was given ased by open public meeting on February 2024 noce of andur also school school presid the B president and administration a cop present present oops here miss Jolly here miss Conor here miss pen and Miss stand here whereas the Berkeley Heights Board of Education seeks to adour to Executive session in full science open public meetings at nj1 4-6 and whereas the open public meeting act provides that a public body May exclude the public from that meeting at which the St matters related to those identifi below matters rendered confidential by federal law state law or court rules individual privacy Collective barging agreements purchase or lease of real property and public interest could be adversely effective investment of public funds and public interest could be adversely effective tactics or techniques utilized in detecting public saing of properties pending or anticipated litigation attorney client privilege Personnel employment matters affecting specific perspective of current employe be it resolve that the Berkeley pipes Board of Education urance to Executive session to discuss matters related to personnel and legal matters and be it further resolve that the minutes of the discussion of any of these it will be disclosed public when matters have been determined and confidentiality is no longer so moved all favor I just have a quick question U Mrs Bradford um are we going to keep the meeting on okay um are we going to keep the zoom session on are we turning it off like what are we doing yeah thank you that's one what this 01 I believe correct I need a a first and a second first and a second please well who's the first so we have a and d DK need a voice Voice vote all yay yay any Nays are we recording yes thank you following following our return to public meeting the uh first item is appointment of board president the Union County interim executive superintendent chose gaale Bradford as board president I will do my very best congratulations thank you we are moving on to election of board vice president nominations for board vice president no second is required the floor is open to motions for vice president do I would like to make a motion Mrs Penna I'd like to make a a motion to nominate Pamela Stanley as vice president thank you any other nominations yes Dr forger I would like to nominate Dy Conor thank you are there any other nominations okay uh we will vote on them individually is that correct Mr secretary that is correct yes okay we'll just wait for the paperwork to come one here okay ready when whenever you want to okay we are ready for the nomination of Mrs Pam Stanley as vice president uh Miss Kiri no Miss Bradford yes Dr forer no forer I'm sorry no Mr Heyman no Miss Jolly no Mrs Conor no Mrs Penna yes Mrs Stanley motion fails we'll go forward with the nomination of Mrs dipy cona for vice president of the board Mr Kiri yes Mrs Bradford yes Dr forer yes Mr Heyman yes Mrs Jolly yes Mrs Connor yes Mrs Penna no and Mrs Stanley motion passes congratulations Mrs con I look forward to working with you this year and working all together to make the most productive board that we can good we're looking forward now to the report of our student Representatives Jake and Olivia we have some very good news so could you please fill us in hello everyone as the winter seasons at Governor Livingston come to a close let's take a moment to reflect on the accomplishments of all our student athletes the governor Livingston ice hockey team is still in the midst of Defending and securing a third straight State title they take on four- seated howl today in the state sectional semi-finals at warano in Rosel the governor Livingston hockey athlete of the month is senior Jeremy snas coach Jensen said he has been Stellar all season and plays in all situations he has put up personal record high points while shutting down opposing teams top lines the boys basketball team ended their season with a 12- 10 record the boys basketball athlete of the season is senior Patrick McGrath coach waffler said Patrick McGrath averaged 16 points per game this season and led his team to a 12- 10 record he almost never came off the court as he was the engine that made our team go Patrick made everyone around it better either by making the unselfish pass to get someone a better look than he had or when he would instruct other players on the floor where to be the girls basketball team ended the season with a 9 and13 record the girls basketball athlete of the season is senior Sarah castrovinci coach eard said Sarah was one of one of the team captains this year and led by example on and off the court she worked her way back from multiple ACL tears sustained during her sophomore and junior year this didn't stop her from playing in every game this season she was our defensive leader and fearless on the boards finishing with 158 points and over 170 rebounds the boys swimming team ended the season with a six and five record losing in the final round of the state sectional tournament the boys swimming athlete of the season is Junior Kaden Wong senior Captain Jack wowski said as a humble athlete Hayden always comes ready to swim and we can rely on him to win his races the girls swimming team ended their season with a nine and4 record and finished as state sectional champions for the second consecutive year the girls swiming athlete of the season is