##VIDEO ID:aBvZ2icfdoI## for e welcome everybody to Winslow Township Board of Education regular board meeting Wednesday January 29th 2025 public notice of this meeting was given to all board members and Associates in a notice dated January 9th 2025 adequate and electronic notice of this public meeting has been provided specifying the time place and manner in which this meeting is being conducted it was advertised in The Courier Post posted in all schools the administration office the municipal building the library Bud Dubble center Edgewood acres elmtown and the Winslow Township Post Offices mission statement Mission at of the Winslow Township School District a large diverse uh and growing Community is to educate all students to become independent lifelong Learners critical thinkers and caring confident members of the their Community The District in partnership with the community and in the climate of cooperation and mutual respect will provide an academic environment which values excellence and diversity and encourages students to strive for personal excellence and assists them in acquiring knowledge skills attitudes necessary to uh contribute positively to a rapidly changing World roll call please Clark here r m Dre be absent Miss GLA will be absent as well Miss Martin present present Miss Peterson will be absent as well it's present presid present stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge the flag 2024 2025 District goals student achievement continue to implement best practices for delivering instruction to students this shall include conducted weekly administrative walkthroughs to monitor teaching and learning assistant review student assessment data to guide and redirect teaching continue to provide supplemental activities I.E tutoring enrichment periods to address student deficiencies benchmark assessment for n9th grade math language arts two create a safe positive learning environment for students and staff strictly enforce the district's student code of conduct focus on Upper Elementary School students to modify student behavior in early grades reinforce positive behavior in a specific and genuine way approach discipline with care respect and the desire to see good in all students fre increase parent caregiver Community engagement and education provide opportunities for two-way communication with stakeholders continue with Communications Consortium focus on refining our communication methods with messages to better Market our schools and continue with our public relations within the community Dr caramore are there any awards and presentations yes Mr President this evening we have two presentation the first one will be the Middle School um students and Mr shop dryer building principal will introduce his staff and students after that we will have a presentation by Boeing the Auditors good evening evening good evening for e e e e e it's perfect for anyone who wants to learn about coding electronics and it's a lot of fun to experiment with good evening my name is Zoe Doran now that we've learned about the Arduino I'm going to talk about something just as important for building projects breadboarding this is a breadboard it's a tool that helps you build electronic circuits without needing to solder anything together it's like a temporary board where you can test and tweak your projects before you make everything permanent on the breadboard there are rows of holes where you can plug in wires and components like resistors LEDs and sensors the holes are connected in specific ways that allow electricity to flow through them letting you create circuits the cool part is you can easily move things around and try different configurations until you get your circuit working just right for example if you wanted to connect an LED to the Arduino you put one leg of the LED into one of the row of the holes and connect the other leg to a different row where you could run a wire to the Arduino you can do this for all sorts of components Motors sensors and more basically a breadboard makes prototyping easy because it lets you experiment with electronics without needing to solder and you can reuse it for different projects good evening my name is janelli himma now that we've talked about breadboard and I'm going to introduce you to sterin this is the process you can use when you want to make permit Connections in your electronic projects this is a soldering essentially soldering involves melting a special metal called solder to join two pieces of metal together usually wires or electronic components it creates a strong permit connection which is really important if you want your project to last or work correctly to solder you can heat up this tool cot a solder in iron and use it to melt the solder onto the joint where two parts meet once the solder cools down it hardens make the connection permanent and solid for this project we need to make the motor wires longer so we soldered longer wires onto the original wires soldering can take a little practice but it's really valuable skill in electronics it helps it's what helps turn your temporary prototype into something you can use long term plus once you get the hang of it it's pretty fun good evening my name is WCHA jaum now that we've covered some Basics I want to talk about a fascinating project where you control the speed of a vibrating motor using a potential and turn the motor on with a button under our snow we h a tiny motor that shakes or vibrates when it's powered we can control how fast it vibrates by adjusting the potentiometer which is just a fancy name for a variable resistor you can't really see it but this is a potentiometer the potentiometer looks like a knob and you can you turn it to change its resistance when you change the resistance you're basically controlling how much power is sent to the motor which lets you adjusted speed next we added a button to the mix when you press the button it tells the Arduino to turn the motor on and it will start vibrating when based on the speed you set it set with the the potentiometer when you