Yes. Board member Jeff Bennett. >> Board member Brown >> here. >> Board member Callahan. >> Board member Higgins >> here. >> Board Board Member Capadia >> here. >> Board President Meyer >> here. >> Board member Nyar.
>> Board member Sack Gable >> here. >> Board member Stefen >> here. >> We have a quorum. >> Thank you. Please stand if you're able for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of the earth and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Adequate notice of this evening's meeting was sent from the office of the secretary of the board on January 6th, 2026 to the Maplewood and South Orange Township clerks and the editors of the
news record, Star Ledger, Tap into Soma, and the Village Green. I will now entertain a motion to enter executive session as permitted under the open public meetings act to discuss personnel, legal, and miscellaneous confidential matters. No formal action will be taken. Do I have a motion? Order
second gable. Do I have a second? Board member Higgins. Uh all in favor, show of hands. Unanimous. We will now go into executive session at 6:32 p.m. We will be returning to public session. Any action resulting from our discussions will be taken in public session. We'll see you back here shortly. Thank you.
Mhm. Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting back to order at 7 uh sorry 8:13 p.m. The board is now back in public session. Thank you for joining us tonight. Uh we have a lot on our agenda
and I know we have a lot of folks that have come who uh would like to speak and share their uh opinions and thoughts with us regarding tonight's agenda and matters in general and we are very glad to have you here. I do want to note we have a number of things that we have to
get to before we're going to have uh the adults in the room speak. We are going to prioritize having our students speak soon so they can make it out. Uh first of all, I'm going to uh address our board meeting minutes. Uh we have
minutes to address from the May 4th executive and uh regular hearing, our executive and special meeting minutes from May 7th of 2026 and the executive and regular meeting minutes from May 21st of 2026. Do I have a motion to
approve? Board member Sacka Cable. Do I have a second? Board member Brown. Uh all in favor, show of hands. I it's approved unanimously. Uh I will now entertain a motion to move up the portion of first public speaks
specifically regarding uh district students. Do I have a motion to move up? Board member Brown. Second. Board member Bennett. All in favor? Show of hands. All right. Very good. Uh so this will uh
start our first uh hearing of individuals and delegations specifically for students. Uh thank you for coming in person and joining us online tonight. We value public comment at our board meetings. While we cannot engage in a dialogue with you, we take your comments very seriously. Your input will inform
our work. Our comment period is limited to one hour. In light of the number of commenters this evening, each speaker will have two minutes. Uh we're going to ask that you please begin by stating your name and your town. Uh first we have Parker Howell.
And if you want to pull up a second chair or you can just sort of go one at a time. I know you have both of you. Yep. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Parker Howell and I'm here with Conrad Boose. We are students at Columbia High School and members of a
community coalition pushing for solar panels across the school district. We are here tonight to ask the board to vote yes on resolution 4989.AU, AU, which would authorize a solar feasibility and energy financing study. Before anything else, we want to be upfront about what this resolution
actually is. It's not a commitment to install solar. It cost the district nothing. The green team is ready to fundra and cover all consultant fees through private donations. All this resolution does is allow the district to explore whether a solar agreement makes sense. The reason we're coming to you now specifically is timing. There's a
30% federal tax credit for commercial solar that expires at the end of 2027 and panels need to be operational by then to qualify. If the process starts this summer, we can realistically hit that window. But if it gets pushed to next year, we likely can. The model we're proposing is called a power
purchase agreement or PPA. The way it works is that a contractor installs panels on the school's rooftops at no cost to the district, then sells that electricity back to the district at a rate lower than what we're paying currently. The district doesn't own the panels, doesn't pay for installation, and isn't responsible for maintenance at
all. This is how districts such as Montville Township, Piscatoaway Township, and West Windsor Plainsboro have gone solar. There's plenty more local examples we can point to as proof that it works. If this resolution passes tonight, the next step is that the administration would work with a consultant, again, paid for entirely by
the green team, to figure out which roofs are viable and put together the materials needed for a formal request for proposals. The board would vote again before anything moves forward and you all stay in completely in control for every step of the way. This effort has support from CHS students, the CHS Environmental Club, the CHS
Environmental Commission, um the Maplewood Advisor, the MA the Maplewood Environmental Advisory Committee, and the South Orange Environmental Commission. We are just asking for a chance to look into it. A yes tonight keeps the options open and costs nothing. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. And yes, I know you had two
of you. Uh Conrad, is it Boo? Is that okay? Very good. Thanks to both of you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you guys. >> Uh next we have David. Um is it Venicear >> Vanesser? Thank you.
>> Hello, this is David Vanascar. I would like to talk about the principal switches and the paraprofessional payments. First off, the P like the principal switches like Dr. Bennett got like we like us class of 2028 like keep on getting like admin switches like most
of the time like on our first day of high school we had Miss Iliano Cabrera like we had her for like September to November of 2024 and I would like and then after that we didn't like have like
no vice principal from December to February but and then after that we and then Um after that we have like um okay so March like in March we had Miss
Banner Miss Banner's like kind of a a little bit strict but like she keeps like she keeps us fun like yeah from like March to from the last day of school. Yeah. During like August we're supposed to have like Miss Morrison like
Miss Morrison she I think she Dr. Bennett told me that she like she went to go counseling at another school. But I like to say is like do like like Dr. Bennett is one of the sweetest people of all like the sweetest people of all
time. She'll like provide us snacks and water g pro like pro give us a study guide about like p like give us a study guide and what to prepare for PSATs PST10s like plans for us sophomores. But
like I don't want Mr. Castlo because he like he could be get he could like be a little bit strict and targeting. I had him like once in middle school. He could like get real targeted and I'm sorry like if I most up most of my time at like principal switches and
stuff. I feel like Mr. Castle would like switch to Seth Bden because like Seth like him his kids go to Seth Bdon as well. Yeah, that's it. >> Thank you very much. That appears to conclude our student
public speaks. Are there any students who have signed up in the audience who I have not called? Okay, very good. There are no online student public speak. So at this time that will end our uh hearings of individuals and delegations as far as
the student portion. Uh and we will now move on. Uh we are we would have our student board representative update and uh thankfully they are offering something much more fun. Yep. >> Exactly. Uh and so we'll move right on to the board president. Uh no to the
superintendent update. Mr. Bing. >> I'm going I'm going to need yours. >> Yeah. Good evening. I knew I knew people like Triple I, but I didn't expect to pack house today. So, I need to be on my best behavior here, it looks like.
Um so I'm here to talk about um our year five review of our intentional integration initiative. Um and so joining me tonight who on virtually are
both uh Nancy Mardo and Michael Als are from the ALS group which is the group that has been supporting us uh with our triple eye. And so I'm going to move through this very quickly. Uh there are a lot of slides here. I'm not going to touch on all of these slides. I just
want the public to know that it will be available immediately following our presentation on online. So you can go in and and look at it. And if there's any questions about any of the slides, um if you want to show support for the uh presentation
and you think it's a great presentation, you can send those to K. Gilbert at soomsd.k12.nj. nj. us. If you want to complain about it, you can send those to jbing at soomsd.k12.nj. us.
Next slide, please. I just wanted to show this particular slide. We realized that our presentation got posted accidentally and the community, I love this community, sent me lots of comments about changes and things that need to be
made to this presentation. And so I left this slide here to say that we didn't intend for you to see the presentation, but I do appreciate the community and we tried to make all the necessary adjustments based on the feedback. And so I just wanted to make sure uh
everyone understood that and knew that. Next slide. One of the things that I hear often since I've been in this district as we talked about triple eye is I hear a lot of comments. Sometimes I hear people say we should not be experimenting with our students. Well, I want everyone to know
and I want to stay here from this microphone that triple I is not an experiment. We are not experimenting on shoot on our young people. As a matter of fact, NJ6A71-7 tells us we have to come up with a plan to basically make sure that our schools
mimic the communities that we live in and are diverse. And so triple eye is our opportunity to to lean that it's a moral obligation for our we want our schools to be diverse and for those that who feel like well we hear the moral obligation we understand that piece this
is kind of the legal mandate that we're using. So our triple eye intentional integration initiative is not about us trying to experiment on our young people or or or make a report on our young people or write a book about our young people. It is actually designed for us
to build schools that look like the communities in which we serve. Next slide, please. Next slide. So, in summary, what you're going to see in this report is a couple of things. One, we're going to talk about the
algorithm. We're going to talk about how we place our students. Uh our our algorithm intends to try to place our student students at their closest school. We want to promote integration and we also want to prevent racial and ethnic isolation. Now we hear time and
time again this word isolation and we hear that well my child is isolated from their friends and things. Our data does indicate that basically diversity wise we are putting our students in pockets of our schools that are showing some diversity in each of our different
schools. We do realize though what that has meant for some of our schools is that when certain students are placed in their schools, they're being sprinkled throughout their classroom. So we are trying to deal with the internal isolation pieces that seem to show up in our schools. But in terms of the data
and you can see all the data that shows in terms of us meeting that mark of trying to make sure our students are diverse across the district. You can look at the data and the data will show you that through our triple eye we are getting the numbers spread out throughout our district. So we do have
to work on some of those isolation things. We're working with our principles to make sure we do something inside of our schools to make sure our kids don't feel isolated. And we do realize that we do have a group of families that can't get to their closest school which also creates issues which is something
that we'll talk about later on in the presentation. But also know that part of our placement deals with sibling priority and we just want people to know that nearly 40% of our assignments are through sibling priority. Basically siblings are allowed to go into schools
where their other where their where their brothers and sisters are. Next slide please. Next slide. You can go keep going. So this is kindergarten. So we'll start there. So uh this is the fifth year of our algorithm implementation. These
numbers are from October 15th. So the numbers that are put into this presentation come from our our the work that we do that the numbers that we come up because that's where we send our numbers to the state. So that's what these numbers reflect. um 502 students at the time of our
report to the state were uh in kindergarten were placed. We talk a lot about SCES tiering and what that looks like is what our goal is to try to make sure there are 33% of our kids who are in our low SCES tier, 33% or our middle
SCES tier and 35% of our high SCEES tier spread out throughout our district and all of our schools. That's you know that's what we kind of do as we move as we move our students around. Uh the team that works on triple EI, it's a great team. Dr. Carrie Wayable, uh Ad Lyanna
Cordado, uh Keith Bonds, and any other members of my office all work to make sure that we're not only getting the students placed through the algorithm, but also providing opportunities around transfers and other things to make sure that we're successfully working with the ALS group
for this placement. Um, next slide. So different the different uh placement approach for our group of students from 25 26 looked like this. We went away from like a random selecting of where you would go when what the algorithm will place you and we do we went to a
method where we start placing our students at their closest schools and if there's SCES tier has reached the capacity of availability in that school for that particular group we move them to the second closest school. Our aim is to try to get our students to the as as
closest to their nearest school as possible. Uh you know but as as we move through our tier and things sometimes that becomes difficult based on capacity each of our schools have certain capacity components that they have attached to them and if the capacity is
not where they are then we have to move to move the students. Uh overall the new methodology we used did increase our closest school assignment but again we do have these capacity constraints that sometimes block us from getting where we wanted to be. Next slide please.
For the first time our inclusion students were placed through the algorithm. Uh you all of our schools provide inclusion or pull out replacement. So those students were able to be put into our algorithm and placed at different schools as our self-contained students that we have to
preassign or that we have to place uh in in our schools. And so we went to that and what this meant for us is the a more comprehensive and equitable integration process which includes all of our students this time using the same process through the algorithm and the
data with and data analysis. Next slide. So, this slide is very important. I want you to pay attention to the the to to to the withdrawal numbers to the far to the to my far to my far right uh that I'm looking at showing you where our
withdrawals are. And I want you to look at the numbers. Most of our withdrawals come from Seth Bordon. They have like 12 that came out. The least number happened at South Mountain. And you'll hear me talk a lot about South Mountain because South Mountain is one of the schools where we
get lots of requests for transfers, but it's also the school that has the least capacity. And if you see that number four withdrawal, that means there were only four withdrawals that came out of South Mountain. So if you have a situation where we have limited capacity, we don't have any seats, and
we have limited withdrawals happening, it's really hard to move our families into that South Mountain piece when they offer when they when they ask for transfers. And so I just I think it's important for us to really talk about that simply because that is one of the
highest areas that we have where we have families requesting transfers when they want to get back into their their closest school. And when we tell them we don't have any seats available, we don't have any seats available, but we're going to work. We work tilent. We look
at withdrawal numbers. We look at spaces. We have our our tier tier uh matching uh transfer policy in place that if we find someone who may be at South Mountain with the same tier as you that wants to transfer out of South Mountain, we can transfer you in. We try
to hold to that policy as best we can. So this slide really kind of outlines for you those withdrawals. Next slide please. Sibling priority as I talked about at the beginning is also uh very very uh high in in in some of our schools.
There's that South Mountain again. 69% of placements at South Mountain for this past year were for sibling priority. Um you know so that comes into play as we look around placing our students. Next
slide, please. As we look at, so I'll say this numerous times, we do our triple eye is race neutral. We don't use race as one of the factors that goes into determining what the placement is inside of our algorith.
There's only two factors that go into our placement algorithm. Uh it's the educational attainment letter and the family income letter. I'll talk a little bit about that at the end. But we do monitor what the racial makeup of our schools are. And there is a correlation
between SCES tier status and racial makeup. And so that gives us an opportunity to see what our balance looks like across our schools. For the most part, uh the current racial and ethnic variances are largely shaped by the capacity constraints, civil
priority, social economic patterns, neighborhood demographics, and proximity. All of these all go into play in helping us look at what those numbers look like. Clinton Elementary we talked about last year is a school that really saw a rise in the number of uh black
students and other students of color in their school primarily because that's where a lot of our foreignb born students uh go and that's what that that they house um they house our ML program there. Uh but we did see a more balancing of those numbers within this
year this this year five report. We still are monitoring the areas of South Bordon and South Mountain because we see an over representation of black families or black students at South Bordon versus an over representation of white families at South Mountain. Next slide.
I'm going to I'm not going to read any of these these charts. We're going to go through them, but you'll see throughout the presentation there are tables. So, for all of you who really like data, when we post this, please go in there, look at those numbers, ask any questions that you'd like to ask, and I'll do my best to answer them. Next slide.
Next slide. I'm going to read this in its entirety because I think it's really important for people to know. This year, 58% of all kindergarters went to their closest school. that would had a range from 55% for low SCES to 60% for high EES. A
substantial improvement over last year. This gain was driven primarily by low SCES students largely due to the new assignment methodology that we use and Seth Bordon's large capacity to accommodate nearby families. While low
SCES students overall still slightly lag other groups and closest to school assignments, the trend reverses when looking only at algorithm assigned students. And the chart after this will show you that in that group, low SCES students saw the biggest year-over-year
improvement with 72 assigned to their closest school, outperforming medium SCES tier, which was at 60, and high SCES tier, which is at 63. So in essence, we we have create we have created an integration plan that for in
large part puts still a majority of students at their closest schools. That is that that that's something that we we should applaud because this is tough. It's hard when you use an integration plan and you can keep and
you can still say you can keep a majority of the kids at their closest school. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of balance that goes into that. Is it perfect? No. Can we find room to grow? Yes. Are we going to look at ways to try to make that number even higher?
Absolutely. But I I think that is a testament to the work that's being done in this district when it comes to this plan. Next slide. This is the chart you can check out later. Next slide. Um some key about the neighborhood
neighborhood uh neighborhood by neighborhood assignment analysis. uh South Mountain for example the assignments declined uh 63% to 40% from the algorithm assigned but again that's due to the capacity the capacity issue
that that has the smallest capacity in our district and meanwhile uh some of those students were redirected to Seth Bordon because their tier that's where the most room was made available or the most room we have available so when when we go through the tiering when we start
to close the school and we we run out of capacity and we go to second closest school, we run out of capacity. We're trying to find a school where we can put that student based on what capacity is available. And so right now, South Mountain has our lowest capacity. Seth
Bdon has our largest capacity. We do a a yearly analysis. We call it right sizing where we look at our school capacities and make decisions based on that. Also, what goes into capacity also is the number of F FTEEs we have and things
like that. So, it's a delicate balancing act. We're still trying to look at ways to increase that capacity at South Mountain, but this is our current reality. Next slide. Next slide. On this particular slide, so you know,
our superintendent has been very adamant as we try to look at transportation. And so one of the biggest things that we did was now the ALS group works handinhand with our transportation department. We want to try to make sure we keep as many students as possible that works in
trying to get them to their closest school underneath that 1.25 miles if we can as much then if we can't keep you under 1.25 trying to keep you within 1.25 25 and 2 miles which is the courtesy busing
area and trying to prevent as many folks as as much as many students as we h can from having to be three miles or more. That's not what we want to have happen. Each year we've seen better numbers as it pertains to that. Uh the average
distance for miles of this particular year at this survey was about 0.9 we have probably 0.95 miles under one mile. So that was the average distance we were able to come to to get our students and that's from good coordination between uh
transportation and the ALS groups when making this placement to make sure still got work to do. Uh you know there was a a small difference of students who were more than two uh that the previous year who were more than three miles or two
miles or more. We didn't quite get those numbers down where we wanted to, but we were a little better off than we had been in previous years. Next two slides. You can skip the next one and go to the next one. There we go. So, here was the here's a
breakdown of the numbers. 60% 67% of our students were within one mile, 75% within 1.25 miles, 88% of our students were within two miles. Those are the numbers that have they panned out. You know, we did see that and for proximity
about 77% um of of preassigned students versus assigned students were within that one mile. Uh 82% for 1.25, 91% came within that that mile. So we are seeing that
the algorithmally placed students are actually seeing better numbers than our preassigned students. But keep in mind our pre and science students are students around our one of our special education program and so they have to go where our programs are. We did we're still trying to work on our low SCES
tier and our black students who are still slightly less likely than the overall average to be assigned within one mile. That group of students we're still working to try to get them into some of these averages. That is the one group of students and families that
we're still struggling with to keep within these parameters. Next slide. Next slide. Next slide. There we go. So, first grade just just to know that for the most part as our cohorts move,
we are still continuing to monitor them as they go from grade from kindergarten to first grade. And for all of these next slides, the biggest thing you need to know is that for the most part, um, our SCES balance has remained stable. So the way our the way it works, just for
people who may not know how our triple eye works, from from grades one, all of our new kindergarten kids are placed into the algorithm. Grades one through four, only new students who come into our district get placed in the algorithm. So we don't put students
continuously each grade back into the algorithm. Once you go through one time, you're in. Uh, and so for the most part, grades one, two, three, and four uh, have saw saw a good balance overall in terms of SCES balance and racial
balance. We still have our outliers that we're working through. Clinton for example uh was because of like I said the early the earlier things about the foreignb born families and things that are going to there Seth Bordon continue to have those under reppresentation of
students of color uh in their district all right you keep going keep going this is still more just go keep going I'm trying to get us through this second grade you stop here just again as you You can
see as we go through this presentation, the stability of our SCES tiering and our racial balances remains, but we still have some of the same schools showing up. Now, you see Dillia Balden showing up. So, Dillia Balden and Marshall were part
of our unparent and what we have started to notice when it comes to Dillia Balden that they're now starting to see under representation in their low SCES tier and now they're moving towards more over representation in their high SCES tier. Um, and so, um, that's something we're
monitoring. And as you see, as we go through these slides, you'll start seeing Dillia Balden's name, uh, appear on here because that's where we're starting to see a difference and a large shift in what those and what our placements are looking like. Next slide.
You can go all the way to third grade. Okay. So in the third grade the the biggest point here is that our SCES patterns remain generally stable as I said earlier as the cohort move from second to third grade. uh though again
com comparisons are limited because Dillia Balden uh lacked the grade two enrollment from 2425 and that's because part of the unpairing was we put a Dillia Balden was 35 and we added a
grade started with kindergarten then we added first grade and then second grade I think this is their first year of having second grade I believe um in their school. All right, keep uh next slide right
there. No, go to grade four. So when it comes to grade four, now this is the cohort. This is this is the original group. So the fourth graders this year was the first group that went
through the algorithm. Next year 20 what? 2627 this group will be in the fifth grade which means the fifth grade new fifth graders would now go in the algorithm and I can say at this point for 2627 we would have fully implemented the triple
I so we would have fully implemented triple I as now the fifth grade has been added I know a couple of families uh commented and we'll talk about the survey in that we skipped fifth grade in the survey well the reason why fifth grade wasn't in the survey is because
they weren't part of triple eye. And so this this slide is important because it shows you how we've monitored this group over time. And the one thing that has remained constant with this group is just the over representation of black
students at Seth Bordon and the over representation of white students uh at uh South Mountain. they have not shifted in the this cohort's uh movement as they move through with triple I
okay let's go to middle school now I won't spend a lot of time in middle school simply because next year we didn't use triple out of place the rising fifth grade the rising sixth graders this year but I think it's important to see what some of these numbers look like with the last year or
the last cohort of these students being placed through the algorithm. Now, by not using them in the algorithm does not mean we're not paying attention to some of these same SCES and uh racial dynamics. Um but it just means that
these students would no longer be placed uh through the algorithm. The important thing to know about middle school is that each year that they were placed through the algorithm, we saw relative balance throughout the grades, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. We saw
relative balance when it came to both racial and ethnic uh placement versus SCES tier. So I think one of the reasons middle school was added at the beginning was because the the fear is you do this integration work in K through five but
then it if it disperses out at middle school it may lose the impact but we see now that you know while they were going through the algorithm we were able to keep a relative a relative balance. Okay, you can skip all the way to
um the two zone model. I think I've blown way past my 20 minutes, so I just I'm trying I'm trying the best I can. Um so you one of the things that we wanted to explore and
look at um was a twozone model and we wanted to beta test that. One of the reasons we were looking at this and wanted to beta test it as we were looking at our budgetary situation and we were looking at you know is there a better way is there a more efficient way that we could probably do triple eye
that can also help us when it comes with our transportation transportation cost is a huge cost that we have in our district and so our superintendent wanted us to really look through look at triple eye as he's always said everything's on the table when it comes
to trying to look and see, you know, what we can do more effectively and more efficiently. And so we asked the ALS group to do a beta test. And we asked the ALS group to do a beta test using the 10% variance. Why did we do that?
Prior to making that decision for them to use the 10% variance, we had the ALS group do a beta test on the current placement of students using a 5% which we already had, 7 and a half% and 10%.
when they did that first when they did that report and gave it to us, it showed relatively it didn't show much movement in terms of either the SCES balance and the racial balance. And so the decision was made, well, let's see what a twozone model
would look like uh at the 10% variance. I spent time walking through that because some of the comments that we did here about this twozone model in the presentation was it wasn't an applesto apples comparison. Why do we use two 10% versus 5%. So I hope that clears the air
and help everyone understand. The other thing we were trying to look at primarily and more specifically was how much transportational cost could we save if in fact the twozone model would save us money on transportation. And the
superintendent uh said if if we saw a savings of around $2.5 million then we would have to do something different. the end. I'll jump to the end of the story. We did not see a $2.5 million uh savings by going to the two zone models. As a matter of fact, going to the two
zone model showed only a slight uh improvement, but I want to caution even in using that. What it doesn't take into account is year-over-year and how much we could save year-over-year if we went to that. So, that's something we'll look
deeper into going forward. But also this two-zone model assumes that if we go to a two-zone model, we have equalization of programming. That means we have the same type of self-contained classes
happening in both zones. We have u the same ML programs happening in both zones and stuff. So there's a lot of items that go into really making sure and seeing exactly if this model can be one that we can use. It is not off the
table. We are still looking uh through some of the data on this. We haven't done any new reporting since this first came out, but just know that um the superintendent has asked us to think about if we can do this more efficiently
and more effectively, we need to look at that. Go to the map. Keep going. Keep going. Also, I want to talk to you. These pictures in these maps are were used for aesthetics. So they're not meant for you to say this was a proportionate. Now these maps are
somewhat proportionate because these are the maps that the ALS group used. And so when it came to the two zone model, the outline in blue, it went to a north south zoning. So they they looked at using the proximity model as as a beta
test and what happened was it totally threw off any of the beta the beta testing numbers for SCES tier and racial balance were totally blown out of the way. It didn't work and so they had to go to a different model and so they went to this north south model. So what
you see on this this this map is what that breakdown looked like. The blue outline outlines for you the areas that were part of the southern zone as opposed to the northern zone. Go to the results. Keep going.
So what did we find out when we did the u or how do the racial variance differ between the two models? We saw uh the racial variance across the zones uh were was difference was modest. Uh black student percentages were equal across
both zones. White students variance was still large. There were large differences observed but it was still small. In the southern zone it was like a 4% uh difference. In the northern zone, it was a 5% difference compared to what was happening in the one zone
model. Uh where the the the variances for our white students were greatest at Dillia Balden. Um our black variants were greatest at Seth Bdon. Uh and then um some of the Dillia Balden uh lost
some variance when it came to black students uh in the in the first zone. Next. Keep going. Keep going. Keep go. There we go. So, I talked about transportation. Uh, this is what the
results uh came from in terms of transportation. Very limited uh in the two zone model. It was like only like a 1% difference in uh the assignment of students between 1.25 miles. And the
reason and why it came back with so small of a numbers is the actual savings in transportation actually come from limiting the number of buses that you have. That's where you see the greatest savings. And so going to the twozone
model versus the one zone model didn't lend itself to saying we could eliminate a number of buses where we could see that saving. It was very minimal of the gains. But I do want you to see these next slides because this is what did happen with the two zone model. Next
slide. You probably can't see this in the audience, but when you look at it online, you will start seeing the clustering of students uh based upon where students were clustered with the one zone model versus the twozone model.
