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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=bU_s2-06yrk

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Okay, good evening everybody. I'd like to call our meeting to order. Would everyone please rise for the pledge salute? I 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

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liberty and justice for all. Mr. Boyce, could you do the roll, please? Yes, Mrs. Van Horn. Here. Dr. Hutcheson. Here. Mr. Jess. >> Here. Mrs. Hodges. >> Here. Mrs. Sherwin. Here. Mrs. Kraska. >> Here. Mrs. Dale. Here. Mr. Kenny.

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>> Here. And Mrs. Smith is absent tonight. Okay, thank you, Mr. [clears throat] Boyce. Okay, public notice. Adequate notice to 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

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meeting on January 6th, 2026. Notices to the Courier News and the Star-Ledger circulated in the school district and posted notice to this effect on the Board of Education website and building bulletin board administrative headquarters, 51 West Cliff Street, Somerville, New Jersey. Okay, before we move on to our student

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report, I just want to clarify the structure of the meeting today. This is our public hearing of the 2026-2027 school budget. We're going to do our student report in just a moment. And then we are actually going to have a presentation

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from Mr. Boyce and our superintendent. And then we will actually go into public comment. We will have one public comment, but the public comment can be about the budget items or any item on the agenda when we reach that point. So, we expect that that presentation for the public hearing of the budget will take

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about 20 to 25 minutes. Is that accurate? Mhm. Okay. All right, so so we'll move on to our student report. Welcome. It's good to see you. Hi, it's good to see you. I hope everyone's having a good evening. So, we wanted to start by saying that April is school

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librarian month. We wanted to thank Mrs. Capparelli and all the librarians in the district for guiding students towards a love of reading and then just helping them learn in the school district. And then tomorrow the Key Club will also be writing letters to teachers and putting them in their mailboxes for teacher

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appreciation week. So, this meeting will be right after school in room 101. And then regarding senior activities, on May 1st, seniors should report to the football field at 12:18 with their college gear. And if there's any seniors who are interested in going to the class

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trip, they should bring $75 as it's the only day they can purchase tickets. And then the night of jazz will be taking place on Thursday, May 7th at 7:00 p.m. in the Somerville Middle School Auditorium. And this will be a fabulous night of musical entertainment and there'll be performances by the

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Somerville High School Jazz Ensemble and Chamber Choir. So, please be sure to attend that. And then moving on to sports, we're halfway through the spring sports season. So, boys and girls are lacrosse had their senior days this past week. And the boys will be home tomorrow

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with versus Gill at 4:30. And the girls' next home game will be May 7th against Ridge. Baseball will be home on May 1st going against Princeton. And then softball will be at White White Oak for their second round of counties Saturday at

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2:00. And their senior night will be May 5th at 6:30. And then boys and girls track had their county championship meet today. And at the invitational the girls' team placed overall first overall. So, congratulations to everyone that placed, won points, or PR'd. And that's it for

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this month. So, May and June should be filled with more events. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we appreciate you giving us that update. It's a busy time at the high school right now. So, it's exciting for all the seniors as well. We know that. So, um

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you are completely at liberty, if you would like to, to duck out right now. I know you're very, very busy. You're also welcome to stay for the budget report and the educational aspects of that, if you would like to. It's interesting. Thank you. Have a good night. >> You're very welcome. Thank you for being here.

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Okay. All right, so at this point we're going to move on to our public hearing of the 2026-2027 budget. So, I'll turn it over to these fine gentlemen here. Thank you. I was reminded to push the button. Ariel says I always forget. So, welcome

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everyone. Really appreciate you coming out today to discuss the 2026-2027 public hearing of our budget. A couple quick notes. When we're discussing the budget there's really six different areas we're going to dive into today.

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We want to focus a little bit early on on the process. I'm going to be very quick on that and talk about the goals that we identified. Next we're going to talk about appropriation highlights. That's always one of the best parts of your budget. That's when we get to talk about the reinforcement of those goals in

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practice and the the things that we really prioritized as a district. Then I'll turn things over to our business administrator, Brian, to talk about expenses, the debt service, our spending levels, and property tax impact. So, once again,

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we appreciate you coming out and I think this detailed overview of the budget will really help you better understand the process that we went through and the sometimes difficult decisions that had to be made. So, with that said, our budget goal. So, it's always really under the mission of

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our district and that's provide the highest quality education and promote individual excellence. Now, when we looked at our district goals and our board goals, the overlap of the two really guide us right here in these four items. So, we wanted to support a strategic planning process with

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community voice. That is ongoing right now as we're collecting bids from, or excuse me, proposal from companies, of which then the communications committee will make a recommendation to the board of a preferred vendor so that we can start that process come this summer.

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That's very exciting. That will really guide us for the next 3 to 5 years, but we had to have funds to support that initiative. Second one is to continue to strengthen classroom instruction. That's our tier one instruction. This has been a goal all year long for us. We prioritized

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this in the summer as an absolute necessity for us to improve instruction for all of our students. We'll continue to do so by reinforcing and investing in professional development and the resources necessary to be successful there and in the practices that you know, happen day in and day out in the

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classroom. We want to continue to strengthen data systems and interventions. This for the last 2 years you've heard from myself and my team quite often as we try to build a data system that allows us to better understand how our students are doing in the classroom in real time and

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then being able to compare and see their growth over a period of time. We've done really, really great things in developing a system that's reliable and consistent and we'll continue to do so, but that does take an investment and a commitment. And then last, budgeting to meet instructional priorities and our student

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needs. This is always changing as our student needs are changing, but what we have here is for this school year where we think those investments need to to be. So, to highlight some of the things that are going to be going on in this year's budget, in curriculum instruction,

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there's funding in English language arts pilot program. Now again, this is one of those topics we've talked a lot about over the last few years in many of our presentations about looking at the type of English language arts resources and curriculum programs that we're using. Now, to get to this point

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where we can pilot, we had to go through a really deep dive analysis of what our common practices were in the classroom, what our teachers were doing, and how the programs that we had were actually being implemented and was it being done with fidelity. Be able to assess how

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they're performing. With all that said, we're in a much better spot as we really drilled down on that this year, utilizing not only our administrative staff, but our literacy leaders committee that has been working really hard and diligently with our administrative staff to get to

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the point to now pilot programs next year. Revising curriculum is always happening. We have a 5-year cycle that's going to identify the curriculum programs that need updating, but sometimes we get updated standard from the from the state and we have to do that a few more times

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and a few more often more often, excuse me. But we do have a consistent cycle of rewriting our curriculum. And preschool expansion. This is one we're really excited about. As you know, we had an expansion in terms of the

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physical ability of of us to have our students on campus as we go to eight classrooms down at Vanderveer now. That will allow us to almost double the amount of students that are in our preschool program between what's going on at Vanderveer and an external partnership with a provider. So, we'll

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have eight classrooms on campus, four off, allowing us to service many, many of our three and four-year-olds, doubling the capacity that currently exists. So, we're we're really excited about that one. >> [clears throat] >> To make all this happen, our professional learning and

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instructional support is absolutely essential. What happens in the classroom day in and day out is what really dictates the performance of our students. What really enables them to reach their potential and to grow when they need to grow. So, there's going to be an expansion of leadership

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opportunities. That's something we're constantly looking at. We want to empower our staff members. They're on the front lines each and every day and know our students best. so we want to empower them and utilize and tap into their expertise. We want to support teacher-led committees. I mentioned one already in our literacy leaders, but we have many.

