all in favor I N or extensions all right pledge allegiance flag of the United States of America can I have a motion to approve the minutes from the February 25th or the
minutes from the February 25th and March 5th special uh board meetings so moved second all in favor any need or extensions okay thank you so much apologies
everyone give me one second to bring up my president's report make sure there the right one yeah good evening everyone uh president support for the March 25th board meeting uh good evening fellow board members and welcome to the uh March 2025 Board of Education
meeting I'd like to thank all of our administrators faculty parents students and community members who have joined us this evening March has been a busy month for the Administration staff and students here are a few highlights from the past month the state uh the state aid numbers were presented by the Govern Governor at
the end of February uh the Robinsville District uh School District Aid uh budget was cut by 3% or roughly $300,000 as presented by the administration at our special Bo meeting earlier this month the administration and staff worked tirelessly leading up to the release of the numbers to be as
prepared as possible for the release uh the board provided preliminary feedback at the special board meeting and are ready to hear the final proposal by the administration for the 2025 2026 budget this evening I urge the administration to find ways to creatively expand the opportunities for children of the district aligned with
our goals in the face of lost aid during this in uh inflationary period give a brief upd in the crematorium on March 4th I was joined by Dr piso Amanda Tanya Anthony and vergu at the New Jersey DP public hearing for the crematorium permit it was great to
have our local elect officials including Senator Greenstein assemblywoman McCoy and Assembly women dangelo we also had councilman Todd there uh I have lived in Robinsville for 13 years and I have experienced a lot of events uh featuring the robinso strong motto however the
turnout and speeches uh by many of our brilliant robinso students and community members was by far an alltime high for our Robins strong motto and I'm I'm glad to have been there for it so many people turned out for the hearing that many had to park at adjacent lots and walk over thank you to all who in attendance that
uh that evening and gave speeches New Jersey assembly Bill a 5275 will be heard by the assembly Commerce Economic Development and agriculture committee on March 20th 2025 at 1 p.m. in committee room 15 fourth floor State House Annex Trent New Jersey I encourage all that
are available to attend I'd like to congratulate the Nemesis 2590 for placing first at the at the first midlantic robotics District event which was hosted by Robinsville High School this past weekend The Season's game was titled reefscape I was
able to attend the event with my son and let me tell you it was fantastic he was on edge of his SE for each of the matches this event highlighted the Ingenuity of our talented students as robotics excuse me uh as robots Traverse the floor and per and uh performed the
Mand the mandated tasks if you have not attended one of these events I highly recommend it for the whole family last but not least I want to thank Dr buer Mr pfer and Dr piso and the amazing Sharon Elementary School staff for welcoming meting on on March
7th uh nothing will get you energized like being around Elementary School students in their element their positive energy is highly contagious during the walkthr we were able to stop by all of the wings of the elementary school from our youngest Learners in the prek program all the way up to the fourth
grade wing with our top Learners we were also able to see the students moving between classes in the efficiency of Lunch Period believe me parents your young ones are in great hands I would look forward uh to observing the student drop off this upcoming Friday and then on to Pond after that thank you again to
the staff at Sharon element school for all you do in closing I'd like to thank all of you our Educators parents students and community members for being here tonight I look forward to a productive meeting we'll turn it over Dr piso for the superintendent report okay thank you thank you um before my report we have with the
structure of the meetings now we're going to have the presentation start off and we're also going to then have reports from various leaders within our district but what I'd like to do is start off with our principal from Sharon
Elementary School Dr boutier all right good evening everyone Dr piso Mr olberg members of the Board of Education really excited to be here tonight as you can see we have a lot of students and families joining us uh to my left I'd like to introduce our two art Educators here at Sharon uh Miss
Peach right here and Miss murro um these ladies are here tonight to share some of the experiences and artwork that they've done with their students and then after a brief introduction to their lesson we'd like to invite members of the Board of Education as well as families and
students to view our art gallery in the back so without further Ado Miss Peach and Miss [Applause] Muro I don't know oh thank you good evening
everyone um thank you for having us my name is Miss mercuro and I am one of the art teachers at Sharon Elementary School we are here tonight because this month in March we have been honoring
women's history month and we decided to pick three women who are three women artists who have been very influential and these are the three that we have chosen so so um in first grade our first graders
learned about Sonia Delan our second graders learned about Elma thas and our third graders learned about Georgia o'keef oh I think she's got it thank you so Sonia Delan was an artist who was
born in Ukraine and she was actually living in France but she loved using shapes bright colors bold colors and it was really cool because she Incorporated this into her artwork fashion she painted cars and she was one of the
first women artists at her time to um exhibit her work at Lou and so as you can see here she's got a lot of playful shapes she uses colors like the primary colors there's a lot of
movement and yes thank you the second artist that we studied in our second graders learned about Alma Thomas who was an art teacher from Washington DC one of the cool things about her is that she actually started painting when
she was 60 years old and so unfortunately she wasn't famous in her lifetime but she was one of the first African-American women who had their paintings um hung up in the white house and now her paintings sell for millions of
so you'll see our second graders um emulated some of her artwork yeah and those are some examples of Alma Thomas's artwork so the third artist that we showed for third grade is Georg
o'keef Georg o Kee was an American modernist painter known for her closeup FL our paintings when it was hard for a women to become artists she followed her dreams and she stuck to them um
throughout her career Georgia o'keef was recognized nationally by one of America's most important and successful artists these are some of her Works awesome and we would like to
invite all of the Sharon Elementary artists to the back for a group photo so thank you I'd also love to invite um Dr P on the board members to come view some of the student artwork and some of the artists can tell you a little bit about their um their
pieces do you have your phone I have mine awesome Okay so [Music] let's just see e e e
e e e e e e e e e thank you everyone if you can please
take your seats thank you everyone Sharon school has um one more thing we want to highlight so if everyone just return to their seats please just want to say thank you to all the artists it looks beautiful let's give him a round of applause yes thank
you want to thank the families for coming out tonight and supporting and celebrating with us as well as well as Miss Muro and Miss Peach for giving up some time to share their talents with us so thank [Applause] you Sharon school this month also celebrated Across America and we're
excited because we did a collaboration project with the Robinsville high school and English National Honor Society so we have some members from the nle English National Honor Society that can come up and share a little bit about their experience and their time with us at Sharon also behind the uh board members
and the public are a couple pictures that I'm going to run through that share and celebrate um the special day where the high school kids were able to come back to shanon and visit and do some special read alouds and celebrations to celebr great we Across America good evening everyone I am Sean
Kenny the president of the national English Honor Society good evening I'm Athan Secretary of national English Honor Society good evening I am Seri quer Raju the treasurer it is an honor to speak before you tonight in order to provide you an
update on our club and and the incredible progress we have made in just our second year as an organization this year has been particularly significant for us as is as it is the first year where we were able to truly get off the ground and start creating and initializing various
projects around our community in order to promote literacy through reading and writing our primary focus this year has been with Sharon we have already initiated two successful programs there this year alone the first being a red book club which is a still ongoing in
8we program for third and fourth graders in which members of our club have gone and read books of them afterwards they do an activity before being sent home and they read a little bit more on their home on their own before coming in next week I can tell from having been there
for a couple weeks myself how truly excited the kids are in doing this and it's great because it's good seeing them being just as excited as we are about this oh we also recently participated in
read Across America as Miss boutier said in Sharon Elementary School uh read Across America was more than just a reading event uh it was an opportunity for us to spread the love of literacy that we share with students at Sharon our national English Honor Society
members took on the role of mentors uh reading books and engaging with young students through interactive storytelling discussions about their favorite characters or the plot of the book and and activities that were to emphasize the joy of reading Beyond
simply reading aloud our members also we wanted to encourage conversation and uh thoughtful thinking when reading these books about uh stuff like themes characters and lessons from the stories making these experiences more engaging
and educational uh this initiative not only reinforced the importance of our early literacy but also strengthened our commitment to expanding these efforts in the future ensuring that a love for reading is nurtured from a young
age looking ahead we have ambitious goals to expand our literacy initiatives even further one of them being the incorporation of pond into our program allowing us to extend our reach and create a stronger culture of reading within our community additionally we aim to launch
more literacy focused events that encourage reading beyond the classroom ensuring that students across all ages still share that love for reading that we all do in high school our achievements in these two years are just the beginning of the impact we hope to make with the support
of this board and our school Community we look forward to build upon these achievements on behalf of all our nehs members we would like to thank you for this opportunity [Applause] again thank you so much for attending
tonight it was great to have the high school club there and give a shout out to Miss Becky toito she is the director um as well as the big kids have such a good time but I can't tell you how excited our little students are when the high school kids come over and get to see them and share that experience so so
thank you thank you for having us here tonight all right thank you okay great job on on both presentations we do have another presentation that's going to be coming up a little bit later but next I would like to to ask Mr
Carlos camela and Miss Amanda novic to uh to please come up they are from the Robinsville Education Foundation good evening Dr piso and good evening board thank you so much for having us today um again we want to thank you for your support and your
contributions to our foundation um as well as the teachers uh we you know Amanda we both enjoy going to the schools during the year presenting the Innovative grants and just having a chance to talk to the teachers are what makes everything happen for us so we really appreciate
that good evening thank you again for having us here I'm the secretary of the Ed foundation and I'm just going to highlight some of the awesome grants that we were able to support this year we will be giving um across all three schools in district a making make Steam program and ozobot robots those will
spark curiosity and coding and problem solving we have anatomical models and forensic microscopes will bringing science to life allowing students to dive deeper into the wonders of the human body Mosaic Multicultural titles and additional literacy to support the
wax museum project at Pond as well as ancient civilization stem puzzles um walking pads that will be able to promote student well-being um promoting extra movement and mindfulness when they're not able to be outside and additionally life skills boxes um each of these projects
represents the passion and dedication of our teachers here in District they continuously push the boundaries of traditional learning to create meaningful experiences for our students on behalf of the Robinsville Education Foundation we are honored to support these initiatives and celebrate the Educators who make them possible
congratulations to all of our our grant winners your Innovation is shaping the future one Arville student at a time thank you so at the very end we have a big check that we want to present to the board for $1,159
