationship between the board and the administration. We'll quickly go through this, but generally speaking, and this is an important piece I think for, you know, for the members of the public that don't know, the board
members do not run the school district. The board members make sure that the school district is being wellrun, right? You, it's policymaking, planning, and appraisal. You probably hear that numerous times during this presentation. They don't manage day-to-day operations. Um, you have a bylaw that specifically
says what is in the school ethics act and the code of ethics for board members. No board member by virtue of their office shall exercise any administrative responsibility with respect to the operation of the school district or as an individual command the services of any school district
employee. Basically the way that you should be thinking about it or the way that the public should be thinking about it is imagine this is a corporation. You've got a board of trustees. Your superintendent is the CEO. That's the person that runs the district. Um the
business administrator is the CFO. um those are the roles. The board oversees those individuals um but doesn't make direct decisions that have to do with like personnel or things of that nature. You do vote on personnel um but those are at the recommendation of the superintendent. Okay. So if we go to the
next slide um I mean this just talks about the relationship between uh the board and the superintendent. Obviously it's a cooperative uh process. It's not adversarial. Board members work together with the superintendent. Um, there is a
requirement both in your bylaw and in the school ethics act that if a complaint comes to you and and I think we've said this, you know, I do this at all the presentations. You might be at a soccer field or you might be, you know, at the grocery store and someone says, "Hey, I you know, can you make sure this gets taken care of or I have this
concern and oftenimes we want to say, sure, we'll take care of that." But actually, the answer is no. The answer is I'm going to refer that to the superintendent and the superintendent will either take care of it or will make sure that somebody in the school district takes care of it. I'm as a board member, I'm not going to do any of
those things. Um, if there is a complaint that is brought up at a public meeting, those should be referred to the chief administrative officer, which is your superintendent. We're only going to act on those complaints at public meetings after there has been some kind of a failure of an administrative solution. That's what the school ethics
act says. That's what your bylaw says. So, if we go to the next slide here, um, in terms of supporting district personnel, I mean, it's generally self-explanatory. Doesn't mean you can't disagree with recommendations or you can't have feelings about whether or not we should
do something or or something else, a different course of action, but fundamentally, what we need to do is support and protect school personnel in the proper performance of their duties. So, if they're doing the things that we expect them to do, we need to be supporting them um in doing that. We
don't want to inadvertently violate the code schoolboard member code of ethics by not doing that. Um so if we go to the next slide here we'll talk about um again this we the board as an entity kind of already talked about that we don't exercise any supervisory authority. The only person that you
technically supervise is the superintendent. Superintendent supervises everybody else. The only person you evaluate is the superintendent. The superintendent and the administration evaluate everybody else in the school district. If we go to the next slide, what we will see is that one of the things that's important
confidentiality. Um, we just have to remember as board members, we always have to keep uh matters confidential, especially when they are personnel matters because those are uh typically matters that we cannot discuss in public, student matters, um,
negotiations depending upon the ground rules. I mean, if we get to an impass, maybe that's a different story, but generally speaking, the negotiations are confidential. Um, and again it, you know, there's there's a there's an implication, not implication, but sometimes there's there's an issue where people say, "Oh, I know you have a
student in uh fourth grade and you're on the board. What's going on with that fourth grade teacher who's not here?" It could be any number of reason. They could be on maternity leave. They could be suspended. There could be I don't know any fourth grade teachers, by the way. I'm just using that as an example. Not saying anybody here. Um, but we can't say anything about that, right?
We've got to keep that confidential. you know, even if we know the reasons why, we can't share that with anybody. Can't share with your spouse, can't share with your friends, anything like that, neighbors. So, just be mindful of that. That's an important piece where I see in not so much in districts that we represent, but I see when I read um some
of the school ethics act uh opinions uh or decisions where people have gone wrong, they often um are not adhering to that. So, um in terms of the code of ethics and so we'll talk about why we have it, right? The so back in 2001, the
code of ethics for schoolboard members was enacted. The school ethics act in general um comp is basically comprised of a section called the prohibited acts section and the school board member code of ethics. We'll talk about both of those, but generally speaking, they set
forth the expectations of board members to make sure that everyone is acting in a way that is commensurate with what the public expects of you all as elected officials. Um, I don't think there's one for municipalities or for state government or for federal government. Maybe there should be, but regardless,
school board has a specific code of ethics. Um, and we have to abide by that. The school ethics commission um has the power to review any complaints that are made against board members. That could happen. Um, and the penalties
could be a number of things. It could be a reprimand, which is just a decision that says that a censure, which is like a reprimand except that if you are censured, you now have to suffer the indignity of the board having to read it at a public meeting, which is required when there is a public censure. So,
nobody wants that. Um, suspension, obviously, self-explanatory, not so great. And in some limited cases, board members have been removed for violating the school ethics act. Um, if there is a violation, if if there's a complaint that's filed and there's a violation that alleges that a board
member violated the code of ethics, if there's probable cause of the that goes forward, that will be prosecuted by the person who brought the complaint. If there's an allegation that the board member violated one of the prohibited acts sections, that will be prosecuted by a deputy attorney general. So, that's
the distinction there. Um, and the other thing the school ethics commission does, which I'll briefly talk about, is that they also issue advisory opinions. So, that's helpful when you want to get information saying, "Hey, I think that I can do this, but I'm not sure. I'd like to get a definitive opinion." Often times, we know the answer to that
because there are advisory opinions or decisions that have already been issued, but sometimes there are nuances and we have facilitated actually one of the decisions in here is an advisory opinion that I got for one of our clients um about whether or not he could do something, right? So that's helpful to do um if you need to. Anyway, um kind of
turning to the next slide here when we talk about the actual um prohibited act section. So some of these are self-explanatory, right? You can't have a business organization or engage in any business transaction or professional activity which is in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of
your duties in the public interest. So most people don't have that actually. Sorry, go back. Yeah. Um, you can't you I mean that one is that one is straightforward, but number two is really straightforward, right? You can't attempt to use your official position to secure unwarranted privileges,
advantages or employment for yourself, members of your immediate family or others, right? This is not, you know, it's not like I got elected to the board and now here's the gravy train. That's not the way it's supposed to work. Um, in quite in fact, it's the opposite, right? Um C, you can't act in your
official capacity in which you have either a direct or indirect financial involvement. That would be prohibited. Um that would be expected to impair your objectivity or independence of judgment. You also can't act when you or a member of your immediate family has some type
of personal involvement where acting on this action would create some benefit to either you or the member of your immediate family. So, you know, keeping in mind those things, you can't undertake any employment, whether it's compensated or not, that would prejudice your independence of judgment and the
exercise of your official duties. Doesn't happen a lot, but it could happen. So, for example, you couldn't be on the board and you couldn't be an attorney who represents parents who is then suing the board for like, you know, various violations, whatever it may be, special education issues, right?
Couldn't do those things. Those would be incompatible. Um, if we go to the next one. So, you can't I mean, this was pretty straightforward, right? You can't say, "Oh, yeah, I'll do something and I'll vote on this for the board in exchange
for this gift or a bribe, right? That's what we call it." Like, we can't do that. So, I we had to write that. I don't know where that was happening, but you know, 24 25 years ago, we had to make it clear you cannot accept bribes um or other gifts or things of that nature, right? Um it doesn't mean that
if you know someone gives you some small gift that has nothing to do with the fact that you're on the board that that's not prohibited. Um but it obviously be mindful whenever people are trying to give you gifts. Um in terms of using your public employment um to give
information that's not generally available to the public and you're using that for you know some type of profitm venture that would be problematic right? So, like for example, if you know like, oh, we're going to do X, Y, and Z, and then you say, well, let me invest in this company that's going to really profit from X, Y, and Z, you shouldn't
do that. Um, and uh we can't you can't represent a person or a party other than the school board or the school district in connection with any proceeding where it would be against or adverse to the school district. Again, straightforward. So, I think if we turn I think there's a part three on this one as well, maybe.