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We also have one in math instruction. We have one that I get to meet with often, which is wonderful, our our superintendent council, but we have ones around culture and climate and many other initiatives, so we'll continue to fund that. And provide ongoing new staff support. That begins every summer, but it doesn't

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end there. As we know, the toughest years for any instructor is that first 5 years, and we want to make sure that we're supporting the best we can. So, it starts in the summer with that new teacher orientation, but it continues as they grow here in Somerville. We always keep an eye on literacy and

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math. We want to continue to use progress monitoring techniques to support early literacy skills. So, this year, if you remember, we really drilled down, especially at the Vander Veer, to make sure that our staff was trained in the state best practices here, but we're going to continue that work. And we want to continue to strengthen

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math instruction and make sure that the programs we have are being used, you know, properly and that the training for many of our new staff that are on board is there for them. We've talked a lot about our multilingual learners, and if you recall, this is something that has been

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in Somerville for some time now, but really well organized now by our curriculum department with Mary Cain and Miss Cruz, and that's to make sure that we have sheltered in English instruction. Last year, 90 staff members, this year over 80, and we'll continue to do so so that all our staff

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members get that training. It's a 3-day full workshop, of which not only helps them with any student with language, you know, learning issues, but any student that's behind, any student that's having trouble. We've heard tremendous feedback of actual practices

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here that help all their students in instruction. And by the end of next year, we'll have almost every instructor on staff having had that, and then we can just touch up for anyone that didn't get it. Our data systems and instructional tools, I already talked about data, but this is an investment that has to

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continue. We have to be able to assess our students, track them, know where they are, know where they need help, adjust our instruction accordingly, and that's really important that we have data-driven instruction, progress monitor, and goal setting utilizing accurate data.

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And then expanding student learning opportunities. We have some new courses coming to the high school that requires some training, but also targeted support in the summer. We talked a lot about this. Some of the top decisions did come with some of summer programs that existed during

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ESSER, but we're continuing some others that were identified and needed to continue. Algebra 1 readiness, AP preparation, and SMS summer music. Intervention and enrichment, obviously, is an ongoing support structure. We need

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to continue to train folks. We need to continue to provide the resources to make this successful. When we're talking about tier one instruction, that's the majority of students and the instruction they're getting day in and day out from their classroom teacher. This is where the most important work happens every day. We want to make sure that best practices

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are being used, our staff are getting trained properly, our administrators have the support they need, and that we are strengthening that MTSS, that system of supports. Of course, it also comes with having to intervene on a higher level for those students that may be multiple grade levels behind, and that's

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tier two and three. We've been enhancing that, being as creative as we can with our staffing, as you'll see in the next bullet point, but utilizing and maximizing the people we have and the experts we have, while also trying to expand their capabilities through training. It's also happening in gifted

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and talented as we've taken a really close look at that program to reorganize it. Strategic staffing through attrition, reorganization, and efficiencies. This is one of those really tough parts of any budget that we have to go through. And as you know, last year, we lost 3% in our state aid.

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This year, we did do a little bit better. We weren't anticipating that. Brian will get into it, but in terms of state aid, we went up. The problem was that coincided with an absolute explosion in health benefit and prescription costs. So, we still had to go to this well, because as you know,

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the majority of any budget lies in their staff and in your benefits package. So, with that said, through attrition, reorganization, and efficiencies, not through having to reduce or cut staff, excuse me, outside of those methods, as you might see in the paper. And that

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came after a comprehensive review and enrollment, of looking at programs, of looking at staffing needs, putting people and maximizing certificates that they might hold, and making sure that we're prioritizing what our students need. We were able to look at the fiscal impact of our

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taxpayer. That's a very important component of what we do, right? We want to make sure we're being responsible there, but at the same time, making sure our students are getting what they need. That's the toughest part of of any budget, and Brian will go into it, but as I mentioned before, this started all the

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way back in the fall. These conversations start at the very bottom, in which we look at every dollar spent. We analyze these through meetings. We had really, really great committee work this year by our administrators and our staff and our finance committee to get to a point that

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we're making this recommendation, of which balances those needs of our students, not ignoring any of their needs, making sure our programs have what they need, making sure our staff has what they need, while also looking at the taxpayers' bottom line at the end of the day, because that is important as well.

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All right. So, I appreciate your attention here for, you know, the appropriations component, but the actual fiscal part of this now is going to be shared with you by Mr. Boyce, who I must say does an amazing job. We are absolutely blessed here in Somerville to have someone as

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capable as Brian, as detail-oriented, and as passionate in making sure that that balance that I just mentioned is is respected. So, Brian. Thank you, JR. Absolutely. I'm going to go right into capital improvements in in terms of our

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appropriation. We're going to talk about appropriations first in the general fund. So, we're just going to move through pretty quickly, because we are still uh intent on budgeting for capital projects annually in our budget to make sure our

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buildings are safe, adequate, and efficient. So, at the high school, we need to do a complete [clears throat] refurbishment of the high school. It's of the of the elevator. It's from 1970. It would cost a lot more money than 87,000. That slide is a lot bigger than But

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the elevator is original from 1970, and I think Sharon could probably attest that it's breaking down quite a bit. So, we need to do a complete overhaul of that of that elevator. We also need to complete the final phase, the third school, of our complete replacement of our intercom and

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bell system. We did Vander Veer this year. We did the middle school last year. An intercom and bell system is is, of course, important for practical reasons, but it has become increasingly important for security and safety reasons, too. So, this completes the third and final

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phase of that project. The middle school, we replace need to replace HVAC in two classrooms. In the middle school, we need to put a high-volume, low-speed fan in the cafeteria to help keep that room comfortable and efficient. At Vander Veer, something similar, a

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destratification system, which in a room like that with high ceilings, but the the warm air tends to rise, needs some fans to push it down to make the room into the into the occupied space to make it more comfortable and efficient. And then the Vander Veer sprinkler system, the inside the building sprinkler system

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in case of a fire happens is now 25 years old. We have a pump leaking, so we need to replace that system. Moving on to a broader look that say at general fund appropriations. Um we're going to move down the left-hand margin here, which is we'll

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call major cost centers. We have regular education, our regular education teachers, supplies for those teachers, website subscriptions, everything that goes into the regular education in our school in our in our schools. Special education, special education teachers

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and their supplies and their website subscriptions, primarily. As you can see there, the special education is up higher than we've seen in the past, but we do need to to budget for those students to make sure that they have the proper education. A large chunk of that

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increase is for students who came into the district and are now going [clears throat] to be educated out of district in an outside placement, because we can't adequately educate them in house. Co-curricular and athletics, support services, that includes nurses,

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child study team, OT, PT, speech. Um the curriculum department, the media centers, all of that is included in the support services line. Administration, school administration, the central office administration. We have operations, which is custodial,

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maintenance, and transportation, and health benefits. As JR alluded to, that is probably the biggest talking point of our budget this year. Our health benefits is up 17%. That is higher than I've ever seen since my time here. And if you're reading the

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papers and you're keeping track of what's going on around the state in school districts, you'll see that everybody, most districts, are encountering this all about at the same time. That is also something I've never seen. Typically, it's, you know, a good portion of districts have bad years, and

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then they they have to deal with high prescription medical and prescription increases, but this year, it seems like it's across the board. All school districts, or at least most school districts, are dealing with this. Unfortunately, we did not escape that, so we are dealing with a $1.3 million

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increase in our health benefits line item. Other employee benefits is workers comp, board's share of social security, and our pension obligation. Um and then that subtotal there is current expense, and I highlighted it for a reason because the next slide

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we're going to analyze it a little bit differently than we have doing the on the left-hand margin here as you see in the major cost categories. After that, we have capital projects. We're budgeting for less capital projects this year than we're for next year as opposed to this year, and other includes several

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things, but it's mostly equipment. But I want to go back to the subtotal current expense line item because that's up 5.5%, and that's something we want to look at a little bit closer. Oops. Okay, here we go.