40 it would be great if you could go to the bank and uh see if they would cash us just sign on the top thank you very much would you mind taking a picture with the board yes please yeah one two three one all right thank thank you again to the
Robinsville Education Foundation such an uh such a honor and privilege to work with them and we so appreciate the great great uh things they do to help our students uh to help our teachers help our students okay okay next we have some of
our reports and next up we have we have our Robin School uh Rob sonville high school student executive council with Marcus rudal and Nick gripper uh good evening uh my name is Marcus roli and
I'll be giving a report for Robinsville High School uh first for athletics the winter season has come to a close and uh congratulations to all winter sports teams on a fantastic Seasons spring season has just started last Monday all teams have begun practice in preparation
for the season we wish everyone good luck for the clubs uh first robotic just hosted a robotics competition over the we over the weekend our amazing robotics team came in first place for the midatlantic district congratulations to
all model un will be hosting its annual night of Nations on March 27th from 5: to 7: in the rhs Commons everyone is encouraged to attend last week the senior class started their preparations for M rhs all
participants have been selected and are beginning practices after school the junior class is hosting their first ever junior prom on March 23rd we are really excited to see how uh the event turns out uh for the musical The Wedding
Singer The Wedding Singer is April 4th through the 6th we can't wait to see our students perform they've be been working so hard and the talent is exceptional uh for the exact Council uh along with the rest of the senior class we just enjoyed our senior
trip to Disney it was a magical experience for all and we are all super grateful for the Memories We Will begin planning end of the year activities for both seniors and all students okay um I'm Nick Ripa the executive social director and I'm going
to be talking about Pon middle school and Sharon Elementary School so first off Robins off was a resounding success families were ecstatic as they learned how to dust off fingerprints saw car excavation decorated cupcakes and
cookies got a massage at our Wellness table or played a spirited game of pickle ball it was so gratifying to see so many members of our school family come together for fun a little adventure and a lot of community building a huge thank you to miss Mason miss gigliotti
and miss Klein for their tremendous work and preparation for the event our first week of prms March Madness is underway students have been earning points for their respective advisory classes by participating in our spirit week and guessing the songs based on
lyrics read during morning announcements this week we have brought it anything but a water bottle we have dressed like Adam Sandler and we are rocking our best Cowboy fit the students and the staff have been responding enthusiastically
and some of how have been very creative we kicked off celebration of women's History Month with an activity through Pond TV the following is an excerpt you will see a student announce on air no matter how big or small all
achievements should be recognized to all the women of Pawn Road you are a blessing to this school community and deserve to be celebrated thank you for being you and to everyone make sure to celebrate the wom in your lives today advisory classes will use index cards to
write a letter to a woman you admire care about respect and or love in the classroom the eighth grade scientists has have embarked on their genetics unit looking at trades such as tongue rolling hitchhiker's thumb
widow's peak and freckles the students learned about probability and the likelihood of different outcomes in a genetic cross DNA models were created in the mystery of the genetic code and its involvement in protein synthesis have been revealed next up for these student
scientists is a unon Evolution and natural selection and now moving on to Sharon school during the week of March 10th the students and staff of Sharon celebrated the week of inclusion with a series of engaging activities throughout the week students participated in
educational experiences during morning meeting and enjoyed themed dress up days to promote a sense of belonging and unity a highlight of the week was our mix it up uh lunch with fourth grade students each student received an image of a prominent Community fixture and was
tasked with matching it to their assign table one seated students use conversation STS and guiding questions to spark meaningful discussions with new peers it was inspiring to see students actively engaging with one another fostering new friendships and
strengthening our school Community the spring conference schedule is now available on parents Square we look forward to welcoming families into our school to celebrate their children's growth and achievements a friendly reminder that kindergarten registration
is now open we look forward to welcoming the class of 2038 for more details please visit the Sharon School website and thank you all so much for allowing us to sit on the board and speak this evening and we're looking forward to next month's meeing as [Applause]
well all right thank thank you very much for your report and now I see that we have have just joined us our Robinsville High School Muslim Student Association uh with their advisor Mr Amar Amed if you
could please uh come up to the microphone when you settled in we'd uh love to hear what you're looking to share with us today and thank you all right we are the rhs Muslim stent ass
Association or MSA and we want to uh thank Dr piso and the board for inviting us to speak especially in the sacred month of Ramadan here's a quick overview of our topics tonight first we wanted to provide background on our MSA club and
the local Muslim Community then we will talk about the month of Ramadan and why we fast during it finally we'll talk about what our MSA has accomplished so far and how we hope to continue [Music] growing now most people have heard that
Muslims greet each other by saying Asam alayum but many people don't know what this means it translates to peace be upon you which is how we greet each other and everyone here today for example asalam alaykum my name is n our Muslim Student Association started
only a few years ago and is rapidly growing our mission is to engage and educate the students of bobville high school about the religion of Islam and the various cultures that have been strongly influenced by it we aim to create a more tolerant and accepting School Culture by teaching and learning
about various faiths Alum My Name Is Zade Alam and I am the secretary of the ramzo MSA and while Muslim communities in America may be less established than other religious groups we are a strong and growing part of the community local mths provide essential services from worship and education to charity and Community
Support which Fosters a sense of unity and belonging so this is the Muslim Center of Greater Princeton or mcgp and it mcgp is the closest Moss to us and this serves as a central hub for prayer education Community Gatherings and charity initiatives which brings people
together and fosters a strong and supp supportive environment for everyone in the area and here are some pictures of mcgp and another MOS local MOS called the Islamic circle of Mercer County or icmc which as you can see are only 10 and 12 minutes away and both MOS offer
essential religious services including daily prayers Juma or Friday prayers Ramadan programs and Quran classes in addition both MOS also provide educational programs for example IMA teachers assistant at mcgp weekend school and assist in teaching the Arabic language and the Quran to a third grade
class finally they also provide strong Community Support they host various youth programs social events and charity initiatives like f drives mcgp hunger Vin and Interfaith events they also provide financial assistance for those in need and support for special needs
families to build a welcoming and active community in the area these local mosques combine religious services with education and Community work they and they are a huge inspiration for the work of our MS our MSA is also just one of many high oh
wrong slide our MSA is also just one of many High School msas in the area as seen here we previously attended a joint MSA students event with MSA students from nearby schools to collaborate and share ideas again these MOS and local msas have been the inspiration for our
club's work asalam alikum everyone my name is sa today I'm going to talk about how Islamic values and how they are connected to fasting in Ramadan fasting isn't just about not eating and drinking from before sunrise to sunset it's about developing good character and
strengthening our faith the question I'm going to be focusing on is how does fasting embody Islamic values on this slide I want to show you some of the key values that Muslims practice during Ramadan at the top there's an Ayah from the Quran Surah Al
bakar verse 83 it says oh you have believed fasting has been prescribed upon you as it has been prescribed upon those before you so that you may become righteous this means fasting isn't just something Muslims do today it's been part of many religions in the past the
purpose is to keep people is to help people become more righteous and mindful of God it teaches self-control and brings us closer to Allah so there are some values that we learn through fasting on one being self-discipline so obviously we're
abstaining from foods and drinks but we also abstain from things like anger and character flaws that like gossiping another value that we learn by fasting is patience since we are fasting from
sunrise to sunset um and it can be challenging but we learn um patience in that um another value is empathy we learn um through fasting where we don't have any food or drinks we learn we
learn um that there's a lot of Miss there's are unfortunate people who don't have foods and drinks um another Islamic value that we learn through fasting is Unity since fasting um Muslims around the world all
fast so um fasting kind of brings Muslims together um and sometimes we host where we uh break our fast together like uh what's called ifar it's the time that we break our fasts in Sunset
another another value known as generosity um it's encouraged for people in Ramadan to um give charity which is called zakat and Sak in Islam another value alone is gratefulness um fasting
makes you appreciate the blessings you have life food and water and health because you realize through fasting how hard life can be without it um so even though our club is still growing we've been able to impact our community positively through three main
categories first we started religious services for Muslim Students one of the my one of the most impactful accomplishments we've had is getting Robinsville schools a day off for which also knows as the festival for
breaking fast after Ramadan this day in fact is actually approaching quite quickly on March 31st we also started weekly communal prayers Frid which are on Fridays called jamama so students can complete these
this prayer after school and not miss it at the mosque we've also focused on education the pictures here show our MSA booths at the World Language Honor Society is culture night and holiday night we
taught other students about our religion Ramadan cultural practices like henna and even let them eat some delicious traditional foods which did run out extremely quickly next we have focus on community outreach and services in the spirit of
Thanksgiving we helped with mcmc's clothing drive for people in need with the help of um also with the help of adults in the community um there was also an eat celebration meals given to staff at all schools uh last year classes at Sharon and P also got to make
Ramadan arts and crafts to learn about this month finally this uh may be one of our most important accomplishments last school year we recognize the growing need to collaborate with other Faith clubs to Foster dialogue and connectedness we held the first ever
inter Interfaith club meetings with the Jewish American and Hindu American Club leaders and advisers guest speakers also came to talk to um their respective clubs although this was just a start these Interfaith meetings laid the foundation for future collaboration and
work to make our school more connected and welcoming we hope to continue expanding on this work in the future again on behalf of the MSA and entire Robinsville Muslim Community we want to thank the board and school district for recognizing us and giving
us a chance to speak if you have any questions feel free to reach [Applause] out okay I I I would like to to thank you for for coming here tonight and even though I I know that this is uh even
even with the celebration that that you had you were still able to to join us and it really means a lot to me that you were you were able to make it to uh to join our meeting and to let us know a little bit more about your culture and when we met in my office uh I was so
impressed by by by meeting with the entire group and I just want to remind everyone what I said when the meeting was over that this was the first meeting uh by no means the last so I want to make this a regular uh thing where we uh get together and talk talk and discuss
and continue to for me to learn more and for you to share more with our community so uh thank you I so appreciate you being here today and being a part of this wonderful Community thank you quick question did you guys break
your fast you got a chance to break your fast okay good I can sneaky cookies from the back a few of us over here also broke our fast but thank you for doing this we should thank Mr gizo who uh who helped for to have a appropriate location for uh for the club to be able
to break that fast and and it was able to uh so glad it worked out that uh you're able to uh to join us and still be able to to celebrate appropriately okay next uh next up on our agenda uh Miss Amy Del okay this is the uh this is the
first of what will be a every meeting Outreach it's so important to have our PTA come up and and do a presentation each month in regards to sharing the great things they do for our kids so really means a lot to me that you're
