Good evening. The Sparta Board of Education regular meeting is called to order at 7 p.m. Miss Arafino may please read the meeting notice announcement. Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided in accordance to the open public meetings act uh NJSA 10 col46 and
PL 2025. Notice was published on the Sparta Township public school official website at www.sparta.org. Notice has been fi uh filed with the municipal clerk and posted with in a conspicuous location on the Sparta Township public school website as
required by law. Thank you so much. Uh, roll call, please. >> Dr. Hinkle, >> Mr. Lacarova, >> present. >> Mr. Lowry, >> present. >> Dr. Martinez, >> present. >> Miss Null, >> here. >> Miss Williams, >> present. >> Mr. Wood,
>> here. >> Miss Saraphino, >> here. >> And Miss Gagnen, >> present. >> Quarum confirmed. >> Thank you. Please join us for the pledge. >> To the flag of the United States of America. and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible
with liberty and justice for all >> and we will not be convening into close session this evening uh so we'll jump right into our presentation starting with 5.1 our tenative budget presentation which will be offered by Dr. Beck our superintendent and Miss Barbara Decker our business
administrator Good evening everyone. Tonight we're going to be presenting the fiscal year 27 or the 2627 tentative budget presentation. This uh tonight's presentation is the
tentative budget presentation. Um this will be just presenting what is in the budget for next year and then uh getting the board's approval to submit it to the county. And I'll talk more about the process in a minute. Um one thing I would like to note is that I've been a
superintendent since 2016. So, this is the 10th budget that I am creating and I can tell you that this is by far the most challenging budget that I've ever created. So, uh we'll talk about um what went into the budget and what made it so challenging.
First, talk about the timeline of how we ended up here tonight. Back in September, we received notification from our health insurance carrier that there would be uh significant health insurance increases for next school year. Uh we had heard
about it all summer that it might be and then in September we were officially notified. Uh that led us to kind of speeding up our timeline and getting ahead of this as much as we could because we knew there'd be a lot of work to do. So from November of 25 through December of 25, the department and the
buildings uh developed their budgets. And from January through March, really through tonight, there's been ongoing budget development through administration and board discussions. So tonight is the tentative budget. As I said, we are looking to present to the board of education, get the board of
education's approval to submit this budget to the county. The county then has possession of our budget and they will uh go through our budget to make sure that the line items are uh within code uh within certain ranges and then
the county will give will come back to us with an an approved budget. That county approved budget will then be represented at the April 29th board meeting which will be a uh public hearing for the budget. Um, so between
tonight's submission and the April 29th public hearing, there can be some minor revisions, some minor shifts within the budget, but tonight's presentation and what we submit to the county should get will be a very good idea of of what our budget will look like.
Go through the budget process as we do every year. We used zerobased budgeting, which means we don't simply roll over our budget from one year to another. um we in theory start the budget at zero and build it from there which means that everything that goes into the budget
needs to be necessary and needs to be vetted as necessary for the budget. Uh we work closely with our with budget secretaries. We work closely with the administrative team um going through a continuous review process and working closely and updating the finance
committee and the board uh along the way. some highlights that you'll see uh in this budget. In the budget for next year, the programs are maintained throughout the district. Um there is uh
technology provisions for ongoing upgrades and maintenance to infrastructure utilizing our -ate federal funding and um some curriculum highlights. There's a new math program coming K to 5. There's new science resource renewal for uh 6 to 12. There's
a non-academic skill screener NK to 12 and um we are moving forward with an AI tool called Brisk as well. We get into the increase in appropriations which is really where the challenge lies in this budget. Um these
are all the increases that appear within the budget. So salaries are increasing as they normally would. Uh 1.443 443. I'm sorry, $1,443,000. The medical benefit increase for next year is $1,890,000.
The prescription benefit increase is $694,000 and the liability insurance increase is $160,000. So just on this slide, the increases that we're looking at for next year amount to $4,187,000.
On the other side of that equation is the revenues and you can see that we had a 2% tax levy included for the fiscal year 27 budget. That's 1,ion371350. And then we had a lot of revenues that were included in this year that were um high and that we needed to scale back on
or wanted to scale back on. The first two being excess surplus and reserve accounts. We were hoping to be less reliant on them in fiscal year 27. Excess surplus is generated from the last uh fiscal year that closed the audit and we've been relying on that quite heavily. The auditors even
recommend we push that down or strive to use less surplus. So that was the intent with the big picture as well as the reserve accounts. We have both capital and maintenance reserve that we'll talk about more later. We were trying to be less reliant on them as well. Extraordinary aid is something we budget
and uh there's an application submitted to the DOE every year for those expenses that are extraordinary for our uh some of our students with and the special ed population. They're refunded by the state each year, but the refund amount and that calculation or formula is
changed every year. So again, we were trying to scale back on the X aid in in I guess preparing for a possible decrease in the uh actual aid that we receive. The fund 30 transfer is a one-time uh revenue source in fiscal
year 26 and it's a result of uh funds being left over from the ESIP program. So that's not even an option for fiscal year 27. And our interest was leveraged pretty high as well. And we figure with the um overall economy, checking with the bank that we're currently with, that
it was necessary to scale back the interest that we anticipated earning as well. And then of course the state aid came in at $187,01 less than anticipated. So although we have a 2% increase on the levy, those
revenues actually went down by $272,649. So, as Miss Decker explained, typically when you start with the appropriations, then you go to the revenue. The revenue is supposed to get you closer to the appropriations. And actually, in this case, uh in a in a very unique year, uh
the revenue actually takes us further away from the appropriations, making the appropriations deficit uh larger. As you see here, the slide that I went through, as a reminder, was the increase in appropriations, which was $4,87,000.