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That same current expense totals that increased $2.789 million analyzed a little bit differently. Salaries up 2.7%, health benefits there's your $1.3 million, 17% utilities up 22% or $252,000,

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tuition for the outside placement uh students that we have. What we did here is we isolated the major cost drivers on our appropriations, and we stated them by themselves, and then we grouped everything else in our budget in one line item, which that line item

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is up 1.1%. So, this gives you a feel for where we felt the cost pressures in next year's budget. Let's move on to general fund revenue. Local local tax levy. This is the number that the state restricts to a 2% increase unless you

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meet the criteria for a few limited exceptions. One of those exceptions is an increase in health care cost. So, like many districts across the state, we are utilizing that that cap relief, if you will, over the 2% in order to to to

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handle those health benefit increases. We did not use everything we were granted 1.196 million. We have used a little bit less than that uh because we were doing other things like JR alluded to like reducing positions through attrition in order to lessen the impact

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on the local tax levy. That is not the increase in property taxes. There are a few other things that go into that calculation including the debt service tax levy and ratables. We'll get to that soon. State aid, like JR mentioned, we had a good year. We went from a 3%

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decrease, which threw us for a little bit of a tailspin in the 25-26 budget, to a 5.7% increase. Unfortunately, that coincided with a big increase in health benefits. So, uh it was it was good help for us in this

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year in particular. Extraordinary aid is aid we get that's for individual children, special education children who exceed a certain uh cost threshold. Branchburg tuition, as everybody knows, that is the amount of money that Branchburg pays Somerville to educate

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their 9 through 12 children in Somerville High School. Fund balance and tuition reserve. We rely on $1.6 million of surplus of surplus to pay for operating expenses. If we have a $50 million

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current expense budget, we feel that it's reasonable to expect that we should be able to lapse $1.6 million, and that's up from $1.5 million. $1.6 million of that $50 million uh current expense

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so that we could support a future year's budget because we don't spend 100% of our budget. Um and the the also in that line is tuition reserve. Tuition reserve is a reserve that we are allowed to maintain to pay for tuition adjustments that needs to be released after 2 years. So, that line

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also includes the release of tuition reserve. And withdrawal from capital reserve for capital projects. Think of capital reserve as a savings account with cash. So, every time you need a capital project, we have the option to pull from capital reserve and pay for those

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capital project projects with cash. It's essentially a reserve for taxpayer relief because when we're socking away money when we have the ability to, let's say we saved $1.9 million in a current budget instead of the 1.6 we were counting on, that $300,000 can go to

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capital reserve. That can help pay for future capital projects, and we don't have to increase taxes for it. We pay for it in cash. Other includes uh things like interest um Actually, let's move this one this.

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Interest, transportation jointures, tuition from other districts besides Branchburg, uh rentals, a bunch of miscellaneous revenue categories. Okay. So, if a observer of this presentation wanted to

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understand how can I make a determination that this district is spending properly or at the right levels, how can you do that independently through an independent means without relying on whatever administration says.

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So, we have three ways to offer to you, to anybody who's looking to make a determination is is this district spending at the proper level. We're going to talk about adequacy budget, local fair share, and banked cap. Very quickly, I'm not going to get into

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the weeds in this too much, but the state comes up with something called an adequacy budget. That is the amount of money they have determined that the district needs given its student profile and demographics, that the district needs to provide a thorough

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and efficient education to those students. So, our student profile it runs through the cost model, we arrive at an adequacy budget, and we're going to look at where we are with respect to that adequacy budget. Then the state says, that amount of money, that adequacy budget, we're going to say that the

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local that community, the local community, and they make this assessment for all districts, can pay this much money towards that adequacy budget, and we will pick up the rest. In some districts, the state says you can pay for all of it. We're fortunate that we do get some

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help from the state in a in the way of equalization aid. But the point here is that the state determines the local fair share for each community through their own means, through their assessment of this district of this town's wealth. They take a look at that through

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different means and say, "Okay, of that adequacy budget, we feel the town can be taxed, general fund tax levy, to pay for that adequacy budget." So, we're also going to take a look at where we are with with respect to taxing to that local fair share.

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Our adequacy budget is $35.531 million. Of that amount, the state says local fair share $27.856 million, Somerville, that should be on you. We will pick up $7.6 million of it. Of that 35.53

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million of adequacy budget that they made a determination, we're actually $20,000 under that amount. That's negligible. We are essentially at adequacy, and oddly enough, this isn't something that we're keeping an eye on during the budget development process.

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We're going through our process led by JR, having different administrators with their their areas of expertise contributing to the development of the budget um with my involvement, too, and we get that, we we combine it with with the tax levy, what we think the tax levy

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that's palatable to people, to balance what we feel we need to educate the kids properly, and then we run it through the budget software, and it's interesting to see and this year we are right at adequacy. Local fair share, same thing. We uh

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the the the local fair share as determined by the state is $27.856 million like I mentioned. We are we are taxing that general fund tax levy is actually $20,000 below. Again, negligible. We are right at local fair share as well.

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The third and final way that I would offer to everybody if they're interested in trying to make an independent determination of whether we're spending at the right levels is our is our spending or our increases of the general fund tax levy with respect to how much we can

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increase it. So, just a 3-year look in 2024-2025, we were able to increase the general fund tax levy $908,000. We increased it $497,000. In 2025-2026, we were able to increase

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1.2 million. We we increased it $820,000, and the same goes for 2026-2027 where we're not spending all of the cap room that we're able to. Now, when you do that, you're able to save the cap room that

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you did not use for 3 years. It's called banked cap. You're not actually banking money, you're banking the ability to raise the tax levy above that 2% because you didn't use it in the three prior years. So, if we take a look at that, that came about in 2011. So,

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during that time since 2011, we've generated $2.4 million. We taxed under what we were permitted to as determined determined by the Department of Education. Now, then we came along and actually used 1.2

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million in the next three succeeding years. But beyond that, we actually ended up forfeiting $746,000 of cap room. That's unfortunate, but the thing is in order to use the cap room, you have to raise it in taxes. So, that

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that that didn't fit our comfort level in terms of our balancing act that we did. And currently, we still have $428,000 that's under what we uh could have increased, but that is now still available to us in future years.

