going to open up for a very special event and the meeting of the boards of Medminster and Bernardsville together. Um, welcome to a joint special meeting of the boards of education of the Somerset Hills School District and the Bedminster School District. Please be advised that this and all meetings of
the board are open to the public media and consistent with the open public meetings act and that advanced notice required therein has been provided. This is a meeting of the boards of education of Somerset Hills and Bedminster at which formal action may be taken. The public will have an opportunity to be
heard as shown on the agenda. The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of public of the public to have advanced notice of and attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the public o open public
meetings act, the public notice of this meeting which included the time, date, location, and to the extent known the agenda of this meeting was distributed at 3 p.m. on September 25th and September 29th, 2025 in the following manner. Posted on the Bolton board reserved for announcements in the
Somerset Hills board office, 25 Alcott Avenue in Bernardsville, and in the Bedminster Township School, 234 Somerville Road, Bedminster. posted in the main office of Bedwell, Bernardsville Middle School and Bernard's High School and the Bedminster School. Mailed to the Courier News and the Bernardsville News and posted on the
Somerset Hills District School District and Bedminster School District websites. Filed with the clerk of the Burough of Bernardville, Far Hills, Peepack, and Gladstone and Bedminster Township. Delivered to the 10 dulyeleed board members of the Somerset Hills School District and the seven duly elected board members of the Bedminster School
District. >> Bedminster. Roll call. Miss Nathan's >> here. >> Mr. Wickiser >> here. >> Miss Gomez >> Miss Anderson >> here. >> Miss Seagull >> here.
>> Miss Stevenson >> here. >> Mr. Mabberry >> here. >> Thank you. Mr. Lori. >> Mr. Baker >> here. >> Miss Ballard >> here. >> Miss Clark Emory >> here. >> Miss Cooper >> here. >> Miss Gills >> here. >> Mrs. Gomez
>> here. >> Mrs. Hoppy >> here. Mrs. Santoro >> here. >> Mrs. Ry >> here. >> Mrs. Frenda >> here. >> We have a quorum. >> Thank you very much. If we could all rise please for the pledge of >> allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. Dr. Brochial. Thank you, Mrs. Frenda. Uh before I get
started, I would like to uh welcome our guests and our partners here from the Bedminster School District. It's uh a pleasure to have you here. Uh and it's a pleasure to be able to meet jointly uh with you. Um so, uh my name is Brian
Brooch and I'm the superintendent here and I've met some of you but not all of you. So, uh first and foremost, welcome. Um, I'd like to uh also point out um and acknowledge the superintendent, Dr. Jordano. Uh, she's been very open to um
conversations between the district. She's been very open to to dialogue and uh she um very much enjoys um being an active partner here. Uh I did have some discussions uh with Dr. Jordano
um with Miss Gomez, with Miss Nathan's as a function of our collective responsibilities and our collective roles uh as uh board members and our respective districts and as the recipients of um two of your most prized
commodities, your children and your money. And um it's been some time uh since uh both boards have come together and um engaged in a process of due diligence to examine uh how the districts uh function and how they
operate. Um and the purposes of our meeting tonight is to become apprised of uh work that's being done in the area of not only school regionalization um but also in the area of developing uh
or identifying potential for shared services uh which could potentially lead to greater efficiencies. Um, I have spoken to uh the public here uh in um in Somerset Hills regarding the work that
we intend to do. And um in um to kind of cut to the chase, I look at it as um performing our own due diligence uh regarding matters between the districts and ultimately um being able to have an opportunity to take a snapshot of of the
two districts with opportunities uh that may um you know that may develop uh for the board to consider for the future. Uh first and foremost uh conducting a regionalization study obligates us as as boards to nothing. Um but it does avail
both boards to information which ultimately is um I think um a u a goal that I aspire to to be able to have uh information in which to make logical rational decisions at the board level and um you know consider for uh for the
future whatever they may be. Uh so um you I just want to be uh clear on what um the expectations are from the Somerset Hills uh perspective of being able to identify um outcomes for due diligence and uh potentially consider
them uh well into the future um between the districts. So uh with that said uh I have invited in uh the school regionalization institute from Rowan University to make a presentation uh to you regarding how they conduct their
work. Um it was determined early on that uh Somerset Hills uh would uh through through the administration serve as uh the lead in a uh a grant application and the lead in this project on behalf of
Bedminster and on behalf of the collective districts and um I have uh become familiar with the work that is taking place um through the school regionalization institute at Rowan University. uh they are here tonight to
outline how they conduct their work um and what they'll be doing and and and kind of provide some greater context uh regarding this particular process. Um the spokesperson tonight for this row and school regionalization institute uh
is Dr. Ken Green and um he was a longtime uh superintendent uh very very skilled in the areas of of finance and operations. Um he has a um an academic history that he can share with you. Um
but he does come um with with a great amount of acclaim and a great amount of um positive outcomes not only to his work um as an educator u but in his work in the area of regionalization. So I consider him uh very skilled in this
area and certainly an expert in how to conduct this work. Uh so with um I think now is the opportunity for me to welcome up uh Ken Green and he will uh make a presentation to the collective boards. >> Thank you.
[Applause] So whenever you have a chance that's very gracious of you uh we don't often get applause before we start. So that's really good. That's a positive uh positive start. Um I think it's also really positive start um because
considering making a relationship that is good better um starts with actions that show good faith and I think the fact that you are willing to meet this way in this fashion in a joint board meeting uh
speaks volumes of how you feel about uh each other your own communities and what a a common future looks like because you do have a common future whether uh whether through uh a furthering of this relationship or just by continuing the relationship you already have and just
making it better. And so uh I look forward to sharing with you tonight um a way that through this study process you can look at it from a variety of angles and I think be able to take away good ideas that you can then discuss with
each other to decide if that's where you want to per that's where you want to go. As uh Dr. Brochel mentioned um while you'll see the word regional and regionalization that is one of several possible outcomes uh another is
continuing in the uh manner that you are as separate districts but looking at services and potentially personnel or others that you might consider sharing uh to make yourselves more effective and efficient. So um my uh my objective is to really just talk through the process
of what that looks like. Um, Brian uh gave a a brief introduction. I retired several years ago as a superintendent of the Newton public schools in Sussex County. I'm also past president of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators. Uh, and I currently
serve as a consultant. This is part of the work that I do. I I also teach a course in school finance. Uh, Brian mentioned u my work in that area. I teach a course in school finance at Columbia University. So, I I stay engaged in the work and I'm glad to be
able to do that and not work half as much as the superintendents in your districts do. So, that's pretty cool for me. And uh but I've been in their shoes and I know what that work is like and I know that your districts uh are in very good hands. So, uh,
wh skip this, uh, this one might be a little bit hard to read, but I wanted to introduce you to the institute team members. Uh, usually conducting, uh, these kind of introductory sessions with me is the director of the institute, Mark Maguar.
he had a a previous commitment tonight so he couldn't join but um if you're familiar with the work of the legislature um Mark's been very influential over many years as the policy director uh for the uh for the New Jersey Senate and he was
instrumental in writing the school regionalization law which is public law 2021 but was signed into law in January of 22 so it's actually very new and um and so we're just seeing seeing the the fruits of that come out in terms of the
studies that folks are looking at but Mark was instrumental in that and I won't go down through the whole list but I suspect you may know a few other names on that list. Um I'm here presenting because if you decide to go through with this process, I would be serving as the lead investigator. And so working with a
team of folks who again, as you see, uh folks with uh fiscal backgrounds, uh business administrators, superintendent, demographers, um folks who've worked with the school boards association, former super uh excuse me, former
commissioner of education Lucille Davyy, whose name may be familiar to some of you. um Kathy Helawa who is uh um a senior manager of field services at the school boards association and you may have had interactions with her and again other folks um who are part of this full
team that we bring to the table here. So um know that the the work would be done by well more than one person. Um our objectives for this evening is just to talk briefly about some of the legal requirements of a feasibility study.
outline what a scope of work might look like and what our study model uh is at at present and then address some frequently asked questions as well as your questions. Um if you want to wait till the end for questions that's fine. If you have questions as we're going forth, something sparks something in
you, I don't mind if we just stop and and answer the question, that would certainly be okay with me. And moving to the then to the legal requirements. So, I I don't want to get too far into the weeds here because I don't know that it really matters all that much, but the
the grant that Somerset Hills uh has applied for um is a LEAP grant, a local efficiency achievement program grant. This is an older series of grants that has been uh applied to more than just school districts, counties, municipalities,
uh fire districts, all of those uh groups are eligible to receive LEAP grants. The regionalization law that I just cited before came with it and as part of that law was the creation of a new grant program called the school
regionalization efficiency program or SREP for short. Both of these are um are administered by the Department of Community Affairs. And so what the department has done is since there's now two grant programs,
what they've done is as it applies to school districts, they don't really care whether if you have a LEAP grant or an SREP grant. The SREP grant has some very specific things that are required in studies. And really DCA expects to see those things done in either one of the
studies. And I think when you see a little more detail, you'll see that they're really best practice kinds of things anyway. the kinds of things that you'd want to see in a in a study. So, uh the grant does provide reimbursement for costs associated with this. So, there is no cost of any of this to
either school district. It's all paid for through uh state grant. Um as I said, our study process will be based on the SREP guidelines. We'll go through those in just a moment. And should it be the case that okay should it be the case
that there is a decision to move forward at some point in the future with uh a referendum towards a regionalization any of the costs of that election are also borne by the state. So just some food for thought uh though you're way far away from that piece.
So I mentioned that the SREP comes with certain things that are required um in in that um in that study. Um they're they're listed here uh generally uh that there there should be an element that leads to
uh the establishment of a limited purpose or allpurpose regional district um to the maximum extent practical but that is not a uh that is not a only outcome. uh it looks to produce enhanced learning environments and coordinating
curriculum looking to um provide a more effective and efficient school district. And at the bottom here that um you know the commitment really is to make good faith efforts to implement the recommendations of the study. Um generally the studies that we've done
come out with anywhere between 60 and 70 findings and recommendations. So, it's plenty of things to choose from and consider in all areas of operation. And I think uh you know, people have asked me, well, what's a good faith effort?
And you know, for for me to define what the New Jersey legislature meant by that, I'm not sure I can do that. But having had some experience with them, I think a good faith effort is certainly to review the findings and recommendations, come to a public meeting and say, "Hey,
here's some ones I think we want to consider moving forward." or it might be a joint meeting uh like you're having tonight that that could have that kind of discussion. So that's really what they're talking about. Uh last slide I think on on this
and uh these are some of the items items that the study shall include. Uh you will see these highlighted again later but I think if you look down through this list again I think it's just really it's good practice, right? How do we enrich
educational programs? What are we looking at in terms of staffing needs and costs? What are the enrollment trends, state aid, uh tax revenue projections? Those I think the kinds of things you would expect in any kind of comprehensive study.
