##VIDEO ID:qv3qe3DaKyw## what welcome everybody to our ah thank you welcome everybody to our meeting I'm going to call the meeting to order this meeting is being held in compliance with the open public meetings act and is open to the media in Public Notices were duly posted and the meeting was advertised under County Democrat The Courier News formal action may be taken can we get a roll call Mrs Cassidy here M Fury here Mr L here Mrs mener here M borski here Mrs R here Mrs Ryan here Mr here one isible good evening everyone and welcome uh thank you for coming out and uh graving the cold this evening for our board meeting espe in person so thank you all for being here uh tonight I have the great honor of celebrating the Board of Education The Incredible Journey of one of our students a young man who has truly inspired us with his courage his determination and his resilience when I F first met Jesse gold he was one of the leads in the CL Nanny Poppins at White House school I would have never known that he faced challenges that many of us might struggle to imagine he battled OCD which he described as his as his worry monster a constant companion that made everyday activities feel ultimately impossible things like going to school eating in the lunchroom or riding in a car with Monumental her but with the support of his loving family his dedicated team at the child minding Institute and the incredible staff here at the Readington schools Jesse began a journey of transformation through hard work patience and bravery he learned how to quiet his worry monster he tackled one fear at a time and in doing so he didn't just meet his goals he shattered them today Jesse has gone from striving to Simply go to school or eat in the lunchroom to setting ambitious and fearless goals like skydiving and meeting Bruno Mars one of his goals was even to be in that play Nanny Poppins where I first met him as Bert Jesse your journey reminds us of the power of perseverance and the import importance of CH facing our challenges head on you've shown us that with the right support and a strong belief in yourself even the biggest obstacles can be overcome on behalf of the school Community we are so proud of you you've proven that courage doesn't ever mean being afraid it actually means pushing forward even when you are you're a shining example to us all and we cannot wait to see what you accomplish next at holl Brook congratulations and I want to invite you up to come to the podium and say a few words if you would like I have um thank you Dr I mean Dr heart this past year was really hard for me and it took a lot of work to get where I am today things are going better now but I'm so grateful for the teachers staff and classmates who are understanding and supportive when things were hard I hope all kids going through a hard time are lucky enough to get the help they need and to have the courage to do hard things I know I will always be willing to lend a helping hand to anyone who needs it thank you for yourage Jess get one two three oh so handsome thank you for being here too Jessie suppers well thank you for coming you're welcome to stay thank you for coming thank you all the uh I appreciate recognizing Jesse tonight he's also been recognized at the holl school his Dr M something for him one of the great great B bob cat Awards um was provided to Jesse but he really has uh made some tremendous strides here at school and outside of school as well so it's important to recognize our students uh now I'll move on to talk about enrollment and uh the Readington Township housing developments um I'll start with this slide first because as you can see this has been an ongoing conversation um since February 9th 2021 so we're in our fourth year of talking about enrollment and housing uh but the other thing you should know too is this conversation even started about a year prior uh to 2021 um in committees in terms of uh planning for enrollment and adjusting uh our staffing to best meet the needs of our students because this has been a constant conversation I'm not going to stop on every slide and go into a ton of detail but I'll just give you some highlights um feel free to stop me at any point during the presentation or even um you know at the end you know we could do some summary conversation if you like as well uh so I'll first begin with yeah I'll start with um enrollment Trends and some of our current enrollment Matt if you could just go to the next slide spend a moment there this is our student enrollment that you can see um take that long time couple things I want to point out um in student enrollment so obviously you can see um from the 15 16 school year for good uh to now there's been uh a decrease in our student enrollment overall um there's been some changes in student um um population in terms of full day kindergarten some specialized programs for special education students that we have in our district now but you see the decrease in enrollment till about 2020 2021 and that little bit larger of a dip was due to um parents disenrolling students during that year we were on that hybrid schedule for covid and then you see a little bit of an increase when students reenroll for the 2122 school year postco since then we've been on kind of we've been hovering around that 1,400 student line um not including preschool and last year was the last year that we graduated 190 kids from 8th grade and brought in about 150 kids from kindergarten so these enrollment decreases are a function of graduating classes being large and incoming classes being small smaller than the graduating classes right now if you look at our enrollment across the district K through 8 you'll see anywhere between 140 and about 155 160 children per grade level which is good news because that represents some stability for us we've leveled off we're no longer graduating these enormous classes of almost 200 and bringing in classes about 50 less we're fluctuating around plus or minus 15 students in each class across the district so that line that you've see um that's kind of stabilized since about 2122 should stay there um we project for the next several years um we also want to talk a little bit tonight about um Three Bridges in White House in particular and this is K3 enrollment um since the 201819 school year and you can see that white house and Three Bridges were almost dead even in terms of enrollment in in the 1819 school year and then you started to see where our conversation started in 1920 about redistricting and then 2021 where we really started the redistricting uh project you can see how much the enrollment between white house and Three Bridges um diverged and as we started redistricting you can see how it started to converge a little bit as well so the goal here was to do exactly what this uh line graph shows you which is to try to keep the White House at three briges School enrollment comforable is it perfect no but if you could imagine those two Lines continuing to go in Divergent directions that would it would is what would have happened uh if we didn't start to look at redistricting certain neighborhoods in the town um our school configuration really briefly this is from our November enrollment Court Three Bridges School enrollment uh 294 White House 331 um grades 48 Hollen Brook at 3 and RMS is 463 this is the second year that the middle school has fallen just under uh 500 students you see that are preschool providers we now are partnering with four preschools uh we have a total of 14 classrooms um some in District but we have several out of District Four at White House prep two at State Learning Center uh three at marry patch and two at Global Pioneer so that's just