thank you i'm calling to order the March 20th public meeting of the Vernon Township Board of Ed mr slam can I get a roll call miss Brock Mr smaglia here Mr cantino
mr fischer here mr krauss here miss Pellet here mr sweeney miss Varela here mr zimmerman here we have a quorum item C it is recommended that the board enter close session for the purposes of
discussing legal personnel and student matters can I get a motion so moved second sean all in favor i enclosed say it right thank you okay item D is recommended that the board return to open session
can I get a motion so move second did I get a second second Stephanie thank you all in favor i need a roll call miss Brock here
mr smagle here mr canino here mr fischer here mr krauss here miss Pellet here mr sweeney miss Bearelloo here mr mr zuran here miss Gianella here we have a quorum thank you um please rise and join me in
the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all mr slam item G the reading of the
meeting notice the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with provisions of the act vernon Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be
published and adequate notice has been provided and notice this meeting has been properly posted in accordance with the New Jersey open public meeting law uh just a couple quick notes our next uh work session is Thursday April 10th and our next public session is Wednesday
April 16th uh and just please note that's a Wednesday uh as opposed to our usual Thursday thank you Slam um item H approval of the minutes can I get a motion so moved
second Stephanie thank you uh questions or comments anyone have any corrections for the minutes any questions i see none roll call mr cino yes abstain we're noted
mr fischer yes abstain when noted mr cross yes abstain where noted miss Plet yes miss Sarella yes mr zerman yes miss
Brock uh yes abstain H3 and H4 mr smagia yes motion carries thank you item I um tonight we welcome Tina Owie from the Center for Prevention and Counseling to present on an issue of
great concern to our community uh youth nicotine and cannabis use as she will report use has ticked downward recently which is really wonderful but Vernon like many communities uh still has a significant number of students obtaining and consuming both nicotine and uh
marijuana many of them at a shockingly early age the hope with this presentation is to alert community members about the extent to which these products are being marketed and used by our community's children and what we can do to combat underage use um Tina all
you Sie thank you for all that you've done for Vernon in the last decade or two decades it's it's much appreciated oh the podium is fine you can talk right okay all right so um just while our friend
gets this up on the screen um just a few things center for Prevention and Counseling we're a nonprofit agency located right in Newton we've been serving the Sussex County community for 50 years actually this is our 50y year anniversary we provide prevention um for substance use disorders as well as uh
treatment and recovery community uh recovery resources I'm sorry recovery services um within our prevention pillar we really have two tracks one track is coalition building and working with communities to um create um higher level
change so that's policies um those are looking at ordinances those are just looking at environmental changes and then the other track we have is within our school districts providing direct service programming with students so here in Vernon um we actually serve your
students grades two through eight but we just wrote a great application to also serve your 9th graders starting in the next school district um so in Sussex County we serve about 3,800 kids in um evidence-based programming which means
about 3,800 kids receive programs um 6 8 or 15week sessions so we're not in there just for one or two sessions we're in there for a long period of time delivering evidence-based programming and Ashley's actually our prevention uh
our direct service prevention supervisor and she has some of the outcomes of some of the work that we've done here in Vernon over this past year so she'll share those out with you in just a little bit um but our prevention work spans from Vernon all the way down to Hopakan over to the Walkill area and then over towards the Stillwater area so
we really are everywhere in our county um our substance use treatment programs again there is not one community that we see more of it's anybody anybody from Sparta to Vernon to Hopcon to Stanh Hope um no community is immune from substance
use disorders and then our uh recovery resources um our recovery services we do have a recovery community center in Newton um we serve those that are in need of um treatment we serve family members that are looking for guidance to
help those um loved ones navigate their way to recovery it looks different for each person um and we have a uh collaboration with our police departments and our medical center where if somebody overdoses from substance use whether that's um opioids or if they
have a alcohol use disorder we will have a recovery coach or a recovery specialist from our agency meet that person at the ER or before they're discharged from the hospital so that we can provide them with services so they can continue on their way to recovery um again recovery looks different for each
and every person um at our agency we have a staff of about 60 about 25 of those 60 are within our prevention team so um we are out in the community uh we do surveys with our schools um every two years so a lot of the data that we have
here with you tonight is from our surveys we also do a lot of um informal focus groups and key informant interviews with our partners throughout the county anybody from our police officers to our EMS to our school
counselors our sachs our principles um but also our businesses uh so we also gather information from them so we'll share some of that information with you so I'm giving you a very short snippet of our Assess County Youth Drug Trends presentation this is normally about an
hour and 15 minutes and I took some slides and condensed it to about um 15 to 20 minutes so I figured I'll share with you some of the trends that are are more relevant to our young people our middle school and our high school kids and then um we'll talk about some of the programming here in Vernon elise is the
coordinator of Northern New Jersey she covers seven counties we're lucky to have her at our agency she is their tobaccof free for healthy New Jersey representative um and she could talk to you about um electronic nicotine devices some policies and and all of that good
stuff and share with you the good work that's being done here she's also a wealth of information if you have any questions regarding um vaping so just a little rundown of what we're going to do in the next 20 to 25 minutes and you can interrupt and ask questions too um okay so where does it start it's really
important you know when we're doing um talking about prevention and talking about services and and where it begins our job as prevention specialists is to delay the onset of use for as long as possible we know if we can delay a young person from starting to use alcohol tobacco or marijuana and those
are the products that we're most concerned about right now with our young people we can delay that as long as possible they're more likely to succeed they're more likely to not get in trouble for making bad choices they're not they're most likely not going to
lead down the path of addiction we know through um just data collected through the CDC and through SAMA um almost 70% of kids who start using alcohol before the age of 15 will also try a drug so I don't want to say that alcohol is a gateway drug it's really alcohol and
marijuana go hand in hand now um alcohol is still the number one drug choice for our young people and for our adults but most times if a young person's at a party and alcohol is there chances are that um marijuana will be available there as well um so definitely a direct
link between early use of alcohol use and other substances the surveys that we do um we've been trending downward so right now we have the lowest amount of um youth using substances and I'm I say that but I'm also going to say those
substances that kids do use are more dangerous than they've ever been in the history of like us doing prevention work and I'll I'll share why that is um but we're seeing a rise right now among the
county of middle school kids using alcohol so we never want to take the foot off the the pedal when we're doing uh prevention work in regards to underage drinking because that leads to other substances and while we've seen a nice decrease our high school numbers
have plummeted we are starting to see pockets of increases and that also includes our middle school kids 22 teens every week so this is not a local stat this is actually across the country across the country in the United
States we lose 22 teens a week to uh opioid use disorder from overdoses and this is um really concerning because these are young people right um but what's more concerning is the pills that the the
kids are overdosing aren't your traditional medications that you get from a pharmacy so what we're most concerned about are the counterfeit pills the non-medical use of prescription drugs so almost all of our middle and high school kids are on social media whether that be Tik Tok
Snapchat um Instagram whatever it is that they're on and these uh platforms are where our young people are getting counterfeit pills and they're not knowing they don't know that they're counterfeit pills law enforcement has a very difficult time identifying
counterfeit and real pills um so our our general young person is not going to be able to do that if law enforcement can't but what I want to draw your attention to is that blue pill on the top um that is oxycottton the top pill is a real oxy the bottom one has fentanyl um the
second one down that is aderall okay uh the bottom pill is meth the top pill is actual prescription um and then the bottom pill is Xanax the pill to the right is fentanyl the pill to the right is a real um Xanax pill so when you're
taking a look at Oxycottton and Xanax there is a level of harm that is attributed to using those prescriptions right if a young person is misusing an Oxycottton or Xanax they understand that there there's a level of harm that could
happen from using those drugs um but when somebody is using aderall perception of harm is very low it's very low um our high school kids our college age kids will use Aderall if they want to cram for a test if they need to um
stay up maybe they're working several jobs to pay bills to go to school whatever it is that they need um if they're partying and then they have school work to do um Adderall will be used and so my I'm was always concerned about Oxycottton and Xanax but a big concern
in the prevention world are the aderall type of medications where um we're seeing meth and fentanyl in those pills and I I'll tell you kids aren't aware that the um drugs that they're buying the prescription drugs that they're
buying are not coming from a pharmacy okay um these are you know just dealers that are on the platforms and making their products available to those that are on those same platforms so the DEA often shares um emojis that are associated
with substances and these are the latest that they've shared with us um just dealer advertising what different products means um so again this is this is definitely concerning what's good news about this um a couple of years ago not a couple maybe two years ago it was
five out of 10 pills had a um lethal dose of fentanyl it went all the way up to seven out of 10 pills had a lethal dose of fentanyl which means seven out of the 10 pills that the DEA had confiscated had a lethal dose of fentanyl um that has tracked down a
little bit that's come down so we're back down to about five out of the 10 pills so 50% of the pills confiscated have a lethal dose a lethal dose of fentanyl in them um that pencil tip right there that is considered a lethal dose of
fentanyl okay um we are going to talk a little bit about vapes really important to understand a vape is a device to use both nicotine and THC okay it's really difficult to determine which vape is for
nicotine and which vape has THC in it they look identical um I actually have um I have some uh some more of like the trendier vapes that kids are using so that you can see how it has kind of changed over the
years and I'll I'll pass these out um but what the difference with vaping what the concern with vaping is that your the vape products that are made available when they were first marketed right they were to help you quit using traditional
cigarettes and what we have learned is that there's more nicotine in those vape products that than there are in a pack of cigarettes so the kids that are using these vape products don't realize the amount of nicotine in there and they're becoming addicted to them just like the
way you know I explained it the way my mom and dad were addicted to combustible cigarettes they couldn't quit my mom had oral surgery she quit my dad smoked until the day he passed away he couldn't quit tried so many times he couldn't do it and he started smoking when he was a
teenager it's the same thing these vape products have replaced combustible cigarettes um so the nicotine salt is a concentrated form of nicotine um and these products have high levels of nicotine and so you know and they've
they've kind of changed um this it used to be the big boxed vapes right um and then kids were getting in trouble with them so they became sleek so you could hide them they looked like USBs they go up a sleeve in a pocket really hard to detect well now the bigger ones are
gaining popularity again um so these are some of the ones that um can be purchased at vape shops here locally these were all purchased in Sussex County but this is Blue Raz Ice um and this device you can text you can listen
to music uh you can do all kinds of things with this device and again this was this was 20 bucks i'm sorry this is $24.99 but the this is now what's popular with our our young people um this one is bar strawberry mango um
again a little bit different uh it pulses so this has uh I don't have my glasses on but 15,000 regular cups and if you put it on pulse mode I think that number is 7,500 yeah
so you want fast quick 7500 puffs out of here um so it's they are stronger they're uh more flavorful and they are cheaper the most um the most popular flavor is this
flavor which is strawberry cereal doughut milk right so the this is what our kids are are using those that choose to vape okay so all of them have very high levels of nicotine they're becoming addicted to the products