What Barbara just showed you was a decrease in revenue, which actually tacks on to the deficit. Uh, so you add those two numbers together and the total deficit that we are looking at at this time is $4,459,649. And I wish it stopped there, but it
doesn't. uh we had not at that time uh accounted for increase in instructional needs, transportation needs, an increase in utilities, buildings and grounds projects and capital projects. When you add those items together, you get $980,000
digging us into a deeper hole as far as our deficit goes. So the total deficit from the previous slide is right there. And then you add on the $980,000. The grand total deficit, the you can see why I said this was the most challenging
budget that I've uh helped create. The grand total deficit that we were facing heading into this budget was $5 million uh 5,439,000 four $5,439,649. I'm sorry. So that's the deficit that we started at
and the next couple slides will show you how we started to close the the gap on that deficit. The first and largest help with helping close that gap is the district joining the ASUS program. The ASUS program is an alliance for cooperative energy. It's
through New Jersey school boards. We joined that as of March 1st of this current year and it runs through March uh excuse me May of 2026. So that allows us to uh reduce the amount of money that was budgeted for the electricity for the district which
is a significant savings. We are also looking into that right now to see if we can join the alliance for um natural gas as well but we do not have a concrete answer on that as of this point. The next uh large help in closing that gap was the reduction in medical insurance
renewal. Initially our adviserss had braced us for very very steep increases in both uh medical and prescription or RX and we later on found out that we could back those increases down slightly. That helped close the gap. We were not able to reduce that surplus
that we had put on the original screen for uh reducing the revenues. We had to push that back up. We also had to rely on both maintenance and capital reserves. So this budget for fiscal year 27 absolutely includes withdrawals from both reserve accounts to help balance the budget. And then there's also a
healthcare adjustment that was generated in fiscal year 27's budget. It's through the budget process and we'll talk about that more later. And uh that helped us balance the budget too. That helped us push the uh tax levy up from the 2%. So it was uh definitely a large portion of
us being able to balance out the budget. Moving along further into some groupings uh some categories of some budget lines that we were able to uh to reduce uh we reduced the athletics and co-curricular budgets. We reduced the
building level budgets. We eliminated late busing at the middle school and the high school. We reduced the ESY staffing hours by 30 minutes per day. Um, we are looking to instructional devices, the buildings and grounds, uh, who have who are in need of a truck and
a van and transportation who are in need of a 24 passenger bus. We backed all of those out of next year's budget with the hopes of trying to purchase some, if not all of those last three bullet points out of this year's budget if we can. And then unfortunately when you're
talking about over a $5 million deficit, you are uh can't overcome that deficit without um without revising your personnel structure, without reducing personnel. Um so in this budget, there's a total certified staff position
reduction of uh 17 staff members. Um but those are not all 17 current staff members that will not be employed next year or losing their jobs. Uh some of those will come through attrition of annual non-renewals which happen every year. If we don't renew somebody, maybe we don't backfill that person. Um
retirements, same thing. When retirements um are issued, maybe for some of those retirements, we don't backfill those positions. So the top two can come from attrition. There's an SMS schedule revision which um we are uh getting ready to roll out soon after the
budget is approved and uh more more on that will be coming. And of course then when all of those other top three things fail, um we'll have to resort to an actual reduction in force on top of those things. But 17 certified staff members, but we didn't just look at certified staff, of course. We looked at
all staff in the district. And um that we will be reducing 10 staff members as a result of a restructure of central office staff, administration, and support staff. Uh this is the tax levy uh for this for next year's budget. You can see that the
tax levy for the budget for the current year, the year that we're living in, the tax levy total was 68,567,62. The 2% increase, which is allowed by law, which we uh typically go to every year, gets you an additional $1,371,352.
And then the healthcare adjustment that Miss Decker just spoke to gets us an additional $677,111. With the healthcare adjustment and the 2% increase, the total fiscal year uh 27 local tax levy will amount to 2.99%. And you can see the big number there of
of what that tax levy is uh total. And just for your information, the tax levy is 88% of our total revenues. So that healthc care adjustment that we've been speaking of when we go into the budget software from DOE and we enter fiscal year 26 adjusted figures
for uh our expenditures under healthcare area of the budget as well as our projected numbers for fiscal year 27. Behind the scenes calculations take place and there are two forms of adjustments that the district can be entitled to. any school district, whether it's enrollment or health care, we were entitled to based on the
information um between 26 and 27 budgets, we were entitled to a healthcare adjustment of just over $2 million. It was 2,5,103, I believe, was the exact amount. So, of that $2 million that was generated
through the budget process, 677,111 is included in the current uh with the tax levy to increase that tax levy up to 2.99. Then the remainder of that money uh that is not used this time in the budget process falls into banked cap and
we'll speak about that again in uh another slide. uh too far. Barbara alluded to state aid before. This is just a state aid comparison. Again, the fiscal year, the year that we're living in, the 2526, you can see what our state aid total was.
When we first started the budgeting process, we started budgeting with anticipation that we would get the same exact state aid. We were budgeting for flat state funding, um which is really like a minimal expectation of what we
thought we were going to get. Um, so we carried over that $6,631,272 into the budget as we were planning for it. Then last week the actual state aid numbers came out and our state aid number went down. Actually, there was a
state aid decrease of $187,01 uh which is a 2.8% decrease and that's actually pushing the maximum decrease. The what what you're the maximum decrease that you are allowed is 3%. The state's not allowed to decrease any district by more than 3%. And we were
pushing that at 2.8%. And state aid is 8% of our revenue. This slide just shows a summary of all of the revenue for fiscal year 27. That tax levy at 70,6605. The state aid that we just talked about.
uh the fund balance that you see has increased back up to um basically what we're just about using this current year. The other local sources is the interest and the facility use that we generate uh by renting out our buildings and the building use. The semi is uh
provided by the DOE. It's not a number that we arbitrarily calculate. It's the special education Medicaid initiative and it's where the districts districts across the state of New Jersey are able to be re reimbursed for medically necessary expenses for our special needs
students that uh would be medically necessary whether those students were at home or in school. So there's a tracking system to um be part of that program and to claim the reimbursements. Extraordinary aid um is also part of our revenue source. the withdrawal from the
two reserves accounts to bring the general fund uh budget total to 80,120240. >> Uh special revenue is another source of uh revenue for the district, its grants and its entitlements and the district is entitled to both federal and state
revenue um source from these types of entitlements. The ESA is the um elementary and secondary education act and there are three different groupings under that titles one, two and four and they are the amounts are up there. Uh those titles are used for professional
development. They're used to pay um stipens for uh different services that our teachers may perform and also provide services uh to our students. The IDEIDA, Individual Disability Education Act, uh the basic comes in at about $599,000.
that's budgeted and that helps defay the costs of the outofd district tuition that our tuition that our out of district kids um have. So on this slide we're looking at $693,232 of special revenue or uh entitlements both federal and uh this is just
federal, excuse me, just federal. This slide shows the state. We have preschool education. That's a state entitlement. And based on our population for uh fiscal year 27 of students, we're entitled to 3,983140. The district has to fund the portion of
the special education population that sits within that general education setting. So that actually comes out to be about $413,000 that the district will uh contribute to the uh preschool education program. And then we had a $47 carryover. So total
preschool is 4,396112. Adding on also uh the federal entitlements from the prior slide of 693 special revenue or fund 20 as I'll also call it the entitlements is $5,89,344. So here's a revenue comparison. Uh we're looking at fiscal year 27 on the left,
fiscal year 26 that we're living in on the right. And you see that 2,ion48,000 which is the uh tax levy increase with the 2% and the uh entitlement I should say really the um healthcare adjustment and then state aid down fund balance is
down just uh 53,820 x slightly down at 56420 the semi is actually up and then miscellaneous is basically our interest that's down 80,502. So if you look at uh fiscal year 27 and fiscal year 26 uh we're looking at
1,691209 or 2.2%. So although that tax levy is going up 299 it's really resulting in only a 2.2% increase of funds that the district can spend or 1,691209. So bank cap I had mentioned that earlier
it's generated through the budgeting process. We had bank cap on tap already for the district. It was generated in fiscal year 25. That was a uh enrollment adjustment that the district was entitled to. Fiscal year 26 that we're living in. The 960 is from a healthcare
adjustment that went straight to bank cap. It was not used in the current year. And then this year, like I mentioned, we had a $2 million u healthc care adjustment. We used $677,111 to help support that tax levy increase.