a quick overview of uh our district now the housing developments that we've been monitoring there's four since about the 1819 school year that we've been um monitoring as they are completed the first one is the Willows at White House station this is the Nelson Street development it was completed in 2020 currently we have 29 students enrolled prek k38 and 25 students k38 from uh this development this is a 72 unit affordable housing development the origin Readington was completed in 2023 uh toward the end of 2023 this is a total of 254 units 25% affordable 75% market rate what's interesting about this Housing Development we'll talk about projections in a moment is it looks very different than the Willows The Willows is 72 units it looks more townhous like construction whereas the bridge at Readington are um taller buildings three levels more condo like construction with a total of 254 units and what's interesting is both developments bring in about the same amount of students slightly more from the bridge at Readington we had anticipated two years ago that it would have been a lot more students just because of the number of the of units because it's 254 units however the lower anticipated enrollment is probably due to the fact that there's very limited three bedroom units in this development the more one bedroom and two bedroom units you have in the Housing Development the less likely there's a family with children living there nevertheless we do have you know 33 students prek K through 8 and 28 students K through 8 these two developments are really important because here's what's coming uh Camelot is 192 units so it looks a lot like the rigid Readington it's again up in the off of Route 22 two it's up in the White House area of our Township it's 25% affordable just like the ridge 75% market rate and you see 10 three-bedroom units um in the affordable uh 25% affordable the site plan has been approved there is some work to be done there's sewer capacity that the township still has to work on the access road uh to the development has to be there and utilities have to be run estimated and I'll I'll emphasize the word estim completion is 2026 which is about a year away could it potentially impact enrollment next year with some movements potentially I would say maybe unlikely um but we have to keep this in in our mind as we're planning our staffing for next year because as these developments start to um open and folks move in we have to be prepared uh similarly the Diaz property is down in Three Bridges off of rout 202 so this property doesn't look like Camelot or the ridge this property actually looks a lot more like the Willows at White House station so this is going to be 80 total units 23 bedroom units out of this um complex which means probably anywhere between 25 and 30 additional districtwide students from this property if we want to compare it to the Willows at White House station right we're looking at this was 72 units with 183 beds this one we project to be 23 B units and this will be in Three Bridges uh the developers been identified there is site plan approval estimated completion you know in talking Township officials 2027 maybe late 2026 but really we're looking at the 2027 school year so um these uh housing developments really uh have had some level of impact on our enrollment remember we have about 190 students that have been graduating we've been bringing in about 150 in kindergarten classes but I think this reduction enrollment has been slightly offset by the students that have been coming to the district from um the new uh housing Compu so looking at the enrollment impact I I won't trust me I won't worry with the details of the rter formula and all of the report and the white paper that they had but basically we use the rers formula we look to try to when we had no housing developments we didn't even have the Willows back in the 1819 school year we used that to try to estimate how many students we were going to receive the problem with the the ruter formula was it was designed for K12 districts we a K8 District so it wasn't exactly accurate in terms of how many students we were going to be seeing an enrollment increase from um their housing but but we were able to try to get about an estimate so I think the the second to last bullets where I talk about how the Ruckers formula estimated about 40 students 48 students K12 we saw 28 K8 which was about 58% of what the recers formula estimated I would say the good news is though I don't think we need the recers formula anymore and I think we're we're at the point where now we have two um housing developments that built and we have students living there that are enrolled in our district and that's the Willows and the Ridge and I think they actually those developments actually give us a much better projection of what we can expect from the Camelot property and the DS property so if we were to use the same type of ratio right the Willows right now has 25 students K8 um The Ridge has 28 students k through eight if we were to take that same ratio and apply it to the Camelot property we're looking at potentially 19 additional students at the Diaz property and potentially 28 more students these are all estimates what we tend to see is when we have full District enrollment if we want to predict K3 enrollment because we have two K3 buildings White House and Three Bridges four out of three out of the four developments are on the White House side of town and one is on the three briest side of town so we want to get a feel for what's going to happen to those two buildings with the new development the interesting thing the trend that at least I've been seeing over the course of the several years of monitoring enrollment is it's about 50% impact the K3 buildings and the other 50% impact the grades 438 buildings the math just seems to work that way um it's not perfect I we fluctuate anywhere between 45 and probably 60% but if you take actual District enrollment when you look at actual K3 enrollment it's about half of what the actual District enrollment is 25 to 12 28 to 16 so if we're looking at 19 students at Camelot maybe 10 will be at White House um 28 students at D property maybe 14 at Three Bridges now we don't have any longitudinal data really The Willows is the one that we have the most longitudinal data and it's only a couple years old but we'll have to continue to monitor to see how many students um you know live in in the housing developments as they're built so we planned several years ago um knowing that three out of the four developments were located in the northern portion of the town and go to White House school only one was in Three Bridges we knew we had the balance enrollment between the two schools um after discussion um in primarily personnel and finance committee several years ago we looked at several options and we opted to do this slow deliberate transition of students from white housee to Three Bridges the goal being not to to disrupt students education but to take new students who moved into Readington or new kindergarten and in a specific neighbor neighborhood and have those students attend Three Bridges school as a posted White House and this has been our fiveyear plan uh so it's been a slow roll out we're in the 2425 school year we did sort of a a soft roll out in year one we gave parents the option the second year it was all entering kindergarten students and any new enrolled students in a certain development in the township and then the second year we just continued with new new enrolling kindergarten every year so it's been a fiveyear phase in approach and we've been monitoring it for five years uh we published a list of the street