so the products to the right of the screen I don't have any of them because with our grant funings I'm not really allowed to purchase THC products um but they come in the same similar packaging as um your the vapes that we have here
um the old jewel they look like the old jewel um but very hard to tell the difference between a nicotine and a THC vape um what I can share about uh THC vapes is that we have dab pens so most kids that will use um THC will either
use a vape or they use a dab pen in the dab pen they have carts so that there's a cartridge uh it looks like it has honey in it right to the left well to the right of the screen but to the left that's high potency THC that's about 60
to 80% THC in that cart um and then we um again also have the regular vapes so I'm going to talk more about the THC vapes in just a few minutes but I want to go back to um regular vapes what
we're seeing so we have the high higher potency TH uh the higher potency I guess you could say nicotine vapes um which our kids are beingcome are becoming addicted to um we have resources to help address this and so I want to talk a
little bit about those resources one um we have Vapefree NJ okay it's a text toquit application that kids can use we've had success in other uh school districts who have chosen to use that
service um other high school kids have reported to um Elise and Tanya who Tanya runs our Incorruptible S program that they received the fund bracelets that we give out they've text the um the number on there and they were able to receive
messaging and services to help them quit we also have um incorruptible us vernon has an incorruptible us program uh Tanya comes here it's peer-to-peer it's at the high school it's not very well attended um but she is building on that i will
share with you we had a meeting today with some grant funders and we're trying to find funding to be able to have incorruptible at Vernon High School a little bit more frequently so instead of once or twice a month um it'll be a little bit more frequent so again that
conversation was had today um with uh our Department of Mental Health and Addiction Service funders to see if we can make that happen not only here in Vernon but there's a couple of other high schools who have requested it tanya is one person um covers six counties and she's doing a really great job here in
Sussex and some of our other schools um but we can't dedicate her specifically for this um this district and the other district that we have in mind too so again we're looking for grant funding for that but that's peer-to-peer those are kids helping kids um not only uh
with vaping prevention and um you know sharing the thought that not all kids are using vapes because they're not all there's a perception that they all are but that's not the case at all i want to say it was like 22% of kids were reporting that they had they use vape
products um so we also have Aspire which um Alise can talk a little bit to you about that um when she talks about policy if you have any questions about that but Aspire Aspire is a um program that is online and it's an alternative
to suspension program for kids that are caught with a vape product so instead of suspending and sending home they would go to an inschool suspension setting and do it at during the inschool suspension setting on their first offense so that is something that is free to every public school in New Jersey through New Jersey Department of Health in
collaboration with tobaccof free for health in New Jersey and the cancer center in um Texas um anybody have any questions about any of these resources up here is this new to you or have you known about these resources
i knew about one of them okay new to me anybody else ely has a packet of information for I think most of you or some of you um that will have uh more information one that can you know but it can all be shared out too and she'll share more about that how does Aspire
so Aspire Do you want to talk about quickly about Aspire um I could do it from right here is we would need the mic the online people sure so uh Aspire is a partnership it's
a MD Anderson uh like Tina said and it's free uh it's possible that Vernon could be already signed up i don't have the access to do that right now and my partner who does is out of state right now but we could already look you could
already have it if not it's very easy to get signed up and it really works um like a video game but it's education so the students create an avatar and they have to go up a level so something they're very very familiar with right a video game kind of format um but it's
education about nicotine risk of nicotine use and navigating through all that and then once the students complete the whole program they get a certificate and you know there's an administrator in the school for it so you have a record of who's done the the uh Aspire program
and it is uh recommended as an alternative to like an out of school suspension like Tina said and so two qu so it is it does take place in the school building yes okay and can you just speak to why that's preferable than suspending student when they're because
just so people understand because that's our if they're suspended outside of school they're most likely still vaping like you're not addressing they're not getting any early intervention they're not getting any assistance they're maybe you know not getting some referral to
help with quitting um so it's preferable to try to do something onsite in school thank you you're welcome thank you okay I'm going to quickly turn to marijuana and talk about that for a little bit um so really the landscape of
marijuana continues to change and has changed dramatically over the last several years we now have um products that have high um THC potency and those products are your traditional uh flour marijuana anything from flour marijuana
to um edibles to uh vaping devices to tinctures to creams um to gosh what am I missing um drinks now um so lots of different products now that are
available uh in regards to cannabis and what's really important to understand is that the cannabis that is available now is very different than it was when most of us in this room were growing up um the potency level has skyrocketed so
it's genetically engineered in that manner to have higher levels of THC so um your flower marijuana which most of us might be more familiar with just from TV and and and such um though that's marijuana or a product that somebody
would like roll a joint with or something of that nature um it used to be the THC potency was between 3 and 5% and now the potency is anywhere between 18 19% and I'll show you a slide it goes even higher than that you know in your
23 24% THC um the vaping products uh have a much higher THC and that's anywhere between 60 and 80% THC you can go all the way as high as 95% THC okay very different from the 80s and 90s when
it was you know 5 to 8% okay your edibles also have a high THC potency problem with edibles is that people don't understand it takes your body some time to absorb that food so people do
um have adverse reactions from consuming edibles because they're not following the directions on the packaging and they're consuming too much um so if you look at an edible there's a package it has directions it'll be just say a Wonka
bar it looks just like a Hershey bar and it has those little slices and then slices this way one serving is one of those little bars well who's going to eat one of those little bars right so it leads to adverse reactions gummies they come with directions sometimes it's only
half of a gummy okay kids aren't eating just half of a gummy they're eating a whole gummy or maybe a bag of gummies so we are hearing about greening out i don't know if that's anything that you've heard of before but that's when somebody actually overdoses on cannabis and that could be because somebody has
um is newer to using cannabis and has had too much cannabis or if somebody who um you know just has had too much cannabis uh but we're seeing that um we're seeing it both those have who
have had experience with cannabis and are you know users and those that are newer a little bit lighter to cannabis having adverse reactions and greening out and that's anywhere from throwing up non-stop to um having uh uh heart rate
um increase to um passing out to panic attacks anxiety um really uh where EMS needs to be called and a and a child needs to be uh taken for medical care um so in Sussex County um our rates we did
not see an increase i'll tell you that we didn't see an increase from 2021 to 23 that could be because in 2021 we surveyed when schools were coming back right after CO um and then we surveyed in 2023 um in December and what we got
from that was that it really stayed flat with marijuana use even though legalization had occurred um so 13% of our 12th graders and 10% of our 11th graders reported using marijuana in the last 30 days when we took this survey surveys are being done across the county again in this fall so it'll be
interesting to kind of look at this uh the 2023 data to the 2025 data which will be I think more representative of what's happening um comparing it to 2021 during CO probably wasn't you know I I don't probably didn't give us the
greatest information um but at least it gives us a benchmark right now for where we're at um real misperceptions among uh kids and parents is that marijuana is not addictive we know that it's addictive um one in nine adults and one
in six kids become addicted to marijuana and that is um research that's done with the lower THC uh the lower potency THC um when we started doing research about cannabis in the United States um only
one university was doing that testing and that was the University of Mississippi and at the time they couldn't use a higher level of THC product um so they were using 5% THC so now thinking with the higher levels of THC I'm sure um it's it's more than one
in six young people um but again uh lots of misperceptions so this um just talks about the potency over the years this is just for flour marijuana um this is not our um concentrates so our concentrates is
what our young people are using they're using the vapes they're using the dab pens they're using the edibles most of them um what I like to talk about with uh marijuana is um among our young people we've been to a lot of conferences i
could talk about marijuana for a really long time but if you know all everybody's trying to address the mental health challenges that are affecting our young people and if you're going to address the mental health challenges you also need to address their use of marijuana um because we're seeing mental
health challenges increase among uh those that are users of marijuana at a young age um there's plenty of research to go um along with that if anybody's interested I can send it to you um but what we're learning and what we've hearing and seeing is that higher doses
of THC are more likely to produce anxiety paranoia um and psychosis and that's short-term or longer term um and again uh you know throughout our county we do have um students kids that end up
in the ER due to adverse reactions to this higher potency marijuana okay this is just a sampling of some of our current local products this was taken right from a dispensary here in Sussex County it just shows the THC potency of some of the products i am
definitely not saying our kids are getting products from dispensaries i absolutely believe they are not but these are products that they can get anywhere online and it's super easy to get this this stuff if you ask a young person so 24% THC in the um the uh leaf
the uh flower the bud and then those carts there is about 85% THC for our young people these are your more popular cannabis products um these are E.L.F is a good is a big brand uh I want to say something about the tinctures up here
we've had um some incidences with um kids being at parties and and uh those tinctures being put into drinks unknowingly um and torch is also a big um brand for cannabis use so the torches and the elf bars look just like um other
vape devices okay so uh my last slide about marijuana um is that when parent disapproval goes down use goes up and that's with any substance we saw it with alcohol and now
we see it with marijuana parent disapproval right now is at the lowest it's ever been which means kids don't perceive that their parents would be mad would be mad if they were using marijuana okay so it's the kids' perception of what their parents think um so again if you see that our
perception the kids' perception of parents being angry has gone down and we're seeing that use has gone up it kind of matches um this is just self-reported use um this is our 6th to 12th grade
combined okay so um you know yeah so alcohol use right now is at an all-time low um our ecigarette use is about standard marijuana use is average our
prescription drug use um is low um do you have any questions regarding any of the substances I I touched upon anybody no okay i do have one slide that I just
like to share i So I'll say this i hate wordy powerpoints i hate wordy powerpoints but this my brain sometimes just doesn't always work especially at night um but alcohol marijuana vapes and non-medical use of prescription drugs
those we added non-medical use of prescription drugs recently alcohol marijuana and vapes is what we were always concerned about but once those counterfeit drugs started showing up here in Sussex County we added that because perception of harm is so low and
when that's low use will go up um again substance use at the lowest among our kids however um drug overdose is the third cause of death among teens okay um five out of the 10 pills contain a
lethal dose of fentanyl vapes are devices that deliver both nicotine and THC and when addressing youth mental health we also uh should address their cannabis use so I think I covered everything that I absolutely wanted to again taking a n 90 minute presentation
and shrinking it to 20 minutes was difficult but um you did a great job if you have any questions about any of those um substances I'd be more than happy to answer them i have a question it's not about the substances per se but um your surveys ask the students you
mentioned they're not getting them from dispensaries so do you know where they are getting them yeah actually the survey does ask um I haven't it doesn't ask for marijuana it asked for alcohol i have to look for marijuana but for alcohol for vape for Yes it does for the vape