release the button the motor turns off as the motor vibrates the snow bounces around the snow globe giving the illusion that the snow globe is shaking up now we'll test the project so they're going to run them for you uh it is very hard I'm sure for you to see but we are going to leave these up here so at the end of the meeting if you'd like to come up and look and even if you want to come up and press a button there's not anything you can really hurt with these so you can um come up and test them if you'd like Anthony would you like to sh yours so you can get a closer look at all of the breadboarding that they did all of the wires the resistors the potentiometer that they mentioned and the Arduino uh we did have a gif up here though of it a GI sorry of the uh moving so you can see that the little balls inside to act as snow they uh vibrate with the vibrating motor and pop up to make it look like you shook up the snow globe so thank you very much for uh you know getting to or letting my students present tonight and for letting us share the work that we've been doing this year [Applause] great job great job thank you very much foring thank you guys thank you next we'll have a representative from Bowen company [Music] yeah good evening thank you for having me here at the board meeting tonight I'm here to give give a brief presentation of the financial statement audit of the Winslow Township School District for the year ended June 30th 2024 the audit started in the fall after the business office closed of close out the previous school year and prepare their financial statements and schedules for the audit the records being audited included the district's general fund capital's project fund fedal and State Student Activities fund Food Service fund and the before and after school program the job staffed by the partner a senior manager a manager and two Associates the audit report contains three required Auditors report that we use to render our opinions on the financial statements and the notes to the audit report the audit was wrapped up by the first week of January the reporting package including all of the required submissions was submitted to the NJ dooe through an electronic repository prior to the filing deadline of January 15 2025 the audit reports are also available to the public through the NJ Doo's website financially the Boe has an access in operation of $3.6 million the district utilized prior year fund balance at 5.9 million in support of the 2023 2024 budget the district also approved a withdrawal of $14 million from the capital reserve fund balance for various capital projects during the school year in June 2024 the board approved a transfer into the capital reserve of $15 million unexpended Capital project fund balance were also transferred back to the capital reserve for completed project in the amount of 1.9 million all of this resulted in that increase of capital project a capital reserve of $2.5 million for future capital projects this lessen the need to bond there were no budget line items that were overexpanded the total instruction expenditure District y were about 2.1 million higher than fiso 23 at $55 million this includes tuition cost for outter District special education students plan operation and maintenance is 400,000 higher than fiscal 23 at $9 million student transportation was about 1.2 million higher than fiscal 23 at $ 11.4 million despite Rising causes and tough economic situation business office and the board always try to operate efficiently within the legal limit set by the state of New Jersey federal and state grants received and expended amounted to approximately 15.5 million this is about 6.5 million higher than last year because the district was required to close out eser ARP funding allotment through re throughout the co Grant on page 79 of the audit report provides a snapshot of the district's Journal fund fund balance as of June 30th total fund balance at June 30th was $55 million majority of these funds are restricted or designated to be used in either 2024 2025 budget or 2025 2026 budget in total Capital Pro capital reserve was about $30 million exus surplus was about $9 million 2.4 million were encumbered to be spent in the next school year unassigned fund balance is only 3.1 million which is 2% of general fund expenditure and that's the maximum allowed by the state statute we have issued three reports that you should have received the first one is the exit conference report the report satisfies certain required communication we are required to do with those charged with govern it includes a detail list of any findings and the description that there were no unrecorded audit adjustments the summary of findings break out all findings into two categories the first one is for the items that are discussion only the second type are items that are significant enough to Warrant a finding in the audit report for this fiscal 24 audit there were several discussion items that we discussed at an exit conference earlier with the Schools administration there were one audit finding noted in the audit report and it's described on page 165 the finding indicates that the school district's Food Service fund net cash resources exceeded its three months average expenditure by 450,000 this is the New Jersey school department of Agriculture requirement and there's a ation in the auditor's management report are there any questions about the exit conference report yes I do have a question if I may on the finding I'm I'm I'm I'm under the impression that it that was the same finding we have had last year is that correct yes and is there anything that we can do to not um or any suggestions or any tasks we're taking to make sure we can probably not have that finding occur again so the Department of Agriculture has a formula on how the how to calculate the access the district cash could not exceed three months average um operating expenditure so couple ways to one is to upgrade cafeteria facilities we can use the cach to improve on existing equipment um so it reduces cash and also