names we have a map but this is actually the better map and thank you Matt Matt's here tonight this is his handywork um I'll give him credit for this the the the map this is a overlay of Google Map blue um highlight is the Three Bridges side of town and the red highlight is the White House side of town and in the Middle where you see the blue there's like a little bit of describe it as a little carb out pump right here this is really the area that's been redistricted right here these street nams right there but what the the beauty of this map is um this is on our website we're in the midst of registration Matt and by secretary Doren know very well parents are asking a lot of questions about our new online registration process parents can go right onto this map use that search feature type in their address and it will put a a ping a DOT right on that blue and red map of exactly where their house is located so parents are able to know exactly where their children will be attending uh kindergarten which is a great search feature a great interactive map and I remember I think we talked in Personnel Carol and I remember having a ation about making something very easily accessible to fam so they know exactly where their children will attend school and this has been a fantastic feature in great me thank Matt for his handy work so um the implementation of the the fiveyear um program were year four uh 2425 so this is what happened in September um kindergarten enrollment only um White House School saw 76 students enroll and Three Bridges 71 there were 12 total kindergarten students that lived in that little area that little blue Highlight um that were impacted so what we were able to do if you think about it this way White House School the 76 is minus the 12 that would have gone there without redistricting and Three Bridges was plus the 12 students um that are attending Three Bridges because of redistricted if you think about out if you added those 12 back into White House school and what would have happened if you deducted them from Three Bridges school again you would seen inequity and then there was one new student in grade one who registered who went to Three Bridges school instead of white house which is a total of 13 students who were redistricted in September so this is some long-term data uh it what I provided here is every year since the 2223 school year how many students have been redistricted this is a total of over three years of 49 of 49 students um two additional students are in there um they were midyear movein and um you could see with redistricting the balanced enrollment K3 this is not including preschooler 261 and 308 had we not done it it would have been 212 357 so over 100 student difference if we hadn't created a little bit of balance here um so we continue to monitor um enrollment from the bridge Matt knows it's funny that he's here tonight because every not every two months I want to say every 60 days or so uh we look at enrollment from the ridge uh on occasion I have him run other enrollment reports uh for me as well to monitor um our redistricting plans um here's uh enrollment historically for two years at the ridge um I'm anticipating that we'll see a continued fluctuation of between 30 and 40 additional students from uh the bridge um and I'll just mention um White House and Three Bridges have a historic enrollment um that's higher than what it is now so there is a little bit and I'll say just a little bit of room to grow into these housing developments um as students enroll I will mention though it's just a little bit of room because you know 10 15 years ago we did not have full day kindergarten we didn't have additional preschool classes there were a lot of special programs like our autism program lldd programs ER special ed programs that did not exist in the district that do require classroom space so because of our full day kindergarten our special programs they've taken up classroom space so while we do have some room to grow it is limited um balancing enrollment between the two schools was a really great thing that we did because White House and Three Bridges um like guess said have a little bit of room but not a t Room to Grow mainly because of full day kindergarten some special programs yeah uh I noticed in the um one the financial reports that there was a maximum capacity value for each of the schools um from what you're saying is that's not still relevant number I don't know if it's I don't know Jason if you have the answer if it's still a relevant number or if it's based off of some old data so yeah I could have like 10 years of data yeah I wasn't sure this value yeah we're currently um redoing our long range facilities plan and that will drive when we submit that to the state uh the new numbers that we see as a maximum capacity um but it's it's a functionality of square footage of the classrooms as well as the functionality of the space so um the numbers can be swayed based on our usage of the space um but we do have Room to Grow if we need to our enrollment used to be over 2,000 in District good question and grades 4 through eight right we really haven't talked much about grades 4 through 8 because students um are enrolling in grades fourth grade as well um and there's room to grow um at the middle school in the Palm room as well as we did have as Jason said around 2,000 students several years ago um and and these things do mean different things maybe not as many special programs maybe some shared resource rooms teachers maybe art on a cart for example you know those sorts of things could be impacted um if we were to see enrollment numbers of H Brook in the you know 430 range in RMS over 700 again but there is some room to grow we've really utilized the space in the buildings uh We've spread out over the past several years we can condense and consolidate a little bit so there is a little bit of room to grow um I don't know if we can get back up that high considering the special programming that we have but we have to really evaluate that pretty carefully um so a couple of uh concluding thoughts the biggest things uh over the past several years that I've learned and I convey to the personel and finance Committees of the board is how comparable those out of the four properties how two of the properties are mirror images of one another and the other two properties are mirror images and I think what's important about that is we need to use our Baseline data that we have for the two properties that have been fully developed we now have are accepting students from those developments to drive our decision making when it comes to the other two properties as well so drawing those comparisons in the future should be better as we start to see the developments uh come to fruition and we accept en Groll um the other thing that we're going to see this year after we're done accepting registrations is to what degree is preschool informing what kindergarten is going to look like next year do we have all of our preschoolers all of our four-year-olds basically identified right now and are we going to maybe accept three four five more kids next year or is it going to be 15 is it 30 so I think having a good feel of how many preschoolers we have that are four turning five into next year when we do registration over the next month is going to help us understand how well we can prepare for our kindergarten classes in the future right we use fourth grade enrollment now to project what Staffing we need for fifth grade for next year we can do the same thing with preschool and here so those are the two big big takeaways as well the reason I talked to you about this as well in January is because we