Uh and so as you can see with the two zone models, what it did offer is better clustering of students and better clustering of students could mean better routing when it comes to routing students uh from location to location.
So you can just slowly skip through these. I'm not I want people to see this. This is Clinton. This is Dillia Balden. This is Marshall. Paying attention to the clustering. Seth Bordon. South Mountain
and Tuskcen. All right. So, um I talked a little bit about this um in understanding the differences and why the differences are small. Overall, reassignments within zone and reduced cross district flexibility largely offset each other
resulting in only modest differences between the one zone and the two zone model. So that's the kind of the the the the cliffnotes version of understanding what the differences were. Next slide.
Next slide. So some of the conclusions. So um more kindergarten uh move the kindergarten registration and first round assignments to earlier. We've been working on that. I think we with the help of Dr. Wayel and the registration
team, I think we've been moving those dates closer and closer up. I don't think they're right where uh the ALS group would want us to have it, but that's still a moving target for us. Uh reduce the late enrollments to maximize effectiveness. I mean, you know, we try
to have families try to get those enrollment documents into us as quickly as possible. One of the things the effects on and what we have to tell folks so our placement process from the point in time you receive your placement in May that doesn't mean our placement
process for this year the next year has ended the first the first round of placement hasn't ended because we have to go to the end of the school year because we're looking at withdrawals. We're looking at students uh who uh new students who are coming in and then our
seats our seat capacities are constantly changing and so we don't look at transfers until the end of school because at that point we see exactly how many spots each school has so we can start addressing some of the transfer issues. So uh but what happens with late
enrollments though is as late enrollments come you know that limits the ability of u us to close down our placement process in a quicker manner and then as late
enrollments happen after we close down the first part of placements then the likelihood of those families getting to their closest school is decreased. um our data work, we really encourage our families, right now we're using our
ACS data, uh the updated data from 2024. Uh we really encourage our families to kind of self-report that data. Uh our our objective would be once we get enough families that can self-report the data, maybe moving to using our self-reported data to come up with some
of this taring. Uh and then we're continuing to moni monitor the impact of our variance numbers. It's still at five. We did not move it to 10, but that does not mean we want won't explore to see if having seven and a half or 10 is
still keeping us within that um those desegregation numbers that we're looking for. Next slide. The overall focus uh is to enhance our data precision, improve our operational
timing, monitoring our policy impacts and plan strategically for potential transition if we want to go to to another model uh to assign our students. Next slide. The conclusions from the beta test, I
read over many of those. I think uh the last line is important as difference distance differences alone do not automatically determine transportation costs. Costs depend on student clustering, routing efficiency, effectiveness, busing logistics, a
detailed review of transportation and administration always necessary. So any type of analysis we do about if we're going to change how we're doing triple eye, if we're going to look at being more efficient, if there's a way to be more efficient or actually has to
include transportation as part of that ongoing discussion. Next slide. So real quick, I want the community to understand the SCES tiering process. We get a lot of questions about this. So
there are two factors that go into our SCES tiering. It's educational attainment and it's also income, family income level. What you see on the screen here are what are the weights assigned to different uh educational attainment
that happens in our household. Those numbers are put into this calculated formula. Uh next slide that includes what the and they get a zcore what we call a diversity score. uh after we also take in what the average
household income and then based on that score uh determines where your SCES tier is. There's a lot of words on this slide. Take a look at it. We also have it in our regulation that's now posted. You can take a look at it in there.
We'll answer any questions you have. But that is what determines the SCES tier. Uh and so families can contact us if they want to know what tier they fall in. We can happily tell them that but it's not as simple as you it just it's
just it's a large process that goes into that. Next slide. I think it's important for us to know because now we're using the 2024 community survey data. These are the tiering this. So the average household income in our tiers and I think this is
important. Tier one, the average household income for our tier one families is $144,39. I think that's important to understand when we talk about our taring system. Uh this is the community that we live in. When many people hear low SCES tier,
sometimes I think they they they they seem to think something different. But in South Orange and Maplewood, our low SCES tier is six figures. A high SCES tier is $367,14. So this kind of gives you an idea of,
you know, where our tiering numbers lie. And when you also add that to what the educational attainment scores could be, the percentage of families lacking a bachelor's degree in tier one is like
38.3% versus 13.5% in our tier in our tier three. Next slide. This is why that is important. You probably can't see on this slide, but this kind of shows you what the shift has happened since we've initially
started triple to where we are now. What we're seeing now is because of our SCES tiering and because of our high income levels, we're seeing some of our previously low SCES tiers now moving into mid SCES tier
range and some of our mid SCES tier ranges moving into our high SCES tier ranges, which that can what that which means in some of our areas a larger group of high SCEES tier people pushing into schools that they that we normally
didn't that may have had capacity for them when they were SCES tier 2, but now that they're SCES tier three, they we don't have the capacity for them now cuz they moved into another tier. Then on our low SCES tier, they're moving to le
to to mid SCES tier, which means now some of our schools having larger low SCES tier capacity, but not having the seats to fit because we don't have the bodies to put into those seats. So, it's just a it's just a unique thing that's
happening. I think we're at the question slide now because there's a lot of information. And I know we want to talk about the uh the data, but I mean the the the triple eye survey, but I think that was a lot of information. All right. >> Thank you, Dr. Gilbert. Now, I know that
in addition to you being here with the presentation, we do also have uh Michael Alves and Nancy Mcgardle here. Uh I don't know if they are prepared or have things that they want to say or if they're simply available for questions. Let's let's
um uh Michael and Nancy, can you just say hi to the board, but then let's just go right into questions. >> Hello. >> Nancy, say hi. >> Hello. >> Michael, say Michael, say hi.
>> Okay, he's there somewhere. >> He's ready to go. Okay, very good. I'm gonna open it up to board questions. Do I have a board member second gable? >> Hello. >> Can you hear me? >> Question, but just a a brief comment if
that's Yeah. Um, so thank you Dr. Gilbert. I know massive amount of work in this presentation have been pushed back a couple of times. So thank you. Um, and just as you continue this work and it seems like the team has a solid handle on the triple eye placements. Um,
Mr. Bing, I just hope that you can just be mindful of staff capacity. Um, there's so much positive momentum that you're spearheading around strengthening academic achievement, supporting supporting the actual integrated classrooms. Um, and implementing
initiatives that are already underway. I would just, you know, encourage you to just make sure that staff have the time and the bandwidth to focus on the work in the classrooms, too. now that this seems to be um rolling quite smoothly,
Dr. Gilbert. So, um yeah, so you know, just keep that in mind as you're thinking of potential shifts. >> Any other questions? >> Okay, Robert Kellahan. >> Yes, I'd echo what Shaina said. Thank you so much. Um I was wondering if maybe
you could elaborate a little bit on the type of impact analysis that you all are planning with regard to the two zone model. Um transportation costs are clearly one component. Um it seems like given earlier discussions on achieving approximately like a $2.5 million
transportation savings and the current analysis appears to only have a modest improvement, but you want to focus on that year-over-year. Um I think what jumped out at me too was also the model assuming equalization of programming across school. Um so just curious like
the initial thoughts around all that would be required of that. So comparable self-contained special education programs. Have we evaluated I guess like the associated personnel facilities. We talked a lot about capacity in our schools. Um, so just curious in terms of
of those two components as you're moving forward considering what that impact analysis might look like and and taking into account what Shaina said with your own capacity and kind of all we have going on within our classrooms. >> Absolutely. So as I stated in the program, the two zone model beta test
assumed certain things. It assumed the equalization of programming. So it assumed that each zone had the same offerings for students. And I and I use our special education programming for example that if you have a ERRI program in zone one, you need to have a ERRI
program in zone two. If you have an ML program in zone one, you'd have a ML program in zone two. The other thing that the twozone model also assumed is students would remain in their zone in their schools currently. So we wouldn't
re we wouldn't reput students into the algorithm. So whatever school you're in is where you you you you go and then only new students. So the new kindergarten students will go into zone one. The new kindergarten students will go into zone two. If they had a sibling
who was maybe in zone two but they were placed at zone one. This model assumed that that sibling stayed in zone two. It didn't move over. Now if this is something one of the impacts we have to look at is what is the impact to variance? What is the impact to uh both
on SCES tier and racial balance if we give the option to let families move their kids into or enter we call enter inter enter interz zone travel uh that that's one of the impacts the other impact that we're looking at when I talk about equalization of programming that
may call for more staff that may call for us having to hire more teachers and doing a cost analysis of the benefits of doing that to get to this model as opposed to other costs that may generate
uh that particular piece is something that we have to look at. And then again, we also have to pay attention to um what the impact is on our diversity amongst our schools and if one zone is going to lend itself to one group versus
another group, all that has to come into play. So, uh, lot we are so far away from making a decision on that, but those are some of the things that we have to take into into account. I don't know, Michael and Nancy, did you did I catch it all?
>> Nancy, you want anything to add? >> Yeah, I think it's very important to when you're talking about moving into multiszones to make sure that the zones are not only equal as much as possible in all regards, but also that they're perceived as equal. you don't want to have a situation where one zone is seen
to be um better in some way than another zone. So thinking about having equal uh resources, equal um staffing, those types of things is critical when you're have when you're going basically restricting families to the certain
schools that they can attend. So that is very important. I would say one other thing that we noticed when we're doing these beta tests around the zones is um Dr. Gilbert alluded to this that we had some trouble around how we divided up the zones compared to how we had
previously done this and part of that is because we are seeing some separation in the socioeconomic status between different parts of the district. Um if you looked back at that map where you saw the changes in the um block groups
of the neighborhoods that were moving up in socioeconomic status they were all in the more south mountain area. And we see that when we look at the overall demographic changes in South Mountain generally than Maplewood where South Mountain is moving faster in terms of
its economic growth, at least that's what the data seems to show. So we're getting it's also important to think about the difference in the geography of where kids are relative to the zones in order to try to maintain that socioeconomic uh balance as well.
Any other questions? No. Or Bennett? >> I have a kind of historical question for Michael Allison and Nancy Mardle. Um, when the tripey was developed in the late 2010s, like there was a serious proposal to have like maybe not a two-zone model, but two sets of three schools. You know, that's what Dr.
Fakara had endorsed. And, you know, at some point in 2020, like we dropped that and we just have like this one zone model. I was wondering if you could share any like, you know, recollections of actually why the original two sets of three or two zone model that was proposed in the late 2010s was
abandoned. >> Well, I I can answer that. The problem, the district is not very large. I've worked with giants. >> We can't hear you, Mr. >> Can you hear me now? >> Just speak up a little louder for us.
>> Oh, okay. Uh, I've worked with large school districts. The this your district is relatively small. And the question, as Nancy alluded to, even with two zones, you're restricting the schools that children can attend. The three Yes,
the three zone model simply made no sense at all because you'd be talking about just having two schools and then that was not really uh feasible. And then we then the idea of the one zone made sense. Perfect. And you've
been working that now for five years. If you think you're thinking about the two zones, the potential of perhaps maybe um producing some transportation efficiency through better routing. I've experienced that with other school districts. But it
has to be self-contained. And that's the challenge. Can you actually have equivalent zones educationally? And that would be the big challenge to the district. But again, a one zone or two zone, the important thing is that you'd be able to maintain your commitment to a
diverse school district. >> Other questions wherever Higgins, >> first of all, thank you Dr. Gilbert. It is an 89page document and I will say when you really look at in look at it in detail it is very educational and I suggest people at home take a second to
actually look at it because this is a lot of really incredible data. Um, I will kind of echo Shaina and Liz, uh, board member Sacka Gable and board member Callahan, that the capacity to continue the beta test, I would really want to understand the why after
learning that there isn't anything monumental in the current beta test and we have so many more things to like focus on and it and you said many times that we've reached a level of stability and that is something we hear through the community time and time again. They
want stability. they want consistency. Um, the other things that are concerning to me is even though transportation was considered for the two zone model, we currently don't offer those programs in the two zones that are potential. So that that will definitely be an added
cost. Not just FTEEs, but training, setting up the classrooms. I imagine that would be kind of big. And I'm really really happy with the regulation that has been put out because I think it's it it really allows the district to focus on year overyear making sure this
practice continues its stability but you have flexibility. So I think the work that has been done up until this point related to how this implementation has been done is really solid. Another concern with the two zone model that map is Maplewood South Orange. That
literally separates the two towns. it does not bring them together and we are South Orange Maplewood School District and we want them all to work together by the time they get to CHS and I don't know what the impact of that is but to separate at an elementary level all of
Maplewood and all of South Orange pretty much. I would really want to understand what that would look like in our community. >> I'll I'll start and then I'll let Mr. Being if if I miss it. I think to with to your point about why the why I think
with anything that we do uh we al often have to always go back check the data look at the plan make sure it's still feasible and look for opportunities to be efficient and and effective and what that means sometimes is creating or
coming up with scenarios that we want to look at to see what happens and what the data tells us that's what the data tells us and we move to some we do something different. I think the one thing Mr. being has brought to our district is that reflective piece from everything
top to bottom whether it's instructional practices whether it's how we do discipline whether it's how we do anything in the district taking an opportunity to get gather data look at it and make determinations on what we going to we can do and so I think that's
what led us to getting to this particular point and that's what the ask has been uh for us is to continue to look at that and then provide the data so people can see and then make that decision based upon that. So if I had to couch a why, that's the why. I don't
know, Mr. Bing. >> Oh, no. I completely understand the why. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for doing it. >> Other questions? Board member Brown. >> Yeah. Hi. Thank you. Um,
I I want to start by saying that I really do think we need to take a hard look at what we're doing across our district, uh, given our budget situation. And I do believe this presentation is a great start to that. So, thank you, Dr. Gilbert, for all the hard work that you put into this. This
was extremely informative. Um, and you know me, I love my data. So, I love all the data in there. Um, I actually have a different takeaway. I believe our current triple eye is inefficient and inequitable. About 20 15
to 20% of our families, those that are not placed at their first or second closest school wake up earlier. They travel far farther. They lose their ability to rely on their neighbors for car poolool and child care. And the rest of our community does not share that
burden. I do not believe that's equitable. And I think that people understand that burden given the emphasis in today's presentation on the number of students placed at the closest school in the presentation and how we want to get more placed at their closest
school. Um I do believe at a minimum we need to move to a twozone model. Dr. Gilbert's maps on slides 80 through 85 I think show the clustering speaks for itself. Will you reap savings in year
one? No, but year over year naturally buses bus routes will become more efficient and people will be placed at at schools with their neighbors. Um I agree that we'd have to consider extra programming. I also know it won't be
perfect because you will still have a small subset of families who bear the brunt land at their third choice school. But I do believe it would be an improvement and is worth pursuing. Um, but all this said, I want to point out that we all know that we are in a
financial crisis. Our revenue is capped at 2%. We can't keep pace with our, you know, which does not keep pace with our costs. And under the status quo, things look worse last year than they were this year. We haven't had the stark
attentiongrabbing situations of Montlair and West Orange. Ours have been slower and a little more silent, but over the past two years, we've had vacancies that we have not hired for, and we've let those positions go. Even after th those efforts, we've
had to rift teachers. We've postponed science books purchasing for two years. We have a zero budget for our athletics. We couldn't do prek expansion that we wanted to do. And many other austerity measures have been taken, including a
new PAR contract. And these types of cuts hit lowincome families the hardest. Families with means can support and supplement by, you know, going to private school, getting extra tutoring, but others do not have
that luxury. So I want to point out that we spend I would say estimated this is my estimate about3 to4 million on transportation for triple eye. This is a choice moving children around instead of putting resources in the classroom.
I'm not saying we should eliminate courtesy busing. I do not believe that you can send a families a family's child across town and then deny them a way to get there especially our low SCES families. But what I'm saying that our our priority should be targeting resources that close the achievement
gap, especially for students of color and those receiving special services. For example, look at our recorder's recommendations on math, an area where our district performance from elementary to high school is very disappointing.
The rerecks include ensuring lowtrack students get high quality instruction, identifying high achieving students from upper represented backgrounds for advanced courses, and in creating enrichment and acceleration opportunities. None of these require
moving students around. They require classroom resources and intention. Imagine what three to four million could do in our classrooms instead of on buses. And I do believe that the gap starts in prek and elementary, not just middle
school and high school. I'd rather see resources spent in our schools in our elementary schools than spending getting them to those schools. Of course, I it would be wonder to have wonderful to have an integration model that is equitable, efficient, and meets families
needs while also fully resourcing our classrooms. I would love that but that is not the reality that we are in. Neighboring districts have had to change their integration practices because of the finite re finance finite resources
and their decisions to prioritizers prioritize resources in the classroom over moving students around. I believe that this is the best choice for our district as well. Every year we wait equates to more cuts that directly impact students learning and
disproportionately affecting those with less means. I'm just throwing this out there because I know this summer we are going to start to talk about what are the hard choices that we have to make around our budget and what are our B board and district priorities and goals
for our students. And I want to make sure as we develop the budget this year, we are aligning it with those goals and priorities. And for me, those goals and priorities are keeping resources in the classroom. >> Other questions, comments? Board member
work. >> All right. Thanks Dr. Gilbert for the presentation. Uh the interrogation of the data is a welcome development in a lot of these presentations and I think we all are learning a lot more for it and I look forward to even seeing more.
Um, I don't need to spend a lot of time revisiting uh the issues with transportation, how placement is implemented through the one zone model under the triple I every year. And before this BOE, we try to bus kids to six different schools and keep the ride
under 45 minutes, which I still think is too long. And we run into the same issues over and over. There's not enough buses and inefficient routes, especially when you're looking at cross town routes between South Mountain and Seth Bdon. And the only way to keep the ride under the 45 minutes is to attain more buses
that are not filled. We do this every year and those losses add up. And we all know the impacts. It's a real cost in the learning loss of learning time, the central office focus, lateness, isolated placements, traffic disruption, an
avoidable mess of costs, all impacting the students. The twozone model, I believe, alleviates that pressure with shorter bus routes, bus rides, more efficient routes, and simplified logistics. And here's the thing, under the two zone model, from the data that you showed,
the SCS targets are achievable, and you reduce isolated placements immensely, and you simplify the routes, reducing bus time. I think of it like a race. If you could win a race in 30 minutes, why would you choose to run it in an hour? You need some analysis, but you also
need a stopwatch when we look at this. Mr. Bing in the district has been warning of the operational budget challenges, which looks particularly bleak for next year. And I agree with Mr. Bing that we are dangerously close to inevitable where teachers, programs,
services, and even schools themselves are the most vulnerable. Laying off teachers isn't the way to balance a budget. It's why we can no longer treat the triple I particularly the one zone transportation and placement criteria as a non-negotiable.
Rather, ensuring more of our black and brown students graduate with higher math and ELA levels should be non-negotiable. Some of us are okay with spending funds on transportation and hours of central office time on placement criteria for the one zone model that ultimately is not resulting in improved outcomes.
>> I'm going to jump in for just a second here because this is a time for questions. We don't actually have a thing that we're debating a vote on and I know that there's a lot. So if there are questions you have I'd ask all board members to focus on that right now. Thank you. >> I'll stop there.
>> Any other questions? >> I'll try to end this with a question mark. I just want to say very quickly I I want to just emphasize what is on this. What what Dr. Gilbert shared, right? 77% of kids are going to school within a mile of where they live. 82% are within
1.25 25 miles. 91% are within two miles. And that's still two miles. I when where I grew up, I did not go to school within two miles and I did not go to an integrated school system. Right? So, we actually are sending a lot of students to their closest school or to a school that's nearby. I think that's worth
emphasizing. Um, and you know, I don't want to go too far a field here. I does cost some amount of money. I I'm not sure it's the three or four million that board member Brown said. It does cost some money. I think it is money worth spending because having an integrated school system where
each school looks like the district as a whole where kids are growing up and learning next to people who are different from them is monumentally important. Um so here's my question. You know the results we've seen so far of the two
zone model, we've got three more kids going within 1.25 miles. Three more kids, not 300 kids, three more kids. uh transportation savings are uncertain. One thing I wanted to highlight is that
um if you have a kid, say you're you're in the south zone, but you send your kid to Marshall, kids in second grade, that kid is still going to Marshall for the rest of their elementary career, and if if you've got another kindergarter on the way, they're also going to Marshall. So, we're not actually going to implement a
twozone transportation system anytime in the next five, six, seven, eight years. and that that's going to cut back on transportation. It's my view that you've run out this ground ball. I appreciate all the work that went into it. I know a lot of work and analysis went into it. It just doesn't look like this is going
to shake out into meaningful benefits for students going to their closest to school or in transportation savings. So, do you disagree? Do you think you're going to find something more if you keep digging? That was a question. >> I'm going to answer your question this
way. I think um the objective again was to look and see if the way this plan was outlined could provide the efficiencies and that we were looking for. This particular
version didn't do that. But that doesn't mean we won't stop analyzing. That doesn't mean we won't stop doing the data. That doesn't mean we won't stop looking. We start with the two zone model and we looked at it. There's still other areas that we probably want to look at before we totally come to the
conclusion that this is not the model we want to use. But that doesn't not that that also is not going to stop us from living to the mandate that has been given upon us to look for effective and efficient ways of operating our business. And so the way I can answer
that to that question is the current the current ask and the current data showed us that the savings were very minimum. So we didn't move to try to have this become the model. That does not mean we won't continue to look at this model or
other models to see if there's other efficient and effective ways to do things. >> Any other questions? Board member Bennett. Um, uh, thank you very much for everything. I think this is the best triple eye presentation I've seen and like I've been watching them since like
the first year of the tripey. And I also want to commend you on like really mastering like >> Can I leave now? I Thank you. Thank you. >> And I want to commend you on like you're mastering like you know AI assisted presentations too. Like where are we? Like you know we've got a graphic designer here. Um, I did have a serious
question though. I also want to thank you for pointing out how important each school's kindergarten enrollment size is in certain of like the disparities that exist between populations in town. That's a very big deal. It's not just like each zones each, you know, sub
neighborhoods demographics. Um related to that, that's I'm coming to my question. Um so, uh for the last kindergarten 25 26, we had about 90 kids at Seth Bdon and we had uh 58 kids at South Mountain. Um, I was wondering like
do you see us actually continuing like that basic enrollment size at Seth Bden and South Mountain? Um, if we had a larger kindergarten next year than we had for this past year, which I think will happen, like would South Mountain get another section? And you know, if we
had like continued at 90 kids at South Bdon, it would get to be almost uh 600 kids. And if we had like 58 kids at South Mountain, it would eventually get to be like 350 kids. My bottom line is actually, you know, what do you think we're going to do with like each elementary school's
enrollment? >> So, and when it comes to capacity, like I say, each year we do with a right sizing exercise to kind of see where we can expand sections. uh we every year we look at the whole the the disparity
that's happening with South Mountain versus maybe say a Seth Bdon, but we also have to look and see what those trends look like across the uh across the district. And so we are we are always trying to explore ways we see what's happening at South Mountain. Uh
but there's other factors that also go into place in terms of what that expansion could look like. uh you know the the scheduling for example when you expand a kindergarten class and you have specials and things like that that means
sometimes we might have to share cross district with some of the teachers who may be doing specials so there there's just a lot of other analysis that go into it but I'll end I'll answer your question like this yes we are trying to look at ways to increase our capacity
particularly at South mountain uh to kind of see, you know, if we can get another section in there, but the way the numbers and the enrollment pans out, it just has not afforded us that opportunity to do that. Now, I believe we looked at our new enrollment numbers
and our enrollment numbers have been increasing. Uh we've been getting more enrollments in and so we're trending in that way. I just don't know right now if it's trending in enough manner that's going to say we can add a section to South Mountain. uh uh at this particular
point in time. But yes, South Mountain's always at the top of our list because they have the lowest capacity right now in kindergarten. >> Any other questions? Question. Board member Brown. >> Um I have two questions. There were two things that kind of stuck out to me in
your presentation that I wanted just to touch upon and and find out what you're doing about them. The first is the given our demographics um because we are dividing our our students among six schools we are having situations where
you are having a you know a black student in a classroom no other black student in the classroom. So what are we doing about those types of isolated placements to minimize those? And then um secondly, you you mentioned that still black students and low SCES
students are traveling the furthest and I think I guess what are we doing about that situation as well? So, two things. Uh, as I as I shared earlier, um, the we're working with our
principles in terms of looking across their collection of students when they make determinations of classroom placements, trying to really pay close attention to those situations where you may have an isolated incident where you will have a one student uh, in
particular in one particular class. We've heard from families who talk about what that means. That is one of the areas of growth that we have to do. Um that also deals with really kind of really educating. So when we talk about cultural competency across the district and what it means to have leaders that
are culturally competent in what they think and how they think, that's also a leadership mind shift thing that has to go on as well too. And so we can tell our principles, we can tell our to to look at that diverse and be very intentional in that. but then also helping them see that because their
philosophy may be a little different uh when that particular placement comes. So two things we're doing is we're working with that competency piece with our leaders in terms of understanding the impact that it has on isolatingly putting students in a class. So, as I
talked about earlier, what the data shows us is our racial balancing numbers are looking are fine, but we still have to do something about these individual situations that are coming up in our schools. And so, that's a that's a leadership that's a school by school
thing that we're working with. In terms of the other question that you asked in terms of the um I I lost it. It was the >> the the longer transportation. Yeah. So, one of the one of the things I
know that we're adding to our look for around when we look at transfer request is we are going to really start looking at that distance because one of the other things that's been mandated by our superintendent is that he does not want a student on a bus more than 30 minutes.
