Good evening everybody. I'd like to call our meeting to order. Our April 29th meeting. Uh please rise for the flag salute. 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. Mr. Boyce, you do a roll, please. Yes. Mrs. Van Horn, here. Mr. Sergiel, present, sir. Mr. Jass, here. Mr. Carlson is absent. Mrs. Sherwin here. Mrs. Kra here. Mrs. Dale here. Mr. Kimick here. Mr. Garcia here. Mrs. Shaw
is absent. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Boyce. Public notice. Adequate notice of this meeting in compliance with chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 entitled the open public meetings act has been provided by action of the board of education at its regular meeting on January 7, 2025.
Notices that the corer news and star ledger circulated in the school district and a post-it notice effect on the board of education website and building bolder board administrative headquarters 51 West Cliff Street Somerville, New Jersey. Okay, we are going to go right into our
student board representative report. And your mic is on. Now it is awesome job. I got a hook to that so you don't got to worry. Thank you. You're welcome. I never worry about you. Um, I would first like to congratulate our two jazz ensembles on their
performance at regionals this weekend. The Vil harmonic Jazz Band received a silver rating while the Vil Big Band received a gold rating and best trumpet section. And also huge congratulations to our indoor percussion ensemble with the first place finish at the regional championships. This marks the first year
that the ensemble has won both a state and regional championships in the same season. So that's really cool. Uh this Friday we're having the night of jazz at 700 p.m. It's this fabulous evening of musical entertainment and features performances by the SHs Jazz Ensemble
and the chamber choir. Uh the senior trip is coming up June 2nd. Um the cost of trip is $75 and the last day to register for that is tomorrow. Um the Wags for Wellness Club is hosting a walk-athon on May 30th from 2:30 to 4:00 at the Sorville High School
track. Join us as we walk to support animals and shelters. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the track on the day of. T-shirts are available for order by scanning the QR code or going to the school website and the deadline for all orders is May 1st. All proceeds will benefit our local animal shelter and
other rescue centers. Um, there's still time to buy your books. They are $105 and you can purchase them from the school website or straight from Justins. And lastly, invitations for the 47th annual honors award ceremony has been sent to all qualifying students via email. Please check your school email
and count for your invitation and RSVP as soon as possible. That's it. That's it. Great. Yeah. May May is going to be an exciting month. Don't you worry. That was a phenomenal report. Thank you. Great. Yes. Glad you're here. We missed you last meeting. So, good job. Yes.
Good. All right. You're excused. Get out of here, kid. Thank you. All right. Congratulations today. Thank you. Okay. Um, so just for members of the public, just so people are aware of the structure of this meeting, we are doing
two executive sessions tonight. So, our first executive session will begin in just a moment when Mr. Just does our motion. Then we we anticipate that that will run at least a half an hour. So, we expect to be out of executive session around 6:35 or 6:40. At that point, we'll we'll take care of the rest of our
public portion of the meeting and then we have a second executive session at the end of the meeting. So, I just want people to be aware of that. Uh we tried to advertise that as carefully as we could on the agenda itself, but um you know, it's really nice out. So, it's an opportunity if people want to go for a quick walk, you can do that. and we hope you come back when when we're back out
of executive session. So, that being said, Mr. Jess, can you do a motion? Yeah. Can I have a motion to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing pending or anticipated litigation and also personnel employment matters affecting a specific prospective or current employee? So, moved. Second, sir.
M Sherwin is a second. Mr. Just the first. You're good. Okay. Um, all in favor? I. All opposed? Extensions. Okay, we are in executive session at 606. Thank you everybody.
Okay, Mr. Jess, can you make a motion, please? You like to make a motion to return to public session? We have a second. Mr. Sil second. All in favor? Opposed? Okay, we have uh returned to public session at uh 656. So again, thank you everybody for
your patience. That went a little longer than we thought. Um but again, we appreciate people um being here. So the next portion of our agenda is going to be the public hearing on the 2526 budget. Um so I'm going to turn it over to our administrators and uh take it away.
[Music] Ready, sir? All right. Thank you all for your patience. This will be Brian and I, our first budget presented. Very excited to do so. Great working with such a veteran like Brian um who knows the district inside and out. With that said, this was
also his most challenging uh budget admittedly uh because of a lot of the changes that happened on the um the structural side of it from the state. A lot of that will be detailed by Brian in a second. So I don't want to be repetitive in that nature, but do understand uh that this was a very
deliberate process in which uh we looked uh at everything. no stone was left unturned as we wanted to make sure that we were still going to provide high quality education for our students while factoring in some significant challenges fiscally uh from the state aid portion
of it. Um, so with that said, um, I think it's important that everybody knows that, uh, you know, we work collaboratively with all our administration. Uh, we're collaborative with our staff. Um, and, uh, there were many, many different versions and iterations of this to finally get to a point, uh, that we think we're going to,
uh, you know, be providing the the best opportunities educationally for our students, uh, while still representing and reflecting, uh, the limitations we have, um, you know, in terms of state aid. So, um, in in a moment, I'm going to turn it over. There's going to be a lot of numbers shared uh with you from
Brian. Um so uh I'll circle back when it's time to talk about curriculum instruction and some of the building projects we have going on. Brian, thank you Jr. Everyone can see on the screen there is our presentation overview. Um this is something that I
think J.R. just touched on briefly, but these are the the the mission that uh we were guided by and also the key goals as he drilled down into uh what was in need of attention here in the district. So, we set those goals at the beginning of
the budget process and were guided by them throughout. Go back one second. And these were made collaboratively not only with our administrators but with uh our board committee. Uh it was really important that we took a look at our struggling students and our EOL. Everyone's very familiar with our curriculum audit and the focus uh that
we're taking in each and every decision we make to make sure that those learners get the uh support that they need and that will continue obviously uh going forward. Uh so that was a a big you know component of us building this budget out. Uh second uh enhancing curriculum and datadriven professional development.
