Turn on our microphone. >> Good. Good. Microphone. >> Thank you. >> All right. Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming. Um, we are going to start with the pledge of allegiance, please. Pledge of Allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. >> Can I have a roll call, please? >> Sure. >> Dr. Monaco, >> here.
>> Mr. Balado, >> here. >> Mrs. Donahghue, >> here. >> Mrs. Balado, >> here. >> Mr. Pico, >> here. Mrs. Herald here. Mrs. Sharpstein here. You have a court. >> Thank you. Sunshine Law. This is to advise the general public and to instruct that it be recorded in the minutes that in compliance with chapter
231 of the public laws of 1975 entitled the open public meetings act Stanh Hope board of education located at 24 Valley Road Stanh Hope New Jersey has caused this notice to be posted at the office of the Stanh Hope Board of Education mailed to the New Jersey Herald the Municipal Clerk of the Bureau of Stanh
Hope the Stanh Hope Post Office and posted at the Valley Road School and on the Stanh Hope public schools website setting forth the time date and location of the ing. The Stanh Hope School District in partnership with the community commits to provide equality, comprehensive education for all learners
with equal emphasis on academic excellence and citizenship through values, respect, and service. Our vision is to inspire and cultivate a community of innovative, curious, compassionate, and globally minded learners equipped with knowledge, problem solving skills,
and the ability to persevere to make a positive impact on society and shape a better future. Okay. An executive session will be held for the purpose of student confidentiality. Formal action may be taken. Uh that will bring us up to presentations. We're actually going to start with one that's
not on here this evening. Chief Johnson has joined us like to come up. >> Thanks. >> Certainly. >> Hi everybody. >> Chief >> Chiefs. Yep. >> Hey Chief. over here. >> If you stand at the podium and turn the
mic on, anybody watching you on everyone watching you on YouTube will also hear you. >> How's that? >> Just tap tap the the microphone. There you go. >> He's still >> one more time. >> It's still off. >> Talking the button >> one more time.
>> No, hit the white button. Red to turn white. >> There you go. >> Good. >> Okay. Um, again, thank congratulations to you guys. Big deal. Honor roll. So, uh, the reason I'm here is actually I
picked a good night to come, I guess, but I wanted to come and, uh, introduce myself to the, uh, board of ed here, uh, I've recently been sworn in as the police chief. Um, so, prior to, uh, being police chief, I've been a police officer here in town for 19 years now.
So, uh, my name is Joe Johnson. U,, many of you might recognize me. I was up here a lot. I taught the great program so I recognize a lot of faces. Uh unfortunately in my new role here I won't be up here doing that. It was a great program. It's like DARE. Um the
new program coming out is something called lead and um we will be going uh teaching that going forward with our new detective uh Jordan Anderson. So you will see her face up here. So I just wanted to introduce myself. Uh thank you
for having me. Um, and uh, I will also be having a uh, meet the chief meeting uh, or get together at Burrow Hall. You'll see signs around town. Um, cuz our last chief was here for chief for 24 years. So many people don't know we have
a new chief. So, I'm the guy. I'm the new face. Okay, remember this bald head? This is the police chief. You have anything uh, concerns or anything, please come down to the police department. You can find us on Facebook. We now have a Facebook page, our
website, uh the police department website, all our information is there, my contacts there. Uh please don't hesitate to come and contact me. Uh I'd love to speak to you about anything that's on your mind or concerns you have. Okay. So with that, thank you very much. I appreciate it. >> Thank you.
>> Leave it on. >> Thank you. >> All right. And with that, we'll move to marking um honor roll. Can you guys just turn off your microphones while we're up there, please? Chief Johnson, thanks for coming out. Um, I'm personally excited uh about his
appointment. He's been such a tremendous asset and a part of our school community. Uh, and I'm looking forward to that continuing. So, thank you for everything that you've done and that everything that we can look forward uh to you doing here in Stanh Hope. Um so, for uh everyone else, if if you can't
imagine, we don't typically get a crowd like this at our meetings. Uh so, we're excited to to welcome you for our honoral recognition. Um this is actually the last one that we'll do for this school year because our our um mark period 4 comes out late and most of you
guys hopefully are vacationing in the summer and we don't get much of a turnout. So last opportunity to welcome you to a board meeting. Although you're all welcome to come to any meeting anytime you want. They're very exciting. Okay. So if you're not if you don't already know, honor roll recognition is
awarded to students in our middle school, which is grades six, seven, and eight if they achieve all A's and B's for that marking period. Our high honor role students are students in those same grade levels who achieve straight A's for that marking period. Now eventually
uh at the end of the year the HSA does a wonderful job in in uh sponsoring, facilitating and helping us recognize the students who have achieved honoral status for all four marking periods. Uh and they do a nice event at the end of the year for for these kids and their families. Uh so if you've gotten the
first three, you guys can make it to the four. Just stay strong through the year. Okay. Um thank you to the parents. Uh be their success is not just from them. You're a huge part of it. Thank you for your continued support of us and of them. Um, and without any further ado,
I'm going to start uh reading our honorable recipients names. Um, I'm going to read all names even if they're not here, but once you hear your name, come on up. Um, and Mrs. Shariffstein will give you your certificate. Uh so first Grace Anderson, Kaylee Campbell,
Da Caribella, Benjamin Galada, Emma Louise, Olivia Louise, That's her. >> Brandon Medina. Uh, Natalie Ortiz Flores. Lia Sto Castellanov.