Um yeah, I mean so this is just kind of listing some exceptions, but if there's no material monetary gain that occurs to you or any business or anything else, um it may not it says that you shall uh no
school official shall be deemed to be in conflict with these provisions. Um generally speaking, that is true except you know if there's something more specific in the in the ones above. you're not prohibited from making inquiries on behalf of a constituent as long as there's not, you know, for a fee
or some basis uh something of value being promised to you. Um you can always represent yourself in any negotiations or proceedings concerning your interest or your own interest. So, for example, um let's say, uh not that it's happened here, but I'm just knowing from having
happened in another school district. Let's say you're a parent and you have a child and your child is either alleged to have been a victim of a HIP or or was someone who committed a HIP or whatever it is. That doesn't mean that you can't appeal to the board. Yeah, it's a little bit awkward when you're on on on this
side of the dis, right? And then, you know, the board members are hearing it. But that's permissible, right? You're allowed to do that. Um, in fact, you're even allowed to bring a request for due process on behalf of your child, that's fine. If you're seeking money on behalf
of that request for due process, that's a problem, right? So, if you're just looking to change the IEP, that's fine. But if you're looking for compensation or damages, that's not going to work. Um, and then the last part has to do with the New Jersey School Boards Association. So, if we kind of skip ahead now to the next one. So, the code
of ethics. Um, number one, I will uphold and enforce all laws, rules, and regulations of the state board of ed and all court orders pertaining to schools. Desire changes to be brought about only through legal and ethical procedures. What does that mean? That doesn't mean if we don't like I don't know what, like something that the governor does or
whatever the case may be or the Department of Ed does, that doesn't mean we can say, "Well, we're just not doing it." No, you are going to be doing it, right? We're not allowed to just disobey those things. You're allowed to lobby and say, "We need this law to be changed. we think it's terrible or whatever it is, but we have to obey the
laws that exist. >> So, can I ask a question? Because it says the regulation, the laws, rules, regulations of the state board of education. >> Does that mean we don't have to um abide by New Jersey law? >> No. So, all laws including New Jersey law, federal law, everything else, and
the regulations issued by the state board of ed. The way it's written is a little bit weird. I agree. >> Sorry. >> Uh no, it's fine. um making decisions in terms of educational welfare of children and to make sure that you seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability,
race, creed, sex, or social standing. Self-explanatory. Um confine board action to policym, planning, and appraisal and helping to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted with those who will be affected by them. Now, that consultation could be we do a first and second
reading of any policies. That's fine. you don't have to, you know, go knock on everybody's door saying, "We're going to change these policies. Are you okay with it?" That's a bit much. Um, if you want to do that, that's fine, but you're not required to do that by the school ethics act. Um, carry out your responsibility not to administer the schools, but
together with your fellow board members to see that they're wellrun. Right. Again, this is going back to the policymaking, planning, and appraisal piece and and thinking about who runs the district, which is your superintendent, and you oversee all of that. um you recognize that authority rests
with the board of ed and will make no personal promises or take any private action that may compromise the board. So we need to be mindful of that. That comes up mostly in the context of like letters to the editor in the past, Facebook posts or social media posts. We have to be a little bit careful about
those. Um we can't surrender our independent judgment to special interest groups or partisan political groups or use the schools for personal gain or for the gain of friends. self-explanatory confidentiality. You've got to hold everything uh
confidential. Um especially if if disclosed, it would needlessly injure individuals or the schools. And you have to also provide accurate information. Um there was a uh board member in another district from several years ago. We didn't represent that district thankfully, but uh he said all sorts of
horrible things on a blog, including lots of inaccurate information about the association president, all sorts of things. Um it was it was like how almost like he was trying to see like how many of these things can I violate and he did quite a few. Um and he was suspended for six months. So uh we can't do but one of
the things was he was giving inaccurate information. Um vote to appoint the best qualified personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative officer. So just for the folks in the public who may or may not know the board as per New Jersey law can't just say well I want to
hire this person. Okay, that's you can have those wants, but unless your superintendent recommends that person to the board for hiring, that person's never getting hired, right? A superintendent has to recommend it and then you vote on. If the superintendent doesn't recommend it, that person's never going to get before you. Um, and
that's one of the key distinctions, right? That kind of talks about how we do the policymaking, planning, and appraisal, and the superintendent administers and runs the schools. Um, we already talked about I supporting and protecting school personnel and the proper performance of their duties. And then Jay we talked about too referring all complaints to the chief
administrative officer and acting on those complaints only if there's been a failure of an administrative solution. Okay. So if we go to the next one I'm kind of try to wrap this up quickly here because we have like lots of examples. I think you folks can review all those examples at your leisure. Um but um
talking about hiring and voting we talked about that. Can you say no if someone uh is recommended for a vote? Yes, the board can say no. You can't. The only thing is you can't withhold approval for arbitrary and capriccious reasons but doesn't mean that you don't have right. Um if we go to the next one
if I recall yeah these are just a couple of advisory opinions. Yeah. >> You want to hear more of this? Okay fine. I was you know doing the turbocharged version of it but yes >> yeah these are new. Yeah a couple of these are new. Some of them are older. So this one can you advocate for your own child's special education placement?
The answer is yes you can do that. This was um in this particular case there was a unilateral placement. They were serving on the board. Um you you could do it because they're saying look my child should get this specific type of um program and that wasn't available in
the district or whatever it is. Fine, but it is going to restrict the person now from certain things. So for example, you know, you're not going to be voting on any out of district placement for your child or for any other child. um uh you know in terms of the communication
with the director of special services about that child. Now they shouldn't vote on any member matter related to the director's employment. So there so there are things that you can do but it may limit you um in what you can vote on because otherwise there would be a
perception that there's some type of a conflict there. Um, so for example, let's say, you know, you had a child and there was a dispute about your child's placement and then whatever the director of special services or a supervisor or someone, you know, their contract is up for renewal or whatever it is. You do
not want to be in a position where you're voting on that or discussing that because depending on how that vote goes, it could be viewed as, you know, you weren't um being totally impartial or so those are to be avoided. Um, this second one, this is the one that I got involved
in. Um, so we had a uh teacher who was tutoring uh a board member's child over the summer, was not uh the student's teacher in the upcoming year, but did work in the same school as the child. Uh, unfortunately, it happened before I
was asked about it, but we still managed to get um an advisory opinion here um confirming the advice that I gave that person. Um they they did say like normally we only do this on a prospective basis but we will answer it because it's an interesting question or whatever but ultimately let yes you
could do it um but you do have to recuse yourself from discussions where that might be seen as either a financial involvement that impairs your objectivity. Um so also would not be voting on that person's appointment. Um,
it might extend to negotiations with the local union, people who supervise that teacher. So, can it be done? Yes. Right. Like, I mean, you know, you want your you want your child to get uh tutoring and you want to use the best available person and maybe that's the person that's right here in the district.
That's fine, but just know that there's limitations with it. Um, if we go to the next one, I think there's a couple newer ones and then after some of them are older. Um, yeah, I think these are maybe might be the same ones from last year too, from 24. But, um, just know that if
you have someone who you're related to employed in the district but not member of a union, doesn't matter. They're still covered by that union, we're not going to be able to participate in uh, negotiations with that union. Um, and
but you can you can vote on the collective negotiations agreement after the MOA is reached. I have a chart at the end that kind of goes through all that. It's like a it's and candidly every time someone asked this question, I pull up that chart and I check the chart and I check those opinions. Um,
if there was a board member who was a professor at a I think we talked about this one last year maybe, but it was a professor in a at a local university and did some training in that particular school district um and was a board member. They basically said, "Well, you can't keep doing the training in the district. That would be inappropriate."
And if you had people that you that you were uh a professor for and then they got employed in the district, you really need to recuse yourself on voting on their appointments or continued appointments and things of that nature. Again, just making sure that the public doesn't have a reason to believe, you know, to be very colloquial is the fix
in here, right? I mean, we want to be above board and everything is being done appropriately. Um I think if we kind of go through the next, some of the next ones are going to be as I recall. So these are these are advisory opinions. These are um not really new ones, but
just know that they exist. Um this the first one talks about interviewing personnel. Typically board members not involved in that. That's what they say. There's limitations. Theoretically, you could be involved in some limited capacity, but generally no. Um you know, like just basically being an advisory member of a committee that you know and
one or two board members, fine, right? Um but not someone who's really doing the interviewing. That wouldn't be appropriate. Um, exit interviews. If we want exit interviews to be done, then you can tell your superintendent you want exit interviews to be done. You cannot do your own exit interviews. Um,
there was a board member in a school district who went ahead and did that and said, "Well, I didn't think the superintendent would do it, so I did it on my own." Yeah. Well, guess what? The school ethics commission said you can take a pause and be suspended for a while, so we're not allowed to do that. Um, if we go to the next one, I think
there is Let's see. So, some of these are more recent. I think these might have been uh here last year, but generally speaking, when it comes to like volunteering and things like that, can you can you volunteer like the second one down, can you um you know volunteer for a nonprofit organization?