And so we now have to be intentional about looking at those routing situations where we have students who may be on the bus for that amount of time and trying to see if there's a way uh to move them to their closest school uh to try to prevent that potential
phenomenon. And so um both of those incidents whether it's the isolation in the classroom and the busing deal was with intentionality on our part as leaders to try to to do something about that. So, we're going to try this year on that busing situation to see if we
can do that. And if not, then Michael and Nancy and myself and the team, we're going to get together with Sandy and kind of see what there is we can do uh from a algorithmic placement process that can get that done.
>> Any other questions? >> All right, Dr. Gilbert, thank you so much for your time as well as uh our our folks in the ALS group. And I want to personally tell you how much I appreciate uh the issuance this month of regulation 5120 which lays out in
unbelievably uh detailed ways the actual method that the triple I works and that was a lot of work for you folks to complete. I think it is helpful for the community that otherwise would have had to churn through year after year of PowerPoint presentations to understand exactly how
this is working. So, thank you so much for your effort on that. >> All right. And u I want to take a point of personal privilege to thank Dr. Wayel, Miss Lyanna, Keith, the entire team, Michael, Nancy. This is some hard grinding work. I'm doing the
presentation, but they all make me look good and I just want to take this opportunity to thank them. And also I'm going to ask maybe I could come back in by J in July August to do the triple EI survey presentation as well too. I think
we could do that. Our time has been well spent. Michael and Nancy, thank you so much for being here. We didn't hear from you much tonight, but your spirit was helpful. >> Okay, Dr. Gil, I again I just want to commend the school district for what you're
doing. I've been doing this for over 50 years and I want to tell you I'm very proud that I'm working with this school district. Um it it's been an honor and we'll help you any way we can. I just hope that everyone in this beginning to
understand that what you have here is an extraordinarily integrated elementary schools. I I don't know of any other school district in the country that has the the level of integration at the elementary level you have, especially since the Supreme Court threw out my
Seattle plan where we had to go with the socioeconomic race neutral. So again, I just commend everyone involved. Uh and I'm very proud of Nancy feels the same way that we're able to help you any way we can. Thank you. >> Thank you all.
>> Right. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bilbert. I know it's a lot of work. Appreciate you. Now, folks, I want to say I so greatly appreciate everyone's patience in sitting here, riding through this with us this evening. Uh you folks are on deck. Uh Superintendent Bing is stepping
up to the plate. He's got a few words and then we're getting to you. We want to hear all of your contributions this evening. Thank you. So, part of our work over the last couple of years around this budget has been trying to make it more transparent
and more public. Um, over the next couple months, we will be posting a uh fiscal dashboard. in addition to an academic dashboard on our website uh that will keep our community a breast of uh where we are in both areas. Um part
of our work also included doing monthly reports around the budget over throughout the whole year. Uh as you know we presented the 2627 budget in May. It was approved by the board, approved by the county and approved by the state. Uh as well now posted on the
website along with our preliminary budget presentation. uh working through the uh budget action committee which is made up of about 30 community members uh and staff and also the board uh and also community surveys
that overwhelmingly I believe the number was about 87% in regards to the question uh we need more information about the budget we don't understand how a school budget works um so with those uh information
streams teams. We've decided every board meeting uh in addition to our town halls, our other presentations to give an update uh on the budget and where we currently stand and where we are going. Go ahead, Keith. Go ahead, Keith.
So, this was our 2425 presentation. Um when we first came into the district, the first thing we did uh was take a look at the budget. Uh and we noticed some very uh alarming issues. Uh we
ended up zeroing out the entire budget and z and developed a zerobased budget and that's how we developed the 2526 budget. At every possible meeting, we had this sign up. every call uh every
memo sent out we had this sign. We are now over that cliff. Um we are past the point of going line by line in the budget which is about 1,200 to500 budget lines. We are past
that. We have made all those cuts. Uh we are now at the program and staffing level moving forward. This year unfortunately and heartbreakingly we had to reduce and force staff. Uh some wonderful staff. We had the
reduce and force award-winning staff. Uh we had to transfer individuals as many of you know who've attended our board meeting and our budget presentations. We are trying to narrow our budget gaps through
attrition, through resignation, uh, and through retirement and not filling vacancies when we don't have to. And when we do have to fill vacancies, we are transferring staff. We have done that for about two years. Uh for the 25
and 26 budget, we saved around five and a half $6 million through transfers instead of out of district hiring. We did the same this time around. We'll continue that process moving forward uh to alleviate uh as much stress as
possible. We have discussed the many factors that have produced this circumstance, including a broken state aid formula that we have lost about $1.4 $4 million every year for the past five years. Uh rising energy costs and
extremely rising health costs in the state. We were able to get out of the state health plan this year with the help of our ASCA and Sumea associations. Big thanks to both. Uh though we still were hit with an increase. We were not
hit with the state health plan increase of 30%. Which would have broken us. uh we were hit with about an 11 to 15% increase. Uh so we are now self-insured. We'll continue to move in that direction uh and continue exploring areas of
savings to try to reduce our gap. Go ahead, Keith. This was from our 2526 budget presentation. Our big budget actions to close the $9 million gap that we walked into in 24 and 25. We had a budget freeze in
January. We had we added an additional child study team to reduce litigation and lawsuits. Uh we renegotiated vendor contracts and went out for a robust RFP process. We did the same thing this year as well. We rightsized our personnel.
The district did not have a PCR. So for those of you who work in industry or any or in every nonprofit, this district did not have a PCR. Uh we did not have an electronic purchase order system. Everything was done on carbon paper. We did not have a checks and balances system. Every one of
those have been instituted over the past year and a half. Implementation of a special services audit. We had two done. One by the state and one in-house. We are abiding by those recommendations and moving forward with them. Returning key positions to save money as well. for
many of you know we outsource many of our uh our issues that need to be fixed such as a pipe burst, a boiler broke down. Last budget we were able to bring in a specialized maintenance worker uh who has significantly reduced those course
uh costs by doing the work inhouse. Um we did some zerobased budgeting as mentioned we moved to the train to trainer model for PD. Uh, we also honed in on large budget categories as was mentioned previously, transportation, facilities, utilities, and special
services. Go ahead, Keith. So, moving forward, this is what we promised when we presented our 25 and 26 budget in April 2024. The check marks next to those promises are things that we accomplished. One of
our promises, energy cost analysis, reduction, and EIP exploration. And we have started that work and as you know and have seen on our resolution we are exploring solar power as well. Review of participation in the state health benefits plan. We are now out of the state health health benefits plan
because as noted the 33% increase would have resulted in over 100 staff members being laid off. We are now self-insured. Analyze transportation hub model bus stop consolidation. We have consolidated bus stops. We have changed the start and stop times of our schools so we could
tear our buses and remove about 12 buses from our streets reducing our transportation cost significantly. There is still work to do in that area as well. Uh re-registration init initiative. We have now had two re-registration initiatives that have
saved a combination of about $750,000. Uh budget projections instead of living budget-to budget dashboards. I will show you the budget projections that we have had and made for the next three years. Uh the dashboards, as I mentioned previously, will be up on the website by
early September. Again, academic as well as fiscal. So, we're being as transparent as possible. We also are continuing our budget action committee as well uh to keep that transparency and also get uh some good counseling from our community members who are out there
in the community and in the schools who are seeing how some of these fiscal decisions uh play out. Town halls, community conversations and surveys we continue uh exploring reownership of buses. We are still doing that. We may be looking at the reownership of vans especially for our our homeless
transportation and also our athletics. Uh we have reviewed facility usage rental fees and have changed them. We now have a 10% increase uh due to uh life increases uh and inflation. Expansion of community action committees. Uh we expanded the budget
action the advisory committee. We now have a transportation action committee as well. Uh school budget 101 trainings. We've had two of those already. We will continue those as well this year. Achieve Foundation partnerships. We have a strategic planning meeting with Achieve, I believe, end of next week to
really leverage all the wonderful work that they've done in the district. Uh exploring alternative revenue streams and leveraging newly constructed spaces. Again, we have some beautiful spaces over at the high school, looking to rent those out and bring in some revenue. Uh
expanding special services continuum. We have expanded our special. We will be adding an ERRI at the middle school level next year to bring back students that are currently out of district in the West Orange district. Uh we'll continue to uh expand our continuum moving forward. Um strategic planning
for those of you who are not part of the strategic planning work. Uh we met three times with New Jersey School Boards Association uh and have collected that information. This summer, we will be writing our plan for presentation in September to the community. We want to
thank everybody that showed up to those meetings. We know the springtime is a very busy time, but we had great turnouts at our meeting. So, I want to thank everybody who showed um and also all our long-range facility plans, which we have finished and submitted to the state over the next month or so. You are
going to see a prioritized list of infra infrastructure issues that have to be addressed. Uh we will be issuing a hopefully issuing a bond and presenting it to our board of school estimates within the next month or two uh to address those major issues in our
buildings. Our buildings are old. Uh our facilities have been neglected over the last 15 years. Instead of putting money into facilities, we've taken that money to balance the budget. Go ahead, Keith. This was our presentation for this
year's budget which is 2627 for the upcoming year. I'm going to ask you to take a look at the target targeted area. We discussed projections that we've been making for the first time in the in this district
for over 10 years um for the 27 and 28 year which uh has not started yet. It starts July 1st. We are in an $ 8.8 million gap already. That is before a boiler goes down. That
is before a pipe breaks. That is before any litigation. We are in an $ 8.8 million gap currently going into the 27 and 28 year. If we're taking inflation, energy, and health care costs into consideration,
projection for 2829, that number jumps to 13 million. To put that in some perspective, that's what some of our our uh surrounding districts, that was their gap. So, for those of you who are reading the headlines in regards to 80 teachers let
go, 100 staff members let go, buildings being closed, sports being cut, that's at the $13 million level. And those are the the uh online articles you're reading in those districts that are surrounding us currently. For 2930, we are looking at a 17.4 4
million gap. So unless the funding formula changes through the state, these are the numbers that we should expect moving forward. I'm going to go back to what I just said. We are we have already done the line by line budget cutting. We are now
at programs and staffing. For every million dollars, you're looking at 10 to 15 people. So I I want to put that in context for everybody. This has now been the messaging for over 20 months.
And as board member Brown mentioned, I'm hoping it doesn't take a tragic event to make sure people understand what's happening in the South Orange Maplewood School District. To me, letting go eight staff members
this year is tragic. Take a look at the gap we're going into next year and the gap after that. At ne next month's facilities and finance uh and technology committee, I'm going to be recommending looking at closing down this building
because that's where we are currently. Go ahead, Keith. If you look at the targeted area, that is our savings. So for the past 15 years, this district has used its savings to balance budgets
to avoid difficult conversations like this. For 15 years, then they got a break for four years with the pandemic funding. That pandemic funding has dried up. There is no more. Our savings have dried
up. There is no more. For 2627, our budget is $200 million. Let me read off our savings for everybody here. So, our capital reserve is $4.6 million.
Our maintenance reserve is 3.2. So, I want you to put that in your household and you tell me if you would still be in your house with these numbers. There is where we are right now. We cannot continue this practice of taking
from our savings to balance budgets or taking from our facilities to balance budgets or using all our pandemic money to balance budgets moving forward. We don't have it.
We can't continue as a district to lose $1.4 million a year in state funding because the state isn't fully funding the funding formula. So, we need advocacy. We've been down to Trenton multiple times. We need advocacy. On our website,
you'll find names of senators, assemblymen. We need advocacy. Or we will be our peer districts within the next 365 days. Go ahead, Keith. How we closed the fiscal gap for 2627,
which was about 7.5 million. We had a one-time healthc care waiver gap of 5 million because we switched to self-insured. I want to stress one time. We could not carry that over. If we did not have that waiver,
going back to what I just said, 10 to 15 staff members for every million, you can do the math, you're looking at about 75 staff members we would had to let go this year. This is a one-time waiver. Uh we corrected our pre-K projection
numbers. We were overproing for special education. We were paying for but leaving multiple seats open across the district. We corrected that for a savings of about half a million. Eliminated elementary security at about
300. That was funded through pandemic monies. Before the pandemic, none of our elementarymentaries had security. Uh currently after the capital project we just completed every one of our elementaryaries have security vestibules where folks have to be buzzed in to get
in. So our buildings are safe. We have upgraded all our video cameras. That work is continuing. Big shout out to Mr. Bonds and technology department. But anything that was funded with pandemic monies, we cannot continue to fund. Those monies are no more.
Um we tiered our buses. We just mentioned that. That's why we changed our start in school and stop times so we can truly tear our buses so we can more effectively utilize them. That saved about $2 million taking 12 to 13 buses off the road. We transitioned out of the state health
plan. I mentioned that would have been about a 30 to 33% hit. Um private contract rebids. We did a robust request for request for proposals around power professionals, security, custodial.
We will continue those RFP proposals over the next year as well to make sure all our services are the most efficient they can be and the highest quality. We hadn't rebid services in a very long time. Districts by best practice should
rebid every three years. Uh budget freeze. That is not a strategy. Anyone in here who works that is not a strategy. Freezing the budget every year. This year we froze it in November.
So our schools had September and November to spend any money. The rest was frozen so we could help close the gap. That is not a strategy. Uh shared staffing m model. If a
position was open such as our uh CHS library position, we left it open. We're sharing shared personnel for that particular space. In regards to librarians, we will continue to look at a shared staffing model, not only within the district, but also with our
Livingston, our Milbourne, our West Orange counterparts because they're in the exact same spot. And every district I just mentioned made rifts this year. Some for the first time in over a decade. Uh not filling vacancies due to retirement, resignation, uh and
non-renewal. We mentioned that riffs. Uh we had to reduce enforce saving us $2.5 million. Uh and we did a line by line. We did that for two years straight. That
brought in about $6 million. Go ahead, Keith. Uh as I just mentioned, we can no longer pass the buck on tough conversations. We have a stable board who understands
where we are at and understands that the difficult conversations have to happen. We also understand that many of these decisions have to be data driven at this point. Uh we've also had transition upon transition upon transition of leadership
in this district. Whether it's business administrators, whether it's superintendent, whether it's directors of transportation, whether it's assistant transportation, uh, assistant superintendent, this has been a turn style of leadership.
Had about seven superintendents here in the last 12 years. Had about eight different business administrators in the last 15. Numerous assistant superintendents, director of transportation. You've had five in the last seven years.
You rarely see a board member run for a second seat. Everything I just mentioned is anti-effective best practice school districts. Best practice school districts have steady boards. Best practice school
districts have steady leadership. We are not there. And that is work we have to do and these are difficult conversations we have to have and we will continue to have. Go ahead Keith.
Go ahead Keith. This is our academic uh report. We'll place this. It's on the website currently. It'll also be part of the dashboard. Um what I do want to point out are two are two really main points. one being uh we are a correction action plan district for chronically
absent. So we are over what the state requires we should be at yet we are one of the most affluent districts in the state. Second we do not meet the graduation rate for the state.
We are below it. We have a correction action plan for that as well. Again we are one of the most affluent districts in the state. we cannot graduate the amount of kids that our that the state says we should be. So when we talk about student achievement and that that should be our
focus, when we talk about the fact that our infrastructure needs to be our focus, when we talk about we didn't make one cut in regards to mental health this year around because that has to be our focus. Those are our buckets, our three major
buckets as we move forward. You'll be hearing them again and again. Go ahead, Keith. As noted, not only did we have rifts this year, we did not have any last year because we took from our savings. The
year before that, we made major cuts uh in our secretarial staff. Uh this year we made major cuts uh in this building, central office, as as well as staffing around the district. Go ahead, Keith.
Go ahead. So, one of the bids, and I've been receiving emails on this, and I I've been getting back to you as as quick as I possibly can. Uh, we went out, one of our requests for proposal was around Power
Professionals. We went through a cooperative this year, uh, Mercer County Special Services School District Cooperative. Uh, so that's a shared purchasing cooperative. Uh I believe in the Mercer County Special Services one there are about 27 schools in that
cooperative including uh I believe us West Orange Westfield. Uh it's just not Mercer County Schools. It's across from the state. Uh districts do that to secure lower volume based pricing. We also do that to reduce administrative bidding costs that come with the bidding
process. Go ahead Keith. Go ahead Keith. uh very quickly as we went out for bid for many of our services including our powers. We went out for custodial, we went out for security. Part of that work
is interviewing other districts, other superintendents, other directors of special services, other HRs, other uh facility directors. We probably spoke to over 70 schools around our area and outside our county uh in regards to what they were doing and who they were
utilizing. Go ahead, Keith. Go ahead, Keith. Uh, we landed on Delta T for our power professionals. They have been in the district previously. Uh, they are in many districts across the state. Uh, we currently utilize Delta T to fill other
positions in the district that we do not have. Uh, we will be transitioning to them for our paras in the 2627. But if you look on our board agendas, you will see that we have Delta T and Delta T has been in the district for many years. Uh we utilize that them to fill some social
workers, some psychologists, and some other positions uh when we can't hire for them. These are the districts that are currently go back, Keith. Some of the districts that are current partners uh with Delta T around power professionals. Uh, you've got Clinton,
you've got Colts Neck, Elizabeth, you've got Newark, you got Springfield Public School, Summit, uh, Verona, Washington Township, uh, North Bergen, and there are many more on the list. We I just took the ones that were, uh, as close as possible to us. Go ahead, Keith.
Uh, we did meet with their account manager, uh, their local staffing coordinator, their recruiting team, their operations team, and their 247 on call team uh, to discuss the following. what day-to-day communication protocol is going to look like moving forward. Staffing coordination and service
delivery, issue resolution and escalation management, performance monitoring and reporting, designation of backup contacts, uh confirm staffing scope, schedules and service expectations, and establishing escalation protocols and response
timelines. Go ahead, Keith. Uh we aligned on reporting formats in meeting cadence, meeting outcomes documented and shared weekly meeting schedule developed and we also uh utilized our uh self-contained
list of students and shared many of those cases uh with Delta T. our power professional providers comparison as you will see uh deltaT and you'll see ESS which is our current
provider. So the numbers on top are the bids. Those are the bids the companies put in uh or are part of the co-op. They are not what power professionals or people are paid. Those are the bids. So as a
company I'm putting in a $37 bid. out of that bid I may take 25% for the company itself and then the rest goes to paying hourly wages. So the 37 and the 28 were the bid numbers or the co-op numbers. If
you go underneath that uh you will currently see uh ESS at employee terms current rate is 2384 to 255 as negotiated part-time status they get 10 paid comp days the district pays for
those substitutes. Uh currently we have around 190 to 200 power professionals through ESS. Uh we pay for the substitutes for those 10 comp days for every one of the power professionals.
Uh which obviously uh comes to quite a quite a fee. Um district responsibilities, work assignments and schedules, orientation of procedures and student needs, verification of hours worked performance concern notification and supervisor of programming and
services. That's what the companies do in regards to the power professionals. That's what ESS does. That's what Delta T does as well. That is in their contracts. Uh for Delta T, they put in a bid of 28.56. And again, this is through the Mercer County Special Services uh cooperative.
Uh their rate is $18 to $22 per hour as negotiated. Again, part-time status. District responsibilities for the company stay exactly the same. Go ahead, Keith. That's it.
>> Thanks, sir. So, currently we have rebid through our RFP process our security. We will be having a new company transition in in 2627. Uh we rebid our custodial services. Uh we will have a new company coming in in
2627 July 1st. Uh and we also rebid our power professional services. We will continuing we will continue that rebidding process throughout the year for other different services. Uh for those of you who don't know I would say around 10 or 11 years ago the district
privatized all of their services. They privatized transportation, privatized food services, privatized power professionals, privatized lunch monitors, privatized security, and privatized custodial about 10 to 12
years ago. Um there is where we currently sit every meeting and I am and and I'm asking everybody in this room to tell 10 neighbors about where we are and the fact that we need advocacy at the state
level and at the local level in order to change the state funding formula. That is where we are. Those names are on our website. I will we we will send them out at the start of the year. They will be in a memo so everybody will have them. Um, we have work to do moving forward.
We will be as transparent as humanly possible with that work. Um, but we have difficult decisions and challenges in front of us. I am hoping we can approach those collaboratively through advisory committees, through our town halls that
we've been having. But this is the work that's ahead of us and we will continue ringing this bell on our own at the state level until this funding formula is changed and we cannot tell you what's going to happen at the federal level at this point because we do not know uh
right now we are advocating or have been advocating to keep IDA in the US DOE department but the US do DOE department no longer exists. Uh so we will continue to fight that battle on our end as well because we have some worries about what
that funding is going to look like in 26 and 27. Um we will continue to communicate as much as we can. I promise you that as we move forward. I also want to touch on a point because we also have received a lot of emails about staffing and
principal and vice principal transfers. Um, as I noted previously, we made a lot of transfers with our staff last year to fill vacancies that normally the district would have just posted for
uh at a rate at about $5.5 million. So, we saved about 5.5 million by moving really qualified staff either transferred them within their building or out of their building to fill necessary vacancies. This year we followed with that process as well. In
addition to our building leadership uh and as I mentioned uh previously we are working on making decisions through data. We are going to show that data on our website on a regular basis so everybody shares that same data. So for our principles and VP moves um I do
want to point out because I've been getting that question. Sumea ASCA has no involvement or decision making in those moves. They were made aware of those moves after the board was made aware as a courtesy.
Uh they had no involvement in decision-making, nor should they, nor do they want to. So I want to make that clear because I've been receiving a lot of emails around that. Uh that was a senior leadership decision central office decision board decision. Um so we
looked at about three to five years worth of data. Uh we looked at climate and culture surveys. We looked at student achievement. We looked at discipline records. We looked at attendance. We looked at special education certifications and backgrounds of our leaders. We looked at ped pedag
pedagogical strengths. We looked at their weaknesses. Uh we looked at managing strengths. We looked at their managing weaknesses. Uh we looked at 504 and multi-tered uh support systems numbers. uh when we made these transfers
um we believe they will be the best for our schools and our students moving forward. Um as we move forward you will see this board as noted previously focus on three buckets that is student achievement that is the wellness of our
students and and staff and also the infrastructure of our buildings. Those are our three buckets moving forward and you'll hear a lot of discussions on those three things. Uh we believe these moves and also our staff moves will help as we move in those directions. Um those
are really the two biggest emails that I've been receiving over the last couple of weeks. Um anything am I missing? No. So those are the two hot topics and if you've been to a board meeting you know we try to address our hot topics as much as
possible. Those have been the two biggest. So, you're going to see a lot of memos, a lot of emails, and I'm sorry if it just overburdens your inbox, but uh we prefer to overcommunicate than undercommunicate, especially when it
comes to times like we're in right now. So, we will continue that communication moving forward. Um we will ask for your collaboration move as we try to get through this fiscal year and try to go
into 2728 and 28 and 29. We are looking two years out at this point. We are working with the county. We are working with the county superintendent and also the county business administrator uh as we do this work. So your partnership will be asked for as
we move forward. Uh we need to collaborate as a community to get through these challenges moving forward over the next couple years. Uh we will keep you informed moving forward. I promise you that. >> All right. >> Thank you. There's a couple other updates on the agenda, but I'd like to
go out of order and bring uh hearings of individuals and delegations. Do I have a motion or uh Higgins? Second. Board member Callahan. All in favor? Show of hands. Unanimous. All right. Thank you. We're back in our individuals and delegations.
Uh thank you for coming in person and joining us online. Uh we value your public comment. We can't engage in a dialogue with you, but you we take your comments very seriously. Our comment period uh is limited to one hour although we are often a little squishy
on that. And uh each speaker will have two minutes. Uh our first speaker will be Mindy Greenspan. Good evening. My name is Mindy Greenspan. I'm a longtime resident of Maplewood and the parent of a 2006 Columbia High School graduate. I morally
object to the ongoing genocide in Palestine by Israel with my tax dollars and in my name as a Jew. I am here representing a local group of several hundred parents and residents in Soma who are committed to the end of the
genocide in Gaza and to unbiased education about Israel and Palestine in our schools and towns. I'm here to raise concerns about the free trips to Israel for teachers and administrators in our district funded by the Jewish
Federation. A group of parents met with Mr. Bing asking him to ban these free trips. Mr. Bing admitted that he had shared the Jewish Federation's invitation without scrutiny to the purpose of the trips or
the organization sponsoring them. This is astonishing. The Jewish Federation's invitation materials are clear in their intent. They explicitly center the political experience of Israelis in the aftermath of October 7th. The
superintendent of Livingston went on one of these free trips in 2024 and coverage of that trip makes it clear that those trips delegitimize Palestinian suffering and whitewash current and historical events. There is no exposure to the
lived experience of Palestinian civilians, the over 70,000 killed since October 7th, the more than 1,000 killed since the supposed ceasefire, the generations displaced since 1948,
and the families watching illegal settlements encroach on what remains of their land in the West Bank. Moreover, the organizations sponsoring these free trips deserve scrutiny. I have literally I can wrap up in 30 seconds. Please uh
please afford me that. The Jewish Federation has emphatically supported Israel throughout the genocide, has spent millions of dollars funding the expansion of illegal, racist, and violent settlements on stolen Palestinian land, and has lobbied for
book bans in the state of New Jersey. While arguing in front of this body last month that the trips weren't political propaganda tours, a representative of the Jewish Federation stated that educators would be taken to the Holocaust Museum in Israel to learn the
true meaning of a genocide. >> Thank you, Miss Greenspan. >> We know the entire Soma community would agree that kind of organization cannot be considered a credible educational resource. free trips to Israel funded by them should be banned immediately.