here I so appreciate you joining us and every month there'll be one person one leader from the PTA who will speak for uh for the entire uh PTA throughout the district and I believe the plan is to have different different leaders come
out so I'm really excited um to have you here so turn me up Mike over to you thank you thank you Dr piso for inviting the PTA to be present at the board meeting and thank you to the board for including us in your agenda I'd like to first introduce myself uh my name is AE
Daly I've been a resident of Robinsville for over 20 years and I'm the proud mother of three daughters um I've had a child in the school district for the past 14 years when my oldest who's now a freshman in college started at Sharon school I joined the PTA and have been
active ever since uh initially my main role at the Sharon PTA was the chair of the yearbook committee which I did for six years uh this was a wonderful opportunity for me to use my skills and love for photography plus I got to know the school the staff and my children's
um classmates as my kids moved up to Pond I became co-chair of the book fair this being my fifth year uh still doing that um another great example this is of how my interests my love for both books and reading led to my involvement in the
PTA and has allowed me to get to know Pond the teachers and the administrators currently I'm also the vice president at Pond and the vice president for the Robinsville High School PTSA so I figure with all of this experience I'd be the ideal candidate to start off our um
presentations of our three District pcas to you at Sharon School the PTI cannot run without all the wonderful volunteers and donations from the community they have volunteers that go into the library daily to help the kids and the librarian to keep the books and shelves
organized we also have volunteers that go in weekly and help teachers with prep work by making copies for them uh recently they had their ice uh ice skating social and Mercer County ice rink that's usually an annual event and
this week the book fair has started for classroom visits and next week they will host two parent nights on March 19th they're hosting a cahoot tournament at Sharon families are welcome to come and see if they're smarter than their
student also in March the PTA is hosting a laser kindness assembly for all students at Sharon the week of April 7th Sharon kids will be participating in coin Wars competing with grade levels to see which grade will win a movie day the kids love
this event um our big Sharon Shin's commun community service event will be on May 2nd which you may have seen advertised it is an in school service event teaching students about local organizations that help support our
community students will get involved by assembling snack or activity bags or making utensil packs for local nonprofits they are currently collecting donations to make the event a success in the reflections program uh
they had numerous students participate who move forward to to the county level and to States one of those students received an Award of Excellence which advances them to the National level Sharon PTA also has a wonderful teacher appreciation committee that is
constantly hosting events to make the teachers and Staff feel loved such as lunch and snacks during conferences a hot chocolate bar in a cold day and a nacho bar just to name a few the committee is currently planning the
weeklong celebration for teacher appreciation week in May this is a week that all teachers look forward to and lastly the Sharon PTA also contributes $8 per student for all grade level field
trips moving on at Pawn Road Middle School we are looking forward to a fun spring ahead supporting our students next week is our Spring Book Fair where students including the preschool can visit during school hours plus two nights where families can visit during
conferences we are also excited to be hosting the fifth sixth and seventh grade socials in April and May and to financially support all of the upcoming grade level field trips we continue to partner with the pawn Road Middle School counseling department on their student
of the month program each month we recognize the students who embody one of the four PB sis character traits flexible accountable inclusive and responsible with gifts generously donated through local sponsors such as friendlies
Starbucks ganja Indian restaurant Colonial Bowling and WWA this year in Reflections the middle school had seven students win at the county level in the competition and who mooved forward to State judging where
two of those students received honorable mentions teacher appreciation week is also a big one for us at Pond we're hoping to get donations from local businesses and individuals but to to put together gifts and gives giveaways to say thank you to all of our amazing
teachers for a whole week in May as we begin to prepare for next school Year's PTA we wanted to take this time to highlight the need for volunteers to join and to be active on the PTA our programs are run by a small group of dedicated parents who are always looking
for additional help the PTA is a fun and fulfilling way of supporting our students in schools and contributing meaningfully to the school culture please consider reaching out to the PTA to find out more about our open executive committee
positions and last but not least is the Robinsville High School PTSA we recently congratulated all students during midterms for being one smart cookie where we treated them to a free cookie upon dismissal in February we hosted our
annual handbag Bingo event that raises funds for our prom red carpet and post-prom events that occur in May our next big event as with the other schools is Teacher Appreciation Week where we will look for donations of items from the community to give to our staff
throughout the week so we can show the teachers and staff our tremendous appreciation for all they do on a daily basis next we wanted to give a big congratulations to our one high school student who advanced to the state level in the reflection program and he won an
award of Merit for his music composition we're also in scholarship submission season a key focus of the high school program is to provide annual scholarships to graduating seniors so we encourage those students to submit their
applications and essays and as a reminder to be eligible for one of the rhs PTSA scholarships the student and or their family needed to be a member for all four years years of high school we continually fundraise for this event
throughout our write a check campaign we are actively fundraising and finishing the planning for the class of 202's red carpet and post prom event we will need volunteers to help us continue this wonderful Robinsville tradition be
on the lookout for communications and please support our fundraising efforts um at restaurant socials our next one is Taco Bell versus Habit Burger scheduled for March 27th and we are having our first spring clothing Drive planned for
Saturday April 12th similarly to the other ptas we would not be able to function without our dedicated group of volunteers however it seems recently we are all experiencing a shortfall in membership and participation we are always looking for
parents to help staff our events and also to donate to our fundraisers throughout the year we are actively accepting new members and are looking to recruit for the 2025 2026 executive board and key committee positions we especially need a president
for the PTSA at the high school without this role fulfilled there cannot be a PTA and the events I just spoke of may not happen so please consider joining us if you're interested you can email us at rhs pts NJ
gmail.com that being said I encourage all parents to reflect upon their talents and their interests their level of involvement at the schools and consider volunteering with our ptas to help Drive our efforts I have found it to be a very fulfilling journey and have also enjoyed supporting our students and
schools all of these years thank you we open ask questions yeah I I do have a quick question just you had mentioned early well first of all amazing work um and we talk about it a lot in the community engagement um section uh committee meeting um you you
mentioned like a drop in memberships are there things that we can continue to do in our newsletter or reminders to the community to to to G to get membership I mean you sort of shared all the great things and wonderful things but is there anything that you can think of that we can assist
with and getting word out I'm not sure um I know we we do a lot of social media pushes like within um the community um trying to just hit all the ones that most parents might
read um other than that I don't know it just seems to be um across the board that that's happening so I guess just put the word out or encourage people to join and I would also like to uh to
thank you for a great present ation I think the PTA is so important and it's it's always been uh it's always a group that that to me is so key for a successful School District so uh full disclosure I'm a member of all three of the ptas as I joined immediately so
wanted to be a part of the great work they do so thank you first uh first presentation first of many and I really appreciate you coming out and sharing with us today thank you thank you for having [Applause] okay the the next addition that we have
added to our meetings is to have other other members of leadership also join us and I had an idea of having our administrators uh unit president come out and also our Rea president come out uh but I'm always open to a better idea
the better idea was how about they both come up together so um so I defer to Mr gizo better idea and if uh we could please have uh Mr gizo and Miss Martin come up to the
microphone thank you how are you um my name is Sharon Martin I'm the president of our Robinsville Education Association um I've been in the district for a little over 20 years um I taught first grade for about 10 years went to third grade didn't like it went back to first grade
and then for about the past 10 years I've been a math uh interventionist at Chon School hi everybody uh before I introduce myself I want to thank Dr piso uh for having us follow adorable elementary kids high school kids reading
to elementary kids a big check from the RF students talking about their faith and a PT member who giv of her time for the past 16 years no pressure at all thank you um my name is Paul Dio I'm the principal of pal Middle School I've been here for 20 years I have also
been the rpsa president for 17 of those 20 years and one of the things that Sharon and I talked about when we were preparing for this it was really important for us to do this together uh because it's a visible sign that we although we don't always see eye to eye um we do work every day together for the
benefit of our kids so it's really important for us to do this together Robinsville unlik some districts has one school at each level elementary middle and high school with that comes some challenges and some blessings an absolute blessing is that we get the opportunity to encourage and sculpt a
cohesive community of Learners one of the many ways we do this is through our transitions sorry um our first transition is prek to K we have an exciting opportunity to build on the foundations of our prek program and our student transitions to
kindergarten this week District administrators and preschool coaches spent some time visiting kindergarten classrooms to learn more about the kindergarten experience preschool and kindergarten teachers will meet next week to brainstorm transition activities and ways to support our students and before the end of the year our
four-year-old preschool students will be entering kindergarten in the fall will have the opportunity to visit a kindergarten classroom during the school day we will also be hosting a parent Academy on May 15th geared towards families and how to support this transition another transition we focus
on is our transition from fourth to fifth grade in the spring we literally have bus loads of fourth graders transport transport to Pond for orientation we talked to the students about some of the changes they were experien te success and undoubtedly the best part of the program is that we have
fifth grade students talk to Fourth Graders about all things PR the boring part of the program is I speak to riseing fourth grade parents about pond at a night event that same week our next TR we want to talk about actually happened very recently 8th to 9th grade
not to be undone we had transition days for 8th graders going through rhs high school counselors were a for a week meaning with eighth graders and their parents to schedule their freshman year of high school during this time Pond staff and High School staff work together to make the first steps of
transition to the high school positive ones as you can see all of our schools cooperate to make our student School experience the best that they can possibly be and not just in those transitions there aren't too many districts that can have the president of the Rea speak in conjunction with the
president of the rpsa at a board meeting talking about our passion for working with our students in Robinsville thank you again to Dr piso and the board of ed for allowing us to speak on this tonight thank you I so appreciate both of you coming and joining us um and I look forward to
your participation in future meetings uh this district has many great leaders uh and we're working collaboratively for kids and uh the positive things that go on in Robinsville uh it's because of the great
people we have in place so to have these leaders uh come up and and share with us is uh really so important for our mission um so next I want to get on to my report
and I hope everyone enjoyed our presentations and the new section of our meeting dedicated to hearing from all areas of leadership regarding their views on how to best serve all students also a running theme throughout our meetings will continue to be a celebration of the strength of our