The answer is yes. But if there are issues with that nonprofit organization and there are questions that come before the board that are directly related to that, guess what? You need to recuse yourself from that. um you can't be involved in things that have to do with another organization that you are a part
of. Um in the uh in the first one there was they they characterized as a tenuous uh history between the uh the current superintendent who had previously been employed elsewhere and the board member who when he was at that other uh place
uh the the the superintendent then non-renewed that board member, right? So that was like an awkward situation and as a result of that now that you're a board member and now that that superintendent is here and now that you know technically like you're his boss where before he was your boss you need to recuse yourself. Um you can't be
involved in that. Um I think there might be one or two more maybe here. Yeah. This I mean especially the um I mean the last one is kind of self-explanatory. Can um can you get signatures from staff members who reside in town when you're running? Yes. Do you have to recuse
yourself um from anything that has to do with that? No. I mean, like the fact that they signed your petition is fine. That's not that doesn't get to that level. Um in terms of endorsements, if there are endorsements by the local
educational association, um and especially if they're helping to finance your campaign, uh almost certainly you're not going to be able to participate in negotiations that first year, the first three-year term after that. um or at least the first year of your board membership that you know it they
kind of vary on that. Um if there's I think if there's no financial contribution probably just in your first year if there is a financial contribution probably you can never do it for that first term and then when you rerun again. So just being mindful right they don't want people to think that the person on the negotiations committee was
put in there by the association for example. Uh and I think we go to the next one. Let's see. Um oh so these are some decisions that came out. Um, you know, can you can you share information
with an individual who has a lawsuit against the board and the superintendent that is trying to assist that person? Guess what? No, you cannot, right? Like you're a member of the board, doesn't matter if you're that person's friend, you cannot do those things. Those are incompatible. Um, that was a violation
of the school ethics act. Um, weirdly they said reprimand and then the the commissioner said, "Well, no, it should be a censure." And if and if she was still on the board, it would have been more than a censure. It would have been a suspension or removal. So, um, in this Marlboro uh, Township case, I don't know
the exact details as to how this kind of happened, but there was blurring of the lines, right? You can be part of um, in some capacity the special education parent advisory group, okay? But you if you're advocating on behalf of students, not so much advisory, but now
advocative, that's a potential problem, especially if you're advocating for those people against the board, right? Not okay. Um the next couple I think are, you know, of a similar nature of things that you shouldn't do. Um well, endorsing people
in your official capacity while you're still on the board. Um uh no. um the way that it happened was was not appropriate. Um volunteering as a football coach is kind of a weird one. The guy got appointed to the board. He was a volunteer football coach. He
didn't quite realize that you you can't volunteer and put yourself in a position where you might be subject to school employees telling you what to do and having like excessive entanglement with students. This is one of the weird cases I think in the 20 plus years I've
been doing this. I think this is the first time I saw a case where they said yes this was a violation but no penalty because not even a reprimand they said basically the guy didn't know it's if I recall correctly I think the board attorney might have told it wasn't me by the way might have told him like yes you
can do this so there were there were there were various mitigating factors so um if he did it again it would be a problem um yeah and then in in some of these so like this you know no shock right um you should not um pick up a letter from your
friend's home and say, "I'm going to give this to all of the other board members, but not to the superintendent." And that board member and that letter is basically saying that the superintendent is a bad person and all these other high crimes and misdemeanor. No, no, you can't do that, right? Like, let's just make it clear. Um, you know, if they
say, "Hey, I want you to give this to the board members because I have a problem with the superintendent." Your response is, "You should give that to the superintendent and you should give it to you should go through official channels and I'm not going to take part in any of this. I'm not even going to be in the in the room when this is being discussed because we have this close
friendship. Can't do it. Um, yeah. I mean, in this other one, uh, yeah, if if someone comes from another school district and complains about you as a board member, should you be calling that person's boss in the other school district and saying that they should be fired? No, you should not be doing that,
right? No, you shouldn't. Um, so that's that is violating the School Ethics Act. It it could it's private action that could compromise the board, right? We can't try to silence members of the public or encourage them not to attend meetings by calling their employers. We shouldn't do that. Um so again, some of
these people made these mistakes. Uh and we learned from them, right? Um to the extent that we need to learn. We probably didn't need to learn from them, but at least we know just in case anybody has any questions. All right. Um and I think there might be a few other ones. Um these I think are somewhat these are older. I think we talked about them last time, but um kind of
straightforward. I mean, don't don't don't vote on board policies and and say that you're going to name a school on behalf of the lieutenant governor who is still alive, even though the board policies say you're not going to name schools after people who are alive and it's clearly for political reasons,
right? Like we're not that that's that kind of is like the definition of surrendering surrendering to partisan political groups, right? So, we shouldn't do that. Um, but again, these are again, you can kind of look at these two at your leisure. These are this is the flavor, right? I mean, I think what
we need to know is that there are things that you can do um that are obviously um okay. There are things that you can't do that are obviously problematic. And whenever you want to do something and you're not sure, you should ask for an
advisory opinion in advance. Um yeah, I mean so and again the the other one these these are of a similar nature. I think we reported on these last year too. So, um, there might be another slide or two that talks about, um, these are old ones, too. We can kind of go past that. Um, yeah. So, social media, I
mean, we talked about this. Just, this is a really easy one. Just use good judgment. Like, do you want to go viral? And if it went viral, would you say, "Oh, boy, that's not one that I want to go viral." Well, then don't post that, right? Um, and um, you know, just kind of be mindful. The other the other thing
I always tell people is like just just remember if you're getting ready to post something on social media and you say, "I wonder if someone would be offended by that." Guess what? You answered your own question. You already know the answer because if you had to wonder about it, the answer is yes. Um, so be careful. You don't want to have a situation where you engage in private
action that could compromise the board. Um, so those are important things to consider. Obviously, defamatory statements, you can't do that. disclosing confidential information. You know, these are all things that would violate the school ethics act as well. Um, you can put disclaimers on social
media posts. That would be fine so long as you don't kind of do things that would otherwise violate the school ethics act, right? So, you can put a disclaimer on there and then if you share inaccurate information and you share confidential information and things like that, well, that disclaimer is not going to save you. But if you are
just making your personal opinion known about some type of um topic of interest, um that is fine. But just make sure you indicate they're being made in your capacity as a private citizen. They're not in your capacity as a board member.
They're not representative of the board and they're solely my own personal opinions. Right? We're not you don't you don't surrender your first amendment rights to to have, you know, beliefs and express those beliefs. Um, but you just need to be mindful that you're not saying you're not giving the impression
that this is the board's uh position. Um, and then I think there might be one or two other slides. Oh, this is just going board member recusal. If we kind of skip to the end, it's just kind of the more important one. These are just the advisory opinions, but if we look at the I think there's one where is a
chart. Yeah, this is the chart that I kind of live by. So, if you are in a member of a similar union, like let's say I'm employed as a teacher in whatever Montgomery, right? Can I participate in negotiations here?
No. Can I vote to ratify the contract? Yes, once it's all done. Can I participate in superintendent issues? Sure. You know, absent some other conflict, right? So, you're re evaluating the superintendent and things like that. Sorry, that's what I should say. Yeah, that's probably evaluating
the superintendent didn't fit in that box is my guess. Um, in terms of let's say your spouse is a member of the union here, well then no, you can't participate in in in just about any of those things up there, right? I mean, so if if you have a spouse who is part of
the um, you know, whatever it is, the PRA here, right? Can you participate in negotiations with them? No. Can you ratify the contract? No. Can't even vote on that, right? Because you're basically voting on their raise. And can you evaluate the superintendent? No, because the superintendent indirectly supervises
your spouse. Now, if they're a member of a similar union, let's say they are in Montgomery, um, still can't participate in negotiations, but you probably could do those other things. And again, there's asterisks next to these. So, for example, yeah, you could do that. But if your spouse is the negotiations chair in
Montgomery, then no. If your spouse is the grievance chair person, probably the answer is no. you know, some like high ranking type of person as opposed to someone who's just in the association. Um, same thing with I mean, it just kind of goes dependent children who live in the same household basically same as the
spouse, non-dependent children or relatives. Um, it's similar, but you can still participate in negotiations there, right? So, what you know, the kind of the joke that we say is um if you have a relative that you haven't spoken to in a while, you get elected to the board,
give them a call and make sure they're not part of the grievance, you know, committee or make sure they're not part of the negotiations because then you might be in a position where you actually can't participate in negotiations. But otherwise, um you can do most of those things. It's it's really the clear-cut ones are if you have a relative employed in the
district, basically you're cut out of all those things. If you have a relative in in in a similar union outside the district, it depends on the relative and it depends on what they do. So, I think that may be it. Yeah. Okay, that was longer than I want to be, but someone
gave you permission to go longer. So, >> that's fantastic. >> Thank you very much. And I'll go back. >> Thank you so much. Can I ask a question about email though real quick? So, um, we've we've had differing advice on email and reply all and people emailing
the board and then the board replying all. What's your >> Sure. So, this so this is what I think the best practices are. >> Um, you can certainly send out information to board members, whether it's the superintendent or whether the board president pushes out information
to board members and says, "Here's information. It may come up at the meeting." Whatever it is, we're not going to have a discussion about this. Um so don't reply all. Um if there's a question that we need to talk about like individually we can do that but we
should not be having a meeting and it's it's kind of hard to happen what I would suggest in an email but you can see a scenario in which if it was like a group text and then you know like the like when I get when I pick up my phone sometimes and like I'm in the family
chat right it gives me anxiety because I have like 700 messages that I don't want to look at. Um but like but you can imagine right if you were doing that as a board and like your phone keeps going off and there's messages here and there you know like left and right over the course of like 15 20 minutes well now
you're having a meeting right it's just not in person but you should be in person and it should be noticed pursuant to the open public meetings act so have I seen a case that decided that not yet um I think if we push out information
totally fine if someone says hey I have a question about that before we go to the board meeting. Sure, we can have a conversation to board members. Totally fine. Um, but can we have a a quorum of the board be talking about it? No, we can't. We have to wait until we're here. So, yeah. >> Thank you.