>> Thank you, Mr. Greenspan. Now, folks, I'm gonna note there are numerous folks who have signed up on a couple different issues and I encourage you if your points have been made, you should feel free to allow other folks to go through given the hour. However, everyone who wants to speak will be
allowed to. Our next public speaks is Carrie Gordon. >> Hi, my name is Carrie. I'm a resident of Maplewood, a former Tuscan PTA president, and I've raised two children here. My husband's family is Palestinian, and I morally object to the ongoing genocide in Gaza perpetrated by Israel. I'm here to share the rest of
the story um with our meetings with Mr. Bing that Mindy began. In our meetings, Mr. bank dismissed the characterization of Gaza as a genocide as merely our opinion. Despite the fact every major human rights organization has declared this a genocide, as well as numerous
Israeli human rights organizations, historians and scholars, these organizations have also characterized Israel as an apartheid state. Would this district have shared free trips to apartheid South Africa or to the Jim Crow South? It is a failure of moral leadership from a superintendent
entrusted with educating our children to not adequately be educated on this topic. This harms our community members. Soma justice leader Cadia Costley White, a dedicated parent advocate and university professor, was targeted by name and publicly smeared as anti-Semitic during BOE public comment
because she continues to speak up about Palestinian suffering. Her PTA even ousted her, citing an arbitrary policy infraction. This is a pattern that those in our community who criticize Israel face, falsely being labeled as anti-semitic as a tool to silence them.
It is also noticeable notable that the target of this criticism was a woman of color, too often the first to be attacked when speaking out against injustice. We asked for an immediate prohibition on accepting free trips to organizi organized by the Jewish Federation or comparable organizations. Two, the district to enforce its own
policies governing gifts and travel at all times. Three, a public apology by Mr. Bing acknowledging this lapse in ethical leadership. Four, a commitment that district resources will not be used to promote or normalize the actions of any state engaged in genocide. Five,
mandatory training on the history of Palestine, the genocide in Gaza, and anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia, and discrimination in all our in our schools that center Palestinian voices. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Gordon. Next, we have Stacy Lawrence.
My name is Stacy Lawrence. I am a resident, longtime resident of South Orange and I also taught English at Columbia High School for 25 years. Uh I am a uh a Jewish woman and I'm also a Jewish educator and I am absolutely
floored and disgusted that you would consider that this district would consider sending our teachers and our administrators to a country who is currently committing a genocide. The following is the following is a
response to the Jewish Federation educators study tour invitation to the South Orange Maplewood School District. The letter was written by the superintendent of Springfield Public Schools, Rachel Goldberg, representing
the Jewish Federation of Greater Metro West. Uh in addition to being a Jewish educator for many uh synagogues in the area, I also worked for Jewish Federation for many many years. So I know from the inside exactly what they
are about. This letter misrepresents the scale of death. It states the war led to thousands killed both in Israel and in Gaza. The October 7th attack killed
approximately 1,195 Israelis, a tragedy that we do not minimize. But as of mid 2025, over 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Gaza Ministry,
with public health experts noting that this is a significant undercount. More than 17,000 children 17,000 children have been killed in Gaza.
Language that equates these losses without context fails educators um professional responsibility to accuracy. >> Thank you, M. >> This I'm continuing I'm continuing. I taught 25 YEARS IN THIS DISTRICT. I'M
FINISHING this letter. I Yes, I am. Thank you. This tour does not offer balanced perspective. The I'm not. Yes, I am. The Jewish Federation is a partisan advocacy organization. A tour is fully fund and controlled where
participants will not visit Gaza, the occupied West Bank. >> Thank you, Miss Lawrence. We have to move on. Miss Lawrence, we're at four and a half minutes now. All right, let me get
something about. Yeah. So, we're I do want to make one quick comment in regards to a name that you kept mentioning uh who's not only an esteemed colleague but also a community
member of ours. Uh so Dr. Rachel Goldberg is well respected not only in the education field but also in our community. >> Thank you. >> Miss Lawrence, we need to continue with our public speak.
>> All right. >> All right. I'm gonna I'm gonna ask for a fivem minute recess. >> Do I have >> No. All right. Yes. So I have >> all in favor. >> Okay. Five minute recess. Thank you. to speak tonight. We do care. We want to
hear what you have to say. We must operate within our bylaws or we would be forced to continue this meeting on another date which no one wants to do. Uh the next public speaks will be Cadia Costley White.
Did I depress it? >> Um, just a few quick things. I stand in solidarity with the folks who are here to support Paris. Give them all the money and keep it off the field um from turning it plastic. I also want to stand in solidarity with all the folks who are concerned about the
administrators getting moved around. I do think there needs to be more transparency about that. Um, I came today because Oh, two more things. Um, Miss Brown, uh, you expressed concern about low-income folks. You invoke the public pre preK program. I have yet to
see the BOE prioritize people who are lowinccome for the public prek program. So, I hope they don't just get invoked when people want something. I hope they get invoked when it comes to real policies that actually put them as a priority. Um, and the last thing, uh, Mr. Bennett, um, I found your your
comment, your off-handed comment about AI for Mr. Gilbert's presentation insulting and demeaning. I think you owe him an apology, and I'll just leave that there. Um, so I I um I was a kid in this district. Uh, I first learned about the
Holocaust in this district. I was told the reason that I had to learn about the Holocaust because a kid did stand up. It was on the NBC news and ask, "Why do we have to learn about this?" And I was told it was because we had to learn how to never let this happen again. Not for anyone. The first concentration camps
from Germany were in Africa. And and everyone made it very clear to me that this should not happen. So that is the education I brought when I said why is our school district supporting and approving a trip to a place that is committing a genocide. Not just by me but according to Save the Children,
Doctors Without Borders, Genocide Watch, Human Rights Watch, United Nations, all sorts of groups, right? Um, I asked why is that happening here? And, uh, and after that, um, my reputation has been attacked. I've been kept off of the PTA. I've been called anti-Semitic.
I've been called anti-Israel. Um, and that's after over 20 years of working on race and power in my professional career. Um, I want to close. Please give me a few seconds because I was invoked by name in that meeting last month. So, I'll close with this. Um, the BOE cannot
fix the Middle East, but you can choose not to do favors for organizations that leverage soft power for a country committing genocide. It is literally the least you can do. If you want to support learning about Jewish history and culture, there are worldclass museums within driving distance. You do not need
to send staff a mile from where children are being buried alive or a country where people pay to watch that suffering through a telescope for entertainment. THAT IS WHERE YOU'RE educating people. So, your leadership matters and I hope
you make better choices. >> Thank you, Dr. >> Next, we have Leila Assad. Leila Assad. Can you hear me? Hi, my name is Leila. I live in Maplewood and I'm Palestinian. I'm the proud mother of three Palestinian
daughters in the district. Uh we've made friends of all backgrounds in our 15 years here. When we share our story of being Palestinian were always felt warmly received, but my daughters have not felt that same sense of belonging in our schools, especially in the past
three years. Our spirits and souls have been crushed watching a genocide in Gaza. I was in Gaza 20 years ago and witnessed destruction, pain, and poverty because of Israeli bombings, curfews, constriction, and that was long before the genocide. While my daughters and I tried to
process the news together in school, the topic was ignored by educators or worse, shut down. One of my daughters raised Gaza in her a push class. A dispute ensued. Not only was the teacher completely unprepared to lead a constructive conversation, he turned to
my daughter and accused her in front of the entire class of being a terrorist. We never felt more alienated. And nothing has changed. Not when I worked with a group of parents to engage administrators on a fuller Palestinian-
centered experience and history in the schools. And not when we shared these stories and others. And now we hear that district educators are being invited on free trips to Israel to get a quote unquote firsthand look at what happened at October 7th.
Imagine the insult my family felt at learning that Mr. Bing shared these invitations without any scrutiny, sponsored by the Jewish Federation, a pro-Israel organization that denies the genocide, funds illegal settlements in the West Bank, and has advocated for
book bans right here in New Jersey. My father was born in Hifa in what is now Israel, what was then Palestine. In 1948, he was ousted from his home along with 700,000 other Palestinian refugees.
My daughters and I feel too often like outsiders, a kind of refugees here in Soma. It's time for the district to do what it says it will do, not endorse propaganda trips, but teach the truth. >> Thank you, M.
NEXT WE HAVE Electra Kapuchu. >> Hello. Thank you. Um you said we shouldn't be repetitive, but clearly this needs to be emphasized one more time. So, I'm here today as a South Orange um resident, a mother of two, and a professor of history who specializes
in Middle East studies and genocide studies. And I came here today, I left my children behind and waited for you to finish your meeting because I am deeply concerned about what has transpired as of recently in our district.
Let's not make a mistake. What was presented as a simple innocent presentation was a sinister attempt to normalize a genocide. among international experts in relevant fields
everywhere in the world, including in these United States of America. According to the American Association of Genocide Scholars, there is absolutely no doubt that what has been unfolding in Gaza is not only a genocide, but a
genocide that is going to enter history books as an unprecedented crime that was livereamed in real time, funded with our tax dollars. And as we're listening in solidarity about teachers getting fired,
about our budget evaporating, about our district, our very affluent, as you said, district suffering, at the same time, we have to make excuses for trips to a genocidal regime
that is characterized by that like that by every expert in the world. I'm asking you what would it mean if an American board of education sponsored a trip to the beautiful city of Berlin, lots of history there in 1943. It is the exact same question. It
applies to you today. How can you look at your neighbors whose families are getting slaughtered, your Jewish neighbors who protest, many of them protest this force association of their religion with the crime of genocide.
Those of us who specialize in genocide studies, who study these types of things, very often return to that moment when everybody has to face the gravity of their silence, of their complicity >> and it's crushing. How are we going to
face our children? Talk about the arts. Talk about developing this district. How? Thank you. Next we have David Litwin. Good evening. My name is David Lwin. I've been a South Orange resident for 10
years. I've been teaching at Ruckers University for 23 years. I'm a member of the Soma Collective for Palestine and a co-founder of Jews for Palestinian Right of Return. I'm here tonight to join with others in demanding that South Orange Maplewood school administrators stop
sharing invitations for Jewish Federation funded trips to apartheid Israel with school staff. Our public education institutions should not be complicit in much less be encouraging a campaign to whitewash the crimes of a genocidal state under the guise of
providing quote a better understanding of the situation in Israel. That is exactly what these trips sponsored by an explicitly pro-Israel organization are intended to do. Moreover, these trips are not taking place in a vacuum. The genocide in Gaza has generated
unprecedented outrage at the Israeli state, including among growing numbers of Jews in this country. The pro-Israel establishment has responded with a fullcourt press to falsely portray Israel as a victim to hide what it truly is, a perpetrator of settler colonial
violence and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians going back to its founding in 1948. These trips are part of that PR strategy. At the same time, and across the country, Zionist organizations and individuals in alignment with the Trump
administration are desperately smearing anyone who speaks out against Israel's serial injustices and demonizing any form of advocacy for Palestine as anti-Jewish. It is shameful enough that our community leadership has yet to condemn the
US-backed Israeli genocide. Publicizing propaganda trips masquerading as so-called study tours for educators further implicates our school district in apartheid Israel's ongoing crimes against humanity disassociate our
district from these egregious trips immediately. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Lewin. Next we have Edward Kovski. >> Hi, my name is um Edward Cavvelski. Uh I live in Maplewood. I have three children in this school district. I have
entrusted you guys with the education of my children. and how we educate our educators will have a profound effect on the kind of adults our children become. And if this board thought it was appropriate to send our summer educators on a trip that taught them about Germany
in the 1940s and this hypothetical trip failed to address the genocide of the Jews that took place during that time, I would be horrified and enraged and I think you would be too. If this board said it was okay that our teachers learned about American history, but the fact that we enslaved black people and
denied women the right to vote and interned Japanese Americans was emitted from that education, I would question whether these are the people I want teaching my children. History, just like the history of World War II and the history of this country, it is happening
right now. It is not a matter of opinion that tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli government. It is not just one side of a story that gazins who want to live a normal life. Children that want cool backpacks and to eat too much sugar are
being killed and wounded incessantly. The Israeli government is bombing these children's hospitals and orphaning these children as we sit comfortably in this room tonight. It is not up for debate that Palestinians living in the West Bank are being forcibly taken from their
homes, that they are denied access to the rainwater that falls on their heads, and that the Israeli government denies them freedom of movement. The Israeli government is responsible for this violence. I am here to say that it is shameful that our educators are being taken on a trip to Israel at this moment
in history and these atrocities will not be addressed. Being a proud Jew myself, I am firm in my conviction that the Jewish Federation is not an organization I want educating my children's educators. Thank you for letting me
share. Thank you. Next, we have uh Lauren Warg. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, hi, my name is Lauren Morgft. I live in Maplewood. I have a rising third grader, Lily, um, who has a
504 but has been in an inclusion class for two years and has greatly benefited from just the warm, caring environment um, that the paras are able to provide. And I'm going to read some anonymous um notes from teachers in the district.
Powers are the backbone of the classroom. As a classroom teacher who teaches young children, I would not be able to do what I do without the support of paras. The powers make a huge difference in not only the lives of my students with special needs. They also have an impact on the gen students. They
help in all aspects of the day. On a daily basis, they help run small math and ELA groups, change diapers, clean tables, run the classroom when there is a substitute for the teacher, cover lunch and recess duties, emotional support such as holding hands and kissing boooos. This only covers a small
portion of what they do in a day for the lives of our youngest children. They're also a huge reason why many of the children who need extra support in a Jed classroom can be successful. I've seen that myself. They help regulate and get the children ready for learning. It is difficult to put into words all the
things that a parah does during the day to make the classroom run as cohesive and safe. And then one more. Losing our core par professionals would significantly set the program back potentially by years. Each time new staff are brought in, they require training which reduces instructional
time in the classroom. In many cases, however, new par profofessionals are not fully trained due to short-term intent or high turnover. This impacts students by requiring them to learn a new adult which impacts behavior and takes time and attention away from learning. Maintaining consistent permanent
paraprofessionals in self-contained classrooms is essential to ensure program continuity and smooth day-to-day operations. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next we have Marie Paul Flores. Um, good evening um, board members. My
name is Marie Paul Florest and I am a representative of IOE Local 68, not 38 represents the PAR professionals working in the South Orange Maplewood School District. I um respectfully urge the
board to reconsider the decision that would reduce par profofessional wages. This is not simply a labor issue. It is an educational issue that directly impacts the quality of support of our student receive every day.
Par professionals play a vital role in our school particularly in supporting students with special needs. These position require patience um skills, trainings and dedication. Skilled professionals cannot reasonably be
expected to remain in these demanding roles for $16. Do you hear me? $16 per hour. Lowering wages will make it difficult to attract and retain
experienced par profofessionals. This will result in the loss of valuable institutional knowledge in trusted relationship that are essential to student success. While wage reductions may appear to
generate short-term savings, long-term consequences will affect far more costly. It will result in high turnover, staff shortages, recruitment difficulty, and disruption in student support
services, which will ultimately diminish the quality of education provided to some of the district most uh vulnerable students. This decision extend beyond the employees affected. It impacts students,
families, educators, and the broader community. Our students deserve experience, well-trained par profofessionals who are committed to helping them succeed. Those professionals deserve fair compensation
that reflects the importance and value of their work. >> Thank you, Miss Flor. Um, investing in paraprofessionals is an investment in student achievement, educational,
educational equity, and long-term success of this district. I urge the board to stand with the students and family of the South Orange Maplewood by ensuring that par professionals are compensated fairly and treated with
respect. they have earned through their service and dedication. I thank you for your time and consideration. >> Next, we have Molly Goldman. >> Hello, my name is Molly Goldman. I live in Maplewood. I'm speaking to you as the
parent of a rising third grader with multiple disabilities who spends her school days in an inclusion classroom at Clinton. When she entered kindergarten, her teachers quickly identified that she required a one-to-one parah in order to access the curriculum and succeed in the class. When she started working with her
parah, who was excellent, she transformed from a child who was lost and overwhelmed to one who was secure and able to engage in the class. The following year that parah was gone. Not because any mandate for my daughter's IEP changed. Her support needs didn't
change. Our district, as you're well aware, already has a Paris staffing shortage and they could not retain her. This shortage and this inability to retain Paris has led to horror stories such as elopment, Paris inappropriately grabbing kids, and more that I'm aware
of, but I won't go into detail because I don't want to share the personal stories from other families. Instead of addressing these issues that we're already experiencing, in addition to having wonderful Paris in our district, you've chosen to bid for a
cheaper contract with no plan to retain any of our current paras. You say that we love to litigate, but please hear me when I say that all we want are adequately skilled support staff for our kids. You say that our district doesn't want
to have hard conversations, but we were not engaged on this issue. It is not possible to build trust in a superintendent that waves the word transparency around and then tries to shamefully sneak a plan past the most vulnerable families in our district on
the last day of school. It is not possible to build trust in leadership that looks at our kids and sees only what their support needs cost. You might not listen to us today. We may
not succeed in stopping this horrendous plan that diminishes some of the most essential personnel in our school buildings to just bodies in a room and jeopardizes the safety and learning of our students. But you will not be able to say that you didn't know what the
risks were and what harm could be done. >> Thank you, Miss. >> Next, we have Scott Engles. >> Scott Engles. Good evening. Hi, I'm Scott Les. Uh I'm a parent of a 5-year-old who just graduated from Montrose. Uh he's going
to be a kindergartener in Seth Bdon's ERRI program this fall. Uh he has an IEP and a onetoone parah. I'm also on the board of the special education parent advisory committee, CPAC. Um, we have a group of concerned parents here tonight from CPAC and other organizations that
put together an open letter that we would like to read to you two minutes at a time. Um, we're all in the list. We might be going slightly out of order, but you know, for the continuity. Um, uh, so just please check off everybody as we go. I'll kick it off. Um on June
11th the SOS SOSD board of education voted to approve a district leadership recommendation to switch paraprofessional staffing agencies from ESS to Delta T group. District leadership proposed this change and the BOE approved it without engaging CPAC special education families classroom
teachers or local disability advocates. At a time when the district is making efforts to bring students back in district from costly outofd district placements. This decision is baffling and alarming. It's no secret that our district spends a significant amount of
money on outofd tuition for our IEP kids. Some of those outofd district placements are inevitable due to the significant medical needs of the children involved. But we know from painful personal experience that some of those placements were utterly unnecessary and were the result of our
district failing to invest in its own capacity to support neurode divergent learners in district. and I will pass this to the next person. >> If you just want to tell me your name, we'll check you off here. Please feel free. >> Uh hello. Uh my name is Alfred Degrand
and um I have a daughter in um Marshall Elementary. Um experienced PAR professionals do more than provide uh technical compliance with the students IEPs. They know our students. They have experience maintaining safe environments, ensure the programs that
provide our children with access to free and appropriate public education run as intended and thereby prevent costly lawsuits and out of district placements. This decision to switch vendors is yet another failure to our district to invest in our own capacity to support
neurode divergent learners in district and it threatens to gut the very programs that are keep currently keeping dozens of children in district. District leadership appears to have considered only the line items costs of the paraprofessional contract without factoring in the disastrous effect this
vendor shift will have not only in terms of human cost to our students but in the terms of the long-term financial cost to our district. The details of this this decision and the upcoming transition to Delta T group raise serious concerns regarding par profofessional quality,
student safety and educational continuity. Uh district equity and uh fiscal stewardship. Thank you. I'm going to pass it off. >> Okay. My name is Jacquelyn Slappy and I'm a PAR professional for the South Midwood
district. This decision appears to have been made with no understanding by anyone, not district leader and not the BOE, about how much professionals working for Delta T group would be compensated.
That alone tells parents that leadership and this board do not understand how central compensation is to quality. Information provided to ESS professionals indicate that switching to Delta T results in significantly
lower pay at $16 an hour, five six days instead of 10, and the elimination of diaper change compensation, which is $650 per change. As of earlier this week, there were job postings for our
district on Deltat T website at a rate of $18 an hour. It was certainly a relief that Mr. Bing quoted a higher figure of $20 to $22 an hour in emails
to parents this week. And Mrs. Busameira confirmed that the range in an email to E SAC this afternoon. She stated that upon hearing local 68's claims about
compensation rates in the June 17th letter issued to Paris districtwide, we were as alarmed by this number as you were. So I began discussion with the district's delta t representative and their executive team to ensure our
parents receive compensation commiserate with their experience and role in our support of students. Later this afternoon, she informed us, "Unfortunately, I have been informed that the contract being approved tonight with Delta T is
unable to state the range of compensation will be between 20 and $22 because of the co-op agreement that governs this relationship states that the range is $18 to $22. Hi, I'm Lie Schaefer. I'm a resident of
Maplewood and I have a daughter who receives support from a paraprofessional to continue. Um, this raises many questions for us. We're were minimum rates comme commeurate with our most skilled Paris expertise fought before
our community mobilized or was M just Maria's engagement with Delta T this past week the first time this critical discussion about compensation rates and senior seniority transpired in the district's negotiations were sick time
and diaper change fees addressed and were the adverse impacts of additional reductions apart from hourly compensation, diaper changes, and sick days deliberately deliberated as the significant concessions they are. Did our
administrators and BOE conduct due diligence and in information gathering about Delta T's past bad faith actions in our district? As of today, Delta T's website lists no open pair professional positions in New Jersey paying more than
$18 to $20 an hour. Even at this high higher range our district leaders claim Delta T will abide to but won't put into writing. It remains a significant pay cut from the current 22 to 26 plus with a fewer with fewer sick days, no diaper
change compensation, and no health benefits protections previously secured through collective bargaining. our community and in particular our special education families and their educators should not have to crowdsource the terms of a contract determined
to determine the quality of care for our children will receive next year. This is a governance failure and it belongs to both the district leadership and this board. Despite everything we do not know about how we we got to this point, what we do know is that these kinds of
drastic compensation and benefit reductions will make it impossible for many of our most experienced pair of professionals to afford to remain with it with our district, leading to a loss of critical expertise and disruption of vital student relationships. The long-term financial and educational
costs of losing this vital and experienced workforce far outweigh any short-term contract savings. Hello, my name is Eva Wolika and I'm a parah uh for Tuscan Elementary School. Um what I'm going to discuss is imminent
classroom disruption and vendor quality. The district now faces foreseeable disruption that could have been prevented with more proactive communication and engagement. Rather than hear of this change from the
district, paraprofessionals learned of the change the day before the last day of school from their union, not from you. Local 68. Local 68 has informed paraprofessionals that their contracts
will terminate after the extended school year. As a result, the union has understandably advised workers to use their remaining sick time immediately. Consequently, we now face immediat
immediate staffing shortages and disruption in special education classrooms starting this July. Um, ESY serves some of the district's most vulnerable students and is designed to
prevent regression in skills during summer break. A lack of consistency during that program will disrupt the connection and continuity our ESY kids rely on to thrive. Moreover, Delta T
Group is a vendor the district previously utilized and ultimately left due to poor performance. Returning returning to them under terms that severely devalue our frontline
staff risks the safety and education of our students. It is unclear at this stage whether district leadership was even aware of the district's termination of the previous Delta D group contract. And if so, what if any accountability
provisions were adopted in the current contract to prevent a reoccurrence of the issues that led to their previous termination? >> Thank you. Hi, my name is Lisa Vogue. Um, I'm a Maplewood resident. I have two students
who go to Tuscan Elementary School and you just heard my son's wonderful Parah speak. Um, she's been with him for two years now. Reading on. Last week, Mr. Mr. Bing attempted to reassure a number of special education families, stating that
the district will ensure no legal gap in service occurs. That statement did nothing to reassure us. The concern from parents is not that the district will fail to provide the same number of pair professionals required by our children's IEPs. Our concern is that we know from
painful experience how our children's needs shift profoundly based on whether the professionals around them have adequate training to provide them with meaningful support and connection. If the district staff's inexperienced pair professionals to cut costs in the
short term, it will see the needs displayed by our children increase in the long term. In conversations with board members and district leadership over the past week, it has become clear to us uh that those making decisions for our children do not have a deep understanding and respect for the
connection between compensation and quality on the one hand and the district's out of district and other liabilities on the other. Thus, regardless of how substantial the reduction in compensation, we want to take some time to paint a picture for
you about what has happened previously when financial decisions have impacted par profofessional quality and what is likely to happen if a compensation reduction results in attrition among our most experienced paras. Due to the compensation reductions, this vendor
switch will inevitably lead to the loss of the highly trained pair of professionals that make many of our self-contained classrooms run because they are already underpaid for what they do and cannot afford a loss of four plus dollars an hour and a significant reduction in benefits to stay with our
district. The district has multiple self-contained classrooms where experienced professional education teachers partner with highly trained highly trained paraprofessionals to create some of our district's most uh to cater to some of our most district's most vulnerable students including those
with autism with language disabilities and with emotional regula regulation challenges. Many of those students would be forced out of district if those self-contained classrooms were not available or if the efficacy of those programs were gutted by the loss of
critical staff. Danielle Thorne, South Orange, two kids in district 1 and self-contained. Two such classrooms cater to 20 plus children with emotional regulation challenges. Many of these kids struggled with being able to even attend school before placement in the ERRI program.
