Audio's on. >> Check. Check. Check. Check. >> You still have YouTube video up, right? Audio's on. Oh, that takes everything out. >> Check check.
>> All right, let's do this thing. >> Let's make sure that we don't get any. >> Oh, that takes everything out. >> Check. Check. One, two. doing a loop.
>> You hear the >> one too. >> It's doing a loop of stream. You mean the stream is doing a loop? >> This is what happened last time. It like repeats later. All right. So, we're doing the >> Okay, we're going to do
>> I just >> testing testing Check form two. Check part two. >> Good. Hey everybody. Check. Check. Test test. Testing. 1 2 3. Testing the next mic down.
Wait, I just hit the meat on the board and see if that works or if we have to do it. >> Um, we still have to be doing this. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. >> All right. So, I'm going to use I'm going dark. Thank you.
Hello everybody. Um, it's recommended that the board enter uh return to open session. Um, can I get a motion? >> So, move. >> Thank you. Second. Right. All in favor? >> Roll call. Uh, I'm going to do uh other attendants
because we combined them. >> Oh, okay. >> Yep. >> Uh, Mr. O'Donnell, Mr. Mendes and I am present. >> Excellent. >> Thank you. >> Okay, please rise and join me in the >> pledge
to the standy for all. >> Mr. Slam. Thank you. >> The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Law was enacted to ensure the right of the
public to advance the interest 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 acting 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 New Jersey open public meetings law. Uh just
a quick note that our next meeting will be Thursday, April 30th. >> Thank you. Okay. Approval of the minutes. Um these are the minutes of the closed public session from February 19th, 2026 and the
public uh session meetings from February 19th. the public session February 5th and the public session meeting March 12th. Can I get a motion for approval? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Ray. Second, >> Charlie.
Um, any questions or comments? Seeing none, um, we get a roll call. >> Mr. Krauss, >> yes. >> Miss Nichols, >> yes. >> Miss Pallet, >> yes. >> Miss Pac, >> yes.
Dr. Ross, >> yes. >> Miss Varela, >> yes. Renobi, >> Mr. Zimmerman, >> yes. >> Mr. Sagalia, >> yes. >> Motion carries. >> Thank you. Okay, President's report,
it's me. Good evening, everyone. Uh, we have a lot to get through tonight, so I'm going to be brief. Um, but since this is our annual budget presentation, I did want to provide a little context before we move into the evening's agenda. Like many districts, Finan is facing significant cost increases,
particularly healthcare, which rose 25% this year. While we did receive additional state aid, it still falls short of what the state's own formula says that we should receive. And that formula assumes we use our allowable tax levy and adjustments to meet those gaps. We um we are going to review the budget
tonight that has been developed, one that reflects careful planning and difficult decisions. And our goal is to determine whether that budget is reasonable, efficient, and supports the needs of our students. But before we get into the budget presentation, we have a few achievements to celebrate. First and
foremost, Vernon Township School District senior I'm coming in and out on this mic, right? Um, Vernon Township School District senior Denzel Welling is here tonight, so we can commend him on being our district's 2026 Sussex County Unhung unsung hero. Denzel is being
honored tonight for his courage and perseverance in overcoming challenges, excelling in sports and academics, and supporting his brothers. It is my pleasure to read this resolution of the Vernon Township Board of Education honoring Denzel Welling as a 2026 Sussex
County unsung hero. This is long. Um, whereas the Sussex County School Boards Association in collaboration with the New Jersey School Boards Association recognizes unsung heroes from each school district in Sussex County to celebrate those whose character and
impact define the heart of our schools. And whereas the unsung hero award honors students who make outstanding contributions to their schools and communities but are often overlooked by traditional recognition programs. Students have who have modeled good citizenship, a spirit of quiet strength
and a commitment to elevating character, strength beyond the spotlight that inspires others. And whereas these unsung heroes may have organized community programs, selflessly supported their peers, or achieved significant academic success while overcoming
difficult personal challenges, disabilities or language barriers. And whereas Denzel Welling has overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to reach their full potential, serving both the school community and the community at large as a beacon of resilience and
integrity. And whereas on Monday, March 23, Denzel Welling was formally recognized for these achievements at the 2026 Sussex County Unsung Hero Awards Ceremony held at Sparta High School. Now, therefore, be it resolved that this Vernon Township Board of Education
officially recognizes Denzel Welling as an unsung hero of Sussex County and the Vernon Township School District. And be it further resolved that this resolution is presented to Denzel Welling as a sincere token of the Vernon Township Board of Education's congratulations and
best wishes for continued success as they continue to lead by example. One more. Just before uh you leave, Denzel, I just wanted to um personally say uh your story is inspiring. You're inspiring.
You're a motivation not only um to those who surround you in school, but I know that you are ser right um and so you are an outlier. You are special. Um and you're moving on. I wish you well. He's going to Spain in
the fall, right, to pursue a career in accounting. And so, um, just congratulations. Um, and I wish you well and keep going with your resilience, right? Nobody gets to define it but you, my friend. All right. Yeah. >> Thank you.
>> We do need a motion and a second and to vote on this, by the way. So, can I get a motion? >> So, move. >> Thank you, K, >> Charlie. Thank you. Sorry there. >> Can we do all in favor? All in favor? >> I thank you.
>> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Good night. Thanks for coming. >> Okay. And we have another uh celebration of ourselves. >> Yes. And I'll do that one. How about that? Uh yes. So, it is my distinct
honor to recognize the Vernon Township Board of Education for achieving their NJ school board's board certification. This was one of your goals and you've realized it in less than a year, right? So, this is both the realization of a board goal and a milestone that speaks
volumes about who you are as a governing body um and the standard that you've set for this district. Uh the certification is not simply a credential. We know that it is a declaration. And it tells our staff and our families and our community that the people seated at this table
take their responsibilities seriously that they show up, they do the work, and they hold themselves to the highest standard of governance. And in my short time here, this has certainly been uh my experience with this board. Uh to earn this recognition, each board member completed the rigorous requirements of
the school board's board member academy. They've deepened their knowledge and practice in the areas of ethics, goal setting, policy development, finance, and student achievement. And this recognition represents your collective commitment. Um so you will also be
formally recognized um honored at the upcoming Sussex County School Boards Association meeting on Thursday, May 7th at the Newton Country Club where this accomplishment will be celebrated alongside peers from across our county. You should be very proud of yourselves. and on behalf of our students, our
staff, and our community, congratulations. You've earned this. Yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you. I won't I won't be able to be there on May 7th, so I just want to thank each of our board members for the time and uh effort that went into all those trainings and the work commitments that
earned us this certification. Um, we undertook that work with the goal of strengthening our capabilities in order to be more effective in supporting our students, our staff, and our community stakeholders both individually and collectively. Um, I also want to recognize that in transitioning to a
more committee centric structure, we've uh strengthened shared leadership with more committee with our committee chairs taking on a greater role in moving the district forward, which as it happens has made my job as president easier. So, thank you. Thank you all for all of that
hard work. Okay, so now we've got uh you're up strategic >> strategic plan. >> So we have a community achievement. Uh I am incredibly proud to share that our district has completed its strategic planning process. Uh we started with a a
suggestion, an idea, a thought, and it has uh manifested into I think something that we can all say we're proud of. Um and that our community certainly had their voice in. uh one of my earliest and most important commitments was to ensure that the direction of the district was not determined by uh one
person or one perspective but by the voices of many. And so then what we experienced was the collaborative efforts um and um the community coming together to really think about what matters. And so we met on January 8th, we met on March 12th uh as the last one.
Um, and we thought about our vision, we thought about our values, we thought about our beliefs, we talked about our priorities. In addition to uh the people who came in person, we also had community members respond surveys. Um, and I think we we did a good job, a good
collective community job on identifying those priorities. I also want to extend a special thank you to Kelly Mitchell. She's our school board's association consultant. She served as co-f facilitator throughout the process and her guidance and support were invaluable in bringing the voices of our community together into a meaningful and
actionable plan. Um and so tonight you're going to hear um about the strategic plan throughout the budget presentation because um that is what is informing it. Um and so then as we enter into the budget presentation uh you'll
see uh the evidence of our work. Thank you. And thank you to everybody who participated in the strategic plan meetings and also to the members of the um community relations board who helped organize them. Um and now Mr. Krauss is chair of our finance committee is going
to give his committee minutes which will then lead into our budget report. >> Sure. Hi. Um finance and buildings and grounds committee met on March 11th and March 18th to receive an update on the draft preliminary budget. The meetings were attended by Evony Demz, Ray Slam,
Joe Van Kirk, myself, Jen Pellet, Ryan Fischer, and Ray Zimmerman. Okay, I'll just be quick on this. At the meeting on the 11th, the current projected costs and the major cost drivers such as increased health benefits, the actions to contain district costs, and the
realignment of district resources to support the district and strategic planning goals were discussed. It was discussed that the initial gap between revenue and expenses started at around a million dollars. At that point, we have not yet got our state aid numbers with and that was using the full utilization
of the health benefit cost adjustment and was reduced to approximately $200,000 through the district's action to contain costs and realign resources. At the meeting on the 18th, the committee met to receive an update on the draft preliminary budget and on recently released state aid figures. The
committee discussed the impact of the increase in state aid and the impact of the 6% cap on state aid increases. Because of this cap, it limitate limited the actual state aid received by the district by 2,595,836.
That's the amount we would have received based on a state's calculations if the 6% cap was not in place. Use of district resources, excuse me, to support district and strategic planning goals was discussed along with the recommendation to not utilize the full
health benefit cost adjustment and allow the remaining amount to move to banked cap. This will be a benefit to our taxpayers. I would like to point out that we as a board of education are responsible for providing a thorough and efficient education for our students.
That includes a responsible budget that addresses that. Every school district in New Jersey is facing the same budget crisis. There is simply not enough money to contain the rising cost of everything, especially health benefits. As an example, a couple of schools in
our area have been in the news lately. Sparta cut 27 staff members, 17 of whom are teachers. They also drastically cut their athletics and co-curricular budgets, and they eliminated their late buses. Jefferson, as I'm sure a lot of you are aware, is also cutting staff.