>> Okay. >> Great job. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, moving on now to um the superintendent's report. >> Thank you, Miss Kendall, and thank you, Vic. Um, we've done some shuffling
around here under my report. I'll begin just by acknowledging that we do have an agenda item to recognize the passing of one of our staff members, Mr. Jason Ple. Uh, it's a requirement that we indicate that via board resolution. That's why it appears on the agenda. Uh, and I do want
to just shout out um the leadership team at the high school, particularly Cecilia Burge, as well as really the whole staff and even student body at large because uh it was a a pretty tough day in the high school uh that Wednesday when the
news broke and um being a firsthand witness, I can say that the staff and students all really pulled together and were just phenomenal throughout a very difficult and uh tragic process. So just wanted to explain that at the outset why
that appears on the agenda. Um we also have a requirement as a district to um report out on any u confirmed HIV uh cases in the district through December 31st. I will do that very quickly. Um
we've had five confirmed HIV cases which is down quite a bit from the the past couple of years in the first half of the year. uh two of those were at PMS, two were at PHS and one was at CP. And then add in in addition to HIB uh the other types of items that we have to file and
submit to the department of education fall under the the general umbrella of student safety data. Uh so in addition to the HIV cases, we had one uh confirmed case of substance use, uh zero weapons, which is uh down a bit from
last year, two instances of vandalism, and 13 instances of violence, which is also down a bit from last year. And by violence, uh that just really can mean any student putting his or her hand on another student, pushing, shoving, fighting, that kind of thing. Um so that
satisfies our requirement um that we have to do twice annually. Uh we are going to postpone our official recogn recognition of the cheer squad until February for a variety of reasons. Uh we wish them all the best because they're going to be going on a trip in a couple
of weeks and then when they return we will have them here for a formal recognition. Um and then the final item on my agenda is the presentation of our annual audit report. All school districts in New Jersey are required to undergo a comprehensive financial audit
on an annual basis. uh that audit must be completed by December. Although this year there was a um uh some additional time given to all districts because of the federal shutdown the shutdown of the federal government in early earlier in
2025. Uh so the board as a whole listened to a presentation from the auditors last week and Mr. Harris and Miss Dior are uh with us to uh present an overview of that report and take any questions that board members might have.
So, I'm going to turn it back over to Mr. Harris. >> Thank you, Dr. Lassus. So, uh tonight I'll be presenting um pieces of our audit reports. So, our ACT for our AMR and then discussing some of the audit comments and audit findings
within those. Um so first I thought it was important to identify what is an ACT for ACT for stands for annual comprehensive financial report. It is the Princeton public schools official audited financial report for the fiscal year. It it's a detailed analysis of the 2425 school year that provides an
in-depth analysis of revenues, expenditures, assets and liabilities, the financial condition of the district, and the auditor's opinion on whether the numbers are accurate and following accounting rules. So just to highlight from uh the act for
our financial position um it we had a clean audit opinion meaning no material misstatements and no qualifications. Uh they concluded the financial position of the district remained strong. However maintaining existing programs developing new programs for regular education pupil enrollment and continued special
programs and services for students with special needs places great demands on the district resources. They identified that the 2% tax levy cap and rising health benefit costs are identified as future challenges. Um, and something that I want to highlight for all the board, even though
the financial position is strong in accounting terms, this does not mean the operating budget is structurally balanced, especially given our heavy reliance on budgeted surplus. And we're going to discuss that a little further at the end of the presentation. Uh, the additional report that's up for approval tonight, the AMR stands for the
auditor's management report. It is Princeton public schools management health check. It provides detailed findings and recommendations related to the 2425 school year that includes internal controls, financial procedures, compliance with laws and regulations, audit findings with recommendations.
We'll talk about what those are in a little bit. We had four of them and audit comments which we had five. So audit findings with recommendations. These are formal reportable issues. They could indicate non-compliance, control deficiencies or violations. They can
include but not necessarily preclude prior year repeat findings, material weaknesses, significant deficiencies, legal or regulatory violations or grant compliance failures. So that when we look at the audit numbering, we're going to say this one, the first one is one. Um but they're
kind of delivered in different groups in the act. So you'll see the numbers going to jump around a little bit. So um they we are in moving in the proper order. I'm again I'm going to deal with the audit findings with recommendations first and then I'm going to get into the audit comments. Um so the first finding was during the review of payroll the
auditors noted that the payroll registers provided during the audit were not reviewed and certified by all required individuals. So this needs to happen on a monthly basis. Um they did a sample of the payroll registers and of that sample two of the three uh did not receive the proper signatures. Um, so
this is something that needs to be reviewed and certified by the board president, the school business administrator and the chief school administrator prior to the processing of payroll and that certified payroll registers are readily available for review during the audit. Um, so again the district needs to ensure that all
payroll registers are reviewed and meet this condition. >> Mr. Harris, answer your question. >> You certainly can. who's responsible for um having the payroll register reviewed by >> I believe in the past that it was the payroll manager. Um currently now we've
changed that process and I handle that. >> Thank you. >> Uh finding 20256 uh the district has students accounts receivable balance of 201,456 in the food service fund for the fiscal year ended June 30th. So this is money
owed to the food service account. Um so again the recommendation from the audit is the district implement procedures to address collection of student accounts receivable balances in the food service fund. Um the board may ask you know what is make what makes up that $200,000. Um and that could be students who uh just
owe the student that are in district now owe the district money for their you know food services account and just have not paid up. It could be students that have done that and moved out of the district and left the balance for the district to resolve. Um it could be students who have um within their time
here um made a balance because they couldn't afford food and then became free and reduced. Maybe paperwork wasn't filed on time, something along those lines. Uh there's a number of different issues that go into that number. Um but the business office is working hard now to rectify that and put a procedure in
place to remedy that issue. Uh this one's related to high school student activities. Uh the next two uh finding 202507 there's no priv prior approval for expenditures and payments were made without adequate supporting invoices and
many as reimbursements to staff. So the recommendation all student activities expenditures require prior approval and supporting invoices and payments are made directly to vendors rather than as reimbursements to staff. Um so I think as everyone here is aware um in the general fund when we're doing purchases
a requisition must be made with provided with quote a quote or quotes depending on the threshold. Um and then that has to go through an approval process and then once the approval process then it turns into a PO. A PO is promised to paid. It's sent to the vendor. The vendor sends the goods. We receive the
goods. We pay the invoice. Uh that is not what was occurring in the student activities account. Um so as of December 1st of this year we moved the uh student activities accounts into our accounting system Genesis in order to implement that process to avoid the issues that um
have cropped up in the past due to this. Um so again the management uh recommendation all student activity expenditures require prior approval and supporting invoices. That's procedure that we have in place now. Uh the business office will ensure student activities expenditures have prior approval and supporting invoices and
that payments are made to vendors rather than reimbursements to staff. Uh this is a big one so I'll go in I'll go slowly through this one. There's a lot here. Um so again audit finding this is the last of the four audit findings with recommendations 20259.
Uh again this is within the stu high school student activities account. a cash withdrawal for a student trip and wire transfers for another student trip. These practices are not permissible. Payments can only be made via an authorized check. Uh number two within
this certain activities club had deficit balances as of June 30th, 2025. Uh this is not allowed. And then payments did not always appear to be consistent with the student activities club's intended purpose. Um and what that refers to is the possibility that funds were raised
for one sub account. um but then used or transferred to a different sub account to cover expenses within that account. Um so again, recommendations from the auditor and confirmed with our board attorney. Payments are made only with an authorized check. Procedures are implemented to ensure that the various
student activities clubs raise sufficient funds to cover their expenses and balances are communicated periodically to the club adviserss. Payments are strictly for the purposes of fundraising activities of the various student activity clubs. So again, the sub accounts. >> I have a question, Mr. H. >> Yes. So, um, and Mr. Leure, you just
happen to be here because we're having our attorney, uh, our ethics training. So, we appreciate you being here. So, maybe I'll ask you. >> So, um, a cash withdrawal for student trip. Um, that's not allowed. >> Correct. >> And wired transfers,
>> right? Neither. Oh, no, sorry. Neither one. Um, the, um, the regulations dealing with student activity accounts are very specific about this. They say that the district board of education shall make all dispersements by check bearing a minimum of two authorized
signatures. They don't there's no other opportunity cash wire transfer money order nothing else. It just says shall be done by check. >> Uhhuh. So shall means must. >> Absolutely. >> Right. So so the fact that um someone wants a wire transfer, what do we do?
>> We can't do it. I mean that's the bottom line. what we have to do is arrange for a way to um and part of it is >> the process, >> you know, the wire transfer is really helpful because you can do things very quickly, but if we plan this out sufficiently ahead of time, um we can
get a check to anybody within a week or two, right? So, it just has to be done in that fashion. If there are people that will not accept a check and will say, "I'm only going to accept cash or um a wire transfer," we can't do business with them. That's the way that
I would say it. >> Um they need they need to figure that out on their own. >> We're happy to pay them for the trip or whatever the case may be, but they've got to come to grips with accepting a check. It's got to happen. Mhm. Um what
if there's only one person who provides a service and they request uh a wire transfer or we're going to a country that you know is on some suspended list and they can't >> well we've gone to Cuba right and so
they're on OFAC so we can't issue a check to them. >> So what's the what's the option? I mean, technically speaking, the options are we've got to find an appropriate vendor that we can pay by check. Um, if we can't do that, there's
not a procedure that exists to allow us to pay either by wire transfer or cash. >> So, we can't get a waiver from the Department of Ed. >> I'm not aware of any. I mean, I mean, there could be a question that could be raised with the Department of Ed, but I don't think that they would um provide a
waiver. I mean they they they don't really even do it very often um for like employee outofcountry travel >> um that is sparingly approved by the department. >> What do you mean? >> So if if you had someone going to a conference >> an employee going to a conference that's
outside the country >> um even that requires approval by the department of ed and they don't automatically approve that. Um so >> really >> yeah so by virtue of that I you by way of comparison >> um we're not in a position to to to do
much there. I mean >> could people ask the department of ed? Sure they could ask. I there's not really a procedure in place for that. Um but I don't I wouldn't expect that that's going to be granted. >> Yeah. So I I guess I have a question. So this was um a cash withdrawal and wire transfers, right? So it's not permitted.