are about waste deep in the budget process Jason and I with the administration we're going to be having lengthy conversations with the Personnel committee and the finance committee of the board about projecting Staffing in the budget for next year I think having understanding of what the overall picture of the district enrollment looks like we'll talk a little bit about special programming um at the next board meeting as well for the board to best understand what's driving our decisions when it comes to student enrollment and impact um that will inform our budget planning but with that um what questions might you have I have another one around your anticipating number of students coming in but I I'm assuming we also look at the impact of the tax burden and how and how uh the increase in the tax revenue that we will get as a result of these units coming in and the people moving in so how do we balance that with the number 30 students and 50 UNS like is there a relative so we there's no calculation I've taken into consideration the developments that I'm mentioning here are pilot programs pilot is a type of program that's called payment and L of taxes where a um Jason I'll turn it over to you in a second to explain the finances but basically what it is is a I don't want to call it at one time but it's a flat rate almost payment that is provided from the developer to the Township in terms of the payment that comes from the house of development it's not tax revenue it's a payment Revenue that's in blw taxes don't know how much the revenue is we've started having these conversations um with the township but um these the developments do not generate tax revenue they they're not agreable this Jason please yeah so um in essence when the township enters into an agreement with developer for payment and move of taxes which is called pilot um the remaining Township residents continue to to uh share the burden of the tax without the additional people moving into those residents so um our taxes that we raise still come from the same group of people in properties um without coming from the new developments if a pilot program um is entered into like that so the money goes to the township and a a very small portion goes to the county um if there's a new residence that's built without a p pilot that would increase the amount of um residents that get taxed which would lower the proportion share that everyone would have um and the big thing that happened a few years ago was the re um the um reassessment which shifted the tax burden from corporate to Residents which saw resident bills go up and uh corporate and business go down um so that was over um legal fights that occurred in with the res residents and businesses sorry it's just does the township then pay the school district a portion of that high income uh not at this time uh there have been agreements made between townships and the school district um but there's no law mechanism that requires it um a lot of time Pilots are entered into that um they're they're not done always for monetary purposes they're also done for infrastructure and other improvements that the town may want to see in that development so it may be um redeveloping roads um uh containing water so there's no flooding they may want other things to come out of the development that developer will do in Li of paying taxes other questions from have we figured out what the um kind of student cap is before the it becomes unsustainable to have this continued growth knowing that this we're not getting any additional tax dollars are we anywhere near that or do we have a lot of BU here because at a certain point the cost per student is going to potentially exceed the the revenue that we're get I haven't done we haven't done those calculations but I think as we begin to discuss um the budget I think it'll be something that the board will have to discuss what the impact of increased student enrollment without necessarily tax revenue plus the increase of just general cost right life in general out there costs a lot more than a 2% tax ly and I think that in our budget discussions just today Jason I we're wrestling with what we were going to talk about in finance and proposed to you to solve those gaps there's a gap right we can raise taxes up to 2% salaries are going up north of 3% health benefits increases have been going up 5 six 7% CPI is higher than 2% and 3% you know life is expensive and we have to figure out how how we balance that as an Administration and as a board um but we should look what we'll do is we'll look into what the I guess where the unsustainable nature might be in terms of student enrollment if it continues like that but I don't have it right anything else Mr R that concludes my superintendent report thank you very much okay the next item the next item on the agenda is the open public forum limited to any items that are on the agenda anyone want to speak any item that is on the agenda anyone online okay then for correspondence we received one correspondence in regards to virtual school days so next we're going to go to board action the approval of the administrative reports can I get a motion and then a second to adop 1.01 and 1.02 St motion the second second second okay any discussion Mrs Cassy uh I'm going to approve yes 101 but I'm going to abstain 10 m Fury yes m l yes M mener yes M borski yes m r uh the same one one one I approve and I want to obain M Ryan yes Mr yes okay next item is the approval of amendments from the January 7th meeting can I get a motion in second motion second all right any discussion okay is gie yes M yes M VES yes m mener m borski yes m r yes M Ryan Yes R yes okay so now we go to committee reports the first one is finance and Facilities we made on December 17th so I'm going to I have a motion to adopt my numbers 3.01 to 3 9 and as well as a second all right and then I know we have a committee report we me I think yes so we have two committee reports um I'll read the older one first so the committee met on Friday December 13th at 8:30 a.m. the first thing we discussed was the 2324 audit results audits are complet twice per year and bkc CPA's presented audit results to the finance committee no findings resulting in resulted in audit recommendations were noted which is a favorable outcome for the district and result result of diligence and hard work by the administration key takeaways are as follows increases in both revenue and expense changes were driven by preschool expansion reserves are decreased due to utilization for construction and Renovations and other upgrades such as first resp responder radio up States Etc salaries and benefits comprise 80% of expenses as expected and this is consistent year-over-year lastly a 15 to 20% increase in the cost of employee benefits is noted driven by increased utilization of employee benefits and changes in the way health benefit costs are determined chapter 44 the next thing we discussed was the New Jersey Department of Agriculture cafeteria audit results audit results were reviewed with no finding or adjustments recommended which is a favorable outcome for of the district we then discuss the 2425 capital projects the RMS main office Nerf Suite updates are near completion and the renovated spaces are expected to be utilized in January first responder radio updates are complete and functional and the IT switch access points work is on track TB preschool bathroom grants the state initiative to fund select preschool facilities across New Jersey has resulted in Readington TBS School receiving a grant in the amount of 28,000 towards the 521 th000 bathroom renovation the project will be scheduled at a future date and will likely not