Carla Valdez Viluerte, Coraline Batalado, Dana Bonitez, Natasha Bagaloo, Brooke Bove, Nathan Sampa. He's mastered the slow dramatic walk. Sophie Deselinus,
Ava Dominguez, Malia Fernandez, Levi Hatenbach, Violet Kern, Arabella March, Sophia Sodto, Jack Stanfield, Julia Volani, John Bolanini,
Jacob Campbell, Violet Hanusk, Juliet Hines, Kylie Hoffman, Colin Polarmo, Hannah Hannah Shariffstein, Max Slater, Scarlett Stansfield, Olivia Yo.
Some hardworking kids this marking period. That's a lot of names. All right. So, the next group of students whose names I'm going to read are our high honor roll students. Rose Bolanini, Christopher Cologne, Caroline Elely,
Steven Frank, Emma Fuho, Gueneavir, Gorgeous. Bless you, Alexa Kerichova. Jackson Light, Camila Morales, Gavin Walkerhouser Amaya Abrau Cruz, Dana Oz,
Leah Buck, Faith Anderson, Alacia Green. >> All right. >> Thank you everybody for coming out tonight. Congratulations to our students. Uh and hopefully we get to recognize you uh at the end of the year for our last honoral uh ceremony for all
four marking periods. Have a good night everybody. We are uh in just a minute we are going to um I have one more very brief presentation and then we're going to break for executive session. That would be a wonderful time uh for you guys to step outside, grab some cookies,
some water. The board's going to go to a classroom for probably about 5 to 10 minutes. You're obviously welcome to stay, but if you choose to leave, that would be a wonderful time to do so. Have a good night, everyone. Oh, I forgot about damage. >> That's fine.
>> No, no, I lied. We're going to have >> good. Okay. Um Okay, let's move on to the self assessment for determining grades under the anti-bullying bullying bill of rights. >> Uh so I'll speak loud. Um, so this is one of those arbitrary DOE expectations
requirements that we have to do. If you remember earlier in the year, we self assessed ourselves. I reported that to you. I reported a self- assessment score of 78 out of 78. We send that to the state. They then send it back to us exactly as I sent it to them. And now
I'm supposed to report the exact same information back to you, which is what I'm doing now. So uh again we need to um provide evidence and information on the trainings that we provide, the programs that we provide for the kids. Um the uh
investigation process that we go through, whether or not we complete things, everything in a timely manner. Um through the self assessment, we scored a 78 out of 78 and the DOE has stamped our approval. Um so that's really that. Now that it's on here,
we'll hopefully get our QAC points for next year. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> All right. Um, so I did I think we bring Dan on now, right? >> Yeah, I think so. >> So, I I did mis mislead everybody a little bit. Uh, I forgot that we have our big budget presentation today. Um,
and our business administrator, Dan Borggo, is is here to join us. Um, so I'm actually going to give it over to him. I believe Mr. Lama is able to control the board for us. Um, Dan, obviously, if there's anything that you would like from me to interject, uh, let
me know. Otherwise, I'm gonna I'm gonna let you take over. >> All right. Uh, thank you and welcome to the 2026 2027 budget presentation. Uh, I'd like to thank our board of education for all your support. Like to
thank Steve and Cararissa for their support. you know, the budget process, a team effort among teachers, administrators, uh, and the board of education to provide a thorough and efficient education to all the students in the Stanh Hope public school district. Uh, a
lot of driving factors in the budget. I know you've been reading in the papers has been health insurance, health premiums, the Jefferson scenario, what's going on there. We've been fortunate in Stanh Hope that we've been looking at health benefits for the past 13 to 15
months. We sort of anticipated something bad happening with a large increase. So, we were able to really uh switch carriers from Blue Cross Blue Shield to Sigma, which takes effect May 1st, which is a couple of days, we have a 14-month
frozen premium. So come this January when a lot of the state of New Jersey is receiving an increase, we'll have that same rate and that was a driving factor in maintaining a a tax levy in this community that was very very acceptable. Another driving factor is our enrollment
which you can see here is four actuals with a projected uh some of the highlights uh you're going to see on on roll special ed 26 27 projected. We still don't know some of the incoming students coming in. So that number we
have graduating out. We don't have new in and they have yet to be classified and evaluated. So that number's a little light at this time. But as you can see, it'll probably be somewhere into the 70s. For our private placements, we're down one student. So that's going from
three to two. And a private school placement, just for general information, can cost you in excess of 100k, $100,000 between the the tuition, the par profofessional, and the transportation. So that is a big ticket item. It seems going from three to two is not a lot,
but it's $100,000. And uh students received, we're going from 8 to 7. That's what other communities pay us to educate their students. We have a really vibrant uh classified program that students from other communities where they can't get
educated in their community will come to our community and pay us tuition. We went with a conservative number of seven down from eight. And as you could see, uh we went from six to 8 to seven. So, we're honing in right at that number.