They are considering cutting their buses completely. They are talking about eliminating high school athletics and they're making a 50% reduction in extracurricular programs. We have not done anything like that in this budget through responsible planning and realignment of resources by our
superintendent, our BA, and their administrative teams. Tonight they will present to you a preliminary budget that addresses our district goals, aligns with the strategic plan, and most importantly meets the needs of our students. >> Thank you, Mr. K.
>> Mr. Mendes and Mr. Slam, if you would like to the name of the lights on afterwards, but >> where am I pointing I think usually when I click it, it just goes here.
Well, good evening everyone. Uh, first, thank you for being here. As you know, my name is Evony Demz. I'm honored to uh serve as the superintendent of the Vernon Township Public Schools. And joining me this evening is Raymond Slam, our uh business administrator. together.
Tonight we are presenting the 2627 preliminary budget for the Vernon Township public schools. Um, and I think I'd like to start by just sharing a little bit about the journey that brought us here. It is my first year in Vernon. And uh, when I arrived, my primary responsibility was clear to
listen and learn. I spent time in every school with every department and with our staff understanding what makes Vernon's community unique and what our students and families need most. And then alongside this community, we engaged in a strategic planning process where families, teachers, students, and
community members came to the table and they told us what they wanted for Vernon's children and for Vernon's schools. So, what you're going to see tonight is the result of our collective listening and contribution to defining our district priorities. Every priority
in this budget came from this community. Every investment reflects what this community said matters. And I'm pres pr proud to present that um this evening. It's not clicking. >> Yep. So, this budget was built in response again to what the community
said it valued. And and here's just uh a beginning of what we came up with together uh as vision. Safe schools, strong academics, supports for every learner, responsible use of taxpayer dollars. Um again, every decision we
made, every line item, every addition, every place where we held the line was tested against that one question. Does this serve Vernon's children? Uh we also came to this budget with a commitment to sound stewardship. And before we asked anything of the community, we asked it
of ourselves first. And I think um again, we will see that reflected. Um this budget is not the work of one person. It reflects months of careful review by our finance and buildings and grounds committee, our board members, and our district staff working side by
side. And as we know, our board works through the committee structure. And so the finance and buildings and grounds committee of our board has provided governance to the budget process. Um and so then this budget has been thoroughly reviewed and carefully vetted through the finance committee. We heard um
earlier uh the update from our chair of the finance committee, Mr. Krauss. Um and our shared purpose again is to serve uh serve Vernon's children well. So uh Mr. Krauss as the committee chair and vice president led that process with rigor and care alongside our board
members Charles Magaglia, Brian Fischer, Ray Zimmerman and our board president. Um equally u Mr. Slam brought the financial discipline the process requires and on our committee is also Joseph Vancirk who really kept us grounded in the real conditions of our
budget, our buildings, our operations and our facilities. Every Vernon student safe, supported, connected, prepared. And with that is then the statement that every Vernon classroom needs to promote rigor, creativity, real world learning, and
excell excellence. So here are the students that we serve. We serve 3,12 students. This is who the budget's for. 3,12 students, six schools. Our preschoolers
at Walnut Ridge are learning to hold a pencil. And our seniors at Vernon Township High School are preparing to walk across the stage. And supporting our students across these six schools requires not only classroom teachers, but par profofessionals, counselors,
nurses, transportation, custodial staff, child study team members, clerical staff, and other essential personnel. Here is our enrollment in our schools. You will see at the bottom that we have increased a projection of 209 students for next year. This is predominantly due
to our preschool expansion. We are bringing more families into our schools earlier. This is a benefit and this is our primary intervention. You see our staffing. We currently have 266 teachers, 373 staff members and 13
instructional leaders. Um, here is just a note about the ratio that we often see on our state website that says we have 12:1 in our classrooms. And that number really considers all of our classes, even the ones that are legally capped at eight students. But the reality is that
on average, our general education class sizes range from 21 to 31 students. So, where are we with class sizes and what does this budget do? Where are we headed? And so we're providing you table of the grades that we serve in the very
first column prechool uh preschool through high school and then what our current class sizes are. If we begin with preschool, the state provides a cap. 15 students is the max in every classroom. Therefore, that's our goal and this budget protects that. We have
15 students in each preschool classroom. Our current class size, however, in Vernon, if you'll see, in kindergarten, it's 21. Grades 1 to three, it's 21. Grades four to five, 21 to 24. And in our middle school and high schools, we're up to 31.
Now, what the state doesn't do is cap class sizes, but it does say that any school district that has less than 80% proficient is a high need district. And we're growing toward that goal. We're not there yet. And so then as we grow
toward that goal, we want to think about our class sizes because they immediately impact the quality of instruction. And for those types of schools for which we fit the profile, they do give recommendations on class sizes. And they
range from 21 to 25 with kindergarten using an expectation of 18. And why are we setting that as a goal? because we have all of our preschool students coming in at a capped class size of 15. For them to jump to 21 is a very large
jump and it's very difficult, right? When we're thinking about how do we manage our class sizes in kindergarten, our youngest learners with a teacher. So, what does this budget provide for the kindergarten students? We've added a teacher here for kindergarten to bring
our class size down from 21 to 19. We won't meet our goal with this budget, but we're moving forward. This will be a multi-goal, a multi-budget process. It brings us to about 19. In grades one to three, we're able to meet our class size
target of 21 in this budget. And for grades four to five and the middle school and high school, that will need to be a future budget priority. We didn't have enough um in our budget to accomplish that this year. Again, this um really talks about pro protecting our
investment from preschool to graduation. Um and it talks about the idea that we are certain that this is a multi-budget process. It won't happen in one. So preschool, this is our greatest investment. They are our youngest
citizens. Um and we are expanding access to early learning and putting money back in the pockets of Vernon families. Our preschool aid came in at port 4.7 million. It is state funded and it is representative of the fact that we are
fully invested in Vernon children. Next year we project to have 366 students in preschool. I think that deserves um a round of applause. Uh we will have uh 23 classrooms current
and we're planning on adding two additional classrooms. Um, we do pay for preschool transportation out of the LEA budget in the amount of $382,56, but it is carried in the LEA budget as a
bridge cost because once Vernon reaches its universe, and I'll talk about that in a moment, that cost becomes significantly offset by the preschool aid. Even though we're investing the $382,000 from the LEA budget, we are putting up
to $24,000 back in the pocket of our families a year per child because we know preschool can cost anywhere between$1 to $2,000 per month per child. Um, this is a strategic investment in
our families. So, what is a universe? So, what the state says is for you to get preschool aid, you are to reach 90% of your total preschool universe, who you think will be enrolled. And they calculate that by
twice the enrollment of our first graders. We're currently serving uh the universe is 340 and we're currently serving 227 general education students and 82 special education students. Ebony, why
are you separating out general ed from special ed? Because the state will only count general education students toward our universe. They won't count the special education students toward it. So, our gap to that universe is about 113 students. We think we'll reach uh
we'll reach that gap, close it by 2728. What does that mean? That we will pay less out of our budget for the transportation. It will be folded. And that's why we're calling it um a bridge cost. So 17 preschool classrooms at
Walnut Ridge, three more that are PSD, five classrooms at provider sites, and we're adding two new ones. Uh this is also a benefit to our community that we are in provider sites. It talks about our partnership. It speaks to our support of our local um preschool
providers and it makes sure that in essence we're um sharing um some of the funding so that they too can stay in business. Our next group is special education and here we are thinking about dependence
to independence. That's our goal. It reflects our commitment to every student with special needs and to their right to learn in the least restrictive environment. Uh so we know that our data tells us that we have about 25% of our students in special education. Uh that
is high in comparison to the state and the national averages which are 17% and 15% respectively. Um and our special education aid came in at $4.8 million which is $191,000 less than what we received last year. So
while special education aid this year we're investing more our budget priorities remain with our students. Uh we conducted a special education audit through allin. We reported on that. Um
um and this budget responds directly uh to that report. Uh in it you will see professional development to really address all of the areas of need that have been identified in that audit. We're also collaborating with our parents and our child study teams
reviewing our IEPs with the goal of transitioning students to least restrictive environments. And we're looking at our class sizes, compliance, and professional learning. Um, and in the budget, you will see that we've had to add three additional special education teachers in order to stay in
compliance with those class sizes that are a legal requirement. This aligns with our strategic plan goals one and two. Coherent learning pathways and academic strength, rigor, and support. What does this budget protect?
All of our programs and all of our supports are being sustained. All of our programs and all of our supports are being sustained. So what does this mean? Three years ago, the district made painful cuts. Whoops.
Did I do that too fast? Yeah. Uh, this community felt that, our students felt it, and our staff felt it. And we know what that looks like here in Vernon. And I know we're not alone in knowing it across New Jersey right now. We heard Mr. Krauss talk about specific schools.
We know that so many districts are facing the same difficult decisions. They are reducing their staff. Their programs are being scaled back. their services are being reduced. It is a challenging funding environment for public education and many of our
neighbors are navigating it in real time. We were navigating that same pressure and that same I want to say trauma 3 years ago. This budget then represents where Vernon's recovery is and the road to
restore what we lost. It represents the sustained need over multiple budget cycles to support a wide range of student needs across general education students for which we have 75% special education students at 25% and we're growing in serving our
multilingual learners at 2%. So, in this budget, we protect our academic support, whether it's core instruction, intervention, special education, or multilingual learners. We're supporting our student well-being in this budget. We continue with our school counseling and mental health
services, nursing and health, social emotional behavioral supports, and not just the academics. We're also continuing to support our co-curricular, our athletics, our clubs, our activities, visual and performing arts, student leadership and enrichment, and our college career life readiness goals,
which is our career pathways, CTE, dual enrollment, advanced coursework, and our postsecary counseling and planning. We know it costs when programs are reduced. The budget reflects our commitment to
continuing in the other direction. carefully, responsibly, and with our students at the center. And so, as we move to the financial picture, I want you to hold on to what you see at this slide because this is what we're asking you to sustain um together.