increases expenditure um however there are purchasing and local uh contract law process required to follow so we can't just spend money when we want there are bids requirements um also certain things could not be purchased with cafeteria funds so I think the Department of Agriculture website has a list of items that could be spent down using cafeteria funds and once we decided we wanted to spend it on that direction public contract law has to be followed so depends on the timing um we might not be able to spend the cash down as fast as we could to reduce that finding I add something sure well on if you can so not all of the out already bought cafeteria some for the high school at we're spending the 400 in the meantime sedexo earning money and if we're right there have to spend and there's a as to what you but you those fun for kind of in a a catch are looking upgrades at high school and the middle serving prices are out just curve rcking it prices over 600,000 now so but I already bought chair kind of a Balan will make to June 30th not we can contracts pay do you think we we uh we we are going to meet our goals for that uh that item uh next year it would be at the crying don't want to just you know positive thank you then I'm a high [Laughter] $107 million 107 milon didn't correct right exactly make sure finding I don't know how [Music] once you have CLE I'm not going to if I bought a St oven that's got a lifespan I bought it I'm not going to now just that know I I got to get rid of this audit findings another one it'll have to be no I understand promises well reverse I I also want to um add on that this is started during the covid time when the federal government and state government increased the reimbursement rates for each meal served so the the cash started to build up during covid and it's a common finding within the county and within the state not that it makes it normal um the state of New Jersey and the feds have this formula and they have not Revisited it since before covid so it's possible that there are some legislation being worked on to hopefully not make this an automatic audit finding in the future but as of now we're going with the compliance requirement that's set out for us so we have to know we have to know an automatic finding again the school district should not be phisically irresponsible to just spend cash because they have access well and let me be clear we you know uh the Administration is Miss Balo a magnificent job with the budget in no way am I trying to say that we should do something that's not fiary uh applicable but what I do know about the government because you know when they when they you you got two findings in a row and it's excess cash when they say you got access stuff they start to trim somewhere else so I'm just you know concerned about that thing I'm not saying do nothing implicit or anything out of the line of what you're supposed to be doing just to say you know if we had two findings two years in a row should be a little more proactive to make sure this doesn't happen again because you don't want the government to say we have an access of any type of budgeting or any type of financing I I understand this is also a proprietary fund that's separate from the general fund so it's not related to and it should not impact state aid or federal um AIDS that's earmarked for student instruction and education okay but just one a brief um comment I just want to make sure that this is not a situation where use it or lose it it's not thank you and just one more clarification one audit finding last year and one audit finding that's that's it not that wasn't what it finding it at one one in 20 and we had one they are the same or fortunate when I say public contracts law put out a bid after low bidder so in the situation where I know we have to write us up I still I bid or for the have to take L bit at that time I can't put other B it um want to be don't want Bend thank you on page 11 of the audit report it's a financial statement opinion and we give an unmodified or clean opinion homage page 151 is a report on internal control and compliance over financial reporting and there was that one finding noted on page 153 of the audit report is a report on internal control and compliance over major Grant compliance and also we give an un modified or clean opinion again the district is doing a great job with taxpayer money state fundings the business office um prepare all the financial schu sches required for the audit and we received complete cooperation from all the Departments when we were out here doing the audit work so thank you and the board for all the assistance provided during the audit if there were no more questions that will be of the presentation um any questions thank you very much thank you thank you do we have any correspondence n this evening um Mr President and I have a motion to approve the following meeting minutes from our reorganization meeting on January 8th 2025 Open Session and also our regular meeting minutes from January 15 2025 oh moving ahead of myself yeah so Mr President are we grouping it no we'll keep it separate okay so Mr President at this time I move that we approve excuse me the minutes from our board meeting Board of Education meeting our reorganization meeting which took place January 8th 2025 Open Session I'll second the motion roll call please any any questions oh who did Mr mcmanis call please yes Miss Martin yes Mr M yes Miss pittz yes Mr Thomas yes can I get a motion to approve the meeting minutes of our regular meeting January 15 2025 Open Session and our regular meeting January 15 2025 close session Mr President I move that we approve the minutes from our Board of Education meeting our regular meeting which took place January 15 2025 Open Session and our regular meeting January 15 2025 close session I'd like to second that uh roll call please Mr CL yes Miss Martin yes Mr MC yes it's yes thas yes oh yes moving on to our board committee reports Mr Thomas is there a report from our athletic committee yes I do that Mr President uh our