Many of these children also struggled with behaviors ranging from alopement and verbal aggression to self harm and physical aggression. The assigned teachers and highly trained paras in those rooms are foundational to the success of the program that so foundational to the success of the program that on days there are subs
certain of those behaviors return within a matter of hours. For these kids, losing our current, highly trained paras runs the risk of severing the connection that is critical to their ability to access school. For that reason, losing the seasoned paras in these programs is likely to lead to an increase in
physical aggression and self harm among this group of students. Currently, the specialized educators and highly trained paras in the ERI program are almost always able to deescalate any physical behaviors verbally. Verbal deescalation reduces the
liability risk to the district on several fronts. It means a reduced risk of injury to the disregulated child, their classmates, the teachers, and the paras themselves, thereby avoiding potential liability for injuries. It also means a reduced risk of a disregulated child being inappropriately
restrained as has happened in this district before and in neighboring districts, thereby avoiding significant mental health harms and again potential liability to the district. Switching to a vendor that sets its salary at a rate that only inexperienced paras would tolerate presents a serious and unique
risk of foreseeable harm for this group of students. This shift also runs the enormous, utterly unthinkable risk of leading to burnout among the incredible educators who lead our self-contained programs. The educators in the emotional regulation and language impairment self-contained classrooms have invested
enormous time and energy in training a core group of paras who support their program yeartoyear providing critical continuity and ensuring program efficacy. Depriving these educators of the paras of of um depriving these educators of the pars that make their
programs run places enormous burdens on these dedicated teachers and presents a real risk of burnout and attrition. To lose these educators would be a disaster for the students who rely on them every year to keep them in district and a financial catastrophe for this district. Every experienced educator running a self-contained classroom saves the
district the cost of approximately 8 to 12 out of district tuitions annually. This is especially true of the ERRI program which is where numerous students have been placed in just the last several years when their families were on the verge of suing this district
seeking out of district placements. Hi, I'm Rachel Hennis. I have two children, one out of district who has had a one-on-one parah every year and without whom we would not be in school um and uh a seventh grader uh going into
seventh grader at PS. This shift in vendors also runs the risk of increasing the number of legal challenges this district faces from parents seeking to get their child placed out of district. If the use of less experienced paraprofessionals leads to a regression in students behavior or
learning, that will require re-evaluations to determine whether their current IEPs are continuing to meet their needs and provide them with the free and appropriate public education to which they are entitled. If their current program is undermined by inexperienced, underpaid prior professionals, the efficacy of those
programs will begin to fail. Should that harm materialize, special education families who are currently being served in district will not hesitate to bring legal challenges to secure safe placements for their children, resulting in an increased
number of parents suing the district for outof district placements. Not because they like to sue, but because we need our children safe and in an environment where their needs are met and understood. That is our right and that is our children's right. Even if many of those legal challenges don't ultimately
result in costly out of district placement, the legal cost to the district alone of fending off those challenges will add to an already disproportionately large legal spend. Moreover, at a time when the district is trying to convince more families to bring their children back in district
from costly outofdist placements, it is making decisions that profoundly undermine its capacity to do so successfully. Many of our outofdist students already have trauma histories
already have trauma histories from past experiences in our district. and outofd district families are therefore uniquely attuned to the dissonance between our district's stated goals and its actions. The decision to shift vendors without
engaging special education families and the educators who serve them has done profound damage to the community's trust. It really has and threatens to undermine further efforts to bring children back in district. Hello, my name is Meg Davis. I am a
parent of two children at elementary at South Mountain Elementary School and we I have seen firsthand the impact of a good parent and a horrible one. This just the severe equity impact. This decision does not land equally. A
disproportionate number of the children receiving paraprofessional support in our district are black and brown, meaning our most historically marginalized students will bear the brunt of the classroom disruptions, physical dangers, and emotional harms. Furthermore, this policy directly strips away the livelihoods of the prepar
professionals themselves who are predominantly black and brown women. These are next steps. This decision was a mistake. We are calling upon district leaders to commit the following steps to make it right. One, dignified contracts for specialized work, compensation, and
conditions that attract and retain experienced skilled pair professionals, not short-sighted cost-saving measures that destabilize our classrooms, harm our students, and increase the district's exposure to litigation and liability for out of district placements. This includes a meaningful
assessment of whether experienced pair professionals, particularly those supporting students in the trans in and transitioning out of self-contained classrooms, can be retained through in-house hiring or contracting car contract carveouts and full accounting
of the Delta T's contract provisions for minimum standards, experience requirements, and the district oversight and accountability. If the board has not already signed the contract in executive session, we urge you to exercise oversight before finalizing the contract and insist on provisions that will allow
us to retain our most essential pair of professionals. Trans. Number two, transparent, meaningful, and respectful engagement of directly impacted stakeholders. We have watched Superintendent Bing hold town halls around numerous budgetary cha changes.
this change that this change was made with no public engagement and with special education families with CPAC or with the educators serving our children is deplorable. Special education families, CPAC and our broader community deserve the same level
of communication, collaboration, and transparency. Superintendent Bing demonstrates in his work with other community stakeholders. courtesy busing fam courtesy busing families, arts advocates, athletic advocates, and others. The consistent exclusion of our community from that
stated from that standard of engagement is a pattern, not an oversight, and must end now. I'm Jessica Mingus. I am a resident of Maplewood with a son in the language learning disabilities classroom who has
had the benefit of the same phenomenal parah for three and a half years. And I'm the founder of the SOM peer support and action network for IEP and 504 families. Number three, direct engagement with
impacted educators immediately. The district must meaningfully engage self-contained classroom teachers and other directly impacted educators to identify harm reduction strategies before any staffing transitions occur
and if possible before the contract is signed. These educators have been excluded from this decision entirely. Their expertise is not optional. It is essential to ensure skillful decisions are made and harm is mitigated. These
educators would be able to help the district responsibly assess which pair of professionals we cannot afford to lose and to finalize contract language that to the maximum extent possible is designed to retain them. Number four,
formation of a special services working group with a real commitment to proactive communication, collaboration, and mutual respect. CPAC and the broader community could and
should have been brought in as partners at the beginning stage of this decision, sparing parents, paraprofessionals, and district leadership alike the panic and damage of the past week. It didn't have to be like this.
It shouldn't be like this moving forward. Superintendent Bing initiated and then abandoned this working group in 2025. We are calling for its formation now, not as a performative gesture, but as a
functioning body with real authority. Operating in genuine thought partnership with CPAC as evidenced by the workings of this organizing team, this working group will strengthen the communication
and collaboration Mr. Bing espouses, catalyze the trust building, and repair our community urgently needs. Bring the wisdom and professional experience of directly impacted stakeholders to bear on district policy. establish
accountability structures and ensure this pattern of exclusion does not continue. >> Hello, I'm Vera Hulcom. I live in South Orange. I am a member of the CPAC board
and this big working group closer. Okay. Sorry. Can you hear me now? Number five, BOE accountability. The board of education must exercise active and independent oversight of
district leadership at all times. Approving a decision of this magnitude in executive session without public deliberation is an abdication of their responsibility. The board must hold Superintendent Bing accountable for his vastly desperate treatment of special
education families, ascertain why this strategy was employed, and demand a clear plan for how this pattern of disregard will be remedied and monitored going forward. The board must also reckon with the fact that CPAC, me among
them, met with district leadership the same morning the union letter was sent. But this decision was not raised until an email conversation the following day. That is more than a communication failure. That is a governance failure.
All children in our district deserve first and foremost access to basic education. Too many of our special education students have been denied that access. As we face this fiscal crisis as a community, undoubtedly some painful
cuts will be necessary. But we cannot allow the district to balance the budget by gutting the supports that allow special education students to access the same education as their general education peers.
Our special education community is eager to partner with the district and our other families to find solutions that responsibly address the budget crisis while maintaining the critical services
that our children rely on to learn. We can be fierce partners in Trenton, but you need to include us here at home for us to do that. I'm sure you folks are going to, but please make sure that you email a copy of that to the board. Thank you. Uh,
next we have Jessica Kaufman. >> Good evening. My name is Jessica Calfman. I live in Maplewood and I'm here to talk about my son Nico who just finished first grade at Seth Bdon. Nico started kindergarten with a wellocumented IEP in a general education
inclusion classroom at Dileia Balden. From the first day of school, it was clear the administration wasn't interested in building a safe, nurturing environment for a child who needed exactly that. Within two weeks, we were asked to shorten his school day. We moved him into Miss Alf's newly formed
ERRI classroom at Marshall where for much of the year he was the only student in the room. We were told that program would stay at Marshall. By year's end, it moved again to Seth Bdon three schools before he'd even started first grade. Through every one of those moves,
one thing stayed constant, his power professional, Miss Ellis. Miss Ellis has been with Nico since day one of kindergarten right through to today. Being part of the ERI community taught us that the success of the children in these classrooms rely on strong, consistent paras who are invested in our
children's success. In the ERRI class in first grade is where it finally clicked. By March, his aggression was nearly extinguished. He moved into full inclusion for both math and ELA. Hisl score jumped from kindergarten level to
solid second grade in a single year. With his be behavior finally under control, he had 25 friends from school come to his birthday party, something we couldn't have imagined a year ago. His teacher's final note called it an exceptional year. This all happened in
large part because Miss Ellis knew his behavior plan, his triggers, how to bring him back from the edge before anyone else saw it coming. Next year, Nico moves fully into general education inclusion. A huge step we all worked so hard for. This transition transition
will only work with constant consistent one-to-one support in place by someone who knows Nico, not just a body. This is just my story. But this change has real consequences for all students, staff, and classroom stability. It
happened without ins without sufficient public input which goes against the stated values of the district leadership and BOE. We are asking the board to take immediate action to provide dignified contracts and prevent harm from from the power professional transition including public review and stakeholder
engagement. For Nico, that's not policy. It's what stands between him and a setback right after he's finally found his footing. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next we have Amanda Ninhouse. >> Hi, my name is Amanda Ninhouse. Um, I
live in South Orange and my son is in the ERRI class at Seth Bdon. I'm here to read a letter on behalf of a student. Hi, my name is Marlo Amu Gotfrieded. I am 12 years old and a rising seventh grader. I have attended Marshall Dia
Balden and South Mountain elementary schools. I now attend the center school out of district. I would like to share my reasons why this decision to change the contract for paras will lead to a catastrophe. Number one, public schools are already
bad enough. Making this decision would make it even worse. If this were to happen for any kids that have a disability, it will feel like school is a living hell. Making this decision will put the AIDS on minimum wage. AIDS should get paid more and should get
proper training. When I didn't have my aid, I forgot that I had my fidgets in my backpack. My whole day was really stressful. So much so that I even bit my own skin on my arm. A year later, the scars are still on my arm. These scars
are visible. These scars are visible. But what you can't see is us kids broken hearts. You tell us everything is fine. It's not fine. Making this decision would be the definition of injustice towards both the aids and the students. If this were to happen, worst case
scenario, we get sent to one of RFK's wellness farms far away from our parents or maybe a mental hospital. Doing this would be putting kids in jail because nobody cares about them. And this is why I think making this decision is unacceptable.
I want to add for myself that since my son joined Seth Bdon, he has made leaps and bounds with his emotional regulation and educational skills and could probably teach me a few things that would not be possible without the teachers and powers in this classroom.
Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next we have Nicole Fredulli. Hi, I'm Nicole Fraoli. I live in Maplewood. I have a rising second grader and a rising kindergartener. My rising second grader has a shared parah. Uh but
tonight I'm reading for another parent of a special ed student. My child is one of countless South Orange Maplewood School District kids who owes their entire academic development to the incomparable Mr. Wosio. Did I say that right? Yeah. Okay. And his team of
talented, dedicated, and irreplaceable paraprofessionals. Mr. Wosio's dedication to his students extends to his work training and leading a team of specialized paraprofessionals. When I ask my child what the paras do, they said, "Help us with our work. Help us calm down. Just help with
everything." The paras are able to pick up on subtle changes in my child's behavior, use soothing mantras and reminders to reenter them, help with organization, assist with executive functioning challenges, help with motor planning, and just act as safe adults. After school, my kid sometimes says, "I
was having a rough day, but I turned it around." I figured the affirmation came from Daniel Tiger until one day at pickup, their par, we had a hard start to the day, but you turned it around. High five. My kid learned the incredible lesson of redemption from a par professional. For anyone who doubts the
value of their work, I invite you to visit Mr. Wosio's ERI self-contained classroom. It's magic. If we lose this team and our programs collapse, I'm sure my child and so many other kids will be requesting out of district placements. If our kids remain
in the district, other children in the building will be less safe without their specialized deescalation expertise. Lastly, this is just the right thing to do. These professionals deserve to take care of their own families while they take care of ours. Please take action to pay the people
caring for our kids just a fraction of what they deserve. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next we have Nyron Ramaser. Good evening uh to the members of South Orange Maplewood Board. For many years, I
proudly served our school district as a special education teacher. Dedicate my career to foster an inclusive, supportive environments where exceptional students can thrive. Over the extended tenure, I have witnessed the landscape of special education shift in numerous ways, but none quite as
starkly as the changing systemic treatment of our par profofessionals. These essential educators are the backbone of our classrooms. Yet, their institutional recognition has fluctuated dramatically over the decades. A special education classroom is a delicate
ecosystem where the true progress relies on a profound bond formed between the educated team and the student. PAR professionals do not merely assist. They co-regulate, modify instructions in real times, implement highly specific behavior plans and provide the
indispensable continuity that our students desperately need to feel safe and secure. When a familiar par professional faces high turnover due a lack of institutional support, it fractures the crucial continuity which can stall and disrupt weeks of student
progress. A teacher and par professional operate as a singular cohesive team. We need each other's cues, anticipate students needs and share the physical and emotional weight of a demanding educational environment. It is clear to me that we wish to sustain the integrity
of our special education programs. We must treat par professionals with the deep professional dignity that they have earned. True dignity cannot be realized through spoken appreciation alone. It must be backed by a fair living wage that reflects the immense value and
specialized skills they bring to our school district every day. Moving forward, my support will remain with our PAR professionals who are indispensable. It is imperative that they are compensated justly so that our students can continue to receive the stable exceptional care they provide.
I also like to say that um Delta T uh there was a par that prior to ESS coming that worked for Delta T that lost her life because she didn't have enough sick days. So this is the kind kind of company that you're considering bringing in, you know, type of morals that they have.
>> Thank you. Next, Hugh Cushing. >> Hi there. Excuse me. Hugh Cushing. U have a I'm in South Orange. Got a rising second grader coming into Dia Balden. Bit of a topic switch here. Just like to implore you uh if you could possibly
keep Mr. Anel Rivera on as assistant principal at Dileia Balden. uh in a in a situation of quite a bit of uh changes and transitions at Dia Bolton over the last few years, including the decoupling from Marshall. Uh he's been a rock. He's
been a constant star. He's been a a huge source of institutional knowledge, continuity, and especially warmth that's created a special bond with hundreds of kids, including my daughter. Um so I'd implore you to see if you can keep him there. Uh the other thing I wanted to
address is I understand that there's another position being considered. Uh I'm not sure of the exact title, but it's a kind of a math principle, somebody overseeing the math um in the in the district. Um maybe you've spoken about this in previous meetings. Uh but
I'd like to ask you cons to consider whether given the fiscal cliff and uh other situations like that that and the high student teacher ratios whether the district resources might be better applied to additional teacher staffing rather than a new administrative position. Thanks.
>> Thank you. >> Next we have Lark Lardo. Well, did you say lark? >> Yeah. Lark. Lark Lardo. >> She's trying to sign on via WebEx. She was here in person with ran. >> Okay. Got it. We're going to continue with the in person. I'm glad to loop
back to her here. All right. Next, we have Michael Dosardo. >> Same situation. >> Got it. Next, we have Allison Clafen. Yep, there you go. Allison Clifton. I have a rising eighth grader in inclusion
at MMS. I have a rising fourth grader in the self-contained classroom at Clinton and a rising fourth grader in the LLD classroom at uh Marshall. Tonight I'm reading a letter that was uh given to us by one of our teachers. Good evening. I
have spent more than 20 years as a special education teacher. I am sharing tonight because I love this work and because I believe we are failing one of the most important pillars that holds up our students. I'm asking this board to commit to recruiting, retaining, and fairly compensating our
paraprofessionals. Paraprofessionals are not assistants in the way that the word might suggest. For our highest need students, children with complex communication disorders, cognitive disabilities, behavioral challenges, autism, a paraprofessional
is often the most consistent adult in that child's day. They help implement IEPs, execute behavior interventions, assist with mobility, toileting, and seizure protocols. They deescalate crisis. They build the trust that makes
learning possible and are in the most essential sense essential. And yet we are promising to pay them less than the counter worker at a fast food restaurant. I want to be direct that what that cost gap cost us. When we cannot attract qualified candidates, we
hire warm bodies and our students pay the price. When we cannot retain trained pair of professionals, we cycle through new faces. and our students who depend on routine, predictability, trusted relationships, they regress. The IEP goals we write become aspirational
fiction by November. The research is clear and my two decades of experience confirm it. Consistency and competence in paraprofessional supports directly correlates with student outcomes. A skilled, well-trained PAR professional knows a non-verbal students
communication cues, understands the function behind a behavior, and reads escalation before it becomes a crisis. They deserve more. Our district speaks frequently about equity. Equity is not only about what we say. It is about where we put our money. Our highest need students, the children who arrive at our
doors with the greatest challenges and the greatest need for skilled support, deserve quality pair of professionals. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Next we have Marie Vener. >> Hi, I'm Marie Vanescar. Um, you heard from David um earlier. Um, he's been in
Maplewood School District since preK. Oh, yes. He's been in the Maplewood School District since preK. Um, and he's had um I would say about the um South Orange Maplewood District is that they're very great in an inclusion and
inclusion really helps him and having a onetoone parah helps him navigate the um general education program and um having a a stable parah helps him a lot because I see a difference. in elementary he had a stable para in middle school he he was
going through paras like um like probably 10 10 for for the year so it really really disrupts him and the changes really mess him up and I get it we have I come from a procurement background we do RFPs we look at it but
I do clinical trials for procurement but at the end of the day um for RFPs we can't have our paras as part of a RFP that's something that's needed. Um, we can't use them as if they're there like supplies, toilet papers. Yes, we can do
RFP for um, but this is a very important thing for the for our kids, for our special education kids. And to look at it, we we we need to have the broader experience. When I look at RFP, when I'm dealing with clinical trials, I look at the pricing and I look at the quality.
We can't go if you go for price, you get what you pay for. But in and when that's when the troubles come into play, we have to put into the quality and what's going to happen to our children >> because at the end of the day, they're the ones that's paying. We can't get back those times. We will never get back
those times for for them. So, it's important that they have professional par professionals working for them. And David could say what a parro does for him. Go ahead, David. >> What a parrot does for me is it helps it helps you with your work. It helps you like not cause riots. And that's it.
>> Yeah, it's actually super also I want to say about Dr. Bennett once I talked about this again. Dr. Bennett is one of the greatest like greatest admins of all time. >> Thank you. And then and the thing is he doesn't like with kids, they don't like changes. So this change is going to
affect them drastically. Everyone >> and also and also one more thing we like switch like switch Mr. Castle's role as a >> he's stuck on the >> You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. Have a separate meeting. >> David, we just met with uh Dr. Bennett
yesterday and your name came up that she wanted to keep mentoring you. So, you'll you'll be seeing Dr. Bennett. I promise you. >> Thank you, Dr. Bing. >> Next, we have Lisa Peterson. >> Who?
>> Lisa Peterson. >> Oh, she's not here. >> Oh, okay. Next we have Jasmine uh Dowy. Do we have Jasmine? No. Okay. Next we have Edward Lapiierre. First I Edward Laierre Maplewood. First
I want to thank the board and all who participate in the process. I have a deep respect for public education as a whole. This system allows me as a parent to speak publicly and be an advocate. However, I have to say one thing first before my um original comments. I do not think it was respectful, reasonable, or
responsible to have an 85 plus slide deck presented during any single public board meeting and then followed by comments and questions. That's a long time. And that's something for us to an 85 plus slide deck is something that is just I've never heard of sitting through
a public board meeting during that as a first time and that was and we do have time frames that we adhere to but that time frame was not adhered to and it was open about it. Mine will be of course though um to be clear I'm not talking about the presentation just the fact that it was presented today in one
meeting. So today I'm here for two issues. The first issue is the announcement to remove par professionals. The second issue is the administration shuffle. Um while I do not agree with the um every decision made, I agree or I believe we should have the process that all decisions go
through and I believe in collaboration with stakeholders. I believe in complete transparency with an issue. When issue arises, we know there will be controversy. We need to be directly open open and speak about the issue. Speaking vaguely about what could happen, what
should happen, what might happen is not clear transparency. Communication needs to be implemented so that every stakeholder is aware of what is on the table. PAR professionals provide essential support to our students, especially our most vulnerable population. Replacing these positions with lower cost, less qualified staff to
address a budget crisis is a short-term fix with a long-term consequence. And it's my child. Reducing direct support will hurt students and drive families to seek out out of place um placements. This is not s This is not a sustainable solution. It
is a costly mistake that puts students and a district at risk. I next want to talk about the administration shuffle. This is a common practice in districts usually to pra this practice is associated with trying to remove an administration or administrator without going through the proper channels. I
wholeheartedly disagree with this process and especially on a large scale like we're doing here. But the most egregious issue is that the timeline to announce this 2 to three days before our final school day. Why my son attended a action night a back to a presentation to an administrator who wouldn't even be
there and he met and he wants to see it's not proper planning it's working haphazardly I was directly told that this last minute announcement was made to avoid disruption within the schools however I say this announcement was made to avoid accountability and a dialogue
with families thank you thank you next we have Anita Willis Is Anita still here? No. Next we have Rebecca Silverstein. Hi, I'm uh Rebecca Silverstein and I am
a resident of Maplewood. Um I have a daughter in the district. I am reading the statement on behalf of report shared by anonymous community members. Earlier today, Superintendent Bing wrote in an email to a parent concerned about Delta T, saying there has been no issue with
them in the past. However, in May 2022, CPAC formally raised concerns about Delta T with district leadership, specifically about how the district can hold outsource providers accountable. In the 23 to 24 school year, Delta T placed
teachers in a special education co-eing role that became, in the words of one family or revolving door. As recently as the 2425 school year, a P teacher staffed by Delta T did not have proper elementary literacy credentials and told
multiple parents that she had not read their children's IEPs. A child in the class reported to her parents that the teacher did not know basic safety procedures for a code red drill. These are not isolated complaints. They are a
pattern. CPAC has been advocating for in-house paraprofessional hiring since the paraprofessionals were outsourced due to budgeting issues. Every assistant superintendent of special services has agreed it was the right direction to bring them back inhouse. CPAC repeatedly
requested the cost comparison data that would prove in-house hiring saves money in the long run, accounting for litigation costs, out of district placements, and compensatory educational claims. BOE members were asked to pull this data. Senior leadership was asked.
The data was never produced. Today, Superintendent Bing told the in-house told us the in-house numbers haven't worked out without showing anyone the numbers. That is not transparency. That is the same non-answer this community has been getting. We are not returning
to a trusted vendor. We are returning to a vendor with documented performance record that this district has chosen not to examine while also refusing to produce the financial analysis that might point toward a better path. Our children cannot afford another revolving
door. We are asking the board to pause this transition, seek a full and transparent cost analysis, including downstream litigation and placement costs, and engage families before any further changes take place. Thank you. >> Thank you.
Next, we have Karen Ro. Is Karen here? No. Next, we have Kate Freedom. Hi, my name is Kate. I am a resident of South Orange and a mom to a rising fifth
grader. And you heard a bit earlier from my son, a rising seventh grader, Marlo. The decision to move to a cheaper third-party contract for pair professionals will will hurt all of our children, our teachers, and the safety and legal integrity of the district.
Most folks would agree that band-aids are far more economical than the high costs of an infection or sepsis. In my family's experience, paraprofessionals were utilized in our district to cover up and guard against far greater systemic failures. Please let me be
clear. I am in no way criticizing the critical work of our paraprofessionals. High turnover, no training, and poor pay simply shift enormous unpaid work to already burned out teachers to student peers and or leave student support needs
completely unmet. That creates real costs that don't show up on a budget line. Increased escalation, more IEP disputes, more litigation, more out of district placements, and the lifelong harm to children denied consistent care.
I've asked in the past who is responsible for training, oversight, and ensuring services under these contracts. I was told, quote, "The classroom teacher." This is not accountability. Where are the service level agreements, costbenefit analysis, and measurable
expectations for quality? Who monitors absenteeism, turnover, and the cumulative effect on students? If this is a zero- sum game, who is actually paying the full cost? Briefly, during the 24-25 school year, my own child had
three different paras in three months. The revolving door was devastating and after neglect and lack of response from administration led to our own out of district placement. We now have my child back and thriving. But he should not have to travel 45 minutes away from home
to access his education and find belonging. He deserves to be included in this community. Please move quickly towards stronger accounting and a strategic plan to bring frontline support back inhouse.
In the interim require clear service level agreements, backup coverage for one-to-one supports, training and supervision of all paraprofessionals, transparent accountability, clear issue documentation and escalation procedures,
and a full cost analysis that includes downstream harms. Cutting frontline supports is a false economy. Our students and our district's fiscal and legal health depend on it. Thank you. >> Thank you, Kate. Next we have Sherry Edwards Lee. Is
Sherry here? No. All right. Next we have Electra. And I'm up. Oh, she All right. We had her twice. Good. Next we have Chanel. Um U Rego. No. Okay.
Next we have David Burstein. Good evening. Uh my name is David Burstein. I uh live in West Orange and I um the founder of price reflect.com. Um, I wanted to start off by thanking uh
the board and the administration for the opportunity to speak, especially since it's such a late hour. Um, and also your diligence with the budget. Um, I wanted to share some data on item 4989E,
particularly the nursing provider contracts. Uh, I wanted to make sure the district was paying the appropriate rate. Um, and I had a couple of questions. Uh what's hard to see from the agenda alone is how these proposed rates compare with the district's own
recent approvals and with other comparable rates from last September. Um Health had a rate with South Orange Maplewood uh which was listed at $63 to
$68 per hour for LPN services. On tonight's agenda, United Therapy lists an LPN rate of $75 per hour and Summit Home Care lists nursing services for LPN and RN together at $80 per hour.