diversity thank you again to our Muslim club uh Robinsville high school English Honor Society and our talented young artist phenomenal work our community has a distinct advantage in the great diversity we enjoy we are stronger via our
collaborative efforts to address our students needs divers is about acknowledging respecting and appreciating our differences these differences give us an advantage in achieving our common goals for Student Success we are tested with providing for
all students fairly fairness the true intent of equity this academic academic fairness is achieved by differentiated instruction extracurricular fairness in valuing all areas from music and art to
all areas of sports offered and economic public fairness achieved by free and reduced lunch there is no preference just a responsibility to meet each child where they are and serve their individualized needs this segment is directed at our
parents and Guardians I correctly refer to our young people enrolled in our schools as students or when addressing them at moving up or graduation ceremonies as our young scholars an important fact to always remember as an administrator is ultimately these
students are actually our children and they need to be educated in an inclusive environment we must continue to meet the goals and aspirations for all children there is no place for misrepresented acronyms only sound educational
practices for all children beware of those who conflate the valid needs of children with derision and a misleading narrative education is about serving all children tonight cabinet will present a budget which we believe will best serve
the needs of our students we will detail how we balance current needs while still enabling a path to expand our educational offerings and choices moving forward this was accomplished with the full collaboration of the board and administration focused on what is best
for our children and the plan to support retaining our valued dedicated Educators to the full extent possible thank you next up is our business administrator Mr mccre Mr mccre just one second so I just I just to want
to say thank you to everyone that came tonight you know from The Young Artists to all the all the different groups that came out to speak thank you to the PTA thank you to the administrators and the rea um I want to thank Dr piso for putting it all together right so with
his vision I think we had an enhanced meeting tonight and I look forward to Future meetings I think I can speak on behalf of the board that it's it's truly been a great evening so thank you Mr McCree thank you Mr President
uh some good news we've uh won a a grant of over $122,000 for a new cold bar at the Pond Road Middle School cafeteria uh is one of those [Music] grants that excuse me um you know we
applied for we take a look at it we've never ever won this grant before from the history I've looked at um very happy Miss comoo our food service director helped out did all the research uh did most of the work and finding these contracts and so forth in the vendor so it has been ordered um and it'll be a
new piece of equipment uh replacing the one they have right now it'll be a much nicer piece uh in addition I'll say thank you to the ameripac uh company um they've donated $1,000 uh for the high school track and field team so that's also coming in it's
a local company um so we are very appreciative of those donations um future board meeting date changes uh we are looking to move the May board meeting uh to May 13th um may have to move other meetings as well uh you know
the June meeting uh I know we've found out October meeting has a conflict uh and then summer's coming up so uh some of you may have started planning your vacations already in the summer we'll see that as well miss delr will be reaching out to all of you and seeing if you have any dates and and we can adjust
things of no uh no more than 5 weeks apart for board meetings it's not a law it's just that bills can't be paid and so once you go over 30 days companies start calling us and it causes some issues so going over five weeks uh it
gets pretty uh too far apart um uh concerning Food Service as well we we've had some discussion some parents and and you know they wanted different options and varieties and so forth uh been vocal about it contact my office I you know Dr pisu and I went to to lunches and so uh
and see how the the cafeteria was operating and as we're going through it um you know we actually have a district wellness policy to deal with this uh and it's been board approved already unfortunately no one's ever been in charge of it and so here I am
complaining about it and the gentleman uh who sits right next to me and right next to my office was like Nick I'll take care of it so tonight on your agenda uh you have a district Wellness coordinator assignment and I'd like to turn over to Dr winki for thank you for taking the lead on that uh and he's
already had meetings already so uh it's great to see that he's doing this yes I do hope you approve me since I've already started having meetings um I had the opportunity actually to meet with Rachel coo today who is our uh our food service rep from aramar um she's
familiar with this she worked with it when she was uh in another school district uh it's going to be a great opportunity for us to create a district committee uh the well policy 8855 spells out um who should be on the district well Wellness committee and then
individual buildings would have District uh uh building level advisory committees so I've already been in contact with the principles and they've been beginning to work those uh channels to get those pieces in place um what we're planning on doing is after the approval tonight
to work over the next two weeks to set up our committee identify the members that are going to be on the committee and then in that initial meeting not only we're going to get to set the goals for our committee but the two things we'd love to do before the end of the year is uh get out a a a newsletter um
on behalf of armar to to talk about what really are like the options at lunch uh to give as much information about lunch as possible um and then do surveys to the students and we're going to work through with uh the community relations committee to to to look at those surveys
to get ideas about what they like what they don't like other options that they might um that they might be looking for and then in the future I know that um Rachel would really like some more face- Toof face time with with parents so in
the in the fall looking at her attending parent teacher conferences and setting up tables with food options for parents to be able to try um we we would have quarterly meetings and then work that through the schools uh we would support national uh nutrition month which is
actually March so it's a little late for us to do it now but uh for next year we'll be able to plan and be able to do those and then we saw a lot of great ideas like different kind of fundraisers or different activities like wathon or um you know opportunities for people to
share losing weight or any of these type of like um nutritional type pieces that are out there um I know one of the things that did come from the board was vegetarian options and uh I was surprised to find out that we do offer it every day and um we would also look
to maybe make that a featured entree uh during during um uh during the month as well so Rachel's filled with ideas uh we're already looking at being able to move this forward so um more to come but I think it's going to be a great opportunity thank you uh last topic I
have is budget presentation and for acceptance for tonight um Dr piso okay okay I'm going to start this off um we have this uh this presentation will be myself uh Dr wisuki and Mr MRE
but uh understand that this is information that was pulled in from our leaders throughout the district and very happy to present this plan uh our tenative agenda for uh for this is going to be the uh
budget development process who we are what is in the budget Financial figures and a summary and to get into the next part of this I turn it back over to Mr MRE so these are just some slides of how
a budget is developed what information we look at it it's we show this every year and it's a rinse and repeat uh and then it adjusts a little bit uh depending on on the climate and and the needs of the students as well so as we go through this uh here's where we are
right now in the Box out section tonight you are approving the tenative budget it will be submitted to the county uh executive office for um of Education uh the superintendent in the County VA uh they'll be reviewing it take a look at
it and they'll come back and notify yes you're approved to approve the final so next month we actually approve the final presentation the final budget and that would actually technically be the budget presentation for the public to see as well um
okay it's back to me um one one of the one of the things I've always done is you really need to Define what the issues are and to set clear goals uh so what we did is is we broke this down into three different objectives when we
set out to build this budget objective one develop a budget to meet our community's expectations in our current fiscal year objective two focus our current available resources on programmatic student needs and student
facing Alternatives objective three develop short-term and long-term cost-neutral grant-funded and low cost plans to expand student opportunity uh offering programs to meet the goals and aspirations of our
students uh next on to Solutions um what we need to do to be able to achieve this is to apply the full cap amount uh to me that's really foundational to building a budget uh caps are meant to be punitive over the
long term and we're going to you exhibit that as we go through so that that's something that is uh would need to be applied for this year and I would say that that's something that is a is a practice that is a uh is an appropriate
you fiscal approach to budgeting in this cap environment uh we also are looking to uh to apply the full health care adjustment this is nothing that's really gaining an advantage for us this is really just filling a deficit that was created by a
very large increase uh and the increase does exceed the amount of this adjustment we're allowed to off allowed to apply uh we also um we do have uh different uh Staffing adjustments that
we are need to do uh but like I said and I I'll say you anytime this comes up uh we truly value our staff so as we develop this budget and you'll see us talk about um through the development process one of the focuses we always had
was how do we best manage our resources in regards to our staff to have our staff follow where the children are so you'll see as we go through this budget presentation that we do that so we are looking while there has been reductions
in some areas has been additions in others and we want to keep our talented Educators with us so that's that's a part of the plan and also we have uh some of our Educators who who are going to be uh coming to the point where they decide to retire and that will be an
offset also so we are looking to keep this neutral in regards to the number of positions we're reducing we'll be offset by the attrition and then the addition of some positions in other areas where there is a a need okay uh some the ongoing things we
we would like uh what what this uh budget provides is maintain all current services at the current levels uh and to continue planned facilities Improvement and Technology upgrades times are challenging we still need to maintain our plant if if we
don't maintain our plant uh as we go along it'll cost us far more down the road so uh it's it's money well spent and as for technology in the world we're in today uh we need to go and continue to move forward in regards to technology
we have some we we have some some talented people in that area we have uh we've done a lot of Outreach with our with our principles coordinating what the needs are and we need to continue to to move forward in that area and um we are doing that with some some monies as
we close out the year and we do have some other items that we're looking at so that is a that is a piece of this of this uh this budget and what we're doing with existing resource sources we're also are looking to expand our world language offerings we are
looking to uh strengthen what we're doing um all the way across the district uh to me language acquisition should start at the youngest age possible um so that's where we're looking to start with the first uh language that we're looking to bring bring forward and we're also
looking to strengthen what we're doing at the middle school in partnership with Mr gizo and in regards to putting students in a position to succeed when they go into the high school so that is a uh a big piece of what we're doing we're also looking to expand Avid we had
a great presentation right before I started there was a great presentation on Avid um Avid is still with us it's still an important program it's still going to be funded under this uh this budget um not only the middle school program but we are going to we are in
the process of now expanding this to the incoming class in the high school school and that will then Advance as that as that class advances through the the high school um so uh those are some of the overview of areas and next I would like
to turn it over to Dr wisi yeah this is the same slide that we saw earlier this month but it is uh so I will go over it briefly but it is very important um this budget does highlight many many positives and uh you know this was the
work of so many of the administrators in our district and um I I want to thank everybody for being able to put put forth the effort to come to come to a budget where we can provide such positive pieces to our students and staff um this budget is going to support
our students Mental Health Services this was something that was a uh something that we started with that we wanted to maintain those levels of mental health supports and we'll be able to do that in this budget um we'll be supporting the development of the modern classroom with technology upgrades that's something