devices um retailers so we have um at least this is like her area she's like the queen of policy she covers six counties does great work in our more urban areas but our rural areas are a little bit more difficult because of just the way our health departments are
set up um but um uh vape shops online and through friends is there anything as a community that we can do to kind of limit access and is that even a valid way to approach it i
could talk about it if you have so it's vape shop licensing licensing has to go through the health department from um it's it's something that Elise has worked on with our health department but there's lots of of um well we have a lot
of model policies throughout the state there are a lot of municipalities that have done really strong policy work so you know we work with sustainable Jersey we It can be done and it is it's working who it can be done with who like the the
town you mean or the Okay yeah municipality can have their own tobacco license um they can use that fee to have enforcement because a lot of times our health department especially if you have a county health department they just don't have the staff but they could hire
someone um and you know we're flavored vapes are not legal in New Jersey and they haven't been since 2020 we all know they're in the stores and that's where it's hard to go town by town but that's what we're doing right now until we get
something better um but a town can have some control over that and you know you could have a 21 and only access if it's a vape shop you know then you can't enter the store if you're not 21 and that keeps a lot of the products out of
reach that doesn't mean they can't go online that's that's another issue but at the local level uh that's one of the strongest things that towns can do thank you question if there's if these flavored vapes are illegal and they're still in stores how do you enforce that
i mean do these people get shut down or no um it's been challenging to enforce um our AG issued a letter to 11,000 stores recently uh warning them that these products are illegal um the FDA has done
civil money penalties up to $20,000 to some stores so um they're hitting them hard so they know that it's serious but it is difficult to take the products out of the store when you you know we have like 11,000 licensed stores and you know
there aren't enough inspectors like state level inspection and of FDA there just aren't enough inspectors to go to every store so if every town has a mechanism to visit the stores and you know let them know these products aren't
legal and take the actions and have fine and maybe if you get to strike three you lose your license there's so many different ways to write a policy but unique to your town to what you need yeah nothing um so
when people go to buy vapes and THC products on the internet what kind of identification because I I know it's kind of terrifying how easy it is for young people to get access to vapes and THC using the internet what kind of
verification can an online retailer even use to make sure that the person buying the product is over the age of 21 do we have um is it stricter than just buying something on Amazon i mean so do you want to Yeah that's just a big loophole
yeah it's a it is it's a problem because you just have to put in a birth date on the I haven't tried THC website but on the vape websites it's just putting a birthday and so I could change my birthday to be over the age of 21 you know and that's that's what happens they
don't have to sign for it or anything like you know I don't know about THC but for your the vape products they make you sign for a cell phone right I mean well they make you sign for alcohol don't they if you I mean I don't really do that but but I thought they
used to go from Europe you have to sign for but I would say that um your vape products are more purchased online rather than your THC products because that's much easier to get just you know locally because I mean I those vape
products you were showing I teach middle school and I've literally found those things on sixth graders and they'll put them in their shoe they'll put them in their shoe it's it's terrifying how plumber it is amongst people who are so young and so impressionable and the
internet part is what always really got to me is that they're getting them yes yeah they get them shipped and if mom and dad are home they'll get them shipped to a neighbors or some place like that and scoop up the package beforehand but um the good thing is like prevention works we've been we've been
doing prevention for a long time um use has gone down we work with so many school districts in our county vernon we are in heavy um we have great relationships with your um school administrators your teachers your staff your kids are amazing um so we do
programs from grades two all the way up through grades eight right now um from footprints uh teaching about asset building and character development with your second graders to life skills trainings for grades 3 through 8 a WMBBI
program that is specific to media and messaging and u marijuana and prescription drugs with grade six um and then we are bringing in um understanding pure RX which is about uh prescription uh prescription drugs and um opioid
overdose prevention and that's going to be a five session program that is for all 9th graders during health class next year um as long as we get the Newton Medical Center uh grant funding which I I hope we do we've been constant receivers of that which funds some of
the programs here um but your programs here I I'll say um you have a variety of different funding sources for your programs and we kind of streamlined everything so that we covered grades 2 through nine so you have state funding through New New Jersey Department of
Mental Health and Addiction Services here with our staff you have opioid settlement funding through the county that's here in Vernon um and you also have Newton Medical Center Community Advisory Board funding here so if you
know anybody from Newton say thank you um and if you know anybody that works for the county of course say thank you too um but actually we we looked at all the programming that we did last school year um and we were able to pull some outcomes you have all of that information in your folder okay and you
also have um so you have all of the programming that we do is here front and back this is all specific to Vernon um and then you have kind of a infograph of um
outcomes that we were able to pull so when kids do our program they have to complete a post survey on and just share information that they learned so we give them little questions that answer it and then we use Qualrex to spit out our the outcomes so those outcomes are here so
Ashley can um work really hard at making sure our educators are well prepared for your kids um she can talk about any of the programming if you have questions about it she can talk to you about some of the outcomes
um that are listed you have any questions or if you want us to get into that level of detail it's up to you um does anybody have questions about that i mean are is there a way to reach out uh after the meeting yeah yeah
yeah you can always call our agency digesting but yeah yeah i do want to thank you so much i mean like you my parents were both smokers my father died of emphyma now they call it COPD he started when he was 13 and it's just horrifying to me that kids
are being marketed and addict you know enticed really into being addicted to the same you know thing and we know better now right so this is uh just you know it's important work that you're doing so I appreciate all the education you do for our students and especially
for the education you gave us tonight it's long overdue that you came and presented to us and I wanted to thank you for your time tonight much appreciated thank you thank you very much thank you and If anybody's interested on a town council um town you
know looking at policy that way in addressing vaping you can reach out to Elise it's what she does she works with big cities like Newark and Patterson and Edgewater um she's amazing so if you want to address that piece um with vape
shop licensing she is your girl uh she's been with Tobaccofree for quite a while and really knows um policy work so reach out to her great thank you you want to leave your folder with one of them yeah that would be great and and again thank you and Russ again we we so appreciate
being in your schools i appreciate you even more Tina amazing staff your kids are awesome and uh you know we we're lucky to be here thank you thank you just come around thank you so much no you weren't there was Jen i was
mistaken i'll take a picture now I'm out of my place here where are we president right oh are we president but I need to know what item just give me one second you guys so
sorry j ah found it okay uh so item J presence report i just have two quick things we have a lot of ground to cover so I just want to thank our business administrator Ray Lamb for all his hard work on our budget our district's budget for next
year which he presented at our workshop meeting last week and submitted to the county yay along with all of the supporting documents it's always a bit of a race and uh it's always a relief to have that submitted so congratulations to Ray and thank you thanks um and then
second this month is the fifth anniversary of the month that uh we closed um for co Mar you was March of 2020 and I just want to take a moment to reflect on the fact that um those were such a that was such a challenging time
and we forget sometimes we always have challenges but um they're never they're not as big as they were back then and so it's just good to have that to be five years on in that so yay that we're done with that okay that's all I've got because we have a lot on our plate here tonight um
so item K public comments we just get um a reading of the lovely public comment notice during the course of a public meeting of the Vernon Board of Education the public is offered the opportunity to address the board on agenda items and any issues regarding the school district the board
reminds those individuals to take this opportunity that they must identify themselves by name and section of town and limit their comments to agenda items under issues that directly relate to the operations of the school district issues that are raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board or administration at this time of the meeting or at any time all comments
will be considered and response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board repres excuse me the board requests that members of the public keep their comments to a limit of five minutes to be courteous respectful and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board of education
should be thoroughly considered by the speaker and may or may not be responded to by the board or administration be advised that students and employees have rights of confidentiality and other protections under the law student names should never be used the board bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by the public during
the public portion of a board meeting members of the public should consider the comments in light of legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are personally legally responsible and potentially liable for the comments that they make to the board thank you Mr slams um like to open the floor for
public comments is there anybody in the public who uh Oh and please state your name y Scott Castle from uh Glenwood um just I just had watched the last meeting so I just had a couple comments on the budget
and the budgeting process um I create monitor maintain budgets for large projects at my work so I have a lot of interest in it you know outside of the fact that I'm also a taxpayer um and actually uh before I go further I want to say it's great to have some new
people on the board um I had never met Mr fiser but some of the questions and comments he had were a lot of the things I was thinking as I was listening to the presentation um and I also kind of agreed with whoever had called in and said some of the replies he got were a
little strange and seemed like defensive and they were just kind of common questions that were being asked so that was that was a little weird because I know if I get question you know if I get upset every time somebody questioned one of my budgets I just spend my whole day uh fighting at work so um but that was
good i think the um it was interesting that it seemed to me and I can be wrong but it seemed to me that only Mr fiser went through line by line on all the budget items and I know there's a lot of
items but I would find it really hard to believe that not every single person would at least have one question or one clarification just because of the sheer number of items and also some of the vague wording on some of those line items so I know there's a you know a
tight time constraint that you got the first time so maybe you didn't have enough time to go through it but I'm hoping that you know more questions are going to be asked and um brought up from other members on here and I know Mr slam had said that you know he didn't get a ton of offline questions so it wasn't
that they they got answered there um I do you know understand that public and private uh budget budgeting is different but I think the the st the basics of budgeting is the same and you know I'm not trying to be preachy or overly
critical but it just seems like the last two budgets at least that really the the highlevel process is we get a wish list from the superintendent we total that up we divide it by the number of taxpayers
and then we figure out how much we have to raise taxes i don't see a lot of admin i don't see a lot of overhead uh cuts even proposed not necessarily enacted maybe they don't make sense but I don't see that really happening um which you know to me is is a little bit
not how you budget um the other thing is and sorry I'm not trying to just constantly complain but I have to get it all in because I haven't been here in a little while so the 2% cap that we have from the state you know that's a maximum cap but it seems like what we do is we
treat it as uh this is our annual increase that goes into place no matter what and it's especially concerning this year where we got more money i mean last year we complained we didn't get enough money from the state so we had to raise taxes a crazy amount this year we got more
money than we thought from the state but we're still saying let's raise the taxes 2% and I don't think we have a lot of concern on the burden that it's in you know it's putting on the taxpayers year after year to you know if they raise the I I have no confidence that if the state