Um, as an aside, um, listing RNs and LPNs together is a bit concerning as they are different qualifications. Um, I want to take a quick look about the median rate. um because the median rate
suggests an appropriate rate. Um not always, but it gives some background that's helpful. Um so when LPN rates are priced separately from RN rates in Essex County, the median is about $62 per hour.
So the proposed LPN rates appear to be material materially higher than both S's own salient rate and the county benchmark. Um, with that said, um, perhaps there is an
opportunity to revisit these rates with United and Summit, uh, to ensure that the district is paying the appropriate rate. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Burstein. We're going to move on to our online public speaks. So, I'm going to ask
first of all from the two folks who had signed up in person. Uh, do you have Lark Lassardo or Michael Lassardo? >> Do we have either of those on WebEx right now? >> I don't see either one online.
Understood. Uh, next move to Erica Malinowski. >> That can members not all mine. >> All right, we'll move to Lemore Levy. >> She Oh, sure. Okay, good. Next. It's what we all ought to be doing. Uh, next
move on to Rosemary Connell. Do we have Rosemary on WebEx? >> All right. >> Hi, Rosemary. You're unmuted. >> Hi, Rosemary. Are you Are you there, >> Rosemary? We can see you on the screen
here. Are you there? Okay, let's see. Uh, and we do have All right. Well, Rosemary, if you're able to rejoin, we'll wait a second. We do have one more. Uh Kim Takus,
>> Kim, are you there? >> Bless you. >> She's three hours right now. >> Sure. I think she just popped here. We Here we go. Kim, are you there? >> Yeah. Can you hear me now? >> All right, we can hear you. Go ahead. >> Okay. Hi there. My name is Kim Dach. Um
I'm the >> Speak a little bit louder if you can. You're a little bit fuzzy. >> Okay. Um I'm calling from the West Coast. Can you hear me? Okay, >> we can do it. Yep. >> Yeah, that's better. Thanks. >> Okay. Okay. Hi, I'm Kim Takach. I'm the parent to two district to two kids in
the district, one child at Appleore Preschool and one at Tuscan. and also speaking tonight as the executive director of Together Web Bloom, a disability justice nonprofit based in Maplewood. I just want to join the community speaking out again um against
the decision to switch the PAR contracts. Um and you know, I could use my two minutes here to to echo the myriad of concerns that were brought up in terms of the equity issues, the financial issues, and the just general disability rights issues that are are
brought up. But in reflecting on how I wanted to spend my time with you tonight, I just I actually think that there is no one that can say or understand this issue better than the very people who are most impacted by this issue. And so I implore you to
listen to the parents that are speaking to you tonight. Listen to the disabled people who are speaking to you tonight. Listen to the teachers and the paras. And I implore you as a board, as administrators, to continue to have
these conversations. Keep your decisions transparent. So much of the loss of trust and the harm that was done in this decision could have been avoided through ongoing collaboration with the very folks who are impacted. So please in in
the future and in an ongoing way, we need to work on transparency with all members of our community, not just about certain hot button issues, especially children who are disabled. Their families deserve better. So please,
please listen to them. >> Thank you. >> Together we bloom. >> Together we bloom. >> Together we bloom. Okay. Uh, so one last try here. Do we have Rosemary Connell available?
>> Looks like Yes. Rosemary, are you there? We can't hear you. >> Microphone. >> Dev, I don't know if you pick a different microphone on your WebEx, but we can't hear you. We'll give it just another second here. Okay. Unfortunately, we are going to
have to close out our first hearing of individuals and delegations this evening. Uh we are at this point very late in the evening. It would be time for us to move into committee reports. Given the lateness of the hour, what I'm
going to ask is uh if there is anyone who has uh an important update that relates to an item we would be voting on this evening. I'll ask if you can uh let me know that you'd like to share an update. Otherwise, these will all be in the committee minutes that will be uh or
may have already been posted to our website. So, is there anyone that is feeling compelled to share regarding an agenda item we will be addressing tonight? I did have some comments on our membership in the Garden State Coalition of Schools.
>> Is it the proper time for that? >> Brief comments for sure. Yep. >> Okay. Um, do you have the number? I want to refer to the resolution by number. I just don't have it. >> I somewhere in 4989. >> Oh, it's 4989 at
Okay. So I'm referring to 49 as an >> 49 at paragraph 38 uh third organization. >> Okay. Um I want to flag that tonight bur deep in the financial approval. Sorry,
let's start over again. I want to flag that tonight buried deep in the financial approvals we're voting on is membership in the Garden State Coalition of Schools. Um I bring that up in reference to Mr. ings references to state aid and SFR being a flawed statute
from the SOSD's point of view and us being under aided versus even what our statutory target is. The relevance of that is that the GSCS is an organization about 100 mostly affluent districts um that's very active on state aid. It's a group that proudly says quote it has a
seat at the table in state aid conversations and whose executive director statements get media and legislative attention. Uh sometimes it's even appointed to state education commissions. Uh sounds like a sensible membership for us to maintain, right? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. Um the GSCS
having influence in state aid in Trenton doesn't necessarily mean it's advocating on our behalf or considering long-term fiscal responsibility. The Garnate Coalition has a decadesl long history of opposing state aid redistribution. In the 1990s, it was founded and then um
had a very strenuous opposition to redistribution from wealthy districts to pay for ABBA implementation. Um in that it was very effective because it did um scuttle state aid cuts to wealthy districts and pension localization. But since a state paid for state aid for
wealthy districts by basically cutting TPAF funding, the state developed a gigantic long-term unfunded liability, which is actually now much more detrimental to those wealthy districts than just aid cuts would have been. Uh more recently, in the 2010s, it was very slow to accept the fiscal necessity of
state aid redistribution from over aided districts to undered districts and didn't play any constructive role in the state aid reforms of the late 2010s. Some of these tendencies persist to the present. And I could give recent examples if it weren't so late. As a board member of a district that's
chronically underated and which is hurt by the state's blatantly unequal way of calculating local fair share, I don't know if membership makes sense to us. But then again, maybe it's not right to quit the Garden State Coalition without trying to engage them, which I admit um I we haven't done. I haven't done in the
last few years. Um, in the mid2010s, SOSD was very active with the GSCS, but I don't think we've had a liazison since 2017. My point is I'm not going to like oppose membership in the Garnate Coalition for another year, but I do think that we should actually, you know, try to be more a more active part of the
coalition, try to shape their agenda, try to make the coalition aware of what our problems are with state aid. Um, most Garden State Coalition members would be ineligible for equalization aid no matter what because they're so wealthy that they don't have a direct
financial interest in opposing state local fair share equalization. Anyway, so um I'm going to be voting for membership tonight, but I hope that we can be more than just very passive members. um that we could be more than just observers and getting more participants to the garden coalition to
see if we can get them to um care about some of the things we care about which would be we're a chronically underated district and we're a district with an extremely high local fair share. Thank you. >> Thanks Jeff. And I >> who you met with Jeff? That's the group you met with? >> Uh yes. Uh board member Meyer and I met
with the Garnet Coalition's new president and we had like a 90-minute conversation with her and uh she didn't promise anything nor did their executive director but they did listen to discuss that. >> So this is that would really qualify as
something that is under discussion for I think the resolution item. So I'm happy to have further conversation at that time with regard to any other reports on committee items. Hm. Yeah. For special services. Sure.
>> All right. The special services committee met on June 15th. Uh board members Stefan and Higgins were in attendance with Miss Jess Marie and Superintendent Bing in the district was joined by our outgoing CPAC president Nicole Josie and incoming CPAC president Verna Hulkcom. I want to thank Nicole
for her years of dedicated service and leadership with CPAC. And of course Yes. Yes. And of course, we also look forward to continuing to watch her impact across the community. Vera, I know we're also really excited to work with you moving
forward and to continue that collaboration. There you are. Um, so I'm going to lead and and only speak as Will pointed out uh to the the work on paraprofessionals. Um, our board goal on the budget. Um, as part of this
goal, the committee has closely monitored a number of things, including our legal spend, our transportation costs as they relate to special services. And importantly, we have also focused on contracted services, related services, and of course, power professionals. We've also intentionally
monitored not just expenditures, but also tasking the district with developing and implementing criteria and fading forms and a more robust conversation about ensuring consistency um as decisions are made. Um, as has been discussed and shared here via
readouts through the majority of this school year, in service of this goal, the committee has reviewed updates on par profofessional RFP process analysis related to related services and the administration's exploration of multiple staffing models, including the feasibility of bringing our self-contained pair professional
positions in house, which we have and are continuing to assess and discuss. These conversations have occurred alongside planning investments like were mentioned tonight. And I want to just say that throughout this work I of course stay in my governance and oversight lane as a board member. Um but
as all board members I do bring my own experience and lens. And by day I do work in special education. I started as a par profofessional myself 20 years ago. Um I'm a parent of a student who receives support themselves. Um, and all of that does inform my work and I take very seriously my responsibility to
remain focused not just on balancing and being responsible fiscal stewards, but also ensuring that our students receive services and supports that they need to access their education. And I submit to you this evening that these conversations have been amongst the hardest ones that I've had as a board member. So, I want to thank the
community members who came here tonight to support and advocate for our power professionals. Our power professionals are essential and I completely understand the concerns that came from students and families and staff and I want our community to know that those concerns have been registered and we will continue to have them be part of
the discussions that are ongoing. We have begun having conversations around planning what onboarding, training, communication and thoughtful matches might look like as we collaborate with teachers and child study teams and as well I stated earlier continue to pursue that long advocated
desire to bring our self-contained par professionals in house. So, as chair of special services committee, my responsibility is to ensure the board provides meaningful oversight and we'll continue to monitor implementation through data while remaining focused on the outcomes that matter most, which is ensuring that all of our students receive the supports
they need while also responsibly steward stewarding our district resources. So, I want to thank everyone that waited and stayed and tuned in online for your advocacy and I hope that we can continue and improve upon collaboration as we move forward. There's more notes online,
but I just wanted to address that point tonight. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any questions or comments on that? >> Order Higgins. >> Keeping in mind that we will likely have a conversation about the resolution of the agenda tonight.
>> Uh, great. Yeah. Um, I think just from being on the special services committee, it's a huge learning curve for me. It's not my area of expertise. And so I really do appreciate a lot of the walkthroughs within the committee so that I can understand more deeply what's going on. I do feel that with the
community there are mechanisms of connecting with the community but because special services is so unique for so many families. I I really do hear them saying we need to dig a little well not we but the district needs to dig a
little deeper into the community. And so I think some of these suggestions that we've heard through email and here are maybe worth investigating to see if we can do our best to really meet the needs of some of these students and families that can't show up here tonight and are
struggling. So, I'd love to kind of learn a little bit more about um outside of and CPAC is extremely valuable, but outside of CPAC and outside of special services, if we can next year think about a goal in expanding in that space
a little bit more. >> Any other comments or questions? Okay. Uh any other committee reports that uh are immediately pending? No, >> I look at you because I we we do have policies that are on, but there's there's not a lot that
>> we have two pol um two policies up for first I'm sorry, three policies up for first read. I don't think any of them are particularly controvers controversial. Two of them are about adequate public notice for board meetings and then one of them is about family leave that makes a change to uh
to track state law changes on who's eligible eligible for family leave. And then upper second read is a a policy we've discussed before which is pol uh policy 2418 on section 504 of the rehabilitation act. While I have the mic I'll note something that was mentioned
earlier which is there is uh the district has issued regulation 5120 that's not up for board vote but it's issued by uh by the district. A lot of work went into it and a lot of board feedback was received. Um, so I encourage anybody who's interested in the finer points of uh our integration
system, how it works and and what the parameters are to check that out online. Any questions or comments? Okay. Um, while we're in the discussion section before we move on, I uh skipped over my board president update to make sure that we uh could get all of our
public speaks on. Uh, and I'm gonna skip over most of it, but I do want to just note that we had a loss uh within the district community the last month. Suzanne Ang uh the library media specialist passed away on May 30th. Uh Suzanne served the South Orange
Maplewood School District for over 30 years as a teacher and librarian working at South Mountain Elementary, Seth Bdon, and Columbia High School. Uh she was a a deeply valued member of our staff and a dedicated educator. uh and our thoughts are continue to be with her friends uh
family and colleagues. Um and I will also note the devastating earthquake that struck Venezuela uh just overnight uh and our thoughts with with is with uh those folks who were displaced, injured and have lost ones there as well as
folks in our local community who have ties there. Uh with that I am going to move us to the action portion of the meeting. Uh we have uh several resolutions that are up uh that we will take on as a consent agenda this
evening. Uh agenda resolutions 4986 all the way through 4993. Uh this spans uh resolutions on personnel actions uh substitute actions uh out of district placements, financial
resolutions, affirmations of uh HIV investigations for May, uh our second read policies, our first read policies, and special education settlements. Uh do I have a motion to take that up as a consent agenda?
Anyone? Board member second. Okay. Well, thank you. Do I have a second board? No. No. Do I have a second? Board member Gapadia. Thank you very much. Uh, all right. Discussion. >> Board Stefan. >> Could I sever two items, please?
>> Yes. 4989P as in pterodactyl and 4989 as in American literature. >> We're going to scroll the pterodactyl first. >> Really well done.
So, we'll be severing 4989T, which is the award contract for carpentry services. >> P as in pterodactyl or pneumonia. >> Wow. No, it's >> I fell right into that one. >> No, I really did. That was that was unfair actually
>> at this at this time and I All right. So, we're not you're not going after carpentry services. Instead, this is to reject bids and award contract for security services. And then 4989 AL. >> Which one is it? Not AL.
>> This is to authorize the business administrator to enter into facility use agreements. Is that correct? Okay. Got it. Are there any other severs board member Brown? >> I just have a question. >> Oh, okay. Can you just go on mic for a sec? If we have questions about a couple of
these resolutions, are we a asking those questions now or are we we are severely and then asking questions? >> So we at any time in discussions we can sever and that pulls it aside. We can have discussion on the the the group of
resolutions without severing. So that it is time for that. I do want to ask is there any other resolution to be severed or are we good? >> Okay. Nope. Hold on. 4989 L. >> 4989 L.
>> Just a second here. >> Okay. L that is transfer of current year surplus to various reserve accounts. All right. Noted. Uh so >> all right. Uh, all right. December 4989 AV.
>> AV 4989 AV is the amend resolution 4984B resolution for rejecting local bids and awarding contract for par professional services. Okay. Uh we're going to move on to first
discuss the uh the balance of uh of items that have not been severed. So 4986 through 4993. Uh are there questions, comments, discussion?
>> Board member Brown first. Nope. >> All right. Board member Higgins. >> Um so this is related to 4986 personnel. Um, I think it would be helpful to just get a little clarity on the salaries that have TBD and then the
Seth Boyd and Clinton and Clinton CHS library roles. So, if you don't mind kind of walking us through those two items within the personnel. >> Just go for a moment. >> Okay, sure. >> TBD salaries. What does what does TBD salaries mean on?
>> So, we still have to meet uh with uh ASA around those salaries. So, uh, once we meet, once you make sure we're all on the same page, it'll come back to the board for another vote >> and the salary will be on that vote. Correct. Okay, great. And then the second one is there's two, um, library rules that have a shared identification.
So, Seth Bdon/Clinton and then Clinton CHS. We could get some clarity on that. >> So, Seth Bdon will have a full-time librarian. um what we do what we have done past practice and we'll continue to do it. If a librarian has a full load
but still has room in their schedule, then we try to share them with another school where a librarian is is is really packed and doesn't have room to pick up one or two more classes because the school is just too big. So, we try to share them that way, but both schools will have full-time librarians.
>> Thank you. >> Okay. Um Okay. Wait, I have one more sever and then I have a couple questions. I would like to sever 4986D. No, sorry. 4986E4. >> Uh, that is Kayla Fleming. Is that correct? Okay.
>> Yes. >> And then, um, I had a couple questions. Do you mind if I go ahead? Okay. Um, so for 4989A, clinical counseling sessions virtual for $43,000. Uh, what what is that?
I guess who receives it? >> They if it's not an IP that just Oh, sorry. Thank you. Uh even if it's not in the IP, if any student that needs counseling, it's a certified school counselor. >> Okay. I was just curious how it differs from um like the school social worker or um
>> they pick up extra cases or emergencies, things of that nature. We'll use the virtual. And some kids don't like the virtual, they just like the in person. So, we can go either way. >> Okay. Do you have any um information on utilization? >> Yeah, we had that contract last year. It
was utilized quite a bit. Okay. Uh that's why we're re upping it this year and it just provides that extra cushion for us. >> Okay. >> Um one if our social workers are are just packed and don't have time for certain students, we can just call up and and get a virtual quickly. So it's been pretty helpful.
>> Okay. And then um the 4989E uh the gentleman that came up here to public speaks um who has come up before as well. I'm just wondering if of what um some of the costs that were mentioned there are worth further exploring before
we vote on those. >> Um it's the service providers that price point >> Oh, the price point had brought up. Yeah, we usually we we do a pretty good job of shock of shopping and comparing and we usually call anywhere from three to six different vendors. It also
depends on if they have the staff to service us. So that's also a factor. Uh there are some times we have to go with the higher price because the other company didn't have enough staff to >> okay >> to service us. >> Okay. And then um 49.89
to um what board member Bennett was saying. I'm just you know given kind of what board member Ben board member Bennett was saying. I know it's not a big cost but I guess what is the benefit that we are getting as being a member of that organization >> organization >> garden state coalition
>> and I think will that might be for I don't know cuz is that a that's a board >> uh body right >> so it's the garden state coalition on schools which I am not an expert on though I've joined some of their meetings and I know uh board member
Bennett has done a lot of investigation into them. It is a group of schools, a a group of districts and district leaders that came together. I think it was initially in response to some particular financial concern. They meet on a monthly basis. They have uh you know big
speakers and they organize around certain uh state funding initiatives. Uh I know that there have been I've spoken to certain folks who have been on the board previously and in the community who have encouraged us to continue working with them for ties they have
with uh the state education department and work they're doing uh generally. Uh and I know that they I believe we give them maybe $2500 uh for the programming and the lobbying and advocacy that they do. Uh, and I
think that given the ties that they have to some folks nearby in our community and uh, the work that I've seen them do, it is worthwhile for us to stay engaged in the conversation. And uh, I think
that board of Bennett's idea of actually assigning a liaison to them is interesting. I don't know exactly how that works because they don't necessarily have liaison engagement, but to look at that and perhaps put that on a subsequent resolution could be a way of helping to influence them, which I
know that um that Jeff on a personal basis has been doing uh I think with some effect at this point. >> Yeah, I sorry, can I just respond to that? Um I I agree. I think even if there's not a liazison role, if we have one board member, maybe board member
Bennett, if you'd be so inclined to kind of keep track of what they're doing, if nothing else, because I'd want to make sure that they are actually representing the interests of our district. >> And I don't know if you get I get an email from them, I think, every single day with news updates, which is helpful in of itself.
>> So, I've I'm sorry, I'm just going to jump in because I've attended three of their online meetings. Yes. And then I went to their annual event. And I will say that the speaker um the people that were on the panel, they were very much advocating for the change in health
benefits. I guess I want to be able to understand if that's going to come to fruition and what that looks like. Um but I I did learn a lot, but at the same time, I'll be honest, I think some of that I can find myself through different newspapers and ledgers and just googling
and talking to you all and our community members. So I'm I'm on the fence of like is this the year that we maintain it or not considering everything we're looking at. So um yeah >> I'd have to check I think they offer
micro credentiing and professional development. I would have to check if any of our folks have yet participated. Um, membership in the Garden City Coalition is $2,500 as board member Meyer said. And in one sense, $2,500 is
nothing considering we have like a $200 million budget. Although we go to so few meetings that if you calculated like the cost per meeting, like if we go to 10 meetings per year, it's $250 per meeting. And that is quite a lot of money. And I don't actually think we go to 10 meetings per year. Um, as for a
bit more about them, like they were founded after the Abbott 2 decision in 1990 uh to oppose pension localization and state aid cuts for highwealth districts. Later they opposed spending caps which the state wanted to um impose on highwealth districts. Um I don't
think they've really had such a coherent defined mission since the 1990s. And when I follow them sometimes it's hard to figure out like what their stances are on various things. like I couldn't really figure out what their stance is on the tax cap for instance. Um they are
100 districts. Most of the districts are much wealthier than we are. Like districts who would never, you know, get equalization aid. Um there are some low-income districts who are members like Trenton is an is a member. I think they're kind of anomalous, but they are a member. Um they have one full-time employee, someone who's been affiliated
with the Glen Ridge School District. And you know, we kind of have to like track actually like, you know, what stances they're taking and if they could do anything to help like chronically underrated districts like us and if they could take up the cause of local fair share equality. Um the cause of local
fair share equality is just nowhere on the state agenda. I'm very disappointed to report even districts who have huge local fair shares, sorry, and who lose thousands of dollars per student equalization aid like Cherry Hill and the Philly suburbs, they're not active
on it. West Orange though fortunately has become active on local fair share of quality because they also have an extremely high local fair share. Um you know maybe the Garden State Coalition like won't take up our cause at all. They didn't take up our cause in the mid2010s. But if like they would actually start to talk about how
ridiculous New Jersey's method of calculating local fair share is where you have some districts expected to pay a 1% tax rate and other districts expected to pay up to a 2% tax rate which is blatantly unequal treatment. like if they would actually take up that cause and it would get covered in the
media and they could have conversations with the legislators about that, it would be a very good thing for us in the state, but uh I don't know if they're ready to do that, but we haven't asked them enough. >> Okay. Thanks. >> So, so, so that's on us. >> Any other discussion on this board
member Higgins? >> Um, not necessarily on this. Um, unless anybody else had other things to say? >> No, we're on the the omnibus here. So, any other any other resolution apart from this effort? Yes. Um, so I just wanted to bring up kind of um one
general point and then it applies to the resolutions tonight. Um, so there were a lot of resolutions that were provided right at the 48 hour, maybe even 24-hour mark. And I understand that there's a lot going on and this is that time of year where we're closing the financial
or the budget year. And there are resolutions that do need to be done by June 30th. they are legally mandated. And I was wondering if we could identify which ones those are. Um because I will say some of these resolutions, I'm seeing some best practices in them of
like providing background information that helps educate us on what we're voting on. Um and what was the other one? Just a little bit more detail in some of the resolutions that I know I saw like kind of throughout the week being
edited. So, I just I kind of want to be like very mindful of making sure that what we vote on, we're all clear on it. We're all prepared for it. We stand behind it or not, abstain or no, whatever the vote is. Um, so do we know
which ones have to be voted on by June 30th that are like by law, they need to be done for the close of fiscal year? I uh I know that I think that was a question that you had um posed maybe earlier today or perhaps a different board had posed that and I don't think
that we had an answer and that may have been an analysis that itself would have been uh taken too much time today. I think at at this point they are on the agenda to be voted. So apart from severing certain ones uh I think you
know they they are where they are right now. Um, unless I don't know if we have any other input as far as specific ones that you were thinking about. I mean, we do have a large number of them in here. >> So, I guess one of the points I wanted
to look at was that some of them don't have that um not to exceed amount. So, some of them have like a not to exceed amount that basically stop gaps I would imagine overspend. Um, some of them have it, some of them don't. I'm I can like pull out the ones that don't have it,
but I also just want to understand are they supposed to have it? Are they not supposed to have it? And I think that like considering the climate that level of detail is we should be looking at that and making sure that you know
>> President Meyer. >> Yeah, please. >> Oh, great. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yes. So um the not to exceed amounts is something that we had talked about. Uh it exists in our policy. Um it's really
related to any professional services contract and it is something that we were supposed to be doing and we just historically had not been doing it. Um so um it didn't make a whole lot of sense to start midyear because there
were a lot of contracts that needed to be captured. So we said starting with this new fiscal year any professional services contract that's awarded we want to max out that contract and it's it's a good standard practice to put a limit
and we're on the back end what that does is it allows us to put a purchase order and incumbrance into the system and then track it and that's something you know one of the systems that we've been looking to uh improve upon with the district. So with the start of the news
fisc with the start of a new fiscal year, we sent out uh you know uh correspondence that said anytime you want to put a professional service on for renewal, we have to estimate the value so that we're informing you a how much we think we're going to spend with
this vendor for the year and internally we're setting up an encumbrance in the system. So we're setting those funds aside in the budget so that we can set an incumbrance up. So um it was the first year and and it doesn't well it was a lot to try and get everybody to
understand why we were doing this and to value out a contract and looking at you know estimating out three years worth of past expenditures and um now what will happen is if we approve these services and we approve these fixed amounts internally we need to track these and
monitor these and make sure that we're not exceeding that and then conversely put vendors on notice that say you're being issued a contract for x number of dollars and you're not allowed to exceed that unless you have another signed purchase order so that you can't provide
services in excess of what's on the books in the system encumbered and that's really the basis behind all of this and um the professional services contracts are what we targeted and then the contract awards for the time and materials bids and the security bid and
the power professional bid a good practice is to estimate the cost value of that contract, but we're not locked in on those estimated costs for the bids to that amount. We're just giving you and we're we're putting you on notice and certain contracts we have to file
down with the state and we have to we have to value those contracts. And the reason why those are on the the time and materials and the other vendors, security and power professionals, um, is because we want to we want to estimate the cost of and and really inform the
board and the public of the value of the contract that we're we're recommending for award. >> Okay, great. Thank you. So, I guess I'll be more specific with the letters so that I can just double check like is it supposed to have it or not. So 4989 P
QRS T U and V they they all have they're all services. So maybe I'm you know wrong in thinking they should have the not to exceed language. So S has an estimate and an annual cost but it doesn't have the not to exceed language
but those letters were and W sorry W also doesn't have the missing not to exceed. So it' just be helpful to know should we have that or >> well so so the these are these are awarding when we're awarding all those bids and the way these bids work whether
it's a time and materials or an hourly rate contract uh we had a very comprehensive bid specification done and we will have a contract and the contract can't for a lot of reasons it can't be fixed like like uh the award the contract for I'm
looking at 4989R right now. Um we're estimating that contract to be $250,000, but the contract itself is really the the nuts and bolts that we're paying them by the hour for every hour of labor
that they provide to us. Plus, we're also paying when they provide us invoices for materials they've used, they can mark that up. Um I'm looking at the S electric um they can mark that up 15%. So, um, that contract will be determined the
the management of that contract will be determined based on how much we use them. So, that's really we're estimating that, but we're not fixing the district to that dollar amount. So, so just to confirm there are some some services that are just time and materials and
it's as much time and the cost of materials that are used and then there are other services >> that are more like >> professional services where we cap >> yes >> does that make does that kind of clarify? Okay. Like for example, what
you're looking at um P or it was R like carpentry, electrical, it's just based on what we need cuz we don't know we can't really estimate like X number of hours but we do know how we want to um how many like we know we we can approve
the rate per hour um and then we have an estimate but if we go above the estimate then there will be a process by which we it comes back to the board or to the BA for approval. Wait, can I ask a question? >> Yeah. >> Um, is that that's that's accurate? I
thought it was if there's a not to exceed, it comes back to the board, but I don't know. >> That's right. >> If if it's an estimate, it doesn't necessarily come back to the board. >> It doesn't come back to the board. You're right. Yes. On those on those and that's why it says it's an estimate. the
the ones that we're really trying to fix and we're trying to limit and that by under the accountability regs we're supposed to track and we're supposed to limit are all of our professional services contracts. So, those are the ones that were putting a hard stop saying uh it's your architect, it's your
attorney, it's it's you know me if I'm doing work for you. It's it's the whole list of consultants and professional services that are rewarded and um we can't exceed those values that the board is putting in place. So, that locks you
in so that you can't use more professional services than what you've authorized. >> Thank you, Frank. >> Sure. Uh are there other questions or comments regarding >> Yeah, I just I had one comment, one one quick question. My comment is on the
board secretaries report and it shows that we have some unallocated incumbrances. Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology. Not yet allocated incumbrances to the
tune of almost 9 million. And Frank, I I know you mentioned via email that it's really hard to estimate what the final number will be because that's the carryover that we end up using for budgeted fund balance in the next year
and that is going to be really critical for us. This is just a comment I'm making. We've put in a lot of practices in place to ensure that the right purchase orders are going in and we have a much better idea of how we end the fiscal year. And
I think these practices will bear fruit in the next fiscal year. I guess we just have to wait with baited breath to see where we actually end this fiscal year to see how much we're actually left with. Um so I just want to kind of make that point because again it informs how
we budget 2728. Um my question is on 4989X. Um and this is >> sorry which which letter? >> X >> X. >> Yeah. And this is for X
>> districtwide copier lease maintenance and fax services. It says here that we um are moving to a lease of copers and a print print management software for a period of 5 years. Is this something new for the
district? >> Uh well it is it is a new copier lease but we have existing copers in the district. So, this this is what this is what was presented to the finance the FFT committee a couple of days ago uh
when Kate came on and talked about how we have all leases that are expiring at different times and there's no oversight and there's no management software and this was like phase one of trying to to make everything start and end at the same time and to put and to put print management software on all the machines
so that we can get a better understanding of our copier utilization and and uh and and eliminate waste and eliminate undemand print jobs. So this is the resolution for that. >> So this is an improvement over how we
currently manage our copier expenses. >> Yes. And it's and it's also bringing the management of the copers under the technology department where where um I I you know I I really believe it belongs. It doesn't belong in the business office. it belongs. You know, copyers
now are just another piece of technology. It's another device. It just happens to print out copies. So, Keith's department by doing this will also be able to take over the management on the back end of all these machines and add them as devices. And right now, they don't exist in our environment that way.