that we really started to push uh towards the end of this year um you'll you'll see a massive increase to the um Science and Mathematics program and and what the technology in the classroom looks like at the high school uh we're going to continue that program um we as
Dr piso was saying improving the World Language programs at both Pond Road and at Sharon uh as he also mentioned we'll be expanding Avid to the high school for the first time supporting the rising freshman students that were our first group and so they they started this uh this program in sixth grade and uh we've
been able to rise with them um through seventh eth and now ninth grade um we're going to be expanding preschool opportunities for another 60 students uh which is a a great opportunity for uh four more classes if necessary um we are
able to maintain all current levels of Athletics clubs and courtesy busing I know as a parent that is something that is vitally important to to myself and my own children and how important that is to to the community so I'm really pleased to say that this budget does support those levels um it's going to
maintain all of our current curriculum initiatives um including linkit Atlas I ready Exel and improvements to the math and Ela uh curriculum that we've been doing I know how hard Mr Fazio's team has been working on uh these ini initiatives and it's so important that
we are able to maintain them and keep the momentum that we're building um you know these reports just reached out to parents today right and parents had the opport opportunity to be able to go in and see some of these for the first time we're having these uh these data Communications with parents and staff um
and we need to keep that moving uh and we're able to do new curricular uh initiatives um upgrades to math and science at Pond Road and at the high school um special ed program um programming for students that are multilanguage Learners uh throughout our
district so um you know although we know that we're in a situation where revenue is is doesn't always match the current expectations uh you can see that we are committed to the programs that we've started to build the programs that we
know that are important and um and I'm couldn't be prouder of the work of the admin staff okay thank you Dr wusi I'm GNA be going through some a lot of data right now most of the stuff You' you've seen already uh once again for the public this is posted state aid numbers are
also posted on our website if anybody can't find them just email me or and then we'll point you in the right direction um this is our local tax levy the increas in cost this is just showing you know 2% tax levy is $900,000
uh but our unid unavoidable costs around 2.9 so you're naturally short over 2 million a year um and these are the cost that went up and you can go through these numbers custo contract insurance and so forth insurance is a
whopping 1.1 million um massive cost increase this year surprisingly we are still lower than the state health insurance program um these are contractual can't really adjust them it's just it is what it is and then whatever's left over you also have your
natural inflation the next slide is before we go to the next slide just just to give everyone a perspective what is that percent increase for um Insurance 13 and change about 135% right which is well above the 3.57
which yes yes is inflation and I I don't think that's going to go down the year after um and so uh you know health benefits are going up I mean families projected to go at $46,000 next year thanks for the chapter 78 plan Nick it's
still lower than the state version can can we update this particular presentation by showing the increases at every line the percent increases percentage increase in the parenthesis if you can update this with you know what's the percentage increase on each I'll put
that for next next month's official budget presentation so if there's something you would like or want to see more of shoot me an email um and then I'll I'll add it and tweak it just like we did it for this as well yeah I can do it here too
um Dr piso okay so as you can see we have uh quite a deficit to to fill um so this this took some doing and it's really there's there's there's no really magic way of going about this
it's really rolling up your sleeves and and really looking at every alternative uh so I I really like this this illustration because it kind of shows really block by block step by step what went on with the meetings as we had
uh multiple meetings with the different leaders I would like to focus on one area the um the health adjustment uh once that Health adjustment came by this really made this budget doable in regards to preserving
what we do for kids there are some painful Cuts here but we were able to maintain our student facing programs and we were able like I mentioned with um you do see up on the top step in through attrition there there was a reduction
but like I said there was other areas you'll see with paa where where we pick up some of that so um this is this is kind of how we piece it together so I I think this is an important slide and again this will be posted so if anyone
um would like to view it further or call with any questions afterwards we'd be glad to uh to discuss that but of course we have much more to uh to share tonight okay then next slide okay the next slide is me again
and just want to again speak about Staffing concerns I know for those who saw the last presentation we are repeating some of these things but uh these are very important points um here's a quote for me uh that uh we liked in the office so we decided to add
it to the presentation it was uh something uh that I had said uh reductions in Staffing are always difficult but all Alternatives were explored we are not sharing any detailed information on the reductions publicly at this point we will share the net
impact as a preview there is a shift in Staffing to match student needs and related resources our normal attrition projection will offset our overall impact and I pass it back to Nick okay thank you enrollment asssa you've seen
this presentation uh in in November December at the latest uh this is our application for state School Aid on October 15th every school district in the State uh takes account of all their students and the different uh resources
they need the state uses that information for the budget we are in right now for next year and so um we look at those numbers and we adjust them and we take a look and we'll see there's a reduction in our general Ed population students um we typically leave the
special ed numbers the same um to to play it safe and and as you can see this we took two charts and made them into one U what's important is our data has shifted it's because we've added so many preschool kids that it's almost its own
School uh in some other towns um and you can see it diverges right there at this point I I want to talk pass it back to Dr P to talk about the classrooms and the diversions yes I I really like the the way this this line graph uh exhibits
what what our challenges and what our opportunities are uh as you could see um with our downward Trend in enrollment uh it would have really the prek program came along at really a beneficial time for us as these
as the uh as we had uh less students in our schools as that number was reduced we were able to then fill with the prek rooms first H first thing that happened while the classes were reduced which
gave us this opport so we have the opportunity to do it because of the reduction it's not a cause and effect it was a natural process that was happening and we were able to uh to shift gear so this you're going to hear about shifting in regards to us uh having our resources
follow where the children are uh so this is this is just another way of exhibiting that and I turn it over to Dr WIS nusi you once again I get to talk about something awesome which is our preschool program that if I reminded you last uh at the last last meeting one
year ago didn't exist right uh we were just getting the letter right about this time of the year and um um over the the course of the last year to see the program that's blossomed and developed um it's like you know the butterflies growing it's it's tremendous and so um
we're really happy to say that the preschool program was very successful this year uh nearly every seat was filled and we're looking to expand um to the parents out there please know that we are still looking for pres school students for next year so the that that
um opportunity to still register is available to our entire Community please hear me that that is open still for our community to register um and so we do have the opportunity to expand that program this year and with that there is some natural offset that Mr mccre has
talked about in the past um that is able to help support our general budget Dr pel do you want to pick up on some of that yes you could see on on this slide we have expanding from 14 to 18 classrooms again that's uh that's our
another way we're exhibiting the shift in regards to following our students something else about prek to keep in mind uh as with this prek developing I do think that this will reverse the long-term Trend uh with this uh great
great prek program that we that that we that was put together uh last year and and is now uh thriving going forward I turn it back over to Mr increase so real real quick I just want to thank because again we we talk about we just received the letter A year ago this has been in
effect less than a year so thank you Mr fio thank you Dr wuki for all the leg work you did to make this opportunity happen for the town so it's fantastic thank you so thank you uh we always go to how much money this is saving everyone how great is for the
town what Dr Burns and her team is doing you're going to start seeing it in the grades quickly we can't wait for those children who've had the full program at at four-year-old to go into kindergarten and move up and then three and4 we
presented at school boards almost a decade ago we launched this first in the state with Jamesburg and um it's astonishing they used our charts to show to the governor and show the massive increase in the scores and so forth so
let's not forget about that uh it is helping the budget but it's this is huge this is massive for your community and for your students uh and those of you are in it uh you know welcome congratulations we're up to 15 classrooms now please sign up please
sign up Mr can you just highlight at the bottom um it says that other items from the general fund approximately $700,000 are funded can you just highlight what some of those so so those positions you know uh we we shifted for
a nurse we shifted for for part of my salary principal salary and so forth so um custodial contractor portion gas electric and so forth so these are items that many of them would have been paid by the operating budget as the local tax
levy just for being their job and in the building now you're shifting that burden appropriately charging it to preschool so what it's really doing is lifting pulling that money out of the operating budget to be able to be used somewhere
else but and charging it to preschool completely legal it is expected is demanded of you to do that um we do also contribute a little bit and so forth but it is a you're spread loading your costs as in any Corporation would and those fixed costs are spread and now you can
worry less about the variables um we could do it across two buildings and now it's two buildings right um and so now it's Sharon and pond and some of the systems that they're using and one of the great examples that we can charge to it is the the playground you know it was the we were supposed to add a playground
to Sharon long range facilities plan hundreds of thousands we got the funding early you you we spent almost about $850,000 in playgrounds and never had to go to the taxpayer for it or the local taxpayer right so uh it's phenomenal
we're continue to push it it's about $750,000 for next year's budget going into it um it's almost $4 million in in preschool money I expect it to grow Maybe you know the classroom the following year um pushing us to 90%
universe and at that point we'll see where we are you may able to start charging tuition and programs to your to your staff and and Community to fill some of those classrooms if they're not fully fully loaded um so um I'd like to show the chart going back and this is an
issue because I I've I've heard um a lot of complaints from people who um want to make issues of something if we tried to launch this preschool program back in 17 or 18 it never would
have happened you wouldn't have the space we wouldn't right and has always said oh it's enrollments going up because enrollment has been going up for almost two decades massive massive growth and when I came here five years ago um I started seeing I'm like it's
not it's leveling off and I expect it to go down and those numbers that many people didn't believe me have come true and we filled that Gap to maximize and take advantage of it um so some of it is
luck some of it is but most of it is just sheer force and willpower to get and put the Grant in because there are people who laughed at our Administration for even bothering to try um and here we are massive program 4 million next year
so congratulations once again and this is why I'm really hitting on it is it's still in in its infanty it's not even a year old right um and so we want to make sure that this program continues and fosters well for the town and uh I kid
you not I'm sure there's people in town who don't even know they have pre free preschool it happened in my previous town so make sure we get the word out we will continue doing that uh and so forth any quick questions before we move on just real quick I you know I I agree that if this happened almost a decade
ago there would have been no space those concerns would have been rightfully founded but I think we also need to be wary of the fact that people will look at Robinsville as a more attractive town to start a family in and it will draw young families to the town which could
reverse that Trend so we need to be mindful of that and future boards need to be mindful of that as we start planning for long range uh you know facilities in the town so just want to highlight that yes that's that that's something