said "Okay now you can raise taxes 3%." That we wouldn't say "Okay we need to raise them 3%." Not for any reason that's that's you know really proven just the fact that we want more money for the for the district um another piece that is I'm not overly
thrilled with is whenever cuts are mentioned we immediately jump to uh that's going to you know that's means we're going to get rid of three teachers or that equates to five teachers or whatever whereas for me the teachers are the last thing you're looking at it should be again overhead and admin and
the the answer should be you know that's one admin position and a 15% reduction in these two departments or whatever it is you know that's the first thing we should jump to not saying the scare tactic of you know these teach we're going to have to get rid of teachers and all of that
um you know I don't in in my line I don't have the luxury of raising taxes but um I think that you know we need to make sure that we try to find cuts first before we we raise up the taxes um as as
the you know the first solution for all of this i didn't mean to interrupt you but you have 30 seconds just so you know um so again I I know there the the admin and overhead cuts are are painful but they're important for two reasons one is what I said to keep the forward- facing
people the second one is that if they continue to go unchecked it ends up being so big that now we've we're affecting the critical processes that we're budgeting for and we lose things like the late bus so thanks thank you thank you
anyone else uh in public or in online we have okay Mrs saladini yes good evening um first I just want to say that the presentation
on the drugs was just absolutely staggering and uh I want to thank the individuals for not only coming tonight to share these things with us but for the work they do because their work is
such important work and um as I said it's it's just totally staggering um I want to make a suggestion when you have these meetings the camera view cuts off at
certain board of ed members couldn't the cameraman go back further or do something to include all of the board members because the Mrs peladini I'm I'm really sorry to interrupt you but I just um the public comments this public
comment session is for items related to the agenda uh I happen to agree with you on that particular thing but could could you confine your comments at this session to items on the agenda please yes they are about items on the agenda but at any rate um that's part of the
agenda but okay um one other thing that was part of the agenda I noticed several people saying abstain where noted the public wants to know where board members are abstaining
they have the right to know and not just have a blanket statement abstain where noted in in government processes um elected officials are are supposed to tell what they are abstaining on so I'd
like to see those people say what they're abstaining on and if not I'd like to be able to Oprah that information my um last comment is two comments actually budget comments i'm
going to um reserve those until when you adopt the budget rather than take your time now and the last thing I want to discuss is in Nova Matt so that is that is not on the agenda right now mrs
paladin don't please don't breathe down my neck i'm so sorry but it it is not on the agenda tonight so it would have to wait till the second public comment session one minute what I was going to
say is since it's not on the agenda I will wait till the end of the meeting great jump down i'm so sorry i'm sorry i apologize apology accepted thank you that's it
uh do we have anyone else on Martin mr paringer yes i would like just like to say regarding the budget and the 2% cap and the extra money that we're
getting from the state our budget roughly and I would like to get as going to state some closer numbers our budget roughly has been lately close to $70
million the published inflation rate is 3.5% 3.5% now I do not know if the school inflation is the same as the regular
inflation but it would be nice to know what our inflation rate is which is done out of teacher salaries increases administrator salary increases which have to keep track with the general inflation
and then insurance my insurance used to go up more than the inflation etc etc now 3.5% of 70 million is about $2.5
million 2% of the 48 million tax rate is about $900 and change we got a million dollars from the state so that makes up $1.9 million with a $2.5 million increase in in
inflation that means unless school inflation is much lower than regular inflation there had to be cuts and yes I do not want to cut teachers but I know because I have been
watching the border for quite a while since about 1998 or something like that we have had we have had way more administrators than we had now we have eliminated a lot of
administrators our overhead department wise schools what you going to do not fix the roof we have been for years for about 10 years always running behind and fixing stuff not when it should be replaced i
was on the committee myself but we usually fix stuff when the roof is leaking or when something breaks then we fix it so taking money out of there I don't know how much fewer we used to
have an assistant superintendent we used to have I think four uh four vice principles at the high school i think we have now one or two so etc so it is difficult and I maybe you guys
could comment a little bit more to the difficulties and give us a school inflation rate and yeah then where do you cut the only thing you really can cut in my opinion
is you can make class sizes go up cut in employment because that's our biggest thing thank you thank you Mr paringer is that everyone that's everyone all right thank you so much um item L our very patient student
representative okay hold on give me a sec we faked her out now we waited so long the computer went to sleep okay hi everybody um I don't have a lot to report today but I want to give a special shout out to the theater
department at the high school for their performance of Into the Woods um I saw it with my mom on Friday and it was really really good um so great job and congratulations to the cast and crew it was like so amazing um Mr rogers was there too um
we were twinning on that night but um you can also our spin sports are underway um scrimmages started this week boys volleyball actually had one i went and stopped by before I had EMT class they were doing very good um you can also wish um the softball team good luck
and see if travels on their journey to Florida for their tournament yes yeah they think they landed last time I checked the Instagram but um yeah so good luck to them and then obviously winter sports have ended um on behalf of boys basketball and girls wrestling they
did so good in their state game and matches so congratulations to all of those athletes um there are a couple fundraising activities going on this month um if you're looking for an excuse to get some pizza um Good Fellas we're having a senior class fundraiser at Goodfellows on March 27th i think that's
a Thursday yes I'll have to check yes it is um and then the sophomore class is hosting a fundraiser at Pliables so I will be there uh if you're looking to see me um on April 17th so it's a good excuse to get some food and support the high school students and then thank gosh it's
getting warmer outside and it's crazy to think there's only 57 more days of school it's crazy so that's all I have to say but I hope that everybody What no counting no one's counting i mean not me but it's fun um that's all I have for
today but I hope everybody has a good rest of the month and can enjoy the very nice spring weather and activities to come thank you so much you can scaddle she has EMT right um okay item M superintendent report Mr good colleague who always said
"Don't count the days make the days count." I like that yeah I know good luck at your class tonight too um I have a lot to uh to report as well on my superintendent report just today the wind ensemble competed against 11 high school concert
bands at the New Jersey Region Band Festival they received the top rating of go gold and best woodwin section and I got a nice picture from Mr taylor as well uh the Veronica High School academic decathling decathlon team competed on March March 1st in the state
competition the team took fourth place in the super quiz uh relay their best finish in years congratulations to individuals who won medals alejandro Roman bronze music Douglas golden science and bronze interview and Quinn
Monton MVP um one one of my one a great accomplishment this year for for our community the preschool and kindergarten registration opened up on May 3rd and we had a prek open house yesterday it was very exciting to see some of my old students with their children uh attending uh the prek open house uh
yesterday uh Cedar Mountain students as well as Lounbury Hall students had a held a family literacy night sponsored by the VTA thank you VTA for your sponsoring rolling Hills had their family me math night on uh March 13th and Lbury Hollow STEM night took place
on March 12th supported by the VTA as well the VTSD executive sea and VS VTHS theater department welcomed back senior citizens to the VTHs musical production of Into the Woods that was a showing that we didn't go to but that but it was it was a very exciting event as well and
that I I would recommend anyone in the future when there's an event being held at the high school to attend uh it was a phenomenal production the VTHS marching band again participated in St patrick's Day parade thank you again Mr taylor for that wonderful picture uh congratulations to Mr foley on his
recognition last week as a North One sectional award of merit athletic director of the year at the state conference for athletic athletic administrators senior Kelsey Callahan won the state championship in the giant slom oh won the champ wow that's amazing
i talked about basketball and wrestling before is very excited about that uh there were four uh senior Caitlyn Hart uh Rowan Wait Lily Henderson and Natalie Tucker were all in the in the uh state wrestling uh uh final competition in
Atlantic City caitlyn finished fourth in the state and Rowan finished se seventh i didn't get Rowan last time freshman Samantha Janice competed in the six 60yard dash at the Eastern Regionals freshman congratulations Samantha i'd like to uh also express my full
support for Mr raymond Slam our school business administrator during his first two years within the Vernon School District Mr slam has demonstrated exceptional leadership and fiscal expertise his work spearheading the application for the preschool expansion aid has been transformative securing over $6.8 million for our preschool
program over a two-year time period and allowing parents to send their children to the preschool free of charge in addition to these significant achievement Mr slam has the ability to save the had the ability to save the district over $700,000 by renegotiating health insurance and securing approximately uh over a little over $1
million in interest revenue over two years through multiple rounds of negotiations with our bank highlights his deep commitment to our financial health these efforts alongside his contributions to improving transparency and community relations have significantly strengthened the district's budget and resources he
always welcomes board members to come talk to him and ask him any questions at any time mr mr slam has consistently exceeded expectations by ensuring the efficient use of funds effectively managing the budget and implementing innovative strategies to improve the district's financial stability his
dedication and proactive approach continue to impact our schools and community positively thank you i appreciate that we are here we are also pleased to announce the district art of the months and you have to be in these places i have to say this every time because if you're in either
of these places you have to look at our displays the Glen Meadow students work artwork is being displayed at the board office and the Vernon Township High School students artwork is being displayed at the municipal building uh we don't have any current old business to address uh letter C the
following certified staff members are recognized for receiving tenure in the month of April congratulations Mr russell Fay letter D harassment intimidation and bullying report for March 1st 2025 to March 15 2025 attachment
A number two recommendations it is recommended that the board approve the following uh appointments faculty staff appointments assignments changes etc in a very lengthy table it is also recommended that the board
approve the following six period appointments letter C it is recommended the board approve the professional development travel and conferences again these are title two grant funded uh con conferences conventions and trainings letter D it is recommended that the board approve the strong
evaluation model for both teachers and administrators letter E it is recommended the board approve the random drug testing and school safety reports for February 2025 letter F it is recommended the board approve the harassment intimidation and bullying report for
February 16 2025 uh and through February 28 2025 attachment B letter G it is recommended that the board approve the 202526 school calendar attachment C letter H it is recommended that the board approve the
202526 paid holidays attachment D letter I it is recommended that the board approve the June 25 2025 public meeting date change from Thursday June 19th which is graduation right now to Thursday June 12th 2025 letter J it is recommended that the
board approve the following policies for a second reading and final final approval p5512 policy regulation 5516 policy regulation 5533 policy 5701 policy 57 uh
5710 policy regulation 7441 policy 8500 policy 9163 policy regulation 9320 it is recommended the board approve the following policies for a first reading policy 0164 and policy 0167
thank you policy committee for all your work with those policies there's also uh items on the recommendations uh that were addendums there's uh further category i'd like to note that line 47 should be $28 an hour
not to exceed $8,500 and the same with line 48 line 48 should be $28 per hour not to exceed $8,500 you said 284 excuse me on line 48 you said 28 47 and 47 and 48 were both the same at $28 an
hour yeah not to exceed $8,500 okay i um can I get a motion to approve recommendations M2A through K please i have a question if that's okay we we we do motions first then questions so motion
John second Charles uh questions or comments sorry okay okay um I know this is repetitive uh came up before why are we approving field trips conferences can after the fact i mean