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Debt service fund. The general fund we discussed, now we're on to the debt service fund. The only other fund that has a tax levy. The tax levy that would be attributable to debt, especially for referendums. And up at the top of the slide, you see the increase in our principal and interest

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due to the 2025 referendum. You remember we passed questions one and two. I just want to draw every Down at the bottom is the revenue. So, how are we paying for that principal and interest? I want to draw everybody's attention to the last two lines in particular. The local tax levy, which is highlighted, is

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actually up 0%. So, that levy is combined with general fund tax levy along with ratables to calculate the tax rate, which will be the next slide. But, the point here is that we were able to keep the local tax levy for the debt service fund flat because of the

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budgeted fund balance, which which is the 703,000. That 703,000 is interest earned on the on the debt we borrowed, the bonds we sold, earned interest. We're taking that interest and we're using it to lower the

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tax levy for the debt service. So, when we had the referendum campaign, we talked about tax impact. We talked about it for question one, we talked about for question one and two. The numbers we used, $14 a month for passing the

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questions one and two, did not factor in any interest in on bond proceeds because we couldn't we could not completely accurately project what that would be. So, we were the most conservative.

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We budgeted where we assumed zero interest earnings. So, now that we're able to take this interest earnings and apply it to the local tax levy, we can keep it we can keep it flat. Now, we will plan we have planned tentatively to continue doing that or but perhaps drop

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off in $50,000 increments. We need to wean ourselves off of the 703,000 because we're not going to have interest on those bond bond proceeds forever because as the referendum is carried out and we pay contractors and the improvements happen, we won't

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have that money anymore to earn interest. So, our plan is to reduce that number by 50,000 going forward so that we don't have a a cliff that we fall off on and have that that number spike even though it was never factored into

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the tax impact to begin with. And here we are with the property tax impact. You take the the levies that I talked about tonight, you convert that to a calendar year basis, which is how the tax rate is struck, and you factor in ratables, which we had a little bit of a decrease,

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and you come up with a school tax rate, you apply it to your average residential value if you want to get to an idea of what the average home would be in terms of an increase, and that's $389 or 5.9%. So, that concludes our presentation. If

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anybody has any questions for J.R. or I, we'd be happy to take any questions. The questions are from the board. So, are there any questions from board members? I just want to thank you. I think that it was really really helpful to walk the community through all of the local share, learning about

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equalization, talking about our adequacy budget budget because I think it makes it a clearer picture at least for those watching at home. So. Can you clarify you mentioned J.R. SIAA and just um I guess the um

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elimination of certain aid or the um termination of it by the by the government because it it just tired out. So, can you just explain that a little bit? So, um much like any government grant, uh a lot of them have shelf lives. Uh and in the case of COVID, there were quite a few dollars

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that were available uh to school districts and they had to be spent within a certain amount of time. So, when we talk about uh summer programming in particular here, there was um a build-up of summer programming that was funded through those SR dollars. Uh they uh and when that those SR

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dollars disappeared, when they sunset, uh that had to then be supported either locally, uh another grant, or they would have to be reduced. So, a combination of all that's happened with that robust offering that was happening during COVID. And now we're kind of back to

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what we looked like pre-COVID, uh which are uh grant-funded programs. Those will be advertised shortly uh that are still going to exist at the elementary and middle school level. A couple uh uh necessary ones at the high school level, like I said, an AP prep, which actually is a new one we're very excited

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about, um you know, credit recovery, uh but then uh the summer music program uh from the middle school. Um and you know, a combination of ways to fund it is how we've been able to continue that way. And if you look at the history of it, that was what was done prior to COVID, but we had that

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window of opportunity that really expanded the offerings, but had to be pulled back or else all those different numbers we were uh talking about wouldn't have balanced out. Thank you. That um one other question that and it was just a um an acronym that was on the one of the

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signs around. Can you just give a clarification on PEA as well? Sure. So, uh the preschool uh is really we're lucky. What Let me start in the beginning there. So, as a district, uh what year was that that you applied? For PEA, it used to be ECPA before that.

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That's 20 years ago. Sure, sure. But, when it became PEA, we were one of the founding schools. Uh boy, it was like maybe 10 years ago. Is that your question? Yes, yeah. So, uh this grant has changed over time, but we're one of the original schools to uh receive the grant money. And what it

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allows us to do is fund um our regular education three-year-olds as long as we have seats for them. Uh and what we're able to do with another grant, um Brian and and the Board of Education, was add on to the classroom space we had at Vander Veer. That is finally coming to

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fruition, and we're going to now going to have eight on-campus classrooms of up to 15 students. But, it also allows us to partner with external providers and fund through that for again, regular education students only, um to have more of our students serviced. Eventually,

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we'd like to get to a point that all students that want to attend preschool can. We're getting close to that. I think in another year or two, we'll be able to get to that level. Okay. Okay, thank you. Any other questions from board members? No. >> No question, but just want to thank you

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again. So thorough, so informative, and I I I am not left with any questions because of that, and I'm very grateful. Great. Okay, thank you. All right. I also want to thank members of the finance committee. Um there were

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a lot of meetings that happened fairly quickly together cuz some of the um aid information from the state came out rather late. Um so, um thank you to those members, and then also I I know, Mr. Boyce, you worked very very hard uh on just refining the budget, making

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sure that um you know, it is the best budget that we can have to accomplish what we want to do and in in in the most tax-efficient way that we can do that. So, um we're very fortunate to have you as a business administrator. Um most districts don't have that kind of

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sustainability and um presence in our district for that that period of time. So, uh I just think it's important you know that as well. And also, J.R., your contributions throughout it as well. I know you're side by side when you're working on those. Um So, at this point we're we're going to

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open up the floor to public comment in just a moment. Uh so, let me read the just note about public comment. So, at this time, comment is invited on agenda items, non-agenda items, or any matter related to the school district. When permitted, public participation shall be governed by the following rules under

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bylaw 0167, public participation shall be governed by the rules of a participant must be recognized. So, we would ask that you uh preface your comments with the announcement of your name, uh where you live, and your group affiliation if applicable. Uh each statement shall be

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of a minute to 3 minutes duration. Uh no participant may speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard. And then all statements or queries should be directed to me, and then um when we close public comment, um if it's appropriate, we can have

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responses at that time. Uh what I would ask because we're kind of doing two kinds of public comment, there's public comment on the budget, and there's also other comments. I would ask that um if we do budget comments first, uh and then we'll go into other comments. Okay, so is there anybody who would like to make

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a comment on the budget? Mr. Solomon? Thank you, sir. Please. You don't want to give me the mic. >> [clears throat] >> Dennis Solomon, 8 South Reaches Avenue, wearing a hat of price citizen.

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Um in the past, you had a slide that shows enrollment and how that affects the budget. Can you just give me a quick synopsis, if you have it, of where our enrollment was in the past year and where you see it going in forward? If you could provide some info. We have

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it. We have it. We have it. Yeah. I'm sure he's prepared. Dennis, yeah, we we we couldn't go over every single aspect because we had to keep the timing. [laughter] We didn't want to lose people. There was, you know, not all that much significant significant going on with enrollment, so

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we did choose to to uh not cover that, but have no problem answering questions. We were relatively stable at both Vander Veer We were actually what at all schools. What's interesting with Branchburg is Branchburg is going to have a decent

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decline next year. Okay? Which factored into the Branchburg tuition calculation. But [clears throat] that will rebound and start going up and continue to go up for the foreseeable future until we do another enrollment study. But uh to answer your question, uh we have

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like for instance, um we have 618 students right now at Vanderveer aside from special ed, and we we project 623 next year. So, we're within what, five students?

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And at at uh the middle school, we have 314 students, which will go to 303, we project. On the high school, uh let's see here. Right now, we're going to we look like we're going to go from 983, full-time

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equivalents that is, so share time this counts as half, to 952. So, like I said, a little bit of drop-off in Branchburg for next year, but it's going to go back up after that. Based on our enrollment studies. Thank you.