So to the scope of work, what does a scope of work look like? Very simply, there are five steps to the uh scope of work. And if you're paying close attention, it looks like there's five numbered ones and then another one. I I don't count the first one as a step of
the study because that's what we're doing now. P for preparation, right? This is to provide information and assistance leading to the board, a board of education approving us to conduct a study. Many times when we're brought into this process, we're at the very
front end before a board has even applied for the money. You've already done that. So you you've taken steps that we would have have helped you with and now the the the piece is whom whom do we hire to conduct the study for us and that's that's what we're looking at now. So you're sort of at the end of
step P. Um one of the things that we encourage um in moving to step one and developing an outline of the proposed study is that we gather key stakeholders from each participating district uh on the model of a steering committee if you
will. Most of the steering committees that we've worked with include at least the superintendent board u business administrator several board members almost like a a subcommittee a ad hoc subcommittee um who would then come and report back
to their boards about the process and what's going on. Um I know others have uh also engaged some municipal officials at times and some others. it. There's there's no requirement for a committee and there's no um guidelines as to what
that committee needs to look like. So, it's something we can certainly we could certainly talk about together, but from the two districts, we would have a committee that would work with our team. The two really important steps that that committee does is on this front end to help develop an outline of the proposed
study. Well, tonight you're going to get a look at what we think is our best practices approach to those studies. But that is an outline, a tentative outline because each of the communities that we deal with uh and we work with have
things that are unique about what they're looking for in a study. So, not everybody wants the same things out of studies. So, what we do is we tailor that and add, you know, what we might call some deep dives in areas. Uh one example of place that uh that people
often look uh for effectiveness and efficiency is in special education. It's it's big. It's unwieldy. There's a lot to it. And how do we find ways that either uh through regionalization or that the districts just working together
uh could operate more efficiently? Um some of these things may appear easier for you because we're talking about two school districts who probably cooperate a great deal already. We do studies with four or five school districts and so oftent times that you know the more districts you're talking
about the more difficult it becomes to really be in sync with one another. But that's one place where we're looking at for particularly for steering committee assistance. We go down the process to gather data. Um data gathering comes
really in three formats. One is that we look to gather all the publicly available data we can ourselves. So we have access to all you know state you know uh data sets etc that we can gather information. We do that. We don't ask you to do that for us. We do it.
Secondly would be things that the district has in terms of documents that while they're required uh or that districts typically keep them. They're not posted on a public website. So things like position control rosters and
um you know curricular documents etc th those kinds of things that may be out there but and some of those we can simply get from websites. So that's also part of our public collection is looking at your websites for things that we can easily gather. And then the third way that we gather information is not all
information that's useful is in a documentary form. So we do uh site visits and speak and interview key leaders um teachers at the transitional states 8th grade to 9th grade. Um
looking at um the potential for um focus groups if those are something that for instance the steering committee wanted to do some focus group work of uh of the public. Um, we also do some surveying of staff, of parents, of students,
particularly high school students, on their experiences early on in high school as those relate to the preparation they received from seventh and eighth grade and and so forth. So, those are some other ways that we gather data, but it's it's mostly those three ways and as I said, the largest one is
the public data gathering that we do on our own. Then we take that data and produce analyses in the areas of uh the four that are listed here. I'm going to go into detail about them shortly, but they are the four domains of our study. Governance and law, education and
program, demography and facilities, and then finance and operations. The next step is to make recommendations based on those analyses and review an initial draft with the steering committee. So, here comes the second real important part of the steering committee is that when we're finished uh
with an initial draft, we want the steering committee to give feedback because, you know, maybe we phrase something in a way that doesn't quite capture the way it really works in your districts. Maybe we have something in there that's not correct and we need to correct it. Um, you know, those things can happen and we want to make sure that
we're able to do that. And then when we produce a final document, then the final step is to come and present those findings publicly and let your communities ask questions um and and board members ask questions um and assist in planning of any next steps that you'd like to take. So that's
basically the scope of work and the things that you would see delivered uh on through that. So now on to a little bit more specificity around the model itself that we utilize. So the framework of of the study report is um as you might expect a
table of contents, an executive summary, an introduction um and then these four domains that I refer to and these are the the meat of the study and then ending up with findings and recommendations at the end. Uh we think the framework allows for the public to
these are these are complex reports. Our reports uh are typically 200 to 250 pages over a 100 data tables 60 to 70 findings and recommendations. So they're hefty pieces of work and um they can be
tedious to read from cover to cover. Uh I'm sure people do that and want to do that. We certainly do. Um but not everybody is as engaged in this as as we are. So certainly a much shorter executive summary, a look at findings and recommendations. What are the key things that they're saying here? And
then uh as you'll see as we go through for each of the four domains, the last piece of each of the four domains is an impact statement pertaining to that domain. So a lot of different ways to uh to consume the work here. So I'm just going to go through the four
domains u pretty quickly, but I wanted to give you this uh level of detail. so that you can see uh the the dive that we take into these various uh spaces. Anything here that's in boldface type is a requirement of the uh SREP grant.
Again, I know your grant is different, but these are the things that we follow. The other things that are in here are things that we believe to be best practices that we want to make sure that we address. So, from the standpoint of governance and law, we do a brief profile of your of your districts. We
review the statutes that are relevant to the particular uh case. So these are not just generalized statutes. Some are but there are different statutes that relate to um a regionalization which involves what you currently have as a um you know
some some districts will have a limited purpose regional a 9 through 12 or 7 through 12. Yours is kind of unique because you have a K through 12 but you're talking about a K through eight and whether there's there's a possibility of considering a merger there. So yours looks different than somebody else who doesn't have that
configuration or they may have a K12 that has send receive relationships with other K to8 districts. There's there's different ways to go about this. And so yours is going to be unique to to your your process and and we talk about, you know, what does the election process
look like? What does the board composition look like? So when you bring two together, what does that look like? What do the statutes have to say about that? uh state monitoring status, stakeholder input. I sort of talked about that before about the different ways that we look at gathering stakeholder input,
potential political issues. This is an opportunity where listen, if our there are things that uh folks think have been discussions for a while, haven't been fully vetted, they're sort of things that are hanging out there and we probably ought to acknowledge that they
exist. Um then we put those there. there might have been, you know, a disagreement on um tuition charges from several years ago that still lingers in the air. Uh there's somewhere there's been back and forth between the school district and the municipality with some
disagreements about how certain things are run that they just want to get out so that we're all aware and we can put it just put it all out on the table to say look if this is an impediment to moving forward we either have to find a way to get beyond it or you know then then that may put a stop to what we we
wanted to do. So again, nothing intended to to be controversial, just things that um and sometimes we have some, sometimes we don't. Uh and as I said, at the end of each of these is an impact statement. The the largest domain in our studies,
if you take out if you take out the tables, because finance has a lot of tables, as you would expect, tax tables and all of those kinds of things, which are very important. When we talk about the uh the narratives, educational program is our largest one. That's that's on purpose. It's a priority. Uh
Rowan University is a is an educational institution and we believe that the most important reason to consider regionalization is because of benefits educationally that it can produce for students. Um are there potential financial benefits? Yes, there are. Yes,
there may be. Um but to us, those are secondary. um but important to cover certainly. So we put the education and program piece right up after governance and law because we need to know find out from law what we can do and then what perhaps do we want to do. I I won't go
through all of these but you see the the the underlying pieces I should have said this before are the subsections of the report in these four domains. There are 30 subsection or 30 sections. So curriculum instruction as you expect again performance measures we talk
specifically about some major areas where people are often looking for effectiveness or efficiency preschool education because there are many many districts who are part of the way through fulfilling or providing enough seats for the universe of students and
want to look at expansion um potentially if there's space available in the schools to do that andor uh you know trying to make the necessary configurations to do that. I've mentioned special education before as an area considering classifications,
program configurations. Uh are we a large enough district that we can provide the kinds of in-house programs that are least restrictive environments and not pay out of district uh tuitions when we can avoid those. The support programs for students who are
struggling, multilingual students, gifted students, uh extracurricular programs, and then looking at school and district staffing. uh we come at regionalization from a point of view that we will we take it as a given that
the schools as they currently exist would exist after a regionalization. This is not about school consolidation because you still need to teach the same number of students still have to have principles still have to have all the teachers nurses counselors all those folks who who currently are providing
services to your students. we we adopt this from a standpoint that they will continue to do so. Obviously, any future board can decide what they want to decide, but that's not how we approach this. Most of the um what we look in terms of consolidating would be
at the district level um and and district level offices and so forth. Um but there are some positions uh where where we can make some recommendations and projecting staffing needs and so those kinds of things will be analyzed studentto staff ratios etc. and where
there can be if some efficiencies considered and then again an impact statement there. Uh the next demography and facilities um so you can see in demography the places where are required we need to do enrollment projections. Uh these are
five-year projections based on cohort cohort survival method which is the typical method atypical method and a popular method used by demographers. We include housing a housing method if there's a reason to do so. If there's sign significant development expected um
we would take that into consideration and our demographers speak directly to your planning officials to to to find out that information and make sure that we have accurate information there. Um we do are required to do disagregated enrollments and projected changes due to
regionalization. But in the case here, the students who um uh currently attend the Bedminster School, I mean, unless they choose to go to school in private or charter somewhere else, are going to come to Bernard's High School. And so
the the um the changes in terms of disagregated data won't change anything. Coming together as a regional district wouldn't change the student makeup. And so I anticipate what we'd find is that um you may see differences in terms of
the elementary environments, but if the elementary schools were remaining the same, uh that that wouldn't necessarily have to be taken into consideration. And then from a facility utilization standpoint, then we take the projections and then we look at your current facility capacities as they are
portrayed in your long range facilities plans and and we do some analysis there. And then finally in in finance and operations again I think a lot of the things you might expect. We do take a look at operating expenses largely
through the state reports that are done. We look at borrowing margin and debt allocation. We do do a review of your collective bargaining agreements and what costs there might be in a potential regional approach. Um in terms of contracted services, the one we look specifically at is transportation. But
if there are other contracted services that are being done, um, custodial maintenance, whatever they may be in your districts, we would certainly take a look if those were things you wanted. As we said, a big piece of this is beyond the, uh, potential for regionalization is the potential for new
and enhanced shared services. So, this is an area we look at pretty deeply. What are you currently doing now? Uh, not only with each other, but potentially what are you doing with other districts outside of the relationship here? And then what are some potential new or enhanced shared
services? We end that with state aid projections and tax levy projections along with some potential cost savings that are built into those tax levy projections. So that's the nature of the scope of the study. Uh some frequently asked
questions, how long does a study take? Typically 10 to 12 months um from grant approval. Um, again, you already have grant approval, so it could be a shorter time window there. There are no costs to the districts. This is all reimbursed through the state grant. Um, being a
lead district or a partner to the study, we consider we we have a lead agency as Somerset Hills and expect Bedminster to be an active partner. So, um, that means that you're involved in the steering committee work and all the work. you get all the information you have, you know,
decision rights in the end as to um suggestions that you want to make. Um ask how does the study consider unique aspects of the district. We explain through the steering committee process. We are gathering that information and we build the study around things that are important to you as well as consider
that as we go through the study itself to the end. uh what happens after the study is finished, we do come back and present the findings at a public meeting. Um and then the district can consider the recommendations that we've offered.
Uh is regionalization required? No, it is not. It is not required. Not required to have a referendum vote. It's not required that the board of education put up a vote. None of that's required. What's required as we said is the good faith effort and and as I described
earlier a public discussion about the recommendation strikes me as that good faith effort and how many studies are being conducted. Um we've already fully completed three studies uh that were done as of the end of last year beginning of this year. We've submitted
initial drafts over the course of this month on three additional and we're engaged in four other studies. who are a busy group but we have them sequenced and timed out so that we can meet that 10 to 12 month uh timeline and we feel really comfortable about that. Uh last piece here on resources. I will
provide to your superintendent these presentation slides. I'll pres I'll pro provide them with a template of a study outline which basically will look like what those slides are the four domains when if you were feverishly taking notes. I will give that to you so you'll
have that. And these are just a couple of examples of regional feasibility studies that uh or feasibility studies that we've done and completed. uh one for the uh the Deli region in Gloucester County, the Belvadier cluster in Warren County. We've also completed one in
Sterling Regional which is in Camden County. Each of those have slightly different configurations, but if you're sort of trying to wrap your mind of like what does this really look like? You can read those. Those are online at the uh websites of those those districts. They have them posted.