our wonderful Winslow athletic department is doing a fine job our committee constituents are John Shaw Wanda GLA and myself the mission of the athletic committee will be preparing athletes for the next level of this Friday at 7 o'clock our state champion football team will be having an honorary banquet at the bougle center at 7 pm all the board members are invited I just want to make a note for our football team the team G PA is 2.9 uh Winslow boys varsity uh record is 10 and5 the next game is tomorrow against Morristown Winslow girls is three and their next game is tomorrow against War Morristown and our Winslow Township High School girls indoor track team wins seventh straight inj SI AA indoor group three relay championship that's right congratul to those Township High School for track team for winning their seventh straight njsiaa group three Indoor state relay championship this team scored a total of 69.5 points the highest score in state relay history congratulations again to go to Coach Brown and her ire Winslow Township High Schools track team we are Winslow proud also our cheerleaders are back to competition where they're doing their cheerleading competition throughout the state to repres represent Winslow in a great way and I don't ever been to a basketball game lately but we got a Winslow mascot that is phenomenal he's part of our drama club and he's entertaining the crowd and he's something to see this whole winow winning atmosphere in the Delaware Valley is something to behold and I just want to say thank you to the students and staff for allowing this opportunity and that's my report thank you Mr Thomas um Miss Martin anything out of the CI citizens advisory committee no minutes at this time but we do have a meeting scheduled for February 6th at 7 pm in the administration building okay Miss Martin anything from the education committee education committee does not has has no report at this time but we have a tenative date of 225m Thea WebEx okay Mr mcmanis marketing committee nothing at this time um um I'm gonna Mr Dre's not here tonight so I will do the operations committee uh meeting for her tonight um the operations committee met on January 27th 2025 at 5:30 pm via WebEx on uh the discussion items that we talked about were one capital projects the circulation pumps at schools 1 two 3 four and the Middle School punch list items needed to be completed P project to be closed out by December 31st 2024 from the November meeting uh the project remains open uh received a return from Ron schwanky uh from Land uh land Associates today he believes the vendor has submitted all the closeout documents he will confirm and get back to us and submit the documents for final payout oh okay never mind I'll start over oh no don't okay all right so the high school upgrade okay well number two the high school up HVAC upgrade discussed with land Associates projects moving forward number three the 20242 budgeted capital and other projects from EI Associates EI held a page turn meeting um uh regarding the HVAC projects at schools five and six a request for the proposal RFP will be released shortly to get the services of a construction manager for these projects uh also discussed other projects budgeted in the 2425 budget uh there is a short time frame to get these completed one a roof replacement in administration building greas trap grease trap Replacements at schools 1 through four a partial roof replacement for the school jwing and the construction of a pole barn for athletics at the high school number four the 23 24 annual comprehensive financial report the AFC acfr sorry about that the acfr will be presented tonight which you all heard um there was one finding the district had too much Surplus at the food service fund as of J June 30th 2024 we will implement the corrective act action plan to address this condition 2025 budget development number five the budget software is open state aid numbers will not be released until late February the district is not anticipating an increase or decrease in state aid we will develop a budget anticipating a 2% increase in the tax levy only items under consideration negotiations teachers and administrators contract end as of June 30th 2025 balance of HVAC systems upgrades funding will need to be secured for schools one two four and the Middle School Dr Caro and Miss Bole will held meetings with building principles to determine if they have sufficient funding for their needs in their buildings funding was sufficient School level budgets have entered been entered in the district's budget software additional needs will be considered after the release of the state aid the meeting adjourned to 6:13 pm. next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday February 25th 2025 and if I can go back to the start since I started out reading the uh agenda not the minutes um in attendance were myself uh Miss Bole and Miss Chico so that way that's not left out of the report um next would be the policy committee yes Mr President the policy uh meeting will take place February 12th prior to our meeting uh in the administration building at 6 pm and the members of the policy committee will be reminded thank you I'd like to point out at the end of the table that we have our student rep here with us tonight Anna Dutton I believe she has a room yes I do good good evening everybody body I have two updates I'd like to um report regarding the high school the first is last Thursday we hosted the eighth graders from the Middle School at our elective fair and provided them with information about some of the courses offered at the school as well as personal accounts from current students in the classes and my last update is that earlier this month on January 8th a few Student Government members our adviser Mrs Fury and I attended the New Jersey Association of student councils winter convention and our school was awarded the second year honor distinction due to our efforts and being important for developing and maintaining a successful student council program thank you thank you very