[Music] hi good evening everyone welcome to tonight's board meeting we called our meeting to order earlier in our closed executive session so we are be ready to begin our public portion of our meeting
and as this is the last meeting before spring break um i hope everyone's excited to uh renew uh refresh and re-energize because we have the rest of the school year and the rest of the um calendar year as well to uh to finish up
so um i'm going to turn it over now to dr adhold to see if he has any comments uh thank you very much uh good evening everyone i i just wanted to uh send a special thanks to send hungry packing a local organization our school community
that raises um funds for uh students and families in need with food insecurity uh specifically they reached out to the district um about about 2 3 weeks ago with an opportunity to partner with uh a local company jersey mike with a
fundraiser and had to coordinate um up to a thousand coupons for students faculty whatnot and um they did a tremendous job working collectively together and raised just under $4,000 um through that fundraiser um so it was a
tremendous collective effort um from building association leaders uh through pemma nadong at at the central office as well as working with our principles and and administration so a real team effort all around to take advantage of a fundraising opportunity to raise money
for our local but doesn't happen without uh the work of senator hunger packing and her partnership with uh tony kallik and pemma dandong so thank you to all of them great thank you and now i'd like to turn it over to our students for their report uh from high school south we have rachel
joseph and anna chen and from high school north we have ana slal and uh johnson lynn so take it away kids hello uh thank you for having us so to start us off i would like to talk about spring sports our athletic teams are
well underway into the start of their season with our baseball boys lacrosse and boys tennis team getting off to particularly hot starts uh we would like to highlight our boys tennis team that just won first place at the brian bennett tournament this past weekend to supplement their 6 start of the season
on to individual accolades one of our seniors shilley holden was named as south's njsiaa woman and girls in sports honore so we would like to extend a congratulations to her and south was also very honored to host the cbc unsung
hero banquet where athletes across mercer county were recognized for their leadership sportsmanship and talent senior julia kazakowski was nominated as south's unsung hero as the season continues we wish all of our teams the best of luck and look forward to seeing
them succeed this past friday south hosted their junior prom at the camden aquarium i didn't get to go myself but from the many instagram pictures i saw it seemed to be a hit students got to enjoy a nice dinner and dance floor among sea life exhibits and i heard that
some students even got to touch stingrays which is very cool regarding our music department south recently hosted the cmea concert band festival where bands from across the region came to perform south's wind ensemble did
very well placing highly at the end of the day and south's nonet and wind ensemble also had very great performances recently lastly our south choir also had a music festival where they got to perform for younger students across the district next i would like to
hand it off to anna thank you rachel now i would like to highlight one of our own guidance counselors miss walsh who won mercer county counselor of the year award not only is miss walsh a dedicated counselor but she's also a class of 2025 adviser
as well as the south's girls golf coach her efforts and involvement at south definitely do not go unnoticed for the most part south students are eagerly waiting for spring break to start when we come back from break student council will be holding their spirit uh spring spirit week along with their final pep
rally of the year many of our art programs will be hosting performance per performances to look forward to this spring this thursday our jazz band will have their spring concert and later this month one of our cultural clubs sasa will be holding their annual show which will be filled with lots of cultural
dances and food for spring performing arts club pirate player um they look forward to performing their play called i heard it through the beantoalk to our elementary schools in our district likewise another spring performing arts club called one act will be performing
almost main not only are south students busy with extracurricular extracurricular activities um as the ap season approaches and the third marking period closes out students are preparing for the exams and managing their academics and with that we will now hand it off to
north thank you to start off strong the club applications have finally opened and all underclassmen who have an interesting idea that they want to materialize can submit applications through the student council website keeping up with clubs last week nhs had
their read across america event where north students went over to mellowstone to read some books to other students um continuing on student council hosted their tonight show event where they were able to raise a good good amount of
money to donate to ava's voice the new jersey association of student council's state charity this year and despite some technical difficulties the show was a success and a lot of fun additionally sasa was held this saturday and the show
sold out before doors even opened and proceeds were sent to safc a nonprofit dedicated to me to providing mental health resources to asianamerican youth the show consisted of various specialty
dances consisting of classical ross south indian hiphop hungra and others which are always a fun watch now passing it over to johnson whoops thank you and to continue off north's annual belonging matters day