52 staff positions were eliminated in 2023. It was a responsible fiscal decision that the board at that time had to make under the significant funding constraints. It has been three years, but the impact
has been that our class sizes have increased across every grade level. Our intervention capacity was reduced. Our programs were strained. And though the recovery has been gradual, we still have a careful responsibility
to address what was lost. Again, this budget represents no programs cut. Instead, we're looking at targeted investments where need is greatest and it is funding our entire strategic plan. I stated earlier that our path forward
will require continued commitment over multiple budget cycles. It is a beginning, not a solution. Um, and where those funding constraints drove the 2023 reduction, this budget reflects a different fiscal reality and it allows us to renew our commitment to our
students. So here's our strategic plan. These are the five goal areas that our community said were the priorities. The coherent learning pathways. This budget contains K to8 ELA alignment. It
contains instructional materials in algebra 1, algebra 2, science K to8, and social studies K to8. It contains preK through 12 ELA instructional support. It allows us to reduce that class size in kindergarten as a first year goal from
21 to 19 and to continue to expand our preschool. And our second goal, academic strength, rigor, and support. It allows us to fund our MTSS initiative. We heard about that high classification rate, and we're putting in those tiered supports
prior to so that students can have the opportunity for those least restrictive environments. It contains professional development in response to our audit and our prek through 12 district coherence. We've realigned and redirected our resources to intervention at Lounsbury
Elementary School. And our high school world language classes are oversized, overenrolled, and we need to address that class size. So, you will see a world language teacher here. In goal three, student well-being and climate. Our specials classes are being addressed
in art and music. Those class sizes are hovering near 35. That's a safety concern. So, we're adding a teacher there to address the class size. We continue with counseling, mental health, and our safe, supportive schools with share 911 as a source for
our safety initiative. For goal four, strong partnerships and communication. This budget still doesn't allow us to um really recover in full incomplete. We talked about multibudget cycle and therefore in those areas of gap where
we're still not able to staff the programs and the supports that we need, we'll partner with our universities and our consultants to offer that support. We have realigned our technology platforms to find greater efficiencies. And for ESL, we're adding uh a stipended
support. And then for our facilities and stewardship, we're continuing with our transportation and maintenance. We have our EIP energy savings um and our commitment to student independence and LRE and strategic additions to meet student and operational need.
Uh so while talking about the budget, one of the important things to understand are some of the major cost drivers um that both we and other districts across the state are experiencing. Uh as you can see and as you've probably heard uh maybe in the
news or in the paper um health benefits increases for insurance are quite substantial in the past year. Uh and there's a lot of uncertainty uh in that marketplace in general moving forward. Uh in the previous year uh the current year rather uh we had a 25% increase. Um
that initially was actually a 34% increase which we uh went to market and negotiated and used leverage to bring down. Uh and we're anticipating uh a 15% increase next year. Again, that's a projected estimate. Um a year out from now, it's difficult to say what the
healthcare market will um renews will be at that point. Uh but working with our broker, we feel confident in that number. Uh in terms of out of district tuition, uh from this year, from last year, the current year to the next, uh there's about a 7.24% increase. Um we
have our contractual increases uh which are based off of uh uh negotiations and um our personnel. Uh transportation went up about 5.36% uh and operation utilities went up about
9%. And one of the important things to note I think as we're looking at these numbers um is that the tax levy cap is 2% uh unless you have an allowable adjustment uh which we'll speak about one of those allowable adjustments later in this presentation. So as you can see
those numbers are significantly higher than 2%. So with those significant cost drivers um and as you will note those are all things that we need to provide to our students or supports that we should be providing to our students. Um we do our
best to limit those costs but there are constraints there. We have taken actions to contain district costs. Uh budget cycle um the gap was over uh a million dollars. Um we like I said me I
mentioned previously we had uh leveraged that 34% down to 25%. Uh and in addition to that we are currently uh looking at our utilization on a month-to-month basis with our brokers look for other potential um opportunities. Uh so we
have that ongoing monitoring of uh benefit cost pressures to see if there's other opportunities for savings. Uh in terms of transportation uh the CPI uh was 3.58% this year. Um what essentially that means is that any vendor that will renew with you uh has to renew at the
3.58%. Um and if they won't renew with you, it's because they want to increase their contract more than 3.58%. Uh so we do our best uh to work with our transportation vendors um to renew as that is generally a cost savings as
compared to the alternative. Uh we also consolidated routes based off of changing out of district placements. Uh and we also explored uh route uh sharing with other districts that may have similar out of district placements as we do every year. Uh which generally if you're able to find those shared routes
uh that's a nice savings because you're then able to split that route you know with another district. We also applied title one uh to offset homeless transportation. In terms of revenue and offsets uh we use uh PA which is the preschool funding uh to offset uh
anywhere where we're allowed to. Uh that would be uh staff salaries obviously uh benefits um utilities since Walnut Ridge is a standalone preschool building uh we always try our best to utilize that state funding uh to have as least less a less impact on our our general operating
budget. Uh we also applied our EIP energy rebates uh as revenue. Uh we have that EIP program we've been working on. Uh we anticipate energy rebates coming in next year. And then we also maximize rate and semi-reimbursements in terms of operations. uh the other side of that
EIET program, you have the revenue, the other side is the cost savings. Uh so although energy costs are going up uh without those projected savings, they would have gone up more. Uh so that is just a good example of needing to plan things out and although they take time
uh to go into place, uh they do have uh those positive benefits once those savings come into play. Uh then obviously we always look at our uh vendors uh and our contracts to see if we're able to get a better deal. Uh I think the board is pretty familiar with uh me going for savings. I look for
every penny. Um and then uh we always utilize cooperative purchasing insured services uh where it makes sense to do so. Uh and then in situations where maybe the cooperative doesn't make sense, uh we go out the bid and just try to get as much competition as possible to get the best price we can.
Uh so in terms of state aid uh so uh we've had a pretty rough path with state aid uh based off of the S2 funding formula that went into play. Uh however this year we did uh we did get an increase of about a million dollars. Uh as you probably saw
on the previous slide uh before received stated we still had a gap of around $200,000. Uh and that would have been uh with utilization of the full healthcare cost adjustment which you'll see uh on later slides and as Mr. uh Krauss noted uh we are not recommending the utilization of the full healthcare cost
adjustment. Uh so very positive that we received that increase. Um if you look at the next part of the slide uh based off the state's own formula uh we should have received more. However uh there is a cap uh in terms of the amount of state aid a district can
increase uh an amount that they can decrease. Uh unfortunately that cap wasn't in place when we were decreasing. Uh but it is now in place while we were increasing. Uh so based off of the state's own numbers, we should have received about $22.2 million. Uh we received about 19.6. Uh so we were
shorted about $2.6 million because of that um 6% cap which we hit in terms of the increase. So, with that being said, um as the cost of things go up, uh even with the increase in state aid, the increases in
state aid, even based off of the state's calculations, uh are not where they should be, uh which makes it difficult uh to continue to fund the and provide the supports that we strive to provide. Um because of that, you'll see that the tax levy is about 70% of our revenue.
Uh, state aid is about 25% of our revenue. Uh, that's about a $78.7 million budget. Uh, the fund balance, uh, which you will probably hear me talk about over many, many meetings. uh essentially is a way of just the
easiest way to explain it is at the end of the year we have to end with a balance and then we need to once we're audited that year's audited we then use that those funds to help act as a tax uh relief or a revenue in the next budget we create. So that $2.4 million right
there is the audited balance at the end of the 2425 school year. So that's why it's important to manage that budget. Think about budgets in threeear cycles because if you end a year without that balance, you're going to be short that revenue and that's when you have uh what
I call a fiscal cliff. Uh and the only way to fix that is additional revenue. Uh which districts are very limited in what revenue they can obtain uh or cuts which that would be a lot of cuts. So that is fund balance. You will hear me talk about it again many times throughout the year. Uh and then our
other revenue uh are things like interest um the uh EIP rebates which I mentioned previously uh for energy efficiency um we have a tuition student uh and and odds and ends like that. So we've talked about cost drivers,
we've talked about state aid, we've talked about our revenue. So now we want to talk about in a more detailed uh way where do the funds go? What are we supporting these resources? Uh so as you'll see about 54% of the budget is
salaries about 20% is uh employee benefits. So that's 74% of the budget uh go to goes towards staffing right essential um now you see about 22% goes to specialed
services those are clearly mandated programs uh and then we have our operations uh which for facilities operations maintenance is about 10% uh general ed uh transportation is about 6% and then all the way down at the bottom uh you see instructional materials so
those are the books the material materials and supplies that are directly in the classroom that's about 2.8%. So I think this picture helps understand uh the overall view of the district budget uh and where resources uh are supporting students.
So on the previous slide 70% is of our revenue is tax levy. Uh so the recommended tax levy for 20 uh FY26 is 55,165,220. uh that is an increase of $3,29,468 from FY26.
So that is a 5.81% increase in the tax levy, not the tax impact, but the tax levy. Um and that is made up of two components. That is the 2% allowable tax increase and then a 3.81% healthcare cost adjustment. So you
take two to 3 point plus a 3.81 5.81 81. Uh and essentially uh the healthcare cost adjustment is allowable in uh that is a uh benchmark against the state health benefits program uh and it is in place so that when there are significant
changes in the cost of health benefits uh it doesn't result in essentially drastic cuts in school districts. Um the state recognizes that the health benefits market is not something that districts particularly have a lot of control over. uh the state itself
doesn't have a lot of control over it. I don't know that anyone has a lot of control over it. Uh you do your best, but um long story short, it's an adjustment allowable to go over the 2% uh in those situations. Uh and again, we are not recommending to utilize the full adjustment amount, which means that
about $676,429 of that healthcare cost adjustment will not be utilized in this recommended budget. uh and that will go to bank hat um which uh can exist for a period of three years. Uh so what does this mean the Vernon
homeowners? Uh so the average assessed home value in Vernon uh and just want to repeat that's assessed home value not market value is $320,700. Uh we got that information from the Vernon Township tax assessor. Uh so essentially that is a 5.36%
uh felt impact, right? That's the tax impact, not the levy increase. That's the tax impact. So for that average assessed value, it's about $2346 $234.16 increase uh per year or $19.51 per month. Uh so what does that $1951
sustain? Uh I think Avenue did uh Mr. Demen Mendes did a great job of uh really highlighting um you know the supports that are in place for students that we're maintaining uh and then the supports needed supports that we are adding uh especially based off of the strategic plan and the community input
that we received which has been great. Uh but essentially it's supporting you know over 3100 students, six schools pre-K through 12 um our existing and mandated programs and then our staff and our students which is why we're here. So
this is you know a student- centered budget uh as it should be since we're a school but uh we we always try uh when we are making these budgets to be stewards of taxpayer money uh and make those fiscally responsible decisions uh
because we recognize the impact um that has on burning families. Um so it's a balance uh and we we try we work very hard to try to maintain that balance as much as we can. So, we'll end here before taking any questions. And we're just kind of bookending our mission, right? This is a
budget built for Vernon students, safe, supported, connected, and prepared. And in every Vernon classroom, we need rigor, creativity, real world learning, and excellence. And we believe that uh this budget funds it. And we believe that this is a budget that we've built together through our strategic planning
process. Thank you. Here's our timeline and next steps. and we'll take questions. Thank you. >> Okay, the floor is open for questions, guys. Charles,
>> Ray, you said back at the one of your first slide, you had a we were short a million dollars. Uh you said internally closed I believe or 800,000. >> So is that cut you guys made internally.