well the whole team senior Captain MADD Kenny said I feel like I can't name one athlete in the best way possible there are multiple girls who contributed to not only the win but the overall morale of the team we have some really fast swimmers who would get first or second in all of their events and girls who get third fourth and fifth in all of in all of their events which contributed to our victory at meets throughout the season the boys fencing team finished the season with a seven- seven record and the girls fencing fencing team finished five- seven the fencing athlete of the season is senior Steven Yu coach Wang said Steven is the top fencer on the boys foil Squad responsible for a historic Tri historic triumphing run over the number one foil Squad in the state burners High School to win The District Five foil championships Steph has a 23 and six individual record this season a fear style of play and a deep love of the sport that shows in how he coaches his teammates and how he patiently mentors young students at practice who are trying fencing for the first time the wrestling team finished their season with a 22 and5 record the wrestling athlete of the season is Junior Nate Faxon coach liberado said Nate has had a phenomenal season accomplishing 36 wins this year with 35 of them coming by pin Nathan Faxon is striving to be on the podium this year at the New Jersey wrestling state tournament in Atlantic City for the first time in his career Faxon is an incredible athlete hand and handles himself with poise and determination each time he steps on the mat thank you good evening throughout the month of February GL has been celebrating Black History Month the GL unfiltered club and diversity committee held a movie watch party for hidden figures as part of the celebration additionally The Saga Club has been highlighting black lgbtq Plus members and their accomplishments recently the Highlander robotics team won first place at a league tournament qualifying them for the state championships beginning this morning as a part of morning announcements GL has been revealing who was awarded each senior superlative for the class of 2024 look look ahead many Community oriented activities are coming to GL including a blood drive on Friday March 1st any students or staff over the age of 16 are encouraged to participate as one person's donation can save three lives during the week of March 11th ghs Juniors will be taking the NJ GPA exam as a part of their graduation requirements on March 22nd and 23rd the GL creative art festival will be held featuring visual art videos and literature thank you thank you so much much for those reports we send our very best to our athletes and to our academics and to our cultural and we appreciate your keeping us a breast of what's going on in our schools um we're moving now to the report of the superintendent Dr vley I just have a quick jump in here um two things for the board before Dr vley goes uh this is from Mr Nixon the board members have been receiving emails regarding the unsung hero uh lunch in that's going to take place if you can let him know tomorrow if anyone's going to be attending that so he can make the the the proper res uh the proper uh make sure you're on the on the list to go I Believe Miss Bradford went last year um so let him know tomorrow the latest and also um a notice will be going out to parents at GL either tomorrow or the latest Wednesday um discussing the njsla testing schedule and Governor Livingston is looking to do delayed openings um on those days of testing so that notice will be going out to parents and students tomorrow if not the latest Wednesday I just want to make the board update I just want to update the board on that thank you thank you Dr girano um Olivia and Jake you always share the greatest news with us we've got um the girl swim team and we've got the hockey team again so thank you so much for sharing your information I'm going to keep my part my actual spoken part very brief and I'm going to turn it over to um Mr swisser from suuply and Clooney and Company for our audit report uh our student Representatives can leave at any time I don't want to stay for this it's very exciting steps uh I'm here to present the fisc year 23 uh annual comprehensive financial report and also the auditor management report uh districts are required to have an audit done every year by independent auditor and you have two reports that the state requires uh the first one I'd like to talk about is the auditor's management report that's a small of the two reports uh there's nine categories the state has to concentrate on when we do our auditing procedures if we have any findings and recommendations they'll be listed I think it's not presented also Dr warley we have transportation system up are we not presenting anything oh no no I didn't um so yeah so you have uh two findings and recommendations in the auditor manag report that I just like to read into the record uh the first finding recommendation is a repeat finding recommendation from the prior year and it deals with your food service uh the finding is that we noted that the food service fund operated a deficit as of June 30 2023 and the recommendation is that the food service fund operating deficit be provided for prior to year end uh your food service has been at a deficit for the last two years um and you have not