You said the law says that you shall issue a check, >> correct? with two. So, um, we weren't following the rules. >> That's correct. In this particular circumstance, um, people apparently didn't realize that it has to be done by way of a check with two signatures.
>> So, just we did it in the past, can we just continue doing it? >> Now that we know about it, we have to stop. We have to we have to comply with this is this goes back to our ethics training, right? Where it says that we shall comply with all rules of the state board of education. >> This is one. >> But it's not a state board of education rule. It's a state law. So, we have to comply with that.
>> Well, we have to Yes. We have to comply with it. And um I'm just checking. And so um is there a chance you're misinterpreting the law? >> I don't think so. So no, I'm going to say no. Um >> but yeah. >> Okay. So your advice as our as our board
council who you know, you've worked with us for a while. >> Yes. >> And we're very happy with your council. You're saying that >> going forward, no more wire transfers, >> correct? >> And no more cash withdrawals. >> Correct. Absolutely. There's no exceptions.
>> Nope. And we looked very carefully at it. We tried to see if there was any ways that it could be done legally and we came up with zero. >> Really? >> Correct. >> So your council to the board of ed >> is to not with student activity accounts >> has to be a check has to be two
signatures. We have to have um the appropriate requisitions. Dispersements have to be done in a very specific way which I think is now going to be done now that the business office is going to be involved in the student activities account. Okay. >> A paper check.
Do you have paper checks? >> Yeah, I assume it it would has to have two signatures. So, yeah, I assume it's paper check. >> Okay. And there's no way around it. >> We have found none. >> Got it. All right. I just want to be clear that, you know, we want to make sure that we're advocating for our programs
>> 100%. >> Um, but we're going to follow the law. >> Yes. >> First and foremost. And am I getting ahead or you're not done? >> So, I was going to see if anyone else had any questions related to first this finding, but any of the findings and then I was going to move on to the um comments.
>> And I wanted to follow up just because a student activity fund is not necessarily taxpayer dollars that comes in the budget to us through the levy. It's it's outside, >> right? >> But we still have a fiduciary duty to make sure that what'sever happening with respect to that fund is done properly.
>> Correct. I mean, we're the we're essentially the custodian of those funds, right? So we have to make sure that they're spent appropriately. >> Thank you for pointing that out. Adam, did you have a question? >> Yeah, just maybe. So in a nutshell for my own internal rec reconciliation, it's my new favorite word. What we're we're finding that there were problems with
over time of unclear processes, um staff turnover, incomplete training and and sometimes failure to act on past a part auditors and bud. But at the same time, what you're saying now is we're going to go and there are new things. So, I just want So, we have not >> Oh,
>> no, no, no. I just wanted to say with the we have um this is the first time this is my 10th year on the board that we've had any findings. So, I just want to um I I want to um thank you for bringing it up. I just want to step back and um earlier this year earlier last
year um it came to the board's attention that um uh funds were being raised uh for an event. please feel free to for >> an event and uh it was not going through student activities. And so, um, the
board directed, uh, the business admin, the superintendent, the business administrator to look into, um, uh, all the student activities. And as Beth brought up, we do have a fiduciary obligation, uh, and we're custodian of
the money and people trust, you know, that money that is given is going to be spent as they were told. Um, and so that's what led to um, these findings. the auditor did not find these uh did not discover it. Um I think that auditor
was with us three years and then the auditor before that uh wasn't discovered. We believe this has been going on for uh several years now. So thank you for raising that point. But this is something that um was um discovered internally and um was flagged
to the auditors by our business uh Miss Diori and uh Mr. Harris. So thank you for that. Yeah, I guess my point of clarity and context matters is important and you're start now start addressing how house is being cleaned and we're going to have processes and protocols now to deal with this.
>> Yes, that's correct. >> Okay. Um any other questions from the board regarding this finding or the three that came before it? >> All right. So those were findings with recommendations. These are audit
comments. A common is used when an issue is minor, low risk, or already corrected after year end and does not rise to the level of a formal audit finding or compliance violation. So again, things that the auditor wants to point out um but it's not necessarily something that
needs to either be addressed or um rises to that material level. Um so again, issue was not material. It did not rise to the level of material weakness or significant deficiency, but still worth the attention. It's a low risk or isolated occurrence. Um the issue may be
procedural, limited or not systematic in nature. Uh no material impact on financial statements so that condition does not affect accuracy of the district's financial reports. Um this is important because this is applies to a few of them. Corrected after year-end post-year audit remediation. So the
district identified and corrected the issue after the close of the audit year but before during the audit reducing the need for a formal finding. Um controls are now in place. of the business office implemented new procedures, training or oversight that addressed the root cause of the issue. No evidence of ongoing non-compliance. The issue is not
expected to continue and does not represent a continuing audit concern. Um so again you the numbering will be a little off as pointed out before. Um so the first one during the review of open purchase orders the auditors noted certain items were not valid or not properly classified. However, as these
purchase orders were canceled or reclassified after June 30th for audit presentation under the direction of the school business administrator and the district has already implemented procedures to ensure the proper classification of outstanding purchase orders moving forward, a formal recommendation is deemed unwarranted. Um, so basically the idea with this is
is that there was purchase orders that were open that shouldn't have been open and carried into the following year. um or purchase orders that were applied to the uh the incorrect fund and so those needed corrections. The next one uh not all transactions during the year were accurately posted to the district's accounting system.
However, all transactions were correctly posted after June 30th and during audit review under the direction of the school business administrator. Since the district has already implemented procedures to ensure that all transactions after June 30th are accurately posted to the financial accounting software, a formal
recommendation is deemed unwarranted. Uh this had a couple different examples, but one just to highlight is um when revenue is brought into the district, it should be posted in a certain way. Um it could go to a revenue line or a balance sheet line depending on what's going on. Uh these were not done accurately. And
so again, there was no mishandling of funds. It was just a miscounting of how those funds went into the system. Not all bank accounts were reconciled accurately as through June 30th. However, the district made great effort after June 30th and correcting the reconciliations. The district has since
established procedures to ensure that all bank reconciliations subsequent to June 30 are properly prepared. Therefore, formal recommend recommendation is deemed unwarranted. Um, again, this is we've talked with the board a lot about um through the past couple months. um the not the cash was
good but the buckets were off and so you know something where fund 30 and fund 10 there were transfers that didn't happen or things that weren't accounted for correctly. That's just an example. There was a number of issues as you're aware um with the different buckets. Uh 20250 the district did not prepare
formal purchase orders for all food service fund expenditures. However, the district has already implemented procedures that ensure a purchase order is created and approved prior to the payment of goods or services in the food service fund. Therefore, a formal recommendation is deemed unwarranted. Um, this was um stemmed from not having
I think all of our accounts in our current accounting software in Genesis. Um, we had other accounting software. We had Quicken, we had um QuickBooks, some things were done on spreadsheet. Uh, there wasn't a consistent um application of our process and procedures. Again, everything has been brought into Genesis
now. So that way the things are done in the same manner no matter what account it is. Middle school activities account. The bank account was not being reconciled accurately. However, the business office has since implemented procedures to accurately reconcile the middle school bank account. Therefore, formal
recommendation is deemed unwarranted. This is the same issue as the prior one, but this time instead of food services, now with the middle school activities. All right. So, that brings us to the five comments. I'm happy to answer any questions the board may have on that, but I know we've also addressed these in operations and you know throughout the
past few months. >> Well, I guess again just and what I'm seem to get to get there will be now clear oversight and communication between staff, auditors, treasurer in the future. And I just want to say for myself, I found this very open. Um I
asked questions, I got timely answers. I'm a layman. They explain things to me. So, I'm quite happy that um I'm not happy about the P, but you know, I'm I'm bullish about the future. >> Thank you. Uh we feel good about everything that we've put into place to remedy the issues that have been
identified through this. All right. So, moving on from that. So, again, that was more um information that came out of the AMR, the auditor's management report. Um I did just want to touch briefly on fund balances because this will lead us into our budget discussions in February and March and April. Um so, it's just something I want
to highlight. So this comes out of the ACER uh the financial report. Um so again we're moving on from the audit management report and some of the um issues there and just talking about the numbers and really I I get that this is a complex or a complicated um table to
look at. Uh so I'm just going to highlight a couple of numbers here um for the boards um and for the public just to point out. Um and that's excess surplus. Um, putting it as simply as I can, excess surplus is um, money that you build into the budget um, but you
hope you don't have to spend in that year's budget. So, as you can see, the balance of um, from 20 from 63024. The excess surplus number is that 3,893,695. So, we'll call it 3.9 million. um that
was built into last year's budget with the hope that it wouldn't be needed that you could carry that money forward into the next year's budget and the next year's budget and the next year's budget. Unfortunately, through the audit um that that number then went down from 3 point or 3.9 million almost to the