So, uh bring ourselves to close. you uh you're very kind and courteous to let me get through all that and uh if you but if you have questions I'm more than willing to answer uh address anything that you have. Dr. Green, on behalf of both boards, I
want to thank you for presenting. I do know on some pretty good intel that they do have some questions. Um so I would defer to the to the presidents on on those. >> Great. Okay. So, I heard that I have to stay
close. That sounds really loud, but thank you very much for the presentation. >> You're welcome. Um, one one thing that I'm really really interested in that we may not get to get deep into tonight. So you can you can guide me about how far two topics procedures during the study
itself. So sequential release of information storage that kind of thing as we talk about navigating this together in in a steering committee setting and conversant with the boards. Um and the the other main topic would be maybe just a recap of key lessons
learned along the way. I understand that three studies is a lot of studies and three studies is also not that many studies. Correct. So maybe maybe if we could start by just kind of talking about key lessons learned and maybe small changes that you made or major major shifts you've made and then we could talk a little bit about
procedurally how does this look over that 12-month period. Sure. In terms of >> uh release of information, discussion, interaction. >> Sure. Great. Great questions. Um, in terms of lessons learned, lots of lessons learned. Uh, we came to to this
from a uh a desire to see um, school districts get information about what this could possibly look at look like and do it based as much on data that exists as possible. Um, uh, fair to say that when we did the first couple of,
um, studies that we were building the plane as we were flying it. um by necessity. We had to do that because we hadn't had experience with with that. But we did have the experiences of of reading and digesting uh anywhere from
15 to 20 other studies that had been done over the last 20 years and and putting together a model that we thought met the uh requirements that the state was putting out, but took took the best practices and ideas from those that we could find and ran them through our own
process. But um you know some lessons learned certainly about um making sure that you're clear about the data that you want upfront and not having to go back and forth to districts which gets disruptive. Uh well we forgot to ask for
this or we should have asked for that. Uh we think we're to a point now where we we actually we have a a very detailed process um that we utilize um it's a spreadsheet uh series of sheets that
have 35 data points that we're looking for from the districts um with the ability for the districts to simply put links to documents that they already have into. So it's not like a paper passing back and forth and mailing things and this and that. A lot of it isn't even, you know, PDFs on emails
anymore. It's just link the documents so we're ready. We can see that. And yes, do we have to sometimes come back and ask some questions of clarification? Absolutely. But that's definitely a lesson learned to be as prepared as we can upfront. Um, another lesson, I don't know if it's a lesson we've learned, but
confirmed that having the districts who are involved and the people involved feel like they've had a process in designing a a unique study for them. Yes, we have an outline, but there are ways that we can enter other things into
that um that allow for the uniqueness of the districts to show through. So it's not a situation where okay here's the outline and no we can't study that and no we can't study that there I I I can't really remember of something where we said no um the only place we'll get into
an issue is if we have many deep dives you know we can only put 10 pounds in in a 10 pound bag we can't put it in a five pound bag so we have a certain amount of resources and a certain amount of time that that takes um so we've learned to to balance those things I think a little bit better Um
and I think to move into another learning that begins to answer your second question is where where does the process go from here? And so the process again starts with having a clear study outline that we work together to create making the data gathering process as
easily as easy as possible. And then what do we add into the process between the study outline and the draft? because that's really data gather and and analyze. But is there a process in there where we can inform the communities
about the progress that's being made and we can do that and we can do it in a number of ways. We've done it through uh virtual Zoom town hall meetings. We've done it through providing the superintendent with sort of here's an update report of five bullet points you
can share with your board at a public meeting. We've done it through pulling the steering committee back together midway through and giving an update as to things and saying, you know, here's some of our initial findings and the direction that this seems to be going. U so there's a lot of ways we can do that
and we're open to to doing that in a in a number of ways. So that's sort of how the process will flow through those months. Does that answer your question? >> Okay, great. >> May I piggy back on that? Great question because I had that written. Um,
it was, oh, sorry, I have to talk really close to this. Sorry. Um, as far as informing the public >> and having public forums. It's not only just Bernardsville and Bedminster, there's Far Hills, there's Gladstone,
there's Peepac, you know, there's there's a lot of tiny towns that make up this beautiful high school. Um so um um one of my concerns is that we make sure that all the towns
have the necessary information you know um given to them. I mean when you hear regionalization you think oh my god like >> right >> I worked in Bridgewater say no more it's ginormous you know >> but
you know it's a scary thing to a lot of people and I think having this study um conducted and explained throughout the whole process could really ease a lot of fears and answer a lot of
questions that all communities ities might have I mean >> um you know Gladstone had the one school which is now like a library and you know it's like this is a one-horse town and then you know >> we're we're we've grown you know so I
think it's really important to keep people in the process and another question if I may >> um confidentiality records um what happens to when you're gathering information from special educ ation or
you're gathering information from student records or you know how you I'm sure you have it all worked out but in my head I'm thinking you know when you see the sheet and it's all blackened out
you're not going to get like you know I mean how do you how do you account for making sure you're not breaching confidentiality um between parents and their children and the school and their children.
>> Great, great question. I'll I'll answer the the la the last one first. Um >> in that the data that we I said we collect uh on 35 data points from the district. Um we don't collect anything that is
student identified at all. We don't even ask for it. The kind of data that we look at is higher level school level numbers, not individual student data. structural. >> It absolutely is structural. It's structural about schools. Certainly,
>> any data that we get publicly is already vetted in that way. You don't have student identifiable data. >> Uh and so we don't even ask for that. It's not a question of we ask for it and we redact it ourselves or we say would you please redact this? um position
control roster is about as detailed we get in terms of being individually identifiable but we don't need to know the names of people. The district can certainly provide us a by position not by names. And it wouldn't matter anyway
if they did. We're simply looking at how many elementary classroom teachers does a school have, how many nurses do they have? How many counselors do they have? not who they are, what salary they're making, that none of that is of interest to us in our analysis. >> So, it's completely at the school level.
Um, what's the average size of a sixth grade class? >> There's 16 kids. Okay, that's all we need to know. We don't need to know who's there. We don't need to know what classifications, any of that stuff. So that's that's the level of detail that we're
>> take into account like out of district placements and all of >> strictly by numbers >> number >> strictly by numbers. >> Okay. >> Uh we don't identify well we're not going to tell you the students name but they're placed in such and such school. We don't even talk about what schools they're placed. That's it's totally top
level numbers. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Thank you. The other question that you asked I think dovetales with the process and I think that's um where we rely on the steering committee not just at the front end of a study outline but also
that conversation about how do we inform the public. I talked about ways that we might do things like I know districts have done town halls and some other ways of uh I did I didn't outline them all. Um but there's other ways that uh that districts have kept municipalities,
their towns, their public informed. Um some will put a uh some have put a section on the front page of their website about regionalization and shared services. And then within that they have documents like you might place this
document right to say well we had an intro presentation and here's the things that it covered. You may have an FAQ page right at the start. Here's what this stud is about. Here's what it's not about. >> Um these are things that you can put links um on have your municipalities put
links on their websites to go to that site and draw them to that site. uh you can have a um you know sort of a Google form-based survey of other questions, have those go to the district office and the district office can reach
out to us and say, "Hey, we got these bunch of questions. Can you answer them for us so we can get the answers back onto our FAQ page or whatever and we can help design some of those things for you. Obviously, we have information because you're getting into somewhat of an unknown here. Well, where does this study go? We're not quite sure. We can
provide you guidance on that. We'd be glad to do that. So, and that pro process doesn't have to just be a do it at the front end and we're done. As we walk through this, we get couple weeks into this. We say, you know, this would there's we have a good idea as to how we
can reach our community. Great. It could be a newsletter. It could obviously whatever ways that you communicate um we'd be glad to assist with. Um, and it should be it should be designed and driven by you because, you know, we don't come out with a a package. I'm
giving you examples of what I know other districts have done because it's really unique to the community. Some communities feel like they really need to put out a lot of information. Others wait till questions are asked. It's I think it's different and you know your communities better than we do. So, that's really up to you. Uh, and you
know that might be a topic for a uh, you know, when your boards are in separate meetings to have a board conversation about how do we want to do this and then direct that back to the steering committee to get to us. That's that's another way to go about doing it. Would you recommend, which is kind of my
thought because we're in it together, I would think that instead of just having us deal with our constituents, I think it's important that we would meet together, you know,
so we're not the ones presenting the facts. You guys aren't the ones present. So there's no uh miscommunication. So I think that's >> it's an excellent idea. That's an excellent idea and again that's part of the reason for the steering. >> Dr. Bersell is amazing at doing like
>> and and that's why we have a steering committee where both groups are together. So you both hear the same things, you share those ideas and maybe at that at at a meeting where we collaborate on some ideas, you say, "Okay, I want to go take these back to my board and talk with them about." Okay, that's fine. And we can come back
and talk about it again. It doesn't always have to be an in-person formal meeting because it's it's a ad hoc subcommittee. You can meet whenever you want. You can do it on Zoom, get together for an hour. It it's we're we're we're open to all of those to help you communicate best with your
communities. Um again, even if it's just the nature of sharing that, you know, we're going to get a lot of information about shared services and we want that information as a major topic that that could be a very important topic to make sure to get out there. So any any of those ways we can
help, we'd be glad to do so. >> So I'm going to jump in with just one more and this is actually for Dr. Brochel. So let's talk just a little bit about your intent for the steering committee as much as you know right now. How is it formed? Um how do we separate
powers or set up an org chart? What what are we doing there? >> Well, I'm glad you asked. Um first and foremost, to build off of Mrs. Hoppy's points uh about communication and uh Sarah and Gabby I think are aware of
this. Um I believe that we need to follow kind of the custom that we've developed here in creating multiple lanes in in which people can access information. Um, everybody acts has a different type of need for the level of
detail, the level of frequency, and we need to meet a host of different lanes in order to connect with folks from a from a communication perspective. Some folks will read a 10-page letter and a five-page letter from me. Not everybody, but but some will and they'll absorb it.
um some kind of just just want it in different formats and we have tried here to meet th the various needs of the different folks regarding the communication structures um at the school level and at the district level and I I I would envision um keeping that
open. Um we tend to have um on on kind of major broad broad initiatives. We tend to bring in uh community members and interested stakeholders and limited at nobody. Um so everybody that that
really wants to contribute in on-site in-person programming uh is able to do that. And I have done over the previous two school years I've done uh multiple sessions that way. Um but to answer your question directly as far as the steering
committees goes, uh there needs to be multiple stakeholders and multiple players from Bedminster and from Somerset Hills. Um although from a technical perspective, we're serving as like the lead in this work. We're not the lead in the steering committee. Um,
Jen and I talk often um and and I'm I'm able to understand uh the need to to to really engage this in a deep and broad way. Uh so frankly like we're really leaning on the collective group here and and also there
are people not at the table here uh that will be involved that that do much of the work on behalf of you know our collective boards you know in our district offices and and such. Uh I would lean on the boards to give us some
insight on the players not only on their collective boards or their respective boards but also uh community members that may have uh added value here uh in this particular space and um Jen and I
and others are aware of people inside of the house that can contribute in in those ways as well. So from a steering committee perspective, you know, I I I think that this work needs to be intentional. I think it needs to be deep and broad. Um and I think it needs to be
done in such a way that there is a significant amount of openness regarding exactly uh where we are, what some timelines are, uh what some of our what some of our benchmarks are. Uh so I think that the development of this the
um the steering committee is critical and to be clear uh Dr. Green and and the institute they work on our behalf um they are here to serve us and like what our needs are. uh they do a magnificent job of taking time to
understand the local context and Mindy brought up a great point that Somerset Hills already um comprises multiple communities in into one and um we need to we need to continue to honor that.