provided for that deficit uh the main way you usually provide for that deficit would be to uh allocate money from your general fund budget to cover that deficit uh the second recommendation finding recommendation deals with your Assa your your uh application for state school aid we noted several differences between what was reported on the application for state school aid and what was reported on the district supporting workpapers um each each year you guys have a count of number of students on hand as of October 15th and you have work papers that support those count supports that count uh when we came in to do our ordering procedures the amounts on the work papers did not agree your final application that went to the state of New Jersey those are the only two findings and recommendations that we had uh you guys have to prepare a corrective action plan what be prepared by the business administrator and approved by the board uh to remedy those findings just I just want to point out that the audit comments for the asssa were last year microphone I'm sorry those those reported findings are for the 2223 year for this current year when they did come about for the Assa procedure was written I had Mr swisser and his team come in to take a look and everything is fine so it won't be a repeat comment for next year and we're addressing the deficit for the cafeteria food service fund and it's being approved this evening so hopefully we won't have either one of those two comments for next year sounds good um the other other report you have tonight is your annual annual comprehensive financial report these are your financial statements your notes to the financial statements and then other schedule that the state of New Jersey or the federal government requires to have in the report uh we get these records from the business office we we apply our ordering procedures then we render an opinion on those financial statements uh most districts will receive either a unmodified opinion or a modified opinion a modified opinion would be if we had any issues with any of the numbers that were in the financial statements I'm happy to report that the district received an unmodified opinion that means the finance statements we feel are fairly stated uh from a financial standpoint the the district had a good year the district started the year off with a little over $9.4 million in Surplus and end of the year with a little over 11.2 uh the components of that Surplus were uh yearend incumbrances of $686,000 excess Surplus from the current year of $1.4 million ex Surplus from the prior year of $788,000 capital reserve of 3,9 98,000 maintenance reserve of a little over $1 million uh unemployment of $436,000 unassigned fund balance of $1,276 th000 and then assigned fund balance designated for subsequent years of a m67 so fiscally the the district had a good year are there any specific questions on either of the two reports Dr forer yes um okay you you you got us this report uh the report is due in December each year in order to comply with statutory deadlines but we didn't receive it until January 24th so it was late and as far as I can tell it's been late for the last two years how we assist you in getting the report to us on time ideally in December and when do you first receive all the district data and reports that you need to do your work um just to just to clarify that the the the deadline is usually December 5th every year uh the last two years prior to this the state extended extended the deadline in a roundabout fash until I believe it was March March 1st uh this past year they formally extended the deadline till January 15 uh this report was not issued till January 24th uh in order to get the audit done in a more timely fashion uh we did have a few issues with the turnover and Bas so the financial reports that we usually request were not ready when we usually come in we usually come in in the beginning of August uh unfortunately it's been a problem with a lot of our districts across the state um but I would say the biggest the biggest issue would be if we have all all the financial reports ready by August 15 that would that would uh uh expedite the a okay and um when you receive something from the district office are you in a position to say no that doesn't comply with the regulations and bounce it back for revisions uh you mean from the business office here yeah that's where you get your data right yeah I mean you usually will'll come in in probably in in the beginning of August and and start our audit procedures based on if the financial reports were ready un fortunately the state of New Jersey over the last couple years some of their information that we have to put into this AIT report has not been ready on time uh that was that was hold up over the last years the past year they they got the information ready for us I think in November uh which once again that kind of holds up we usually have to come in in August to do our auditing but then we have to wait for the state to get their report and like I said a couple of the other other reports that we usually get from the finance office we're not ready until November and December okay because I I've been looking at the org chart and the one that uh we got has the wrong year for it uh we need the one for 2223 so we have an out ofate or chart um second it shows a position of assistant