much moving on to the superintendent report um and I have a motion to approve the superintendent report as it's recommended um from page three all the way through page number six Mr President I move that we um approve the um make motion to approve the superintendent report which Begins the middle of Page Three and continues through to the bottom page six second I can second that motion any questions call please yes Miss Martin yes Mr mcmanis yes Miss pittz yes Mr Thomas yes and Mr Shaw yes motion has carried on to the business administrator board secretary's report and I have a motion to approve the board business administrator board secretary's report as as it's been written um oh I have before we go on to that I'm sorry um there's one thing that needs to be changed on that it's on page 13 item number eight the Mr Mr President oh that's on the person that's on I'm already I'm on yeah top of page 11 I'm sorry we appreciate your Zeal though sir I skipped ahead a little bit yeah I I accidentally moved the page all right sorry about that to on page 11 sorry about that Mrs Pitts that's all right Mr President I move that we approve the um business administrative board secretary's report as it appears on page seven and continues through through the bottom of page 10 can I get a second I could second that any questions roll call Mr Clark yes Martin yes Mr mcmanis yes Miss pit I re yes but I recuse myself from um page eight item 12 Mr Thomas yes and Mr yes motion has moving on to the Personnel report if I can have everybody turn to page 13 and look at item number eight on the 2025 professional development we need to change that account number where it says 300 that needs to be 20 20-27 2 275 D200 D100 d z00 d okay and um motion to approve the Personnel report as a superintendent recommends president I move that we approve the Personnel Report with the change indicated on page 13 report that begins on page 11 and continues through to the bottom of page 13 can I get a second uh I'd like to second that roll call or any questions yes Mr President yes uh page 13 number eight if I might just ask for clarification the pilot programs are these for math math and language arts so most of the ones for um kindergarten through 8th grade will be for math the prek is just an all-inclusive prek program program but we included uh math possible language arts as well as preschool okay thank you so much any other questions all right roll call please Mr Clark yes Miss Martin yes Annis yes Miss pittz yes Mr Thomas and Mr Shaw yes Harry moving on to our addendum give SEC a couple seconds to look at the addendum move and I have a motion to approve the board secretary's report from starts on page one and ends on page two president I move that we approve the uh board secretary's report as it appears on our agendum beginning on page one and ending with the bottom of page can I get a second I'm sorry I didn't hear what Miss Pitt said did you repeat that I'm I honestly didn't uh on your agenda we're on the agenda Mr mcmanis the pink the pink pink I got it got it okay thank you Miss pittz you're welcome second that motion while I'm at it any questions yes Mr President number three on page one am I to understand that we are moving back to Genesis soft Ware as opposed to what we wereing previous previously which I can't remember the name at the moment so we are going back that's exactly what we're seeking to do okay uh so we are currently using a program that does not satisfy all of our need okay great thank you and if you don't don't mind me asking um they don't they kind of we purchased something they said they were going to be able to do it and they have not been able to do it that's why we have to go back to the to the old not to our satisfaction not to your satisfaction okay very good thank you any other questions roll call please Mr Clark yes Miss Martin yes Mr mcmanis yes Miss pittz yes Mr Thomas yes and Mr yes motion has move to approve the Personnel report as it's recommended on the uh addendum on page three Mr President I'd like to make one correction yes on the Personnel report number two the High School Musical or like to add one more account number okay 1101 100 100401 can I have a motion to approve the Personnel report as a superintendent recommends it with the addition of the account number for it number two of 11- 41-100 D100 41-8 on page three president I move that we Personnel Report with changes byard secretary as it appears um begins on page three and ends on can I get a second and second that motion uh any questions Please Mr Clark yes Miss Martin yes Mr mcmanis yes yes Mr Thomas yes and Mr Shaw yes motion has carried moving back to our regular agenda um M Miss Bo do we have any open public records act requests none do we have any informational items I do Mr President I have two items this year inside of your folder I included a um news release and again the high school TV production program it's being recommended for another been nominated for another award and it's for the piece that they presented earlier uh that's called piece by piece so this will be held in Asbury Park uh sometime toward the end of March and the winning School uh will receive $500 reward so I think this makes the fourth nomination for that piece that was created by the high school student additionally we received a notice from the state department regarding our results from the qac results so the qac is the um it's an accountability system and it's called the New Jersey quality single accountability Continuum and we are evaluated in three different areas and that is instruction and program physical management governance operation and personnel and we are required to maintain at least 80% in all of those areas if we do not we are required to develop a district Improvement plan so far we've been successful in acquiring the 80% and more and for the areas but unfortunately we've not earned the 80% in curriculum and instruction there are many areas that are looked at in order to arrive at the score of 80% we originally had a score of 79 and we've