that like I said I do believe it will it will result in um in an increase in enrollment so you know while we are looking at where we are now we're always projecting forward with our with with analyzing uh our our physical plant and
what the options are and kind of looking at a long range plan and in regards to our facilities and Debt Service so that's all part of it great point I think also being in communication with the township because there's lots of building going on around us that has
been approved as well yes yes thank you we we'll examine every every option sorry nck last but not the least I think Kos Kos on this one I think we should actually have a press release at least on this one or get into press with
with all the things that we are doing you know specifically when you told about you know this was in front of the governor and I'm like you know then why is it not a headline so we actually have something in development actually and and we are going to have a presentation of our prek program coming up uh in a
couple of months so so yeah a lot more to come a lot more to come it really has become a a program that is really been benchmarked by other districts where it's common place for Dr Burns to have people coming to view the program uh because it really is it really is being
Benchmark as as the state-of-the-art program going forward uh we we also have a week of the young child I'm not sure when that is uh but that's a big event that we'll be pushing as well uh and it'll get bigger every year after that so um let me push on to the rest of the
slides uh capital projects uh we still have the almost $4 million project right now um it's pretty much all of Sharon Elementary School except for the new f-wing uh which is the 2014 edition and the rest of it will
be completely redone um as a reminder this is we front the money and then 40% will come back to us it'll probably take two years for the money to come back because it takes time for projects of this size to be completed and and only then after you submit all the paperwork after completion do you get it back this
summer all we have uh coming out of the uh the budget is $400,000 for Juan doors at the high school when I say coming out of the budget we're using capital reserve so we're using some of those reserves uh to do that uh Mr McCree just want to remind everyone so because of
the work that's going on at Sharon pretty much for the whole school Sharon is closed for the summer to do this because of all the heavy constructions going to be there so just a reminder for parents and everyone that Sharon will not be accessible for the summertime unless I'm wrong you're absolutely correct so it will everything will be in
this building um and and we've had meetings with the township as well so summer W esy red they their program before and after uh discover kindergarten here as well um and anything else and a crane and a crane
yes uh a crane one day Mr gizo your building's about to be invaded over the summer um all right next slide school property tax rate calculation you've seen the slide before um on this slide on the right so this is
basically half of one year half of another we talk about that because we're on a school year and you're were taxed on a calendar year um we're going up 3.79% on on on the tax levy uh in the budget portion only it works its way
down uh it takes a look at the assess the values that it grew about a qu% um and your school tax rate will go to about 1.9% in essence 5.45% on your taxes for next year okay
uh the average home will be $377 for the year I've made another slide it's the same slide but this time I zeroed out and pretended as if we did not increase the budget whatsoever for the operating
budget so you'll see that line now it says zero it would still go up $257 in taxes why because that is the second half of the public question so if you take the two
out with our 2% and the uh healthc care waiver it's $121 more but it seems much bigger because we've added it to the public question a 2.75 million is many times
more than our 2% so um you're showing the fully loaded number the fully with the referendum with the referendum so the first slide is what I officially have to send to the township that's fully loaded with referendum plus 2% on the referendum plus the the H our
regular 2% and the waiver so fully loaded it's all in there um so that was one of the questions of what would have been and so forth so all estimate from the public question is a little bit uh this one's a little bit
lower but uh it's about the same so we were we were Prett much spot on on it um this is uh fully loaded whatever your assessed value is look at your tax bill don't look at Zillow it's what your assessed at uh which is probably half of of what Zillow
is saying and then just to be clear so the number you had the other one was on the average home which was 38 $8,000 that's not on here so the average assessed home average assessed home so you just have to find the closest assessed so and this is just a small chart if you really want to get
technical you would just pull the the 1.92 36% of your assessmen MH right um Township whatever they'll go up whatever the Count's going to up their
budgets are struck well after ours um I have preliminary numbers from almost every ba in the county of what they're proposing it were not the highest we're not the lowest but people are going between around 3% to 5% everyone's
having the same issues with state aid uh numbers as well really the health the healthcare benefit um historical asssa it's just here you can pull it up and I know you can't read it on the screen um but it's po posted and you can go and anybody can go into
further detail on all these numbers that we're talking about uh and the trend lines um Dr piso okay we just wanted to to show uh you some of the uh the impacts in regards to enrollment um or uh with
enrollment without uh without preschool um so as you can see what we're what we're doing here with with preschool is it's giving us an opportunity to hold on to our talented staff and to be able to be in a position where as we as we set
up our staff to be where the students are to be in a position to move forward appropriately with some of the initiatives that we would like to uh to bring forward like I said we we look at we're looking at World Language this
year but there are um other items that we are going to be uh that we'd like to to do want to make sure that we have that Staffing in place to be able to take on those future challenges I turn it back over thank you mccre state aid calculations um people
have asked you know the cuts what would it be and so forth um this is the number that shows that the state is overfunding Us by 4.9 million um and with the 3% number they're um since they're giving us 10 they're cutting back 300,000 so
this will continue to go on this is just new formula they're using using to show show that once again these are posted and the full State a numbers are posted as well um so we expect this to continue another 300,000 next year and so forth not the 5 million they should have cut
us they should have cut us 4.9 that would be devastating to pretty much any any school district and even massive ones but for us it would be I we can't even fathom it so um Capital Equipment anything over $2,000 in equipment uh is
a capital item line um so we budget a couple of things for a child study team in case they need something uh they don't know what it is but you know um in case there is they have some funds for that two copiers we're probably about two copiers a year we're off leasing um so that was a
massive saving to us we no longer lease copers are all off contract now um Promethean boards we're looking at buying 10 of them uh for next year and a tener Sachs for the high school 3500 um next I like to go over Reserve balances uh these are all reserves going
back for for about a decade and you'll see uh it's it it was uh grown over time uh knowing for for Capital Improvements and and projects it's gone up and down if you remember we did boiler projects that was almost 3 million we did a few
other things uh over the years um and then you see a big dip right here well that's about 4 million um for the HVAC project right now at the end of this year we might have about a million left over to put back so maybe that line ticks up a little bit uh but these are
the the savings uh and reserves for projects over the years uh saving up for those um revenues uh very detailed um easier to see probably on the spreadsheet uh than on this um on this presentation on on
the board here we've gone through these numbers line by line um here's where some of the risks are uh I was asked what are what are our risks and what do we take so we'll start from local tax levies like we know we're going to get those um Student Activity fees we're
increasing that by 75,000 so we're going to charge a little bit more for Student Activities um the big risk I have is um interest uh general fund U we we popped that up and realized it we're making about 350 Grand a year in interest um
but it's not we think it's not going to stay there so when those rates drop we're going to have to cover that deficit the following year if you see a here there's a lot of negatives okay um the numbers have shifted a little bit um
you know fund balance reserves Capital we know we change reserves based on on uh projects that are being done uh preschool Aid up almost a million that's great but you'll see a lot of the grants and that's a risk that we're taking um
typically charge we typically budget 85% mandated from the state um we were told do 75% because we don't know what the fed's going to do so we receive almost a million dollars in state aid in in in federal grants and Aid um so we'll see
where that goes okay um revenues just a pie chart um you can tell you know most of our money comes from the local tax levy where we can control state aid History Dr piso
uh what we wanted to draw everyone's attention to is if you if you look at where the uh where the prechool uh Aid is coming in and you can see how that has impacted on us in regards to uh to Aid we talk about again the uh you know
where the dollars are coming from and you know how we're keeping a close eye on that so historically you'll see a big pop and that was when the S2 funding formula came in an extra 3 million and it was they owed us a lot of money and they said okay we'll make it up to you over the years they started giving more
and more and more and then the equ this Township demographics changed in value based on not only property value which everyone's changed in the State uh but the income as well and so they and the formul was adjusted a little bit U but if it wasn't for the state aid it would
pop uh preschool that popped if state aid was cut almost 5 million you can see that that would be a massive massive reduction expenditures um just showing where they are there was a question what do you mean by actuals and budgeted and revised actuals is actually the audited
numbers you we do budget and then we revise those numbers half year like right now we have revised numbers those always go up because we'll get a little bit more money on something and we'll revise it and then the true actuals are lower expenditures as we said before
2third of the money goes to Staffing right salaries and benefits salaries and benefits um our debt is also high at 8% um that'll be shifting in the next few years down to a much more it's much smaller number
um and on this you know people ask what's miscellaneous it's anything less than half a million we uh on our budget lines that it's it's too much to break down so uh but I left the big ones on there that are more than half a million you can see that since we present all
these budgets and it's the same chart over and over again for many years if somebody really wants to go back into time and take a look at them you can see a pattern and changes and so forth that okay I'm going to jump in on here and this is something that we're
concerned about I know others are are concerned about we did receive a great question on this that we're going to cover a little bit this kind of a preview for that um like I said when you build a budget you build it in the current year with a with a three to five year plan down the road uh we can't
operate year to year the schools need to be here in perpetuity going forward so um if you look at this this really kind of really kind of matches up with with what our planning is if you look at
really those last three tall bars representing The Debt Service payments the way this really breaks down is we know we're in a good place this year in regards to our budget the way everything came together projecting forward
we feel strongly that we're going we put ourselves in a good position for next year as well it's going to be challenges no doubt about it there's going to be challenges similar to this year but we do feel comfortable with next year's budget that we've set ourselves up for
success for next year where we're going to uh have the biggest challenge is the year after that right before The Debt Service falls off that's the year that we're looking at as our big pinch Point as our challenge there could be some difficult decisions
there and we'll have to open up what our options are at that point but that is um looking at the three to fiveyear plan that is the uh part of the road that has us most concerned now once once that
debt falls off it opens up a host of options for us um there there will be work to be done that dubils what I said before about in regards to what we're looking to do with with our with our our plan for our facilities moving forward
uh but we we do look at potentially there being a savings there and regards to maybe not having to go out as uh for as large of a number as we did which would be an offset so we do have options at that point but we do have that one that one pinch point so that is um that
is what we're what we're going to have to work on uh but that'll be something a little bit down the road but like we did for this year we'll pull together um they're just going to be more of an extended uh group of options that will have to be explored at that point this