So take that million dollars and you bring it down to 200,000 >> that shortage. Okay. So >> you guys gone through >> where you can make cuts. I heard you said you re reallocating resources across the district. Um
>> yeah, we spent a a significant amount of time um reviewing the strategic plan goals and how we could allocate resources to those goals. uh in a significant amount of time seeing how we could realign resources we already have to meeting those goals with the thought
process sing goals and the goal being to um support those goals with a with our resources and have as least amount of impact as possible on taxpayers. Just for um a level of specificity, um when
you saw us present goal one for strategic plan and the staffing that we're adding to the budget, we were able to add all of the staffing um for the strategic plan goals without adding anything to the budget. In fact, we were
able to reduce it by two FTEEs and that wasing the current staffing roles and responsibilities that we had. So even in funding the strategic plan staffing, it was not adding to the budget. What we did add to the budget uh was funding for
our textbooks for algebra 1 to social studies and science which we don't have or they're digital. And so then we have a commitment to making sure that we have textbooks in our students hands andor classroom libraries and readers and novels. Um those are some of the things
that were lost as the budget was really cut over time. And so then that's a part of that recovery. >> And um did the million dollar shortage is if we went from we kept the current budget and
just moved forward this year with the same budget we had last year, right? Is that why we were short a million dollars or >> uh No, it would be um more variables than that involved, but essentially it was over a million. It
was just so we start the budget very early and we had been working on a lot of these realignments and things like that uh for quite some time when I we say you know just over a million dollars that's when I actually got to the point where it's it's in my sheet my my document and I'm comparing
revenue and expenditures it was probably significantly higher than that um based off of the changes that we were able to make. Um but essentially um what I'm saying is that when I projected this year's revenue uh and I we uh had our budget review in for our expenditures
and we went line by line uh and I put everything into the sheet. We were off by over a million dollars. And then what we did was we continued that review. We continued the review of requests. Um we looked at everything two, three, maybe
four or five times. uh and compared it to current year spending, last year's spending um really looked at any requests that um you know were different different, right? Is there any other way we could fulfill this request without impacting next
year's budget? Um we looked at every option we could to try to try to minimize that impact, which is how we um got that that gap down to the $200,000. Um, and I just want to know that that $200,000 would have been with the full utilization of the healthcare cost adjustment. Uh, which I mentioned I
think was around $627,000 that we're not using. Uh, so really it without that adjustment we we would have had to cut without the city increase we would have had to cut significantly more >> or we would have actually had to use the full adjustment.
>> Have to use the full healthcare adjustment. Yeah. >> Yeah. And probably also >> Yeah. Combination. Yeah. Okay. Um any any other questions? >> I have another one. Nobody else have anything. >> Go for it.
>> Um so the um did you see any gains with the EIP? So I I know we talked about it several times, but did it really help give us helped impact how you're able to do this budget this year? >> Uh so so yeah. So the use of projects
are still happening. So, I haven't seen it in the electricity bills yet. Uh, but I worked closely with Honeywell, who we're doing the EIP with, uh, to get projected savings um, based off of the guarantee that we have in place with them. Um, and I utilized that to offset
what projected energy costs will be next year. Um, which in itself, again, a lot of variables related to that, especially with current events. And >> and we're also doing a couple other things that you guys have to have in place, right? We have the cell tower going up. We haven't collect any money
off of it yet, right? >> Not until they break ground. >> They're killing me. Uh they last update I have is the spring uh and they have reached out uh to us and the town just letting us know that they will be going for permits. I'm waiting for a date on that. uh town has been very supportive
uh and has said that the mayor has said uh that that they will help us uh you know as much as they can get those permits in place so we can get that tower in place which I think will be great because there's revenue. It'll be great because we'll have better cell service. Uh and then also there's space on the cell tower set aside for
emergency services as well. Uh so there's a safety aspect that that'll improve too. >> And we're also looking at selling ads for our stadium so that we can bring in revenue that way. We just got We just got one, so I have to review it. >> Excellent. Really,
>> thank you for not spending the entire >> Yes. I mean, I I know it probably hard, right, when you're doing a budget and you're like, "Well, it'll be easy if we just take it all, but it was nice that um you kept to the goals, the secret plan, and you based it on that, and we
we're doing what we we ask for that the community asks for. So, good job. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. Um, speaking of the healthcare adjustment, just a a note, you know, it went up 25%, we obviously hadn't budgeted for that because no one
expected that. So this year you had to put in an estimate, right? So what what did you estimate for? >> Uh, so ba based off working with the broker um 15%. Um the thought process being that after a 25%
increase um hopefully that served as a market correction, right? Uh >> one hopes. >> Yes. Um but again last year this time we had budgeted at 12%. And it the first number we got was a 34 and we got it
down to a 25. Um, >> so we have a little bit >> Yeah, we have a little bit of leverage when it comes to this. Um, but not a ton because we're dealing with Horizon, right? Horizon's huge or one school district, but you know, we work well
with our brokers and, uh, 25 was not fun to get, but it was better than a 34. >> Definitely. So, we we'll always try our best and we are watching the utilization month over month to see if there might be an opportunity to go back to the table with Horizon and say, "Hey, we're running our utilization's running a lot
cooler right now." Um, maybe you guys overshot a little bit, you know. >> Thank you. >> I think it would have been higher we not try to address some things this can talk to us how we reduced it there as well by bringing things into the year.
>> Oh yes. So there were certain so whenever we are going through the um budget request process sometimes there are certain things requested in the budget um that if we can uh let me put like say maybe a no in next year's budget but it may be a yes in the in
this year's budget. So, when we switched to a self-insured prescription plan for was FY25 with Kroger, uh, one of the things we had put in place was a um like kind of we'll call it a backs stop of uh $117 per member per month for
prescription and then anything over that um they will owe us a check. Uh so right now that check is projected to be about a million dollars. Um, so because uh of that projection and some of the rebates from prescription manufacturers coming in a little bit higher than originally
projected, it gives us a little bit of an opportunity that some of those things where we said, "Hey, no, we can't do this in the budget. We have to take it out of the budget as part of that getting that number down uh part of the $800,000 that was part of it. Um, but because of this information, um, we
could then perhaps do some of those things in this budget." that money coming in this year or the >> this year. Yeah, they're reconciling right now, which I think is code word for collecting interest on money they owe us.
But I'll be I'll be knocking on the door quite a bit. So, >> okay, any further questions? Okay, seeing none, thank you for the discussion and the perspective shared. Um, the vote on the budget will take place later in this agenda. So at this
time we'll move forward to our next reports. Um unfortunately our chair uh Mr. Fischer had car emergency tonight and was unable to join us. So um he will be doing his report I guess at the next meeting. Oh, do we have a sub? Oh, we
have a sub. Okay, great. Mr. Smeaggley is going to fill in. >> Thank you. And this is technology then? >> Yes, this is at this technology meeting. >> Okay. >> I have to say the are very nice and um The technology meeting was on uh the
March 18th uh from 4:30 to 5:30. Um all members were present. Um the purpose of the meeting was administration presented a comprehensive overview and action plan in the support of strategic plan number two uh which is academic uh strength,
rigor and responsive support. And specifically they targeted objective 2.4 for integrating technology and artificial intelligence in the service of critical thinking. A balanced curriculum embedded approach K2.
Um highlights from the presentation. The uh the district approach center centered around balance research ground grounded framework that reduced the screen dependency invested in print and uh technical learning and deploy AI with
clear ethical guardrails all the services a service of the build building student independence and critical thinking which I would like to just highlight critical thinking because that was um there's a lot of research came out lately and talking about how with
the computers and screens were not critical thinkers anymore. So, um the administration took that as a as a sign to make sure that we we make our students critical thinkers. So, um appreciate that and I just want to
highlight that that you that they did that. Um the the uh strategic indicators and action steps discussed uh curriculum uh curriculum integration year one um this is by June of this year.
Right. Right. and it's uh using Gemini and uh notebook LM which will be embedded in revised curriculum units of ELA K to 12 history 9 to 12 library media technology K to8 and with
sequentive uh content areas phased in over a five-year roll out um ethical AI instruction 100% of year one students will receive explicit instruction and ethic ical AI use by June of 2026.