So, um, it's not my intention to not give you a straight answer, but I think from a from a very specific standpoint, we're really open to sharing our ideas on some some roles that will be critical
from from our side and certainly uh you and others uh can certainly contribute to that. >> Excellent. And I think I mean what what I'm hearing from the presentation is essentially that we have some homework to do together to look at what
the path towards any kind of kickoff may ultimately entail. And uh it sounds like there's there's a real openness for us to co-design that. But if if we if we summarize the broad steps that we heard, we know that we have coming up at some
point the point where the organization that we develop to steer the work meets the outline and makes decisions on what's the work and that would be kind of like the first and and most critical element of this. We sort of open the door to the whole engagement. So just trying to
anticipate that a little bit. I think it it's very clear that we have that to put in front of us and to work on. What what are you used to seeing in terms of authorizing a body that can steer that and then finalizing a decision on that scope?
>> Sure. Uh and these are great questions to be asking up front because this is before we get to actually doing how are we going to do this? And um I hope you will read into my answers that I've given so far that it's not um well here
it is just go do this right because that doesn't work for every community and uh and we've again lesson learned you asked the question about lesson learned. We learned that we really have to be open-minded and we want to be to what works for the districts and we'll make it work for the process that we have in
place. So as you were talking and asking the question and getting a response, it occurred to me that something else another community has done as an example is I could understand why when you're looking to create a steering committee, you you know, first of all, you want to
get lots of different voices. You want to get lots of different input, but you may want to reserve decision making about what actually goes into the study to the folks who are the decision makers. They're sitting right here, right? And so what some have done is
kept a steering committee of just the the partner districts, board members, superintendent BA and maybe a couple of other key people. And then they create a wider group that they call an advisory committee. And it includes the steering committee plus whoever else is important
in the community. And while that steering committee may be 10 or 12 people, the the advisory committee may be 30 people or 40 people. And that doesn't have to be the limit of the input gathering. You can go after the input for the info of the entire community surveying as we said uh town
hall type meetings, but you can also create um I'm and I'm giving you an example of a district that did create an alternative structure that allowed for sort of a bigger committee to provide input and then the smaller committee walked away and said, "Well, this is the
input we've heard. What do we want to do here?" So that's another structure. Again, none of this is written in legislation. None of it's written in guidelines and it's really depends on I think you characterized it right. There's frontend work to be done before you get to deciding exactly how you're
going to do the study. >> I'm so sorry. >> Hello. Okay. Um I have a question regarding um the findings at the public meeting. Um my question is you mentioned in moments
that each uh district can have different philosophies right. >> So in those findings you can say this is can what can happen if you regionalize the complete district but if not because you have different uh philosophies or missions. This will we recommend you can
do this shared services or you will benefit your students can benefit from this >> like you will >> you will give us those like facts or you will do like the recommendations I say maybe this will be the best thing for you since you are different but at the
same time you are close >> right you know >> right so in the in the body of the report let's say in an area like curriculum coordination and I'm I'm speaking absent any knowledge of what goes on here. Um let's
say curriculum coordination between the elementary schools it doesn't happen frequently or it doesn't happen reg you know um a recommendation could be um that in a regional in a regional effort
if you were regionalizing together having a single coordinator of that would help maybe even two coordinators one of elementary education another of secondary education But if if you and and we will say the
things like this in the report, if the districts were to remain separate, at least identifying those key people and making sure that they're interacting um and and setting sort of a common agenda for the kind of articulation meetings that might happen and so forth. So we
present findings and solutions that could be used regardless of whether you decide to regionalize or not that would be helpful to that circumstance. Now we you know that's just a hypothetical. We we may come in and find as we as we study this that
there's tremendous articulation already going on among the elementary schools. And what would that look like? that u not only are curricula uh curriculums written together but that the instructional time devoted to English language uh arts at the fourth fifth and
sixth grade is virtually the same at at both schools right well we found in a lot of places it's not the same and you can imagine if one devotes 90 minutes a day and another devotes 60 minutes a day there's going to be different outcomes and we shouldn't be surprised when they
show up in nth grade and we've got desperate learning you know, so we're looking down into those particular pieces. What what's the main textbook that you use? What's a philosophy that you use around English uh and and math education, etc. So, we
get into those pieces deep enough that we can then back away and say, "All right, what is a finding? What are we finding?" Hey, there's great coordination here. Keep doing what you're doing. Yeah, if you regionalized it might get a little bit better, but you're, you know, you're 90% of the way
there. or we might find look there's a lot of disparities going on among the schools and should should so it should not be a surprise again you may be more likely to have that coordination happening just for the sake of having two districts as opposed to four or five so we we'll find that out
as we come in and and we ask the questions >> you both >> I had another I'm sorry um one thing that's special about our area it is um becoming very diverse, you
know, culturally. And that's something that we really need to take into consideration, you know, making sure that everyone of every culture of every um whether you're English speakaking or
you are, you know, non-English language learner that every everyone in the community is being um informed and
and take into account. So you you do take you do take a look at the demographic as far as what the cultural makeup is of our little society here. >> We we do um and it's one of the requirements of our grant, but we also
think it's important for >> practical and best practice reasons. So yes um we do do um looks at history of disagregated enrollment. By disagregated enrollment, I simply mean by groups. Uh uh racial, ethnic, uh language learner
status, economic um advantage or disadvantage, all all the different groups that the state um tracks. And um the typical look back is a five-year period. That's what demographers do. And then they project ahead for a five-year period. Um we've had district districts
ask, "Well, we'd like to look at a 10-year look forward. What would it look like in 10 years?" Well, we can give you that, but I can tell you years that 6 to 10 are very speculative. You know, we're pretty sure about years 1 to five because we have that data. >> But the point of the matter is we don't only do that for the general population.
We also do it for our specific populations. As we said, the disagregated populations. And um you know if if you have noticed and this these are also something as we design the study and we talk about taking deeper dives that that reflect
and address what you know of as issues for the community or things that you want to know. You probably already know without us having gotten midway through the investigation that there's been um cultural changes in these districts over just the last five years.
um you can tell us that right up front. We can look at that as maybe an area for a deep dive to say, well, given that that's happened, what are we looking at at the next five years? What kinds of things has have the districts done to address those needs so far? Where could
we look moving forward? Uh would they be better off dealing with those together in a common way? Or are there really diff, you know, is what's going on in Bedminster really different than the municipalities that make up Somerset Hill? is really different. And so then if it's really different then you're
going to have really different answers which um you know again can be a reason to address those things individually but we're also looking at if there are common problems how do we address them in a shared way combine resources and ideas that would help us address those
needs. So, I think the short answer to your question is yes, we absolutely look at those things and if you think there is a there are specific unique characteristics about this district that we should look at specifically, we will do that and note that right up front.
>> Okay, another one. >> This may not be the right person. You may not be the right person to ask this question, but I'm kind of curious as to the underlying motivation for the study. Um approximately 15 to 20 years ago, a
study was conducted due to the same exact thing by Jim Emorino. Um and it was halted because Bedminster is notably tax brackets are considerably lower. So I was just kind of wondering what the underlying motivation is if anybody
knows. Good. >> Yeah, I I know. Um I think that um I've read multiple studies that have been that have taken place um a significant time you know
from now and um you know I felt like it was uh timely for the conversation to not the conversation as much as the due diligence to be conducted um in order to examine both both districts. Um I view
um some things that we're seeing here uh internally just from from our uh shifting enrollments and and in some cases you know declining enrollments and um I've also um developed a relationship
with with your superintendent and I've spent time in your school district and your facilities and um I feel like it's important to get answers. Um just doing some reflective listening. It sounds like a study was started but then
stopped due to tax bracket uh matters which you know my my only argument and suggestion for the two boards is to conduct a full study and let's arrive at at least allowing or availing the two
boards to see what that study revealed and um you know we may not act on it at all. Um but um but what I'm hearing from the institute is that we will also receive information that we could implement even without doing you know-
without like going to a full regionalization. So, so I feel like it's incumbent upon me as the superintendent here and and certainly the board here in Somerset Hills to be able to just do the due diligence. Um, that's reflective of
2025. And um, you know, if if we move somewhere, great. If we don't move anywhere, great. uh but I think that uh allowing the boards to go through that process is um is an important piece in my view as to what the role of
superintendent and business administrator and board member uh is. So my only motivation really is to be able to arrive at at uh information and then you know what we do with that information is is a whole other process
that that does speak to some steering committee work into some communication and um you know sort further exploration both as singular entities and then potentially as multiple entities. I've been talking a lot. You could go.
>> Susie has something. Yeah. >> Um, kind of following up on that, Dr. Roshaw and Dr. Green, what percentage of this is spent on regionalization compared to how the two districts can communicate and work better together? Because from what I know, some of the
issues that are the reason it didn't happen 20 years ago are still going to exist today. But some of the other things that you're talking about as a board member and a parent of a kid who's gone through Bedminister and Bernard's high school, I think that some of these other things that you're raising are
actually really important and from my personal perspective maybe more important than the concept of quote unquote regionalization where everybody shares everything together. So, I'm just wondering how the split is, if you will, and how do you balance the the time, as
you said, there's a finite amount of resources to be doing this. How do you balance the the time spent discussing regionalization compared to shared services, curriculum coordination, and those other things that may actually as you start the process, the steering committee and yourself may determine,
oh, maybe we should be spending more time looking at these things and how these can be better compared to the official regionalization. Yeah, >> it's it's a really good question and I think the the easiest well the easiest answer for me which is not so easy for
you is for me to ask you to go read through some of these studies that we've already done and you can see the way those things get laid out. If I could give an overview of it, it's that we look at certain data.
Um so I'll use the example of the the curriculum work you know and we we survey the districts about again their resources the time committed to certain subjects and and uh you know like the benchmark assessments that they use and
you know we get into that and then when we do that we see if there's a lot of disparity recommendations that will come out of that can be largely done whether you regionalize or you don't. So a lot of this doesn't come out well if you
regionalize do this if you don't do this. A a lot of that is well how can we how can we get to better curriculum coordination and working together and that again that can be done with a very purposeful mindset by two separate districts. I I wouldn't say it can be done and it
has been done. I won't say it's as easily as with one district because with one district it's pretty easy. It's very easy to get that work done. Um although if you operate within a district and you work with different folks within you don't always have unonymity in what you want to do even within one district. So
there are some difficulties there but I would encourage you to look through and just sort of get a flavor of how they come out because most of them come out as like there's data we analyze it. It tells us a story and then we're going to
prod produce some recommendations some of it which will be clearly only applicable to a regionalization and others can be done even if you remain separate districts. I think in the case too of um speaking to the tax situation
the state aid situation those are ones where we very clearly outline two different scenarios. So with state aid, what would happen with state aid and what do we project moving forward for the next five years if you stayed separate? This is what we project based
on our modeling of the school funding formula. And then what would it look like if you were together? We provide you both of those pieces of data. So they are separate and you can see well this is this and this is that to the point that when we get finished with it
um you know the ones that we've done and completed again with the ones that we're completing now a half a dozen of them we've had ones where we've had to say look the state a picture doesn't look good if you regionalize. So you really have to consider that or it's a marginal difference really doesn't matter. You're
going to get a lot of educational benefit that really probably does doesn't matter as much. Um, same on the tax side. We do the same thing on the tax side. What would the tax side look like if you came together? What does it look like now? How it works? So, there's comparisons that you can make. And uh
again, if you uh the question was about before we we got to the end near the end of a study and we didn't continue because there was concern about taxes. Well, you're going to get that information. So, there's no harm in having the information say, "Look, it's really unbalanced. It's just
not going to work." or oh this is not as bad as I thought it was. We might be able to make this work. So th those are the kinds of things I think you get out. I hope that answers >> thank you. >> Good. >> And I just I oh gosh I just wanted to add also that um to add to Dr.