took place last month where kids got to enjoy a variety of fun and entertaining activities while learning why they are important and belong in the community a lot of clubs such as cultural clubs were able to hold their own workshops and sessions from topics ranging from
character development and education to immigration culture and something else that makes culture possible here is that we held our annual art show where the annual west windsor plains art show had their reception tonight from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m where i went saw a lot of great
pieces much more talented than me and the art show had a pieces ranging from a lot of students from high school north specifically from our photography ceramics and also our foundation classes in addition north small congress confended a conference at the university
of pennsylvania where they won best delegate again and many other awards congratulations to all our participants and then afterwards the very next week they went to ruckers mc to compete in a completely new conference where they had lots of fun and also won awards in
addition moving on to sports our spring sports are in full in full swing with many teams doing a great job in their season one team the north volleyball varsity has started with a 4-2 record with impressive wins at the start of the season we wish them luck continuing into
the rest of the season furthermore ptsa will be hosting a spring into summer event for all of our seniors where they will be providing food next week outside after spring break while we go out for lunch finally on the topic of seniors prom tickets are now in sale for the
rest of the week where seniors can buy their tickets for prom which will be in june thank you awesome thank you a lot of lot of fun stuff for juniors and seniors and i was at that art show and yeah a lot of lot of amazing talent there so that's great and it's nice to
see that it's evident that your theme of belonging uh matters uh goes beyond that day because you were just talking about all of the uh events and shows that goes on between like the high school students down to the elementary school students so it's really nice to to hear about all this thank you guys so much for your
updates thank you okay next i'm going to invite dr christopher russo to take us through the public hearing on the refunding bond ordinance of the west windsor plainsbor regional school district [Music]
okay it's going to be an exciting report all right so we have before you have uh several pages of motions and resolution to approve essentially a bond uh refunding for uh an energy savings improvement project that's been
previously approved and moving forward uh this is for the construction uh of the project bonds will be yeah sold to fund it and then the savings will pay for it they there will be no tax increase i'm going to start with that the savings from the energy lines makes
the payment against uh uh the bond debt so we'll start with so we're funding refunding bonds are sold by the district to finance the energy conservation measures ecms they're the individual projects like hvac units or uh uh um
uh new boilers etc that are much more energy efficient so the financing in this resolution is up to 20 years and i'll explain why we can go to 20 years instead of the typical 15-year in this uh in this offering so there'll be zero tax impact no in no tax impact the money
for this uh the payment the refunding of these for the payment of the refunding bonds uh comes through the savings of the uh uh uh in the in the budget uh the energy lines and that's due to reduced energy consumption from the energy conservation measures and the new solar
arrays included in the power purchase agreements which again that project's already been approved to move forward the principal amount of the bonds will not exceed $8.6 million there uh and it's written that way because the writing of the bond will actually of the bonds will occur over
the next several months the bonds won't be sold until june so as the market moves and what seems to be more marketable uh the documents will be written to make it most marketable for the district to sell there's $1.89
million in incentives and rebates of which 1 1.03 03 million is from uh schneider electric our energy our esco our energy uh uh conservation company uh
their tax credits from 179d forms uh which were based on the first energy savings improvement project so there's a million dollars in savings that the district could not receive in tax incentives however the company that created our first eip schneider electric
was able to receive they're offering a million dollars of that back to the district the there's $750,000 of uh that 1.8 million is from additional new jersey payforplay performance rebates from the first eip
what that means is the first eip outperformed what it how it was what it was intended to perform uh where our third rebate was to be a million dollars that rebate is now 1.75 million so we're moving $750,000 to offset the cost of uh of the
of eip 2 so $1.78 million of the $1.89 million is uh generated by rebates that are already due to the district um i think that's important because obviously there's concern with any rebates or any energy
savings uh paper going forward that we should you know this is based on a prior project and uh you know which the district's entitled to at this time eip 2 what are the projects and these are the projects that have been approved and the the programs moving
forward the mars hawk ele elementary school hvac replacement this is for the entire building except for the new wing uh there are a couple of units literally two units in the building that were also upgraded when the the one wing was