Uh professional development 100% of an instructional staff will in each roll out year will complete an AI focused professional development prior to implementation. Screen time guidelines per unit screen time parameters will be written into an
all revised key units by June uh 26 uh 2026 not day 26. Um cell phone policy New Jersey cell phone ban will be implemented district uh district-wide by
September 20. It was then right. Okay. >> It the ban is for September 20th. Oh, okay. So, be >> September 20 26. Okay. Um, uh, print reinvestment. Um, this is a textbook reinvestment
order to fulfill, uh, be fulfilled within this, uh, budget cycle. uh baseline data u baseline measures for students critical um thinking proficiency, writing quality and screen time will be established and reported to
the board annually uh beginning this June. AI uh elective courses, which is a nice to see, is a grade six, a quarter elective focus on responsible AI use,
and in grade nine, a s a semester elective focus on responsible AI use as well. Um both courses will introduce students to Gemini LM with emphasis on recognizing AI
errors, evaluating AI generated content and understand AI is not a tool for generating information on their behalfs. Um next step is continue curriculum development, professional development planning, rollout coordination in alignment with the five-year strategic u
timeline. And if I could just say one thing, they the administration did an excellent job with their presentation. They put down the goals and objectives of what we're going to meet over the next five years. So, it was very refreshing and I can't wait to they
share with the rest because I think everyone will be pretty impressed. So, and that's it. That's what Brian wrote. He gave me four pages. What they're saying? >> That's great. I'm really excited about this. It's uh I don't know, very proactive. Um, okay. Does anybody have
any questions about the technology committee report? Okay, my um Sussex County Educational Services person stepped out. So, we're going to come back to her and right now we'll go to the student le li leaison the very long
the state oh we have a substitute um Kalista O'Donnell could not be here tonight because she is starring in the school play. So, um, so Miss Pek is going to read her, uh, report. >> Uh, I apologize in advance if I
mispronounce anyone's names. Uh, okay. Winter sports have concluded. Ice hockey, uh, ended with a 3-2 to1 record. Boys basketball ended 1212.
Girls basketball ended 817. Girls swim ended 46 and Isabella Ku Kuziki qualified for finals and finished second in the 50 free and sixth in the
100 free in the NJ high school meet of champions. Boys swim ended 34. Uh for girls ski, Carolina, Sir Zerponiac, Nadia Macaulay, Riley Patrusia, Rachel
Patrusia, Tegan McCabe, and Juliet Jalbert as a group made fifth overall in this state for girls ski and slalom. Bowling ended 155, girls wrestling ended 136.
For the district results uh for wrestling, Melody Guzik Upurch won first place and is Vernon's first ever girls district champion. Stephanie Dval Cortez placed second. Julia Oakley placed fourth. Isabella
Elder placed fourth and Kayn Hey placed fourth. for regions results. Melody Guzzek Upurch placed second and qualified for the state tournament for states. Uh Melody Guzzek Up Church on uh
oh, she became just the sixth female wrestler in Vernon history to place at the state tournament. Melody came into the state tournament as the 12th seed, but wrestled all the way up to an incredible fourth place finish. She closed out the season with an
outstanding 414 record and as only a sophomore she has already accumulated an impressive 70 career wins. >> Uh boys wrestling ended 114. Senior True Digiseppi won his
True took the eighth place at the NJSIAA boys state wrestling tournament in the 190 lb weight class. Congratulations for True for being in the top 10 at the 190B weight class
at 200. Uh practices have begun for spring sports and softball has a tournament in Myrtle Beach. The student council is planning for the spring pep rally. For our clubs, unified club held a
spirit/inclusion week. Monday, March 16th was neon day, stand out together in neon. Tuesday, March 17th was mismatch day, celebrating our differences. Wednesday, March 18th, was pajama day and bring a stuffed
animal to showcase acceptance and comfort. Thursday, March 19th was tie-dye day and Friday, March 20th, was signing the unified pledge and challenge day. Uh, Key Club is volunteering for the
senior citizen show of the spring musical. Uh, is helping out with concessions and making cars for the seniors. DECA had a successful state competition. The spring SAT team has begun
for HOSA. Uh signups are now open with a $25 fee. They are in need of advertising from the community through social media. They need signups and the race will be on May 3rd.
The marching band played in the Macy's St. Patrick's Day parade. Uh for theater show week is this week. Our Showtime's opening night is the 26th at 700 p.m. The middle show is the 27th
at 7:30 p.m. Closing night is the 28th at 7:30. Please come and support all of our amazing cast and crew for this wonderful production. Choir is prepping for their spring concert. Band is prepping for their spring concert.
Thespian Honor Society had a successful induction on February 11th. They inducted 10 new members. Five of our seniors reached the international level and one standing senior had already reached that level last year, awarding 1,800 hours of work put into the
theater. National Honor Society is volunteering for the spring musical senior citizen performance. They are handing out dessert after the show and making place mats for math honor society. Officers were announced.
Our president is Al Roman. Our vice president is Liam Kelter. And our secretary is Ariana Rodriguez. The senior class fundraiser is Penny Wars. Uh it is a competition between
classes. We discussed this earlier. You could fill your jar full of pennies. Um anything that is not a penny in your class jar will count against your class. So only pennies. Uh let's see.
Guidance counselors have made a spreadsheet with upcoming scholarship opportunities for the senior class. And that's it. Okay, thank you so much. Um, and then we're going to go back. Stephanie, are you ready? Are you uh prepared for your
>> Northern uh Sussex County >> the Sussex County Educational Services? I attend the Northern Hills Academy um meeting every month. This one wasn't too exciting. We didn't have the budget. Um but they were doing so great. Um they
have over 11 million dollars in the budget. It's unbelievable. and they have about 50 students at the school. It's a public school. Um and um I love the administration. They're great. Superintendent Andrea is wonderful. Um
they're looking for a new principal now and a new VA fairly new who's very good. And um they're thinking about purchasing the building next door, which I want to say used to be Academy.
>> Oh. I'm not positive. I may have that wrong. So, don't quote me on them. But it's full. It It was a school and they're thinking of buying it outright and um it would be great because we have five burden students that go to the school. >> So, um who knows? I just wanted to
report that and let you know what I'm doing with my time. >> Thank you. >> That's great. >> Okay. So, uh now we're up for uh item uh 12, right? Public comment. Did I skip anything? I feel like I skipped curriculum, but it's not on. >> It's not on yet.
>> Okay. Oh, okay. It comes at the Okay. Right. Right. I'm still I'm still back in my public comment. Uh, Mr. Slam, you're going to read our public comment. Just during the course of a public meeting of
the Burden 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 individuals who take this opportunity that they must identify themselves by name and section of town and limit their comments to agenda items and/or issues that directly relate to the operation 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 the time of the meeting or at any time. All comments will be considered and response be forthcoming if and when appropriate. The board requests that members of the public keep their comments to a limit of five minutes, 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, other protections under the law. Student names
should never be used. The board bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by the public during the public portion of a board meeting. Members of the public should consider their comments in light of legal rights of those affected or identify their comments and be aware that they are personally legally responsible with potential liability for the comments
that they make to the board. >> Thank you, Mr. Slam. Does anyone from the public have uh and and if you do come to the mic, please um state your name. Do we have an online capability tonight? I don't see any screens.
>> Yes, we do, but nobody has their hand raised. Okay. >> All right. So, no public comments. Um, so item 13, superintendent's report. Mendes. >> Okay. Um, so just an update on our community relations uh as part of our
commitment to strengthening our community partnership. We both on the board and in the administration. Um, and I think the impact of the work is already uh being felt. our district's presence across our media platforms has grown significantly.
Uh we have increased visibility. Uh digital advertisements, videos, community surveys. Uh the strategic planning process was amplified through those efforts. Um Melanie Mahia is with us. She is our community relations um
person. Um she secured a radio WRJ radio to celebrate one of our students, Gavin Wookski. Uh he's a Vernon Township High School football player named to the NJFCA Super 100 team. He was placed uh among the top football players in New
Jersey. And so then that spotlight on radio was just a really um great um just show of how we're showcasing our students and how we're using social media to do it and how we're using our um public relations stipen to do that as well. So thank you to Melanie for all
that you're doing. Um, she also had us on our front page of Advertiser News North with our strategic plan. So, we're going to start to frame all of our public um our uh public um communications and where our community
is beginning to recognize um all the good things that Vernon is doing. Um we have a page on patch.com that's been launched. It's providing another platform to share district events and news with our broader community and our LinkedIn profile has been set up. So, we're we're moving and grooving. Um the
district has also established a consistent and ongoing partnership. Uh I said that with Advertiser News North. Um but now um more direct to our goal, our community relations work is now connected to our buildings. Melanie is
working alongside our principles and schools to begin to streamline our communication districtwide so that we can ensure families receive clear and consistent information no matter which school their child attends. This was also another priority um that our parents mentioned during the process.
So, we're happy to make a lot of progress and report out on that goal. Um with regard to celebrating our schools at the high school, you did a great job, right? I'm not going to redo all of that, but I am going to say that the list of scholarships available to our graduating
seniors is growing every day. As of this writing, there are 50 scholarships avail um available totaling over $40,000. Um and I know our students are taking advantage. Uh the high school spring production of the Hunchback of Notre Dame um opens tonight and that's why
Kalista O'Donnell, our board liazison, is not here with us. So, if you haven't made uh plans, please come out to the play tomorrow, the musical um or Saturday. Um I did get to go to the senior lunch. Our senior citizens came
and they had their own um uh musical production put on for them. Uh I want to say there were almost about 200 um senior citizens in attendance. Um it was sponsored by the SCA, so our parents at work and in action. Uh and they just had
a ball. They came, they ate their lunch. Um, we got to speak to them, myself, Mr. Slam, Mr. Gaglaststro, we went, we got to speak to um them as we um moved around the tables and we got to serve them some dessert. It was just so pleasant. Um, I have to say the pride is
beaming in the room. When you speak to our seniors about our schools, teachers in our district. And so then they had a lot of stories to share. Um, and so then we're just so glad that we got to spend um some time with um those members of our community.
