the New Jersey Public's meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the beler board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted in the Star Ledger and express times and submitted to the town clerk of the town of badier on July 2nd 2024 the meeting will be live streamed at www.bad sd.org flag salute aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible liberty and justice for all the mission of the beler school district is to celebrate our past and Empower our future while focusing on the four cornerstones of our district tradition Excellence academics and Community we strive to build confidence and promote collaboration we encourage an equal partnership with our students and staff as well as its community members we Empower everyone to develop the best version of themselves the beler school district is committed to shaping students into Global Citizens who take Initiative for their success and contribute to the continued Excellence of the district our students are leaders in the decision-making process of their education and will be prepared to excel in 21st century Society roll call please Mr Akerman Mr Blum here Dr zith here Mrs Duckworth here Mr Scott here Mrs stefen here Mrs wenner here Mr chiarelli here Mrs Gardella here Mrs ratham here okay I need a motion for executive session to go into executive session for personel and negotiations motion second all in favor I any NOS any extensions okay any discussion held by the board which need not remain confidential will be made Public public as soon as practicable minutes of the executive session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists the board will reconvene in public session at the conclusion of the closed session in approximately 20 minutes 20 minutes we'll go with 20 minutes okay from the chair okay okay back in regular session we're going to have a statement from the negotiation chair and then we will move on to public participation Maryann all right uh as you all know the agenda item for tonight's meeting is Mr kba's contract extension this is a revision to his contract that is set to expire June 30th 20125 the board has entered into negotiations with Mr kuuba on an extension to the contract and both both parties have agreed to an extension that will include this current year and two additional years Mr kuuba is at his 12th year as superintendent of the district in which he has also been shared with with Harmony Township School District over the past 12 years he has provided leadership and stability to our district while the shared agreement has saved beler a significant amount of money each year this contract includes a modest 1.5% increases for the last two years this year's salary was agreed upon three years ago and Remains the Same the contract also includes provision should the shared services agreement with Harmony Township end at any point during the contract other items that are in this contract are consistent with the previously agreed two contract and were not changed thank you all right so we will open for public participation um public part participation is on the agenda item only and will be limited to 30 minutes 5 minutes per speaker so anybody want to step up for public participation please come forward this is also on the agenda it's also the hearing on super yes and public hearing on superintendent contract which is the agenda it okay I just have a couple of quick comments uh yeah sure uh my name is is Carolyn cbone badier I live in on low pakong Street I have a son in elementary school um I just have a couple of concerns um some around process some around the contract um most and I guess I'll just start from the beginning the first item is you know we mentioned in the beginning that this meeting was posted on July 2nd on the town website as well as The Express Times I just want to note the press times really doesn't exist anymore so we may want to update that it's Lehigh Valley live um the town website posting looks like it just brings us to the badier school org website and I'm fairly certain that it was not posted there on July 2nd so we really need to be careful about our timing um I was there on the 19th I have a screenshot that I could prove if you needed there was no posting of that meeting there and um I believe on the 22nd when we got our school supply list the meeting was also not posted there which puts us really close to the 10day meeting post requirement for the contract renewal meeting notice um and it would be helpful like you do with the agendas that you post the date when you post those meeting notifications so that we can know for sure that we're in compliance of those notifications um I also just wanted to make sure that I looked at the budgets um for 2023 2024 2024 2024 2025 is the upcoming I didn't see anything in the budget for a provision if Harmony does pull out um shelle was kind enough to give me um After I filled out the proper form the shared service agreement and it does look like you know we could be out of compliance with this new contract of course I'm not a lawyer but it does say in there that it is compliant with his old contract not this new one um and I don't see anything in the budget that absorbs the extra cost that is in this new contract and I know we have a tight budget and we've run a deficit before and it would be a shame if we had to cut teachers due to this um unfortunate contract renewal I also have concerns about the fact that we're still including a one-year renewal I understand that it's the same language as the old contract but that would mean that we would have to tell him now that we are not interested in renewing next year um I love pulled contracts from Hackettstown marown Randolph I mean every other school district that I looked at except for badier and Harmony had the superintendent and principal's contracts available to pool and every single one is 120 days to 150 days except for for ours and it should be worth reconsidering that um it just puts us in a bad position and one year I don't exactly understand why we can't give him notice today that we're interest that you know we're going to consider renewing for 2025 and negotiate or think about it when his contract ends in 2025 there's really he still has a whole year left on his contract I don't I'm still confused as to why we have to do this now um my other comment ah I don't need that one I'll pick it up when I leave I want to make sure that the public truly understands how much we're spending on our superintendent so although the salary