That left us with 1,ion327992 and that falls into banked cap. So our total bank cap for this budget cycle now is 2,682,210. Sorry. Uh reserve funds. We also have reserve funds I mentioned earlier. They're like savings accounts. We have
two types of savings accounts. They're tax neutral. Uh the first one is a cap reserve and the other one is a maintenance reserve. the cap reserve. We're pulling money out of that, I'm going to say savings account to cover the cost of our EIP payment. That's um an um project that we took part in about
five years ago and we had a number of um building and grounds type upgrades completed and then you pay it back over a 15-year. It's an energy savings improvement plan. You pay it back over a 15-year payback and the payment for fiscal year 27 is 56304. and the required maintenance is just
going to help the district um fulfill the expenditures of maintaining our five buildings at 3772. So, as of March 1st on that cap reserve account, we had 1,8004 in there. We're on tap to and budgeted for a fiscal year
26 withdrawal of about $477,000. And then we're planning a $560,000 304 for fiscal year 27. And that would leave us with a balance in capital reserve of 766 392 as of today. That does earn interest on it as well. So
that's helpful. And the maintenance reserve today, as of March 1st, I should say, million61352. We're scheduled to make a withdrawal in the current year of 396260. And then in 27's budget, it includes 377200.
And that would bring that down to $287,892. So, taking a look now, what does that all mean? How does it impact everybody? We get information from both um the township assessor and the township collect collector. And you compare 26 to
25 and we look at the ratables and the ratables you can see are in the billions. Uh although it's decreased from 26 or should say from 25 to 26 that's it's 1,982. It's it's negligible. It's not even a tenth of a percent. And then the tax levy is the second column
over our tax levy for each year is entered. And then we get that tax rate by dividing the ratables into the tax levy. And then we take the tax rate and multiply it by the assessed value. The assessed value in 26 did increase $460
to 372660. And that means the increase for taxes for 26 at 856818 is $26418 more than the 2025 rate of 8304.
>> Yes. So as Miss Decker said the this is the first time actually in a couple of years that we've been doing this budget that the average assessed home has actually increased. So again the average assessed home in Sparta is $372,660. What all of this means when you shake out the 2.99%
um tax levy is that on the average assessed home uh the taxes will increase $264.18 or which what amounts to $221 per month. This is just to give you an idea of what
our tax levy has looked like since 2016. Um again, 2% is what is allowable by law typically until you until you dip into um banked cap when appropriate. So you can see anything that deviates that's above the 2% uh is a year that we would
have dipped into the uh banked cap including the fiscal year 27 which again is 2.99%. And this is just uh another breakdown of a lot of the things that we just discussed. It's just the side by side the year by year um next year's budget
line by line compared to the budget year that we're living in. And you can see I'm not going to go through line by line and read it out loud, but you can see um instructions stayed flat. Anything in parenthesis obviously is down by that percentage. Anything that's not in parenthes parenthesis is because of an
increase of that listed percentage. Um and you can just see a sideby-side comparison is really just uh reiterating what we've already talked about. So if we took those totals from uh the general fund on the slide before for fiscal year 26 and 27, we're trying to get together and see the apples to
apples. It's hard to see in the total general fund figures what's not the same. So this slide help us helps us pull that out. The reserves for 26 that we're living in is 1,ion355 deduction and then the reserves that are scheduled for fiscal year 27 or 937504.
Uh prior year incumbrances, the DOE makes us uh roll over or add in everything that was not paid at June 30th of last year into the next school year. So just like your house on December 31st, you don't have all your bills paid. You're going to pay some of your December bills in January. We pay
some of our fiscal year 25 bills and 26 that's 274 344. So when you pull out the reserves you pull out the incumbrance what's not the same we're left with the general fund total at the bottom and when you compare 26 to 27 you see that same number 1,691209
that we saw on the revenue side which is 2.2% increase. So the appropriations can all we have is 1,691 209 to increase which makes sense. It has to be on both sides. between this slide, this slide and the next uh this slide will be used to help
calculate the per pupil cost that you'll see on the next slide, but this is just again a look back over the past couple of years since 2016 of what our district enrollment has been. Um you can see there's a bit of a lag. Uh they take the the October 15th snapshot of of the
school year and they use that to calculate your next year's budget. So you can see from 24 to this past October that we had a decrease in 73 students. Um so that might have been what contributed to um some loss in state aid
was a was a lower enrollment. But you use that to calculate budgetary cost. The per pupil cost again this is just a comparison between um the budgeted year that we're talking about and the year that we're living in. The per pupil cost you can see increases uh slightly. the administrative cost
actually goes down a little bit and the legal cost actually stays about the same. Um, a difference of a dollar as you can see and this is per pupil. All those are per pupil. And then this is just the resolution that's on tonight's agenda. Everybody has seen this revolution uh resolution.
It's everything that we talked about. This is just officially how you need to uh board approve it to submit it to the county with this language and with these fields filled out. And with that, we'll turn it over to questions from the board. >> Um, I would say two questions and
discussion if that's appropriate. So, anyone have anything they'd like to ask or add. One thing I'll let everyone go first, but one item I just want to clarify. Um, Miss Decker, I believe you misspoke and I just want the record to reflect for the ACES program utilities. We did enroll March 1st as you mentioned. You had said May of 26 were
enrolled through. I think it's May of 27. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Um, first of all, I just want to say thank you for you and the team to come up with this because this is not an easy thing. Um,
anytime you're affecting someone's livelihood, it's it's not an easy topic. And um, I just want to say thank you to all of you for doing this. Um these are not easy discussions and this board
uh knew about this I think even earlier all some of us were saying that we knew healthcare was going to be an issue a long time ago. Um, and I I I just want to say that outside of that, I think we would have been in good shape, but unfortunately a 15 16%
increase in healthcare is going to cause a structural change. And the decisions um even though the board doesn't make these decisions, we get to approve them, we get to hear them. I don't think anybody at this day has took it lightly.
