Ladies and gentlemen, the adequate notice of this regular meeting as required by the open public meetings act was provided by the posting, mailing delivery and filing of this notice on January 9, 2025. This notice was on that date posted on
the bulletin board in the township office, sent to the Courier News, Echoes, Sentinel, and Tap into Warren, and filed with the township clerk of the township of Warren. All in accordance with the requirements of the Open Public Meetings Act. Please rise for the pledge.
Allegiance to the flag United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Mr. Hegel. >> Right. I'll now call the role. Mrs.
Dalton >> here. >> Mrs. Granholm >> here. >> Miss Keller >> here. >> Mr. Mfetta >> here. >> Mr. Otto. Mr. Tor >> here, >> Mr. Valentino, Mr. Weinstein
>> here, and Mrs. Zan >> here. >> We have a quorum. >> Thank you, Dr. Mingle. Miss Keller. >> Resolve that the board of education approves the public and private session minutes of the October 27th, 2025 board meeting. >> Do I have a second? >> Second.
>> Right. I will call the role on the minutes. Mrs. Dalton, >> yes. >> Mrs. Granhome, >> yes. >> Miss Keller, >> yes. >> Mr. Mr. Malfetta. >> Yes. >> Mr. Tor, >> yes. >> Mr. Weinstein, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Zan, >> yes.
>> Minutes pass. >> Thank you, Mr. Hegel. Dr. Mingle, correspondence and information. >> Just one thing here. Uh, there was one HIV investigation at Mount Horb School, which was not confirmed. That's all for that section. >> Thank you, Dr. Mingle. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the November
meeting of the board of education. A couple of very quick comments on tonight's agenda. As item C2, the board will approve the retirement of Lisa Carlson and Michelle Roth. Miss Carlson has been with the district since 2001 and Ms. Roth since 2005. On behalf of
the board, thank you both for your long service to our community and we wish you well in your retirement. Thank you to the entire Warren School community for your generosity during the Halloween essentials drive which took place during our school Halloween
parades. donated items totaled 3,72 pounds of desperately needed personal cleaning and food items. This effort was coordinated by our district administration in partnership with Feeding Hands Pantry, which distributes at Stone Crest
Church here in Warren. On very short notice, our school communities stepped up to ease the burden of food insecurity for our neighbors. As we quickly approach Thanksgiving, I hope that we all give special, humble thanks for the bonds of community.
Warren is special. It is a place and people that depend on each other. And that's all for me, Dr. Mingle. >> Thank you, Mrs. I just want to echo those comments about the Essentials uh food drive. For those of you that aren't familiar with Feeding Hands, it is a an
organization that operates throughout the region. Only about a year ago or so, they began distributing food in Warren spec specifically at Stonerest. Uh, and they were I don't I don't know how to describe their appreciation for the fact that we did all the effort for them. uh
to the point where we were going to drop it off, but because we collected so much, they actually sent their crews and their trucks here and all those materials were redistributed within our local community, which I think is important for everybody to be aware of. U a lot of times we do activities where
we make collections and we send it off to some nonprofit that serves wonderful uh needs in other places, but this was really to serve the needs right here in Warren. Uh they've asked us to continue supporting them if there are opportunities. So, I just want to again say Feeding Hands, that is the only um
food pantry that specifically has a Warren uh location for distribution. And so, that is an organization that we've partnered with. There have been ongoing conversations with the PTO presidents about how uh across the the schools where they do a lot of this kind of collection and work could be better
coordinated so that there's more of a communitywide approach like there was with this effort. It was very short notice. Uh credit to Mrs. Tuja who was the first administrator to reach out to me with a thought about what can we do because we're starting to hear from some of our our immediate community members.
Uh and I did also want to highlight that as many of you are probably aware uh we partner with the Lions Club every year. The Lions Club does a huge Thanksgiving um basket drive that they distribute meals to lots of families in the area, but they specifically help support families whose children go to our
schools. And so, uh, this coming weekend, our buildings and grounds team will be, uh, with the Lions Club helping to package those materials and then we'll hand out next Monday something like 50 meals to the families of our current students. And so, if you're looking, you know, as you're thinking
about year-end support, Feeding Hands and the Lions Club are both nonprofit organizations that bring the resources back to our community. So, I just wanted to highlight those. Uh, that's it for me. >> Uh, thank you, Dr. Mingle. We do not have a presentation this evening. We do
however have a discussion on the 2627 calendar proposal. Um and we're going to move committee report of the ad hoc calendar committee up to this discussion to launch our um discussion. And for that I am turning to Miss Dalton.