We need to get our teachers uh the training they need and the support they need and that uh is a huge factor in building out this budget. Um strengthening our data systems has been a focus uh since I came on. Again, many of the points in our curriculum ought to focus on building the back end of that
so that we can properly uh manage and uh you know take a look at how we're doing um with our different processes, our different structures and supports for our students and making sure that they are effective and doing what it is that they're intended to do. Um uh we want to align our resources with standards and
student needs. We want to meet our students where they are, get them the help they need where they are, and then help them and hold those high expectations to get them where they need to be, and we want to maintain technology, facilities, security, and fiscal stability. Those are all things we're going to go into more detail on,
and Brian will touch on quite a bit when he talks about the numbers. Brian, thank you, J.R. I'm going to jump right into revenues. Hopefully, everybody can see that. I'm going to begin with the top line, the local tax le tax. That is the number that the state caps at a 2% increase unless you meet certain
criteria for a few exceptions. In our case, we did meet the criteria for one exception, and that's for enrollment growth. The state just automatically granted us the ability to exceed the 2% increase by an amount of
295,254 because of their projection of our enrollment for next year. So, the district did take advantage of that. In addition to that, we used $12,14 of bank cap. We still have $400,000 of bank cap remaining. That's
the ability for us to raise the tax levy beyond what we've done here, but did not do it. It it's in existence and it's there for us for the next two years. Next is state aid. Three categories. Equalization aid. That's the only line that I'm going to talk about in a in a
separate slide. It's noteworthy because as you can see it dropped. It's a reduction and it's it's not only reduction. It's a reduction by a large amount. It's also a new thing for us to see this and at this point there's no reason for us to believe that that trend
of a reduction of equalization aid will end. But we'll get into that in the next slide. Categorical aids is is an is a a group of aids, transportation aids, special education aid, security aid based on census. Extraordinary aid is
another aid that's given to districts for individual special education students who exceed a certain dollar amount in terms of the cost to educate those kids. Um the next line item is Branchburg Board of Education tuition. Um that is the amount that Branchburg
pays Somerville to educate its grades 9 through 12 uh students. It includes resource room. It includes tuition adjustments too. And just so everybody um knows interesting, we always like to take a look at the split between Branchburg and Somerville at the high school because that's how we share
expenses. So this year we projected Branchburg share to be at 53.72%. As it turns out, it's right around 54%. So very close in that projection. Next year we predicted to go down to
53.46%. Not much of a reduction actually. So fairly level there. Next line is uh fund balance tuition reserve release. The district relies on $ 1.5 million to pay for current expense. Current expense is another word for
operating expenditure. So we rely on 1.5 million. We can we feel we can reasonably expect to generate that much of fund balance every year. So to rely on it is structurally correct. There's also in that line is a tuition reserve release.
Tuition reserve is a reserve for districts to keep uh to pay off uh to pay tuition adjustments. It's it's required to be released uh every two years. So that's also included in that line. We have a withdrawal from capital reserve. Capital reserve is a savings
account for us to pay for capital projects. So in this case we have 750,000 for next year that we're using to pay for a capital project. Uh that's a reduction because in this year we withdrew quite a bit from our capital
reserve account to pay for all the broad grant projects that we received. Um moving down to special revenue fund. As you can see that's a that's a decrease worth mentioning. The reason for that decrease is that the last piece of the COVID grants in
2425 have now expired. They don't exist anymore for 2526. And the other reason is that the department of ed is guiding uh local school districts to only assume 70% of federal entitlement grants for us title one and
IDA primarily. Um normally we're guided to assume 85%. Now we're being told to assume 70% because of all the changes going on at the federal level level. We don't know what those grant amounts are right now. Historically we find out in
the summer so we'll see. But we feel we hope we're conservative with a 70% assumption of those federal grants. Moving on to debt service fund. We have a debt state that we get for the 1998 referendum. Still uh debt service fund balance a small amount and the local tax
levy you see for the debt service fund has increased. That is due to the March of 2025 uh referendum passing. This is going back to the equalization aid. And I want to just go back. This is the aid that dropped as you can see there
569,000. So it's worth talking about in a separate slide. Very quick high level how equalization aid is calculated. Student profile the number of kids we have whether they're at elementary, middle, high school, lowincome students, special education students, limited
English proficient students. All those students are gathered together, the counts of all those students, and they're pushed through a cost model where they assign a dollar amount to each one of those students. It results in something called adequacy budget. That's a dollar amount by the state's
definition is what the state is what the school district needs to provide a thorough efficient education for all those students that they project being here. Once they arrive at that amount of money, they then take a look and calculate a local fair share. That is
what the state expects the local community to pay of that adequacy budget, their portion of the adequacy budget. They determine the local fair share based on their assessment of wealth. They take a look at metrics of
their own, determine essentially how wealthy the community is, how much they think the district can afford in a local property taxes, and then once they make that determination, they will pick up the rest in the form of equalization aid. Some districts don't get any
equalization aid, and some districts get a lot more than us. So, if we apply numbers to that, and I'm hoping everyone can see that. First line is 2425 adequacy budget 30.6 million. You see the local fair share equalization aid
ends up being 7.7 million we'll call it. Look what happens in 2526. Our adequacy budget goes up 12.4%. Which should be good news for us for equalization aid. However, because our local fair share was up over 20%,
the state feels that we're entitled to far less equalization. Now, the state ended up paying us 7.123 million, not the 6.7 million you see there, because they capped the amount of state aid districts lost by
3%. So, luckily, that mechanism was in place. However, it's important to notice this trend because this is what J.R. and I are looking at in terms of what we're going to encounter in future because we our demographer projects our student
enrollment to go down which would bring down our adequacy budget and if our local fair share still climbs at that rate we're or anywhere close to it our equalization aid is going to drop even further and remember they didn't even take all the equalization aid from us
that the state school funding formula calculated so just a quick comment on that last seven years we are on the good side of things as the state fully funded the formula this year because of the reasons Brian just stated uh things uh you know
tightened up a bit and we anticipate that happening. And the reason I bring that up is we had to make decisions not only with an I am this year but understanding that this is not necessarily going to be something that we can kick the can on and we have to be cognizant of that when making uh decisions not easy. Um and certainly um
and unfortunately it may continue. One more point on this. The local fair share for 2526. The district for its 2526 budget is going to be $1.583 million under the local fair share. So we are not taxing up to the
point that the state feels we should. Okay. Appropriations. I'm going to run through this fairly quickly because JR is going to talk about some of the substance. Those are the individual line items. Most of them are self-explanatory. regular ed teacher
supplies, special ed teacher supplies, out of district placements. The rest of them is fairly uh self-explanatory. The one takeaway from this that's important is current expense is synonymous with operating budget. Those two columns up to the current expense point is
comparable. And if you notice that increase was limited to 2.4%. That was one of the challenges we had is to keep that current expense increase low in light of the fact that we got less state aid. That includes salary increases,