And I just wanted to go on the record that um I took it very hard because it's just it's not an easy thing to do and the way healthc care is is shaping out it it is
a structural problem and has continued to be a structural problem that and I you know people who get elected to national offices will have to deal with how to deal with that. Um unfortunately this is where we at where we're at and
um these changes are are necessary. I mean we could have done other things but we would have been here having the same discussion a year from now. So, it's probably better we do it now and cause less grief in the district than to try
to use money um and raise our taxes way over what we probably all would have wanted to. Um so that I just want to say that this was not taken lightly. healthc care is an
issue and um all of these changes unfortunately are necessary and I I thank everyone here at the deis to have the bravery to do this now and not kick it down the road right that's that
wouldn't help anybody in the long term so uh I just want to say thank you not easy and this is all all you know 15% increase in healthcare is just untenable And if it continues like this, I have no
idea what happens in the next budget. >> Um, I have two questions or just more of like clarification. I know these are things that we talked about, but I think in general it'd be good to um discuss as a board. Can you tell us things that we have done or the district has done to try to get ahead of this healthcare
crisis? And because we knew down the line healthcare was rising rising. So I know that as a district we did things in general to try to get ahead and foresee those things and then I'll ask my second question afterwards. >> Sure. Yes. Thank you. Uh so we moved from the self- insurance that we were in
for about five years to a private provider and uh that definitely reset the overall cost of the district. It lowered our base. So now when we see increases at least our base has come down and there's also a little bit better protection. when we were self-insured, there's a lot more
exposure. Every claim that has to go through uh from any member of the uh of the subscriber group or their dependent goes right straight to the district. We pay by the claim, not by premiums per month. So, that's that's an expensive and it's a big gamble because even with
a large group like us, you never know what could happen to anybody and what could what could happen health-wise. So, we've certainly gone back to the more traditional type insurance um coverage with our broker. It was best for us. And then that brought that premium in
general down to help us reset the costs of health care before we knew about those large increases that we anticipate now for fiscal year 27. >> Thank you, Barbara. And my second question is um and it it was referenced in the presentation, but just again to
clarify, how is overall programming going to be affected in our schools? Like what are students going to feel when it comes to instruction by what we can see right now? I know we have to see how this budget shakes out, but >> preliminary, >> that's a good question. And when we are
creating a budget, it's the focus of the entire administrative team and of the board of education really to put the students first and to figure out how we can best rightsize this budget giving the uh very challenging circumstances and figure out how we can continue to give students the same experience that
they're gaining um that they have been getting in our school district. And I can say that this budget maintains all of that programming, programming that students um have been accustomed to on the elementary level through the high
school level. Um we are going to be able to be offering the same type of programming uh with with some minor obviously with $5 million. There's going to be some minor revisions. >> Okay. Um, so I just want to hit on a few things. Rocky said a lot of uh what I had to say very well. This was an
incredibly difficult year for us. Um, and I'm sure even more so for our community. I will say when it come and again Emily also mentioned this as well we are doing everything in our power as a board to avoid situations like this but when we're hit with such a colossal
increase when it comes to primarily the um the health insurance it put us in a very difficult and unique position. So a few things that I would just like to point out. Uh the ACES program which we did initially or did recently enroll in uh certainly did help our utility costs
which is great. We're still exploring whether or not we're eligible through the NJSBA to also enroll with our natural gas and hopefully see some savings there. If there's any opportunity for us to do that in, you know, a timely fashion through our finance committee, that's something we're committed to doing and revisiting
any of these numbers to the best of what we can pres preserve is certainly the goal. Um, so the I say that to say the work still continues. Um, another thing, this is more of a personal note, uh, the members of this board are very, very
probably the most, um, the people who I think most advocate for public education as a whole and respect and support our teachers and staff. Um, so to Rocky's point, every single line was was reviewed. Every single facet of our budget was reviewed. And I do respect
and thank you, Miss Decker, for the work that you do because for those of us who were able to join you in the last few days and really go through every single line item and ask questions like, okay, this $10,000 here, what does this mean? What is it? And you had an answer to every one of them and not only an
answer, but reasoning to help us understand this very, very significant decision. Um, Dr. B, excuse me, Dr. Beck did mention this. um retirements and non-renewals are also factored into those numbers. So while we might not
have a number an exact number to report comfortably at this moment, uh we can certainly strive for that next month so that we do have an accurate number to have an understanding of what that number actually entails when you see those reductions. Uh but that is largely what a lot of our decision-m is based
on. Um and also to your point, other areas as well. you know, it's not just teachers and staff uh in terms of those reductions. And again, to Miss Decker, I appreciate your flexibility in some of those decisions because in many ways they affect uh your offices. So, thank
you. Um, a few other things to note just on a general level. When we first uh came onto the board, the actual amount per pupil, I just want to rectify this. Um, the actual amount per pupil from 2021 to 2022 for legal costs was $108.
we've taken that number down to 54. I think that's something that this board deserves to celebrate and recognize. And granted, that's our budgeted number, but again, um I'm proud of the fact that we've been able to establish proper legal procurement that's responsibly responsibly done. Um again, the ACES
program, we've expanded into Millennium Software or uh Mill Millennium Grant Services. We're constantly looking and discussing ways that we can explore funding through that. Um, Emily mentioned switching over to integrity and moving us out of the self-insured plan, which would have been even more
colossal if we were still in that position. So, I say all of this to say as difficult as these decisions are, I am proud of this board and I'm proud of our administration for bringing us to this point. It is not easy. It is certainly not ideal, but ultimately there are many factors here at play that
are outside of our control. And one other thing I would also say is that, you know, we recently tried to pass a referendum in the best interest of our district, our schools, our students, teachers, and staff. And unfortunately, that was unsuccessful. So, when the community speaks, we must listen. And
we're still going to advocate for that referendum to the best of our ability to give everyone the facilities that they deserve. Um, but we have to make sure our house is in order first before we can do that. And with our enrollment numbers being what they are and the situation being what it is, this is
what's in front of us. So we respect everyone's feelings, we appreciate everyone's support. Uh we also appreciate and respect criticism. Um so by all means I I look forward when we open public comment if anyone has anything they'd like to say, we're certainly all ears. Anyone else? Um,
also not to forget that we have towns that are near us that are fairing much worse because they kicked the they kept kicking it down the road. Jefferson being one of them. I mean, the fact that we've been diligent in doing keeping things,
you know, these things have to happen unfortunately, but we could end up like like Jefferson where they're cutting programs. We're not really cutting programs. We're just rearranging a little bit. So, um, it's it's difficult,
but exactly, as you said, this is a statewide issue and we're we're not the only ones. And the fact that we're only at 299 shows that there's been forethought in all of this. >> Anyone else? >> Okay, with that, we thank you.
We'll be moving on now to our district hip presentation, excuse me, which will be presented by Miss Barker, the director of student support services. Hello everyone. I'm Jamie Barker. I'm the director of student support services and I'm going to be presenting on our
student safety data system and our harassment, intimidation, and bullying data specifically for quarter 1 which spans from September to December 31st. So the purpose of this is compliance with our anti-bullying bill of rights act as well as state law. Uh but more
importantly just to have transparency and accountability to review our data and trends across the district. um to highlight our current action p plans and interventions and to engage our community and all stakeholders in our
data and trends. So if you look here um there's a comparison between 2024 2025 and 2025 2026 for reporting period 1. Um you'll notice a significant decrease in incidents at the high school um from 25
last year to four this year. incidence of violence from 12 last year to one this year, substance use from 11 to two and confirmed HIV um from 1 to zero. So, a decrease across the board um in all of
those behavioral incidents. Same at the middle school. There was a decrease from six to one um in incident totals, a decrease in violence from 3 to zero um and then in confirmed HIV from 3 to one. um all other numbers uh have stayed
consistently low across the board. So, it's just important to note HIV, harassment, intimidation, and bullying. The law itself is very specific in terms of the parameters of what would be confirmed as HIV. Um it defines HI as
any gesture that is reasonably perceived as being motivated by any of these characteristics that are listed here. um regardless of where it takes place, it does have to cause a substantial discre disruption to the orderly operation of the school, but also um the victim's