can we get them on the I I know that John I know you asked John but I don't remember the answer so I figured let me ask again is it just we're a little behind uh hang on we do try to do them ahead but Russ do you have a No I'll have to address the ones that weren't weren't done beforehand because we've we
talk about that on a regular basis and my my comment I've always made to huge no no my comments I've always made to Charlie is we're making improvement on it and then the next board meeting I'll see quite a few more so I I know exactly where to go to address to talk to people about getting the training and
conferences i mean some of them are no fee ones too do you have a specific one that you were uh looking at no I'm just going to imagine that there would be a time where they're double booked or you you everybody wants to know what's going on and you know as much advanced as possible so I know these schedules are
probably put together much further in advance than these are printed so it's just something I Well I know we've got bigger pictures i can do is apologize and I I do think and like I said before and I think I I talked to others as well that if I see something that's a needsbased and it is being funded
through the grants I will I will still talk to them about that especially now after the approval of the minutes and say can you please address this in future make sure you get understood also could you tell me what uh strong evol um evolation model is that's our normal
evaluation model that we use for all of our teachers and we used it I believe for the last uh since I've been here the last 10 years we vote on it every year thank you okay just like we do it every year well I have a followup on that you said it's what we've been using for the
last 10 years is there an alternative there there are there are multiple alternatives at different uh price points i believe with working for with our skip committees and and uh uh teachers as well it's the one that they're most familiar with if you'd if if you'd like me to show you the
different models and how they're used and and price points I could show you those as well but what do you think are you happy with this i'm happy with this model uh it's it's uh the evaluation model is used to help to help uh have interaction with teachers to talk about
uh to celebrate areas areas that they're doing very well and to also talk about areas of opportunity for them as well which which is much needed uh with administrators and teachers to to as I think a self-reflection and improvement is is a big part of uh learning and
growing as as an educator as well okay John I just want to make one quick comment before we vote on this on line number four that I have no relation to that person oh okay good so good to know
okay uh Char I saw Charlie first before Russ I just had I just want to follow up on uh those comments about the evaluation yes in your opinion have you seen that this model is working do you see it you see progress in in the staff
and I think out of this model it's it's a it's a it's a valid model to use to help evaluate teachers and and as much as you talk about a model I think it's more and this is a tough one for me it's more important to have relationships and
discussions with teachers on a regular basis instead of the two or three times that we we evaluate them through this model okay and it's it's been tough as we cut 50 positions two years ago and that was across the board administrators administrative assistants custodial
workers teachers other staff um we've you know we we made I think you guys a lot of you were here there were some pretty deep cuts made several years ago and I I value most importantly having those uh ongoing regular discussions with people on on a weekly to daily
basis um Carl just a clarification and I'm pretty sure I understand this these conferences conventions and trainings some of them that happened already and we're approving them after they already happened um when it says title two grant
funded that means it is not coming out of any of our local taxes or anything they're purely funded through federal grant funding that's correct okay good just to make sure because I feel like I'm a little bit more comfortable with that knowing it's not coming out of our tax levy or
any forgive me my words fell off a cliff because long day but you get there okay anyone else I did I did want to um just confirm about the um policies in the board meeting yeah because we had a
change there right yes uh one one uh 64 I do want to address that one conduct of board meetings policy so um did you have anything else well I think you know the concern right do you want to just Yeah uh Russ we for um and
I did check this and uh I missed it myself uh we we we wanted to limit the uh actionable items in the workshop and it's not stated in our policy so what would you like to add to that and we could still vote on first reading i I would um dust it i'm not not you know my
English is probably not the best in the room here but uh I have a workshops uh will have actionable actionable items limited the hibs and budget if everyone's in agreement with that we could switch it around just you want to
be those items even if there's a pressing issue yeah an emergency okay unless there's a pressing issue yeah exigent circumstances good there you go I like that okay cool
okay we'll add that all right uh anything from anyone else before we vote on these can I ask one more question uh Ray last week we were talking about the budget and the title one because it we're just talking about the frontier spending and you said I might be wrong
but I thought you said that we we we pay for it out of our pocket then we submit uh we we resubmit uh paperwork or whatever to get reimburseed for that money but with the cuts that we're all
looking at or you're planning because you said I think you were planning 80% cut or 80% of the funding right so we might lose 20% how does that work out when do we spend too much money and you know when do we find out that hey we don't get that 20% anymore and stop you
know we we spent it though right not this year not this year so um so basically all federal grants are reimburseable so you don't know a system called um trying to remember exactly what the what the acronym stands for but essentially it's the system that you utilize to apply for grants such as
title uh grants or you know IDEIDA um and then you also would apply for reimbursement to there uh so that's the answer to the first part of your question so do you get that reimbursement uh and you can track that by looking at the board secretaries report and looking at what that cash amount is if it's negative it means that
we're still waiting to get that money back from the federal government right uh so second part of your question related to budget uh for title one uh we budgeted at 75% um title two 85% um and generally I do budget 85% every year because those numbers fluctuate so
that's just the more cons it's the more conservative way to go about it right um because if the numbers go down and you overbudget it then you're short revenue right out of the gate uh but we find out what our allocations are over the summer um so usually there's not a ton of PD necessarily happening over the summer
because uh you know 10 month employees aren't in yet right um so we would know um before we aim into that the issue you're kind of talking about where we could potentially be worried about how much we're spending and we keep we keep tabs on those as we go yeah and I wouldn't you know I wouldn't I wait
until we have our allocation uh and our substantially approved you know budget in terms of our application uh to ine before I start using those funds okay thank you i think I believe last year we we got to the limit at the very close to
the end of school and some were nos okay any um additional qu Oh Stephanie sorry um item J um student smoking which is the um
policy does the student smoking include marijuana believe I believe it was before uh the devices right that's what and they changed it it was changed i got
the policy but I think it was changed though it was not specific to cigarettes cigarettes okay i was just wondering we there's a lot of things you could smoke yeah yeah true and I'm also wondering I'm sorry because I don't I you may not even know the answer to that to this but
I remember hearing depending on maybe what a student was caught with the consequences would be different if off the top of your head does I mean if if a student is caught smoking I assume nowadays we're talking about being
caught with a vape is that is that what we're talking about here we we've talked about that before you uh it was ma it was mainly the change in policy was to go to the electronic devices to be included but we can go in depth and talk about it at the next policy meeting i
think we talked about that as well is what what type of penalties and sending people out we had this discussion I believe was it last year we did have it i think it was two years ago i I do wonder if maybe we shouldn't be discussing that something that you might want to update in more depth now because
we now know there's this program of in school versus out of school that we might want to Yeah I think that might have been one of the reasons we looked at over did we discuss that as well Charles not in policy not on policy on it but I don't think we put it in there because we were
following most of the reg yeah i mean I'd love to see some a kid attend an Aspire during the day instead of being home vaping that's what they got i believe I believe there's a restorative justice part of that but I would I would need to look at a policy to talk to them
thank you yeah maybe the policy committee could take a deeper dive on that well we're good with the policy i don't you know what I I'd like to look at it again now maybe yeah says here that the device or related product consequences for a student possessing such an item
will be in accordance with the student code of conduct which currently states that they're out of school suspended student code of conduct and whatever the student is required to be oh maybe it's one
day pipes cartridge other component of the device what's in the device because what's in the Sure what is that um I see that's like until they're tested clean or something like that right but sorry John and I were
multiple conversations the I don't even know what page that was on yeah it's but it talks about that policy's in there yeah i'm trying 5533 the the policy I mean we have to revisit this should we make it a second reading or should we just table that one maybe we can table
at least i think maybe we should table it right i'd like to look at it again because in there it's code of conduct right penalties so I mean and what's the code of conduct well that's determined by the schools then right because each school has its own code of conduct i think we looked we pulled that up i think it was a while ago we had that
yeah we did you had that big uh ad hoc right we had an ad hoc for it i wasn't on that um I don't know maybe just maybe table it and just something you could look into the policy would be districtwide right and then we would have to it it I think it gives them more
flexibility with the administrative staff to make the ch make the appropriate um changes if they need to so if let's say if they had a problem right if you had a problem which a lot of kids smoke in high school for for instance right which they might want the principal might say you know what we
need to change the code of conduct and we need to put something in effect sooner right because you could change a code of conduct a lot sooner than we would policy would have to take several meetings to vote upon which it is in there okay and I think we had that we
think we had an ad hoc was it three years ago I know I think we had an ad hoc we talked about the penalty We did depending on what the code of conduct was we had reduced different penalties and had made it more of a restorative justice type of penalty but we'll I'll have to I will pull up the
code of conduct and share that with you and show you the piece i believe it still has though out of out of school suspension of conduct i believe it it might but maybe it's also with the in I don't know I would like I'd rather like to have a pretty um pretty good idea on what that
code of conduct is and it seems like such a broad um you know area depending on who the student is where the student goes i mean I'd have just something I think maybe we could be a little more specific well we can certainly ask for at least
the code of conduct we Yeah we could ask for more details on it so we just clarify we'll share it out again they're all digital copies right we can send out links to the Yeah it's right after it i would somebody can I I somebody
suggested tableabling it i I would say not to table this policy for now because we it does change the wording wording for the electronic cigarettes and um yeah I think you're right substance that are in there so there is good to it at any time so we should adopt it and
then maybe we can just come back with the code of conduct for the schools from the policy and and to because the policy just says to follow the code of conduct right and that's my bigger question once knowing what's in there we all know what they're smoking unfortunately right and
like I said it was three years ago but we had an extensive where we brought the the principles assistant principles in and we talked to the we had a policy committee to talk to the board and I think we did uh change some of our it's not for just this but we do have a lot
of share that so they could just be informed and and a lot has changed over three years i mean maybe there's something we can get into more detail about you never know yeah I'm I'll be honest with you i'm just happy that it was it was there for so long i'm happy that we actually addressed it in in that time we could we could always we could
always address and pull things up anything that we voted on last couple years but I'm just trying to that we've made the effort to have that i just want to give to Carl who's been waiting very patiently sorry Carl well I was going to say what Charles ended up saying that I don't think tableabling it is a good
idea because of exactly what he said if our policy states that it goes to the code of conduct then if you want to change from out of school suspension to being something more local and not involving loss of instructional time or