>> Sure. So our calendar committee had uh two meetings. I think the most recent was November 14th. Um right correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah. And um so there are some significant changes to the proposed calendar for this coming school year, the 2026 2027
school year. Um and those big items are that spring break would be separated from Easter for next year. Um that is aligned with Wong Hills. Um Labor Day would also be a 4-day weekend. So in addition to having Monday off, the
Friday before would also be a day off. um election day, um schools would be open for for both the primary and the regular election. Um and it is of note that Chief Ferrero has committed to providing on-site police coverage at the
polling locations. I know that's been a concern in the past. Um the other significant change is that um a lot of people have requested that we specify ahead of time what will be done with unused um weather or you know whatever
emergency closing kind of days. Um so if we use one or two days they'll be given back at the end of the year. And if it's three or four day or I'm sorry if if we do not use um sorry I'm not saying this
right. If we help me out here, if we if >> we only if so if we use like let's say three, we only have one left that would come off the end of the year. There's only one or two. But if we don't use any of them and we have four or we only use one, we have three or four, we would extend Memorial Day weekend and have the
days come off the end of the year. >> Thank you. >> Y instead of just instead of having all four days come off the end of the year and significantly affect the last week of school, >> right? So it gives people a little bit better way of planning ahead of time. Um, and I think it's important to note
also that the uh WTAA um was in support of changing spring break um and so was the u the WTAAA um as far as having election day um returning professional development to Columbus Day and returning conferences
to the week leading into um the NJA uh convention. So that's another big thing that the conferences would also go back. Um and so there were I think four different options for the calendar and um the committee is recommending what is
known as option 2B SB which has been shared um with the community. Um and I think that's pretty much everything. >> Thank you Miss Dalton. U Dr. Mingle do you have anything to add to that? >> No I think that covers kind of what the
changes are. I just wanted to highlight uh just to reiterate that keeps us the spring break piece is especially important for us to be in alignment with Wong Hills Regional High School because of the effect that would have on families. We're already not in alignment on some single holidays because of
different policies of the different boards. Um but starting and ending uh you know in the same ballpark is important. This does have us starting the week after the high school um because they are their proposed calendar is is a little bit different for how far
ahead of Labor Day. Um but this kind of I think found the middle ground of what our community has been asking for as far as the start date keeps us in line for the spring break. But the other thing I just want to highlight is for a few years we've been talking at PTO president's councils about some of these
um calendar topics and the piece about defining from the beginning what will happen with snow days was a very high priority from the PTO's because it's very difficult to plan end of the year events when the calendar might change by a week. And so this was another one of those sort of compromises of let's have
a little bit of give here but also um align with the high school on extending Memorial Day weekend which is one of the things they've started doing over the last couple of years as well. >> With that I'm going to open it up to the board for comments, questions, etc.
>> What what's the date that we decide that our snow days or emergency days are not going to be used? Like the drop dead date so that we can make the call on all the options that Nikki stumbled through. So, the beauty of this calendar would be we wouldn't have to have a drop deadad
date essentially because as long as we know, you know, the calendar says by Memorial Day, which is the last week of May, and we're pretty solid by there. What what we wouldn't need to do is come back to the board for a vote after spring break, which is what we've done for the last, I don't know, at least
nine years, and parents are waiting to hear from us on what are these days going to be. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. Because and to that point and the committee talked about this pretty extensively, it's not just snow. You know, sometimes there's a power outage or there might be a water leak or something like that. So this we don't
give back any of those days until you know 15 days before the last day of school. Okay, >> other questions, comments? I just wanted to say I had a comment um you know from someone that was concerned about they
would like to have a set end date and not add to the end of the school year. That was just something that they had proposed and I said I'd share that but again it is hard to know just in case there are any you know unforeseen things that arise. >> So in that in that situation you're
saying we'd have an a specific date to not go past What they were saying was they would like to know that this is going to be the end date and if we don't use all four of those days, they would come off throughout other points of the calendar versus the end of the school year. That
makes sense. >> Okay. Yep. We we said something a little bit different, right? But in this, you know, we are at least it's not four days with this proposed calendar. Like in the past, it's been four, you know, school could end four days earlier versus, you
know, this would be potentially max two, right? Got it. >> I think you there's only so many breaks we have to work with in the spring. So, the only other one would be spring break. And then I think you risk that we do get snow in April. Things do happen. So I think that you risk real short
notice of changing the dates for spring break at least with this we have Memorial Day and end of year which is a little bit forward in the future to plan against. So I think that striking that balance of kind of two and two end of year and Memorial Day >> is probably a good compromise versus
nothing at end of year and then you're now going to have to squeeze something else like spring break. >> Agreed. Yeah. >> Other comments? I believe this is on our next agenda for voting. Okay. Um so with that we will