school day and ability to access their education. So although some cases are not necessarily confirmed based on the parameters of this law, that doesn't mean that that behavior is not addressed through our district's code of conduct. That being said, we've worked hard to
make sure that we have a balance in our trainings and our programs across the district um with respect to HIV. And so there you'll see a highlight on the number of trainings and programs we offer as well as data regarding restraint and seclusion which you can
see is isolated really to one school and a case that we have worked to address. Um some key takeaways in just looking at these trends and patterns. Our reported incidents did from last year to this year in reporting period one um go down
by 85%. Um HIV confirmed cases went down 83%. Um and HIV allegations stayed pretty consistent which is an indicator of continued student and family willingness to report concerns as well. So um we can address them accordingly. So this
reflects our improved school climate outcomes um with fewer incidents across the board and a sustained commitment from all of our teams um to transparency, reporting and student support. So just a few of our highlights on some of our action plans and current
interventions that are helping with this trend in our data. Um we are continuing to promote strong character across our schools and across the district through things like student of the month, staff member of the month. Um, one of the things that was added as a direct result to some of the patterns that we were noticing is bus of the month which
helped with some of that unstructured time particularly at the elementary schools and that's been really helpful um an increase in kindness awards and highlighting of positive uh behaviors as well as then a expansion of our SCCL
response to intervention programming. So that's our social emotional learning across the district. We've worked to enhance our structure so that it's coordinated with our current instructional side for response to intervention and that includes a program
and a structure that allows people to look at patterns and trends and behavior across the district and to implement tier one education programming in the classroom and tier 2 behavioral support plans for students so that we're much more proactive in response to student
behavior um and our approaches And we also have teams working together across the district of counselors and case managers and RTI um committees that are working to look at our tier one education in response to patterns and to
be both proactive and restorative when it comes to discipline and our practices. So we current h currently have climate and culture teams established in all of our schools and that was all coordinated with St. Elizabeth over the years. This year we have a grant and partner partnership
with nurtured heart which has allowed us to focus on a universal approach to behavior across the board. We've worked to develop our peer and staff mentor programs and to really align our practices across all of our schools and across the district um so that we can be
proactive with regards to all of this and our behavior. We continue to have a lot of supports and events in place. Those are all things that have existed over the years and continued to expand. Um, and our trainings for staff and um,
also our our current staff across the district and administrators are all being trained in this universal approach to behavior, which is another thing we're doing just to drive things forward. But all of our data is trending in the the right direction and we have a lot of committees and teams that are all working in collaboration and
coordination with one another which has helped that. Does anybody have any questions? >> Does anyone have questions? >> I have a comment and a question. Yeah. Um, first I would like to say I love the initiatives you're taking with things like bus of the month. I think that some
people just from my thought that some people might get it confused with everybody gets a trophy, but I think with awards like that or programs where you encourage good student participation and reward kindness and good behavior, I think it really does ring really well and is effective especially for younger students. Um I was curious in terms of
incident reporting is that is that generally speaking like through the stop it app through administrators. I was just wondering how like what qualifies as reporting an incident. >> Yes. So the actual SSDS reporting that is actually through the state and and we report our numbers that way but each
school reports out. We do have reporting systems though and we've worked to make sure that they're aligned through the district as far as where our behavior is logged. So making sure that all of that is in one place so that we can kind of see patterns and trends and we also have things like the stop it app which brings
the incidents to us. So the SSDS is the numbers that are then reactive to that pretty much based on everything we address. But our use of Genesis and and some of the um different platforms we have allow us to then see the trends across the district and to be more
proactive in looking at patterns and things like that. For example, we got hipster this year and that's been great because all of our HIB, it allows us to run reports and then see what are the patterns in the time of year and the time of day and and where things are happening and what's being said or done.
Um, and so that's all being analyzed by our teams and they're really user friendly which helps to make sure that we are able to be more proactive. So it's a combination of those things. >> I also wanted to give a shout out to two things. First to you and Dr. Rossi for all you do through C3 and for leading
the nurtured heart approach in our district. So kudos to you both for that. Uh but also Hibster has been fantastic also for the board. When I first joined I remember we would receive uh basically a cover letter that told us the number of incidents without a lot of data for us to analyze either. Uh and I believe
Mr. Martinez or Dr. Martinez was one of the first to really advocate for a more comprehensive approach. So Hibster has allowed us to see that. uh and it's also inspired some other initiatives through ideas and discussions that we've had to see some of the incidents and what we can do in response to them. Numbers are
fantastic. So, thank you very much. >> Yeah. And that's really a result of everybody's collaboration and all the teams and your support as well. So, thank you. Appreciate that. >> Okay. And with our presentations concluding, we will move on to our student representatives report.
Last Monday, the KJS United hockey team returned to the Credential Center for their second straight year in their quest for another state championship. The team won the match 5 to1 to go back to back as co-op state champions. Uh this team consisted of Sparta High School seniors Cody Sutton and Cooper
O'Neal as well as captains Cormick Given and Eddie Brown. Congratulations to them on their incredible accomplishment. Uh spring sports kicked off last week with tryyouts. Sparta High School just recently started up their girls flag football team for the first time in school history. We wish all our spring
sports teams the best of luck in their upcoming season. As for this past weekend, our Sparta High School students performed this year's play for the spring musical Greece. These students did a phenomenal job led by their wonderful director, Miss Lucia. Uh, we'd like to
congratulate seniors Kaden Lawyer, Isabella Fernandez, and Jenna Flake for receiving the Jeff Cyborg scholarship following their final performance. Congratulations to everyone who was part of the play on their fantastic performance. >> In upcoming events, we would like to
mention that the underassman spring dance is taking place next month, next month on Wednesday, April 1st. In some club news, DECA recently returned from the state competition which was held in Atlantic City and we would like to congratulate Lauren Goff and Brie
Flannry for placing top in their events and advancing to nationals. Finally, the Sparta Robotics Club attended the state championship last Saturday at NGIT. All five teams did very well and team 5249V velocity advanced to the world championship. So,
they will be headed to St. Louis in late April to compete against some of the best teams in the world. Thank you both so much. May I have a motion to approve the minutes? >> Thank you, Emily. Second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Dominic. All in favor?
>> I. >> Any oppose? Any abstensions? >> Thank you. And with that, moving on to our superintendence report. >> Thank you. Uh my apologies. This month is a lot shorter. my time and energy has been dedicated toward the budget. Uh, but I would want to reiter I do want to
reiterate uh the congratulations to the ice hockey team uh for back-to-back state championships and also reiterate congratulations to the robotics team um for everything that was just stated. Uh I will add one more statistic that Velocity is currently ranked in the top
5% out of over 20,000 high school and middle school teams from 50 different countries. So they will carry that with them into the uh into St. Louis. And um two retirements to note on this evening's agenda. Um the first is
Suzanne Nadimus who is uh the third grade teacher third grade teacher at Mohawk Avenue School. Miss Nademus has served the district for 28 years. And Allison Workmeister, the human resources uh and
substitute coordinator here in central office uh is retiring. and she has served the district for 25 years. So, congratulations and thank you again. >> Okay, moving on to our board president's report. Uh, my family also had the pleasure of seeing Greece this weekend and like always, it was a phenomenal
experience. The on and off stage talent was nothing short of exceptional. On Sunday, Mrs. Delucha did announce her retirement from our musical program. Uh so uh I would just like to thank her for 25 years of incredible performances. Uh Sunday will actually serve as her last
production. There wasn't a dry eye in the house for our graduating seniors that you guys have mentioned. So I won't name them twice. Uh it was their last performance. And I just want to commend you for the clear impact you had on those students who sang your praises. So thank you Mrs. Delucha
for board goals and our board certification um or excuse me our policy audit and our board certification. I will leave those to Emily for discussion at a later point of the meeting. In the meantime, Sparta will be hosting the NJSBA's unsung heroes event on March
23rd at the high school where students across the county will be recognized in honor of this year's theme, elevating character, strength beyond the spotlight, and we very much look forward to participating in that uh as board and administrative team. We also have the National Honor Society induction on
Thursday, March 26 at the high school. Uh so again, anticipating a busy but inspirational and celebratory week to come. and oper request. We can move on. May I have a motion to approve the HIV report, please? >> Thank you, Rebecca. Second.