going home and vaping for 5 days um I think it's better to address the code of conduct and then it also leaves some more room for the principles but we already said that right um I wanted to ask and I know because it's PD sometimes it's hard to know exactly what it's for
but um conference convention training hot issues in discrimination law i'm just wondering what that what was that for he he would have been here tonight but he had some family emergency to attend to um and I I'm pretty sure when we when he saw this it came out later
and it was something that based on what what he what he saw he he needed to address it right away and go and attend it so he's he's the one that would speak to it and I would wait for him yeah if you could just remind me i'm just I'm very curious about that okay okay he was as well which is why I think which is
why I think he answered it and that's one of the one dates that have passed already so I'm sure that it was something he saw right away and he goes you know I need to attend this it's it's an online course just a question for for Ry again and forgive me if this is a bit redundant i just want to make sure I understand this correctly when you say you budget for 85% of title 2 grant
funding you're saying you budget you put in our budget that we can expect 85% of what we're told we should we would be getting just in case we don't so it's not like we're saying we're going to pay we're getting paid it's not like we're saying this is 85% funded by title 2
grant funding no so um in terms of construction of the budget so any of um title one or IDA they would be under fund 20 so it's not the operating budget um and essentially what I'm saying is when I look at the next year cuz you're projecting out you know in the
springtime right you know March and April what we think we're going to have next year we're not actually getting our allocations probably till July or August I'd say um so there's there's a lot of variables between now and then i say that essentially I'm expecting us to get about 85% of what we received this year
85% so for example last year we had a I think it was a we received last title two I believe off top of my head so that so there are fluctuations from year to year and we receive title one two and four because and then I don't know what we're going to get but we're going to
expect to get at least 85% of what we got year that makes sense yeah to make sure I understood correctly year which is next year will be year before yes any other questions comments i'm good okay can we move to a
roll call please mr fischer okay i am going to vote uh no on item C just on the basis that I can't approve things that already happened uh I'm
going to abstain from item D and I am also voting no on item F i cannot affirm the HIB actions everything else I vote yes
uh Mr krauss yes miss Ballot yes miss Varela with the exception of item 2F I vote no and the rest yes mr zimmer yes no why Miss Brock
uh that's a no on recommendation 2G yes on everything else excuse me Jennifer did I say what I meant to say in the proper order i voted no on it you voted no on item 2F and yes on everything else okay just wanted That's what I got right is that That's
what I got okay thank you yep that's the uh Miss Brock was uh yes for the exception of 2G thank you uh Mr smagley yes uh Mr canino yes except on item F
and can I pull out a particular item in item F vote yes on everything but one item or do I just have to vote you can do that we have I'm going to vote right yes on everything except in item F number LH2242506 oh and a no on G sorry uh no
all right i'm going to need a second to go through the next it's okay it's very It's okay kind of confused too double check i get that number right
um motion carries uh for the entire motion we finish okay i thought we skipped somebody mr okay oh right okay i'm sorry sorry I didn't mark Mr fischer because I was
busy writing all his different things okay okay great uh so item and business administrators report Mr slam uh so uh just a short budget update tonight uh under discussion information items uh update essentially that the
budget along uh with the budget package was submitted to the county yesterday um and that uh we are currently waiting review of that budget by the county uh what's I should probably Yeah that would be Sorry I realized I wasn't talking to
my friend um so let I'll start over uh item 1 a budget update uh the update is that essentially it was submitted to the county yesterday for review uh we're currently awaiting um you know any potential feedback once we either get that feedback or that or approval uh then we'll be moving forward with
advertising uh putting the advertised budget uh in the Herald um and then uh just a quick reminder to everyone that May 1st is our public hearing uh for the final budget presentation uh so letter B uh use of
buildings and grounds as noted below letter C field trips as noted below and then we're at uh item two which is recommendations uh so we have letter A uh it's recommended the board approve the following financial reports as noted below and you'll see that listed right
there on the agenda that's attachment F1 F1 A F2 F3 and F4 letter B uh approval of the board secretaries and treasures reports as noted below it's attachment uh F5 and F6 letter C is recommended the board
approve transportation as listed below also uh bid uh 2024-25-06 uh as noted in that below chart that's for Walmart school letter D is recommended the board
approve the following items to be sold or disposed of uh noted in that chart on the agenda uh letter E it is recommended that the board approve the provision agreement between the county of Sussex located at One Spring Street Newton New Jersey 07860 and Burntown School
District look at 625 Route 517 Vernon New Jersey 07462 uh whereas the county wishes to provide certain items to recipient and recipient wishes to receive such items under the terms set forth below uh that is for the donation of vape sensors um
to the district uh from the county um at no cost which is great sorry which vape sensors yeah sensors have some already this will be additional and uh and it also uh gives us a certain
number of years for the product as well that cost before we have been paying on our own yeah yep so it was a really great program and um Yeah thank you yeah the county um Sussex County um letter F uh is re recommended that the board approve the contract of the Spire
Adolescent Con Counseling Center to provide services for student number 20942 at a rate of 675 a week letter G as recommended the board approved transportation to include the joint resolutions for participation with the Sussex County Regional Cooperative for
the 2526 school year to include the following route um that's special education routes public routes non-public routes and field trips/athletic trips letter H is recommended that the board approve the application to apply for the funds to the Nina M maui 21st uh CCLC
continuation grant year five in the amount of $400,000 letter I is recommended that the board accept the donation to the Vernon Township School District from the women's club in amount of $210 per school with a grand total of $1,260 for student items um and I just want to you
I just want to thank the woman's love for that generous donation uh letter J uh is recommended that the board approve the professional services proposal from USA Architects with a fixed fee of $5,000 for the town Fernon Township High School elevator upgrade project number 202518 it's attachment F7 letter K is
recommended the board approve the professional service proposal for USA Artex Fix of $5,000 to Lbury Hollow School elevator upgrade project number 2025-019 it's attachment F8 letter L it's recommended the board approve professional services proposal from Artex for the hot water heater
replacement up and upgrades at the Vern Township High School project number 202520 not to exceed 16 $16,400 attachment F9 letter M is recommended that the board approve the professional service proposal for most architects for the well pumpration work upgrades at
warri preschool project number 2025-021 not to exceed $14,800 attachment F10 letter N is recommended the board approve the submission of 2025 2026 preschool educa preschool education aid budget application letter O is recommended the board approve the disposition of the
following as they are either obsolete or in disrepair uh noted in the chart below and then on the addendum there is letter P is recommended that the board approve HY Nation LLC as um that in contra Nation LLC as a DJ for the senior on May
29th 2025 that is attachment F11 okay thank you um so I'm sorry that's attachment what was the number sorry f11 f11 okay all right can I get a motion to approve recommendations uh to a F11 so
move thank you second Stephanie um questions or comments um I have lots go ahead carl okay so first it's recommended the board approve the following items to be sold or disposed of and I'm noticing a lot of pretty big
things like a tractor carpet cleaner I don't know snowb blowers two slicers i worked in a deli i know those are um I'm Are they all broken or are some of them just being sold i think they're being sold right uh yeah so we want to
sell these these are things that have been sitting for a number of years um that are no longer in use uh so rather than having them take up space uh we'd like to put them on um Gov deals uh Fed Gov deals I believe is the name uh which is the way that
we're allowed to essentially have people auction uh on these items right um so instead of taking up space it'd be nice if we could sell some of these and get some additional revenue since they're not being utilized do we know well I guess it's kind of irrelevant but do we know if they all work still or it's just
very it's it's interesting it's a lot of green stuff i've never seen this so I know with the snow blowers they haven't been used in a number of years uh so I'm not sure the individual status of each one um I can get additional information
on that and follow up but people buy them for parts either way though right so yeah and when we sell these we we list them you know as is so um and people know what they're buying usually in a case like that i kind of want to know what a robot coupe is though but
but that is I was wondering that too what's the robot i didn't notice that when I heard you yeah honestly I should have asked about that one because I'm I'm intrigued i do have another question um it's recommended the board approve this the disposition of the following items
as they're obsolete are in disrepair 618 weeded library books from Rolling Hills so weeded does that mean they went through and just pulled out any books that were damaged or obsolete damaged and have not been checked out in circulation 20 years
and does that mean I'm curious because I remember being in this very library about 1015 years ago when I was in fifth or sixth grade and something like this happened and they were getting rid of a bunch of books and I took home a bunch of books on nuclear power plants because that was my fixation in the sixth grade
and they're from the 1970s so they had like old pictures of nuclear power plants being built and are they going to be given to the kids like that again or do we just get rid of them oh yeah what happened because I remember they had them like in a bin up front and the librarian let me take a bunch of them home and has I still have a lot of them well that's a nice idea if we can give
them a maybe that get back to you as opposed to just landfill sometimes they're in such disrespair dispair or so outdated of I could talk about the type of outdated books that we might be getting rid of as well um and then last
thing I just wanted to shout out the women's club because that's great thank you and they came to the board office to make sure they donated it the right way that's so cool yes Sean you have some Thank you Carl for asking all my questions yeah right i'm just curious
about what what's the difference between the use of building grounds as class two and class one even notice that question there right two us Uh so class one would be us right outside yeah and then class two would be
outside it's like an exter external p like another group third stuff is a class two we're using class one got it thank you and I don't know what a class is right i didn't see that one all right what's a class three type of
maybe the state I believe there is I believe there is a class three um so we're char essentially we're charging them a fee so there are some class twos for example that they wouldn't necessarily get a fee charged like if it was wreck or maybe some group from the town right you know someone from the community okay um and then if it's
really like an outside organization then there's usually fees charged right okay you know if the reimbursement of like custodians or if there's RPOS's or use the facilities fee as well that's going to be quite the New Jersey state chess tournament up at the high school if they need a custodian man they must be making
a mess chess players over 100 chess players i'm going to go to that i want to go to that uh Stephanie what do you can you tell me what item H is with this grand i mean not what it is but what it is and I
was wondering if it we'll put a part two on there um is that going to be are we ever going to move that to LH well that's that's been worked on for first tell her what it is though yeah that's the after school program at CL Meadow Grant i didn't know so we applied
for a grant five years ago and we were so excited to get back then I think it was closer to 300,000 $400,000 for all types of clubs and activities for kids to stay at Glenn Meadow after school that's a really nice program so they they call it the 21st century CCLC uh
program and after after next year there's an opportunity to apply to try to expand that to Lounsbury Hollow as well that happened that happened at a good time when we were making a lot of those cuts we talked about before to help to help uh fund a lot of activities
for the kids to stay after and and clubs at at GlTO um um I I think we've we've talked about it so much that we haven't gotten back to celebrating that as much as something like preschool but that is that is you know um clubs activities
after school care for students from when school gets out i believe it's till 7:00 at night parents pick them up though there's no there's no bus home but but it's still a great it's a great program the kids love it the parents are very We had a presentation on it and it was it's
really um very It's only good you couldn't use any of that money for a bus home no okay unfortunately I knew the answer before I asked but I figured I'd ask it anyway right but but what what it what it does allow is um like I said we