superintendent of Elementary education and intervention that no longer exists and um also there's a regulation quote at njac 6A 23 a-65 which states that uh the functions of human resources and payroll shall be segregated and completed by different employees in all school districts the functions of purchasing and accounts payable shall be segregated and completely completed by different employees and then the crucial one is School District shall include in the comprehensive of annual financial report the cafer detailed organizational charts for the central office that tie to the school district's position control logs including not limited to the the business human resources and information management functions so what I'd like to see is that that chart fixed uh to show those required things um could you help us on that uh yeah that that's kind of out of our hands we put whatever the the business office gives us into the I'm wondering if you could bounce it back and say it's not in compliance with the regulations um I've I've never seen that done before but I will I will I will take that in consideration undoubtedly yes um now business type activities increased from 181,000 approximately in 2022 to 1.1 million in 2023 that's a pretty big jump for food services do you know why or what is the reason for that substantial increase or is that not in your is there is there a schedule you're referring to uh page 23 of the audit unfortunately that's a chart that comes from different other other numbers in here I I'd have to I'd have to delve into that a little further to give you an answer on that all right I can I can provide that the AG all right uh we earned in page 84 we earned interest of $437 on a balance of somewhere between $500,000 and a million that's a rate of only 008 75% do you know how we can do better than that uh New Jersey Cash management is a good fund to invest in I think we're moving to that yes um page 89 showed miscellaneous revenues for 250,000 but we budgeted 400,000 what are miscellaneous revenues and why did we fall short of the budget amount by 150,000 um miscellaneous revenues would be anything that doesn't fall into any your other uh am any other categories that you budgeted for uh interest interest would be in there uh maybe Miss reimbursements of Prior your cost may be in there I I can't speak to you know budgeting and what you actually realize we don't we don't look into okay budget vers all right uh just have one last question page 89 uh in a section called revenue and another section called expenditures and right after total revenues is a line called withdraw from cap Reserve excess cost on other project other capital projects for 569 th000 so we budgeted 569 but we didn't actually take out anything can you tell me why the budget withdrawal did not happen and what is the effect on the tax levy of budgeting for withdrawal uh no the withdrawal did happen in just in the in the uh financial statements the way the state wants them presented it's just a reallocation of surplus it's not re it's not realizing a revenue since it is fund balance so that that money was used to balance your budget but why would the if there was no withdrawal then okay so withdrawal shows zero actual so that means there was no withdrawal right uh the way the way these financial statements the way the state wants to provide them yeah you just put it in the you put in the original budget column and it's basically a reallocation of your Surplus in the end so it doesn't show in the actual but the but the but the withdrawal was made and you did you did use that money to to balance your budget can can I ask so Mrs uh Mrs Ziri would you like to ask a question you may wow okay um so a followup to Tom's question is if we withdrew and it's still showing as a SE zero when where will we see this withdrawal it's uh it's just the way the the statements are you know the way the the state of New Jersey wants the the state in the show I understand the state of New Jersey wants us to show the format way but on based on which particular report are you making the determination that the withdrawal actually happen where will the board members if we if I want to see this withdrawal based on the reports that are in the audit report we're seeing a zero withdrawal you're saying a withdrawal did happen so where will we see this it's it's much like when you actually anticipate you actually anticipate Surplus every year also and but you don't see that realized as a revenue because it's basically it's it's Surplus being used to to support your budget so it just does it doesn't show in financial stat just it's a revenue when you look at the the budgetary statement the revenue the revenue budget is less than what your Appropriations are by the fund balance that you're using okay so my question is where did what did you see that made you come to a conclusion that a withdrawal did happen what was the document the approv the approved yeah you when when you you have your budget approved there was a revenue for withdrawal from uh from Capital Reser there was a there was a line item a revenue line item but actually did it happen did you see anything yeah there's nothing there's nothing for me to see it's a it's an accounting adjustment you know you know much like much like when you anticipate other you you also anticipate Surplus that does not