Uh our middle school, The Little Mermaid. Oh, and >> I have to tell you, my mouth was wide open. I just did not believe that those young girls were singing that song for real. Those um it they sounded like they
could be on Broadway for real. Um it was fantastic. the whole cast. Um what a wonderful job. So kudos to our um music and band directors and all of the um staff members who make that come to
play. Um to pass uh the talent on the stage was extraordinary. Um and it it it genuinely took my breath away. It also included special daytime performances for Cedar Mountain students highlighted by a sensory friendly show throughout um so that our special education students
could go. Um I did bring my nephews while one didn't make it through the whole thing. The other told me uh I can't miss the second half. I have to stay. It's incomplete if I don't stay. Um and so um just kudos to our team for
making it um just um also sensitive for our students who have those sensory needs. Uh our elementary schools, Walnut Ridge, Cedar Mountain, Rolling Hills, Lounsbury marked love of reading week from March 2nd to the 6th. The week was filled with student led activities centered on building a lifelong love of
reading. Love it. Right. And Mansbury Hollow successful STEM event on March 19th, which was also fantastic. We extend our sincere thanks to Michaela Hollandbach for exceptional leadership in planning and executing the program. Um there were interactive centers uh
highlight for the students who remained highly engaged, energized and enthusiastic throughout the day. And then a thank you to our VTEA um for their generous sponsorship of that senior dinner and show at the high school. Additionally, we appreciate their support of the ESL and math nights
at Rolling Hills as well as the literacy and steam nights held at Lounsbury Hollow. And as it relates to our agenda, we're pleased to announce district artist of the month for March. The Glen Meadows students artwork is being displayed at the board office. Uh and the high school students at the
municipal building attached is our enrollment report attachment S1 and our HIB uh report for February 26 is attachment S2. >> Thank you. Um and then item does it look like it's
15 here? Okay, >> we don't have a 14, guys. right to 15 new superstition we have um reports discussions and recommendations Mr. Snipia. >> Yes. So, we had the policy committee
meeting um on March 4th. Um the entire committee was there at the time and um we went over the we went over um the policies for um second reading today which are um
um see with the uh freedom of uh read which are we realigned them. Um we eliminated some and then we added some for district media. um that is for second reading. We
also have nepatism the chief and employment of the chief administrator and then we also have the one we talked about 511 511 that is the eligibility of a resident student. Um we actually spent a little
bit of time on this. It was brought up on the last meeting. We had a a pretty long discussion about it. Uh so the the the committee met again this time and we talked about it. Um at the end at the
end the committee felt that um we to go forward with the way it is um grades one to 12 um because it's the best thing it's the right thing for our children. So um there is a lot of uh a lot of
people were I have to say it wasn't an easy decision. Um we always want to do what we can for our staff um when it's possible but our first responsibility I think is to our children and to the town. So um we made a decision that we
we would push forward with it. Uh that's our recommendation at least and uh that's up for second reading tonight. Um we talked about the first reading uh uh 5112 is the entrance age um for it's just a minor update some wording were
taken out um we it's October 1st is the cuto off um no exceptions no waiverss and um three year and then I think there was some it was in there but it's the wording changed a little bit for uh if special uh education you can be three
years old you have to be three years to apply. Um the other thing what one or the other one we talked about was the use of facilities. Uh main thing about this I would like to uh to point out to the rest of the board is um we remove the
the um the rates. Um this is going to be produced by the administration once a year um or published once a year and those are the rates we have. So we don't have to go through the policy update every year if we want to change rates. Um there was a lot of wording taken out
of it as well, but um the majority of it wrapped around the um what it's going to cost. And the reason for the take the cost out was we have to keep up with the cost of our of of the schools. So um janitor costs go up, our POS go up, we
have to accommodate for that. So, um the other one we had we we talked about which we we thought we might get out at this time but um to to uh a lot of changes that are happening. We're going to pull we're pulling back. We're not actually it's not on the agenda but it
was 2361. It was acceptable use of computers and networks and we are going to be that should probably be out next probably next month or the or maybe the month the month after but it'll it'll be out. on our agenda. The other thing which I keep on forgetting because we
are um besides policy we are governance um we have not been behind on any of our Oprah requests. Um we have two open currently. One's brand new and the other one is and the other one is been open a little bit but it's not overdue. So we're right on track what opal requests
and uh I don't think we have any quests this month or the month before or anything extra. >> Yeah, there was Thank you. >> Okay. Can I get a motion for uh to approve uh items 15B1 through B2?
>> So moved. >> Thank you. Carrie second. >> Second. >> Sarah. Um questions or comments? >> Go ahead. >> Charles 511 resident non-resident
students. We're keeping the same policy we have now. the um the the one we voted on last time, which was it's pretty it's the pretty much the same. I think there was a couple words changed, but the main difference was it was uh a grade 1 to to
12. Prior it was K to 12. >> So, okay. And yeah, so if you're non-resident staffing, uh you could bring your child to school starting at grade one. And the reason why we said is it kindergarten is very difficult to project since people bring them uh are
constantly enrolling the kids there. But once you get the first grade, we kind of we have the baseline already of what what's going to happen. So >> John, >> you have a question. We used to get an email once every couple of weeks, every month with the requests. We don't get
them anymore. >> It's just it's just a link now and you can click on it anytime. >> Yeah. >> Where is the link? Um, I have a bookmark, so I don't know. But >> I I I just I keep the email in my the one she uh Nicole, I think, sent out like three months ago. >> Oh, that's you. Please. I didn't know
that because you got an email all the time. >> They made it nice. They put a little pivot table on there and stuff and >> Yeah, you can just click. Thank you. >> Yeah, >> I can add the link sent out to everyone if I give it to Ray's going Ray's going to send the link out tomorrow for every
>> Thank you. >> Thank you, Ray. Okay, great. Uh, so any other questions? Do a roll call. >> Miss Plet, >> yes. >> Miss Pac, >> yes.
>> Dr. Ross, >> yes. >> Miss Sakarella, >> yes. >> Mr. Zimmerman, >> yes. >> Mr. Smeaggley, >> yes. >> Mr. Krauss, >> yes. >> Miss Nichols, >> yes. >> Motion carries. Letter C,
personnel resignations, retirements, and terminations. Um, I'm recommending the approval of the following non-certificated staff resignations. Um, in letter A and letter B, uh, I'm recommending the approval of the
certificated staff resignations and retirements. Letter C to deactivate following substitute teachers and letter D following non-certificated staff terminations.
Number two is appointments. Letter A is certificated staff appointments. Letter B is non-certificated staff appointments. Letter C is substitute appointments at the appropriate substitute rates for the 2526 school year. Letter D, uh,
certificated staff for substitute administrative coverage at the rate of $200 per day. Letter E, CLC program recommendations. Letter F, mentor fee deductions for the 2526 school year. Number three, compensation
and adjustments. Letter A, hourly stipen adjustments. Letter B, certificated staff sixth period teaching assignments. Letter C, start date adjustments. Number four is leaves of absence. Letter A, leaves of
absence for certificated staff. Letter B, leaves of absence for non-certificated staff. Number five is transfers. A, transfers of non-certificated staff. Number six is the 2627 payroll schedule which is found
on attachment P1. That is personnel. Thank you. >> Um, so motion can I get a motion for uh items 15 letter C1 through C6?
>> Move. >> Stephanie second. >> Second. >> All right. Questions or comments? >> I just want to say I see Mr. Miller is resigning as the head coach of the swim team. And I just want to say Mr. Miller
taught me how to swim as a child up in Highland Lake. So, thank you. Thank you very much for all the years of your your time and effort for our Verdon swimmers dark day for swim team. But all right. Uh, anybody else questions or
comments? >> All right. Uh, can we get a roll call? >> Miss Bac. >> Yes. >> Dr. Cross. >> Yes. >> Miss Varela. >> Yes. >> Mr. Zimmerman. >> Yes. >> Mr. Simanglia.
>> Yes. >> Mr. Krauss. >> Yes. On everything but 3B. I abstain. >> Thank you. Miss Nichols. >> Yes. >> Miss Plet. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> Item D, curriculum and instruction. Dr.
Ross, now it's your turn to give your committee report. Um the curriculum committee meeting or committee met on Monday. Um in attendance were myself, Charles, Sarah, Mr. Fay, Mr. Gagliaststro, Mr.
Menddees, and Dr. Shep. Um Sarah Pek will be taking Jen's place on the committee. Thank you, Jen, for all of your time and efforts on the committee. Um we're anticipating that Sarah's background in education and special services is going to be a great value to the team. So, we're glad to have you,
Sarah. Um, the C committee continues to align all curriculum and instruction efforts with board goal five. Our focus remains on advancing academic growth and inclusive learning environments through a whole child approach, ensuring that district priorities reflect a balance of
rigorous instruction and robust student support. Some key highlights from our committee meeting. The district is benefiting already from our ELA partnership with Ruckers University. um and Dr. Rachel Leila.
This month, Dr. Laya conducted comprehensive school reviews and thanks to to strategic budget realignments in our current year's budget, we're able to improve our classroom libraries, purchase new novels, and ensure we have high quality reading materials for our students. And this is all informed by
her um expert recommendations. Next, our um multi-tered system of support, which I learned we are coining our Vernon tiered system of support or VTSS initiative, is in full swing. I thought that was cute. School leadership
teams are working with our expert consultant there to refine tier one supports, ensuring every student receives high quality, responsive instruction in their regular classrooms. A big shout out to our students and the testing team led by Nick Lasso for a smooth NJ GPA administration. We're now
looking ahead and preparing for the NJSLA in May. We continue to align our human resources with our goals. Uh top priorities include a preK to 12 ELA supervisor, two interventionists, three special education teachers. Um,
the admin team is focused, as you heard in the budget presentation, on optimizing class sizes and moving toward increased student independence and appropriate levels of student support when it comes to aid appointments. Importantly, and related to our
technology committee report, I'm really impressed by um again by how Vernon's taking a proactive approach to technology use on cell phone policies. And now, as you heard in, it was Brian's committee report, but Charlie read it. Um, now
ahead of the curve on AI and tech use practices. And I couldn't resist a little bit of context. I provided some research for you all if anyone in the audience is interested. I have extra coffees. Um but
the the decline in test scores got a this is nationwide and really worldwide got a lot of attention around COVID because there was such a sharp decline right then and it was seemed obvious that you know we were out of school and this was to blame and it's not unrelated
but the decline it we test scores were increasing and student achievement was increasing for like two solid decades before 2012 and then it started declining and 2012 2013 is the year in which over 70% of adolescents started
having a smartphone. So there are lots of you know it's correlation it's not causation but in the time since there's been just increasing body of research on the negative impact of devices our students personal devices and schoolisssued devices in many cases as a
distraction for their learning. So I wanted to I'm proud that we're working on balancing our use of tech. That was a word that we really were focused on in our committee meeting and in our strategic goals. We want to think about how to maximize like the benefit from
our tech and minimize the costs. So the data that I handed out. I just want to highlight a few things for the for the good of the order the education of our community. So the first um bit of data here is that on average
children age is 8 to 18 in the US spend seven and a half hours a day watching or using screens. So you know kids this this age are awake like 12 to 14 hours a day you know ideally 14 15 hours a day. So it's half of their waking time is
spent on screens. And as parents, you know, we try to work really hard on limiting screen time when they're home, but they're accumulating a lot of screen time at school during their school hours as well. So, just back to their performance globally, students appear to
perform best on tests when they have a low to moderate use of school computers. Um, when students report using these devices every day and for several hours during the day, performance lowers dramatically. The more that students I'm I'm not
reading the citations, but these are all cited my sources here, but um consist the more that students use digital tools in their language arts class on a daily basis to perform more basic activities, the lower their reading comprehension achievement. Meta analyses on paper versus screens
demonstrate we comprehend screens less well than paper, especially when reading non-fiction. Um, and there's a lot of data to suggest that the processing that we do of information that we read on screens is faster and shallower than the processing
that we do when we read paper. 59% of students uh in the PISA, which I forget what that stands for, PISA, it's like a global education data. >> It's a leading town.