What we like to do is a lot of people like to compare ourselves to where we stand in other communities. And this source is the state of New Jersey uh for this slide which will show you 2324
audited per pupil cost by community. So as you could see uh obviously handover is the highest at 28610. We're 24,606. So in a medium we're fourth down or four fifths the 80th percentile. And uh you
could see we spend approximately exactly 24,606 per student and that's audited from 2324. The budget process as as we state it's not something that we just approve today and forget about. You know we spoke
about our 2728 budget which is a year away. we were discussing it this morning and and what provisions or what expenses that we're seeing that may affect us two years out. So, this is just a little roadmap of when we start with the administration with the budget committee
of the board, a tenative budget when that's introduced, when it's due to the county, and then finally our public hearing of which the board votes to approve the budget or our spending plan for the 2627 school year.
revenues. Uh the budget is almost like your home checkbook. What you have every month that comes in on the left, you spend out on the right. So, we've given you a a breakdown of all of our revenues for the school year. And a lot of them
are uh you'll see uh items three and four. That's withdraw from capital reserve, withdraw from maintenance reserve. under the, you know, the past four or five years, we've been very fortunate to establish reserves for maintenance and
reserves for capital. What this does is allows the district without taxing the taxpayer to go into those buckets, we'll call them, withdraw money to fund our current expense budget. We have very, very healthy budgets in both our capital reserve and our maintenance reserve. Our
goal in our maintenance reserve is to really replenish that every year. So that'll be perpetually running year in and year out as long as we could now at the end of the 2526 school year accumulate an extra $100,000 to put back into that account.
We also have ourh fund balance which uh moving forward I would say if you have one thing that you want to look for out in the future is that number remains pretty constant in future years. It's very easy for us to go to put $800,000 there, have no tax increase. Everyone's
elated, but then the following year, you don't have that $800,000 again, and you're going to have a revenue shortfall. So, out of all the things you hear tonight, that balance there should be about 280 to 320 every year. And from our history here, we've been able to
generate that kind of excess every year from interest from tuition students coming in from spending out 95% of your budget as opposed to 100% of your budget. So it's not that there's any magic in what we do. It's just good spending fiscal responsibility and
accumulating money during the course of that year. That where that's where that money comes from. Rents and miscellaneous income you could see is 289,000. tuition in as we discussed that's $214,000. So our spending plan for 2627 is
approximately rounding up $10 million. Whatever you have on the left hand side revenue, we must show on the right hand side. And this is just a pie chart showing you what makes up all of our revenue. Items one, two, and three.
Our local tax levy, our state aid, and our federal grants make up for 84% of our revenue. And the biggest drivers are the local tax levy, which is 56%. So out of every dollar that we have to raise, approximately 56 cents is coming
from the local taxpayer. And and you'll have a breakdown that makes up 100% of all our other aids. the withdrawals that we spoke about are federal grants which includes uh our preschool which is a really really good thing. You know what the preschool
allows is residents of this community are allowed to go through a lottery system uh for free and it's just a great thing for the community. young parents could come got educated either here or first impressions down the road and it's a great program and it's a very limited
in the state of New Jersey so it's not like a lot of communities have this and kudos to Steve and Cararissa for being the forefront to get this in our community that's a a perk for this community again our operating expenses we break those down into subsets under
each subset here we may have 20 subcategories so what the state allows us to do is give you a overview. Under each one of those expenses, you will see 10 or 12 other lines for salaries, salaries of principles, expenses,
employee benefits, and we'll break that down between professionals and non-professionals. Uh uh general administration on the second one down right hand corner would include our principal. School administration would include our superintendent. Business and other services would be the business
office. Employees benefit, pretty self-explanatory. Maintenance and operations, that would be all of our maintenance operations, gas and electric, utilities. Far left uh column, other support services, special aid will be our aids
and other other special ed expense. So again 9 million7 on the left, 9 million7 on the right. And the key drivers in our expense side is salary. I mean, salary and employee benefits make up 68% of our
budget. So, when you're looking to make substantial cuts, as we read in a lot of districts, the only place that they're going to make a significant difference is headcount. We're cutting 50 teachers. Lakewood's cutting 40 teachers. We're cutting this. There's really, when you
really look at it, the other percentages are quite minute to keep the lights on, to keep the schools clean. It's very difficult to find tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in those accounts. It's those first two accounts which really post uh 68% of our
money. Highlights of our budget, we have a lot of shared services in areas of buildings and grounds, speech, our LDTC, which is our learning consultant and physical therapist. We've been very fortunate
over the past two years to have an increase in state aid. This current year we had an increase of 86,000. Next year we have an increase of an additional 91,000. Our preschool, last year we've received 831,000.