is all based on things moving forward uh based on the best information we have now with the state putting their floor on on the cuts but pretty much promising there will be a cut every year and understand a cut in state aid is really a double cut because
everything goes up in in the real world including our contractual commitments that we're already locked into so cut is a little bit more than a cut it's it's really kind of a double a double cut for us in regards to um the the net impact
um so I turn it back over to Mr mccre okay this this slide you can't see on the presentation because of the contrast but um uh I'll try to populate it uh posted online you're going to see
um more than a decade's worth of of uh uh property tax increases what's it mean to the to the homeowner um they were pretty high uh 3 to 5% in the years before and then the S2 um formula came in and it went down
it actually went negative and then went up a little bit down a little bit and basically stayed flat for about eight years that has an incredibly High correlation to state aid right you saw those numbers come in so when the state aid filled that Gap and gave you more money it helped out when they're cutting
you or holding you flat it it hurts you not once but sometimes twice uh and you see the numbers going up and this was it was a slide that we showed last year what was the average increase over eight years it was 0.4% and the average increase now after
the public question end tonight it's the average of 1.6% over those years right so 1.6 um so you'll hear CFOs talk about slow and steady slow and steady um you know but once again you also have to
spend wisely as well so I don't want to say I want to go back in time and take all the money it's just you have to whatever you get treasure it spend it wisely and dedicate it to the students of your community um underneath it it just shows inflation and how it compares
to inflation uh and so forth um Dr piso it's I just I really this is something that that's so important for our planning going forward and and again it it our expenses go up more than 2% a year uh so a tax cap is punitive and you
see it has that cascading effect when you're looking over multiple years and and that money left is is then then compounding when you do this for for multiple years where you end up with these these deficits and then you know it results in difficult decisions or um
you know or other ways of raising revenue uh you know and and that's something that we would like to do everything we could to mitigate by just being consistent in regards to to going to that 2% cap understanding that it's it's punitive
but it is something that um we can deal with for this year for next year um and and be able to still maintain what we're doing but anytime um anytime that that we that a district decides to go uh
below a cap and this applies to all districts this is not a this is not a Robinsville issue this is something in the tax cap environment that um not going to that um to the tax cap has these ramifications down the road where
it does limit your option so this is um something that is part of our yearly planning but it's something that we're looking at projecting forward to be able to make sure that we uh you know we're not going to have big variations that
would um hit on the uh the taxpayers wallets we want to make sure that we have a a smooth you increase based on you know what that tax cap provides my last two slides uh so what's next okay tonight you approved the tenor
budget uh April 29th is the full budget approval and presentation presentation probably a little bit longer but since we're repeating a lot of these slides it'll be much much quicker um between these periods there could be discussions adjustments modifications and so forth most likely not
um but if any we can always do something um and it goes through um state of the budget almost the same as last year right reserves almost depleted uh highly unlikely to reach the appropriate amounts we need about 3 million a year
and we're only generating about one to maintain those reserves how do you fill that when we talk about a bond and so forth right Revenue state aid formula most likely an additional additional cuts of 300,000 per year that looks like what's in the cards for us so now we know what it's going to be and we don't
have uh but we can plan around that local tax levy you can see it's going to be above 900,000 for next year at 2% Healthcare adjustment I foresee the same adjustment again based on what is going on with Healthcare right now it's a good thing but it does cost money initially
um I also see Revenue some opportunities to increase with new initiatives I know we're in discussions um if we can get those fully online and operational it might help there's a good chance it'll help help out in that dire year before
the debt falls off right the dire year before the debt falls off so we have to take some actions on those um expenditures budgets continue to be tighter uh and demanding we are the most efficient we are the lowest cost per student in the state in the county by
far um building upkeep is unmaintainable so we're we're doing our best to to maintain these these items uh I think we're good for the next couple of years like it's again what's the last year before the debt falls off
going to be like um and we talked about debt salaries and benefits well salaries we have a new contract the contract's expiring next year so you know we're going to be in negotiations definitely within the year
uh within a year from now um and uh that's about it uh Dr piso okay I'm just going to close this out with some some action and and again some of these things are redundant but we just you know there's some points that we just
want to uh to bring across uh expenses are outpacing revenues so like I said that is going to continue to be a struggle for us to be able to match revenues to our expenses uh okay we want to acknowledge state aid Cuts it's fixed at at at 3% future years about 300,000
cut but like we mentioned before uh everything else is going up but the aidid's going down um we it's very important to us that any staffing reductions that need to be done if they need to be done uh will be done naturally with attrition uh but our
primary focus is preserving programs for our children um okay uh over the summer we we're going to be uh discussing uh future options we're looking at uh any way we can increase uh revenues that includes
exploring every possible Grant opportunity uh we're always looking to be more efficient cut expenses where we can uh we got to keep uh our facilities up and running up until we have our next phase of projects and stay informed and
involved with the political movements we'll always uh be advocating both within and without our and outside of our borders uh to the larger uh public in regards to uh the needs of schools and what we need to do to uh to continue to provide the great education that's
provided in Robinsville for our children and like to thank everyone for allowing us to make this presentation we do have a couple of questions that that we'd like to address and and of course open up uh to the board any any
additional questions that our members our board members may have you like to um I think uh Steve was going to answer question one you want to go uh okay how about um this um I can I can read the I'll read the question and then
uh see if you could jump in uh what measures are in place to ensure that Staffing reductions do not negatively impact class sizes student support or learning incomes uh with the reductions uh at Chon what can the uh Community
expect in regards to class sizes that's a great question you know when you see that there's going to be a reduction in the gened classes even with an increase of the preschool classes uh something that we're tracking very closely um and we are keeping it in the range of that
22 23 24 per class um it's it's it's um similar to what is in those classrooms now and um that's been our push uh the entire time to keep the class sizes in that 22 to 24 range all right thank you the um the
next question uh with reserves nearly depleted what contingencies can we consider consider putting in place if unexp uh unexpected expenses arise like I said we're we're looking uh down the road I know I've kind of touched on this already um but you know we're taking
full advantage of the uh of what uh of the the expansion in regards to our our paa program uh we are being more uh more efficient um uh and we do are looking down the road to The Debt Service falling off and like guess like like Mr
mccre mentioned uh it's um it's a matter of of getting to that next step um I know we can do it it's not going to be easy we don't have um we don't have huge reserves to fall back on on this time um
you can't go and bring reserves it's it's down further than we have we've really pulled them down to uh to a level that really can't go below that when when the reserves are on they gone uh we
need to build them every year um so this is going to be especially um two years out it's going to be a challenge but um with the team we have in place here uh we will we will find a way to uh to continue to go forward and to continue
to be successful but there are definitely uh definitely challenges and more to come I said every possible Avenue we will be exploring and um we'll be sharing as we go for forward okay um then I'll read the uh
the next uh next question I think Nick is going to answer this um what has happened with the SRO partnership and the shared services agreement with the township how will that impact our Budget moving forward okay so I'm going to give some
history on this um basically we used to be um they do the calculations that sro's in our schools for 10 months and they're with the township for two so 101 12ths is what we're paying for um this varies it depends on who the the people
are um what their benefits are and so forth so a couple years ago we were paying 299,000 per year and that was about average for every year um we we had Financial issues with the state uh changing the formula we were expecting a couple million and it and it wasn't and
um it dropped to 156,000 why did it drop the township uh chipped in for Coury bus route that was going one was in town center they had a concern about that and they wanted to save a teacher and so they they pushed
that through um the current year it's 207,000 okay so it went up went up about 50 grand um so basically we can say courtesy bus was cut out um and the current and for next year's budget it's going to 288 back to the old method okay
and so that that affected it so whatever was distributed it helped out it's gone they're go it went back to the old method and so so we're very fortunate we had that leeway in funding for those years U but now it's gone back um I know they're doing their budget right now and
I want you to think about it we're not in a vacuum they're they're doing they're under the same pressures as well they also have a 2% number and their Healthcare is also going up so um we went back to the old number the old method um and that's where it is right
now so 288 less than it was 299 years ago but still 288 for next year's budget okay okay could is there any um any uh questions for that any of the board members have for us who'd be happy to
answer them now or yes have a question um regarding the introduction of the high school AVID program is that just going to be for nth grade only just to clarify that so only the students who are currently involved would be eligible for that nth grade that's correct we are going to have it
for ninth grade only um um actually Tom is here he he's helping to develop it uh there is some discussion whether or not it will be for just the the freshmen that are rising that are currently in the program in in eth grade or if there will be some new opportunities to bring
students into the fold um I think that's going to to depend a lot on scheduling it's going to depend a lot on what the site team develops uh I know that Mr forel right now is in the development stage of getting his uh site team of at
least nine staff members including himself together um and then we would have to go for training uh over the summertime um in developing that program so it's premature to say uh that we would have it we know that the students that are in eth grade now will have that
opportunity it would be premature to say anything else until the site team really gets up and running thank you I have another question um with the expansion of World Language both at Sharon and pond which is great by the
way very excited about that are we hiring new FTE um or will that be as part of the FTE that we already have yeah th those Staffing decisions are still in the preliminary uh ranges
when we developed our um budget what we really looked at was how many um just natural attrition through resignations or retirements are we looking in our district and then we captured that number to create the budget as far as
the individual ways that's going to be Staffing we haven't moved into those pieces yet uh there are options but um you know we now need once we're waiting for the preliminary budget to be approved then we could sit together as a leadership team to determine um how
we're going to move forward with these changes in the Staffing pieces and certainly we would want to discuss with staff you know in in in a in a in a way that is really meaningful uh prior to coming out so I think our expectation would be by the April budget we would
have a much clearer picture of it but we didn't want to take all those initial steps until we had the preliminary budget approved okay U any other questions yeah um so we talked a little bit about how we're able to use some of the prek
staff for other opportunities I when and I I think your your question prompted me to wonder if we did have prek teachers or prek support staff with second language capabilities was it a shared resource in which we could pay half for
the World Language portion and the other half would be resourc to prek is that allowable under the Grant and something to consider that's no because um the the preschool staff members are dedicated to preschool yeah the the because they're they're either a full-time teacher or