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Thank you for your comment. Mr. Mayor, I'll take the mic for your comment. Yeah. Sure. Please. I'm Dr. Granville Brady from 9 Leeway. I hope everyone can hear me. I was trained to speak so that they could hear me.

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Uh I have a question about the special education increase. It's about 9%. Uh but the support services for special ed would be about 0.2%. With the cost of gasoline and

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transportation, because I believe most of your a lot of your costs for special education are put into a gas tank to transport children, is it likely that you will reconsider some of that, maybe not this year, but in the future, to

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bring some of those students back in-house, so that we could not only save money, but also avoid having them go out to um parts of the state where they don't have their peers? It's always nice to keep kids in in

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school. I I was taught when I was on when I sat up there many years ago that mainstreaming was the name that we used. It's nice to see kids mainstreamed, in my opinion. Sure. Thank you. So, to answer your question, certainly a priority of ours is always to have our

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students in the least restrictive environment. Dr. McDonald and her team do a wonderful job of doing so. Uh and to that point, I'd actually say um it's not so much in the gas tank, it's in the tuition uh rate. Those have skyrocketed recently. So, we are always looking for opportunities to give

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students uh you know, home education if at all possible when appropriate. Um and that's always a conversation that's ongoing. It's not as though uh a decision is made in second grade and it's never revisited. This is constantly being looked at so that we can do that exact thing. Yeah.

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Okay, are there any other comments related to the budget? Please. Um I'm Laura Porvecchio, 2 East Cattail Drive, and I'm a parent. Um I'd like to just take a moment to thank the board and the administration

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for reconsidering and restoring the summer music program. Um the budget definitely explained how you were able to find the funds to help us here. That decision means a great deal to many

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families in this community. This program is more than just a summer activity. It gives students a reason to wake up each day with purpose, to stay active, engaged, and connect to something positive over the summer months when it's easy

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for kids to lose structure. This program provides routine and keeps them involved in something meaningful. It also plays an important role in helping students maintain and grow their musical skills. As in any sport, without consistent

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practice, students can fall behind. But this program allows them to return in the fall prepared, confident, and ready to contribute. That continuity strengthens not only individual students, but the entire music program, which is why the

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Somerville Middle School has the reputation that it has of being outstanding musicians. For families, it serves as a reliable and valued option during the summer month of July, something parents plan around and they depend on.

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And beyond that, it supports a broader tradition of excellence in our schools, helping students build towards the success of the high school band program, and fostering mentorship and connection across all grade levels. I appreciate that the board recognized these important benefits and responded

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to the needs and voices of the community. Moving forward, I hope we can work together to ensure the stability of this program, so that families and students can count on it year after year without facing this kind of uncertainty again.

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Thank you for your time, your consideration, and your continued support. Thank you for your comment. Are there any other public comments? Hello, I'm Marian Strutzol from 15 Fremont in Branchburg, New Jersey. I'm here to talk about my granddaughter, um

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and she she'll be going she'll be a freshman, I think Jamie will be my granddaughter. She'll be a freshman in the high school, and she's been taking gymnastics since she's been young, since 3 years old, and she'll be entering and I don't know what

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your gymnastic program is in the high school. Um I see traces of it on the So, uh let's receive the other public comments and then I'll be happy to answer that question, okay? Uh but about gymnastics, I'm able to describe that, that's fine.

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You're welcome. Uh any other public comments? Non-budget or budget? Now, we can do anything. Okay. Go back up. Yeah, the consolidated after disaster. First, a personal comment. I see on the

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agenda the resignation of Mr. Garcia. Um I want to congratulate him for his service on the board. I interacted with him very briefly when he was a high school student. I did not have him in class, but he was interested in student government at that time, and he tells me

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I was very instrumental in helping him. I didn't remember that conversation, but if if he said it, it was probably true. And it was just nice to see a Somerville High School graduate go off to school and return to the community.

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And when he asked me, you know, what I thought of his, you know, running for school board, I I was I was thrilled. I was thrilled. And I was honored to put his lawn sign up, which I rarely ever did. Being a partisan person, [clears throat] we were always,

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you know, reluctant to support anyone on on the school board, for me up for obvious reasons. But for Mateo, I I made that exception. So, I just want to congratulate him for his service and wish him well in the future.

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Last comment I have is a personal note. Uh my grandson will be graduating this coming June, believe it or not. Um he's been very active in the music program, uh which is extremely, you know, gratifying to me [clears throat] personally. And uh

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and in part for that, and in part of memory for my daughter, Meredith, Somerville Class of 2003, uh there will be money in the Somerville Education Foundation going forward for instruments and other music-related

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activities. A small donation was made this year. I hope to increase that donation over time and make it a make it a yearly ongoing, you know, program, so that our music program doesn't suffer because of

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the lack of funds. Because having purchased about a dozen instruments myself, I know uh how costly that is. So, there will be some funds available, and if the market continues to do well, uh our contribution will also increase

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over time. So, I would encourage uh you to, you know, make sure your music educators know that that fund is in place, and they should utilize it for the future musicians of our district. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Any other public comment? Um hello, Board of Education members. My name is Sharon Gorlick. I live at 538 Carlton Street, number. I'm the president of the Somerville Education Association. As a union, we always advocate for our members and to be treated fairly, and

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part of that fairness is due process, um and proper due process. We may not always agree on the consequence, but the process of how we get to that consequence is vitally important to treating your employees, and thus our members, um fairly and justly. The reason I'm

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speaking to you this evening is that our members are currently not receiving their proper due due Um at the January 22nd, 2006 Board of Education meeting, the board confirmed a HIB regarding staff members. On January

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26th, 2026, the staff members were notified about the confirmative the confirmed HIB and the forthcoming um discipline. On February 12th, 2026, the SEA requested a copy of the finalized HIB report. Superintendent Lubisco responded

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immediately um and said that Dr. McDonald McDonald's would contact us when it is ready. Um as uh Dr. Tanya McDonald's was our primary HIB input investigator. Um the SEA was later provided with a summary of this report with many pieces of information

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redacted. Um the SEA requested then the full summary um with only the student name redacted, but a new summary was never received nor was a full report provided. Um obviously due to the seriousness of these allegations and the lack of transparency from Dr. McDonald,

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the members um retained lawyers through the SEA. On multiple occasions since legal counsel was retained, the full report and an appeal hearing over the confirmed HIB was requested and neither of them have been fulfilled yet. Consequently, I spoke to

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uh Superintendent Lubisco last Thursday and again on Monday and then today again. Uh I was called this afternoon to meet with him and Dr. McDonald um around 2:30 right after school where there was an effort made to persuade us to drop our request for this report. Um it was also

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stated that if we continue to push to see the report could result in the board taking additional disciplinary actions against my affected staff members um which I'm told by legal counsel is illegal to say. As a result of this meeting, however, I did receive notification from

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Superintendent Lubisco which I appreciate very much. The district's attorney just emailed our um attorneys um that is he is currently working on redacting the report and it will be to our members' attorneys by the end of the week. I really appreciate um

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Superintendent Lubisco for um working with me to facilitate this intention to receipt of the report since we don't have it yet. Um however, I have serious concerns about the fact that we had to be involved you and I in the first place um as there is a process with a specific

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timeline and that should have been filled with transparency and procedure to protect all of the parties that were involved. Um based on this lack of transparency and failure to follow our members' due process rights, I have many unanswered questions that continue to swirl in my head.