employee benefit increases, transportation, energy. So, a lot that we had to work on to get that increase down that low. Capital projects is the capital projects that JR is going to touch on in the next slide. and uh down to the special revenue fund. You'll see
that that off that's an offset to the revenue. Same thing there. Less less grants by the way there is of those grants 7 and where is it about almost $800,000 of the grants is non-public
grants. They are for the non-public districts. They flow through us and we just simply uh pay for the items that they want with those grants. And then you have your debt service fund again which you see the increase again attributable to the passing of the uh 2005
referendum. Jr. Thank you. So as I said in the beginning the curriculum audit was our beacon our guide uh for making sure that we are getting our students the uh you know the support and the structure they need. With that said uh priorities uh that we had to set um we want to align with standards. We want to
use data driven instruction and targeted PD. um that is going to continue and will always be our focus as we try to get our students where they need to be on grade level. With that said, um some key initiatives was updating our ESL structure, our ESL supports or ESL
training. Um wellness uh arts labs, which I'll talk about in a moment. Um you know, forming literacy committees to take a look at our practices there. um continuing uh with NGSS are uh well there's there's a whole lot of letters here but just basically saying we're going to make sure that we're in line uh
with what the state requires and making sure that we're updating things in a timely fashion. With that said, as we stated there were shortfalls in terms of the aid we received. So what we really had to look for were efficiencies. We do have some reductions in the number of
students. We do have some other adjustments that we were able to make and as a result of that stage reduction and rising costs, we were able to look at attrition, reorganization, and efficiencies uh to make up some of those dollars. Again, that's for this year. Um we again have to look on a year-to-year
basis to make sure our students are getting what they need and to make sure that we're supporting them in those needs. And with that said and with all these challenges, we still made intervention support at all three schools a primary focus. Finding much uh more support and need for them through
scheduling um efficiencies. As I mentioned, what I mean by efficiencies is finding ways to get students more support with the staffing that we have. Um math and ELA labs at the high school to support learners um again where they are, especially the ones that are grade
levels below. and then summer and after school opportunities to enhance learning. So these are just some of the many uh ways that we are looking to support our students right now even with some of these shortcomings fiscally. Uh at the same time there are
improvements that our facilities need and that uh were um properly budgeted for by Brian and prepared uh for and supported by the the board of education. One is the next phase of the HVAC that was in conjunction with a rod grant. Uh a new burglar alarm system because the
current one needs updating. It was significantly out of date. We can say the same thing about our intercom bell system. Last year we had done much of the work inhouse at the middle school to get that one up to date. We're doing the same thing at Vandervir trying to maximize our own staff to minimize the
cost the best we can but it is a system that's long overdue and is outdated and needing that work. Um, we have a ramp at the high school, you know, on your way to the field if you've ever noticed that. Uh, we did have an engineer identify some needs that need to be addressed immediately so it doesn't
become structurally unsound. Um, district-wide security cameras were one of the first things we looked at when I came on with our technology team. And as you all know, uh, for me, safety security is a primary, uh, you know, and absolute necessity for our staff,
students, um, and community. And so we identified some needs there and this is going to get an update that really needs to be done now so that we can be on the cutting edge of making sure we have that safety protocols and safety equipment necessary to keep everybody um protected. And last but not least, uh
Vandervir playground replacement. We're very excited. I'm glad we have some visitors that are here as well that we've talked to about this. Um, and this is uh also going to be supported by a grant which u you know Brian's department has done a great job in seeking and obtaining on a regular basis
to cut costs for our taxpayer. But this one's going to be ADA compliant and going to give our students at Vandervir a much needed update on the playgrounds. Thank you. Thank you. Two more
slides. Uh very quickly, debt service. Uh blue lines represent existing debt service, green lines represent the new debt service timed. As you can see the way we did it as debt was falling off. The uh the higher green bars in the
earlier years represent an accelerated principal reduction that will ultimately ease taxpayer burden. As that principal is progressively paid down, it's going to result in less interest paid over the life of the bonds and then we end with property tax
impact. So you can see um remember now property tax is calculated we convert to a calendar year and then we add ratables to the equation. So we did get a slight increase in ratables 0.12%. Um you see the uh the new tax rate would be
2.388 average residential property value at this point. Remember now this is assessed not market value. It's 276,200. And you see what the average school tax would be on a comparative basis next uh 2024. That's
$218. Little bit more than we're accustomed to seeing for schools, but that's the result of the 2005 reference coming on board. Any questions? I want to thank you, Brian and J.R. Oh, I I just had a quick question. I know that and I promise it's quick. Um I
had written it down here, but I know that you stated that it's capped at 3% what they can, you know, the reduction CE and that that's every year. So, no, that was the first time we saw that this year. Correct. Um, say that again though in a different
way. This 3% cap on the loss of state aid, we saw that for the first time this year. The formula has, you know, changed over the years and there are certain mechanisms for other districts that were losing state aid to perhaps cap that.
But for this kind of blanket 3% cap on the loss of state aid, we haven't seen that yet and we cannot guarantee that it'll be there next year. Thank you. That's my question. Thank you. You can tell it is a year-to-year basis. Um, so if we look at the last seven years where I said we were on the good side of
things, there were schools particularly in Lington and Ocean County that were not. And what often happened was legislation passed afterward to give them some money. But that's after budgets were passed. That's after maneuvering was done to get under the you know their their necessary cap. Um this year what was done was this 3% cap.
Okay. And that may not exist every year. Okay. That's that's what I was trying to understand. That's why we're looking very closely at equalization because we stand to lose a lot with $7 million, right? And you know, we don't know what they're going to do going forward. It's a bud. It's a it's a election year too.
So that's another thing. We don't know. Maybe the school funding for will change this time next year, but right now based on what we know, you know, we're concerned the direction of equalization. Sure. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. As um obviously budget was really tight,
really difficult with all those material changes. Just to emphasize or underline the point, there's no reduction in staffing, reduction in after school activities, reduction in some of the things that we're used to. Is that accurate?
Correct. Our programming and what we're servicing is not going to change. There is some attrition that occurred. Sure. Um Okay. So, it's like maybe not backfilling some of the from the attrition, but you're not materially reducing or cutting anything as we've seen in other school districts. We've
seen that happen in New Jersey. Correct. That was the primary focus and why it took about I can't tell you how many iterations. It's a lot of work. I appreciate that as we just went through the district. So, I just wanted to make sure I understood it but also underline the point that that was the case. So, that's great. Well done. Thank you. All right, Brian. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay. Um at this time, we're moving on to public comment. So, at this time, comment is invited on the public hearing of the 2526 budget, agenda items, non-aggenda items, or any matter related to the school district. When permitted, public participation shall be governed
by the following rules under bylaw 0167. Public participation shall be governed by the following rules. One, a participant must be recognized by the presiding officer, me, and must preface comments by an announcement of his or her name, municipality, or residence, and group affiliation if applicable.