upgraded was built uh the new wing those two new units and the new equipment will all be integrated so into the building automation system the bas grover middle school has four rooftop units over the gym that will be uh replaced the village
elementary school has two boilers that will be replaced districtwide there'll be ventilation optimization due to bipolar air ionizers and uh there's also building envelope and weatherization measures what that
means is uh leaky windows will be cked up uh you know they'll be um weather stripping put in places typically sophets have gaps in them and such they'll be cockked up andor uh uh weatherized and then finally the high
school north will have a micro combined heat and power unit to replace the current heating unit in it and what that does is the heat generated from the heating system uh essentially we'll say goes to a radiator per se and the water
goes down into the heating system for the pool and will heat the pool not the same water it'll heat it'll help heat the heating system that heats the pool so the energy is used two ways you're actually generating energy so uh um and
that allows you to go from 15 years to 20 years on the on the loan or essentially on the bonds again this is just a quick recap uh because obviously we all um you know have heard what's going on in the markets recently but before that we'll
say an eip may be funded through a lease eip 1 was fun literally funded through a lease we took a lease purchase for 15 years and moved forward with it the market is now more favorable to sell bonds so that's what this the motions
before you are for um from our finance uh our financial adviserss there's a strong demand for high-grade municipal tax exempt issuance so recent sales have been received well by the bond market and then the bonds the bond uh sale will actually call occur late in june so
realize the documents as they're written up will reflect what makes it more um marketable for the district what i mean by that is the notice the motion says up to 20 years uh the the details are not filled in on that motion because they will be filled in on the final documents
that makes it more marketable for the district and uh uh as we move forward and then another quote bonds are most cost effective in the current current interest rate environment recent lease rates have been in the mid 4% range compared to bonds that are in the
uh mid 3% range over the term of the loan of the 20 years that's approximately a million dollars in savings on interest so uh that's why we chose to go with um uh with the bonds so that is my presentation
uh for this evening and i guess are there any questions at this time yes go ahead dana thank you um thank you chris for the presentation and thank you for all the details that you provided um so i
have two questions one is um is any of this um bonding subject to any f federal rules or regulations that could change oh i see what you're saying you're meaning could the environment change in which we're selling these and therefore cause uh something not to continue would
be a translation could be um well with respect to the lang the question i took it as with respect to the language of the sale of the bonds i mean that part i don't know um with respect to incentives and and that sort
of uh question if that was part of it um that's why i mentioned the majority of incentives are current based on the previous project and the rest is $114,000 and that's from ps&g and jcpnl so
uh my bet is they're secure okay yep thank you and then my next question is about um can you remind us how many um facilities that you anticipate how many of our district facilities do you anticipate will be energy neutral sure when this is done
there should be uh approximately five and i say approximately it'll be four or five depending on the final project as it's presented as it's created um i'll if i'll go a step further it's kind of disappointing because um we couldn't get
approval for our jcpnl schools which are village and grover in which we could have taken them they could have made them energy independent and the town center roof which uh pseg won't approve a project for that which could make that
building uh uh 100% electric uh efficient or i hate to say off the grid but we would be generating 100% of our uh electric electricity needs and that would take us up to seven or eight schools uh however we lost those we can't do it because not saying we won't
cuz that in my mind that'll be eip 3 um but uh with eip 2 we should be up to five schools hopefully and and just to add on that the um the projects get approved by the grid has to have capacity in order to do these energy
savings projects so when dr russo talks about not being approved jcpnl is at capacity so that's why those two schools had to come off so that would have saved additional savings on our energy bills which would have allowed us to do additional bonding for additional projects same thing with town centers
the grid was at capacity so if the roof had been completed we could have chosen town cent's roof instead of other areas that we're selecting but the roof is not in a at a status due to the rod grant so it's really about grid capacity not our capacity
okay um could you just remind everybody we i mean the esip in 2 includes installing a number of solar installations could you just refresh everybody's memory on where we're putting new solar sure so new solar it's um high school north milstone
river uh the the the the community school uh high school south and mars hawk school and they are carports over various parking lots is uh what's going to go up
thanks anybody else have questions all right well thank you so much for breaking all that down for us thank you that takes us to um an opportunity for public comments on the refunding bond ordinance the board invites thoughts and reactions on the refunding