>> Thank you, Emily. Any discussion? >> Okay. All in favor? >> Oh, excuse me. We'll do a roll call. >> Dr. Hankle, >> yes. >> Mr. Laceruba, >> yes. >> Mr. Lowry, >> yes. >> Dr. Martinez, >> abstain. >> Miss Null,
>> yes. >> Miss Williams, >> yes. >> Mr. Mr. Wood. >> Yes. >> Miss Saraphino. >> Yes. >> And Miss Gagna? >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> Thank you. Uh communications, I don't believe we have anything. Do we have something that we'd like to add to communications? >> Um yes. So, I'll just add that last
month's newsletter had a couple hiccups in it. Got sent out a few times once the link's not working. And then the second one that came out was an earlier draft that had typos and were missing sections. Um so between the two, hopefully we got all the information out there. Um, but we've cleaned it up a lot
more for this month's newsletter. So, we apologize in advance for the confusion that went out to the community. >> Well said. And with that, uh, de delegate and liaison reports. Anyone have anything they'd like to report out for their respective committees?
>> Uh, we met with the, uh, Sussex Educational Services. I forget what the exact title is, but um, Sussex County Ed Services Commission. They um so we had to meet as a complete
board the delegates for the district and the I had mentioned the last meeting that they were going for a building. The board uh formally approved the expender up to $3 million to acquire
that building. So now they can um engage with the landlord because the bo the DOE said they couldn't do that until they got formal approval. We gave them formal approval. They are talking with the landlord the next day. So hopefully
they'll have that building. Um the reason that I find that exciting is that as um as they grow it potentially could offser offload some of the expenses we have in the district for some of those students and
it's within our town within our town so it's local and uh it would be advantageous when we do need their services that they're right there and they have the building so they can take more students students at a a better
rate than what we possibly are paying now. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> It was a very quick turnaround since last month, so we might not have might not have had as many meetings as usual. I know town council Oh, go ahead.
>> Hi. So, the C3 committee um met uh last month and we had a really lively meeting. It was pretty great. Um so we did discuss uh the district culture and climate survey uh student safety data
systems uh including HIB. Um we reviewed um our update of RTI andCL structures and we discussed the focus and goals of C3 based on the data that was presented. Um it was really a great conversation. We have members of the community,
members of the board and representation from administration there. It was um some talks about how to engage with the community more, bring them more into our school buildings physically actually, not just their names and what they do, but have them in and present to our
students and staff. Um we talked about hosting TED talks featuring community members and students. Um that went over really well. And uh we also decided on a focus for C3 moving forward which is going to be community collaboration. So
that is something that we are really excited about. Excited about leaving that um meeting. Uh a lot of us had a lot of great ideas running through our heads. So thank you very much for that opportunity. >> Excellent. Thank you. Uh and I was just
going to mention town council. I know we're trying to work a meeting so that will happen soon and hopefully by next meeting we'll have something to report. Anyone else for delegate liaison? Okay. With that we'll move on to public comment number one. Public comments are invited on matters pertaining only to
action items at this time. Please state the action item number as well as your name, municipality, and group affiliation if appropriate for the record. Each participant will receive three minutes to speak. Once you have had your allotted three minutes to speak, you will not be permitted to speak again until public comment number
two. All statements should be directed to myself as the presiding officer. The board or administration may or may not respond to any questions or comments after the conclusion of the public participation. Angela Deluchia, Sparta Education Association President. Uh, agenda item
5.1. The Sparta Education Association stands here tonight with a deep sense of urgency because the reality of this proposed budget is clear. Educational staff are bearing the brunt of these cuts and our students will pay the
price. We recognize the very real financial pressures facing this district. Rising health care costs and a 2.8% reduction in state aid present serious challenges and we don't take those lightly. We understand that difficult decisions must be made. But
what's being proposed here is not simply a difficult decision. It's a devastating one. The loss of potentially 27 employees is not just a number. its dedicated professionals, educators, support staff, colleagues, those who have given their time, energy, and
hearts to this community, its lives disrupted and loss of relationships that our students depend on every single day. This impact will be immediate and deeply felt. Students will enter their classrooms that are more crowded and less supported. They will lose trusted
adults who know them, who guide them, and who help them feel seen and safe. What we are facing is not just a reduction in staff. It is a loss of connection, stability, and quality. We also cannot ignore the larger
picture. Over the past five years, significant withdrawals have been made from the capital reserves. Nearly a million dollars in state aid had been has been received in the past three years. Yet, we now find ourselves facing a shortfall of this magnitude. That
reality raises serious questions that deserve clear answers. At the same time, our buildings continue to deteriorate. Our custodial and maintenance staff work tirelessly, but they are forced into a cycle of triage addressing what is urgent while larger problems continue to
grow. These conditions only add to the strain on our schools. So, we must ask, how did we get here? And what is the plan to move forward? Because right now, the cost feels too great. We are not here simply to oppose. We are here
because we care deeply about our colleagues, our students, and this community. We are asking for transparency, for thoughtful planning, and for solutions that do not come at the expense of the people who make this district strong. We want to be part of
the solution. Our members bring daily firstirhand knowledge of what students need, and we are ready to work collaboratively to find a better path forward. We cannot accept the loss of potentially 27 employees of this
community as the only option because once those positions are gone, the impact will not end with this budget year. It will be felt in every classroom, every hallway, every student experience for years to come. We all
share the same goal. Strong schools, supported staff, and opportunities for every student to succeed. Tonight, we urge you to make decisions that protect that vision because that's what we stand to lose and it's simply too important.
>> Hi Jenny Derek tap into Sparta. I just have a couple of quick questions obviously about 5.1. Miss Deluchia just spoke about uh 27 staff members that was noted on the slides 17 cert certificated staff
members and then riffing other staff members. So is that where the 27 comes from? Um do we know and I apologize because I was a few minutes late. So if it was included in your presentation I'll go back and look at it. But uh do
we know class size? Um and so then we can have an idea of how this is going to impact our students directly. uh do we have an idea of where we are with attendance? We've had a uh c um an improvement plan for the last two years. How are we doing with that? Um and that
does relate to the budget. Um does the enrollment numbers decreasing? Does that how does prek how does our prek program relate to those enrollment numbers? uh because I we've been re rising in our
prek numbers. So if we've seen an overall decrease, what are the trends there? Um sorry, so yeah, enrollment I think that's it. Will these will both of these
presentations be available um posted later? Thank you. >> Anyone else for public comment? Seeing no one, motion to close. >> Thank you, Emily. Second. >> Thank you, Andrew. All in favor?