The next year we're going to receive 887,000. Another increase. With this these increases, we were able to increase our staff, which is a 70% special ed teacher, plus a preschool assistant teacher, two new part-time par
professionals at 74%. Some curric co-curricular and athletic positions, cross country assistant coach as we're currently running that this year, but if you're running it this year, you have to fund it again next year. So, that's where some of that money comes. And the big thing here is
our tax increase 2.66. 66. I'd venture to say we're probably in the top three lowest in the county. Lenipe's up four. No one's in that 2% range. A lot are over the 3%. And there's toolboxes that the state equips you with
with experience that some school district I live in Randolph, we're up 6%. Roxberry is up 8%. Marstown is up 4%. These are big numbers and we're at 2.66 66 and providing everything that we have this year plus those small
increases in staff and other things funding our health benefits. And all of this weighs into a $118 tax increase on the average home assessed on $49,000. That number has jumped significantly with the reassessment. Those numbers we
get from the state of New Jersey and then we put in a calculation to derive that $118. So, it's really, you know, I do a lot of budgets throughout the throughout three counties and tax-wise, this is the best one we've presented. And it's a kudos to
Cararissa, to the board, to Steve for having that foresight. The budget's just not a plan that you, you know, 2728 will come here. Let's look at it next January. You got to start looking now on ways to really think out of the box, save dollars and provide a service at a
lower cost because it's with health benefits and salaries, you know, it's 4%. And that's in a great year, you know, because teachers are getting over three, health benefits are going up 20. You take that, which is 70% of your budget, that's going to push up
everything else we do here. uh dollars to know the state as we had stated allows you some toolkits to increase your budget to those fours, fives, and six%. This year we received a enrollment adjustment for 250 through
3,000, a healthcare adjustment for 111, a state aid increase of 91. Again, our budget must reflect accurate expenditures and revenues to be sustainable. the days of panning your budgets for are not there. You just
can't put in an extra special ed placement. We can't budget for two more teachers. We have to get to a point where we think we could present a budget that maintains a thorough and efficient education at a relatively acceptable cost to the taxpayer. All of these dollars go into these reserves now. And
you could see for 2728 we have bank cap of 619,000. So what that means is if in the 2728 school year we had to go up, we could go up an additional $619,000
because we have this bank cap. Bank cap is the state allowing Stanh Hope to go up to a higher tax higher than that 2%. So we just been banking it. It fall one-third falls off every three years. So you have to keep that rolling. and we
have a capital reserve of 700,000 which is another healthy sum of money or pot of money for repairs. We're currently hopefully within the next month or so be breaking ground on a new parking lot for 50 spots which already has that money
taken out. So it came in a little over budget. So that number may be reduced to 600,000, but we're going to try to replenish some of that money back that we're taking out. Similar to the maintenance reserve, our maintenance reserve has 250 as we stated. We took out a hundred. So now we try to get back
a 100 to make it 350. So we're hoping to have a capital reserve at the end of this school year of approximately a million dollars, maintenance reserve of $350,000, and then $300,000 of fund balance that we could budget in the following budget year. Again,
just reiterating our tax increase. We break it down the year and the month. It's $118. It's $9.83 per month on a house assessed for $49,156. And uh again, the team, it's teamwork
here, how this works, because I'm really part-time, part-time. Steve does a lot of that heavy lifting. Carissa does a lot of the heavy lifting, which makes our team really work. I feel like I'm a utility player. They're in the starting lineup and then I come in on third downs
or whatever it is and hopefully we get the first down. But the thing is, uh, you have a really special team here and I want them to be acknowledged because without the two of them, this wouldn't work. the way we get along, the way I consider my friends, and we always talk
about when this run is over, you know, I'm a phone call away, guys. I'll come up. I'm vested here. You know, we've been here such a long time. So, whatever you need in the future to the board, to anyone, you know, I have a wealth of knowledge that I'm just looking to share and uh they're very good listeners. So,
thank you. There's a resolution on this evening to approve that budget. Then tomorrow, we'll finalize it. It's already up on our website. the user friendly uh they add in the newspaper the presentation so there's full disclosure out there for over a week now which you're saying you should really
post it after the budget but my thought is someone has a question after the budget's too late so it's been up there if you have a question we're all ears and again thank you for everything >> thank you don't let him sell himself short he's uh he's a star and we're very
lucky to have him um obviously if you guys have any questions before uh Dan goes You're welcome to ask >> questions. >> No, I just want to say thank you for coming out tonight and thank you for all the work. Um, you know, you you you can't miss all the the horror stories
going on in the in the local news. So, um, it's nice to hear that you and Mr. Haggman and Carissa have, you know, been great financial stewards for us. >> Thank you. Thank you. Have a great night, guys.