bond ordinance from members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement which will be limited to 3 minutes in accordance with board policy 0167 all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer this public
comment period shall be limited to 60 minutes anybody have any comments for this nope okay seeing none i will move to close this um opportunity for a public comment and um um i would like to get a motion to
adjourn this public hearing on the refunding bond ordinance um ajanta and louie um all in favor say i i i okay um
and so then now i'd like to get a motion uh to approve the refunding bond ordinance uh louisa and robin any any other questions or comments before we vote nope okay okay we'll start with
miss hoe yes miss zovich yes miss fruit yes miss chinier yes miss maliga yes miss sha yes miss shetty yes miss bonsel yes miss mcuan yes um and that takes us then to uh the
first opportunity for public comments the board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items and items of concern from members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement which will be limited to three minutes in accordance with board policy 0167 all statements
shall be directed to the presiding officer this public comment period shall be limited to 60 minutes um any public comments no okay seeing none i will close this first opportunity for public comments and um since our committees
have not met since the last board meeting uh we don't have any committee reports this evening so we can move on to the voting voting portion of our meeting can i get a motion for administration items numbers 1 through 7
uh dana and liz any questions or comments okay okay we'll start with miss krugs yes m excuse me miss jenner yes miss maliga yes miss shetty yes miss ho yes
miss sha yes miss zovich yes miss bonsel yes miss mcuan yes uh there are no items for curriculum and instruction this evening so can i get a motion for finance items numbers 1 through 12 uh louisa and ajanta any questions or
comments okay we'll start with miss hoe yes miss sha yes miss oich yes miss chennera yes miss krug yes miss malika yes miss shetty yes miss bonsel yes miss mcuan yes and now can i get a motion for
personnel items numbers one through two uh dana and puja any questions or comments oh plus the personnel addendum number one the green addendum thank you for the reminder robin
um dana and pua okay we'll start with miss krug yes miss bonsel yes miss chenniera yes miss hoe yes miss maliga yes miss sha yes miss shetty yes miss zovich yes miss mchuan yes and before we
move on i would like to recognize uh three retirements we just voted to approve barbara whitmer um is our milstone river music teacher who has been with the districts for 32 and a half years donna matthews our central
office secretary who has been at wwp for 21 years and christine capassie who is our director of data assessment and accountability uh though i don't believe that's her that's been her only role in this district in the last uh 17 years
and we just want to congratulate you on your retirements we wish you the best of luck and um we are grateful for your many years of service to wwp now moving on can i get a motion to approve the board of education minutes
from march 13th and march 18th uh schweta and liz all in favor say i i i uh do we have any board liaison reports liz um i actually just uh wanted
to supplement what dr adhold had mentioned about the said hunger packing um uh the work that was done just very recently it was a very nicely worded letter and i just wanted to draw um make a couple of comments and read from the letter for just a quick moment because
it was very important um a special thanks to the west windsor place regional schools for rallying the teachers and staff to get involved it takes a village to create such a meaningful event and you all have made a difference your dedication organizational skills enthusiasm and
generosity have not gone unnoticed the letter really did highlight the importance of collaboration across different entities whether it's a small business nonprofit organization the school community the local community and just responding to a call to action so
we just very much appreciate everyone's involvement thanks for sharing that liz that was very heartwarming um do we have any other leazison on reports no any new business nope so then that brings us to
our second opportunity for public comments uh the board invites comments from members of our committee who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement which will be limited to three minutes in accordance with board policy 0167 all statements shall be directed to the presiding
officer this public comment period shall be limited to 15 minutes any takers seeing none i will yes you may dr adder hold all right so i i did want to just note one um
accomplishment for one of our staff members here at central office um it's not one that we've had before and i figure it's just worthy of just recognizing ivy harrington our district social media manager on sunday night she was crowned miss new jersey um so so so
as ivy prepares for missusa uh competition in september um she is uh you might not know she was a d1 athlete at morgan state um and her platform is about female athlete empowerment becoming the architect of your own
identity outside of your jersey um so ivy's been a coach for us and she's been a contributor in our our district and we just want to say congratulations to ivy and wish her best in the the upcoming competitions pageantss whatever it's called so thank you thank you for that
wow such rock stars across this whole community this is amazing um and with that um can i get a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting louisa and robin uh all those in favor say i
i thank you good night [Music]