occur in summer 2025 we then discussed the referendum expiring debt next steps for the referendum were reviewed which includes whether to pursue single or multiple non-un contingent questions and the development of project list and projected budget impact we also discussed the board committee handbook the draft board committee the draft board committee handbook was reviewed and the finance committee was asked to review and Prov input into the content the handbook will be used to help onboard new board members electric plus School Bus update a representative from the local fire department join the finance committee meeting to provide their perspective on electric vehicles and answer committee questions we then uh reviewed the bill list and expenses are are as expected with the exception of the electric school bus and capital projects which are large dollar values we then met on January 17th at 8:30 a.m. um we welcomed David and Paulo to our committee we reviewed um our goals referendum Safety and Security were discussed we then further discussed the 2425 capital projects Don race our facilities manager provided the committee with an update on our capital projects the nurses suite and main office projects are wrapping up and the staff is already moving in he shared photos with us and everything looks really nice Mr race then review the first responder radio project that started over the summer to enhance the radio signals inside all four buildings all four buildings received antennas and boosters and they are working very well lastly we've received an update on the it switch and access points project there are internal equipment enhancements being made throughout the year we then discussed the referendum expiring debt Mr bodm B provided an overiew over overview to bring the new committee members up to date on the referendum the goal of this part of the meeting was to review the potential project list compiled from input from all stakeholders and prioritize it he explain that the board will need to vote on the referendum in February for a September or November ballot the timeline is tight but adjustments can can be made and we have until December 2026 to pass the referendum and still be okay from a tax levy perspective he then introduced Tony solomine our bond Council Tony int introduced himself and explained that his role is to make sure everything is properly authorized and that they will handle the legal aspects of issuing the bonds once it passes next Kevin and Rita sent toino introduce themselves and explain their role to date in regards to the walkthroughs and how they reached the projected cost for the projects which are all inclusive of escalation contingency and professional fees one board member asked a question regarding the start date of the projects and how that could possibly impact the pricing the architect explained that the list can be modified if start dates change and further explains that the longer we wait to start the projects the more expensive the project will be they went on to explain that we are in good shape in regards to interest rates and timeline board members also expressed the need to have more information on the projects listed in order to better understand why certain projects are needed and properly prioritize the list Mr BM B stated you will put together a referendum handbook with more details for us and include photos as well we will also have an opportunity to tour the buildings and see the needs for projects in person he will also indicate he will also indicate which projects will qualify for The Debt Service Aid benefit from the state the committee then reviewed the project list for each of the four schools some examples of projects on the list are backup generators play playground Replacements PA and mass notification system replacement roof Replacements pavement improvements HVAC systems Window and Door Replacements broadcast studio and updates to the media centers the committee members have been tasked with categorizing the items on the list as priority level one or two and moving others down to three to five this will allow us to see which projects we should include in the referendum and which projects we can accomplish in other creative ways using Reserve and grants Etc we also learned that based on the financial advisor's report The Debt Service AG should cover the interest cost Dr Hart shared that we can also have a second board meeting in February if we feel we need a few more weeks to review the projects and do the building walkthroughs and still be able to keep with our September or November timeline the recommended schedule of next steps for the board and finance committee are as follows by January 24th Dr Hart and Mr bone will write a referendum handbook with rationale for all projects to the finance committee week of February 10th board members will have the opportunity to tour all four buildings this is open to all interested Board of Ed members week of February 17th the finance committee will meet to finalize the project list February 25th at a special board ofed meeting to present the referendum projects and vote to move forward with the referendum Bill list is as normal Finance agenda items prechool R Grant acceptance um semi waiver corrective action plan accept audit results next email um we are in the planning stages of the next of the next meeting thank you any discussion I a question um for the prioritization list uh for the referendum is that decided at the finance committee meeting or is that a decision we will take a first pass sign up at the whole board chance to look at and that's what Jason and Dr hard are preparing list of all the projects just um the walkthrough that we're doing is that the same would that be the board tours portion or is that's can be scheduled separately so um since we're talking about the timeline I'll let the the full board know that in the finance committee we talked about uh two specific things that you should all be aware of that will involve uh the full board working backwards our end date in mind is to add a special board meeting on February 25th uh if everything is going well we'll add that board meeting for one purpose and one purpose only which would be to have an agenda item regarding moving forward with the referendum with the projects as well as a timeline and date when the vote would be out to the public so working backwards from that in order to get there Jason and I are preparing a document to be sent not only to the finance committee but to the full board the document will include lists of projects preliminary prioritization and that preliminary prioritization has come from our architect and Jason and I and Don race our facilities manager in terms of what's what the district really needs and what capital projects do we really need um and that'll be a Clary prioritization that we'll provide to you hopefully by the end of the week at least via email your um early next week from there the board tours um B that you mentioned the full board will be invited to tour the buildings like we have in the past remember we've done board tours um looking at program and education and everything like that but these tours will focus really on giving you an inside look at boilers and Paving and like the real fun stuff of Education right um and fire alarm systems and wiring and those sorts of things that are priority ized in the referendum so you can have a better feel with the goal being that the full board give input to members of the finance committee and the members of the finance committee finalize everything for that February 25th meeting so input will be sought from the full board to the finance committee to you