Each statement made by the participants shall be limited to three minutes duration with a total amount of 30 minutes for the session. No participant may speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard. All statements, questions, and inquiries shall be directed to the presiding
officer and any questions or inquiries directed by a participant to a board member shall be redirected to the presiding officer who shall determine if such statement, question or inquiry shall be addressed by the presiding officer on behalf of the board or by the individual board member. The presiding
officer may interrupt, warn, or terminate a participant's statements, question or inquiry when it's too lengthy. Interrupt or warn a participant when a statement question or inquiry is abusive, obscene, or may be defamatory. Request any person to lead the meeting when the person does not observe
reasonable decorum. request that the assistance of law enforcement officers in the removal of a disorderly person and when that person prevents or disrupts a meeting with an act that obstructs or interferes with a meeting call for a recess or an adjournment to another time when a lack of public
decorum interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting and wave these rules when necessary for the protection of privacy or to maintain an orderly operation of the board meeting. So, with that being said,
um would any members of the public like to make comments? And if you do, please go up to the mic and just state your uh name and your address, please. Good evening. I'm Tanya McDonald. Um Austin Hill Road, Clinton Township, New Jersey. Hi, I'm Marian Altadana. I'm at
69 Culver Street in Somerville. Megan Britain, 37 Southside Somerville. So, we are here tonight just to give you a little synopsis of a group that you may have heard of called CPAG, which stands for Special Education Parent Advisory Group. This is a collaboration
that takes place between um parents of students with disabilities and the district. And our goal is really to look at trends, needs, strengths, and work collaboratively to make sure that we're providing the best and most appropriate program possible for our special education students. Um, which also
includes our 504 students um as they also present with disabilities. So, they're going to talk a little bit about um some of the amazing things that CPAC has been involved in and then I'm going to just wrap up very quickly with some of the professional um not professional, sorry, the parent workshops that we've done to help um support our parents of
students with disabilities. Thank you, Dr. McDonald, and thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to speak and introduce ourselves. Um, that's what this is all about. We wanted to come here tonight just to formally introduce the Somerville Special Education Parent Advisory Group. Um, Dr. McDonald will talk a little bit more
about the workshops and things like that that we do, but um, largely we just wanted to share that we're an organization, a parentled organization within the district, um, serving students and families who are receiving special services. What we typically do is we host parent input meetings. So we
kind of get together with parents whose children are receiving special services and we collect any and all input and feedback, positive, negative, neutral. Um and Megan and I kind of put it together and we meet with the school district um sometimes three times a
year. This year it was twice a year to kind of relay that feedback. Um we were talking a little bit earlier about data driven. So, a lot of what we're trying to do also is, you know, secure feedback via surveys for those who parents who can't attend in person our meetings or
our virtual um, you know, opportunities for comment. Um, they can kind of submit feedback virtually via survey and then Megan and I kind of present that data to the school district um in the hopes of improving obviously and implementing any systemic change that could benefit um,
the community. Some of the other things that we do is partner with PTO. Um just again kind of offering that special education lens to see if there's opportunities and there's events that may be happening um within the school and then how we can make them sensory friendly or kind of accommodate some of
our special education students. Um so for example what we have done is you know a sensory friendly trunk retreat. We do a sensory friendly holiday shop. Um, and then some other, you know, events that we host as well is kind of like a friendship day, which is an opportunity for students and families
and staff to kind of get together um, and just get to know each other and ask questions. Um, and that's kind of anything. I think that's pretty much And yeah, Dr. McDonald will talk a little bit about parent workshops. Um, you know, that that we host. So a a big
piece um what we love about the collaboration is that we have numerous people within the district and from outside the district that have expertise in specific areas related to supporting students with disabilities both within the school, the home and the community setting. Um this year thus far we have done three parent workshops. The first
of which special ed is its own little animal. It's very difficult sometimes to understand or to um or or to really feel comfortable with accessing services for students whether it be through general education or special education. So the first workshop that we do is a collaboration with some of the CST
members, the child study team members, which really talks about um understanding eligibility. What are the different umbrellas under which students can receive services, whether it's within GenEd through the intervention and referral services committee, whether it's more of a 504 student who has a disability but really needs just
accommodations to access the curriculum versus somebody who would fall under IDA, which is actual special education and related services who really need more specific modifications to the curriculum. The second workshop that we did was understanding behavior. We have a lot of parents that just wanted some
information regarding how to understand the functional aspect of behavior so that they can make sure that they're intervening both before and after a behavior happens so that um we can really work to help children develop more positive and pro-social coping skills um emotion regulation those types
of of issues. The um other workshop that we had was um a woman actually in district that has her own disability and kind of talked about her experience going through the school system and now as a as a grown adult functioning at at quite high capacity. So that um just you know a positive lens for just because
you may have a disability does not mean that you cannot be a very happy healthy and functional individual. Um and a shout out to the people that help co-present these with my with myself um Michelle Turbo, Elizabeth Cahill and Dr. Erin Rosenberg. Our next workshop, if anybody's interested, is at the end of
May. We are talking about anxiety um anxiety disorders specific to school phobia and it's a workshop for parents and understanding how we can better support students in the home environment to help bridge that connection between school and home. Thank you. Can we continue? The final
thing I just wanted to say um is just being able to be a part of conversations like this kind of opens the doors obviously for families of students who are receiving special services. So, for example, I know we've had the opportunity to come and discuss the Vanderbeer playground. I can't thank you
enough um for helping to make that more um accessible. You know, there's students who may have mobility issues and there's mulch and things like that. So, just that's definitely one win that I feel like we're all experiencing tonight. I just thank you so much. More to come and I look forward to working
with you. Thank you for your comments. Okay. Any other members of the community? Uh, Mr. Svin. Good evening. Dennis Sullivan, 8 South Richards Avenue. Uh, just a couple of questions related to the budget. uh you
mentioned there would be no reduction in staffing. So just natural attrition positions that would go away if the person you know were were to retire. So that's a good thing because that'll keep your student ratio down and that's a that's a good thing. I did have a
question on enrollment. You you mentioned that the projections are for the branchburg enrollment to drop slightly. I think you mentioned that at the referendum hearings. Um any numbers available on the K to8 population? Sure.
Because I know that's been a concern for many many years as we grow it there was that the spectre of you know having to build more classrooms because we have more students and know in the last several years we haven't really noticed
that. I just wanted to know what so Mr. So once you're done with public comment we close Mr. boys can answer some of the questions that you're actually presenting. So, you said you had two questions that was on enrollment. The last one would be I think it's important for the board to let the public know
what the effect of that reduction in state and federal aid is. You you projected a $218 increase. I think it would be important for the public to know if you were funded fully with last year's funding levels what that increase
would be because it's important to for I think for the average taxpayer to know you're not spending you know recklessly as as the council you know has the same attitude. We try to project what we feel is an adequate budget. So,
I would ask the board if you're going to have a press release or something in conjunction with the, you know, with the proposed budget, let the people know, yes, it's going up, but it's not because of the spending at this table. It's because of a loss of revenue elsewhere.