>> I. Any oppose? Any discussion? Any abstension? >> Okay, bear with us one moment. >> Yeah. Now, your first question about the staff breakdown. The staff breakdown on that slide showed 17 certified staff. And
again, um some of that's going to be through attrition through retirements and non-renewals. Um we don't have the exact number today. In fact, we're meeting later this week. We were waiting for the budget to actually get approved before we started to analyze that class size. Um the adjustments that we're
making, um we're not anticipating a large class size increase or a class size increase. uh is not anticipated, I would say. Um that's not to say that a class or two or a few classes might uh increase in class size, but um that wasn't part of our equation. Um
attendance, we still don't have the official attendance reports. We get those toward the end of the school year. Um and then pre-K enrollment, how that's counted. PreK enrollment is um increasing each each year and we have a universe that we
have to meet and next year for fiscal year 27 uh our universe is up again. So that's how we're receiving more funding based on the universe that we're supposed to have. >> The prek funding slide that Barbara went through um and it showed the special
revenue uh that that special revenue from that slide is strictly dedicated to um to prek and it cannot be used can't be utilized elsewhere. Uh the prek enrollment as Barbara said is going up each year. We're adding classrooms next year. Um, so in addition to the
classrooms we have this year, we are adding more and we still have um six roughly 60 students that were that were weight listed um because we we need to get more room. >> And just uh two things that I'd like to add. I know the comment was made by Mr.
Lucha regarding capital reserves and maintenance reserves and I believe it was the last five years that you said that you had analyzed. My first year if I'm not mistaken and Barbara perhaps you can't speak to this as well because uh Joanne was our BA at the time but if I'm not mistaken we were in the low hundreds
for at least maintenance reserve because I remember it was an issue that I consistently raised. So I just want to clarify that that's something um and again I'm willing to pull back my old notes. This is a newer notebook so forgive me. And to the point of wanting to be part of the solution, I think that is welcomed. I certainly don't speak on
behalf of the administration. Uh but I do speak on behalf of the board in some capacity and I would say any solution is welcome. Any discussion is welcome, but unfortunately these are the numbers that we're dealing with. So we're going to have to work compromise and work within those margins. Um but I think
collaboration is certainly the goal and uh anyone that's willing to be part of the solution, it's I would say certainly welcome. So, and with that, we will move on to personnel and policy. Forgive me, I do not have the numbers written out as I
usually do. It's >> Thank you. And I have a motion to approve items 15.1 through 15.27. >> Motion. >> Was that Dominic? >> Thank you, Dominic. Second. >> Thank you, Rocky. Discussion. Um, okay. So, we had a very productive meeting
this month. Um, I'm going to start off by reiterating Dr. Beck's sentiments. Congratulations to our retirees, Miss Andamus and Miss Workmeister. Um, and thank you for your years of service to the Sparta School District. The biggest thing I think we see on this agenda is
there are a lot of policies that we're going through. So, as a committee, we have really started digging into the policies. So, when we go through, I just want to point out a couple things. Um, 15.19, these are all policies that we are abolishing or beginning the process
to abolish. Um, we went through, this came from our Strauss SMA audit. For the most part, none of these apply to our school. Like all of these special education receiving schools, we are not a special education receiving school. In the years prior, a board of education
probably just passed them because they exist and just included them, but they're relevant to our schools. Um, and we also see that with independent study programs, early graduation, those are all things that have now been included in newer policies that are much more upto-date. Um and these are old policies
that again just like really don't bear any um importance or are addressed somewhere else in a different policy. Um also moving into 1521 these are two policies that we are amending for the first time. Um policy
1220 is employment of the CSA. The only change that we made to that just to address that um this was what qualifications the board has to apply when interviewing or hiring a new superintendent. Um and the only thing that we added is
experience that there should be should we say three or five? Three >> three years of administrative experience in order to apply to this position. before. There was no experience requirement before. And um policy 6470 electronic funds transfer and claimment
certification. There's just a typo in there on the the title of it in the number. We have it under a different number. So that's why it's being amended. The actual policy itself is not changing. And I just wanted to point that out. If there are any questions about a specific policy, I can address it as well.
>> Well said. And the only thing I'd like to add to that, uh, so as Emily mentioned, we did receive both our NJSBA uh, policy wellness check, which is part of our board certification process, and we also received the results of our Strauss Esme audit. So what we did as a
committee was we tackled the Strauss Esme audit first, starting with the list of APO of policies and regulations that they recommended for abolishment as she mentioned uh, and we started moving on into the ones that are flagged for revision. So the goal for next month is focusing on those revisions and then
also looking into the NJSBA recommended revisions or policies to frequently revisit. Uh and we will be doing that next month. So good progress all in all but month one of policy audit on the uh on the books. And may we have a roll call, please? Oh, any other discussion I
should say? Rocky, did you have something? >> Yeah, I just want to say thank you for doing that. Um, what is misunderstood sometimes is that a policy could end us in a in a big hole if it's not written correct or get to applied because we didn't realize it was
there. So, this is all very important work because it protects the district, the staff, the students from having to spend money on Jackie of the world if we don't have the right policies in place. So, this is very important work. Thank you, Emily, for doing it. Awesome. You just reminded
me of one other thing. Something else that arose from the Strauss Esme audit. We actually did find a cluster of policies that had been previously abolished by a former board. This was years ago now that were still live on our board docs website. So, we also had our administrative team go through and
comb through and and weed those out, which was great, too. So, speaking to your point of liability and confusion, uh certainly good progress being made. And just for the record, the templates that we are using are predominantly Strauss SMA recommended templates. So we're really not striving to deviate
much from template policies. To Emily's point, we are uh incorporating optional language where it's appropriate. But the goal is to remain as compliant both with the law and standards as possible. And of course, as needed, if we ever have a policy we're not sure about, we will reach out to Jackie. Uh but no offense
to you, the goal is to avoid that as much as possible. And anyone else? Roll call, please. Dr. Hankle, >> Mr. Lacaruba, >> yes. >> Mr. Lowry, >> yes. >> Dr. Martinez, >> yes. >> Miss Null, >> yes.
>> Miss Williams, >> yes. >> Mr. Wood, >> yes. >> Miss Saraphino, >> yes. >> And Miss Gagan, >> yes. >> Motions carry. >> Thank you. Moving on to curriculum, instruction, and in and special services items 16.1- 16.6. We have a motion to move. Thank you, Chad. Second.
>> Yeah, if if I could just add uh a strike strike uh 16.6 that use of healthcare adjustment somehow showed up in curriculum. It also shows up under finance where it belongs. So, we're striking 16.6 in curriculum >> through 165.
>> Okay, understood. So, would it excuse me >> 16.1 through 16.6 as amended or >> Okay. In that case, motion to move curriculum item 16.1 through 16.6 six as amended. >> Thank you, Chad. Second. >> Second.
>> Thank you, Dominic. Discussion. >> Yes. So, we had a lot of good takeaways from the curriculum meeting this month. Um, at a middle school level, our conversation really focused on better understanding student interests in elective offerings and identifying where there might be opportunity to expand or refine these options. Um, interest
obviously varies by the year. And I think something we're seeing too, generally speaking, is some alignment um from like thinking about elementary school to middle school to high school. I think alignment is important to us um to ensuring that pathways are open and we also discussed ways to gather that input including surveys and giving out
students and families um visibility into potential course options. Um at the high school level we are or still middle school level but we're looking to we're looking at the idea of high school credit at the middle school level. Um we discussed the possibility of awarding high school credit for advanced coursework taken in middle school
particularly in subjects like math and world languages. Um, we've looked into it and these courses are taught by certified teachers using high school criteria. Um, and other districts do do this. Um, and we've considered the negatives as well as what are the negative implications of this, but there's coming up to be few to none. So, we're continuing to explore how this
could be implemented. In terms of the extended learning program, um, the administration has introduced a new initiative supporting um, the opportunity for students who are approaching uh, proficiency benchmarks. So, the goal would be to provide additional reinforcement and exposure to test taking strategies. Um so these
students are better positioned to meet benchmarks while also increasing confidence because I think this issue we see especially with younger learners is that when you're faced with a lot of standardized exams um the content isn't always the issue. It can just be the confidence while taking exams especially as they're newer to bigger style exams.