know really pair down the project list and then ultimately bring back to the full board on February 25 um we have not set up those tours yet though but that's the goal and I I think think it's I I would recommend I should say that the board tours really focus on those capital projects I know we want to see kids and educational programming and everything like that I know that the board really wants to see them but um at this point I think if we just focus on those things it'll take us some time to walk through the buildings and have the principles and Don and Jason and I show you some of the things that we are thinking in terms of capital projects and if we can mix in a couple of classrooms to visit and things like that we will so I'm just sound all right to everybody does that answer your questions too okay any other questions okay can we get a m Cassie yes M Fury yes m o yes M benser yes is borski yes is rad yes is Ryan yes Mr yes awes okay next is the edtech committee report we're going to motion items 4.01 to 4.08 can I get a motion in a second uh the edtech committee um met on January 16th um the first item we discussed were the board goals um Dr Hart briefly mentioned that the academic achievement and safety are the two board goals that continue to be prioritized in edtech the committee will review periodic updates on the progress of these goals um it was also mentioned that the district is seeing an increase in chronic absenteeism in some populations uh which falls under academic achievement goal this is something the committee will Monitor and discuss in future meetings the next item we discussed was a um prevention resources grade one lesson Mr Tumo proposed adding one 40 minute lesson for the first grade Seal program for March of this school year which would be taught by Educators from hund prevention resources counselors and teachers approached Mr Tumo with the need to teach first graders about acceptance and diversity kindergarten has the Kelo Choice program second grade has AUM and third grade has the cat program there is no cost for this uh the next item we discussed were the curriculum initiatives and the budget priorities for 2526 first up was uh Mr Tumalo is looking into a pilot for a program called Robin for grades six to8 uh this would be in 2526 Robin is an individualized program that supports student mental health and social emotional development uh by connecting students with lessons tailored to their specific needs next uh Humanities Dr Brown gave us a report rep um she reported on the four different handwriting Pilots that are taking place this year in grades K1 and three the district is participating in a Penn State study on these different handwriting programs and researchers will be sharing those results with the district to help in selecting the best program to purchase Dr Brown also discussed a transition to new library media software this would be districtwide uh the software is called Mackin Vision this is for 2526 the program has has the ability to track more than just Library materials it could also track sports uniforms instruments devices and any other loaned items Mac Invision has better student usability than Destiny which is the software the district is currently using uh it connects with Genesis and it is cheaper to purchase in terms of parent notification for Library materials Mac Invision does not have a way to search for potentially sensitive topics or to email parents when a student checks out a book but as Dr Brown was researching the different soft ware options she noted that none of the software were able to do that parents will have the ability as they do now to log into their child's account to see what books they've taken out of the library there is no change to what parents currently do which is to contact the media specialist to limit the kinds of materials their child is able to access once the new software is implemented a Genesis blast will be sent to parents with instructions on how to log in and reminders about Library protocols um next we heard from Miss pouch uh she reported this is for uh math science and health uh she reported that amplify science has been fully implemented in grades 6 through eight this year amplifi amplify science is now being piloted in grades four to five uh and since teachers are reporting very good results and the last update to textbooks was over 10 years ago this is included in the budget for 2526 uh for Math Miss pouch mentioned that the pilot for edgems grades 6 through eight is is also going very well teachers have reported that although the standards and content are the same from previous years the way that Ed gems presents the information is a huge improvement over Big Ideas which is the program The District currently uses for health Miss pouch recommends purchasing Teen Health for grades six through eight this is the program The District used prior to the great body shop teen Health's lessons are better suited to the new Middle School schedule there are no changes in content the sexual health units are available to purchase separately but the district would will decline those and continue to use the teacher created materials aligned to the standards uh next we had an update in special ed u m Miss beagle reported on the protocols for dyslexia screening I ready Diagnostics are administered three times a year and are the universal screener that the district uses for general education students I ready is recognized by the state as a first tier screener to identify students who then need a more in-depth one-on-one screener the district then uses several one-on-one screeners based on the students needs but will be investing in a new dyslexia specific paper pencil screener for next year teachers have been reviewing the new state dyslexia handbook and Distilling an information down to share with colleagues K through3 teachers attend an annual webinar on dyslexia screening and teaching strategies um next we talked about the esy program Miss beagle announced the program dates will be July 1st through 31st for the self-contained programs and July 1st through 24th for the supplemental reading program um next we discuss the Strategic plan Dr Hart reported that since the district's fiveyear strategic plan is complete he will begin collecting data through surveys from parents staff and students through focus and parent groups he plans to bring survey results to the board in March or April with recommendations for Budget items for strategic planning going forward uh next that we talked about the board committee handbook this has officially been red red in every committee now uh the last item was summer enrichment U Mrs cryle updated the committee on summer enrichment offerings for grades K through six Miss augen will be the coordinator again this year uh the classes will change week to week so students could attend several weeks without overlapping content new this year is a 30 minute early drop off which was suggested by parents last summer uh the course offerings will be sent out after board approval uh we had the regular agenda items and then we scheduled our uh next meeting for February 21st at 8:30 any comments discussion okay M Cassie yes M Fury yes Mr OES yes M Meer yes M beon yes M rad yes Ryan Yes m r yes okay the next agend committee reports Personnel um can I get a motion in a second to adopt 5.01 to 5.07 second okay I believe there's no committee report for meeting tomorrow so nothing to read there so any discussion okay hold M Cassidy yes M fi yes MREs yes M men yes M borski yes m r yes M Ryan yes yes yes okay the next committee report is for communication once again the meeting has not Happ answer most likely will not