So, it's it's it solves a lot of operational issues for us. Also, >> it it also takes us into the 21st century. It's these are the newer printers and it's it's a much more efficient especially energy-wise. >> Board member Higgins
>> on um 4989 a.m. This is authorized insurance coverage uh for district clubs, parent organizations, and PTAs. And I've personally just been trying to get to know all the organizations. So, when I compared to the website, there were ones that were missing, and there's
no there's um no MMS clubs, which I thought there's got to be MMS clubs. I do see the line, this list must be approved annually and maybe amended throughout the school year. So, if we approve this one, is it possible to make sure that the ones that we're planning
on for the fall are voted on for the summer so that our insurance is fully covering all the entities? >> So, this this This this resolution is a resolution. It's kind of a it's kind of a a best practice to make sure
that you're extending coverage um to your groups. It doesn't mean that they're not covered if they're working on your behalf. Anybody who does work on behalf of the school district is is by virtue covered. We're just enforcing it and saying we're specifically we're not
buying insurance policies and we're not we're not paying for their insurance. We're just saying if they do work on our behalf and you know there's nothing fraudulent or erroneous happening and an issue takes place, the insurance coverage is going to is going to push
into all these groups that support us. Um so there's nothing to stop us. It's not to say that if a group is on here that's not listed, if something happens, they won't be covered. >> So an Yep. Go ahead. as long as they're authorized to do work and that could be
>> that could be by Jason, it could be by a building principal. As long as that authorization has been given by an authority in the district, um that insurance coverage at some point will, you know, it's our insurance. So, >> okay. >> It doesn't mean if they're not on here
that they're exposed. >> Got it. So, just as an example, I know the Early Childhood Advisory Council meets in the central office building. So they are covered even though they're not listed on this resolution.
>> I >> I don't know if you're familiar with them, but that's just an example. >> So So what what I would suggest is we take this list and we distribute it and we distribute it to like the SLT or we distribute it to the administrative teams and say are there clubs on here
that are out there that should be included and we can do another follow-up. I mean I think that's >> great. >> Resolve it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions on the consent agenda? Board member Sacket Gable, >> just just to flag for that one
resolution that it does still say 2526. >> I thought I looked at that which tell me again. >> 4989 a.m. that we were just looking at. >> It does. >> Yep. >> Uh all right. So would are you making a
motion to amend the resolution? >> I'm making a motion to amend the resolution >> to change 2526 to 26 27 >> 27. Yes. >> Is there a second? All right. We have to uh discuss that motion or we can bring it right to a vote. We can bring it right to a vote.
>> Appreciate your eagle eye. >> All right. Uh Mr. Carrier, you please call the role on the motion to amend 4989. All in favor? >> Show hands. >> Any nays? Any abstensions? Motion
passes. >> Thank you. >> All right. 4989 a.m. is now in uh is now corrected. Any other comments regarding >> No, the sever is next. Yep. Board member Higgins.
I know I'm your favorite person right now. So 4989 it used to be AG. Um it's the organizational appointments. I thought I saw at some point the code of conduct on it, but then I second guessed myself. We're not voting on the code of
conduct tonight, right? >> I remember. So at some point there was a reference to the code of conduct. I believe my understanding is that uh while the code of conduct remains almost entirely unchanged. They wanted to
verify that. So we are not readopting that this evening. >> Great. And then same question with I feel like I remembered the um standard operating procedures for the business office. Were we voting on that? I know that was brought up, but I just want to make sure
>> there in line uh 43 does in part reference the uh the SOPM for the business office uh which we've had on file for a number of years. Uh it looks like there have been some changes. it probably is due to have a new look. But
in the same way that in that resolution we are readopting a lot of standing documents such as our entire policy manual, the district or chart, the purchasing manual that is also listed here. Yep. >> Okay. Um if I can if Frank's still
around, is that a must vote on before June 30th? >> So So uh I don't know when the district is up for a cusack and review. Um, but the year that you're you're you should adopt the SOP every year and it should be reviewed every two to three years.
So, I think I what I sent out to the finance committee when this very topic came up uh Tuesday is we should find out when the next QAC is and make sure that it's reviewed and updated prior to going through the next round of QAC. And um
you know that the names that are on that plan are Eric Burns side and Andrea. So it's it's not terribly old, but it's not terribly new. So it it requires a refreshing look uh to make sure that that it's updated and reflective of our
current practices and and uh so I know I know that that um was something that we had talked about trying to do this year and you know this year just um turned out the way this year did. So >> I I would suggest that in light of
ongoing transition in the business office as referenced in part in our our personnel resolution and now would not be a great time to not have a standard operating procedure manual in place. I do think we should adopt it and maintain it in place and also be intentional
about making sure that it is refreshed and updated. >> Thank you. >> Um just what number are you are you talking about here? Sure. That is that is 4989 as wait a n
and that is paragraph 43 the second document in that paragraph. Okay. Are there any other questions on our consent agenda of resolutions? Board
member Higgins. >> Sorry everybody. Um the agreement for lease purchase advisory service. I just uh I know that was added a little later. Um what is HCESC? >> I just don't I'm not familiar.
>> That is the county Educational Services Commission. um they have they will uh go out to bid for uh the lease per we have to actually bid the lease purchase every year the district does a lease purchase for uh certain pieces of equipment usually
chrome brooks and different upgrades that we can't fund in one year so we spread the payment out over five years in Hunter County for the last several years uh you know they they prepare the specs they go out they they shop everything and they do that service on
your behalf half and they charge like a half of a percent to do it. So, it's a pretty it's a pretty standard thing for them to do. They just um it I didn't realize that we were actually doing another lease because of the way the the background budget and me taking over in
March and we found out like two days ago that we still need to do a lease. So, I I I listen I don't like dropping stuff on this conversation with Will today. I don't like putting this stuff out there at the last minute either, but if we wait another month, it's another month
that that we can't get the funding for the items that we need. So, um it just it's a it's a pretty standard thing. You've used Hunter County to prepare your bids as along with probably a couple of hundred other school districts
every year. You probably used them for the last three or four years. So, you know, it's a it's a pretty standard rate and it's a very small overall cost for them to do all that for you. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> All right. >> Sorry, one more thing. Go ahead, please.
>> Um, related to what am I looking at here? >> 4989. Um, I think just going forward with this because it's so much in here and I think it's easy to
to overlook things, but one thing I would have liked to discuss maybe more or as part of a bud a budget adoption in next year would be to approve the district organization chart at the same time as opposed to approving it after the fact. I mean, it's all related to
the budget. Yeah, that's it's above my pay grade when it actually the the um order of operations of when that tends to be brought through the I think we have approved all of those individuals but as far as the chart itself um
>> right because we weren't sent a chart >> uh >> no not >> existing so I'm sure we can have a you can have a chart center around. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. Um, any other questions on that?
All right. Uh, then just to refresh, I'm going to ask the, uh, standing board secretary here, Mr. prepared to call the vote for items 4986 through 4993
with the exception of 4986D line 4, 4989 L, 4989P, 4989 A, and 4989 AV. Mr. Carrick, would you please call the role?
>> Sorry. Um, I have a correction. Was it D or E? >> It was E. E. Oh, I'm sorry. Hang on. Let's Wait, we're talking about in 4986. >> Yeah, 4986 E4. >> Thank you very much for that. Yep. Good.
E4. The severs are 4989P, 4989 AL, 4989 L, 4989 AV, 4986E4. All right. Okay. So, this is on 4986
through 4993. Board member Bennett. >> Yes. >> Board member Brown. So, this is on everything except for those, right? >> That's correct. >> Yes. >> Board member Callahan, >> yes.
>> Board member Higgins, >> yes. >> Board member Capadia, >> yes. Board President Meyer, >> yes. >> Board member Nyar, >> yes. >> Board member Sacka Gable, >> yes. >> Board member Stefan, >> yes.
>> Motions pass. All right, we're next going to take up just move straight down the list 4986E number four. Uh, keep in mind this is a personnel resolution, so we have pretty limited opportunity for discussion here.
Um, I am we've severed we've taken up Do we have to have a new motion and second, Mr. Carrick? >> I I think you should. >> Sure. All right. Do I have a motion to take up 4986E line 4? Board member
Callahan. Do I have a second? Board member Brown. Uh board member Brown, you uh sought to sever this. Do you have a discussion that can be made in public? >> I don't I don't think I should say anything in public.
>> Okay, understood. Uh is there anyone else that has a comment they can make in public on this? All right. Uh, I'm going to ask that we uh call the vote then. >> Board member Stefen, >> yes. >> Board member Sacka Gable, >> yes.
>> Board member Nyar, >> yes. >> Board President Meyer, >> yes. >> Board member Capadia, >> yes. >> Board member Higgins, >> yes. >> Board member Callahan, >> yes. >> Board member Brown, >> no. >> Board member Bennett, >> yes.
>> Motion passes. All right, moving on to item 4989L. Do I have a motion to consider? Board member Higgins, do I have a second? Board member Stefen. Uh, discussion.
Yeah, I just wanted to I I don't know if it got amended already, but um if it hadn't, I wanted to amend this to um include language which says that any
unreserved undesated fund balance for the year ending June 30, 2026, an amount not to exceed the state mandated 2% cap with the excess above this amount, not only will we have the options to transfer it to the capital
reserve and maintenance reserve account, we should also have the option to transfer some to budgeted fund balance which will allow us to use it as savings into a future year's operating budget. So I I I think Patrick has sent you
language, but that's what I want to do. That's how I want to amend that. It is >> it's not >> it's not okay. The other thing I the other amendment I wanted to this resolution is in the last paragraph where it says um it hereby authorizes the district school administrator to
make this transfer um consistent with all applicable laws and regulations. I would like to add something which says transfer in consultation with the FFT committee and consistent so so at least we get to see how the district would
like to allocate um these surpluses. And then finally, just one little correction where it says emergency reserves. It's not emergency. It should be maintenance. So those are my three recommendations. >> So board member Ner, it sounds like you have language drafted. I don't know.
Have you sent that around to the board? I don't >> I have sent it around. I sent it around to some people. I will send it around right now. >> Uh I would like to uh ask Mr. Sles if you're available. I don't know if you uh
heard and copied down those amendments. Is does RBA have a copy? Okay. >> Yes. >> I mean, what what else would I be doing at 20 to 1 in the morning? >> So, so I had I had uh responded back to Melanie. Um I personally don't have any
issues. I appreciate that she picked up maintenance instead of emergency. Uh I I did explain to her that that what she's asking about it being put to fund balance is actually how it works statutoily. >> So if you want to do it for the purpose
of making it more clear to the public, we can do it. But it won't change the outcome because by nature, anything above 2% that you don't put into a reserve account automatically by statute goes back to tax relief. But I don't I don't have an objection to that. And my
only other question was um and not to put Patrick on the spot, but the last section about um the school business administrator in consultation with the FFT. Uh I don't necessarily have an issue with it as long as we can legally have the the resolution say
that. >> Yeah. The way I'm interpreting that is that you're just going to advise them. The FFT committee does not have any power to make any determination about funds or anything. So, it's just advisory only. That's how I'm interpreting the consultation part.
>> Would it be appropriate to I'm not familiar with typically referencing committees in resolutions. Would it be appropriate to say in consultation with the board, the understanding that it would be the the FFT committee?
>> Yeah, it it would be fine. You can't the the FFT committee can't make any decisions and the rest of the resolution specifies where the money is already going. Um I presume that the motion was made to
see how it's going to be allocated between the various accounts, but as the business administrator said, you have to return unbudgeted money to the taxpayers. So, it's probably not going to change any
outcome here. >> Can I order Brown? >> Um, I guess I I don't necessarily think that we need to add the fund balance. I I to the BA's point, it's it is what you
have to do. So, it just seems redundant and a little bit confusing to add it. And then if we add something to the end, um I think I would rather have it say something like, well, is this how we do it or is it we have this discussion now
or do I have to propose a different language? >> We can I mean we can have a discussion and you could then make a motion to amend. >> So >> I don't think there's been actually a motion. Oh, >> you you were intending to amend. We've not quite made the motion. Let's continue discussion for a second. I guess I would say make this transfer
transfer consistent with all applicable laws and regulation and inform the um the board. I I guess I I would like to inform the full board and not just FFT. I'd like to keep I know it's understood
that anything that's not allocated to capital reserve and maintenance reserve goes into um budgeted fund balance. I would prefer to have the specific language just because we do have a bunch
of transition coming up in the BA's office. Um and so I'd like to just be explicit. Um, that's that's where I'm coming from. >> Um,
okay. I I think I would it it is reading strange to me to suggest that if one specific committee is involved in this, but I would not object to an amendment that says in consultation with the board.
Um so so u will uh listen this is I and this is where I I had said with with Patrick's approval I don't know that the board has the authority to to arbitrarily have input on that decision because
um and and if we're doing this and Melanie I thought I thought that you know if we're doing if the other one about putting it into tax relief is more to inform the public. It doesn't matter who is sitting in this seat or if nobody's sitting in this seat, the
auditors by statute, if we don't put money into a reserve account, if anything above 2% has to go back to tax relief. They're they're forced, they do the calculation, they do that. So, um, if we want to do it because we want to explain it more, but adding it is not
going to to change the outcome regardless of who's sitting in the seat. Frank, the question then is um the allocation between capital and maintenance and then the the balance, who decides that is that like is that a limit to how much you transfer to each
reserve? That's like by >> statute. >> Yep. So, so what would realistically happen? And Melanie, this all ties in to the discussion we had before about about being more um having a better
understanding of outstanding incumbrances that we may not be aware of right now, which is the issue we're trying to clarify. Um, we're not going to know that until until probably we get into the end of July once all vendors send in their June
bills and we can vet it and compare it against all the invoices and the board has to pass this resolution by June 30th. Otherwise, everything goes into tax relief and nothing can go into reserve. So, that's what we're faced against. So, this is
the balance to say we don't really know where we stand yet. we're going to go through this and we're going to go through the audit and after the audit's completed. Um, we're going to you're going to allow the business administrator to make that determination and not give specific dollar values
tonight because we're still getting, as we explained, we're still getting hit with bills and we're still getting we're still putting stuff into the system because of of where we stand right now. So, this that's the dilemma. I would say in reality anybody who's sitting in my
seat would have that dialogue and would would you know I I've explained this a number of times like we're we're a team and we're all supposed to be working together. Um there shouldn't be a reason why why this wouldn't be discussed and
why there wouldn't be a plan to say this is what we should do with all of the different reserves and the balance should go in as we discussed or in budget. How much how much do we think we need for 20 for 2728? You know, how much do we think we can replenish back if we take money out of
capital reserve and into maintenance reserve? Um, so I I just don't know that we can make it subject to a to a committee and I and I wouldn't want that to be interpreted that the committee can make can make a decision because and this is where
Patrick can weigh in. I don't know that they can. So Frank, I I I appreciate that explanation. I think that that sort of refineses it for me. I think the only question is just um to to explain for the uninitiated when you look at the option to transfer to either capital
reserve or maintenance reserve or a combination. Can you explain just real briefly how that determination is made and whether there is discussion in committee surrounding that? in in in reality in practical and in pract
practicality I mean you've been with a couple of committees with me now I would bring that forward and I would say this is what we this is what we have we got through the audit but before the audit's finalized we have an idea of how much money we generated the the board secretaries report uh Malan said before
is showing like $9 million I you know I can't attest to the fact that you know we don't know that there's other incumbrances that are going through. We're not going to know until probably the mid to the end of July, which is why we're asking for the authority to pay bills because we need
to clean all this stuff up. And once we have the determination and it's been audited, but before the audit's finalized, we have a conversation. And I would bring the committee into that conversation and say, "This is what the numbers look like. This is what we're recommending." And we we'd have a
conversation just like we have on any other topic. I >> got it. I just don't know that we can, you know, like everything else, the way these resolutions are worded, I don't know that we can make it subject to a committee. Um, >> understood. So, I think I would propose
then we do an amendment simply to correct that word emergency and put in maintenance and leave the rest um untouched. Uh, is there a second to that motion? Remember, second cable. So, any discussion on that motion to amend?
All right. Can we um call the vote, Mr. Carrick, on the motion to amend emergency to maintenance? >> All in favor? >> Naz, abstensions. Motion passes. >> Okay, great. Uh are there any other any
other discussion on 4989L before we move forward? Okay, then up. Did you have your hand up? No. All right. Uh, can we call the vote on 4989 L? >> Board member Stefen.
>> Yes. >> Board member Sacki Gable. >> Yes. >> Board member Nyar. >> Yes. >> Board President Meyer. >> Yes. >> Board member Capadia. >> Yes. >> Board member Higgins. >> Yes. >> Board member Callahan, >> yes. Board member Brown. >> Yes.
>> Board member Bennett. >> Yes. >> Motion passes. Good. Let's move on to 4989P. Do I have a motion? >> You want to separate? Do you want to move it in? All right. Or member Stefan. Do I have a second or member Higgins?
Discussion. Stefan. So, this is a uh a resolution to accept a bid for school safety officers uh which from what I can tell is a rebranding of school resource officers. How many how many officers are we talking about and where are they going
to be uh deployed? >> Are we actually talking about a rebranded SRO? >> Well, perhaps you can explain what is a school what is a school safety officer. It's our security staff >> and where can you give us a sense of where those are where those are in the
different buildings? >> Yeah. So this uh budget we eliminated as you know from from the elementary that's the biggest change. Uh both middle schools uh high school that's where the security guards are.
So So my concern is you know we know the budget is extremely serious. Um, you know, we're talking about cutting paraprofessional pay and then, you know, this is $900,000 for for school safety officers. So, you know, it gives me a
little bit of discomfort to see that allocation. >> Yeah, we we reduced not only the elementary, we also reduced at the high school as well. So, and that was at the start of the budget process. So, this is a bit of a reduction of what we had in
the past. uh keeping the budget in mind. Uh but and I don't know offhand what our current rate is. Maybe Frank Frank, do you know what our current security budget is? >> Our current security budget is I think
over a million dollars. Um I I think by the time all said and done, so you know, some of the security the piece that and this is where the estimate comes into play. The piece that's a little bit of a wild card is we use these security officers to do events. Even when they're
parent paid events and even when they're outside facilities users that use our events, we might get reimbursed for that, but we still have to pay that to the company. So, um, our net spend on security is probably over a million dollars this year. And with the changes
that we've made, it will probably be closer to 800,000, but we used a figure of 900 because of that wild card of how much we'll take back in and we'll be able to apply as like refunds and contracts to those accounts.
So, uh, you know, we we did see savings by making those reductions and and eliminating. Um, and we don't I don't believe I'm I'm actually pulling this bit up right now. Uh,
>> yeah. And every, just so you know, everybody pays for security and and custodial. So, there are some organizations who don't pay the fee, but everybody pays for security and and uh custodial. if they're not doing an event during the day or when the custodians or
security are there on a normal basis, their normal hours, then they pay. >> So, we're we're asking for uh eight security officers at Columbia High School, two at Maplewood Middle School, two at South Orange Middle School, one at the administration building. So,
there's a total of 13. And then there's a lead officer that will be there every day. And then we do have some weekend coverage. And then we do have a much scaledback version of coverage um on on the during the summer in the buildings
and on the on the weekends in the summer. >> Any other questions or comments on this? >> Member Bennett. >> Just regarding our security spending, we do get just over $1 million in state security aid. Um, I don't know what a typical district of our size spends on
security, but you know what we're spending with the $900,000 that is in line with our state security aid at least. >> Yeah. I mean, our goal is to keep it at eight. That's when we originally developed this budget. And again, I think that goes along the lines of we need to hold the line on on certain
things. Um, that's one of the reasons why we've been working with the election board around staffing our own security, things like that. We're trying to really uh peel back on. All right. Any other comments on this? Okay. 4989.
>> Are we on P >> P? >> You please call the question. >> Board member Stefan. >> No. >> Board member Sacka Gable. >> Yes. >> Board member Nyer. >> Yes. >> Board President Meyer. >> Yes.
>> Board member Capadia. >> Yes. >> Board member Higgins. >> Yes. Board member Callahan, >> yes. >> Board member Brown, >> yes. >> Board member Bennett, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> All right, moving along. 4989
AL. Uh, authorize the business administrator to enter into facilities use agreements. Uh, do I have a motion from anyone? Board member Callahan. Second. Board member second. cable discussion.
>> So, this is a resolution to authorize the BA to enter into an agreement with Reuben's Blanc Management for facility usage and that would include a waiver of facility use fees unless there's a cost to the district. What What is Reuben's Blanc Management and why are we
exempting them from fees? It's my understanding uh unofficially they ran a a youth football camp um last year at Under Hill and I'm assuming they may be doing so again. Uh and so I think we have sort of a standing practice of
giving free access to folks who are doing uh free programming. >> I also I also believe they're opening up to the middle school kids this year as well. I guess I don't Does everybody who does free programming get this kind of
arrangement? Uh we have we just went over that list. I wish you were there, Paul. We literally just went over the list with Tiffany. We have organizations that do not pay the fee but pay custodial and uh security. It depends on the organization and what tier they are in the business
office. So, so this this Oh, sorry. >> No, please go ahead. >> So, I don't specifically know I know it says it authorizes me to do it, but I don't specifically know the service they're providing, but my understanding
is that there are certain groups that that have I want to call it a quidd proquo where there's the value of the service they're providing to the district. um who they would other they don't fall in a category where the fees would be waved but because a service that they're
providing to the district is either equal or greater value than what we would charge them for facilities use that's usually bought before the board and then the board pays this you know waves the fees because they don't uh qualify to be to be um to not have to
pay the fees and I'll I'll say for instance in in my last district we had a community group that used our field for free and they maintained the field and it was one less field that we had to maintain. They lined it, they mowed it, they used it, and we were able to use it
also. So, we didn't charge them a facilities fee because the cost for our people to maintain it outweighed the the waiver of the fee. And I would imagine a similar arrangement exists here. I just personally don't unfortunately I personally don't know the details of
this arrangement but it was being uh recommended by the athletic director. So I'm imagining has something to do with with with an athletic event or or a club or a team. >> Yeah youth camp. It's certainly my
impulse that in background info, the athletic director arranged for this vendor to provide free services to SOSD student athletes and we are waving facilities use fees unless there is a cost to the district. Um it feels fairly straightforward. I'm going to put some
level of uh trust in the programming that our athletic director is arranging to our students. Um, personally, >> uh, any other comments, >> questions? Board member Higgins. >> Yeah, just a comment because I, um, when
I was looking over the resolutions, I I did have the same question and, um, I think maybe just clarity in that background information section of saying this is providing youth football camp uh, free of charge because I'm looking at their Instagram right now and it's
looks like a great program. So, I think that extra information would make a huge difference on these resolutions where we don't end up kind of waffling around different companies and different things because it it does make sense for this to be free, but there's no background information. So, that would be helpful.