There's no short in the background education. >> What is it? >> Is it the program for international student assessment? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um so this in this data collection 59% of students said their attention was diverted
uh due to other students using phones, tablets or laptops in their lessons. So even if the student themselves isn't is avoiding being distracted by their screen, if classmates have their screens open or using their personal devices that they're that's distracting to them
as well. >> Screen >> secondhand screens. >> Yeah, there you go. >> Um the students that report being distracted by screens score significantly lower in in their and it goes on. I mean, these are really
the highlights. There's there's more about the type of material that our students are exposed to nationwide. Um, and really a focus on not just personal devices, but school issued devices, too. So, their Chromebooks. Um,
so I'm really just overall heartened to hear. Okay, one more stat. This is from college, but uh these college students, this was a study in 2025, nearly 40% of class time was spent scrolling social media, checking email, or watching
videos on their laptops. So, it's just really, really hard, as everyone knows, to be near to a screen that will do other things >> and to not do those other things and instead just to listen and learn, you know, invest in your work. So this is
just really really important um area of focus for us and I uh love that we're focused on it and that we're really giving it the attention that it deserves. two recommendations today. professional development is the elevate
PD you'll see we're recommending for approval which is for the rotate drop block schedule >> at the high school and the district calendar we're we are approving
>> uh recommending to approve and this contains for next year this contains additions of half days in February and June to maximize our professional learning for our staff which is really key as we're working on this curricular alignment and the tiered
systems of support. That's all. >> You're not going to talk about the snow days. Okay. >> No, it's on there. >> It's not in my curricular purview. >> True. >> Hey, you want to walk us through the
recommendations? >> Sure. >> Section D, curriculum and instruction. Um there is travel in attachment C1 the 2526 student teacher assignments in number three. Number four is uh the
approval of the strong evaluation model as the evaluation instrument for administrators, teachers and other certificated staff for the 2627 school year. Number five is the 2526 revised district calendar in attachment C2.
Number six is the 2627 district calendar in attachment C3. Number seven is the elevate educators for professional development in the amount of $3,000. That is attachment C4.
Number eight uh is the proposal for Wayground for formative assessment platform for students in the amount of 26,255. This is replacing um software that we have. We talked about that in our budget for technology. And so I want you to
know that we're reinvesting. Um and so then um number nine uh is approval for the proposal uh from Renaissance to replace link in linkit data warehouse in the amount of 30,85. Again we are replacing and that's
attachment C6. >> Can I get a motion for item 15 D2 through D9, please? So >> John second questions or comments >> question number four the strong uh evaluation by we have to approve that
every year. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. So we didn't agree with that. I thought that once we paid one we just kept it. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. >> Any other questions? I will call vote.
Dr. Ross, >> yes. >> Miss Aarella, >> yes. >> Mr. Zimmerman, >> yes. >> Mr. Sanglia, >> yes. >> Mr. Krauss, >> yes. >> Miss Nichols, >> yes. >> Miss Pell, >> yes. >> Miss Pac, >> yes.
>> Motion carries. >> Q. Item E reports. >> E reports. Um the first one is the HIB report reviewed at the February 19th, 2026 meeting, which is attachment R1. Number two is the random drug testing
and school safety report for February 2026, which is attachment R2. >> Can I get a motion for items 15 E1 through E2? >> Stephanie, thank you. Questions or comments?
We get a roll call vote. Miss Ferrella. >> Mr. Zimmerman. >> Yes. >> Mr. Simanglia. >> Yes. >> Mr. Krauss. >> Yes. >> Miss Nichols. >> Yes. >> Miss Pellet. >> Yes. >> Miss Pac.
>> Yes. >> Dr. Ross. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> Thank you. Item F, finance. Mr. Slam. >> Uh, forformational items, uh, we have use of buildings and grounds attachment number one.
For recommendations, uh we have our uh monthly financial reports which is letter A and B. That's attachments F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F and F6. Uh letter C, uh recommended for approval transportation for the month of March,
attachment F7. Uh, letter D, uh, we have a, uh, approval for stage sanding at the Rolling Hills Primary School, uh, out of the cooperative for $7,178, uh, effective March 19th. That's a
retroactive. Uh, and then we have letter E, uh, approval for a lease agreement between Pittney Bose, uh, and the, uh, board of education. Letter F is the approval for the replacement for the boiler and burner at
Lounsbury uh where we have the current boiler is uh in disrepair uh effective the 19th. Uh letter G uh is uh withdrawal from capital reserve related to the replacement of that boiler and burner. Uh letter H is the uh purchase
of kitchen equipment uh for the Walnut Ridge kitchen that is at a fund 60 and that is through the co-op that is attachment F11. Uh letter I uh this is the replacement of the broken steamer for $24,246
93 out of fund 60 attachment F12. Letter J, professional service from USA Architects uh not to exceed $20,000 uh for engineering architectural services to remove a wall at the high school uh for additional uh eating space for our
high school students attachment F13 uh attachment. Next one is um proposal from USA architects uh for mechanical engineering for natural gas piping uh and preliminary gas conversion work not to exceed $25,500 attachment F14. Letter
L uh is uh approval to apply for the Nita Maui 21st century CCLC continuation grant year one amount of $400,000. Letter M uh recommended for approval application for the New Jersey Learning Acceleration Program High Impact Tutoring Grant in the amount of
$160,000. Letter N uh is the approval uh to accept a donation of 34 gift cards in the amount of $850 from the Acme Foundation as part of the summer nourishing neighbors program in the amount of $25 per gift card. Letter O is accept donation of $1,250
from Walko Group for 21st uh century 21st century uh 21st CCLC snappers at Clement Middle School. Uh letter P is the approval uh to for the disposition of the following which are either indistry or obsolete. Uh be sold on Fed
gov deals. Uh letter Q, approval uh for district's participation in Sussex County Day, uh including the service of district administrators and board of education members as volunteers. That's going to be held on at the Sussex County Fairgrounds on September 20th, 2026.
Letter R, uh approval for the submission of the 2026 2027 preschool education aid budget application. Uh letter S approval by the board of education recommend approval for by the board of education approved the proposal from SHI for e-ray category 2 projects in the amount of
$29,899.92 attachment F-15. Letter T uh is a proposal from Questivity Incorporated uh again category 2 project in amount of $6,65.96 attachment F-16. Letter U. Uh, uh,
proposal from Pure Sand for four scrubber at Clemental Middle School. That's replacing a broken water scrubber $18,271 to the co-op attachment F17. Sorry, my computer just like went down a bunch.
Made me go cross for a second here. All right, so let me go back to where my spot was here. All right. Uh, letter V. uh proposal from uh PC University uh distributors inc for the placement of outdated smartboards at Cedar Mountain Primary
School in amount of $88,371. That's test F18 letter W. Uh proposal for SHI for Chromebooks. Uh this is for the sixth and 9th grade. Uh cases and license amount $59,666 attachment F19. Uh letter X approved
from Apple or districtwide laptop updates uh in the amount of $18,36 F20. Uh and letter Y uh is the recommendation for the approval adoption of the tenant budget for school year 2627 which includes the information on the budget, the use of a cost healthcare
cost adjustment. Um and then also the approval of the maximum professional expenditures and then uh there's also the approval of travel related expense reimbursement. And then on the addendum, you'll see the
approval of the semi um cap. >> Thank you. So, can I get a motion to approve items 15 F2A through F2Y? >> Uh F2Z. >> Yeah.
>> Zoom. >> Thank you, John. >> Thank you, Ray. Questions or comments? >> I have a question about the addendum. um came to us today. I just wondered why we're on a cap for assembly.