now received an intern report and we have 74% so that's preliminary we will be evaluated again at the end end of June and then we will have our final score so we are now required to continue implementing the Improvement plan that we had in place and this is mostly largely based mostly on test results so we will be evaluated again after our sesma results by May yes would it be fair to say that the drop in score is solely because of the academic test score um so the state has a system of calculating but the test scores play a large part in it okay but was that a yes or a no or yes no I'm sorry you like when you had reported that the the test our qack score went from 79 to 74 on an interim basis was the the so reason because of the decline in test scores and not the so reason so the test scores have a large percentage to pay as well as the graduation rate um those are the two primary things so be the graduation rate and the test scores okay so they're more heavily weighted in those categories they are okay thank you my information moving on the old business anybody have any old business they'd like if I may okay um I think this is old business because it happened before um oh well I I think I know what you're going that'll be new business that's new business all right I'll defer to your extensive experience we're gonna move on to new business and Mr vanis now I can say something uh I had a great um experience went to sba's governance one training for a new school board members uh I cannot overstate how valuable that is and I really W to can't really thank because it's like required for for the position but I would also encourage some of my other board members that may have taken that at some point in the past maybe to revisit that um I'm really or not an old saying a friend of in business said he says uh should know this better than this um but he says be brilliant in the basics when it comes into business and I know that this is a a basic thing but I like I said I walked out with so much I'm just kind of hungry for more really I don't know how else to say it but thank you and uh was was one other thing um this town's getting ready to grow a lot um building permits are up I know that there's tax abatements that are talked about do we have some kind of uh communication with the township with the number of units that are going to be built and what the projected increase in the student population would be as a result of that as far as when since I've been on the planning board when let's let's take for instance the new Dr Horton right res residential development that's gonna be coming into I've I've sat down and had conversations with Dr potit about that so can't totally predict the future on it but we can kind of have a guesstimate and because they lowered the amount of houses from the initial estimate of what they were going to build build to a lower amount so now we have to try to judge it now that it's finally approved we have to go back to that discussion and try to come back to a decent number of what we can project that once it once those houses are started to build yeah so that's a conversation that has to happen again yeah no that's a good thing because I I I would imagine most of the members of the community would with that coming and it's going to change the dynamic of some of the areas uh here in Winslow Township but that's going to be something that uh with Staffing you have obviously need more teachers and things of that nature but this is I just wanted to send a clear message to Township that this is something that we're getting in front of and not going to be reactionary to thank you and and if I could add something to that Mr President I think iight on because we do have an economic development uh council meeting coming third with the township all are in New Economic Development plan this year and all are invited All State holders are invited to be a part of that plan and I know a big thing that they will be talking about is is housing so if anybody wants to come to that that's February 3rd uh 7 o'clock at the township building we'll be talking about some other things I think we're talking about the business of the month plan they'll be talking about the July four fireworks that will be here at this same property so that's a great opportunity for all the stakeholders all the board members to show up and put your input in before the ball gets rolling so I'm just want to make that available to you that's a great thank you Mr Thomas Goodbody else for uh new business I I I do Mr President I just got one more informational item I want to share with our Stak holders because it's a great time to be in Winslow Township I mean the eyes of the world Township right now uh and I just think that we need our stakeholders and collaboration more than ever um I predict that this year will be our biggest college recruitment class in Winslow Edgewood history uh so we want to make sure that they're prepared uh educationally to to to uh meet that challenge and we need everyone we need not just the the district but we need our stake holders we need our nonprofits we need our cdc's we need our churches to be involved in this because what's happening now is changing uh the students right out of high school they're going to college but now it's more like a career because with this new student athlete athlete in nil there's income that comes with that and you're making a substantial amount of money at 18 years old out of high school and they need to be prepared so um and it's something new I mean now it's really legal they may have been doing it doing it before but before wasn't as as legal as it is now so I'm asking everyone to to keep that in mind when you're making your lesson plans when you're have kids that's doing different things that right out of high school going to college is now their business so keep that in mind when we're making plan going forward thank you I have one thing before we end new business um at the end of March I believe the date is the 27th of March the Township's going to hold a job