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Things like did Superintendent um Lubisco receive the HIB report before the board the board voted to confirm? Did the board receive the HIB report before it was voted to confirm the HIB violations? Was the HIB report ever

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completed? Um why um is the report being reluctantly um lacking a turnover to um to the affected members? Um if we are this concerned about due process about HIB results, should

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parents also start to question some of the processing? What checks and balances are in place to make sure the HIB investigations are conducted with fidelity? The stalling tactic tactics and the lack of information on affected parties calls into question any and all HIB investigations that have been conducted

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and that the board has confirmed. Um I urge the Board of Education to make sure that the fulfillment of this request um which has been promised and again I thank you so much for our meeting this afternoon uh and the action because of it um that a full report be

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sent in and only redacted with the permissible by law um pieces to the legal members um representing our team. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you for your comment. Okay, any other public comment? Okay, is there a motion to close public comment?

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I move. Mr. Jess, is there a second? Second. Mrs. [clears throat] Sherwin, any discussion? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay, public comment is now closed. Uh do want to make a a few comments. Thank you everybody for uh just the

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public comments that were made. Uh I want to thank you for your public comment around the music program. Um you know, I I know many of us as parents and former parents of students have been very involved in the music program. Um we value the arts within our community.

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Uh there were some very difficult choices that had to be made this year with the budget. There was a lot of uncertainty in terms of certain funding streams that we would have. Um so I I only want to assure the community of the commitment to the arts programming. Especially I you know, I know the middle

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school program. I know exactly the individuals who are talking about. Um you know, it's it's a very unique and and special program that that exists there and and I don't want anybody to think that we're not supportive of that program. Want to thank Mr. Sullivan for your comments about just um continuing

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to support the arts programming and continuing to support the music program at the school. That's that's greatly appreciated because um I do think that as we move forward we're going to have to find ways to be creative in terms of how we fund some of these programs that are really important to us. Um relative to gymnastics, um that is a

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an interesting My daughter also did gymnastics. Um So we do have a gymnastics team at the high school. Uh the team is a self-funded team to an extent that they're covered under uh board insurance. Um so they do compete in at

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the varsity level. Uh they practice I believe at the Y still. She goes to the Y. Yeah. Yes. And um you know, it is something again that there is there is usually a a fee associated with their participation in the program, but the option is available

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to them. So um is that accurate Mr. Boyce in terms of insurance? Um Correct. In order to compete in NJSIAA events, they need to be under the board's auspices that way. Right. Okay. Do you have something to add Mr. Kraska? I mean because you're

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>> her name and and I can give you the coach's information. Yeah. Yeah. Um I'm going to go on break. We appreciate that question as well. Um I I do want to thank gentlemen for comment on on on the budget. I appreciate you coming every year um and

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just and just asking I think important questions. Uh the question around special education is surely something that um you know, we all understand the importance of having students stay in the community stay in the school community whenever possible. So that's not something the board takes lightly in terms of out of district placements or

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or anything associated with that. It is something again that um the unique needs of students will often determine whether you know, we can maintain students in in house um appropriately. So um but but I do understand the comment there and do appreciate that. Um relative to um the

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SEA's concerns, uh I I can only assure you that in terms of um from my perspective, the process up until a certain point was followed exactly the way it was supposed to do. The board was aware of it. The board received reports. I don't want to get into any details because there's

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confidential matters involved with this and uh this is something again that involves um legal counsel on both sides, but I will say that um you know, the the board does value due process. We understand that and I appreciate your comments about um you

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know, the work that was done between the two of you to work to make sure that this is something that is kind of handled in a way that's appropriate. Um that's the only thing I can I'll say publicly about that, but but I do want you to be aware that um due process is very important to the

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board. Um so um that being said, we'll just move forward from there. Okay? All right. Okay, so moving on with the minutes um or the agenda. Um approval of the minutes. Resolved that the Board of Education approve the minutes of the

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Board of Education meeting as follows. March 24, 2026 regular meeting and March 24, 2026 executive session. Can I have a first on that? First. Okay, Mrs. Sherwin. Second. >> Um second was Excuse me. Mrs. Van Horn, thank you.

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Um Okay. Any discussion? Okay, Mr. Boyce, can you do a roll for us, please? Yes, Mrs. Van Horn. Yes. Dr. Hutcheson. >> Yes. Mr. Jess. >> Yes. Mrs. Hodges. >> Yes. Mrs. Sherwin. Yes. Mrs. Kraska. >> Yes. Mrs. Dale. Yes. Mr. Kimmel.

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>> Yes. All right, thank you Mr. Boyce. Board President's report, I will keep this brief. There is a motion on here as Mr. Sullivan Mr. Sullivan had mentioned. Um Mr. Garcia has um resigned his seat from the Board of

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Education effective April 27th. So we now have a vacancy on the board. Um so we will uh have a resolution in just a moment to accept his resignation. Uh I do want to just uh thank him for his service. He did one full term and a

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partial term on the board and was fairly involved prior to running the first time. Uh he came to a lot of meetings. Um I echo Mr. Sullivan's comments around just him being a community member, being somebody who attended Somerville High School, had a unique perspective that I think was um helpful to the board to

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understand and and helpful for the board in terms of input. Um he served on a number of committees over his term. Um you know, he was on negotiations. He served on finance. He worked on curriculum. He was on residency. I'm probably missing a couple because we didn't have time to to really research

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everything, but I I do want to thank him for his service because um as I've said all along, anybody that does this job, you you have to commit a lot to it and it's something again that um is is just at any level a valuable service. So so I I do want to publicly

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thank him for his commitment to the community, commitment to the board and commitment to the education of our students. Uh with that being said, do you mind doing that motion? Okay, thanks. >> Motion to approve that item number one be moved upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. Shall I read

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that aloud? >> Yes, please. >> Resignation. Resolve that the Board of Education accept the resignation of Board of Education member Mateo Garcia effective April 27th, 2026. >> Okay, can I have a second for that? Second. Ms. Van Horn. Okay, any discussion?

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I would like to thank him for his service, but yeah, no discussion. Okay, he'll be missed. Thank you. Okay, um Mr. Boyce. Yes, uh Mrs. Van Horn. Yes. >> Dr. Hutcheson. Yes. Mr. Jess. >> Yes. Mrs. Hodges. >> Yes. Mrs. Sherwin. >> Yes.

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>> Mrs. Kraska. Yes. Mrs. Dale. Yes. Mr. Kinnick. >> Yes. Okay. So, with that, I just want to make comment. We do have now an open seat on the board. So, uh legally that will have to be posted. Mr. Boyce will uh check the um

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limitations of that post in terms of how long it needs to be posted. Um if we have candidates that submit their interest to the board, so if you know anybody, you know, the word is out right now. Um if that is with if if the limitation is

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before the May 12th deadline, the May 12th meeting, cuz we have a meeting on the 12th. Uh it's not How long does it have to be posted? >> 65 days to fill the seat once the vacancy occurs. So, we have until June 20 But, how long does the posting have to be for? Uh posting I think has

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to be 14 days. Yeah, it's only 2 weeks. Yeah. So, that would be exactly 2 weeks, probably. Well, we're not there, but you still have 65 days to Right. But, if we have interest expressed at meeting and we're legally able to do so, we may interview on the 12th.