>> Noted. Any other discussion? All right. So, uh 4989. Mr. Carrick, could you please call the question? >> Board member Bennett. >> Yes. >> Board member Brown. >> Yes. Board member Callahan,
>> yes. >> Board member Higgins, >> yes. >> Board member Capadia, >> yes. >> Board President Meyer, >> yes. >> Board member Nyar, >> yes. >> Board member Sacka Gable, >> yes. >> Board member Stefen, >> yes. >> Motion passes.
>> All right. And and just just as a practical follow-up to that, we'll we'll send some additional information about what they're doing and why the service is is valued where it is, you know, ideally and and it's it's it's a it's a great comment about having that information, but just because you passed
it doesn't mean that we can't follow up with some more information because um I I feel like I should know more about that since you're authorizing me to uh to enter into the agreement. >> I I realize it's probably a small amount and I appreciate you looking at it. Thank you. >> Okay.
>> Okay. Moving right along. 4989AV. Do I have a motion? >> All right. Board member Callahan. Do I have a second? Board member Stefen. Uh, okay. This resolution is uh to amend the
resolution that had been uh passed on November 11, which rejects local bids for paraprofessional services and awards a contract for paraprofessional services through cooperative purchasing specifically to the um
wow hours ago that we had this to delta t uh for the 2627 school year. Uh, and this resolution is specifically updating the resolution uh, previously
passed to uh, conform with requirements by uh, listing the specific rate per hour that would be charged and the uh, annual contract estimate amount. Uh, is there discussion?
Yes, I did want to clarify uh some things said. Uh I do want to thank everybody who advocated tonight. Um your words were heard and we appreciate it. Uh just one a few points one of those points and I did put that in many
of my correspondence that we are continuing to explore in-house self-contained power professionals. If it's fiscally feasible, the board will move forward on it. Uh we're looking at it in various forms. Uh contractual
contractual carveout. We're looking at a different scenarios. Um I do want to point out that I believe one of the speakers um requested a guide analysis. We did do that guide analysis my first two months in this job, Kathy and I, and
we presented it to CPAC. um we can do a new one. Uh but we we utilize the old contract and the guide and we did provide that analysis. Um I do also want to shout out the board. Um this is the
only board of education that has their CPAC organization part of their committee. There is no other board that I'm aware of in the state that has CPAC as part of a board committee and have
them the first 15 to 20 minutes on that committee. Um, so I I do want to shout that out. We had a a couple of speakers uh talk on that. I do want to clarify also the Delta rate. I heard a lot of the $16. Um, our co-op rate is $18 to
$22. Uh and I think as Kathleen put in some of her emails, we will be pushing Delta to make that 20 to 22. Um that is something we will have discussions with them. Currently, it is 18 to 22. That is the co-op uh number and that that is
what we are approving. It is not 16. It is never have been never has been $16. Um I also want to clarify that Delta was never terminated from South Orange Mapwood School District. Um, I also want to point out that Delta will
be offering positions to current ESS Paris. That's part of the recruiting. Um, and part of uh our work on our end is, if you remember, I know it was hours ago, uh, but the slide with the school districts that are using Delta. Uh, I
contacted 75% of those school districts uh, in regards to the quality of service for Delta. And that's a common practice we usually do with all these services. Uh, and not one of those districts spoke badly about Delta. And every one of
those districts use the word quality, professional, and great customer service. >> Is there discussion, comments, questions? Board over Stefan. >> So I have a couple thoughts I wanted to share about this. One is about the
process. Um we had voted to accept uh or to enter into a contract with Delta T at the June 11th meeting. Uh it seems that that resolution is added pretty late in the day. I certainly
sitting up here did not know that I was voting for it on June 11th. Um and that, you know, does not sit right with me because I try to take my role very seriously. I really try to study what we're coming to vote on and have and ask questions if I have questions and make sure that I have a level of comfort that
when I come up here, every vote I take is for the best interest of students. I think it's also a missed opportunity how late it was put on the agenda on the 11th because the community didn't have an opportunity to look at it and to
comment. And I I very much appreciate the many people who came out and sat in these chairs for many hours to share their views. uh but they're sharing their views after we had originally uh agreed to enter into a an agreement with Delta T. So I I think that was a missed
opportunity and I don't mean to um call anyone out about it. Um but but that is something that that uh is is uh is upsetting to me on the on the substance of this.
um you know if you pay people less there's a a reasonable worry that it's going to mean lower quality and uh the people who spoke about that were absolutely right it's a it's a concern I have and I know um some people have great experiences with their
paras other people have less good experiences um ESS was not perfect delta t is not going to be perfect but that concern about quality remains and unfortunately because we contract out our paras is there is limited ability for the
district to ensure quality in the way that we could try to ensure quality if it was our own staff. Um and so you know I appreciate what Mr. Bing just said about bringing paras in house. I know that's something that's been discussed uh in the special services committee led
by board member Callahan. Um I know when we talked about it a couple months ago it was cost prohibitive but we're continuing to look at it even if it's for a subset of paras and I really encourage those continued discussions. Um and and I think that's sort of long
range where we need to go. So um you know I I know again budgets are tight. We're trying to save money. Um but that concern about stability and about quality are big concerns I have and I would implore the district to do
everything you can uh to try to to address those. >> Just to emphasize what Paul just said. Um, you know, we brought up bringing our self-contained powers in house about a year ago. Uh, we did the numbers around
everybody and it just was cost prohibitive. Uh, but we're hoping that there is that chance that we'll be able to bring oursel contained in. We're still working on it. Uh, we've been trying to get that message out to everybody that we'll continue to work on it and be transparent about it. Uh, in
regards to training, uh, we control all the training when it comes to the Paris. So we controlled all the ESS training. We'll control all the delta training as well. We simply tell them what we require and they have to give that training. Um most of our paris currently
are anywhere from one to three years in the district and as you noted with any third party vendor there's high turnover uh and there's also quality issues as well. Um I believe this would be our
fourth third party vendor in a over the last seven years, eight years. Um Delta is a is a uh organization that as I noted is quite prevalent in New
Jersey. I've used them as a in the superintendent in another district. I know Kathleen has used them in another district as well. Our focus right now is that transition and to make sure it's as smooth as possible and to make sure that especially for our kids that are most vulnerable. Uh Delta knows them by name
and knows what they need and our powers will be ready to go feed on the floor when they come in. Um I know they are currently recruiting our ESS pars that that has started. We started that about three weeks ago uh along with other
recruitment but they were the first to uh be reached out to in regards to recruitment. But my main I did want to really correct because I saw it on few people sent me a Facebook post around that $13 to $16 was out there and that's just
misinformation. Uh if you look on the contract it is 18 to 22. Our goal is to push them uh to make it 20 to 22. We'll have those discussions later on, but the co-op is $18 to $22. >> Other comments, discussion on this?
>> Yes, Patty. >> So, I think this one is of the votes and the conversations that we've had. Everything is of importance. This one is particular of consequence because of uh the impacts to the students uh what we've had and obviously the the the
money that we're talking about that's involved in this. So, just a few questions to help me navigate this one. Um, when we decided to go out for a bid, um, was it because the contract was up? Was it just something that was normal course of action or was there a trigger
there? >> Yeah. No, part of the our budget work this time around and last year was to do a robust RFP process for any of our private services. So, you'll note on this agenda, you'll also see security. I think custodial was last week. I don't
know. Yeah, custodial was last week. We're changing over custodial as well. Um, it was recommended by our auditors as a best practice every three years to do this at a bare minimum. Uh, but obviously with our our budget issues, this is one of their strategies to uh
obviously try to get the budget under control. And when with the uh with any change in control like with a partnership like this, are there any recruitment percentages that is that Delta is looking for to hold um in order
for the the deal to go through because they could say best efforts, good faith, but if they don't, there should be a percentage that we should go for for continuity. >> Yeah. I mean, we had a onboarding meeting. We had two already. Um and also we tried to get uh a uh update on where
they were in recruiting. Uh they assured us they would have no issue in regards to getting what we currently need. Uh and having done this with another third party vendor in a dis in in another district. Um they assured me they would get us what
we need and they did. Um, currently, as I think was brought up, um, West Orange, Hackinack, and about three other districts recently have released their in-house Paris. Um, so I know that Delta is, uh, currently also recruiting them
as well. Um, so we have a meeting, I believe it's on Tuesday, to get another update on their on their recruiting. So I can send an update to the board on that. My past experience has been I I have never worked with a third party vendor that has not met the goal of recruiting. Uh when it comes to par
profofessionals, >> is there anything that you can put that's contractual in there for for >> Let me check for you. >> So yeah, with that that also ties into are we sure that we I'd like say sure. I'd like to urge the district
to try and amend the language that so we could get a rate lock to to honor what we've had. Right. >> Yeah. I'm more than we're more than willing to do that work. >> They can say good faith. Sure. We'll do it. But short of an email, short of something in writing, short of an amendment. So therefore, I'm also
asking, is there any way to buy some time so we can go through some of that navigation before we have to go to vote or do we have to go to vote on this tonight? Yeah, we're it would be very tight in regards to recruiting and getting pars in. Uh so this is a time
line that we need. Um I c I can and we will work with uh Delta to get that in writing for you. Um but yeah, this needs to be move. I mean, they've already started recruiting to ensure that we
have folks for the fall. Uh and as you recall last year we had to go well this year uh was extremely stressful because uh ESS was in negotiations with local 68 uh and local
68 uh let us know that they may not come in the first month of school if negotiations were not settled. So that was extremely stressful for us at the start of this year. Uh and at this point we're also a little stressed because we are as noted previously local 68 just uh
mentioned that they are recommending their uh paris take their comp days uh which impacts our most needy students. >> So so one more point of clarification then when we went out for bid did ESS
put a bid in? >> They did that and that was on the board. So they did they did that was them. They didn't come down. They didn't want to match. >> They did not. And again, and I I've been putting this in my correspondence. We are one of two
districts that work with ESS out of their 250 plus that have local 68 in them. The others do not. >> Okay. Yep. Go ahead. Sure.
>> Um so yeah, I think a a couple things. Um, one I want to echo what Paul said. I think um, as leaders we have a responsibility when we've made an error to own that error. And I think we are a board and we make decisions collectively. And certainly I think the
timelines, we talked about that a little bit tonight just in terms of like the volume of information we received on a relatively short timeline ahead of this meeting. Um, I think we also, you know, we were under the impression we were voting to extend ESS's contract through the summer for the extended school year.
Um, and instead voted on something very different. Um, and so, you know, both as, you know, a board member and the special services chair, that is an error that, you know, I think we all, you know, only speak for myself, but I think, um, is regrettable that that
wasn't noticed collectively. Um, and so that does put us in this position. And I again want to thank everyone who came out in terms of advocacy and naming the various ways uh and impacts that this this decision has. I think one thing I'm
thinking through to build on board member Kapadia's questions in terms of what we're evaluating and what we're looking at. I've had some preliminary conversations with Kathy about as a committee what we can really look at in terms of data wise um and impact as this
transition occurs. Um but one piece of feedback and advocacy that stood out to me tonight was the comparison around and certainly we have a robust uh relationship with CPAC. I know they the executive board meets with Mrs. just Maria and Superintendent Bing once a month and that they've been coming to
our committee meetings for two and a half years now. Um, but I would say that I think given the state of of things right now that the suggestion to have potentially a working group, I think we've seen how effective that can be for our transportation families, how
effective that can be in spotting uh and analyzing issues as they come up and and being responsive and reflective to them. And so I think I would really like to see the district make a commitment to doing that as we go through this transitional period. Um to really hear
from those families most impacted. Um whether it is that we end up with Delta T or we're effective in getting our uh parents to come in house. I think having those voices and those conversations on you know a more regular basis um beyond just CPAC will be important.
Board member Na. >> Um, if this does not get approved, what is the plan B? Like we, what happens? >> So, we built our budget >> around this. We built our budget around
the RFPs coming in lower than our current services. Uh-huh. >> Um, so we would have to revisit cuts moving forward, >> meaning you we would have to take ESS's bid. >> No, no, >> we would not.
>> We would go out to bid again. >> We would again, we would have trouble getting folks for the fall uh because we need the summer to recruit folks. be a struggle being fully staffed by the
fall. >> So, we would go out to bid, we would get another either ESS or somebody else. >> We we cannot currently we do not currently have that rate in our budget. So, if we did move forward with something like ESS at a rate such as
that, we would need to make reductions in our budget. >> So, we would have to move forward with ESS and then we would have to revisit something else in the budget. I'm just trying if we went with ESS. Yeah, we'd have to reduce either programs or staff. >> But that's not an option,
>> right? If we bid does not exist anymore. >> Yeah, we did. We passed a resolution on June 11th rejecting all bids, >> right? >> Procedurally, we would have to go out to bid again. >> Yes. >> Okay. And that will delay the process of
recruitment and it could also cost us more. So, we would have to revisit the budget. That's correct. Uh going through a co-op makes a big difference uh in regards to pricing. Um we were lucky enough uh Frank came upon it. Um we had
some quality districts that were in that co-op and that we reached out to and called uh that utilized that co-op for Delta and Paris. Um so we were confident uh in the process and the quality and that's what started the the process.
>> Jeff A lot of times board members and administrators use a term like quote like find it in the budget and I've used that I'm sure but when we find it in the budget what it really means is cut something else and those other cuts might be things actually people also
really cherish like let's say we have some like you know last minute uh resignations this summer which could happen um if we have to find another million and a half in the budget um we would not be replacing those people who have like last minute resignations. Um, you know, we would have like a lower
like is we would have like less room for emergencies. Like let's say we need to spend more money in some area like last couple school years we've had to spend more money on transportation on um to break up very long bus routes. We would not be able to do that. Um you know we
would be asking the district to make some very very tough decisions um in the near future if we didn't approve this contract. The current differential is 1.7 million. >> I I think I just go back to Paul's point. I'm really struggling with the
way this all happened um and the timing and the lack of engagement with the community and the board in general. So, it just feels like we're stuck and we have to make a decision cuz not making like not moving forward has
potentially equally worse consequences in some other way. Um, so I really would like to avoid a situation like this going forward where we have erroneously voted on something and then now we have to amend
it because we're too late to do anything else. It feels like a very difficult choice and when you know we're not talking about small programs, we're talking about vulnerable children who need services. So it's feels like a very
difficult decision. >> Yeah. Let I just want to be clear that whether it was June 11th or tonight, I'd be recommending Delta T Group. >> Board member Higgins. Um, so this is related to the
resolution, but I just kind of wanted to like share some learnings over the last like two weeks and then what we heard tonight. It's very clear to me that the paraprofessional is a career. It's not a well- paid career, but it is a career. It's what people spend whether they have
it part-time or full-time. It sounds like it's something people do for 40 hours a week. So I think looking at that we need to look at this role differently in our district. I don't think we should look at them like what some people said is a warm body in the
room and I don't think that's I really don't think that's what's happening here. I think this is truly a fiscal like issue but to many points there was something that happened that you know I'm personally looking back on that and that I will not make that mistake again.
But I also moving forward, do we have thirdparty quality checks in place for our vendors? Because I it's it at some point it's a natural move sadly to move to a third party vendor because it is less expensive. So it would be really
great to see um the checks and balances around that, the quality checks so that you know the community can feel that this is still being monitored um and that the quality is equally important. >> Yeah. Well, I I do want to point out we
have nothing left to go out for third party South Orange Maple School District. All our services were were put out about 11 to 12 years ago. uh with at this point no one on no one on this board part of that. Um but there is a checks and balances and we could show we
could we could uh show the be transparent with the process. >> Yes, board member Brown. >> Yeah, I um I appreciate the discussion. I really really appreciate the parents and community members that came out tonight and spoke. I This is a really
hard decision. And I think for everyone here it's a hard decision. I 100% agree with um the board members have tal who have talked about uh monitoring this to ensure that there isn't negative impact. I think we should
consider that as potentially one of our action items when we discuss our district goals for the next year to make sure that we do have metrics in place where we're um measuring quantitatively. to board member Callahan's point, also have the
connections in place with the community so that we can measure qualitatively as well. Um, >> I just I do want to point out that uh we did repeatedly uh talk about going out
>> for RFP for Paris >> with CPAC at our special ed committee meetings. It was mentioned multiple times there. It was mentioned publicly since March. Um, and as noted, Kathleen, and I want to
make sure I shout her out, has a great relationship with CPAC that she's cultivated. Uh, and the access that our CPAC has to our board and committee, I'm very proud of, and I know she she is as well. >> Yeah. And I mean, there's no doubt it there's going to be road bumps. I mean,
it's a big transition. Um, and so we just have to think about how we can monitor as closely as possible to minimize those. And I guess I would say I think this is just part of a larger and I I I fully I really hope the
district will continue to explore the idea of um in-house self-contained paras. But that is part of a larger discussion that we need to have about our budget. Right? These are all trade-offs. And when I
brought up triple I earlier tonight, that is also a tradeoff and that is where we are at like we need if if if the state doesn't change our funding formula, we have to make some fundamental changes to how we operate.
And for me, like I want to be guided about trying to minimize how, you know, the resource cuts to our classrooms and the resources that we can provide directly to our students. And so I think that that is the concern here for all of
us, right, is that we don't want that quality to go away. Um I I know I'm kind of repeating what others have said, but it it is a really hard decision. I really appreciate everyone coming out tonight. >> Um so boy, I don't like having to take
this vote right now because there is there is no good option. Um, and I mean, I've made no secret about my day job. I represent parents in the city in lawsuits against their school
district for dropping the ball on special education. And uh, the quality of special education services being provided to kids is near and dear to my heart. It's one of the reasons why I fought to get up on this DAS. Uh, and if
I wasn't up here, I would be down there and I would be speaking and I'd be fighting because this is very stressful. Uh, and it's very concerning and the, uh, large number of parents and students and
paraprofessionals who came out to speak on this. Um their their points have to be so very much validated because uh the quality of those people who are sitting in their kids' classroom and helping to
facilitate their progress uh and be that familiar face. There's no way to understate it. Uh and I have to completely agree in the larger context the fact that these folks are working in a system where I mean forget essat
anywhere these rates are very very low compared to a lot of other professions for the very important work that they do. Um and at the same time as a board member and as a
someone who has a responsibility to maintain the district's fiscal health, you see what's happened in districts around you see districts that ignored signs of financial struggle and all of a sudden imploded. Uh you know had to lay
off scores of teachers, had to close down buildings. Uh, and there is an obligation that we have to all of the families in our community, including the special education families, to not let our district implode. Uh, and I I just
keep thinking back to that slide from the budget presentation, which Superintendent Bing uh has trotted out every time very importantly because it shows the expectation of what our gap is going to be next year and the year after that and the year after that. and that keeps me up at night because those are
huge numbers to try to uh achieve. And so we look at the difference between the contract that we have from ESS and the contract from Delta T and it's about $1.8 million uh which is to say about 18
teachers. And if we were to walk away from this bid that's been offered and go do something else that might be the amount that ESS had last bid at, it could come in higher if we have to go out to bid again. Uh that has to come
from somewhere. And this is not something I think where we are asking the special education community to take this burden on their back uniquely. uh you look at the list of different cuts and compromises that
we've had to make and they have reached across the district. Uh it has been a lot of different places where we are scrimping and saving and compromising and reducing teachers and reducing uh coursework
for some of our lower uh attended courses. There's a lot of areas where we're having to cut and where we know we've been promised that next year it's going to be worse. Next year we're going to have the harder cuts. And so to agree
right now to spend more money for the same level of paraprofessional service as far as number of people coming in is really tough, right? To go with the delta t proposal uh involves maintaining
the same number of paras. Will they be the exact same paras? Probably some of them yes and some of them no. Will the service be as good? I don't know. I have to trust that if they're being used in that many other districts, they can't be
so awful. I want to trust that these folks do in fact know what they're doing. They have a reputation. They haven't been run out of business. And we have to make them prove that. We have to see that their people are qualified and background checked and get the kind of
training that we always do for paraprofessionals um and ensure that we're going to have qualified staff working with our kids. I mean, that's a non-negotiable. And if we found out that wasn't the case, we would exercise our contract options and get
out. And I I do believe that the contract that has been negotiated has a fairly short termination clause so that if we are able to escape and do something else, we would do it. Um, with regard to the actual cost of the contract, the amount that's being paid
to providers, I would love to see them commit in writing to aiming for the higher end of that ban. My understanding is that because we're going through a cooperative, we legally don't have the ability to renegotiate parts of that.
It's against public bidding rules. So, we have to accept the range as it is stated and uh we are hopeful. I think they deltat t understands that there is a priority in this district for fair wages
and uh that we would hope to see that happen and we know that we can pull back but I think that what everyone has said about moving in house is really crucially important. It would be so great to be able to have our par profofessionals back in. Um there is not
currently with the contracts and arrangements we have the ability to just move paras in today at the same rate that they are earning right now. There would have to be changes internally and changes to contracts to allow for that to happen. And I would love to see us
continue to pursue that. Uh, and if we could move in at least the self-contained paras, if not more, uh, that would be a tremendous win. But if we don't vote on this right now, then September is going to come and we're not
going to have Paris in place. And I don't see how we can do that. Um, I think we need to work to get these pair of professionals in place, push this organization to provide
quality service with quality people, quality training, and be able to look at what is going to come next and plan this is not going to be our our forever plan. Um, so that's why I am planning to vote yes and
I'm doing it knowing that it is it is a very difficult compromise that we are asking uh some of our families to potentially have to endure uh knowing that the alternative is potentially so
much worse. Um, and I do want to take a second to acknowledge the issue with the resolution. This is it's a really unfortunate circumstance that has to do with us having a business office. It's in flux and and unfortunately moving too quickly. There was a resolution that we
were going to adopt and a resolution that I announced at our June 11th meeting which was simply to cancel the bids and that resolution in fact had alternate language that was adopting the delta t contract. It should not have been in there. And it was a case
unfortunately of all of us realizing that when lastm minute items come through we have to be scrutinizing them more than in that occasion we wound up scrutinizing them. The irony here of course is that uh that actually created
so much more uh awareness of this delta t contract. There has been tremendous engagement at this point and I'm very glad for the turnout we've had and the conversation. Uh, nonetheless, that has taught us uh a very important lesson
about making certain that the work product that we're having come in, especially on the day of is up to snuff, and we're going to do that more going forward. Um, so that's a very long-winded way of saying this is not a great uh set of choices to have to make,
but I think we have to make the responsible choice that keeps services in place and keeps our budget in place and take the next appropriate steps to get a better set of services going forward. >> Yeah, I think I agree with Paul and Will in regards to the process being
needing improvement. Uh, I do want to state pretty clearly that you have an assistant superintendent of special services recommending this group. You have a former director of special education, myself,
recommending this group. You have the former supervisor of the second largest special education department in the state recommending this group. That is myself as well. I supervised the special ed department in Jersey City for over nine
years. Uh so I have deep ties to special ed community. Um I have faith in regards to Delta group. Uh oh sorry I have faith in regards to the Delta group and I agree with what everybody said here and
also many of our speakers that we have to stay on top of this transition. uh we have to make sure accountability is transparent uh and also that the training is transparent and make sure that that we share that on a regular basis. >> Are there any other comments? Board
member Bennett. >> Just for additional uh context on the revenue side, uh we did increase taxes this year by the maximum legal amount. It was close to 6%. It was the biggest tax increase of the tax cap era. That's a contrast between us and West Orange.
West Orange only increased its operating taxes by 2 and a.5%. So like I can't speak for other people, but like I approved that very large tax increase because I knew that it would minimize the cuts we'd have to make. And um we're doing our best.
>> Any other comments? >> All right, Mr. Carrick, could you please call the role? >> This is 4989 AV. >> Correct. >> Board member Bennett. >> Yes. Board member Brown, >> yes. >> Board member Callahan,
>> yes. >> Board member Higgins, >> abstain. >> Board member Capadia, >> yes. >> Board member Myer, Board President Meyer, >> yes. >> Board member Nyar, >> yes. >> Board member Sack Gable,
>> yes. >> Board member Stefan, >> yes. >> Motion passes. And that concludes the action portion of our meeting. Uh we'll now begin our second hearing of individuals and delegates this evening. Uh could I just
ask could someone take a look at that signin sheet? Do we have Miss Lincoln? >> Could you No sign. All right. And we do not have any online public
speaks either. Uh we'll now move on to new business. Is there any new business this evening? Hearing none. Uh the board will next meet in public session on Thursday, July 30, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. where action will
be taken. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? Board member Stefan. Do I have a second Gable? Show of hands. All in favor? It's unanimous. Uh we have adjourned at 1:38 1:39 a.m. on June 26th.