talked we'll talk about that in finance again about some uh some creative solutions but parents who were getting the main concern was they're getting off late from work seven o'clock most parents not all but most parents have the opportunity to pick their kids up right at that time or get
Okay uh anybody else right yeah on on the use of buildings and grounds is is this just what's been added since the last meeting or is this like cumulative the the reason I ask is because I don't see the Vernon Little League on here and
I know we use school fields uh just from the last meeting okay so it's just addition i think they've already started their season because I've seen a lot of pictures on Instagram as well yeah down at Maple Grove mostly
though um great and um on items JK and L I see it's all the same same architect do we have a contract with them was that a bid process or don't we did have a bid
process we had a Yeah so um that's USA architects they're our architect of record uh and there was an RFP process uh thank you i think it was last year i believe board members are part of that yes we were we were part of that serve all of us on the finance committee i think early summer right early summer it
wasn't too long i don't remember exactly when it was we have a couple projects that we're still finishing up with with the old as well just because they had started those projects already and it would cost more to move that project than just continue with the prior architect stephie oh I
think I just answered my own question i was going to ask if we were replacing any of the weeded library books but I'm sure we are somewhere else are we no well they're probably coming in all the time and I would have to reach out to
get an exact answer for you but yeah I don't think you're buying them i'm fairly confident that you know there's making room for everything that's there's not a budget this year there's a budget next year to replace some of those books okay okay um is that
everything anyone have any more questions or comments okay roll call mr cruss yes miss Pallet yes miss Sakarella miss Zacharelloo
yes mr zan yes miss Brock yes that's me and yes i vote yes like a question mark in your voice i stuttered a little bit i should have
brought some water um Mr smagle yes Mr canino yes Mr fischer yes motion carries okay item O public comment um the prior public statement applies to all public comments i don't think we need to read
it again anybody the public scott Castle from Glenwood again i know you guys are happy that I'm back if there's a sign sheet can you sign it i forgot to ask for it um sorry minutes
i'll be quicker this time but um in the last meeting I noticed there was some statement about revising the uh Inovamat contract and I wasn't sure what that was exactly about uh so just two questions on that first was um you know is there a
place that I could see what the revisions were and why they were needed that kind of thing um I think I heard moving from lumpsum to annual payments or whatever i'm just curious you know what was the reason for it you know is there a benefit and what was the impetus
for the change anyway um the second thing is um are we going to have a presentation on that to see where our progress is and you know if it's working if we should keep it all of that kind of stuff because um I'm assuming we set some you know strict and frequent
milestones along the way to just kind of gauge progress um and the reason I bring this up is you know I'm on the outside looking in my kids have grown up but I'm in a pretty big neighborhood and there's a lot of discussion about it uh with parents that you know have a huge bus
stop right by our house so we pretty much get the scoop on everything um and it's not always good comments on it so I'm just curious because my my concern is that more so than the you know it was
a pretty high cost for that program um is that the kids that we're putting in it if it doesn't work and we don't catch it quick enough you know are they falling so far behind that now they can't even catch up if we had to switch back again and I may be drastic you know
maybe what they're telling me is uh you know it's not true maybe it's working great but it's really not what I've heard so um you know I'm big on ROI like return of on investment type of things but in the case of like education
um I would prefer to lose money you know if we had to spend it to break a contract or whatever to get out of it to get the kids back to where they should be rather than uh you know continuing on something just because we made a big financial commitment to it so it' just be nice to see a meeting just to see
where we're at on that cuz I haven't heard much about it so and if I missed it you know in a previous meeting you know feel free to tell me to be quiet so thanks that was it thank you seeing no one else in public do we have
comments and we have uh Barb Man excellent muncher good evening good evening um I just wanted to clarify for those of you that had a question on item D the item uh being uh uh disposed
of the last one a Robo Coupoo it is a professional food processor used mainly in restaurants or large scale food preparation thank you that's um Yes well I I I have firsthand knowledge used to run a restaurant um also to the member of the
public who was questioning ANOVAT all of the grade levels do have um benchmarks that are put in place and there are also other programs that are being used to monitor student growth student progress including I Ready and other measures and
um these are directly seen by our response intervention coaches and um interventionists thank you thank you we have Carolyn Incarnado thank you Mrs incarnado
hey there good evening i uh had not planned to speak tonight but when I heard uh Mr rogers uh really very strong compliments from Mr slam I I felt I had to call in um I don't know what prompted those
compliments if Mr slam's feelings have been hurt or he's been feeling kind of down but I thought I should speak uh to some of the things that may have made him feel a little down um a little history on a Novamat that we've
discovered along the way back in 2023 our former BA uh Patricia Radcliffe Lee signed a five-year agreement uh with five equal payments for a Novat there was nothing wrong with that that I mean it was a very controversial program and from what everybody's hearing it's not
performing but we we don't need to talk about that now in any event that uh contract was for K through four for year one year two when that contract was signed an NOVA was supposed to deliver a fifth grade curriculum apparently they
couldn't do that because in April of 2024 Mr slam signed a revised agreement which provided for K through four and an app for fifth grade that is okay I guess except that
that same agreement had an enormous prepayment due this upcoming summer for those that don't know uh prepayment with public taxpayer funds is not okay you don't pay for anything you don't have
you don't even pay for pencils you don't have a Novamat could have gone out of business and the district could have been out 312,000 when that was brought to his attention I guess he was upset maybe that's why we're complimenting him tonight and um he it was brought to his
attention and last week at last week's meeting we did a second revision which is then the third contract where he agreed to uh a higher rate and he's dropping fourth and fifth grade so there's no fourth and fifth grade
math curriculum and instead of the next three years paying $50 a student next year will be $60 the year after will be $70 and the year after that will be $80 per student so what in effect happened
was this contract with a very large prepayment which is not okay um I guess in order to get out of it we had to agree to higher payments so not only are we going to pay a lot more but we also
have to find a fourth and fifth grade math curriculum that's also going to cost us so um I realize we're congratulating him for doing a great job i'm not sure everybody shares that if anyone would like to see all the contracts um they're certainly available
many of us have them and I just thought we should provide some clarity to the great job he's doing um have a great evening thank you very much thank you Mrs incarnado not we're not going to make responses during public comment i know people may want to respond to that
but we're going to wait until after public comment um is there anyone else from the public who would like to we have Jesse Paladini mrs paladini yes uh hello again um first thing I want to say is that I was cut off for
discussing something um that was not on the agenda when I did not intend to discuss it however people discuss the budget and the budget's not on the agenda it is actually on the agenda Mrs paladin where can you tell me where uh
yeah it's under the business administrators report it says budget update budget update okay I'll take a look at that okay so um Carolyn incarnado did say most of what I wanted to say so I won't be repetitious but at
your last meeting last Thursday I wanted to discuss a Nova because an OVAT was on the agenda but quite frankly I was so appalled by Mr slams rude treatment to
um a board member that I I just really I was disgusted and and didn't want to discuss it any further i think it's highly inappropriate that he spoke with a to a board member like that but getting back to ANOVA Matt um you had
the contract in front of you the board of ed had the contract in front of you not what And by the way to the to the member of the public who questioned where he could see those contracts we posted them all on Inside Vernon so the
old contracts the ones that and the ones that came after that are all on Inside Vernon so you could see that so what disturbs me and what I was going to ask last week was did the board members in
fact know that grades four and five had been cut and did the board of me ed members know that the costs had gone up significantly did you even know these things before
you voted to approve the contract which initially was accepted sight unseen why was there not a single question why did the business administrator or the superintendent not
mention those very details to not only just the board of education but to the public and I realize you're not going to answer anything that any of us say but if you did know about it and you were contacted about
it then I'm really surprised that not one of you commented on it and if you did know about it I would like to oper those very documents in which either Mr slam or Mr rogers did notify you about
it um the bottom line is going to be uh the test scores the proof is in the pudding so we need to see those test scores and we need to know the effect that a novamat has had on our children from time to time we have various people
saying "Oh it's working great it's wonderful it's fabulous." That's not what the teachers say okay and I will trust the teachers 100% of the time i will rely on the teachers 100% of the time so my question
is this and I would like an answer at some point in some fashion why did not one of you even ask a single question and how is it that you did not know that
grades were cut why were grades cut if the program is so fabulous and why did the cost go up i'd like to know an answer to that thank you thank you Mrs paladini um we have Kate
Panely mrs panille hi everyone uh Kate Panille uh Sussex part of Vernon um I reviewed my notes after uh the abrupt ending to our meeting earlier so uh I realized I just had a few questions or comments
um number one um regarding the uh there's been a lot of talk about the idea funds and budgeting um and I had I had emailed uh back on March 11th i'm still looking for an answer um to the
amount of money um that was that has been provided by IDA part B um as well as the number or percentage of staff members um who have taken part or that we have um the money we've used to uh
professionally develop or or offer professional development um in neurodeiversity approaches best practices in inclusive uh instruction of autistic students
um really for the the last you know five or so years um so that's number one number two um regarding uh actually a noamat um I
emailed about this too but I haven't received uh the answers to my questions that were from January 2nd of this year um really like I guess I'm looking for the uh the the percentage of kids in third fourth and fifth grade um who are
testing below grade level uh given their I Ready scores um and there should be you know a couple I Ready diagnostic tests that have occurred um and to follow up on that are I ready diagnostic reports being sent home
automatically to parents or do they need to request them to know where their kids are um that and then my final one um and this is um so in terms of uh budgeting and and
looking at like I know there's a million things that we could spend money on um but I would urge the board and anyone who's looking at budgeting to look into updating um the phone systems in the classroom
across the district and I bring this up because um as it is right now I think in most of the buildings the phone systems are essentially like um a one one way where um there's no
confidentiality and there's no privacy so you're not picking up an actual phone um a lot of the announcements are coming in through like the loudspeaker um and in a lot of instances such as kids getting called for related services so
our special education children getting called for related services um any discipline guidance um and and a huge one is the kids who are receiving um food possibly for like the weekend who are getting called out of class and then
um like in a group in a very identifying way and then they're and because it's like for everything like I get that that would maybe make it less identifying but essentially it just creates a scenario where like every time a kid is called everyone's like you know like what are
you getting called for and it becomes something where now everyone wants to know and we know that kids uh you know even very young are very uh good at figuring out like you know and being investigators about why kids are getting called down so especially with like say the kids coming back with food and uh
for the weekend and that kind of stuff that's just something that as private and confidential as we can keep that the better that will be especially for our special education students or the kids you know who who may be getting called down to the principal's office so that's all thank you
thank you Mrs penfield uh anybody else uh Paringer mr peringer yeah I just have a quick question we always hear about all their accomplishments and competitions and who