Brochial's response is I I was listening for it and you said it pretty early upfront is in considering this it wasn't with the idea of regionalization being the outcome. it was how can we best have the greatest impact and student benefit
within our districts. So this study is going to provide us with a tremendous amount of information. Um and in the end it's going to be up to us into how we utilize that information to have the greatest impact on our student our student educational experience. So as a
board member and you know in our discussions that's the lens that I view this through and I would certainly never want to halt that work and not get the outcomes of this study because no matter what it's going to benefit us no matter what the path forward is.
>> I think um just to echo that because that's exactly what I was thinking too that early on you touched upon this. I mean this is yes we're going to look at all the financials of course that's part of the regionalization but the driving force amongst our conversations is
around the benefits that it'll bring to students overall we have two great schools and if they can be even better together maybe they stay great separately we don't know that might be the answer but if they can be even better together then that's another consideration that would benefit our
students so really I mean I know our conversations have always been really student centered and student driven and bringing the best results. >> I I I loved the the curriculum coordination piece like that really went
off went a light bulb in my head. That wasn't really what I was expecting to be part of this. That's why I was wondering how that was going to be focused on or not focused on. Is it just sort of a throwin or is it something that's really a significant portion of this those non-regionalization factors?
>> No, they're big. They're big portions. Yeah, they're they're really big portions. Like I said, if you stripped out the um the data tables, the largest section will be the education and program section. >> Awesome. >> So, does a steering committee come
together and ask you straightforward like would you look more closely at the curriculum? Will you look more clo is that something a steering committee would take charge of in direction for for you? >> Yeah, I mean I think there's probably with the boards there's some history of
having discussed these things publicly, privately con you know with your administrations and so forth. Um I guess what I'm saying is probably some of these things are already known to you. What are concerns in your mind about what you would like to find out?
So it it should come out in the steering committee process because when we like when we look at the study outline and and try to work through where are we going to put some maybe unique points. We start at section one and go through
section 30 and we go through every one of them and say are there areas here and you know you know somebody might raise a hand and said you know we've been talking for years about the cost of special education transportation.
>> We really want to do a little a deeper dive on where can we get some ideas about what we would do about that. And when I just said that I looked around I saw about five or six people. Yep. Yep. Like we've talked about that before. So, you know, there are things that do tend
to come up, but there are things that are unique. Like that doesn't come up for every district. For some districts, not a big deal. They don't have many out of district students. They've worked on that problem for years and they've gotten out to a point where they feel very comfortable. They're they're in
district rates are very high and they're able to provide program. And sometimes it's very difficult to provide program just because you're just not at the size and scale to be able to offer everything. Again, your your your districts are they're not large, but
there I mean, we've been doing studies with districts that have K to8 elementary schools with less than 200 kids. So, I mean, that's at a scale where you you can't do a lot of things that you want to do. Um, but you're not at a huge scale either. So, there's probably other things that you're
thinking of. So again to answer the question specifically we'll go point by point through that and I think you saw it's pretty comprehensive outline of things that we've but if you know if you go into that when you get it and say you there's 30 sections but there should be
a 31st one about X because we just are not looking at it at all. That's possible. What tends to be the case is, oh, it's there, but I don't know if you're deep diving deeply enough in that to answer the questions we want to get answered. And that will come up as part
of the steering committee process. Uh, and and again, this the the processes that you talked about before about gather, you know, if we want to work on gathering community input to that before that time, that's fine, too. that we can
certainly design those things into it so that the finalization of a study outline doesn't happen for some time until enough community input has been gotten whether through an advisory committee or whatever way you think is appropriate to do that. >> Thank you. >> I have a question Dr. Brochial.
>> Oh, I'm sorry. Where are you? Go ahead. >> There's been so much talk about data. How can we make sure that the data is going to be accurate that ends up in the report? I mean, I know the districts are going to do their very best to give the most accurate current data, I'm assuming, not like past data. >> Um, but like how do we make sure that
it's it's accurate, that it's not skewed one way or the other, and that I'm not going to fact check 50 data tables like you're talking about, but to make sure that they are referenceable should somebody want to fact check them. >> Sure. Sure. So um any of the um the public data that's available that we put
in we put a footnote where you can go get go you can go look on the school performance report report or the userfriendly budget or the uh comprehensive financial report or wherever it is that we got that information we will note it. Um when
it's district generated information um we generally cite that too if it came from um you know position control roster that the districts provided us. How do I know that those are accurate? I don't know that those are accurate. So we're
counting on the district and we tell them what what we want. You know, we'll if we got this process to a point just theoretically here, you had an a public information process, you completed a uh
a study outline, let's say early in the first quarter of next year, like January, February, because you went through this process for a few months, you know, and we're gathering data in March. Well, we're looking at 2025 26 data. That's what we would be asking the
districts for. So yes, we we want to be able to compare apples to apples and and we just in some ways we have to assume that if you're giving us a report that you've already created for yourself as a district that it's accurate. Um you know
if we're um yeah I would just I would just say that I think you know and like yes have we had things given us to us that weren't accurate? Yes, we had to go back and rework them. The district point out oh well that's not the correct data. Oh, well, where did it come from?
Where? Oh, we didn't give you the Okay, well, now we get we have to sometimes go back and forth on that till we get things as as accurate as we possibly can. And again, we're always open to uh and we've had this happen where, you know, we produce an initial draft and somebody goes, "Oh, that's not the
that's not this year's numbers, that's last year's numbers." Okay, well, let's go back. Give us this year's numbers, we'll put it into the data, and if it makes a difference, we'll rewrite parts that we feel we need to rewrite. But >> um we'll we'll do everything we can to make it as accurate as possible.
>> Just to build Go ahead, Jen. >> Can you just give us a sense of what is that time lapse like from the time maybe you generate this report, it's then handed back to the steering committee and then there's that realization that some of the information is inaccurate.
What is that time frame like? >> Yeah, that's a good question. Um it it can be as long a sort of as long as you want it to be in you know within reason. Generally we will give a first draft back to the steering committee and schedule a steering committee meeting
from anywhere from two to four weeks after that. So there's a time to look through it um a time to you know check data and and maybe not check every piece but spot check things to say okay that looks like it's right that looks like it's right. Read through the conclusions. Um, are we wording
something in a way that it's not going to sit well? And we'll we'll look at rewarding things. I mean, we we're not going to change we're not going to change the recommendations and the findings, but we'll look to word it in a way that is reflective of sensitivity to to things.
Absolutely. But uh but yeah, that process typically takes anywhere from two to four weeks, I would say. And if you tell me like we need four to six, we we could wait. like it's it's really I think the only thing that we're bound by
is me not knowing the final dates of when the grant is eligible. Although those grants you can request extensions to those. So we have not talked about that. I mean I we're we're too early for that. We're we're asking for you to consider approving us to do the study.
So I think that would come after that time but but we can be very flexible with those dates. Yeah, we need to work backwards with that deadline so that we can see how many of these steering committees are realistic. >> What is that time commitment like per meeting?
>> Can you can you talk a little bit to those points? >> Sure. Um in terms of steering committee um responsibility or time commitment, we've had studies where the steering committee um after some public information um gathers together and
finalizes an outline in a meeting. We go and do the study. They get we send them the initial draft. They review it. They get they come back. We have a meeting. Two meetings. We've had others where the steering committee wants to sit and plan a little bit about these, you know, work
with us to plan, which you don't need to do. You can work on your own to plan your public information and how you want to do that. But we'll gladly work that. So, you know, that depends on how much time folks want to spend doing that. But if that seems like, oh, that could take
a couple of meetings of our work, then we can plan those in. We could certainly plan an update meeting at some point, you know. So, we could end up meeting six or eight times through the process. It doesn't really matter to us. We'll do what you need to have done. And I don't
want to say that as a copout. We'll offer our input and guidance as to what we think has worked. And I'll do what I have done is I'll give you an example. Here's an example of a district cluster that did this. Here's an example of a region that did that. And uh I think
you'll have enough to say oh you know there's you know it's like when I've had students ask you know you grad students I have a paper to do and how many pages should I write?
Well more than two and less than 12. Does that give you an idea? like, you know, so you've got a pretty wide range here of what you want to have happen and then you just need to make the time commitment that you that you're going to devote to that given all the other things that you folks have to do which
are very important and you know this is only one of those things. >> Just wanted to build on a comment that Sarah made and then Jen as well. Um there's a particular onus on the on the
administration of both of the districts to complete this work. Um we're not expecting board members to be running position control rosters, etc. >> Um so there's a there's a significant piece of this that's you know between Jen and I and our business
administrators that will certainly coordinate. Um but so as far as like clean data, you know, a lot of it relies on our internal structures on, you know, how clean the data is. So >> yeah, >> I know sometimes numbers can can get transposed in the final one,
>> right? Yeah. >> Actually more about them than what you guys. >> Absolutely. Yep. >> Can I ask for clarification from you, Dr. Broel? I remember vaguely a while back that you had mentioned that the
Department of Education stated that they're looking at districts with under 300 children that they were looking at them to regionalize. I mean I
remember vaguely. >> Yeah. So there has been some discussion legislatively about looking at districts not quite that low but uh around the 500 mark there's been some discussion about that. I think what makes the work that the
Rowan School Regionalization Institute is doing so robust is that it's their focus isn't just on regionalizing. it's in really creating a robust report that offers a host of different lanes in us
in order for us to examine. So, um, so this this district is not like in the radar for, you know, regionalizing, but I do know that there has been some discussion. I have not heard of uh any like recent discussion in like a couple months, but there has been like
discussion about districts that are of a particular size. >> Okay. Um but that's uh kind of comes and goes. >> Thank you. >> I I have a simple followup to that. Um that was a point of confusion in the presentation
when we talked about governing law for for regionalization. There was a a clear line in there that said essentially you must maximally implement the findings of the study toward regionalization if you choose to
implement it. And It would be really helpful at this juncture just to have a little bit of clarity on it because some of the value that I'm seeing discussed really does come from a deeper exploration of the underlying benefits and a little bit of creativity um potentially with outcomes.
So if there is a boundary on implementation, we should know it now. So I think that it's it's very important from a from a workflow perspective that regardless of where the where the study lands reg in terms of recommendations
uh it it requires multiple steps in order to implement something like a regionalization uh and that would you know so um I don't recall that particular language but maybe Dr. Green can speak to it. No, you you have it
pretty closely there. And of course, people have made a career out of trying to decipher what things that are written into regionalization, no, I mean into legislation, what they actually mean. So the these are the words directly out of that legislation that
that the a proposed regionalization will lead to the establishment of a limited purpose or allpurpose regional district to the maximum extent practicable. The way we read that as it involves the study is that
we we clearly uh we clearly read that as when we look at scenarios that we're going to study and that's part of the creation of this is that we're going to look at scenarios. One scenario will be the full grades
preK12 regionalization of these districts. We read that to say that we must study. We also study as as a second in every one of our studies and there's only two that we that we feel we must do. And the second is a continuation of
the status quo arrangement of the districts and a look at new and enhanced shared services that could provide effectiveness and efficiency. We clearly go into it with those two things in mind. So, we're we are aware that the
state has as um a policy objective which is not um again there's talk about like things about smaller districts and what they're going to do. I I I'll believe in a mandated regionalization what actually starts happening. That talk has gone on
for decades and it doesn't get anywhere. Um but um those are the two scenarios we study but we will cons we we as part of our our um consideration of the study will consider other scenarios. So for
instance, a scenario that we considered in one uh one study was it was a K to2 district who had three K to8s who sent their high school students to that high school via a tuition arrangement send and receive.