and the increase may say for 2024 23,9 75 May 2025 212,000 and in May 2026 215,000 we have contributions that are above Insurance total post employment benefits amounts along with superintendent allowances so our total payout in 2023 was 200,000 330 $238,700 the budgeted amount for 2024 was $244,000 and then adding the same amount plus maybe $50 I'm not an accountant but I tried to make a little bit of an inflation adjustment for 2025 was 253,000 and in 2026 is 256,000 I'm not exactly sure the public truly understands that there actually is more to the salary than just what's posted online or in the contract itself and it's important that everybody understands that it's a bigger number than just the $23,000 that we're paying for I also just as I close this out on October 29th 2013 it was P published in the Lehigh Valley live that you were awarded Mr kuuba was awarded the job of superintendent he quoted that his number one job the first thing he wanted to do was work with the Middle School improve our test scores that have been in the slump and that he was going to focus on working with the community getting the parents involved and bring the kids and parents and everybody all back together that's not exactly the quote I'm a little bit nervous I'm sorry I could read it exactly says number one is to work with the Middle School our test scores have been in a slump of late so I'm going to focus on that he said secondly I'd like to bring a little more Community back into schools try to get the parents a little bit more involved certainly get kids more involved it was a good feeling to be named superintend he said coming to work Wednesday morning with all the teachers here was great as I went through all the meeting minutes which I did over the last three days starting in 2017 I saw how engaged he was back then in 2020 2013 every year all the field trips all the things that we were doing all the things for the students the parents who was all engaged and slowly it started to get less and less and less and the answers became I'll get back to you I'll get back to you I'll get back to you does the board really feel at this point in time the community is more involved are the parents and the admins really partnering are the teachers engaged and happy to be here it's my point as whether or not Mr karuba can do this job or has the potential to do this job I know he can the question is is his time here done does he need to be somewhere else where he can be new and energized and do the teachers and students and principles here need to be inspired by a new leader we all don't want our taxes to go up we all agree on that but do we want our education to improve I think we do I think we want our education to improve and have our taxes not go up so let's start by re-evaluating this contract consider the possib of someone new what a new badier could look like so I ask you to look forward and reconsider this not only for our community for our staff or our students but I also think for Mr karuba because I think he would benefit from this as well thank you anyone else my name is Katie Galen I have three students well right now two students in badier Elementary this year it will be three um my comments are about the renewal of the contract I think that salary on top of all of the other things benefits and all the things that you listed which I have listed in here somewhere um I think it's a lot I don't want our taxes to go up I think that we pay enough and I think that we're a very small town I don't understand why we're paying over $200,000 to have a superintendent when other areas that are have many more students than we have are making less that doesn't make sense to me we're not a very big town this isn't a huge town so so also I think it's a little bit odd that I mean maybe it's normal but is I I don't know is it normal to get 45 to 49 days for total sickly because we have we have 25 paid vacation days 12 paid six sick days three Paid Family sick days four paid personal leave days one to five the rment which means sad days so whatever that is so that's 45 to 49 days in total I think that's kind of a lot for that salary for that salary you should be here every day um I think that you covered everything amazingly uh a lot of things that I wanted to cover so thank you for that and yeah uh as a parent not thrilled about it but uh maybe the board could think about that [Laughter] thanks anyone else hi J Roth badier um just couple of things I'd like to talk about back in 2013 the state of New Jersey said this about beler high school the school's academic performance is very high when compared to schools across the state additionally its academic performance is very high when compared to its peers and it contradicts Itself by going on saying this school's College and Career Readiness lags in comparison to other schools across the state additionally its College and Career Readiness significantly lags in comparison to its peers 2013 2016 how much are students learning in badier needs Improvement in English and needs Improvement in mathematics well below State averages 2018 how does a student growth compared with other students English language arts below standard math below standard 2022 English language arts below State averages math below State averages the data speaks for itself I know you've renewed the contract but I think it's incumbent upon you now to set some very specific goals of what your expectation is to change the overall results uh over the next three years um I only own a home in badier so my only stake in this game is is home value uh many of you have students school and you have an obligation to your children and other people's children to make a difference stability is good but let's try stability at a little higher level of performance thank you anyone else no okay this ends public participation for this evening all right so we are on to our one and only agenda item I need a motion for agenda agenda item number one motion second all right um any questions on the item no all right and we have roll call Mr akman was that Mr akan roll call for voting yep yes Mr Blum yes Dr zeith yes Mrs Duckworth yes Mr Scott yes Mrs Stefan yes Mrs wenner I'm abstaining Mr chiarelli yes Mrs Gardella yes Mrs ratham yes all right so motion to Jour motion second all in favor I any knows any extensions okay all right have a good night thank you everyone for coming uh negotiation committee hang tight we want to talk to John for just a minute probably set up a meeting yes negotiation meeting quick