Okay. All right. That would bring us forward to correspondence. There was one note in there from the state of New Jersey uh department division of early childhood services for the pre preschool program plan approval. Saw that in the budget too. Questions on that one? Okay. So
that would bring us to you superintendence report. >> Um okay, thank you. Uh so we have two students that received one day of inschool suspension since our uh last uh meeting. Um we've have three HIV
investigations. Uh all of which have been unfounded. Uh and I'll provide some additional information when we meet in executive session shortly. Um, Lenipe Valley uh, High School did their their annual recruiting trip uh, on March 26.
It's always a big hit here. Um, we get to fill the gym with our students from preschool all the way through 8. Uh, they show off their ridiculous talent. Uh, and then try to draw as many kids into the band program as possible. Um, and what I can say is that our our tiny
little school in this region is very well represented in in that band and I'm very proud of that. and they they did such a wonderful job and they're such uh they're such great leaders for our our young kids. Um so thank you to Lenipe Valley for uh for coming in and and providing us the opportunity to host
them. Uh I want to congratulate our three spelling bee winners uh from the March 28th um competition. In the third and fourth grade division, Carter Eves is our champion. Uh for fifth and sixth grade, it was uh Ben Galada. And for seventh and eighth grade, it was Malia
Fernandez. um spirited competition. It was quite intense. I love MCing those every year. Um on March 31st, we held our annual Treps marketplace. Uh for those of you who are unfamiliar, Trees is an entrepreneurship program that we
brought in several years ago. I I want to say eight or nine years ago. I think I was the principal at the time. Um it was that long ago. Um and uh this year uh I I I want to thank uh Mrs. Featherman, Miss Miller, and Mr. Divo, our three middle school math teachers in
addition to Mr. Dudo, Mrs. Etinger, and Mrs. Decato for making this happen. It's not just a singular event where the kids come with a product and sell. It's about 8 to 10 weeks of actual instruction, bringing in guest speakers uh that who
work throughout the community, helping these kids really understand what it means to be an entrepreneur, to run a business. um that what you make on on your your selling day isn't all profit, right? Well, who did you borrow money from? What expenses did you have? Um and
then it helps them really understand like, okay, there's a cost to doing business and there's there's certainly risk and that's just a couple of of many of the lessons that they learned. Really, really wonderful program and and I'm excited that we can continue to do that. Uh the HSA held their spring carnival on April 19th. Um Mrs. Dataldo
was able to attend. I wasn't able to that night, but my understanding is that it was another wonderful time had by all. Um, we just finished up yesterday our kindergarten screening. Uh, so two days in the spring, we invite the the
families and the children of our registered incoming kindergarteners. Um, we provide coverage for our kindergarten teachers and some of our related service providers to ultimately meet these kids, put them through a series of of basic assessments just to kind of get a feel
uh if there are any specific needs that the kids have so that we can be prepared for them um to best support them when they come in. It also helps us establish our class rosters um so that we can keep a nice balance, right? So, you know, we don't um mistakenly build a a high class
and a low class, right? We want to have it nice and leveled. Uh we want to make sure that the kids are are as supported as possible. Um and I want to thank all the parents for bringing their kids in uh during the school day to do that. Um because of our updated district calendar uh with with the new graduation date. Uh
I just want to let everybody know that we have updated um field days. Our middle school will have their field day on June 15th, which is the last full day of school. And then our our prek through five will have their field day on June 16th, which is the first early dismissal day um of that week. Uh and and those
early dismissals will be the 16th, 17th, and 18th. Um the last item on my agenda uh are a few upcoming eighth grade events that we're excited about. The 8th grade Washington DC trip is held on May 27th uh through 29th. It's a two-ight trip. Um our eighth graders will attend.