What they wanted to look at was what is the possibility of creating a unified six through eight middle school program and housing it at one of the districts. And that scenario was studied as part of
the full prek to 12 because if you do a full prek to 12 then that single district can now create a 6 through8 middle school if that's what they wanted to do, right? They could clearly do that. But what if we don't regionalize? Well, we looked into how could they
create instead of the send receive being a 9 through 12 at the high school district if the high school district was the one to take the 6 through8s, broaden those send receive agreements to 6 through 12. That was another scenario we looked at. So that was something that
they specifically wanted to look at. Another one that we looked at was a 7 through 12 district. Well, what if we looked at adding a sixth grade to that and made it a 6 through 12? Again, different. That didn't stop us from doing the full prek12 and the shared
services. We did those two, but we added a third and in one case even a fourth. Um, so, you know, you start adding those things in. Now, you start getting to the 10 pounds in a five pound bag. Now, we can't do a whole lot of deep dives about other things if we're going to do multiple scenarios. So, that's that
can't be a whimsical thing. And um as much as I aim to please where districts want to go, I I'll also pull the brake and say, "Okay, folks, now now we have to make some decisions because we have a lot of stuff going on here and we have to make sure we're we're not getting to
what one person wants to do. It has to be the consensus of that steering committee as to where do we go together to make sure the study meets the big picture things that we think are important for us." Uh, so again, there's possibilities, but that's that's I mean
that's a long- winded answer to what are they talking about there? We're reading into it how it impacts the study. I don't think it puts any limitations on you. There's another part that's very clear about good faith efforts and that's, you know, that's more incumbent
on the board to make a good faith effort and I think that's reading reading the document. Hey, here are some recommendations. Let's really look at these and consider these. >> So just clarify because when I read
will lead to the establishment of a limited purpose or purpose regional district to the maximum extent practicable. But on the top it says that's the school district regionalization law. So I'm looking at
it like once you decide to regionalize then you follow this. >> I I agree. I was Yeah, I was speaking to it from the standpoint of the study but I agree with you. I think that is what it says. If you
>> are going to propose regionalization >> Yeah. >> And so what they want out of the study in our opinion is to show a full regional >> that's what they want. >> So this really doesn't apply to us until we decide I I I would say so, but again, people have made careers out of trying
to interpret legislation. >> So, >> I'm an educator. >> I think there was a question over there. >> I have a question about the end of the process. At what point do you step away? Is it the end of the final report? Um is there any implementation that you know
you you offer to us once a decision is made kind of what's the end of the process? So the uh the end of the study process is the production of a final report. That's the end of the study process.
That's that's what you've that's what the grant pays for to take us to take us through that point. Um we go a step further. We think it's important that we actually do a public presentation of that report too. So we consider that part of the study is a public presentation.
Beyond that, in terms of next steps and helping to guide the boards on any um dis further discussion and of the the the the findings and implications of of the study um
Mark Maguar as the director of the institute um feels it's part of the of the institute and the policy cent's work to provide that to districts. So he w he will stay engaged to the extent that you you want
that. Um I'm not a Rowan employee. I'm a consultant that works with them. So what I do is I go from that study on to the next study to the next. Uh would I be available to sort of advise district? Yeah. But that's not covered by this the study grant. So but but if at that point
you're you know you're really looking for guidance. Um again I'm a consultant. I do consulting work. So that's a that's a separate piece. That's a separate piece. And believe me, I don't I don't need more. But it's it's important to have districts know that it's not like
we just have to drop you and that's it. We we can continue on. But I think you have to decide and and Mark, I think, will provide that as part of the policy c center's work. >> Do we have any other questions from our board? Brian, we're we're good on our side over
here with questions. So, thank you. >> I'm good now. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you very much. >> Thanks. >> Thank you so much. >> Again, really unusual to get applause before and after, so I didn't upset
anybody too much. That's good. Have a good night, folks. Thank you. >> Thank you. Public comment is at the end. Yeah. >> So, um, we do have other agenda items. I would defer to both of the presidents. If you would like questions from the
public, uh, to Dr. agreeing. Um, to close out, I defer to the president's >> Sarah, how did you did you have any um did you want Dr. Green to stay for public comments? >> I think so. I would let
Okay. >> I think procedurally we should open up public comments now. >> Yeah. >> Go ahead. >> All right. Public comments are welcome at this time on any topic. Please state your name and address. Comments are
limited to three minutes. At three minutes, you'll be interrupted and asked to pause to allow for any other members of the public who would like to speak an opportunity to do so. An individual may return to the podium to complete their statement after everyone else has had an opportunity to speak for a total of two times at the podium. Please understand
that our public forums are not structured as a question and answer session, but are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the boards. In instances where the boards feel there is a misunderstanding or inaccuracy, the board presidents or superintendents may address the comment. In accordance with the New Jersey
statute, the boards will not discuss matters regarding specific personnel. A reminder for all parties in attendance to remain respectful and that there should be no interaction between the speaker and the audience. No members of the audience should interfere with or interrupt a speaker's comments. Thank
you in advance for your input. Okay. Hi, my name is Maria Galley. I live at uh 106 Kucas Brook Road. I am in Bedminster. I've presented this issue to the Bedminster uh board in October and I am presenting it now to Bernardsville
because this issue um is a joint issue between the two boards uh because we're in ascending and sorry because we're in ascending receiving districts. So the responsibility kind of falls on both. So the issue of inequity that I'm presenting is specifically in access to
something in in the curriculum. Funny enough, um the students that are allowed access into algebra 1 in Bedminster um are far lower than the students that are allowed access into algebra 1 by 8th
grade in Bernardville. And um this issue is not an issue of the students being less capable or less intelligent. And the data proves that con consistently just off of data and new jersey.gov, of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students in Bedminster uh met or
exceeded expectations at higher percentages than Bernardsville students. But in that same year, Bedminster allowed access to 13% of their graduating class to algebra 1, while Bernardsville had 54% were allowed
access. and math placement um not only impacts uh students uh next math class. It's it's not just a prerequisite for other math classes as you know it's a prerequisite for sciences and and many other things. And the trajectory that
Bedminster has placed these students on um does not allow for students to complete uh calculus by 12th grade which as you know is a requirement for uh many engineering many STEM. they ask students to double up and that is not a feasible
thing to do when you're entering ninth grade um to to have that pressure if you're capable earlier on. Um the the students are entering Bernardsville at sorry the students from Bedminster are entering Bernard's High School at a
disadvantage. Many parents have year after year spoken up about this to the board in Bedminster. Um and students have spoken up about this. It's it's not uncommon for for um students who are older to tell their younger siblings, "Oh my gosh, you have got to get into
this this program because you're going to have to double up and it's going to be very stressful." And a student actually wrote about this in the Crimson, I think, cafe is what it's called. Um and and we do need to align criteria because it is causing a disadvantage to our students. Our
criteria is far more stringent, far more stringent. And we consistently have anywhere from 20% to over 45% differences in the numbers of students allowed access to a core curriculum subject like math.
That's all for now. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Can all speakers be sure to please sign in when they approach the pulpit as well? Thank you. Okay. So, um based on based on um input that we got from Bedminster and um the
audience about wanting to have questions on the study, um public comments at this time should be related specifically to the study if you have questions related to the study. Okay. >> Hi. Um my name is Jen Chang. I'm in Bedminster, one Jordana Court. Um I have
uh three children uh one at the high school and the other two are in Bedminster. So I do have a question related to the study. Um and this is um you know we have overall you know positive experience at both schools but one of the challenges that we have
experienced is differences in curriculum criteria and also um curriculum placement but also classes that are available specifically in math. And um to the extent where um it has an impact
on what my children and other students are able to take. So, not talking about algebra one, but actually geometry. It's not offered in Benminster school, but it is in um on the Bernardsville side, and that has a real impact. So, my question is
one of the domains that was mentioned was about like curriculum, looking at disparities. Is is this something is a study something that would look into um how to better align the disparity in um I'm talking about the core curriculum
like math. It has a real impact on and a domino effect on the classes that they can take. And I'm seeing it with my son who's in high school, what science classes he can take, what math classes he can take. He was one of the top students in uh Benminster, but he actually had to take a summer class in
um because we found out from a high school student who graduated. Um and so we realized that he would actually be behind. So instead of doubling up, which we didn't think was great from a mental health perspective, um we actually had
to he sacrificed an entire summer. We paid for private tuition to go to an approved course and then he had to take the exit exam. and now he is in the class that he should have been in. So the question is would the study be looking at how to better align so that
there is um that to address the inequality? Uh so yes, that's that that issue is certainly something that we could look at and that would be something that wouldn't necessarily be part of our
purview in a uh a general sense of what our outline looks at. But as I I think I stated that some of the things we tend to look at are resources that are used, instructional time, benchmark assessments, some of those things that
can be aligned. If the steering committee brings to us that there's concerns about the placements of students or the courses that are offered, uh those are certainly something that we can ask about and put in the report. So I think that again these these are the kind of discussions
that can bring up to your your board members what the what are important issues to you that that can be looked at. So I think simple answer is yes we can look at that. Um if you look at some of the other studies we've done you won't necessarily see that in all the studies because perhaps for them it
wasn't an issue. But if it is an issue for uh for these districts that's certainly something that we can look into and and and put on to the report. Thank you. >> Is there any other public comment on the regionalization study specifically?
>> I'll try to make this where you can hear me. Uh Jeff Reeves, I've been on the board for a while and Scott, I'm very familiar with the regionalization study done back in 2003 or four and we've also looked at it on a board off and on and
Bill uh I mean, excuse me, Bob and I have talked about these things over over the years. What's changed in the process and the definition of regionalization and the criteria to determine whether it's effective or not?
what's changed in the last 15 20 years because it really didn't make sense 20 years ago 15 years ago what's changed that it would make sense now because just to jump ahead this is a lot of blue sky stuff he's bringing up I mean this is a broad a lot of things he can look
at but just sticking to regionalization that's what this is really about these other things are kind of like uh scope creek they're just going to go very long very far very bureaucratic but specifically what's changed in in today's environment from the state that
would make it more feasible to regionalize regionalize this time. >> So one of the things I think that has changed is the accessibility to funding to conduct this work. >> Dr. Bchel, I'm just going to interrupt for one second. I just want to be clear that that's the end of the question. So
that if Dr. Brochil is going to be it won't be a back and forth. I just wanted to make >> I I don't know. >> Well, no, no, that's that's how the public comments. It won't be a back and forth. So if you're like >> Okay, I'm with you there. Well, I >> he's he's going to answer your question. There won't be there won't be back and forth. >> It'll have to come up again, but go ahead.