fair at the bud Dubble Center so if any Mr Mel I see you back there um if you want to start putting that out to your seniors that's a great way to start getting off if they don't want to uh if they're not ready to go to college um trades will be there I believe uh like Atlantic City Electric I think shows up uh there's a bunch of different you know employers that show up the last one I went to was immensely uh attended with all kinds of people from all across Winslow Township but it's a great start for any High School senior that wants to start getting their resumés out there you know for after graduation so um that's something to keep an eye on for the end of March Mr President if you could repeat the date and time I I believe it's March 27th at 10 P at 10: a. thank you uh who moving on to public comments Mr La thank you Mr President uh public comment the Winslow Township Board of Education highly values the input of citizens in making the important decisions that affect the children of our community leave in the rights of citizens to observe board meetings to ensure that all of our citizens have the opportunity to attend Schoolboard meetings and off for comment and to ensure that the board can conduct the important business of the district we ask that speakers follow the guidelines for making public comment the board secretary will recognize those individuals in the audience who have signed up and wish to make public comment I'd ask that you respect the following procedures one all members of the public attending school board meetings must treat each other in the board with respect two please State your full name and town of residence three please note uh limit your comments to four minutes or submit your questions in and writing to the board of education along with your name and address and telephone number where you can be reached and in the event we're unable to answer your question tonight we will do so within a reasonable time period and lastly individuals offering citizen comment are not permitted to make personal attacks on any District employee board member or other testifier or member of the public thank you I have a motion uh to move into a uh public comments I move that we um move into public comment second I'd like to second that motion okay U oh um can I get a Voice vote for moving into public comment I I um yes Mr President we have Mike Dixon good evening see if this is on there you go all right Michael Dixon I am a resident of Runo Township and uh I just want to share that the number of at risk High School in me Middle School males is growing at an epidemic level all over this country and specifically of course here at winow township uh there are a myriad of factors contributing to this crisis which the school and school boards of course did not cause however you are faced with having to solve the problem but the truth is you know that you can't do it by yourselves uh so we want to help you uh help our young people to overcome uh the odds and succeed in life loving our cities uh is a nonprofit organization and serves as the community engagement arm of the perfecting Church a n denomination National Church uh founded in 2011 uh located in Su New Jersey A Few Good Men is loving our City's mentoring program launched by coach Mike McBride and pastor Kevin Brown to grow the South Jersey high school student athletes into men of character and integrity on and off the field this was in response uh to the perceived growing character crisis and Leadership void in our community A Few Good Men annually mobilizes about 30 men who volunteer their time and serve throughout 12 high schools in South Jersey to Mentor over 600 students every year uh and this program has been going on since 2011 uh we offer weekly character sessions uh at these respective high schools on leadership emotional intelligence social media decision making and Stress Management in response to the growing need to catch our at youth at RIS teens as early as possible A Few Good Men were invited to launch a pilot teen leadership program here at Winslow Township Middle School uh serving about 20 atris students and that program started on January the 9th of this year uh Mr Sean Chester will continue for us good evening board good evening uh population um fellow uh members of winsell District um as uh brother or coach Mike Dixon was saying uh With A Few Good Men initiative uh aside from the football field now we're working with sixth and seventh graders in wo Township middle school and we've identified or the school has helped us Identify some of these ATR students um with the program it's a four-week program for total eight-week program funded by the state uh we go in with specific class class schedule and we uh develop a mentor them and there's also uh we we do field trips with them three of which will happen this semester um just to go more into it uh some of the lessons that we teach are on emotional intelligence uh drug abuse overcoming fatherlessness goal setting Stress Management and uh responsible use of social media as well as violence um as far as our schedule goes we go in once a week it's on a uh Thursday from 2:00 to 4:00 and the way the schedule plan out is we start off with Rules of Engagement we do an icebreaker and then we go into our lesson and then we end with a Q&A and complete with uh free pizza and beverages supplied by A Few Good Men um so it's a really great initiative um you guys should uh applaud yourself that we're doing this but we're catching these at risk children early and helping them become a better part of the on little Greater Community so that was our presentation uh we'd open up for any questions about the initiative if the board has any could you repeat what school you're at again we're in the middle school wso middle school we're handling six and seventh grade uh minority boys seventh and eth I'm sorry could you could you touch on I know you have a uh a reading program in the summer that you do can you just touch on that just a little bit uh certainly there is a a reading program uh that