Principal Dataldo um um Mrs. Frank, our school nurse and eighth grade adviser, and Miss Manaki, our other eighth grade adviser, will be attending. I I feel like there might be one other chaperon. I think Mr. Dudo, um, will also be attending. Uh, wonderful trip, jam-packed. They get to
see a lot, they get to learn a lot. Um, I I do want to, um, remind the board, we did speak about this publicly. Uh there have been very very few times in the 12 years that I've been here that this building has been unattended by either the principal superintendent business
administrator. Um having Dan as part-time, he's not here every day. Um it just so happened that my annual trip that I go on with with my father uh falls on these days and unfort I'm not willing to change it at this point. You
know, there's only so many so many of those trips left. Um and with Mrs. Dataldo on the trip. Um I asked and we have the board approved um Dr. Nazinski, our previous superintendent who's going to come and man our ship uh for lack of
a better term and really just kind of handle any emergencies that happen. Um you know, even when I'm not here, I'm almost always accessible, but where we go on this trip, it's the reception is is and that's by design, you know, getting off the grid. Um, so we will
have a a seasoned uh certificated administrator here for those two days and obviously Principal Datada will be reachable but just in Washington DC. So I just wanted to um to let you guys know that uh the dinner dance is going to take place June 3rd and our graduation ceremony and you'll all receive formal
invitations I believe at the May meeting um is on June 18th at 6 o'clock. Uh so if you can if you do plan on attending, check your calendars, let us know because we do like to uh reserve seating for our board event. Um any questions on my report?
>> No. All right. Thank you. Uh that brings us to Miss Herald, personnel curriculum, school climate, and culture committee. >> Such a long title. It's time of year for summer staffing. So you will see on tonight's agenda the
staff renewals for the summer. Um it is the committee's recommendation that we approve those. You will also see renewals for substitute teachers, substitute aid, substitute school nurses, substitute custodians. Um again, it is the recommendation that we approve
that. There's also the appointment of Amanda Chapesian as full-time guidance counselor taking what was previously um Miss Capola's position. So we would like to welcome her. She's going to be a great addition.
to the school. >> And that was pretty much all we covered. >> Any questions? >> Okay. Hearing none. Uh business services, facilities, and technology. >> Um so, uh we talked about the medical,
um Mr. Hman provided the medical insurance update. Um the transition has been smooth so far. Um, at that point they were just waiting on cards from the new provider. Um, believe Dan already said it, but we
received county approval of our budget. Um, we renewed a number of our basic yearly con uh contracts, including uh our contract with Phoenix and Bush Law Group. Um,
Mr. Hman already mentioned we're targeting a May start date for the project. the parking lot project and then the one last thing is the superintendent review process is coming up. So, >> and that was everything I had >> more later. Thank you.
>> Just one quick update with the uh insurance cards. Um Carissa got information and got it out to our staff that all all of our insured staff now has access to a uh an electronic card that they can print. Should for whatever reason they don't receive their actual
card on May 1st. uh if there is an appointment, they'll actually have something um that they can that they can bring with them. So, that is a a bit of a relief for us um because we don't ever want to not have staff without an insurance card. Although covered, it gives you that sense of um comfort.
Yeah. >> Thank you. And then uh policy and communication. >> I could do our policy. Sure. Um so for policy, we did we didn't have any new policy. Um, I think we touched briefly again on um the cell phone policy because that's that's a thing. Um, my
son's high school had the their their first day today of an absolute zero cell phone day. Um, which I enjoyed because I didn't get 12 text messages from him asking what was for dinner. Um, uh, we also discussed we did a followup uh on
the community forum that we held um, two weeks ago. Um, for those of you, if you don't remember from our previous meeting, we mentioned that we were sending invitations out to all of our residents who lived on Sagamore, on Spencer, and a few of them on Valley
Road so that we can make um make those who are most impacted by the parking lot project aware of what the plan is, provide some dates, uh, allow an opportunity to ask some questions. Um, uh, Chissa was gracious enough to come and take some notes for us. Uh, and I
just what's I think ear was it early this week or last week I sent an update. Um, I collected emails for anybody who was interested in receiving information and I just sent an update and answered some of the questions and sent an update on on the project. Uh, we still don't
have dates um to break ground, but as um Mr. Borgo said, we're hoping for May. Uh, we expect the pro um we're hoping the project is four weeks. Um, but I gave about a four to six week uh lead time. Um there were some non-p parking
lot related concerns that were brought to our attention. Um and that to me seemed fairly minor. Uh and we wanted to address them as quickly as possible. Um because a it's the right thing to do and and we want to be good neighbors. Um honestly, I've been here 12 years. Some
of them were things I had I wasn't aware of. So apparently we shine spotlights into our neighbors homes in the winter when there's no leaves all night long. Um, so, uh, one one of the residents I was able to walk back and he he and his wife showed me exactly what they were