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So, we'll have to fill the seat. Um so, people should look to submit quickly if they are interested in doing that because um you know, it is something this is an important time for the district and having a full board I think is is is a prudent thing to do. All right? Okay. So, that being said, uh superintendent's

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report. Sure. Uh obviously I had the floor for quite a while. Just a quick comment. Um first of all, thank you to Mateo Garcia for his service to the district. Uh as a graduate, I always appreciated his take and his perspective and uh that'll

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certainly be missed. So, uh best of luck. And second, we want to recognize um our school librarians, our our media specialists, Mrs. Corporali and Miss Muletto for their incredible impact they've had on students and staff each and every day. Their dedication to fostering a love of reading, supporting

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learning, and helping students navigate information truly brings this recognition to life. In alignment with the state of New Jersey's uh designation of April as school library month. So, thank you for all that you do. Thank you very much for that. Uh report of board items and committee

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reports. Um athletics. All right, we met last Wednesday. Um so, we started the meeting by talking about the uh athletic the sports participation trends. Overall participation remains strong. We're in the top 10% with the

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district in the top 10% for its group size. Um the winter season had the highest participation in 8 years, but the spring hasn't reached its peak of 357 athletes since uh from 5 years ago, but there was an increase in freshman participation this

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year. Um we talked about how there are fewer multi-sport varsity athletes, but that has a lot to do with club, travel, um and sports competing with other school programs and a lot of kids that focus just like on one sport now.

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Um then we went over the the student club participation. There um are some clubs that have little to no participation, so they're being marked for review and then they might be combined together or eliminated. Um and

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then we have a new approval process changes that will that are being implemented. Um then we talked about the two policies. Um the with the attorney, we he completed the attorney consultation completed on the club approval procedures and the

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recommendation is to um keep it as it's been, but adding um the regulations to it. So, there's no policy change to it. Um and it will be added to the handbook. Um then we talked about referendum updates.

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On April 21st, the bids were opened for the turf field. They were under attorney review. Um and so, and then the completion of it is going to be mid to late fall. Um the gym, we're waiting on the state

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approvals. The the state has to uh review and approve it before we can go out to bid. It will be an 18-month project once it is started. And the auditorium, they had their kickoff meeting with Billy Construction. It's going to start on May 19th pending on

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the town permits. Um we have an audio-visual contractor secured. The green rooms are going to be connected to the auditorium for the performances and the completion is target is for the fall. Um then we

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talked about um the new facilities um are expected to boost participation and that we are planning on meeting with the Somerville Rec Department once the the facilities completion. Thank you. All right. Uh Communications Committee.

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It's my first report. >> Yeah, that's exciting. Um so, we met on April 15th and really the main topic for our agenda and what was on the agenda was our process, the RFP process to select a facilitator to

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help us develop the strategic plan. And um for those who aren't familiar with the strategic plan, which I wasn't before I joined the board, it's really um working as a group to develop a 3-to-5-year flexible plan which really highlights

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what the district's values are, what our goals are, and and and really outline them. So, I'm excited um because what we're going to do this time, the last strategic plan was done in 2020 and it was called Vision 2025 and I believe it

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was developed before COVID, so I'm sure that a lot of things changed and the vision might have changed a little bit. Um the other thing too is that the last time it was developed, it was mainly done between the Board of Education along with administration and I really think and to credit uh Superintendent

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Lubisco on this is really expanding this to really make sure that we're getting perspectives from all stakeholders this time. So, our staff, um even some students, uh multiple um uh community sessions as well. And to do

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this, we really need a facilitator to help us through this process and so, we just really talked about that. Um it has been posted. Uh we are due in I believe it's May 1st on Friday. Uh we should get all of those in and really then the administration will

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narrow down a couple which the community will come back to the Communications Committee, we'll review them and we'll select uh who we think is the best to lead us through this, but it's a super exciting time and for everyone in the community, we really hope to hear your voices, right? And and for our staff as

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well, we really hope to hear the voices in helping shape this cuz I think it will help guide us uh in what we're doing in the future. Great. Great. And then we talked about uh there will be a referendum committee meeting on May 19th and so, we'll get updates on that. So, but that was a really short item.

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Okay, thank you for that update. Uh and we have technology and curriculum and instruction, Ms. Dale. Okay, so we also met last Wednesday on April 22nd. Our first conversation based on some public comment from the last meeting was

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a conversation about Chromebooks and at-home usage for elementary students. So, in school, they had grade level teams analyze the current usage patterns for how the kids use computers in school. For K through 2, they typically spend

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about 10 minutes a day on computers as far as the elementary school is concerned and some of the common websites they go on are i-Ready for math, Pebble Go for research, and Epic, which is online books. For 3 through 5, this can be longer depending on the grade level and the

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teachers and what they're working on in school. Often they're on Google Classroom, essay writing, unit assessments, i-Ready math, and other things depending on needs. At home, the K through 2 the for K through 2, the teachers don't feel that

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the home use is necessary. There's no homework assignments K through 2. Um so, there really is no need for the kids to bring their their Chromebooks home unless parents want them home. And they do have the choice in K through 1.

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For 3 through 5, typically the only they only would use their Chromebooks at home for incomplete work or optional learning opportunities, not mandatory assignments. So, basically the current housing options K through 1, the parents are allowed to choose if they want their

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children to keep their Chromebooks at school or bring them home every night. And this they're considering to expand to second grade students as well. There are some equity considerations with this. Some families we know only have iPhones or phones at home as their

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only devices in their homes, so having that laptop for a computer or for their household, you know, might be beneficial. And we did discuss how parents also can use these Chromebooks for school paperwork, free and reduced lunch forms, etc. So, it can be useful. Um we also

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did discuss i-Ready and the original requirement required 45 minutes per week in school for ELA and 45 minutes for math, but the more current approach is that it's a little bit more flexible based on teacher judgment and

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teachers are continuing to prioritize direct instruction versus putting their kids on a computer. Um so, i-Ready is used as a tool rather than a mandate. Uh we next we discussed AI as I know that was a concern at our last meeting.

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So, for elementary it's very limited. The teachers only have access to AI tools. There is no access for elementary students to Gemini, ChatGPT, GBT, or AI tools. The Gemini is only available for teachers and high school students.

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And no personal student information is shared with any AI um system. Okay, the next thing we discussed was the literacy curriculum pilot program, which I know Mr. Lubisco discussed during his presentation as well. But currently, the elementary team is

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analyzing current instructional materials. They have met with Arts and Letters, Amplify, CKLA, and there is an Arts and Letters pilot running right now in the fourth and fifth grades, a 6-weeks program. There is a foundations pilot as well

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that may continue next year. At the middle school, they are evaluating comprehensive literacy programs and they're looking for an integrated reading and writing program with evidence-based practices. At the high school, their focus is on standard standardization.