2695848 number. So that's a difference of almost $1.2 million. So, it was deemed necessary in last year's budget to spend some of that excess surplus to make sure that the the our bills could be paid and
we could meet our obligations. Uh the reason why it's important, the reason why I point that out to the board is because that is the number that will then that 2.7 million be used to populate next year's budget. So, as someone said to me, um that instead of starting at zero for next year's budget,
we're starting at negative 1.2 2 million for next year's budget because of that difference between the fund balances. So that's just something to be aware of as we talk about some of the challenges that we'll face in building the 2627 budget. I wanted to point it out to the board as an very important number um
that we'll need to account for. >> All right. Thank you. >> Um I have just some next steps, but did anyone have any question? And I know we've talked about this again in operations um and in great detail, but if anyone want to put something out for a public Yes. uh you're you guys are the experts and everything, so you're doing
your best to game the variables of how this budget will be affected and maybe how to mitigate costs. I'm speaking very generally, but that's something you're already trying to figure into your analysis as we approach what could be a volatile >> and that's why we have budget managers who are responsible for their areas of expertise, whether it be maintenance or
whether it be um you know, supplies for their buildings or whatever it may be. And so yeah, they're making their um you know, submissions to us and then we review that and then put together a preliminary budget. >> Yes. >> Can you speak to why you would build in
that um that thing? What what kind of variables you you you would you would try to be anticipating with that? >> It's not a bad thing because again, it's showing that the district had additional funds uh that could have gone into reserve accounts. It could have gone into capital reserve. It could have gone into maintenance reserve. Um, again, not
having been here last year, I don't know the decision of why that number was chosen. Um, but I think that there's an understanding of that as we can see, you may need some of those funds to maintain the budget that you've passed for that year. >> Yeah. And what are those um those
variables that surprise you later on? >> Um, it could be health benefits could be slightly higher. Again, prescription costs, those are your big ones. Um, maybe there was an issue again in maintenance that required some additional spending, a transportation, right? >> Yeah. So again, that's a good point. Our extraordinary aid um was significantly
lower than expected. >> Can you just um just tell us what that is for the newer board members? >> Sure. So extraordinary the the definition of extraordinary. >> No, no, not just I'm not we're not going to hold you to it. Mr. Le is not looking up the statute. Just
>> it's aid we get from the state that was budgeted at 2.3 million. It came in just a hair under 2 million. So it was a difference of about $300,000. So again, that could will account for some of that difference. >> And transportation. >> Yeah, transportation issues for sure. Um, uh, out of district tuition
students, you perhaps more move into the district, you know, than we were expecting or budgeted for, those sort of things. Anything like that. Um, IDA, you know, any of the federal grants that may, you know, again, you don't know them when you budget them. Um, so things like that. >> Well, you're estimating, right? You're estimating. Yep.
>> All right. I can I can just comment on extraordinary aid as well a little bit. So there are certain extraordinary costs for special education students both in district and out of district that we can apply to have funded for us or assistant
assistance uh from the state and um Margarita in concert with Andrew will be doing that this year and it's a very arduous process of trying to tie in certain services that students receive. Transportation is excluded, by the way,
even though transportation is rising far beyond uh 2% per year. And all of of that goes into an application that is submitted at the end of this school year. And the state for I think five fiscal years now has held the amount
that they're budgeting for extraordinary aid to all school districts um flat. I want to say it's two it's either$1 150 million or $250 million if I'm not mistaken in the state budget. So special ed costs have risen probably on average
8 to 10% a year in those five years and districts are also facing more and more needs uh including in mental health. So districts are submitting more a larger application across the state for
extraordinary aid but the state has held the the total amount that they award flat. So, usually we're told, well, you should budget 60% or you should budget 70% uh of your anticipated extraordinary aid costs. And what's happened is when
the high point when the state hit the high point five or six years ago for extraordinary aid, um we were getting close to 90% of our extraordinary aid uh costs paid. Last year, I think it was something like 55% in that neighborhood.
So that is a huge amount and we misbudgeted last year as did a lot of districts because we anticipated receiving more than the state was actually able to pay. So one of the things we'll be looking at when Governor Cheryl delivers her uh budget address at
the end of February is how much she is willing to commit to extraordinary aid. And that whole process is aggravated because the state budget then is not actually finally struck until the last week of June which is two months after we have to um approve our own budget. So
it's frustrating >> indeed. Thank you. >> So next steps for the board. What are we doing? Um so findings the four that we listed um are used to develop a corrective action plan. Uh so that's the cap that's also up for board approval tonight. Uh cap is submitted to the
state department of ed after board approval. Uh the cap is implemented by the business office and monitored by the uh board operations committee. Um in addition, the business office is uh reviewing the standard operating procedures. Um revised SOPs will be up for board approval in the near future.
Um and then the board operations committee and I have started to discuss um some the way to revise procedures within that committee to improve oversight and just ensure compliance and ensure that we don't run into issues like this in the future. We're going to do that in cooperation with um some of our professionals.
>> And we've changed some of those professionals, right? >> Yes. >> So, we have a new treasurer. >> Yes. >> And we will have a new auditor. >> Yes. >> Sorry to break that news. >> All right. >> I think it's important also there's a lot of June 30th numbers in there. >> Yeah. >> When did Andrew start? June 30th.
>> July 1st. >> July 1. >> July 1st. July 1st. >> July 1st. So I just I just want to express my appreciation for you know Andrew and Janine and and the whole department because there's been a lot of you know fresh eyes on things and so we found a lot of things and they've been very direct and and transparent with us
>> and u you know the auditors found things but I think they were shown things by what we are had already found internally. So I appreciate the work that's gone into it this year. Thank you. >> All right that is end of my report. >> That was a great report. Thank you so much. um not really what was found, but how
we're going to address it going forward. So, thank you. Thank you both. Uh we're grateful. We know this was a lot. We appreciate it. Thank you. All right, moving on now. Uh so, this has been just like a thrilling meeting
with our school ethics training and the audit report. We're trying to see how many people we can put to sleep. >> No one yet. Uh so, we're going to turn it over to you, Annie and Ash. Um okay so in December uh as I mentioned
in the previous meeting we surveyed Princeton high school students about their AI usage and perceptions of AI on their learning and we had a 176 responses and it was uh pretty well balanced between each grade. It was about 250 to 275 from each grade level.
So we'll share just a few of the results that we found the most striking. So, when asked if they had ever used AI in a way that might violate class or school guidelines, 81% responded never, and 14.1% responded with unsure. However,
when asked if they've ever seen another student use AI in a way that might violate class or school guidelines, 51.9% said yes and 25% said unsure. So there are clear discrepancies possibly with what students are reporting of their own
AI uses versus versus others. And then academically the results showed that most students which is 55.1% reported using AI for studying and reviewing content purposes. Uh this includes student ha having schoolwork made easier to understand and learn more
effectively. So including like studying. Um and so in the next week, peer group is starting to uh develop our AI outreach as a peer group leader. We are creating it ourselves uh this year. So we're working with the peer group
adviserss to create that. But we're going to continue to survey both students and teachers uh because what we think the problem may be is that there's a discrepancy or students don't clearly understand the AI policy. um especially
because different teachers have different policies in their own classrooms which um has become somewhat of an issue but we are working on continuing our investigation of that and then Anie do you want to do >> Y all right so now I have the arts and
culture update uh recently the PHS spectacle theater competed at stand which is the speech and theater association of New Jersey they host competitions annually and overall we won 17 awards Um, first place includes musical solo, stage manager, character
analysis, pantoime pairs, and senior scholarship. Second place was dramatic pair. And third place included musical pairs, dramatic monologue, and improv pairs. And there were many other finalists in different categories. Um, and Miss Burge even said that there was barely any we have barely any room to
hold all of these awards that we're winning constantly all of throughout the years. Um, and then in December, PHS choirs had the winter concert in the chapel. The longtime audio engineer said it was one of the best performances of the processional that he had ever heard.
Um, and the processional is a German song composed for the PHS choir that's been sung for over 20 years. Um, and now they're currently preparing for the gospel festival in February. And then last but not least, two PH PhS students, Eleanor Naden and Soresh Kapoor, uh were
selected as two of the top 300 Regeneron scholars, which is one of the most prestigious science and math research programs in the US. >> So they earned $200 for themselves and 200 for the school each. >> That's great. Thank you. So what are
your next step with uh steps with AI? So, we're working with Miss Burge and Miss Lagus to um develop a survey for the teachers to see um how AI usage has or they think AI usage has been affecting their classrooms um and
comparing that with obviously the student um response to the survey and then also uh putting out another survey to uh help understand students their understanding of the AI policy between classes and just general AI policy. So,
have you noticed um that teachers are doing having more of the work done in class or more things um orally or is that not trickling in yet? >> Yeah, I would my like from my personal experience I would say yes. Um there's a
lot more inclass essays ring being written like on paper. Um and there's definitely been a shift away from devices. Anie, do you have any comments? Yes, I've seen the same consistently kind of throughout my classes like not just essays but like more labs and kind of just tests on uh on paper.