talking about. We actually already had an electrician out today, changed half of those lights out so that the light now shoots down instead of out. Um, but needed uh uh some more equipment to finish the lights in the back of the school. So, we're hopeful by the end of the next week that that spotlight issue
will be addressed. Um, and I know that um, one of our neighbors uh, shared that there was um, a dead a very very dead asht tree on the border of our property that kind of hangs over where they parked their cars. Um, and 30 years ago
when the back stop was replaced, um, previous facilities team threw some of that scrap metal into the woods and he's had to look at it um, every day since. Uh so a the tree we looked at it is clearly hazardous. You know it's it's
going to come down eventually. So we're going to take it down. We expect it to be down hopefully by the end of next week. >> Yeah. It's all weather permitted at this point. >> So and while we have uh the tree company coming out for that, there's some other trees that we're going to clean up as well. Not a big ticket item. I think we
got a quote for $2,800 for all of the tree work, which if you've ever had tree work done, that's pretty reasonable. Um, and then, uh, it may be the summertime, but Frank and his team, Mr. Copic and his team will pull out that, uh, pull out that poll and and bring it down to Ramo, um, and scrap it. And, you know,
um, I I I asked all of the community that was here and for all of the community that's listening, uh, please, if you have concerns, if there are things that, you know, we're impeding on or things that you feel as though whether you have kids in the school or not, that we can do better, please reach out and let us know. Um, I can't
guarantee that we can that we can make things happen, but we'll do everything that we can to support. So, I thought it was a productive meeting considering the topic. >> All right. Thank you. >> All right. Um, we did not have somebody at services this month, right? So, we'll
skip over that. And then as far as the board president's report, um, not too much this month, um, in between meetings really just, um, nothing new on regionalization, just to keep that on the record. The studies are still being done. We don't have any new information coming out of the Rowan Institute just
yet. Um and then we have our recognition meeting from the county board of education next week. Anybody is welcome to come. Miss her will be recognized for getting her next certification. Um and then very quickly on the superintendent's evaluation, I will send
out emails to everyone about that. The first step in the process is uh Mr. Hegman loads up all of his evidence as to his status on his goals. Once that's done, I'll get an alert and then I'll send it out to everybody to begin the evaluation process. Now, I know this is new for most of you and typically we say
if you're a new board member and you're not comfortable doing the evaluation just yet, that's okay because you've only been on the board a few months. But unless one of you does it, we don't get a quorum on his evaluation and we'll need to do what they call a doctrine of necessity. So, if at least one of you feels confident enough to do it, that
would be great. If not, you just need to let us know sooner rather than later because we have to do paperwork um that indicates that we did not have a quorum and the reason behind that we've only had to do that one other time when I think everybody was conflicted on the board other than me. So very happy we're
not conflicted, but with four of you being just gauge your comfort level um where we evaluate him against the goals and objectives that we set forth and those are on our website and then they'll be in the documentation that you get as well. And then we aim to have the whole thing done by the end of June. um
so that it gets done ahead of uh our QAC reporting. Uh so we need to have that done before July 1st. >> Yes. Approved before July 1st, which will typically mean an executive session at our main meeting where we'll go through the preliminary information. Okay? So think about it and let me know,
but you'll see emails come out from me in a little bit on that topic. >> Mr. Haggman does a really good job of putting up all of his stuff. So, it makes it really clear when you're looking at what the goals were and whatnot to be able to match it up. And then while each of us does it,
>> then Matia is really great. She takes it all. This the harder part in my opinion. And she puts all of our thoughts together into one document so that we're not handing him 98 reviews. It's all collaborated into one.
So, like I said, more more to come on that, but that would be the next big thing that we have coming up for us to do. Um, that would bring us to any questions on that before I go on. No, that would bring us to public session number one. Does anybody from the public want to speak?
Okay. Hearing none, uh, that would move us to our executive session. Can I have a motion, please? >> Motion. >> Thank you. Uh, be it resolved that the Stanh Hope Board of Education adopts the following resolution. Whereas the open public meeting act of chapter 231 of 1975 permits the exclusion of the public
from a meeting in certain circumstances. And whereas the Stanh Hope Board of Education is of the opinion that such circumstances presently exist. Now therefore be it resolved by the Stanh Hope Board of Education, County of Sussex and State of New Jersey that a closed session of this board of education where the public shall be excluded will be held at this time for
the purpose of student confidentiality. Be it further resolved that the action of the board with regard to the above entitled matter shall not shall be disclosed to the public at a later date and do and to the extent that it that the same is not prejuditial to the interests of the parties involved and would not result in a possible invasion
of their right to privacy. Uh voice vote. All in favor say yes. >> Yes. >> Nos. Abstensions. Recusals. Okay. Hearing none. Go ahead and turn off your microphone. Microphone's on. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh, re-enter public session.