>> I think the accessibility of funding has certainly changed since the 2003 study that I reviewed. I think time has changed. Um, and I think that the the local context may have changed in in
the two municipalities or the the all the municipalities that comprise Somerset Hills and and Bedminster. And I think it's incumbent upon us to engage in the due diligence. I think
it's good work and I think that um it it's worthwhile work. Um so but I'm not sure if you're asking me what is what has changed in the context of does regionalizing
create better outputs. I think that is determined through the process. And I I just want to be clear with both boards. My only skin in the game is I would like to get a better sense of the local
current context. Um that's the only that's the only impetus I have. >> Okay. >> Is there anyone else with a question regarding regionalization right now? Hi, David Anderson at 41 Riverwood
Avenue in Bedminster. I just have a request for both boards if they could please provide the studies from 20 years ago to whoever does the new study. I mean, I assume we still have those records. I know it was 20 plus years
ago. Headcount, all that stuff is probably different. And so there may be a lot of irrelevant material in there, but there may be some insight that um would be helpful. So I just ask the boards to provide those old studies and whatever you have relating to them, studies, public comments, whatever
documents you have relating to those studies, not just the studies themselves. Thank you. >> Thank you. Is there anybody else who has a question? No. Okay,
then. Um, can we just get a motion on our side to close public comment, Miss Santoro? And a second, Mr. Baker. And do you guys need to close public comment? >> Okay, thank you. Um, and I guess then we would move on to the uh referendum
discussion. Thank you. Yeah, I I just want to so both boards kind of know like where kind of like the next steps are, you know, in all this. As a lead agency, I do intend on recommending the Rowan School Regionalization Institute um for
appointment at the November meeting. Um so I want uh you know I want you all to be aware of that. I think that they're uh I think their process is sound. I think it's robust. I think it at the very minimum will provide us with uh
information that uh collectively and individually the boards uh can consider and um so that's you know that's my full intention for our November regular public meeting on the 19th. Uh at the same time, um in order to offer clarity
to uh the Somerset Hills legal council and legal team is I intend to um recommend a resolution to direct the board's legal counsel uh to work on this project specifically um just so um they
have clarity and purpose as well. Um, so I wanted um both boards to be uh aware of that. Can >> I ask a question? >> Um, don't you need agreement from Benminster as well before we go ahead and
>> do this study? >> Yeah, I'm so I I think as the lead agency, I've done, you know, a lot of the leg work on behalf of both of the boards. I uh consider the work that uh that Rowan is doing is is very very strong. I think you're going to receive
a very robust report that um dives into curriculum and personnel and operations and at the very minimum again will will avail you to information. Um the project that uh the Rowan School Regionalization
Institute will engage in is covered by the grant which is not uh the case with uh some of the other entities that that really conduct this work. Uh so uh just you to be clear on that um that's uh that is a benefit to both boards and um
I don't given the fact that I fully expect that the data that they are availed with is going to be clean data and relevant data. I consider that the recommendations and the outcomes um
will be consistent with you know what another group could arrive at. So uh certainly I can open up the floor to Bedminster if there are any extraordinary reservations um you know to uh to the Rowan
Institute. >> There is a consideration I'm sorry Jen there is a there is a consideration on the timing of the grant. Um it did take us a bit of time to identify a date for us to get together tonight. Uh so we
there is a uh particular calendar that you know we're working towards um also so >> it keeps going. I know it keeps going. Yes. >> Is yours green? Yours is green. We plan on having similar language in ours as
well. So we'll communicate more on that for November. >> And I just I would also like we closed discussion and moved on to public comment. So I just don't want procedurally us to engage in further discussion regarding um the topic because we did close that out and go
into public comments. Um so certainly I would encourage you know through the boards and our superintendent uh to be able to continue to communicate if there are additional clarifications that are needed in advance of any resolutions. Okay. Thank you.
>> Um, Mr. President, uh, this doesn't happen often, but I'm going to ask for a brief recess to use the restroom. >> Okay. >> Okay. We We can take a fivem minute recess. Thank you. >> That's what
That must terrible. >> We have a quorum. >> All right. >> We do have a quorum. Okay. >> Okay. >> Okay. We have a quum. So then we can >> Okay. >> Um I wanted um in some discussions with
Dr. Jordano, I did request an opportunity to um you know, as a courtesy to talk with the Bedminster board regarding some things that we are looking to do uh specifically at the high school through a capital improvement uh program. And uh we've
been blessed uh to have Gabby and Sarah at the table through various stages of this process over the past few years. And we've made uh a lot of progress here. And I would like to just kind of give you some broad strokes about uh what we intend to do and talk a little
bit about um you know what's what we what we would like to do rather uh at the school here. Uh so uh first and foremost there is a uh March 2026 uh referendum vote that we are asking
the residents in Far Hills and Peepac Gladstone and Bernardsville to vote on. Um as a ascending district uh I feel like it's important that you understand what the future uh does uh entail regarding Bernard's High School. Uh so
some of this uh presentation is abbreviated because uh you don't uh have a stake at Bedwell or at our middle school, but you certainly sent to the high school. So I'm going to speak um you know with that context here. Um and
certainly we we have as collective boards uh a lot in common. Uh we believe strongly in supporting students and putting them in challenging environments, putting them in academically rigorous environments um
and preparing them for college and preparing them for careers that may not even exist yet and um that is uh spoken to pretty significantly here. Uh the board here in Somerset Hills has been very open to my suggestions and
recommendations regarding uh programs and regarding professional services. And shortly after uh I arrived about a year after or so uh we did uh look at our architectural services and we did uh
come to an agreement with a new uh firm. Their name is Solutions Architecture and they um have contributed to this work. Uh so when we worked with solutions uh the goal here was to identify and prioritize what we felt we needed uh to
improve upon here at the high school. Uh so we there were some areas with our school facilities that we felt like we could make them more functional and we could um have them be reflective of um 2025 and beyond. Uh so we wanted to
improve our student experiences and we wanted to be able to identify projects that had a direct and immediate impact to the students that you all are sending to us for high school. Uh so we had an opportunity here. Uh there's a uh some
debt service that is rolling off um from our debt service budget. Uh and so we did take advantage of an opportunity uh for a netneutral tax impact for the communities of Far Hills, Peak Pack,
Gladstone, and Bernardsville. Uh so we um we we are in the middle of taking advantage of that and marketing a long range facility plan and a capital uh a capital improvement plan to the various town councils to uh various
community groups uh to you as an example and I've been out and about in the community. Uh most recently I met some of you and some folks in the audience at the Fall Fest over um over at the park there whose name escapes me. But uh it
was nice catching up and uh uh it was a great day. Um I was stationed next to the Hound Dogs uh which uh was a unique experience for me as somebody that doesn't have dogs. Um, but it was uh it was a it was a great day and a lot of
people were out there and learning a little bit about the district. Uh, so we wanted to enhance our learning environments. We wanted to focus on student and staff safety uh inside of uh the high school and we wanted to address some operational items as well. Um, and
uh we intend on having a referendum vote. Uh the current interest rates have stabilized and uh certainly uh if the communities uh that are eligible to vote um approve this then we will engage in a
bond sale. Um the the vote essentially will authorize myself and Mr. Lori to work on a bond sale and um to try to secure the lowest rate possible. Uh so we wanted to be able to um take advantage of some state aid that is
available as uh you may know in some of the uh courses that you take with with school boards etc. that state aid is available when you do go out for a bond referendum where there's some cost savings uh in our projects. Um districts
in general are able to capitalize on up to 34% of savings. Um and um so we uh you know we did propose uh a series of projects across the district to the department of education and we have heard back uh from them and we do have
approval and now the district is working very closely with its bond council to start to uh craft um ballot questions uh regarding um the election which will take place in March. So from a procedural perspective in the
summer of 24 we did a deep and broad uh examination of our facilities uh through our architecture. They did what's called a facilities audit and they met with a host of different engineers and they were able to develop 3D scans of all of our facilities including the high school
and uh we have that information and uh we were able to uh really capture kind of a strong evaluation of what our needs are. So last fall, the fall of 24 going into January, there was a deep and broad uh evaluation of the type of work uh
that we felt like we needed to prioritize. And last winter uh we were, you know, certainly preparing for uh drilling down not so much into the wants areas of things, but more so onto the needs. Um particularly as it relates to
the high school here. And um we engaged in a process with the board in March, April and May to finalize our submission to the department of education. And uh just recently within the last few days um we did receive uh positive
information from um the department of education regarding these projects and they really took a deep dive on a host of them. So, um, ultimately, uh, we examined over $75 million worth of potential projects in estimation and,
uh, arrived at a referendum value of about 38 million, which matches the, uh, amount that is essentially coming off of our debt service through uh, bonds that are in the process of being uh, paid off.
Uh we have completed projects inside of our uh specifically the high school has had a lot of work done in the last two or three years. Uh media center has been renovated um not recently but uh within the last 10 years. Uh their last two
summers we've had significant upgrades to our performing arts center. uh specifically the lighting uh one summer and the sound the second summer. Uh that was a um you know significant uh expense and now the performing arts center is uh certainly meeting and exceeding uh the
standards for student performance and for community uh community engagement as well. Uh the synthetic turf field has been replaced. Uh the running track uh around that field has been replaced. We've installed athletic lighting on that facility as well. uh the lower
fields here at uh Bernard's High School which house baseball, softball, field hockey uh and um some um some football practice in a particular area. Uh we had a significant renovation project there late last fall into the winter and we
are in the process of um a two-year uh financing um initiative for our tennis court upgrades. Uh we used to have the tennis courts here on site. Uh when we added on uh to the pack, we uh we were
able to move the tennis courts up uh by a community center up on Sceni Drive by the middle school and by Bedwell. Uh so the courts are up there, but they are our responsibility to maintain and they have not been uh maintained in some time
and they are in need of a full uh renovation. though we have exceeded uh the life of the tennis courts and I see Sarah nodding as the mother of a tennis player. Um she can attest that um the
cracks in the in in the in the pavement there are pretty significant. Uh so we've done a lot of this work through our uh district budget over the past few years. they are not included in the referendum, but we did I just wanted to point that out that we have been trying
to do a project or two a summer. Um but um as you all know from a budgeting perspective, it's only it can only get you so far. So again, we have uh project categories in the arts uh in overall learning and in wellness uh student safety and in
operations. And we had some priorities here uh particularly at the high school. We wanted to see uh full upgrades to our science labs, chemistry, biology, uh physics. Uh we wanted to modernize our
science, technology, and engineering labs, our STEM labs, and our our industrial technology classroom spaces. Uh we currently have an in-house um self-contained special education program here that is successful. We're looking
to merge a uh culinary arts program into some of that spacing that will be eligible for all of our students here. Uh so inside of the programs that we're looking to include at the high school, you will see a college a career and
technical education component uh to them. Uh and that was a uh a priority here. Again, starting with the end in mind, our goal is to prepare kids for careers that may not exist yet. Um, we also have um visual arts renovations and
we wanted to capitalize on um a growing trend here at the high school where kids are um really doing more than dabbling doing some some beautiful work in the area of podcasting and in TV broadcasting etc. And we wanted to
renovate those spaces uh as well. So that those were goals of ours. From a safety perspective, uh the referendum includes upgrades in our camera systems, in our notification systems, our lockdown systems. Uh it includes
ballistic window film on all first floor classrooms. Um it addresses some sections of roofing, not the entire roof, but some sections that um are failing and are in uh you know beyond their their life cycle. Uh if I'm not
sure the last time some of you have been in our lower gym, but those are original bleachers, uh Miss Stevenson, and we're going to uh bring on um some new bleachers there. Uh and frankly, we need to they're they're not compliant with um
ADA regulations. It's a bit of a crapshoot when you walk up and down those those things as far as what you're holding on to. Uh so you know from a safety and security perspective um there were some priorities here. Uh we do have uh some mockups of current science
classrooms and some flexible spaces uh inside of some new and and reimagined classrooms. Uh some of the classrooms that we are mocking up have um furnishings that's more flexible. It's not fixed. uh changeable layouts have a
greater ability to uh be responsive to the curriculum and to uh be supportive of the curriculum. So uh across our science programming uh we're looking to have a u a refresh on all of our science labs. Um
you'll see much of the same in art and 2D art classrooms. Uh they are essentially in original classrooms. Uh I would I would not say that those rooms are efficient at this point and uh they are going to be renovated into new
technology robotics and manufacturing labs. Um so supply chain management um and manufacturing is uh you know a curriculum area that we're looking to enhance and bring on here. Um and um you know we we expect that to be very
successful. Um existing art classrooms will um you know again be reimagined and the art classrooms will be um relocated and and renovated as well. Um existing technology and robotics labs uh we're also we're going to use them um for art
labs and um manufacturing will move to some old uh art rooms. And here's some some mockups of what we expect our art classrooms to look like. And again, you see a theme here of flexible furnishings, changeable layouts, and
with greater um greater support for curriculum. This is our current STARS program. Uh it is going to be modified to contain the same amount of uh stations inside of our self-contained program. That's not going
away. uh the footprint uh due to student enrollment and projected enrollment is going to decrease a little bit and we're going to institute uh culinary arts in that space. Right now the the the physical plant there for the stars program is significant. Uh we can capture the same outputs in in a
different footprint while um prioritizing uh career and technical education through culinary arts. And uh that's just uh some of the workups here. Uh so in summary, the the high school
will receive um some renovations to our STARS program, uh culinary arts lab renovations, uh multiple science lab renovations, TV broadcasting studio renovations, uh roof system replacements, u partial roofs, uh
upgrades and safety and security uh around and uh some increased branding um around the building. So from a costing perspective, uh just looking at the high school alone, the total project cost is
21,962,755. Uh we're are projecting debt service aid for that. Uh so the total high school cost is just under uh 14.5 million. Um we do receive again debt service aid
there. Um from a perspective of what does this mean for um the board in Bedminster? Um because it it means something different for the board here in comparison to a family in
Far Hills. Um so we have over the course of a bond, you're looking at a 20-year bond. Um and uh we are you know we looked at the total interest on the bond and uh we prrated that interest on the bond for the referendum portion of the
projects. Um right now we're looking at about you know in in calculations of 58% uh portion. Um we're expecting uh state aid to be around 30 or so percent. Uh we're still kind of finalizing things
with our financial advisors over the course of the 20-year note. Uh it it's looking at an obligation of $2.1 million additional dollars uh for Bedminster. And that will start as high as an
additional $188,000 in the first year of the note and then as you work through it and as you pay it off it'll decrease all the way down uh to about $10,000 in the last year. So, you pay your most in that first year of
the note and then as you work through it, um it uh it decreases over time as you pay the bond down. Um yes,
>> I'm not a finance person. >> Is this the one that works? That's I'm not a finance person. So, just before you go on, I just wanted you to clarify. So, what you're explaining is $188,000 will be have to be added to the Bedminster budget to pay Somerset Hills.