>> On paper. >> Yeah, we better budget that. >> Was this survey anonymous? >> Oh yes, this was an anonymous survey that was conducted uh because we had initially anticipated that students would not want to report their own AI
usage. um obviously uh and we can't officially speak to how that affected the results, but yeah. >> Yeah, that's interesting stuff. We look forward to next month. >> Can I just ask one follow-up? How did you get a thousand responses because that's unheard of at the high school? What did you bribe them with?
>> Well, we So, originally we sent it out in the Sunday like night message. uh and we had like a hundred responses from that but then there was a home room that for like an official not an official survey but a different survey and so they were done at the same time. So yeah
>> there were a chatbot >> that's great thank you guys for >> Dr. T is going to follow your lead I think for future surveys. >> Yep. So uh next up is our public forum our first of two. Um if you uh we have a
list of people sign up. Uh, first up is Ashley um Bishoff. If you just come say the street you live on and if you keep your comment to three minutes or so, we would appreciate it. Hello. Um, Ashley Bishoff. I live on Woodland Drive just across 206. I have a
kindergartener and a second grader at Community Park Elementary in the DLI program. Um, I'm here tonight because I want to raise concerns about the current kindergarten and first grade dual language immersion class structure, specifically as it relates to class
size, student safety, learning, and connection. I also want to raise a second related concern about the need for stronger support for students who are learning Spanish as a second language. First, I want to be clear about class size. It's not about having
22 students in a classroom at one time. Because of the way the DLI rotation works, each of the two teachers is responsible for assessing, supporting, and communicating with 44 5 and sixyear-old children and their families
every day. And that distinction matters. Our teachers and aids are exceptional. They are doing everything they can, but asking any educator, especially at the kindergarten level, to meaningfully know, assess, and communicate about 44
children is not reasonable. Can you imagine how long it takes to have 44 five and six-year-olds gather their belongings, line up quietly, walk to their afternoon classroom, and then repeat the process in reverse. That is
instructional time that is lost every day. time that traditional self-contained classrooms do not have to manage. This year, a kindergarten student was in inadvertently locked out of the classroom after recess. While I understand this was not intentional, it
highlights the very real risks that come with managing large groups of young children within a complex rotational struct structure. I'm also concerned that CP students are not receiving an experience that's comparable to their peers in other Princeton elementary schools. Community
building activities and celebrations that were once part of kindergarten and that still exist at the other schools have been lost and class size is a major contributing factor. This model also affects families. Parent teacher conferences are now split across 44
students per teacher which significantly limits the depth of feedback parents receive about academic progress, social development, and overall well-being. My second main concern is language support. While the district appropriately provides English as a
second language services for students learning English, there's no comparable dedicated support structure for students learning Spanish as a second language within the DLI program. Research on language acquisition shows that while conversational fluency in a second
language may develop within 1 to two years, academic language prof proficiency typically takes 5 to seven years. Without targeted scaffolding, especially in the early grades, students can struggle to fully access instruction
in their partner language. I understand that the district is planning for the future edition of an English track program and may feel the need to preserve classroom capacity. However, there is currently no clear indication that the English track will
begin in the 2026 school year. And given that uncertainty uncertainty, it is reasonable reasonable to prioritize serving current students to the best of our ability. I urge you guys to reconsider this model
and to address both issues together. Solutions could include smaller class sizes for the kindergarten and first grade cohort or self-contained classrooms along with dedicated support for Spanish as a second language learners. similar to the support
provided for English learners. I have heard from first current first grade parents that had two classrooms for kindergarten and now have three for first grade that they see a significant difference in the education and support their kids receive. So I urge you to
take a look at that for next year's uh kindergarten and first grade classrooms. Thank you. Um next up is Diala. >> Did I say that right? Yeah, actually very good. >> Oh, thanks. >> All right.
Da Gazelle, I live at 38 Ter Oh, no. You don't want my full address. I live at Terun Road. Um, I'm mom to three kids. Two Wait, yes. I'm mom to three kids. There's just too many of them. Two who attend Community Park and one
who will soon. Uh, my oldest is in second grade and my middle is in kindergarten. I'm here tonight for two reasons. One, I've never been to a schoolboard meeting and feel blessed to live in a community where you guys allow public comment. Um Ashley texted me at
7:00 and so I ran over here. So I prepared my speech just now, but um so it's a little bit from the heart. The second reason is because I want to talk a little bit about my worries with the large kindergartenized class. Um so I grew up in Los Angeles and I went to
school in the '9s. My classes were never smaller than 30 kids. I did not have music. I didn't have um uh art or specials. Like I didn't even know that was a thing until my kids started school. I felt so blessed to be living in this community because they
have such great education. And so when I heard that my son's uh kindergarter class was going to be 22 kids and other parents were worried about it, I figured it was no biggie. Everyone relaxed. They're still getting an amazing education. Um we settled in Princeton. not for the snow, but because I did not
want to raise my kids in LA. I wanted to raise them here. Um, but now we're a few months into the school year and I'm so saddened to see the impact of the large classes on our teachers and kids as compared to my experience with my older kid who's now in second grade. Um, if I have a
question for my teachers, I don't email them because I know they're overwhelmed um with managing 44 sets of families and I don't want to add to the stress. I I can barely even sit and do homework with my kids. So, I'm really impressed with teachers, like educators. Um, I lived
next to Mrs. Burge for six years and actually she's the reason we ended up staying in Princeton because I was thinking if all of the educators in Princeton are as amazing as she is, then I definitely want to raise my kids here. Um, and I know how hard it is for our teachers because they have so many
families to communicate with. So, I don't email them. Um, I I don't ask them how things are going. I I keep as much I keep it as brief as possible because I don't want to add to their stress because I know their jobs are already so hard. Um, when we were in
parent teacher conferences, we learned that, you know, kindergarteners can be tough and managing their difficult behavior is really hard because when you have 22 kids, it's crowd control really. Um, and I can see that with my son. He never had behavioral issues until he got
to kindergarten. And I mean, part of that might be because he's a middle child, but part of it, I really think, is because there's just so many kids, and it's it's it's difficult to have that same meaningful connection with the teachers. So, we waited a really long time to buy a house here because I
specifically wanted one in CP for the DLI, and I love it so much. I love that my kids are speaking Spanish. It's made my Spanish better, which is great. Um, but when we were looking to buy, we were told by Oh, is that my three minutes? >> You just finished. Yeah. Um, when we were looking to buy, we were told by
some veteran community members that we should look at Littlebrook or Riverside because the quality of education would be better than CP because CP was in the lowincome neighborhood. I totally dismiss that as silly and I still think it's silly, but then when I talk to other parents who have kids at Riverside or or Little Brook, I never hear about
the same challenges that they have with large class sizes. So, that does make me a little bit worried and I really I hope that we can do better for our kids at CP. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh, next up is Leila Cabera. >> Hi.
>> Hi. >> All right. My name is Laya Cabrera. I live on Bayer Lane. Um, I'm gonna speak in Spanish. political Jose participator.
plural or inevitably Accessibility is promotion. for marketing. Thank you. Is there anyone else for public comment right now? Okay. Uh not seeing anyone. We'll move on to our agenda.
Item eight, harassment, intimidation, bullying, part of the consent agenda. And uh item nine, committee reports. And >> Beth, it's Bethm. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Are you doing operations, too? >> No, she's doing operations.
>> Okay. Fine. Uh long-term planning. The strategic long-term planning committee met on January 20th with our architects, uh construction managers, and other professionals. We discussed in detail the required approvals and timing for bidding on the 2025 referendum projects at CP, PMS, and Littlebrook, which are
anticipated to be put out sequentially over the next several weeks with board approval uh anticipated for the next few months. Uh we continue to remain on track for renovation and construction work to begin this summer uh with more details to follow as bids are accepted. We also discussed the process for
updating elementary demographic projections and anticipate moving forward on this work this spring. Our next meeting is February 17th at 1 p.m. >> You didn't check your email. You just changed it. >> 16th. >> Oh, we changed it. February 16th.