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So, common writing instruction and assessments across departments along with universal rubrics and grade level skill clarification. Um also discussed was the instrumental music program, which we are very happy that we found a way to make this happen

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still this summer. Um unfortunately, some programs were cut as you know, the theater program was cut. We could not find a way to bring that back for this summer, but we will keep that as an option in the future. As far as the

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instrumental music program, the way that we were able to make that happen is to change locations to avoid the extra costs of an additional nurse and security costs. And also, the parent fee was $200 last year and this year it may

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increase a little bit, be somewhere between 200 and 250. So, hopefully not that much of an increase. And then, the last thing we discussed is the decision to integrate the audit closure inform into strategic planning

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process. So, the curriculum department will report current status to the strategic planning vendor and this will help maintain consistent district voice and leadership. Great. Great. Thank you. All right. Are there any board questions

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for committee chairs that presented tonight? I just wanted to ask the communications committee regarding the survey that was just sent out. Again, the climate survey, was that discussed during the meeting and is that something important to stress with the community to take the

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time to get that information from them? Yes. We did not discuss it at meeting. Excuse me. But it will be contained in my newsletter. There are reminders sent out to parents, staff, and students and absolutely, that's a a second component to that so that we can

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reflect and and make recommendations. Thank you. Okay. Great. All right. We're going to move on to the business portion and our motions. I do want to point out just a couple things. First, I want to thank the staff. There are three staff members on here serving as cooperating

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teachers next year. Um So, I think it's great that the district is actually doing outreach to um colleges within the area. Uh it's just a great way to get that experience in our buildings. I think it's a great professional opportunity for the teachers who are also serving as cooperating teachers

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because um yeah, that's a a different kind of experience for them. Um I also want to mention there there are Mr. Boyce, I think and and our administration are living in RFPs right now. Um there are a number of motions,

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motions bid items that deal with bid items number 10 and number 11. I believe there was a rescission of a bid item um because of not on our part, on a contractor's part, so we're awarding it to the second highest bidder for that contract, I believe. And then, there was another one where I

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guess we're re-reissuing the um [clears throat] dispatch for the bid as well. Um So, that's contained within our preschool through eighth grade. Um before we go forward, are there any items that people would like to remove, board members would like to remove for a separate vote?

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Nobody. There's a typo in item 19 for Miss Mitchell. Uh just the second date, it says 992026 or 717. Page 12. So, I'm going to assume that might be 121726, but I just want that

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unless there's a new month that Never know. Never know. Yeah. It's wild times right now. Yeah, it could be. So, okay. All right. Uh with that amended item, would you please read the motion? Of course. Motion to approve that items 1 through

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19 be moved upon the recommendation of the Superintendent of School appointments and salaries contingent upon verified documentation. Okay, is there a second? Second. Oh, good job, Miss Kraska. Okay. Any discussion?

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Okay, seeing none, Mr. Boyce, do a roll please. Mrs. Van Horn. Yes. Dr. Hutcheson. Yes. Mr. Jess. >> Yes. Mrs. Hodges. Yes. Mrs. Sherwin. Yes. Mrs. Kraska. Yes. Mrs. Dale. Yes. Mr. Kimmick. Yes.

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Okay, moving on to our 9th through 12th grade and district wide. Um just to clarify for the public, item number 22 actually is the adoption of the school budget for next year. So, the hearing took place and now uh we will be making a motion to actually adopt the

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budget. Um are there any items that people would like to pull for a separate vote? All right, seeing none. Um Miss Sherwin. Motion to approve that items 20 through 45 be moved upon the recommendation of the Superintendent of Schools appointments and salaries contingent

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upon verified documentation. Is there a second to that? Second. Miss Van Horn. Any discussion? Okay, seeing none, Mr. Boyce. Mrs. Van Horn. Yes. Dr. Hutcheson. Yes. Mr. Jess. Uh yes to all and abstain on number 25.

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Okay, Mrs. Hodges. Yes. Mrs. Sherwin. Yes. Mrs. Kraska. Yes. Mrs. Dale. Yes. Mr. Kimmick. Yes. Okay, thank you, Mr. Boyce. All right, old business. Are there any old business items? Okay, seeing none. Can I have a motion

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to close old business? So moved. Miss Sherwin, second. Second. Is that Miss Sherwin? Very good. Very good. That was good. Um Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Old business is closed. New

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business. Are there any new business items? Miss Dale. Um I just like to give a quick update about the music program, the high school music program's big trip this past weekend to Boston. So, they only do a

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big trip every 2 years and during that time, the kids have lots of opportunities to take classes and to compete. So, I just wanted to read a quick statement. We'd like to congratulate our music department on a spectacular trip to Boston, Massachusetts this past weekend.

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Somerville competed against six other schools from Arizona, West Virginia, Maine, New York, and New Jersey. Students in concert choir earned a gold performance rating for their performance. Additionally, students in chamber choir earned a gold performance rating. Due to receiving gold ratings

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for both ensembles, the choral program received an invitation to perform at the distinguished Festival of Gold taking place next year at Carnegie Hall in New York City. On the instrumental side, Ville Band swept the competition receiving first

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place in wind ensemble, jazz band, and marching band. The entire band program received the instrumental sweepstakes awards for their gold ratings. The big Ville Band the big the Ville Big Band received the best instrumental ensemble for having the highest score at the

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entire festival. Two students from Somerville were recipients of specialized awards during the festival. Carlos Calvache received the Maestro Award given to students who display exceptional musicianship and creativity during their performance.

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Carlos will join five other musicians from the festival in participating in the honor performance series, a national honor band that will perform at Carnegie Hall in 2027. One of Somerville's own also received the Ovation Award only given to one single student at the entire festival.

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This award is presented to a student who represents the spirit of determination, inspiration, and service to others that transcends the making of music and was presented to Isabel Gomez. Congratulations to both Carlos and Isabel for receiving THESE HONORS.

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>> [applause] >> THANK YOU FOR SHARING THAT. THAT'S GREAT NEWS. It's a wonderful trip too that they take when they do that. So, did you get to go? No, but my husband Your husband did. He was the nurse, right? Fantastic. Okay. All right. Any other new business items?

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I just wanted to congratulate the student athletes that had their signing event um this past month. So, congratulations to all of them going off to do their thing in college. Yeah, that's exciting. Any others? Okay, with that is there a motion to

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close new business? So moved. Ms. Van Orden, good job. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Sherwin seconds. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? New business is closed.

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All right, so for members of the public, we are going to in just a moment uh adjourn or go into executive session. At the same time, we do not ex- expect that we will have any business coming out of executive session. So, once we do our motion for executive session, we'll make a motion to adjourn as well. Okay? So,

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can you do our motion? >> Sure. Executive session, the Board of Education of the Somerville School District in the County of Somerset will adjourn into a closed meeting to discuss the item which falls within an exception of our open meetings policy and permits

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the board to have a private discussion since it deals with specific exceptions contained in NJSA 10:4 hyphen 12 little b period. Um I personnel

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employment matters affecting a specific prospective or current employee. Be it resolved that the board will now go into private session to discuss matters rendered confidential by personnel employment matters affecting a specific prospective or current employee. Any discussion held by the board which need

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not remain confidential will be made public as soon as practical. Minutes of the private session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists. All appropriate or excuse me, all appropriate persons who may be discussed

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in private session may or excuse me, have been adequately notified. Uh we do not anticipate action to be taken following the executive session. It is anticipated that the executive session will last approximately 1 hour. Correct. Is there a second? Second.

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That was Ms. Hutcheson. Okay. Uh any discussion? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay, the board is now entering executive session. Before we do that, can I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Ms. Sherwin, can I have a second,

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please? Second. You're pretty quiet there. It is very good. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Okay. Thank you very much. So, we will enter executive session and adjourn upon closure. So, executive session at 7:24.