be a committee report um can we have a motion to adopt 601 and 6.02 and second okay any discussion uh I have a question okay uh I sent a message to Dr Hart and Pinto um because I apologize I wasn't here at the first reading of policy 505 um and I just had an issue with the wording the first sentence in this policy is the Board of Education recognizes Child and Adolescent obesity has become a major health concern in the United States and then the policy goes on entirely to talk about good nutrition and physical activity and that's the focus of it um not really obesity and I I was having an issue with the fact that there's many causes of obesity that are not addressed by the policy um and it just seemed to be you know I'm thinking of my my fifth grade uh writing teacher back here who would say that uh targeting and making improvements on Obesity might be a supporting argument that might be later in your policy and you could say that this is one of the benefits of improved nutrition and increased physical activity but it's not the subject of the policy and it seemed like it was unnecessarily exclusive like it was targeted at our obese student population as opposed to being applicable to everyone who would benefit from uh good nutrition and increased activity so it just it was an odd statement and it felt out of place so my recommendation after some back and forth with Mr pinto and Dr har was I would like to move that sentence down to goodness numbering in this policy that's very hard to follow um section 4 A4 A7 uh there's a section called additional wellness policy goals and it just seemed like it would it would fit better there to say that you know doesn't a we don't limit the impact the options for the school to just what's in the policy and do more um that this aligns with sustainable Jersey goals and as well it can have the added benefit of uh addressing this epidemic apparently we see so that's my recommendation I don't know if that's an appropriate uh approach um do I make a motion discuss did you he email did you respond back or um both Mr VTO and I responded back um with the background and the rationale for why this is written the way it is um and as well as some information in the bylaw about how to go about making policy changes from you know the board table so if it's something so um Pam has a something she's putting forward to the board if we consider it to be a nons substantive change of the policy in other words if the board is okay with the administration just going back and kind of making that first statement more General and more Mission focused you know the Board of Education supports the well-being of all students or something like that and not not so much about just the Obesity epidemic and then moving the Obesity Clause somewhere else more appropriate I believe we can still vote the policy in and if you don't consider that to be a substantive change I can just make the adjustment and send it to you and then we can just adopt as is or we can go back to the full committee and just make sure they're okay with the wording and then bring it back for a first read but that's only if we feel as if it's a substantive change so I feel like the question in front of the board is is that language swap something that you think still meets the mission of the policy and can we just move forward with adoption as is with um a charge to the administration to to make the wording work and sound better we can move forward if you think that that is a substantive change then we have to go back to policy and we just spr it back to the board so Pam since you raised it do you think it's substantive or you think it's sub I I think it is not substantive I think it's a minor organizational change of where that statement is I really like this policy it's got really great statements I love the improvements you made particularly at the middle school recess for our our twens is a great idea um I just felt like it it it threw me off and I apologize I would have brought it up if I've been sitting on the first reading um I don't I didn't mean to bring it here but you're on a policy committee so go forward you we'll be able to I agree I don't think it's sub that's just my personal opinion is that any other thoughts on it and oh I will point out I the message from Mr Pinto also said she's like yeah the point of the policy is around wellness and wellbeing of our students that is just one of the benefits and so I said it just seems more apprpriate different location instead of being the very first thing to read and I know our students don't usually go in and open up our policies but I don't know I might be a little sensitive to that one like okay here's a policy just for me and you know all of our students really can benefit from physical activity and good nutrition okay so any other thoughts on that so we will treat it as nons substantive Dr Hart Ellen you guys can go back and make the appropriate changes any other comments before we take a roll call it m Cassie wait I interrupt I'm sorry wait I just want to point out 6.02 because it's board member recognition month and we just wanted to make sure that you all got your shout out for serving on the board because we want to recognize you this month and I didn't mention it during my superintendence report but this is a newly added agenda item that we should have standing on every January agenda just to recognize the Board of Education I'm sorry but I just wanted to mention that before just to point it out that it's something you don't get claps all that often thank you m Cassie yes m f yes Mr V yes M yes M vori yes M Ry yes M Ryan yes yes okay next item is unfinished business we have board committees so at the last meeting we discussed how we were going to go about creating board committees and the result was for each of the board members to get back to me with the first two choices of what they would like to be on if they want to be a chair and so on so the process that we used was we took your feedback decided which committees you want to be uh interested in and we were able to actually meet your requir people that's the first two that room requested we actually were able to actually meet that the other item that was important was selecting of the chairs the chairs run the committee and the agenda and we wanted to continue with the leadership because the chairs are the extended leadership of the board so I just want to mention who the chairs are for personnel at car dorby edtech Beth fiori green Beth fiori again policy Communications Ellen depinto finance and Facilities Michelle mener and negotiations myself David Rizza um if you need to see the pr the committee assignments they're online so you can go to our Board of Ed website and see them so that is the committee I know assignment any questions concerns thoughts on it okay thank everyone for stepping up being chairs and going out to the Committees next one is new business from the board the board committee handbook I have not been part of that so Dr hard discuss it yeah I'll just mention Mr Rizza that it's complete uh every committee has reviewed the handbook so at this point it's a document that is ready for publication uh and uh sounds based off of your feedback I'm hopeful that it will be a useful tool in onboarding new board members particularly in the selection of which committees interest them um but it is complete and that's something that we can use uh continuing on new board member orientation excellent okay need comments discussion on it I would like to see it um me where to find it when I thought I shared it with the full board before the January rework meeting oh okay that's what that was okay that's what that