move on and this will appear on the December agenda to be adopted. Okay. Reports from members on external appointments. Um just a quick comment that the New Jersey School Board's Association delegate assembly is taking
place this coming Saturday. If anybody would like to, if any board member would like to look at the um agenda for that meeting, it is available at the New Jersey School Boards Association website. Um Somerset County Education Service
Commission Commission, Miss Dalton. >> All right. Hopefully I'll do better with this one. So, this is a little bit old. This was from uh the meeting on October 1st. Um but basically the big takeaway from that meeting was the uh superintendence report. he kind of went over the um the goals for the for the
school year. Um and there's kind of four main categories. The first being student enrollment and programs. Um he said that their enrollment is just increasing, you know, kind of exponentially. Um one of the big changes that they had there was they added two vice principles. Um and
they said that this has been the best opening that they've had in the last four or five years because they now have four administrators. Um those vice principles are helping a lot with implementing behavior plans and that kind of thing. They're in the classrooms. They're helping the teachers. Um so that's going really
well. Um they're looking to improve their marketing um and promoting programs with current and new districts updating websites, social media, that kind of thing. Um the building and grounds tech um they just finished completion of a roof. Um I guess it was a replacement. um all their projects
that they've done recently have been on time and on budget. Um they're looking, you know, to to do better with the security, the network infrastructure. Um and then the the fourth category was uh the specialed transportation. They've been short staffed with that and that's
been a big challenge. Um so those were kind of the big takeaways from that meeting. >> Okay. Thank you, Miss Dalton. >> Do we have any other external um assignment reports? Seeing none, curriculum technology
committee. Um, Miss Granholm. >> Uh, so the committee met on September 29th. Um, we went over our proposed goals for 2025 and 2026, which were voted on and
approved in October. Uh, Mr. Kimick also gave a preliminary overview of our NJSLA district results. Um and then he presented those to the board in October. Um and then lastly, we also Mr. Kimick
gave us um a rundown on some of the changes to state testing and we met again today. So you'll hear from us next month about that. >> Thank you, Miss Granholm. >> Thank you. >> The Finance, Operations, and Security
Committee met on November 10th. Um the initial conversation um well it's no secret that health insurance costs are soaring. The school budget runs on a fiscal year. Insurance costs run on a calendar year. Consequently, in building our budget, we always have to make a
projection of health insurance costs for the second half of the budget year. This year, actual costs of insurance of health insurance for January through June of 2026 were underestimated in the 2526 budget. to prepare for the 2627
budget. Mr. Hegel has sought information related to our health insurance options. More detail appears for board members in the finance committee agenda. Uh we're still at the early stages of preparing for the next budget season, but we do expect to face challenges. Uh health
insurance costs being among them. Uh so this is a thank you to Mr. Hegel and to our insurance consultant for working with us to identify and analyze options. Additionally, at the meeting, um we went over a capital project update. Uh
appearing tonight as item B4 on our agenda is a recommendation from the committee to approve the bid for the um strobes and uh PA system. Uh this bid is uh $88,432
over budget. However, um the finance committee also recommends item B3 adopting and approving um the bid for the door installation which came in $699,980 under budget. Um also appearing on the
agenda tonight for approval are items B5 and B6 which relate to the Woodland restroom additions. Um, and then for the board members, I do recommend that you go to the agenda and look at the attachment from the New
Jersey School, um, SBO. What's that stand for? >> ASBO. >> ASBO. >> Thank you. The Association of School Business Officials um, who have put together recommendations regarding state aid and fiscal relief for districts. A
very interesting reading. I recommend it to your attention. Uh that is all for the finance. Uh moving on to personnel negotiations and communications. Miss Keller, >> the personnel negotiations and communications committee met on October
27th. Uh we focus predominantly on communications. We had his uh prior to that created a uh spreadsheet which is a list of organizations that we wanted to uh determine uh doing outreach to uh to talk about the schools, talk about
what's happening. Uh and we had asked board members in the past indicate where they might have affiliations, where they might be able to volunteer their time. Um so in the meeting on the 27th, we reviewed the spreadsheet. We looked to see, you know, where there was gaps, where there were board members who had
signed up. Uh we decided that we should just prioritize maybe 10 to 12 groups that would be the the sort of the focus I would say of the first uh opportunities for outreach. Uh so administration was going to um take a next step to start talking to those
groups, reaching out to them, figuring out if they were interested in hearing from the school board and administration and kind of assessing interest. And then once that is done, uh, I'll be reaching out to board members who haven't volunteered yet. I'm gonna clear my
throat very deliberately and, uh, we'll just figure out how we can address some of the gaps. So once we know which ones are the priority ones, do we actually have any gaps, I'll reach out to the board members who haven't yet signed up, and then we'll figure out how to address them. And then we also uh had a preview of the
sort of strategic planning video that uh Judy Wineer and Wineer Realy had put together. So the previous video was how how old was that, Matt? I'm sorry. >> Uh probably around 2018. >> Okay. So about seven years old. Um they
volunteered their time and budget to put together this video. We had the opportunity in committee to take a look at it and then uh it was played at the last board meeting and we also gratefully accepted the donation of their time and efforts to put that together. >> That's it.