And I would appreciate, you know, something like, you know, to that effect. Thank you for your call. Thank you. Okay. Any other members of the public who'd like to make comment? Okay. Okay. What did you just say? Move to close public comments. You have a
second, please. Second, sir. Mr. Sil, all in favor? All opposed? Extensions. Okay. Um, so thank you for your comments and and the questions. Uh, I'll speak first, Mr. Sullivan, to your two questions. The first one I just want to kind of point
out that I think the decision to raise taxes was really to maintain current levels of programming and not have cuts in programming. Um, you know, Mr. Boyce, I think, did an excellent job of pointing out the reductions in state aid and the impact that that would have on the district if we made a decision to
only do 2% increase. Um, you know, the the idea of bank cap is something that we've never seriously done in my time on the board here, and you know, there are people with a longer tenure than mine. Um, you know, I think we were very conservative in how we decided to use um some of those tools at the district's um
disposal to be able to increase the budget in a responsible way to make sure we're maintaining programming. So, I do appreciate your comments about making sure that that's understood by people. Um, can you just address Mr. Boyce the question about enrollment? Sure. So
currently, uh, Bander, you know, changes a little bit every day, but it's a moving target, but we it's at 640 students. Next year, we anticipated to be at 644. This is besides any special ed. I'll mention that separately. Uh, 6
through 8, 328. Currently, we project 324 next year. So, very little movement in both schools. And in special ed self-contained special ed classes, we currently have 72 and we project 82 for next year.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Boyce. I also want to thank the the members of CPAC who came out tonight just to to talk with the board and and share what you do because it's really important work and and I think that um you know that representation and just that presence in the district you on your part is is just
very very important and and I do want to thank you for just taking the time to stand before the board just explain to everybody what you do the importance of what you do. Um, you know, I think the playground being in the budget is something again that was a priority need that, you know, could have easily been
removed, but we made the decision that we wanted to keep that in there because that that is something again that um I think we've all heard loud and clear that that's a definite need that's there. So, so I'm glad to see that as a win and and you know, something that's positive and you know, we look forward to that as well. That that that playground that's there now. My wife was
PTO president, I think, and you know, like she was it's been around for a while now. So, you know, um so I want to thank, you know, just um the members of um the budget and finance committee for for making sure that's a priority as well. All right. Okay. Um so, moving on.
Approval of minutes. Uh resolve. You're doing this. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Okay. Do we have a second, please? Second. Miss Sherwin. Um Mr. Boyce, you do a roll for that one. Yes. Mrs. Van Horn. Yes. Mr. Sergio, abstain,
sir. Mr. Jess, yes. Mrs. Sherwin, yes. Mrs. Kra, yes. Mrs. Dale, yes. Mr. Kim, yes. Mr. Garcia, yes. Mrs. Shaw, obstain. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Bush. All right. Just board president report. I'm going to keep this very brief because um it's
been a very full meeting, but I want to just acknowledge a retirement that's on uh tonight's agenda. Marine Nevada is retiring after 15 years of of working in the district. Uh Meen I know personally um you know her oldest son is my oldest son, same age. They've been friends for
a very long time. You know Meen did some just great work with Unifi bowling just making sure that um you know she she was a presence within the district but also made a difference for a lot of kids. So I do want to thank Marine for that and and thank her for contributions over the years. Uh I want to thank Mr. voice, the
finance team, um, everybody that's involved in the development of the budget to get a budget to this point starts way back basically in October, even before that. There's just a lot of things that I think had to be addressed this year that were somewhat unusual for
Somerville and and you know, uh, the administration's leadership in that and just making sure that priorities were addressed is something again that um, can't be. And we're we're very fortunate to have Mr. Boyce. I mean, he's um, you know, been a mainstay in the district for years and and uh just well respected around the county and and the work that
he does. Um, there are a number of of appointments on the agenda tonight as well. And I want to thank um staff members who uh if you look at the agenda are being appointed to committees like an AI and a literacy teacher leader committee. Um those are all examples I
think of of ways that um the administration is seeking to empower staff to have staff be a voice within a community and and uh you know I think that those are all things that I want to thank those staff for stepping up and and taking on those roles because that's an additional leadership responsibility
that's that's well noted and respected. Um and you know hiring continues. There are some additional hires for next year already on the agenda that we're approving tonight. So that's a lot of work on the administration's part. So, thank you for doing that as well. All right. So, with that, I'll turn it over to superintendent's report. Mr. Let us
go. Thank you. And uh I echo your sentiments about working with Mr. Boyce. Uh it was a pleasure uh you know, working with him on this. It was a challenge. Um you know, there there was quite a bit of work um that went into this uh from everyone from our finance committee to
our administrators to our staff uh to Brian's staff uh and Brian of course and his leadership there. So, um I'm hoping, uh it gets easier next year, but again, as we talked about, there's no guarantee one way or the other. Um so, obviously, we'll keep our fingers crossed, but
we'll continue to prioritize our student needs, uh our staff support, um and and their training as well, so that we can get our students what they need. Um with that said, obviously, also a congratulations to Moren, um and we will soon be celebrating all our retirements,
uh that we've announced over the course of, you know, the last few months. Um it's always difficult to say goodbye to someone who's been such a key contributor to our uh our student body and to our school community. Uh we wish her well and thank her for everything that she's done here for Somerville. Uh
CPAC since the day I've walked in and and we met. Um it's always been a nice collaboration and and I look forward to continuing that. Very very excited that we were able to prioritize and keep uh you know the playground with budget and I know our students will benefit from that. So thank you for your partnership
with that. Um, and there is the equivalency uh and waiver approval that's on there. This was uh just something that had to be done as a result of QAP. I spoke about it a few months ago. And basically what's going on is that the law is changing and the scores uh and how they score and how
they weight growth is changing next year. They allowed schools that went through QAC this year to apply and get that waiver. And that did help us in our curriculum instruction scoring. We don't have our final scores yet, but the early indications is that certainly helped us in that department. So that's why that
is there. And then in terms of our curriculum audit, let provide some updates for the public that will also be echoed in my newsletter. Um that will be coming shortly. So in terms of data midyear I ready data reviews took place at Vandervir and the middle school
focusing on standard based growth and obviously helping to prepare our students for the upcoming state assessments curriculum instruction and building administrator team teamed up uh through their meetings in the last few months to do data deep dives and provide teachers uh with the support they needed to prepare our students utilizing that