was um and I don't think anything has changed since that time um except now I'll just put on a fun fancy cover and call it a handbook and it did look like notes okay okay yep that's it that's the one and I'll I'll make sure I send out a final draft to the full any other comments I I have business I'm sorry I have some new business to add ready for that um you had a point of me to the Garden State Coalition of schools uh as the representative from the board uh there was a meeting last week that I attended Dr Hart was also a participant in it and would you like a report out um there uh apparently was an unusual setup where uh there were a panel of journalists who were asking questions of the attendees and as a firsttime board member I really had no uh no place answering any questions but Dr har were there so you're welcome to chime in if I got anything wrong so there was a series of questions that it ended up being two journalists Brianna Kish and Hannah gross were asking um the panel of primarily superintendent and board members uh superintendent primarily answered um they asked uh one what what are your AI policies to safeguard against misuse and not just cheating but harassment and What legislation from the state is available and the general feeling was that um we already have uh policies around cheating and harassment regardless of whether or not it's AI so they didn't see this as a unique situation um question two what type of cell phone policy would you like to see at the state and again there was this kind of feeling like do we need legislation we feel like we can handle this in our own districts without having undue restrictions um we want to engage the parents and community and make it correct for our for our district uh the third question what's the biggest challenge obstacle this year it was all about State funding the formula budget the 2% tax levy and the fact that I guess we get um our funding is coming out and two days later something you have to report back on it so they were all that teacher shortages SI leave staff attendance is plummeting sub costs are going up so those were some of the issues asked about the race of the governor and how it's impacting education topics they also asked asked about what could you do to your budget now to offer some relief and that was we need the ability to go over this 2% tax levy cap um we want special education costs to be fully funded I said a lot of these legislative and formulary changes are very slow to enact um and having a real impact for a long time oh they said the formula that we use to calculate um our our tax benefit here is around the property value um and income but income is not actually taxed locally so we were talking about how this difficulty that we may have a lot of money but it doesn't come into this okay question six if the district funding formula is revamped what changes can be made they just want to see some more transparency in the range of what that range could be in advance what state could look like for the year it's not allowing to plan adequately the timeline is not really adequate question seven was around negative student Behavior School avoidance chronic aism it's been getting worse since Co has that improved at all said overall most of the districts felt like it has been getting better for the general population but there are um certain populations I guess as you said too that that are are seeing some increased absy uh concerns there there was a lot of talk about providing Mental Health Systems of care outside of the school what programs are working in what of failures um there was an agreement that kids need immediate access to that health support and most districts are funding that themselves for private contracts uh question eight potential changes to the immigration policy and how's that impacting your district and there was a lot of uh reassurance that state law protects uh immigrant IM imants in this District that it's not a question that the school is even aware of you don't have access to that information and that students have a right to privacy and so no one can come up to the front door of the school come collect a child or or ask for any private information question nine looking back five years ago what would you have done differently when wee for Co and that was a tough one but everybody said like they they did what they could we can't with a cryst B look back but um they admitted that the districts had different states of Readiness um it was good to have a plan in place in advance for what ultimately was a predictable event um and how can we better fund Public Health I think it's a bigger question from just the school district uh question 10 was around the school in Monclair that had closed due to the threats of school shootings and how are threat assessment protocols put in the district and they said really these threat assessment teams are uh raising Community awareness to get ahead of the violence and that they try to we can for there's an issue all right uh there was an executive director's record there's a lot that in Dr Hart had provided to us a lot of links to these bills around formulas of funding coming through newy Senate and assembly there's a bill on air quality studies in schools bills on cell phone use in schools the bill on required notifications the print newspapers versus online for bed um there was just mentioned all right so I don't know anything else to after to heart is the first time yeah I would just say We'll coordinate when we when I goes I can't go to all the meetings but um I was very quiet during the meeting because I found it a little odd that we were all on the record with two journalists in the meeting and they were asking these questions and I just sat and listened most of the meeting but um yeah it was a different format they're not all like that usually there's a guest speaker or we a little or we talk about legislation or maybe there's a legislator that joins us but it was just a very different format so um but those were the questions that were asked there was two journalists taking notes and the chair of the meeting literally said everything is on the record unless you say it's not on the record so I said nothing okay you have anything else okay excellent anyone else all right so our next item is our next public session this is open to the public anything on or off the agenda hi everybody alao forunate to have many of your children so I'm a teacher and I live here and I have a new hat I am the rtea b o e leison so we wanted to welcome you and thank all all of you for the good work that you do and important work that you do and we look forward to working in partnership with you to enhance our students learning so welcome everybody thank you thanks I do not see any questions online any of the other two people in the audience have what you say I just curies if anyone else wants to come up okay all right so we'll close that out our next item is ex executive session um we're going to have a motion to adopt the following resolution resolved to adjourn to Executive session in accordance with the sunshine wall to discuss two hivs and a superintendent evaluation midyear update for approximately 45 minutes at which time the board expects to return to public session or action shall not be taken the matter discussed will be made public if and when circum ances requiring confidentiality no longer exist however it is not presently known when such circumstances will exist can I get a motion in a second to go into executive session second welome Mrs Cassie yes M Fury yes Mr loes yes M men yes M borski yes M Ryan Yes M Ryan Yes m r yes good night everybody stay warm thanks for coming