>> No, I said 17th, but >> who's on first? But it will be on the district calendar. Um, next up, operations with Susan. Uh we met uh January 22nd at 1 pm on Zoom. Uh we began with a very quick construction update which was the
completion of the new bleachers at the high school and final payment of this project is on tonight's agenda for approval. Uh we then uh moved into our sustainability part of our meeting. Jenny Jenny Ledmer of Sustainable Princeton tied in some of her reporting
to her multi-year sustainability plan. Uh we heard about um the RFP for solar that we're very excited about that's on the agenda for approval today. Um and we discuss some of our projects that we've done or are coming up like our electric
buses uh a grant for uh trees to be installed this spring on the grounds and energy saving contests among our schools. We then discussed district finances. We're updated on referendum balances held by the district, progress
on the budgeting process, and reserve balances. Um, our agenda this evening uh also contains a contract to improve school communication systems and a grant acceptance of a farm-to-school uh program. Uh we then adjourned into close
session where we reviewed the referendum uh bidding timelines as mentioned in long-term planning and we received a presentation on both uh both on both the internal and external audits that you heard about earlier today. Our next meeting will be February 19th at 1 p.m.
on Zoom. >> Thank you Susan. Next up is Mara with personnel. >> Can I just say one thing about solar because I think it's a it's a really a high point. We um for the past I don't know six years, 5 years, we had a long-term sustainability plan and we went to the voters and we had several
referenda which helped fix the buildings and and we specifically replaced the roofs that which were out of date and one of our goals was to prepare for solar and we never really were sure we'd ever get there, but we did. The voters supported us and allowed us to renovate our buildings and to prepare for this
moment. And so now we're putting an RFP out for solar which will be at no cost to the shareholders because to the to the taxpayers because we are it's a it's a power purchase agreement but it will if successfully installed then allow us to have some savings every year
significant savings in our electricity bills. So we feel pretty I feel like we really made some progress and we we're hoping for the best and we are in a a closing window because the subsidies from the state will end at a certain point. So we're hoping we make it. Just want to say thank you again for working on that as well.
>> Thank you. >> The personnel committee met um um at 9:00 am on Tuesday, January 20th. And during the meeting, we reviewed the uh prep job description, which is on tonight's agenda, and discussed um training that we um on the new Genesis
system that's going to be used for HR evaluations and um and other things. Our next meeting will be at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, February 3rd. Closed. >> Thank you, Mara. Uh, next up is policy with Beth. >> Yeah. Um, policy committee met on
January 13th and discussed the policies up for first read tonight. And these include policy 9 9130, a simplified public complaint policy, policy 2530, an updated policy on resource materials, which are teaching materials like audio, periodicals, or maps that are neither
textbooks nor library books. Among other things, the policy ensures that resource materials are well balanced to promote learning outcomes aligned with district goals and New Jersey st student learning standards and provide historic accuracy and have literary and artistic merit.
Policy 6471, an updated school district travel policy to clarify certain reimbursement processes that ensure compliance with applicable law and regulations. The committee is working on policy 2535 library materials in compliance with the newly enacted New
Jersey Freedom to Read Act. We anticipate working with our administration on the policy reflecting the recent New Jersey school cell phone ban and we meet next February 10th at 1 p.m. >> Thank you, Beth. Next up is Student Achievement with Eleanor.
>> Student Achievement uh today at 1:00 and uh first up we look we had a presentation from Dr. Andrea Dyn about the community service program at the high school and how that works. And then um Jackie Katz, our science supervisor,
um uh told us about the need for a new environmental science textbook, uh which is now on the agenda for approval, um for tonight. Uh and also went over a memorandum of agreement with a group called data science for everyone. Um and
this is basically uh setting up sort of a a partnership um that might help the district strengthen its data literacy especially in the science um curriculum. Uh following that um Kimchu um told us about a wrestling uh field trip and
that's on the agenda. Oh, so theou's on the agenda and then the wrestling uh a wrestling field trip is also on the agenda um for approval tonight and then we went into close session. Our next meeting is going to be on February 12th at one o'clock. >> Thanks, Eleanor. And the uh wrestling
trip is um in state, right? Uh >> it's in state and it's just like it's like it's a handful of of kids if they get um to that point. Yep. >> Uh and they pay the cost. >> Okay. Thank you. Um and then equity didn't have a meeting, but the next meeting is
>> person I'm guessing right here. >> Okay. February 10th at 6 o'clock. Thank you very much Dr. >> Excuse me. Microphone stop. >> I didn't say anything important. Thank you though for letting me know. So we're moving on now to our uh consent
agenda and anyone on the board if you want to talk about anything just stop me. Uh we have policy for first reading and second reading uh personnel uh we have retirement resignations appointments transfer reassignment. Uh
can I get a motion for B4 transfer reassignment? Mara second Elanor >> any discussion? >> No, I don't have any. >> Um, so we're just voting on B4 and personnel.
>> Yes. >> Beth Baron, >> yes. >> Adam Beerman, >> yes. >> Mara Francesky, >> yes. >> Elanar Hubard, >> yes. >> Katherine Lara, >> the same. Christopher Santhio, >> yes. >> Erica Snder, >> yes.
>> Susan Caner, >> yes. >> Dav Kendall, >> abstain. >> Motion carries. >> Moving on. B5, personnel items. B6, leave of absence. B7, job descriptions. B8, substitute, student placements. B9, curriculum instruction. B10, student
services. B1, athletics. B12, press at 8, certification stipens. uh B13 uh Pa salary guide movements, B14 P sidebar agreement, B15 sick period compensation. Then we're going on to uh
curriculum and instruction, one the field trips, two overnight trips, three textbook adoption, and four theou that Elanor spoke about. Uh moving on to student privileges. Uh one is with Aina Healthcare, two
learn well, three professor and residence, four Avita counseling and consultation and five uh the living room. Uh moving on now to E1 um approval of um 2025 AS ACAR
AMR and CAP uh E2 construction payments. Can I get a motion for E3 financial reports? Mara second. Eleanor. Sorry, Beth. I'm gonna turn this way. >> And in that motion, we're changing the date from October 2025 to November and
December 2025. Correct? >> Wait, there was a typo in the agenda. >> Yeah. Hold on. >> Let me do it right. Okay. So, um, yes, for three, we are, uh, we're voting on accepting the board of education, the board secretary and
treasurer financial reports for November 2025 and December 25. Um, and be it further resolved that uh, the board of education certify that as of December 30th, 2025 >> and November 30th. So we're
>> as of November 30th, 202 and December 20 uh 30, 2025, after review of the secretary's monthly financial reports and upon consultation with appropriate appropriate district officials to best their knowledge, no major counter fund has been overexposed to violation, sufficient funds are available meet the district's financial obligations for the
remainder of the fiscal year and request the board secretary board secretary to add a copy to the minutes. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And um it was uh Yeah. Now, can I get a motion? >> Motion, >> Beth. Second, Eleanor. Now, we're good.
And you >> Any discussion? >> Okay. Uh Beth, >> yes. >> Adam Beerman, >> yes. >> Mara Franchesky, >> yes. >> Elanar Hubard, >> yes. >> Katherine Lara, >> yes. >> Christopher Centarpio, >> yes.
>> Erica Snider, >> yes. >> Susan Caner, >> yes. >> D Kendall, >> abstain. >> Motion carries. >> Thank you, Mr. Harris. Thank you. >> Moving on to E4, fire and security drill report. E5, funds transfer. Um E6,
grants and donations. Uh and we are accepting a grant in the amount of $9,724.86 from uh the farm-to-school implementation and staying power
project. Okay. Um E7 items for disposal or sale. E8 registration travel agenda, E9 contracts, um, and E10 solar project RFP that Susan
mentioned. Um, moving on now to our second public comment. Is there anyone else who would like to speak with us? Come on up. Just say your name and the street you live on. >> Hello. Uh, my name is Ben Smithall. I live on Sycamore Road. I have a child in
the pre-K DI program at Community Park and a two-year-old who will be hopefully there one day soon. Um I just referencing the previous comments uh hope that the board balances uh the desire for small class sizes against the
fact that this program is extremely popular and overs subscribed. there's a lot of interest and when we were moving to New Jersey, uh the fact that the district had a dual language immersion program in Spanish, which is my wife's native language, uh was a huge factor for us in considering where to move. So,
uh I just hope that you can balance um the desire for small class sizes, which I understand, with the overall enthusiasm and uniqueness of the program in the area. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? No one else. Okay, moving on to the consent vote. Uh, can I get a motion?
First, Mara. Second. Beth, you're going you're going down. I don't know what's going on over there. >> Yeah. So, what? Mara Beth. >> Mara Beth. Yes. Confirmed.
>> Okay. Roll call vote. >> Can we not sit next to each other anymore? >> I'm not in charge of seat assignments. >> Beth Baron. >> Yes. >> Yes. Yes, >> Beerman. >> I just abstain because I wasn't able to find the my fault and time to read it, but so I'm just going to abstain.
>> Okay. Mara Francheski, >> yes. >> Ellen Hubard, >> yes. >> Katherine Lara, >> yes. >> Christopher Centio, >> yes. >> Erica Snder, >> yes. >> Susan Caner, >> yes. >> Daffany Kendall, >> yes. >> Motion carries.
>> All right. Thank you. Um, it's before 9:00. >> Yes. Very impressive. >> Really, Mr. The credit goes to Mr. Lapira. >> Oh, I don't know about that. >> 8:30, >> right? Is that same? >> But it could be 10:30.
>> Yeah, I've seen previous ethics. >> I tried. Thank you. >> Yeah. Um, thank you everyone for, uh, attending. Uh, we appreciate the public comment as always. And, uh, can I get a motion to adjurnn? Uh, our next meeting is February 24th and, uh, at this new time, 7 o'clock. So, it is very nice.
Chris, motion to adjurnn. All in favor? >> I. >> All right, we're adjourned. Thank you.