>> Oh yeah, >> so there's two portions of semi that they um rate a district on. One is participation uh which we're at 100% and the other is uh the a percentage of revenue actually collected based off of
projected revenue. So, I spoke to the county VA about this and I don't know if everyone recalls, but they changed the reimbursement rates for SEMI and they changed the way that those services were packaged. Um, this happened, I don't know if remember last year where we said, "Hey, our um, for example, in the
current year, the projected revenue from the state is $12,000. The year before was $17,000." So, part of the question came when we created the 2526 budget was why was there the drop? And it was because they re packaged how they allow you to submit
for services essentially. So long story short, you used to be able to package them a certain way and there used to be a certain rate provided for any um service in that package. Right now the reimbursement rates are lower and the way that they package the services together is different. So essentially
the amount of revenue that a district could have significantly went down. Now the reason this ended up coming up as a flag is because when they projected the revenue in 20 let's see it would have been 2324 >> for the 2425 school year that was before
the federal reimbursement rates changed. So that year they projected that in 2425 we would have received $117,000 in semi-revenue. In reality we received I think the number was like 14 or 15% of that. And then the following year when the state came out with the projections, they said, "Yeah, you're gonna get like
$12,000." I was like, "Oh, you mean like pretty much what we received last year after they changed the reimbursement rate." Uh, so point being is a lot of districts are having the same issue because there's a lag in when the projected amount happened the year before to then the reimbursement changed and then the actual amount districts
received in that year. In the current year, for example, we're ahead of the $12,000 because >> things have changed. We've all adapted to how those changes have gone into place and positive news is we have more revenue in
semi this year than the $12,000 they projected and then next year it's likely that we'll be on track uh because the state has adjusted the way they project revenue. So instead of $17,000 in revenue now they're projecting for the current budget sorry the budget that we are putting on for recommendation about
$65,000 which is about half of what they did in 324. basically on them and they changed the game when when you made >> federal government changed the rules after the state projected what they thought we'd receive. >> Okay. Thank >> sorry I was a really long way to answer
that. >> But it's okay. I understood it because I remember that talking. >> I'm glad you asked that. Thank you. Um other questions, Charlie? >> Uh F. Uh I got a couple. I have four. So
we start with F. Um the Doilers replacement. Yep. Um because we do mention somewhere we're having the architects look at gas line conversion and there's an old hoping that the gas line is going to come up here. I know it stopped that >> over there on uh right past Legends, but
um >> is this are we going to be prepared uh for the gas line with the new boiler? I I believe it's dual dual fuel this boiler that you're buying. And would it have been cheaper just to repair it to
get by if we knew the date that the the gas line would be here or would that be not even possible because we'd be in the school year? Um you know what would have why are we replacing it and not waiting for the gas? I guess. >> Uh so there's a few variables that went
into this decision. Um, so we'll start off with some good news. The, uh, we've been told the gas line will be here before September or by September, right? So around that time frame. Uh, which is why we have the architect proposal on, uh, because they will run the gas line up to our building. However, we need to
design how it will be going into our building, right? Um, in terms of this boiler, uh, it's approximately 20 years old. I think it would have cost around, I'm going off of memory, probably around $30,000 to fix based off of the issues we were aware of. I think it had at least two compartments that needed to be
replaced. Um, but that didn't mean we weren't going to go in there and maybe find something else that need to be fixed. Uh, so when looking at it to repair for at least $30,000, uh, a boiler that's approximately 20 or so years old, we didn't think that could have been a little bit of a sunk
cost, right? Because you could repair it and then continue to have issues because we've had issues with it previously. Um, to answer the other part of your question, it is going to have a dual burner on there, so it'll run off of oil and gas. So, we thought it was a good opportunity to replace uh an aging piece of equipment that'll likely continue to
have issues uh with a modern, more efficient piece of equipment and also uh change the burner so that when the natural gas does get here, we'll at least have one boiler already that we can hook up right away. >> Is there going to be is is there a cleanup process when you convert because
oil is dirtier than >> So, we have two boilers at Lounsbury. So, the second boiler would still be based off of oil. Uh but eventually down the road uh when we were to for example there are some boilers in district that are should be replaced when we look at
doing the conversion and other boilers that are newer and we haven't had issues with that we'd recommend would not be replaced and that we would just replace the burner aspect. So it would be a dual burner. But when we did switch everything over, we could then look at taking the oil tanks out of the ground
which would have a cost associated with it. But also once you have those oil tanks out of the ground, you no longer need to pay. We pay annually for a contractor to do hydrostatic testing to be our operator. And it's a significant amount of money. I think it's I'd have to go check, but it is a significant
amount of money. Um, so that would reduce our annual expenditures by that amount, but there would be the onetime cost. We have to literally take the oil tanks out of the ground. >> Okay. >> Then I had uh S, which was the - I just you don't have to look at it. It's just the array process gives us a huge
discount right on on that's why we use it for technology needs is >> Yep. It's a uh for us it's about 60% what we'll get back for both of those items. Uh and this is uh starting in July because it's the next funding round. Uh the funding round that we're
currently in those funds have been spent for equipment because there's two different categories. There's equipment but then there's also internet. We always are using the internet. We get 60% back on that. Uh but for this equipment, yeah, starting in July, our money will be re um appropriated and those are federal funds.
>> Okay, the next one should be an easy one, too. U W is the Chromebooks. This is the the normal swap out, setting out the putting the old ones out the past year and uh bringing the new ones in. >> Yep. So, that's part of our normal
refreshment cycle. Uh it's grades six and nine. Um couple of things going on right now which led to this decision. Uh one was to lessen the impact on uh taxpayers and bless you and uh the next
year's uh budget. Um and that really has two variables associated with it. one um the healthc care uh rebate that I mentioned previously uh allows us to have some flexibility with that and then the other associated with it are right now Chromebooks are fluctuating greatly
in cost based off of the cost of RAM um and we're having issues having essentially having vendors um commit the prices right uh so we felt that there would be a savings by purchasing them now because prices have been going up uh
we felt also that that would allow us to get the devices um in house so we can set them up and they're we ensure they're ready and there's no logistical issues with getting them here on time. But then also there's the pos there's the positive impact it has on next year's budget.
>> The tech department they recommended newer models right that were cheaper and sturdier something that was part of this. Yeah, they went through a process um and they picked a Chromebook that uh they were happy with for I think a number of different factors or positives
about it. Um then my understanding is also that they all come with I think a year of ex one year of accidental damage um protection. >> Oh, that's that's nice. And then the last one is X. It it's the Apple I'm
assuming these are uh staff or for special needs. >> Uh so they're MacBooks. Uh, and it's again part of the uh replacement cycle and they're meant for I believe art and music. >> What is item two? Because um item one
that's 20 it's $140 or $139 for for 20 of them. >> Item one, the first list. Oh yeah, >> item one. It doesn't show you on the bill. It just says you pay item one and it tells you what it is. It gives you everything about it and it says item two
just code. It's number >> on the quote. Yeah, >> I'd have to pull it up. >> They trying to hit us with Apple Apple Care or something on there or something in there or >> It looks like an >> glass maybe. Do you guys probably the
>> Can we circle back to the >> Is that just get back to me when I check? >> Yeah. >> Okay, great. >> Have it right now. No, >> I don't have it off the top of my head as we're going. >> Yeah. No, to get it get to me tomorrow.
Yeah. >> Okay. Any other questions or comments? I just want to thank ACME and the Walkeel group for their donations and also urge the rest of the board members to sign up for Sussex County Day. If you haven't already, we are manning I guess a booth
or something so we all get to fill a time slot. Okay, we can move to a roll call. Oops. Mr. Zimmerman, >> yes. >> Mr. Seangleia, >> yes. >> Mr. Krauss,
>> yes. >> Miss Nichols, >> yes. >> Miss Pallet, >> yes. >> Miss Pac, >> yes. Abstain or noted. >> Thank you, Dr. Ross. >> Yes, >> Miss Varello.
>> Any abain or noted. >> Thank you. Yes. Great. >> Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. Uh number three, special services back. >> I can hear this one. I'm already there. Yep.
>> Uh so we have a recommendation for approval of the out of district placements as noted in the table below. Uh we have a recommendation to approve the group with Kland services for physical therapy and speech therapy services in the man of $120 per hour for 2526 school year. Approval for Oxford consulting services for occupational
therapy services and medical $25 per hour for 2526 school year and then agreement with high focus treatment centers for educational services provided the following rates for 2526 school year the assessment fee uh partial hospitalization program and intensive outpatient program at the rates noted.
>> Thank you. Can I get a motion for items 155 uh F3A through F3D? >> Thank you. Alice second >> second. Thank you. Questions or comments? >> Um cuz I don't have the binder, but all
these schools are approved. >> Yes. Yep. >> List right. >> Two Windsors and a Northern. All right. Thank you very much. >> Any other questions, comments? Okay. Can we move to a roll call vote,
please? >> Mr. Smagle. >> Yes. >> Mr. Krauss. Yes, >> Miss Nichols. >> Yes, >> Miss Pallet. >> Yes, >> Miss Pac. >> Yes, >> Dr. Ross. >> Yes, >> Miss Varelo.
>> Mr. Zimmer. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> Thank you. Item 16, public comment. The prior notice that was read uh applies. Do we have any members of the public who would like to comment tonight?
Seeing none, do we have any online? >> Uh we do. We have one attendee, but they don't have their hands. >> Okay. No public comments tonight. Um, item 17, open board member forum. Would anyone
Mr. Saglia >> Yeah, because I I haven't had any chance. >> Yeah, because you haven't spoken tonight. Can we say it's your birthday? I just want to say um I'm glad about the been pointed out a couple times different committees and
the the administration's commitment and all our staff's commitment to critical thinking. Um I'm always for technology, but we don't have technology without critical thinkers. So it's it's amazing how it even found its way into our
budget tonight. So, and it's very it's I'm it's it's proud to be from a district that that takes values that very highly. So, I think we're going to have a great number of kids coming graduating out of this district um because of that. So, thanks for the
commitment to that. Um um also thanks for the presentation and I just want to say because HOSA they have that race 5K I mean I think maybe every board member should join and do it. I think it's a high point on May May 3rd, right? I
think it was on the >> gauntlet has been thrown down. All right, guys. Who wants to train with me? Actually, you're a runner. >> I've already had four heart attacks. >> All right, we got three people. >> We might be slow.
>> It I think he should be on. >> Yeah, my daughter's got me signed up. probably doing it already, right? Yes. No, he's just trying to rope the rest of us in. >> Okay. >> Three miles there. >> Yeah, I could. I don't know. I should say I think I could do that. >> High point. It's beautiful. >> Yeah. All right.
>> For a good course, >> I'd be weather dependent in my case. >> Okay. Any other uh comments? >> I'll just say Evony and Rey and the admin team engage so authentically with the strategic plan. That can be one of
those things that's just like we did a strategic plan, but you like really really worked with the data to see what the community said, what we wanted, and then to align our budget to what's your phrase to be a fiscal representation of
our community >> of our priorities. >> Priorities. >> Yes. >> So, it's awesome. It really made everybody's like time worth it, you know, that devoted to to that effort. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And um I just want to say that you know I've been on this board for a while
and in the past we have had to make significant cuts and also rely on our tax lobby for funding and those steps each year um along with this monumental effort by our current administration to use use our funds efficiently have let us escape extreme cost cutting measures
this year and I'm just so grateful to not have to go through that again. Um, this budget reflects careful planning to allocate our funds in keeping with our strategic goals and attention to detail and a focus on efficiency and we just want to thank you for all of that hard
work. >> Okay, well said. >> Thank you. >> All right, so that's uh it unless anyone has anything to add. We're going to motion to adjurnn. Can I get a >> So move
and carry. All in favor? Hi.