won what or finished in finished war i just wanted to ask because I couldn't find it anywhere maybe I missed it we had uh the we participated after two years of hiatus in a robotics
competition again wax robotics at Melbourne uh when I used when we used to have team 1989 we used to make a presentation to the board of ed to show what we do what we the thing was and I just feel if we
don't even mention it um we become one side heavy on band which is great music basically which is great I'm all for it sports which is great for it I used to play sports in
better years and uh so did my order uh but education is important too robotics is what the world is going to run off and I wish we would be doing more starting off in the lower grades we used to have a great program at the high
school we used to have a Lego programs at the lower grades now we just have VEX and that kind of is not even front and center i think like a technology program should be at least in my opinion so my
question is well not how did we do I know how we did because I looked it up and I watched it on the web my question is are we going to give those robotics people a chance to show off what they're doing are we going to invite them to the BOE are we going to have them present
and maybe get some more robotics action going in the district i build some enthusiasm thank you thank you Mr peringer anyone else great okay um item
O public comment i'm going to kick this off just by saying that the um regarding the ANOVAD discussion amending the district's contractual agreement with ANOVAT has been a matter under discussion for some time now the board's curriculum committee was kept in the loop throughout the process from all the
way back from when we piloted it and adopted the curriculum to adjusting the payment structure and the decision to bring in a different curriculum for fourth and fifth grades this past Thursday the board voted on an amendment to the contract that's viewed as satisfactory by our attorney the administration and the board it was not
prudent to discuss that negot discuss that negotiation in detail publicly until the matter had been resolved however board members were briefed along the way on the issues and as much information as was prudent to share was provided to the public during curriculum committee reports including at last
week's meeting when I reported on the process for evaluating curriculum and plans going forward with the ELA curriculum and the math curriculum and that included the fourth and fifth grade uh grade math programs i know Mr slam is very eager to respond to to the uh
financial situation uh yeah just want to comment on a couple of items uh so my understanding um from the number of emails I received um and the comment tonight is that you're looking at the incorrect contract uh so if you go back
to the email that you had shared uh and you look at page six of that email which is actually page two of the original contract which was signed by my predecessor you'll see uh invoicing payments there invoicing scheme right
schema uh so it says uh July 1st 2023 $64,000 july 1st 2024 $80,000 july 1st 2025 $312,000 so I'm currently looking at a contract which you have uh which I've
received a number of emails which were not so polite as your public comment tonight um which shows that that term existed before my tenure in the district started so that's the first thing I'd like to comment because it's clearly in the document that's not something I
change that existed before I was here i actually noticed it before your initial email and I was working to correct an issue that I found so that's the first thing so the second thing is that if you look at that original contract and then
you compare it to last week's revision you'll notice that the price per pupil is the exact same for those years in that original contract versus that revised contract so there was no drastic increase in price the per people price is the same in the original
contract and the revised contract which you have those documents and I'm glad that you shared them so then everyone in the public can also look to see that original contract and compare it to the latest revision which is on our agenda attachment or our last meeting so I just would like to share
those items uh additionally the PD costs remain the same from the original contract to this contract i take my job very seriously i care about this district i put my heart into this and I try to do my best for the district for the staff for the students in terms of fiscal responsibility in terms of
additional revenues and in terms of additional programs that can benefit our kids so thank you we have many uh curriculum we have many committee meetings curriculum committees we talk about in detail we've talked about many curriculums the revision cycle and Nova Mat we've talked about in
detail um but also as you're revising and choosing uh choosing different programs you have to enter a contract so when you're in terms of negotiating the contract sometimes those details uh should not be discussed in detail until the until a contract is is
they give us a a quote and we and we talk about a curriculum committee committee and we we accept it the Vernon Township School District is dedicated to offering students a rigorous academic curriculum with programs carefully vetted through research administrators input and teacher feedback for grades K through three mathematics we have
implemented Novat and our third grade math scores last year were 10% higher than the state average the highest difference in any of the district's math scores this year we plan to review the ELA curriculum and programs for grades K to 5 and the mathematics curriculum and
program for grades 5 through eight after further consideration we extended the math curriculum review to include grades four through eight we've conducted extensive research into successful programs used by high performing schools and are currently piloting sever several of these programs we've shared that at
our committee meeting as well i am thrilled by the efforts of our teachers interventionists and coaches as they work collaboratively to make data-driven research-based decisions following their training and pilot experiences in the coming months we aim to finalize our selection negotiate contracts and begin
developing the curriculum over the summer we look forward to launching these new programs and curricula in the 202526 school year with the full support of our teachers administrators coaches and interventionists it is important to note that curriculum review is ongoing regular process within all school
districts we engage in detailed discussions on these topics with our curriculum committee keeping board members well informed by providing research updating them on our process and addressing any questions they may have thank you thank you Mr rogers does
anybody have anything else for open board forum john I'd just like to say that we are so lucky to have somebody like Ray Slam as our BA he's the best BA we've had here in years he's highly dedicated professional knowledgeable and one of the most honest people I've ever met in
my life thank you for being our BA well thank you i really appreciate that nice John stephanie hi i have a question um I was going along looking at this as we were talking about it i personally did not
and I take full responsibility for this i think I was a little overwhelmed by the budget and our executive meeting last week and when I voted for the ANOVAT I think at the time I definitely would not have i do understand it a
little bit better now if the but I am am getting information that I'm looking at and hearing that I'm either mixing up or something's not exactly right um so I'd like to maybe even I don't have to get I have some questions i can present them
to you myself i don't need to take up the board's time doing it now but um it was confusing for me i just wanted to to say I know how hard everybody works to to get out all of this right and and I am new but I was confused and I was not
if it was said forgive me I was not aware that four and five was pulled so that's where all my questions had during the week I when I was reading about it yeah like like I said I know a lot of items on this could be cumbersome and confusing at any time please reach out
to ask questions if you see something on the agenda you're you're not sure about during the week we always welcome and that's why we put the agenda out ahead of time to ask those questions ahead of time but we've had a very detailed discussion in our curriculum meeting with another four four board members about these issues and I and I did say
it in my curriculum report at last week's meeting so you know I like I said I do apologize if I didn't hear that part but I definitely voted with not knowing not having everything i believe Mr slam may have sent the board
an email as well there was a live email slammed last week so I definitely understand right thank you for your email we're always open for questions we want we want people to know that yeah yeah it's important to remember that at any point in time we can abstain if we feel we don't have the information
necessary to make an informed decision too you definitely do that yeah yeah that is true but you ask the questions too because obviously if everybody abstains we're not going to get anything done so you know we we need to uh Yeah the last thing I'd like to say is is
there any possibility that we can permanently make our circle a square a triangle a rectangle again I would like everyone on camera i I like everyone on camera and I feel like I'm a million miles away from everyone i feel it's much more personal we're discussing important things yeah well let's get
together why is it like this is there a reason well workshops were working with us and in public meeting we're working with the public we can always get it we can always get it tighter too maybe we need to try that i don't know i I I would think there's more people just
from the number of comments and looking at the audience i think there's more people watching online and you know this is something I've actually asked since I joined that there's there's no Brian Fiser on that
screen that's a problem we were going to put a picture of Brian that's your problem my problem is Brian Fisher yeah when I sat there they used to always think that I was somebody else it was kind of Well a lot of people have stated to me that they can't they can't see they can't tell who's speaking no it's
not okay i was joking but it's really not okay we should we should fix that from my understanding the reason that we have it in a horseshoe during a regular public meeting is because we're not supposed to like the discussion happens at the workshop and the vote happens here and if the camera picked up all of
us you'd actually get a better view of us in the horseshoe than you would when we're pressed together because then you're seeing the Yes that's true that's true the problem is that the horseshoe is too big it's supposed to be kind of like a dis or maybe we need a camera with a different there's got to be a way
to get a camera with a bigger lens or something five on Zoom 18 on YouTube watch but people then watch in the subsequent days just throw somebody we could always try right
it's probably 35 just fly a drone around all right we do believe during co they spread everybody out oh you know that is true we did but I think we right that was five years ago thank you Mr smell i know but maybe we never brought everybody i was still the
hockey coach so don't blame me yeah but I'm sharing this table right now and I'm I'm left-handed i'm pretty much I've got my own this whole thing my understanding is that's a presidential decision what What is the camera how we sit oh
really i believe so all right i'm not going to make a rash decision right now the first thing I'd like to try to do is get the camera to actually you know capture all of us because you are right it would be harder in a way to do if we're all sitting in that table cuz
people are blocked by the people in front of me because I'd be in the back but uh so yeah let's see if we can fix it that way first and then try to move the tables back yeah maybe tables back we can be right up against that right
across chairs so he said if we went back we'd have to lose public but what if we move this back well you can separate the chairs too you got shelves behind you could separate the chairs just have two sections and then push push it back like like an overhead
and then the wire he's saying the wires will be on the and and I thought we got you last didn't we get you last time in this formation no not in this well this camera it was not this close either actually isn't the camera supposed to move isn't it doesn't it track you that
camera zoom out all the way oh otherwise I can I think we could edge back a little maybe get it a little lighter i don't know if that would solve it i I feel like they could figure it out okay all right yeah let's not microman all right we're gonna we're gonna work on
that we're going to work toward that mention all right are we uh I just want to I just wanted to mention something uh I got to go to the wrestling um dinner last night and what a wonderful group of uh athletes they all cheered for one
another it was very um couple we had a bunch of uh second team uh winners and first team winners and a lot of awards went out and you can tell the the closeness of the team and and how they they sat with each other they all were very very good as a team and it's a good
reflection on on on the the students our student athletes as the coaching and all the parents that also involved with helping out so um it was a was a nice experience so I just wanted to bring it up that's always nice to hear okay uh we
do have a closed session uh following executive session following this so how do I uh close we got to have action i don't think so so we can let everyone know that we're
going to turn that way around okay okay so the board is going to enter close session but no action will be taken and we will adjourn after that session is that all I need to say yes so the resolution will be recommended the board okay close session purposes legal
student matters uh no action will be taken after close session will adjourn um do I need to repeat that or can we just say it is recommended to do the thing involve you just said can I get can do I need a motion can I say you
need a motion okay so can I get a motion to adjourn to close session for the purpose of discussing all those matters that you said okay great thank you Carl and Lisa melissa and Carl then
uh all in Wait can I do all in favor i Thank you Mr