That's separate apart from our regular tuition for the first year and then going down and then the 20th year it'll be roughly 10,000. Is that what I'm Am I understanding that correctly? >> You are. If the question passes, >> right? I understand that. Assuming it all assumes it passes. Okay. So, we
would pay our regular tuition of X per student. >> Correct. >> Plus 188,000 >> just in the first year. >> Okay. No, no, no. And I understand that numbers subject should change and it's not an exact I just >> Yeah, >> like I said, not a numbers person. So, I just wanted to make sure I understood. >> Thank you.
>> It would >> and that wouldn't in would that be also >> the per pupil student is going to also increase or I know that increases every year. Yeah, there was a huge increase this past year and we're expecting that to happen again for the next couple of
years while everything gets caught up. Um, so I'm just wondering if we have an idea of if it's going to be on both again and and to what to what level because this is very hard to budget. >> It is. So I can speak to the enhancements to the overall program or
to the capital program here certainly do have a financial impact as a district that sends to us. Um, so it starts at 188, you know, and I'm kind of using round numbers here. And that would be in
addition, you know, to that. And as you we work through the bond, you'll see uh decreases that are significant. Um I I I guess um I'm I'm on Sarah's page
here in the sense that you must have looked at the overall expected increase per student for Bedminster students. And it sounds like 188 the first year is a good round number talking about the referendum if it
should pass. But that probably doesn't cover the entire uh burden that you're aware of because when we look at the most recent surprise that was two years in a rears. >> So can you make a little bit of a statement about how they're related or
what other what other information we will see forthcoming? >> Sure. Yeah, we can send along a 20-year projection, you know, for for the boards to consider. You know, we'll we'll send that to uh to LA and to Jen. Um, awesome. >> And that'll give you an opportunity to
kind of see it live and kind of plan it out. >> Um, for sure. >> Um, also not a numbers person. So the 188,000 that would be the upfront hit, is that equal to both boards?
>> Uh, so there's a so short answer is no. Okay. because um the residents in Bed in um Bernardville, Far Hills and Peepac Gladstone
um they they don't they're not a sending district to us. They're part of this district, right? So we were we have a debt service budget in the district. um we have debt rolling off for those residents and we are replacing it with
new debt that will not have a tax increase for those residents. Okay, so this is a nuance of a send receive relationship that's different than if you're, you know, a full-fledged
member. And it wasn't my full intention to have both conversations tonight, but you know, Jen thought it would be best um rather than separate them out. But um it would be a that's a difference between being a resident of Bedminster
and as an example, a resident of Far Hills. >> Okay. >> And there's at this point there's nothing I can do about that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes. I'm so sorry because I know everyone else wants to call home. Um just for the stars program, do we do
Somerset Hills use that as um and I hate to say this, but revenue generating like from everything I've heard about the program, it's really fabulous. Other districts are always looking where can I place this student that needs additional support in a high school environment, but maybe doesn't need to be like in a a completely out of district placement. So
would be in a a school type of environment, but with certain services. do other districts send to Bernard's High School for that program? And if not, is that something that Somerset Hills has ever explored to, you know, for two reasons, because it would be a
great thing maybe for other kids. And also, I know from discussions 20 years ago at Bedminster, it can be revenue generating for a district. >> Yeah, it can turn into an enterprise fund for the school districts for sure as far as incoming tuition uh to offset other costs. Um to be fair, we have not
taken an aggressive approach at recruiting in other districts. Uh it is, you know, in in my radar there. Um but it is we agree on the fact that it is a beautiful program and kids have great opportunities there and certainly uh
we'd like to see more kids. Um so >> I was just wondering as you're as you're reimagining that space as part of this, is would that be something that should or is being considered to Can I just ask a question? So if any revenue was generated from that, wouldn't that be put back into the stars
program? >> Yes. The the issue there's no revenue revenue revenue >> currently. Right. But I'm saying if you're looking future of the question, wouldn't that revenue I mean and this is a whole different conversation very complex I would imagine. Um but I just
would I would think that that revenue would have to go back into the special education program specifically. Well, it gets into the weeds of financing and budgeting um depending on if we set up like an enterprise fund as an example. So, um, you know, probably a
conversation for for committee, but, um, but yes, >> to to I also, Susie, if I'm reading your question right a little bit here, is in the renovation, would we still be able to accommodate? >> Right. Like in the renovation, is that something that should be being considered to say, hey, maybe we do want
to mark, and again, I'm speaking for you guys, so I apologize for speaking for you. >> No, no, the question is relevant. Are you considering that that's an expansion that maybe should be considered as opposed to >> as a as an offset for this program when you're renovating? Is is the thought of bringing in other kids being part of the
consideration during the renovation? I think is what I'm trying to ask. >> Yeah, we can grow the program and do the renovations at the same time. >> Awesome. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Um, do you also have a timeline of
expenditures that could be shared? >> Can you clarify your question, please? You don't have a capital outlay that's broken out into years. You have it all as lump sums. >> So, we bond for a particular amount of money. Um, and then we start paying the
bond down. Um, as far as when and how we bid jobs out, we'll be very specific. So, like as an example, if we're going out for 38 million, um, you take on the full you take on the responsibility for the full 38 at the at the start and then
and then you encumber it in different projects. This is a uh multipleyear initiative. Um what we're looking to do isn't like building a school or a wing where we can just like shut things down and have a crew working like during the
day. Um so this would be a lot of summer work. This would be a lot of like holiday work. Um it's not immediate. So when you go out and have an election and bond for and and conduct a bond sale, you're bringing it all on and you're taking on that responsibility whether
you're al whether you're encumbering it right away or not. I don't know if that answers your question. >> Um >> that answers my question about the the finance. Um one of the things that would be helpful would be to see your
tentative schedule of works. So, couple of things there. Uh, I'll lead with I agree with you. It's it's a discussion I've had with the architects. Some complicating factors here. Uh, first complicating factor is that we go out to
a vote in March of 26. Um, we then conduct a bond sale. We then go through um some procedural mechanisms there. uh the best time to really go out to bid and go out to the street is when uh really December, January, February is
when the contractors are lining their work up for the summer. So, I'm unclear on what like the summer of 26 looks like at this very moment. Um but um you know, I will certainly be in close contact uh
with Jen on timing and certainly my board too because they don't they haven't been apprised of that either. So, we're we're kind of developing that that workflow, but the sticky wicket here is the March vote and when we would typically go out uh to bid on particular
jobs. >> Thanks. >> Yep. >> Thank you, Brian. >> So, um we do have uh some public presentations set up November, uh December, January. uh if you would like
me to uh meet with your particular smaller groups inside of Bedminster, your your HSA groups or some some local municipal groups, I'm I'm more than happy to do that. Um I I have spent some time with Mayor Jacobs and and kind of
given him um a walk through here and um you know and he in turn has uh spoken with the council. So, but just wanted to thank you for your time there. Thank you. >> Thank you. Oh dear. Um
before we adjourn, Mr. Lori, I just since we limited our first public comment section to a specific topic, um we do need to add a second public comment section on any agenda item. So, um I am just going to read that the
second public comment section would be um on any topic, not just specific to um the regionalization or referendum. So, uh again, public comments are welcome at this time on any topic. Please state your name and address. Comments are
limited to three minutes. At three minutes, you will be interrupted and asked to pause to allow any other members of the public who would like to speak an opportunity to do so. An individual may return to the podium to complete their statement after everyone else has had an opportunity to speak for a total of two times at the podium. Please understand that our public forums
are not structured as question and answer sessions, but are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the boards. In instances where the boards feel there is a misunderstanding or inaccuracy, the board presidents or superintendants may address the comment. In accordance with New Jersey statute, the boards will not discuss matters regarding specific personnel. A reminder
for all parties in attendance to remain respectful and that there should be no interaction between the speaker and the audience. No members of the audience should interfere with or interrupt a speaker's comments. Thank you in advance for your input. And um Mr. Lori does have a timer back there for three minutes that will go off at the three minute mark. So if anyone has a comment
on anything at all for the boards, now would be the time to do that. Nope. Okay. Then can I get a motion to close public comment, Miss Santoro? and a second, Miss Hoppy. Thank you. >> Okay. Um I'm not exactly sure how to
answer. >> I think we just closed public. >> We just closed public comment. Okay. Thank you. Um and do you guys want to close out public comment or do you >> You're good. Okay. Okay. Well, then in that case, we are going to make um I'm going to ask for a
motion from Bedminster to adjurnn. Okay. And for Somerset Hills, a motion to adjurnn, Mr. Baker, and a second. Miss Ry, all in favor? >> Yes. >> I Okay. Thank you very much, everybody. Have a great night. Thank