they're a fulltime you know aid for the most part um where we get the shared um Service as far as the salaries are more like um an administrator so the principal you could take a certain percentage of the principal salary because that the number of students that
are in his building or her building that represents uh the the percentage of preschool students you could take that's how you're able to share those bunnies but as far as a teaching staff member it would be much more difficult to be able to do that one final qu question Nick um if
you could just the 5.45% I just want to make sure so it's the 2% plus the sgla for healthcare and then part of the referendum AB yes okay thank you you're
welcome quick question um we had talked about this attrition and a reduction of staff and then also adding the new uh Staffing is this being staged so that if there are any potential teachers who may be let go through the ction process who are eligible to go into the pre program
they'll have first shot at those positions well as as I said any of those kind of decisions as far as Staffing have gone been very preliminary so we start to look at it and say what is um you know what what is our
expectation of of number and then that's how we built the budget and then of course if we have staff members that we think are appropriate would be appropriately placed uh Dr Burns has already expressed interest in being able to meet with those teachers and and provide them an opportunity if they if
we feel that they're going to to to do the the job to the best of uh you know of their ability okay all right thank you very much thank you um I would ask that maybe the buzz presentation be uh Linked In
the newsletter as well so that way Nick we're getting it out to as many I know you have it on the website it's available but just to make sure everyone has full access to it they can they can then read the uh the slides so I know if you're in the building or um watching it online it's prob a lot of the numbers
are pretty small um anything else Mr from Mr McCree all right move on to board Community reports we'll start with education development and policy Miss Leman you have to go underneath and and
flip the switch okay so we met on the 11th um uh we discussed a number of topics including the approval of the option two sidebar for the potential summer program to support Spanish 2 the student progress in both language arts and math
through IR ready data the purchase of the Promethean boards to support Math and Science classrooms at the high school scheduling plans to limit disruptions for programs and services that pull students out from the classroom setting the spring pilot of the op open s ed program at Pawn Road
Middle School and the creation of a district Wellness coordinator uh items to be acted upon at this board meeting include the approval potentially of Dr wisuki as the wellness coordinator and the approval of the sidebar agreement um the full report is included in the minutes for further details and we're
meeting again on the 18th at 6 thank you Miss Leeman any questions or comments for R policy no uh Personnel Miss Mand I'll take that again or Miss
Leman okay so we met uh also on the 11th um the topics included the discussion of the monthly Personnel recommendations the creation of a district Wellness coordinator the transportation assistant job description tracking unpaid vacation day requests and the approval of the
option to sidebar for the potential summer program to support Spanish 2 um items to be acted upon at this board meeting include the person recommendations by the superintendent outlined in the monthly Personnel report the potential approval of Dr wusi as the
wellness cordinator the approval of the sidebar agreement and the approval of the transportation assistant job description the wellness coordinator Position will be responsible to ensure the schools comply with all aspects of wellness policy 8505 including the development of a
district Wellness committee this is an additional role for Dr Ruki and there is no cost to the district the trans portation assistant position was necessitated by a recent retirement in our transportation department full report is also included in the minutes
for further details sorry has same his distri with the same amount of pay his counterpart all the titles none of the extra money um our next meeting is on the 18th at 5 thank you miss lemman any questions for
personnel Arc will be at the next board meeting to thank you for your services um business uh Dr Pi the business committee met on March 18th at five o'clock in Dr piso's office and attendance were myself Mr olberg Mr Nandan uh Mr Howard Dr pizo Mr mccre and
Dr Ruki I highlight the topics include our facilities and maintenance uh We've made progress on starting the energy audit in partnership with psng with the vendor analysis on their way uh the high school interior door replacement project is scheduled for spring installation and pre-work has begun on the rod Grant HVAC
project at the elementary and middle school's targeting completion by summer of 25 additionally we are upgrading the building management system at the middle school and Elementary School by the end of the month and we are set to replace exterior lights in energy with energy efficient LEDs pending the energy audit
results finance and budget our team is actively managing the district's Financial Health we've successfully secured a 12,266 nslp grant for a c replacement in the Middle School cafeteria and are addressing $77,000 in unpaid bills from
Red our before and after school program after Care Program um and of course as we talked today our budget discussion was a key item um that was presented to us tonight uh food service and transportation in addition to the nslp grant we received a 25 passenger bus to launch an internal transportation
service which will reduce the cost by replacing external contract we've also met with consultants for The Pedestrian safety study to enhance student safety and we'll be teaming up with the township over the next 6 months on this Initiative for security and Technology we are advancing our security measures
by integrating a phone system with a PA system ounding Panic buttons across the district our technology team has launched a new Wi-Fi splash page and is awaiting vendor quotes for the rhs IDF upgrade action items uh key items requiring board approval on March 18th
include preliminary budget approval and acceptance of the RF mini grants for all three schools we look forward to continuing these in and welcome to your support and feedback our next meeting is scheduled for April 17th at 5:00 p.m. thank you Dr Pi I just want to add
um we talked about security and Tech being added uh you know Consolidated into other committees so the so for those that that aren't aware we get weekly reports from the administrators and the staff the principles update us with um you know all the safety aspects
of the schools as part of their your weekly updates as appropriate so we are getting those updates you know as a whole board now rather than just in a committee so I think it's a little more spread out and it's a little more information for us all rather than in a small committee so I think that's an enhancement there but I just want to make sure the public was
aware of that as well um and you heard the technology updates that Dr Pier provided so any other questions or comments for business all right last minut least conations Mr Ray all right reading on behalf of Mr
randan community relations report on March 13th the community relations committee met in the office of superintendent Dr piso met with board members Miss Amanda Hill d'angela and myself to discuss several topics related to community outreach topics included
expanded participation of stakeholders at our board meetings presentations will be done by representative of the leadership of each of the following areas our ptas Rea and rpsa this new protocol was implemented for our meeting
tonight our commitment to transparency was discussed and Dr piso shared our new protocol of posting a Google sheet of all budget questions received and complete answers on our website this resource was made available after the initial budget
presentation please check our website for our budget information and call Administration with any questions they're happy to speak with you the the the committee discussed the great presentations that we all enjoyed earlier tonight along with discussion of plans for future presentations which
would be student Le or detailed plans to support our students our full report is included in the minut in the minutes for further details our next meeting is scheduled for April 17th thank you Mr Ray any questions or comments for person uh for uh community
relations all right just so the public is aware all of the minutes that were just uh reviewed are in the board docs online and shared and available for everyone Mr just a quick correction for business I i' I read out that we met on March 18th we actually met met on March
13th today being the 18th so I was a a slip thank you last but not least Le's on reports I look at Amanda um no actually there was nothing this month but there will be meetings hosted in April and May sounds good
thank you okay um public comment on genda items so time will be allocated for public comment at this meeting members of the public wishing to address the board of education on agenda items must State their name municipality and the
group if any they represent a member of the public shall not be permitted to speak until he or she is recognized by the presiding officer in accordance with District poliy 0167 each comment shall be limited to 3 minutes no participant may speak more than once no dialogue between the speaker and the board and or
superintendent shall exceed the 3 minute time that provide herein live streaming of the meeting shall be for viewing only the public will not have the ability to participate in the public session comments unless they are physically present at the meeting although a board encourages public comment the presiding
officer can interrupt Warn and or terminate a uh participant uh statement question or inquiry when it is too lengthy and may also interrupt and War a participant when the statement question or inquiry is abusive obscene or may be defamatory moreover the presiding officer can request any person to leave
the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable torum in adherence to the protocol established by the nersy School Board Association the board will use the public comment period as an opportunity to listen to uh resident concerns but not to debate issues or to enter into the question and
or answer session issues raised by members of the public may require review and investigation and may or may not be responded to by the board or superintendent during the meeting all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate again this is for agenda
items only the agendas are for are sections h i and J Personnel education policy and business of the agenda there'll be separate session for school matters later um may I have a motion to open public comment for 30 minutes on
agenda items only V second all in favor any or exensions all right public comment is open on agenda items all right not seeing any may have a oh hi gamasa I came in late so if this
is not an agenda item just let me know I'll come back later um I heard someone speak about the school cafeteria folks I think Rachel is her name I'm doing some interfaces with uh parents answering questions I still believe that the
students don't have enough time to eat at lunch most adults get at least 30 minutes and I really think it's important that we think through how much time the kids have in the day and really set aside enough time for them to
socialize to eat um and not feel rushed if the children are getting food from the school line there are times where you only have a couple of minutes maybe 5 10 minutes to eat your food which means you're not going to be talking to your friends and so so we just really
need to give them the time to breathe consume the food and be children that's my ask um I know other parents feel the same way of course in the what up groups this is coming up I don't hear anyone coming forward today but it's not going
to go away and it's a I'm really asking that you figure this out for us thank you thank you any other public comment on agend items all right can I have a motion to close uh public comment on agenda items
moved moved all in favor I I think it was weo and Tanya okay um approval of the monthly resolutions the superintendent recommends that the Board of Education approve the following
Personnel education and business action items in sections hi I and J um Can a motion for monthly resolutions so moved second thank you Nadia thank you regu um any
discussion no not seeing any Mr McCree M Banda Dr gold yes Miss Hill Angelo yes Mr Howard yes M Leman yes Mr nond yes yes Mr Ray yes Dr Pier yes Dr Mr olberg
yes congratulations everything passes thank you very much all right buiness old business and new business old or new we go all the above okay yeah just just a quick one I think you know I love this particular student
council report which you know the students come and actually read out it'll be wonderful if you can actually also publish this either weekly or monthly somewhere you know um with with with what we do with our parent square and stuff like that will be good because there are some good things which happens
you know uh here and it'll be good for the parents and others to know the executive report yeah the student student report yeah yeah no that makes sense I know that Dr piso and I have discussed you know sharing our reports so theirs with ours would make sense that all in
favor great okay any other it items okay um I won't read it again I'll open up public comment uh for again School items can I have a motion for public comment on school items so moved second all in
favor sorry Nick for 30 minutes all right the floor is open for any remaining School topics all right that's see have a motion to close public comment and adjourn the meeting so moved second all
in favor n extensions who thank you everyone