>> Thank you. Thank you, Miss Keller. Um planning for growth working group also. Miss Keller. >> Yes. Uh planning for growth working group met on October 28th. We reviewed key takeaways and discussions from the prior meeting October 1st and the the
survey results we got from the facility tours that uh the participants had taken. Uh the the group discussed potential implications for future planning of that uh working group of the feasibility study on regionalization and shared services which was commissioned
by the high school and Wong Burough and that was publicly presented on October 30th. So we talked at a high level about you know what are potential implications for the work of the growth committee because of that. Uh and then we had our district demographer share an update on
enrollment predictions and capacity analysis. So importantly both of them right uh potential enrollment growth but also facility capacity. Uh and we are identifying how this demographic data and regional data will inform resoning
realignment modeling which is scheduled for November. and we are meeting on November 19th next. >> Thank you, Miss Keller. Okay, at this time we will move on to the first opportunity for public commentary. Uh
this is the first of two opportunities for public commentary. I ask that anyone interested in addressing the board please raise their hand or use the raise the hand your hand feature in Zoom. Each speaker is asked to limit their comments to three minutes. Please begin your comments by stating your name and
address and by directing your comments to the presiding officer. Please know that the board of education welcomes and encourages input from the public. Public commentary is intended as an opportunity for the board to receive such input, but is not intended as a Q&A session.
Following public commentary, if appropriate, the presiding officer or the superintendent may provide some response. For this first opportunity, we ask that your comments be limited to items that appear on tonight's agenda. There will be a second opportunity for
all other comments later in the meeting. Uh looking first to the live audience. Seeing nobody in the live audience, does anyone on Zoom wish to address the board on agenda items?
Last chance. Seeing none, do I have a motion to close the first opportunity for public commentary? >> Motion second. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstain. The first opportunity for public commentary is now closed. Dr.
Mingle, do you have anything on agenda items? >> Yes. Just want to call everybody's attention to item A2, which is the HIV self assessment. This is an annual process. I just want to thank our anti-bullying coordinator, Mrs. Lang and our anti-bullying specialists which are generally the school counselors in each
school. The annual monitoring shows that each of our schools meet or exceed state requirements for compliance with the anti-bullying bill of rights. You >> thank you Dr. Mingle. Does any board member wish to pull any item for consideration for a separate vote or discussion?
Seeing none, Miss Keller. Motion to approve items for board consideration A1 through A4, B1 through B8, C1 through C11, and D1 through D2. >> Do I have a second? >> Second.
>> Right. I will call the role on the uh on the consent agenda. Just one second. I need to record the first and the second. I got uh Miss Keller and Mr. Tour. All right. So, this is on the entire consent agenda. Mrs. Dalton,
>> yes. >> Mrs. Granholm, >> yes. >> Miss Keller, >> yes. >> Mr. Mulfetta, >> yes. >> Mr. Tor, >> yes. >> Mr. Weinstein, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Zan, >> yes. >> The motions carry 70. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Hegel. Uh, we do not
have unfinished business or new business this evening. So, we are moving on to our second opportunity for public commentary. Um, this is an opportunity for you to address the board on any topic you wish to raise to the board's attention. Again, I ask that you raise your hand or use the raise your hand
feature on Zoom. Remember that comments are limited to 3 minutes, please state your name and address before beginning. Again, looking to our live audience and seeing nobody, does anyone in the Zoom audience wish to address the board on any topic?
Seeing none, do I have a motion to close the second opportunity for public commentary? >> No, I think >> second. >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Abstain. The second opportunity
for public commentary is now closed. >> Miss Keller, I'll tell you. >> Do we have a second? Okay. All in favor? >> I >> oppose abstain. This board meeting is closed. Thank you everyone.
>> Spoke to some. >> Can I see your video on mute?