was offered uh to anyone in the uh area that uh went for four four weeks uh the program was intentionally designed uh to uh help those students in the second and third grade who were matriculating to the third and fourth grade who had reading deficiencies it's called Freedom school so we offer that uh in the month of August at uh the students were able to come to the church uh and they spent the day I believe it was from 9 to about 3 o'clock every day uh doing programs to enhance uh their reading levels uh and uh the uh students were uh identified by the program uh to find out if the what levels the students were reading at and then uh they had to be they wouldn't be accepted unless they had some deficiencies so that we could uh increase their reading levels throughout the program uh we also have another program which is called perfecting chords uh which is uh a music after school program uh that serves here now I think is School number two uh and uh they've been uh we had that program operating from I think 2014 up until the pandemic time but after the pandemic we I had to put a hold to that but we were able to start that also on January the 9th of this year thank you thank you for your time thank you thank you thank you president that those that any in the waiting room public comment thank you can I get a motion to adjourn public comments I move that we adjourn public comments I could second that motion all in favor I I president if I may Thomas my attention as well as my partner who covered the last meeting this would be a good [Music] opportunity last meeting comments um yes I do yes I do have mean I'd like to applaud TBC church for coming and doing all the things that they do in our community they are pillaring our company in our in our in our town and these are the things that we need to do to make sure that our children uh uh follow the will and get everything that they need I just want to applaud them one more time for coming and giving their speech and telling us what they do um Mr Clark did I hear you um Mr mcmanis you have anything you wanted to I just if I just second what Mr Thomas said um I've spent um gosh I'm going to say 30 plus years uh serving children um as a youth pastor and as a little league coach and to see people take time out of I mean we're all busy but for people to take time out of their schedules and selflessly give to Children especially children that we recognize may be needing more than the average child for lack of a better term I I love it I I salute you Mar i' just like to say thank you to Mr Chester and Mr Dixon for volunteering their time do this for our children amen that's I I would just like to um comment on what M Anis um was able to uh experience as a new board member and to hear how well uh it was received and how much uh he appreciates uh what he um what he learned at that and that's that's very very um important um especially to um us as board members so Bravo vanis great thank you Miss pits um I want to thank the perfecting church for this program that they're bringing into the school district and also for the long-standing perfecting CS program that they had at school number two um programs like this can only enrich and help our students grow and become better people in society and that's the only thing that we want for every single one of them to go out there and make every single graduate that comes through these Halls of Winslow schools the best that you know best that when they come back to our graduation and speak at our commencement ceremonies like they do every year it just shows what Winslow is and like when Mr Thomas says winslo winning it just keeps adding and adding and adding so organizations like perfecting Church you know we can't thank you enough and moving on from that Mr Thomas what you said about our our track team and you know our other sports Oran uh teams that we have you know we can't be more proud of them our our going into our robotics program at our Middle School our stem programs are second to none we can't we can't beat them I mean I watched that that film that from uh at New Jersey school boards and that was just absolutely amazing I sat there next to you Dr clel and I knew that they were going to be picked up for that immediately and to watch all those students Beam with pride when their when their show or their film was going on can't can't make this stuff up just to watch the smiles and the admiration of other school districts from around the state we we have to be proud of everything that we're doing and the the things that we're not doing right we'll pick them up we will make ourselves wissow winning all over the place and it's and it's organizations like perfecting church and other nonprofits around Winslow Township that'll help us do it and each and every board member up here will make sure we do it because that's what we're elected to do so thank you very much and I appreciate every single one of you coming out here tonight you have something to add [Laughter] regrettably okay uh in accordance with the requirements of the up public meetings act we'll be entering into an executive session on January 29 2025 at approximately 8:5 pm of the items of nine exceptions that permit us to discuss in executive session as a matter of law utilizing uh item one uh which is an update from Dr Caro on a student matter need for confidentiality is surrounded by fura which is uh Federal Privacy Act uh for uh students uh in scho so we'll be discussing one student matter and we will have one matter presented uh with the assistance of Mr Davis on item eight which are matters of employment um and conditions of employment uh we have an a request for an extension of uh unpaid leave for consideration and I don't believe long uh so I'm going to estimate somewhere between uh 25 to 30 minutes can I get a motion to move to Executive session I move that we move into executive session can I get a second I would second that motion roll call please Mr Clark yes Miss Martin yes Mr MC yes Miss pits yes Mr Thomas yes and Mr Shaw yes motion has [Music]