Um and a quick note um as Miss Parker um mentioned earlier we'd like to recognize some staff members Adrien Castina and Cherry Shefferman who completed certification through the nurtured heart approach continuing to strengthen their support throughout the district. Um, and just a special shout out to Sherry Shefferman because I know that I've seen her personally from a very young age and
I think she's really transitioned and blossomed the district. I think she's a great example of what Sparta teachers have to offer in the sense where she appears to be always pursuing excellence and trying to better herself and understanding. Um, and I think she's just a really excellent teacher in the district that I think deserves the
support and recognition. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Any other discussion? May we have a roll call, please? >> Dr. Mr. Hankle, >> Mr. Lacarova, >> yes. >> Mr. Lowry, >> yes. >> Dr. Martinez, >> yes. >> Miss Null,
>> yes. >> Miss Williams, >> yes. >> Mr. Wood, >> yes. >> Miss Saraphino, >> yes. >> Miss Gagnon, >> yes. >> Motions carry. >> Thank you. Moving on to finance items. May I have a motion to move items 17.1 through 17.10? >> Motion. >> Thank you, Rocky. Second.
>> Thank you, Andrew. discussion. >> Yeah. Uh I'll be quick. Um bus inspections are going on in March so that we have a safe uh fleet. Buildings and grounds. Uh as I had said in previous months, I was waiting for roof
repairs to come in and they did. Uh sport fields are getting the required attention for the upcoming seasons. and we've all been very excited about the decrease in our uh electric bill of roughly uh 40% by going by joining the
alliance. Um as most of you could assume we've been really concentrating on the budget. So that's that's it for today tonight. >> Thank you. Anyone else for finance? >> Okay. May we have a roll call, please? >> Dr. Hankle.
Thank you, Mr. Laruba. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lowry, >> yes. >> Dr. Martinez, >> yes. >> Miss Null, >> yes. >> Miss Williams, >> yes. >> Mr. Wood, >> yes. >> Miss Saraphino, >> yes. >> And Miss Gagnen, >> yes. >> Motion carried. >> Thank you. And operation item.
Operations item. one motion. >> Yeah, I just Oh, do we want to Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. >> Motion. >> Thank you. Second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Dominic. Go ahead. >> Uh just want to thank the uh parent who's uh driving for the march uh
marching band. Thank you. The district appreciates your effort. Um and I I was going to save this for um at the end for uh for what it is, but I just wanted to give uh Dr. back uh a uh a thank you for
consider operations. This winter was very taxing on you having to make some calls about weather and um I am glad that you took we have you know thousands of souls had have to come to
these buildings and the fact that you always put student firsts and staff and staff student and even parents and buses and first um I know I'm the first to be a little critical but I also would like to be the first to say thank you for
putting lives important in front of a day, right? Because uh any accident, any loss because we're afraid to call a day, it's just not worth it, right? So, it's either you call the day or we call in grief
counselors for some tragedy. So, I want to say thank you for making those calls and it's very important that you make those calls the way you've been doing it. Thank you. >> Thanks. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. >> Dr. Hankle, >> yes.
>> Mr. Lacaruba? >> Yes. >> Mr. Lowry? >> Yes. >> Dr. Martinez? >> Yes. >> Miss Null? >> Yes. >> Miss Williams? >> Yes. >> Mr. Wood? >> Yes. >> Miss Saraphino? >> Yes. >> And Miss Kagn? >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> Thank you. And with that, we'll move on to old business.
>> Does anyone have anything for old business? >> Um, yes. I have an update on our board certification. So, I've been in contact with everyone on the board about getting our final two training dates in. Um, so again, I want to reiterate, April 25th is confirmed with Kelly Mitchell. We
will have a training here from 10 to 1. Um, and right now it's looking like as of today, we should be good for June 6 as well. I'm just waiting for Kelly to verify. So, mark your calendars for lots of trainings. But with those two dates,
we should be done with all our board training and pretty much done with board certification. Maybe just a couple paperwork things, but um that is the the brunt of it done on June 6th. >> And I just want to say I have a very heavy heart because I was very excited for our spring at Sussex County making
that cut off and getting that recognition. Then we'll have to wait for the fall, but that's okay. It's still tremendous progress that we can be proud of. Anyone else for old business? Anything we care to discuss? Anyone for old business? Okay, with that, we'll move on to public
comment number two. The board uses the second public comment period to invite comments on all matters pertaining to the school district. Please state your name, municipality, and group affiliation if appropriate for the record. Each participant will receive three minutes to speak. Once you have had your allotted three minutes to
speak, you will not be permitted to speak again. All statements should be directed to me as the presiding officer. The border administration may or may not respond to any questions or comments after the conclusion of the public participation. >> Miss Sparta, I have a couple of more
budget related questions. Um, is there any impact to transportation or will we see any uh changes in what the transportation looks like as a result of this uh budget? Will we be reported out? Will we get a report out on breakage? Um
do you know what the proposed co-curricular and athletic cuts will result? What the impacts will be for that? And then do you know you briefly addressed that uh it was up on the slide that there'll be some impacts from the
schedule change at Sparta Middle School. Can somebody please um expand on that so we know what that means? Thank you. Anyone else? Motion to close. >> Motion. >> Thank you. Sec. Andrew. Second.
>> Second. >> Thank you, Dominic. All in favor? >> I. Any oppose? Any abstensions? >> Yeah. Uh as far as transportation goes, there's no significant changes to transportation in this budget. Um
regarding breakage, um it's really uh really interesting actually. The the year that we needed the most breakage, the year that we needed the most retirements for breakage is actually one of the lowest numbers I've seen in retirements uh in my time here. Um so um not a lot of calculation
there. Uh the schedule revision um is going to start to be rolled out um later this week and into next week in between the board meetings. Um so uh Frank and his team along with Tara and I will help with the supervisor team as well. Um and the co-curricular I do have the
specifics but I don't want to uh share those publicly until I speak to those individuals. >> It was up there. Oh yeah. The only transportation which was mentioned was the elimination of late buses at the Sparta at the high school and the middle school which are um lightly used as it
is. >> Okay, moving on to for the good of the order. Does anyone have anything? >> I do have something. Um I received some information um from the Sparta VFW in regards to the Ralph Roas scholarship which is available to eligible students
and families connected to veterans in Sex County. dates, eligibility, and the application can be found online or through the Sparta VFW Facebook page. You can really search as and you'll find it. So, just if anyone's interested or knows anyone that's connected to veterans, it's a good scholarship opportunity.
>> Thank you, Chad. Anyone else? Okay, we will not be convening into close session, I believe. Correct. No need. So, in that case, may I please have a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion. >> Thank you, Dominic. Second. >> Thank you, Andrew. All in favor? I. Any
oppose? Any abstensions? Thank you all. Have a nice night.