data interpreting it helping to interpret it and then utilizing it to drive their needs uh on a on a standardbased approach getting ready for the upcoming testing that's going to be happening. Um, weekly monitoring uh using I Ready My Path uh is happening
and has been happening for a period of time now. Our data teams uh both at the building and uh at the district level have been collaborating and working together to provide our teachers with what they need uh to uh uh support uh the audit goals. And our meetings in
March and April emphasized uh end of the year benchmarks, prep for NJSLA and ways to increase articulation between not only the different uh grade levels but also across grade levels and then across schools. Those are difficult uh things to make sure we coordinate but very
important that they happen regularly and that's what's happening now with our data uh you know committees that are on the building and then the district level that articulation is much easier with those structures in place. um teacher evaluation um administrators received uh some training and some look fors that
focus on ML instruction to provide that kind of feedback. As you know, and I spoke about it last time, over 90 of our educators were able to receive that SEI training. We'll continue to do so and not only uh reinforce what they learned, but provide any teacher who hasn't received that in the last few years that
type of instruction, but then we want to make it into a regular uh in the summer once we get everybody up to speed. That kind of instruction helps not only our ESL learners, but it helps all learners, especially those that are below grade level. These are skills and best practices that all our students, all our teachers can utilize to help our
students regularly in the classroom. Um, recruitment really has taken off uh under Dr. Suente's leadership. She's regularly attending the various fairs that still exist. Some of them have transferred from in person to virtual, but nonetheless, it's important to have a presence and to start meeting folks
that are coming out of school or making a transition into education. As you know, the number of teachers that are eligible and teachers that are going into the industry has dropped tremendously over the last few years. It has plummeted since uh you know probably uh 10 or 15 years ago unfortunately. But what we're seeing more are people
changing uh professions and then needing that support. there are more pathways that New Jersey provides, but we need to go out and recruit those folks and Dr. Spo has been doing so. Um, our interventions are primary to our focus, right? As we know, we have too many
students that are below grade level and providing them the support they need um is a challenge which a budget with a budget that constricted. Ideally, we would have received increased state aid like we did the last seven years and we could have added staff to help make that happen. that did not occur. But as we
said, with a decreased enrollment, uh kind of a status quo enrollment in our K8 and the ability to find efficiencies and reorganize, we're uh you know, providing and we're going to be be able to provide in our schedule some more support for our students quite a bit more. Uh providing a new lab period that
aligns and provides academic support at the high school level, which wasn't there before. And then finding more intervention periods available uh with our existing staff in the middle school and elementary school. Um, in terms of our teacher, I talked about the SEI training, the deep data
uh, dives that are going on, the best practices in uh, uh, NJSLA prep and supports and strategies that are provided by our curricular department. Um, obviously utilizing I Ready, utilizing the data provided by I Ready and link it to its fullest capacity is
an ongoing effort and training and and uh, effort between our administrators and our uh, our staff. a literacy leader team as you guys uh are going to be approving is going to be happening and that'll be uh initially a whole and then broken down on the K8 and then high
school level so that those conversations can continue and really dig into our practices. Um EL ELA curricular planning and math pacing realignment is ongoing at Vander and those conversations are happening regularly uh which is very helpful um and very much needed. Um and
in terms of our MLS, I spoke a little bit about the training provided, but ESL teams providing various screeners are being developed for newcomers, especially those are the ones that are most vulnerable and need that support immediately, need to be identified so that they can get the proper support. That's absolutely essential and
additional training will continue to come for those type of learners. But like I said, having 90 to start is a huge step in the right direction. as more of our educators have that training. They can regularly use those practices that not only help our ESL students, but help all of our students that are struggling in the classroom.
So, those are some of the really great things that have been happening between our staff and our administrators. Um, and we'll continue to do so as we implement and look for ways to help our students. Great. Thank you very much for that report. All right, we're going to move on to report of board items and
committee reports. So, Mr. Sil, can you give a athletics and student activities committee report? Uh, yes. Thank you, Superintendent, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President. Um, I know there's a lot to lot has been discussed tonight, so I'm going to be as quickly as move along as
quickly as possible. Um, but first start off with our athletics and activities meeting did take place on the 25th of March. Um, we discuss several items, referendum projects, and process, review of clubs, spring sports participation. The next scheduled meeting is the 4th of June. Uh, agenda, the agenda will be
prepared prior. Um, spring has sprung in the inville sports. Um, but first I want to congratulate Maximus Newsy and Sophia Douglas representing Somerville High School uh yesterday at the 2025 Scotland Conference Scholar athletes uh lunchon. Um, I'm going to start with baseball.
Coach Banos has a 65 record, but that was just updated in a really tight Scotland Conference Router Division. They are winners of three or four and now after the uh defeating Mandal 7-2 today, they are four of the last five. Ryan Siesta is dominating the mound with
33 strikeouts and posting a 2.24 erra through April alone. CJ Banis added a home run to already 258 batting average and impressive 419 slugging percentage. Uh softball Carissa Estrella squad although suffering a three-game skid we
have and thanks to Riley Darno and her her update uh and losing four to five they did rebound today against Manville by mercy ruling them 15 to nothing. So they are sitting at six and one at top the Scotland Conference. The Scotland stat leaderboard is full of Bill stats.
Uh and Nicole Riley Desano, Sarah Graver and Kelsey Butler are all on the hit list. Um Riley and Emily Smith, Sarah Graver doubles leaders. Sarah Graver's leading field with 115 strikeouts on the mound and a 2.57 erra. Um boys lack
struggling. They're standing at four five. The Pioneers had a shaky start out of the gate, but have managed to win two of the last three. Uh the latest being a 13-2 victory against Hunter Central. Uh Mike Chenco led the charge with six goals and two assists in that victory. And he's also on the conference points
leaderboard with eight along with Ryden Hayden and Griffin K with six and four respectively. Tomorrow they're playing Gil St. Bernard. Um the girls lack squad Tristan Conan's uh Tristan Conan's team they are sitting well at top the Skyland
Valley Conference 7 to1 and hold an 8-4 record and our winners of three of the last five. They face off against Del Valve this Thursday at home followed by the cross town faceoff on the eighth of May against uh our rivals Lada. All over the conference leadership is Brooklyn
Peterson 56 points. Natalie Veron and Emily Emily Venoszi also get the nod for goals for 21 and 20 each. Um, really quick, upcoming events, thanks to Ry uh, Night of Jazz is the second this Friday. I I'll also add that the Jazz Ensemble
will be playing at the first United Methodist Church on the 3rd of May with the Bridgewater High School Quintet. So, if you can't see them on the second, hopefully you can catch them on the 3rd. Um, other events coming up, the Hall of Fame golf outings the 16th in honor of Coach Kfir.