Can I have a motion, please? >> Moved. >> Second, please. Second. Thank you. Voice vote. All in favor? I. >> No. Abstensions or recusals? >> All right, we're back. That brings us to travel and workshop reports. We had two attachments,
questions or comments. Okay, moving along. Minutes for approval. Agenda item one. Can I have a motion, please? >> Motion. >> Second, please. >> Second. >> Second. >> Thank you. These are the regular meeting minutes from our March meeting. Can I have a voice vote? All in favor say I. >> I.
>> No, abstensions. Recusals. Hearing none. All right. This is the big one. Budget adoption agenda items 1 through 7. Can I have a motion, please? >> Motion. >> Second, please. A second. Thank you. Give everybody a minute to take a look.
This is everything Dan went over. Any questions on the budget? Can I have a roll call vote, please? Dr. Monaco. >> Yes. Mr. Balado, yes. >> Mrs. Donahghue, yes. Mrs. Bottalado, yes. Mr. Pico, yes.
>> Mrs. Herald, yes. Mrs. Shariffstein, yes. Motions carry. >> Uh, administrative action items, items one and two. A motion, please. >> Motion. >> Second, please. Thank you. Any questions or comments?
Hearing none. Roll call vote, please. >> Dr. Monaco, >> yes. >> Mr. Bonalado, >> yes. >> Mrs. Donahue, >> yes. >> Mrs. Balato. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pico, >> yes. >> Mrs. Herald, >> yes. >> Mrs. Shariffstein, >> yes. Motion's carry. >> All right. Personnel action items 1 through 11. A motion, please. >> Motion.
>> Second, please. >> Second. >> Thank you. Give everyone a minute to read through. And just quickly for our newer board members with the list of people there, if you feel you have a personal relationship with anybody and want to recuse or abstain from the vote, you can. Um, don't be concerned about that.
That's perfectly fine to do. I know we're a small town so a lot of us know everybody. Any questions or comments before we move to a vote? >> Okay. Can I have a roll call, please? >> Dr. Monaco? >> Yes. >> Mr. Bonalado? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Donahue? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Balado?
>> Yes. >> Mr. Pico? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Herald? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shariffstein? Motions carry. >> Thank you. Business services items 1 through 15. Motion, please. Motion. >> Thank you. Give everyone a minute to take a look through.
Number 10 is workshop. We did talk about that briefly at the meetings 10 and 11. Um if if you are going, make sure to let Carissa know whether you are or are not going when you can. No rush just because she has hotel rooms held for us. >> And we do have time for you to make.
>> Yes, we have a >> no rush on this. >> Just wanted to get it in early. >> Yep. >> Questions or comments? Need another minute? Good. Okay. Roll call vote, please. >> Monaco, >> yes. >> Mr. Balado, >> yes. >> Mrs. Donahghue,
>> yes. >> Mrs. Battle Adam. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pico, >> yes. >> Mrs. Herald, >> yes. >> Mrs. Sharpstein, yes. Motions carry. >> Thank you. That brings us to new business. Anybody on the board have any new business they'd like to bring forward? >> Garmin, you're fine. Love your ideas.
Anybody else? All right. How about any old business? >> Um, you mentioned regionalization earlier. What is the um and I know Mr. Hayman had brought up that somebody was leaving and we were a little concerned about the somebody leaving the Rowan
Institute or something. >> So, when do we actually expect to hear anything further? >> I'm hopeful that we'll have a report before July 1st. >> Okay. >> I don't know that for sure. Um it it may be that the report is drafted and we
don't receive it. Um we did uh they did come out for a series of interviews um not this past Monday, the Monday before. Uh, I think I mentioned this at the last meeting, interviewed administrators, curriculum directors, special ed administrators, teachers of eighth grade, teachers of 9th grade. Um, so
they're they're certainly working on it. Um, and we're still within the the time frame that they provided for us. Um, but I'm hopeful that we'll at least have direction before the start of July. >> Yeah. And I was going to say it's more important than ever that it gets done
and we get the information out to the communities because there continues to be legislative pressure uh coming through the education committee on regionalization and on the number of school districts in this state. Will it move? Who knows? But there continues to be a ton of pressure on it and it is
specifically targeting any schools with enrollments that are below 500 and not K to 12, which is us. So, uh just something to keep an eye out for. Any other questions or comments for old business? That would bring us to public
session number two. Anybody from the public? Okay. Hearing none, that would bring us to adjournment. Can I have a motion, please? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? Thank you.