Um, and the Summer Quarterback Club is hosting its golf outing on the 17th of May. The smooth tricky trades the 17th of May. And also in the in this in the world of track and field, the Neville Plamer Invitational, I think this is the fourth year running will take place here
on the 4th of May. Um, I want to go back to baseball a little bit to close out my report. Uh I just want to tell you a quick story uh about a student who has a passion. Obviously that is none other than baseball. Uh two years ago he tore
ligaments in his elbow. Um he took almost a year to recover from a Tommy John surgery only to retar it the following year being last year. So being faced with that reality that he never may he may never play that sport again that he loves so much he had one of two
choices. You know, he could accept the he could accept what is deemed now impossible or he could go and search to see what is possible. And that's what he did. He would not accept what would happen by not going for it. So, he put himself out there after a second time
John surgery in 703 days idle. He not only made the baseball team his senior year, he took to the mound for the first time to test his arm. uh only pitched two innings and then two days ago he took the mound again against Princeton Day School and pick up picked up the win
by pitching four innings, giving up only two hits and striking out eight. Um this is truly a testament of our student athletes, our student club members activities by um that's what character
is all about. This is also a testament to all of the um programs that we have in place, the program leaders, the club leaders, and the coaches that are out there offering all these opportunities for our kids. And I just wanted to say,
you know, Andrew Kesler, well done. Um if you're watching tonight or if your mom's watching tonight, I just really have um one request and that is you know obviously you're shaping your journey still right now and there will be a lot
to say in the future to come and one day reflect on it and come back and talk to the students to let them know what is possible in their journeys. So I just wanted to end with that and just say Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, thank you. That's my report.
Great. Thank you, Mr. Gil, and congratulations to uh Andrew. That's awesome. Good story. Appreciate sharing that. Um Miss Dale, technology curriculum, and instruction committee. Yes. Um okay, so we met on April 23rd. Um a lot of the
things that we discussed, Mr. Blue Visco already discussed in his audit high priority update, so I'm not going to repeat any of that. I'll just talk about things that he did not mention. Uh first thing is that summer programming is underway.
Um for grades 1 through eight, there are academic programs being offered this summer in ELA and math, but that is by invitation only. And for 6 through 8, there is a theater program being offered and a music program being offered for a small fee. Um I know a lot of people are
very excited about that. I know I personally am a little sad about the enrichment at the you know parent of young children as I know a lot of people in our community are. I think it was great that we had that for many years but unfortunately those funds are no longer given to us so that's why those
had to end. Um Mr. Leiscoco did touch on the literacy leaders committee. Um I personally am very excited about this. It's a group of teachers who have volunteered to be part of this committee and to look at the literacy in the district. Um, we are very exciting. We
were selected for an AI grant. We are one of only 10 districts. It's a $75,000 grant that we were awarded and this is going to be teaching about how to use AI and how to use it ethically. There will be hopefully many workshops being offered PD for teachers um after school
workshops and summer workshops as well. and all three youth schools are there's teachers who are very excited about this and currently using AI in their everyday practices. So that's very exciting to hear. There are also some mini grants
that teachers K through 12 can apply for regarding AI and that's up to $3,000. Um there is a logo contest going on next month. So, this is for a new bear for Vander and a new bulldog for
SMS. Uh, so that's pretty exciting that the students can be involved in and hopefully they'll be excited to help choose that. Um, there was a 3D printer donation from a family of a graduate. So, thank you for that. That's wonderful. And then also the last thing that we discussed was the gifted and
talented program and how one of our administrators and one of our teachers have gone to other dis another district recently um and looking for ways to better our programs here better identification of students tools they
are using and imple implementation. So, we're hoping that we can in include some of those practices hopefully as early as next year. And that is it. Great. Thank you for that thorough report. Um, ad hoc, we don't
really have a report except to say that we met twice. So, and Denise, do you have a report? I there was no meeting of the equity and residency committee, but I attended the equity expo uh given by New Jersey
school boards on April 11th at Mercer County Community College. The keynote speaker shared his personal experiences from being the student in special education to co-founding a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming schools into spaces where every child
belongs. And one of his the biggest points he made was that it's very important to have specialed college students come back and talk to specialed high school students, high school down to the middle school, middle school down to the elementary schools to let them
know that there is success ahead for everyone. Um, the breakout sessions that I attended focused on restorative practices, providing a district-wide definition of equity and the need to provide equity focus PD to all personnel, not just these just not just
the teaching staff and using classroom routines to develop critical problem solving skills. And the day closed with a panel discussion presented by the Planefield Board of Education. It was it was enlightening. most of the districts
that spoke were much larger districts, but there was a lot of uh important information. I also have just a quick I'm um representative on the library trustee board and we met on April 24th. Um the library is in the process of
moving the contents of the New Jersey room to the loft area of the library. Right now, materials can be requested by appointment only and the library staff will pull down the materials for you. Um, other requests and concerns by the
branch library manager were discussed. Interviews are winding down for the position of the county library director to replace the current director who retires in July. And our next meeting is July 24th. Great. Thank you for that report and for attending that session.
That sounds like it had a lot of good information there. It did. It was good. Um, so ad hoc negotiations. Do you have anything to add, Mr. Garcia? I mean, we we met that was about Okay. And then policy committee, Miss Krasco.
Um, so it's going to be a little longer what I have to say because I have to read a bunch of policies. So we met on April 8th and we switched over to the stress ESME. Um, so we were talking about the method of handling the policy alerts. Um, so for anybody that doesn't
know, stress Esme is a professional service that provides policy alerts and updates based on changes in state law and regulations and the best practices. So we were given a couple options. We chose to do option A which was a full committee review. So when the policy
alert comes up, we give it to the admin gets it and they get to give some in input and then they review it and then it will go to the policy committee to review before it is adopted before we do our first readings. Um so when you're looking at the policies, it's either
mandated, recommended, or suggested. So a lot of them that we all the ones we're doing today are mandated. Um, a couple we've decided to hold off on and we'll start working on them. So, the first
policy is harassment, intimidation, and bullying. It is a mandated one and the revision for it, it has been revised to add information um including parental notification requirements and procedural guidance on when a school district must stay pause
and HIV investigation and allow law enforcement to conclude their investigations. So that one is I I don't want Oh, you don't need to go through every because that's a very long document and I think I would just highlight it like the updates. So just
the last one that's the first reading for the right the scholastic inter that one. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. All right. That will make it much quicker. I I think for for other board members when we met as a as a group, remember first read the
policies, you have access to the policies themselves as as just a course of action, you know, if you read a policy and you have questions about that policy. You know, you can reach out to Mr. Oiscoco. We're not taking any action on the policies in terms of approval tonight. The only thing we're doing is
approving the first read of the policies. there's opportunities to have discussions that that take place before that before we actually do a formal approval on the second reading. The Sherwood um is are are are the first readings then available for the public as well or is this only internal and
only for us? Well, policy is a board function. Um if members of the public had questions about a policy that was being projected, they could reach out to the administration and ask question about that. That would be fine. Yeah. I just clarification on that. I I hear is a
quick question. Were um so these are all mandated policies. Were there any of these policies where we made edits uh to tailor them to our district or anything that was specifically altered for our district or are we adopting the language as is from
the provider? Sure. So, uh, in terms of this package of policies, uh, the spectator code of conduct for intercolastic events did have options that had to be reviewed by our athletic director and recommended um, accordingly. Okay. So, is that the
only one that was modified? Uh, that was the only one that was modified in the group that we recommended. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, I am glad that I only have to read one. Okay. All right. So this one is uh for the
spectator code of conduct for inter interscolastic events and it is mandated and is new. The um can I just give a synopsis? Yes. The NJSIA is requiring districts policy to include increased disciplinary actions for multiple
violations in a defined period of time to be determined by the district. So we were given three options to choose from. They chose option one and option two which read option one. This option provides a school district the ability to impose disciplinary action to a
person that is found to have exhibited unsportsmanlike conduct and away interscolastic event to include the suspension from attending a subsequent home event in the school district. And then option two which we are adopting is this this option addresses situation
when a person is immediately removed from an intercolastic event for an activity and the suspension from subsequent home events cannot be imposed because the suspension exceeds the remaining home events for the activity or season. This option indicates any remaining suspension shall carry over
into the first home event of the activity in the next school year. All right. So, um, going forward again on policies, I I would encourage everybody on the board to review the policies. If there's questions, reach out to the administration to clarify questions
before we do second reads, you know, then things can be um flushed out. I I do want to thank um the committee chairs and Mr. Leiscoco. This is something again that's been a goal of ours in terms of really trying to attend to the way that we handle committees, the way
that we report out on committees. um that takes a little bit longer, but I think it's also important for other members to hear what the committees are doing. I think it's also important for members of the public to hear that. And this is something again that um you know has been something that Mr. Leisco is managing you know in terms of helping us
get things on calendars, keep that straight, keep it organized and then also I think just in the minutes that we're taking within our committee meetings as well um you know they're much more thorough in terms of the report out. So I want to thank everybody for their efforts around now because it takes more time and it's something again that um you know is very much
appreciated I think in terms of hearing the work that's taking place. Okay. All right. So moving on to uh agenda items. We are doing a consent agenda. So we're going to do two motions. One for the preschool through 8th and then we're going to do one through uh 9 through 12. So Mr. Jess, can you do the first
motion, please? Yes. Uh, I'd like to make a motion to move items 1 through 28 under the preschools through 8th grade section of the agenda, please. Is there a second? Second. Miss Van Horn, is there any discussion? Um, can I make a
comment or uh just on number 16 with Mr. Gibbons at the uh middle school? I wanted to thank him for the past three years uh that my daughter has had with him at the school and and the effect that he's had on the coral program there. um it's grown tremendously and
and I just wanted to make sure that that is highlighted because um my daughter has benefited from it and so have all of the children who have participated. So just wanted to make sure that the public is aware of that. Thank you for that. I second that. Thank you, Mr. Gibbons.
He's been wonderful. That's great. Um I do want to point out uh Mr. Terrell, our assistant principal at the middle school, um is uh has also submitted his resignation. Um he's uh can I sure?
Yeah. He just he just has an opportunity that um is very beneficial to him and we want to thank him for just really his contributions, his efforts, I think, and and everything he's brought to the middle school in terms of uh his approaches there. And then um as we mentioned before there are a number of
just um appointments that that you know we want to extend our appreciation to as well. All right. So any other comments? All right. Mr. Boyce, can you do a roll please? Yes. Mrs. Van Horn? Yes. Mr. Sergio? Yes. Mr. Jess? Yes. Mrs.
Sherwin? Yes. Mrs. Kra? Yes. Mrs. Dale? Yes. Mr. Kimick? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Okay. Mr. Jess. And I'd like to make a motion to move items number 29 through 66 under the 9th grade through 12th
grade and districtwide section of the agenda, please. Okay. Can I have a second? Second. Van Horn. There's a second. Any discussion? I see none. Mr. Boyce. Mrs. Van Horn. Yes. Mr. Sergil. Uh, yes on 29
to 64. No on 65. Yes. Okay. Mr. Yes. No. On 65 and yes to everything else. Mrs. Sherwin. Yes. Mrs. Kra. Yes. Mrs. Dale.
Um, I am going to abstain on number 31 and yes to the rest. Mr. Garcia. Yes. Mrs. Shaw. Yes to everything abstaining on 65. motion passes. You didn't ask me. Excuse
me. I don't think you asked me, did you? No. No. I just thought you were waiting for He's waiting. You didn't ask him to vote. You didn't ask me to vote. Oh, I did. I'm sorry. I scooted you. I skipped you. Okay. I'm sorry. I mean, yes, Mr.
Yes. Okay. He didn't know, right? He didn't know. He did not. No, he didn't. He skipped right over. That's okay. It's all right. I'm used to that. That one time kept messing my name up, too. All right. Thank Thank you, Mr. Boyce. Okay. Um,
okay. Moving on. Old business. Are there any old business items? Thank you. Second. Anybody? Second. Miss Van Horn. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Extensions. Okay. New business.
Sir, just wanted to add to my report. I want to thank Stephen for the spring concert that the he was impressive. That's great. Thank you for that. And it's great to see he's doing the summer program again, too. Very excited about that. Yeah. All right. Any other new business items? I just wanted to say
something. Um, the farmers market is starting on Friday at the middle school parking lot. But that wasn't what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was that we are accepting SNAP and there are programs within it for people that have food insecurities. And we're doubling tripling their money if they come. So, whatever they swipe, they get more
money. So better access for fresh local produce and meat. That's on Sunday. Sunday. Sunday. Every Sunday till November. What time? 10 to 1. Thank you. All right. Fantastic. Any other new business items? Okay. We have a close. Thank you. A
second. Anybody? Second, sir. Mr. Sil, all in favor? I. All opposed. Abstensions. Okay. All right. Mr. Jess, you want to make a motion? Uh, yes. two motions. First motion is make a motion go into executive session to discuss
attorney client privilege and personnel employment matters affecting a specific perspective or current employee. No action will be taken and the board will not return. So I'm following that up with a motion to adjurnn as well. Second, sir. Okay. All in favor? I
oppose. Okay. The board is entering executive session at 8:04. Uh thank you to everybody who came out tonight. It's good to see you and uh we hope to see you next month.