show as a revenue in here on on those statements either okay it's just Bally if you if you it's unfortunately it's a it's a confusing statement but if you look at your revenues that were budgeted compared I'm asking let's stay on the topic here so on on the 569 that we are seeing as it has never been withdrew you're making a statement that it was withdrawn so what did you see that was presented from the district that is making you make this determination that we did have a withdrawal the the approved state budget Mrs Ziri thank you for your question no is there anything else any other questions is this a question has the floor administrator or uh I mean it's I don't think you'd be able to answer anything different than than than me okay Miss Jolly you have a question sure uh just uh real quick on the 569 how would it appear on that schedule if a um withdrawal did not happen uh when whenever you whenever you have a budget withdrawal it that's the approval to make it happen so when that budget is adopted that means the money is being used to you know to help fund the budget well I I guess on that schedule that um Dr Fargo was referring to there's no actual but a withdrawal happened correct if a withdrawal did not happen would that line item look any different uh there would not be a with the budget being adopted that is the authorization to withdraw the money the same thing like I said when you when you adopt your budget you also use Surplus to help fund to help fund the budget that does not appear as an actual Revenue anywhere in the document okay thank you I have a followup question on the Mrs Ziri you have one follow-up question you may go ahead as of now it's one can I have more or are we need to move on so please ask your question we need to move on and there is an agenda item with all due respect Mrs Bradford that we have to approve and accept these findings so I think this presentation is for the board with the auditor M please ask your question yes so um because we present this or submitted it to the state later than the deadline what is the impact uh there is no impact in in years past uh if you if the order was submitted after deadline may go points on your qack okay uh but since it's been an issue for the whole state of New Jersey over the last couple years they've decided to not have any penalties so there's going to be no qack where can we find this information uh the county superintendent could do you have anything in that you can share with the business administrator and we can see that there won't be any impact on qac uh yeah I could probably email something to AJ Okay thank you sure thank you Dr barley um and now I'll thank hold hold on hold on I had a question oh okay Mrs kaana thank you I have a question on this is Page 33 on the fund balances is the right way to read that page as the total fund balance is 11.3 million out of which the capital reserve account has 3.99 eight million the maintenance Reserve account has a million and some change the excess Surplus is 1.45 million and then you have I guess what's um excess Surplus designated for um expenditures meaning it's it's already a um it's it's been used in budget it's being used in the next year's budget so that's 788k um Mike and then there are some assigned balances in there that adds up to the 11.3 million if I go back and and look at the excess Surplus line item the $ 1.45 million should I be thinking that when we start the budget planning process for you know 2024 2025 yes we have a starting point of $1.4 million that's available have to you have to start that you have to use that we have that yes okay and then depending on you know what we have the items that that go in the budget uh we may or may not need the 2% Levy you can go above that it's it's up to the board to decide if we do want to go all the way to 2% or we go and use this $1.4 million yeah yes at least 1.4 but you can use more to your discretion okay that that's my question thank you thank you Dr barley I have a on a surplus just on Surplus so um Mrs zurri um can we move on to our next presentation please it's just one quick question on Surplus so how did we end up with one point the Surplus that was that we currently have that that excess yes uh the state of New Jersey has a calculation that there requires every dist no which budget line item is it from health benefits based on what you gave us gener your Sur it's any of your Appropriations unpend Appropriations than any excesses you have which line item gave us like half a million dollars is it health benefits like based on what you submitted to us it looked like it came from health benefits account is that an accurate assumption I couldn't tell you right now because that that statement where you're looking at the C1 it has incumbrances in there also no no no it's in B2 I guess it's in section B2 section B2 is just your actual it's not going to show you what's lapsing appropriation no what was save what we didn't spend in actuals will go into Surplus is that a correct assumption from health benefits uh yeah I I could I can't tell you exactly how much you did not spend because in this document here in the actual com it doesn't include incomes so your health benefits line your health benefits line if it's showing 760 $765,000 of unspent money 760,000 7 yeah approximately $765,000 there may be an encumbrance in there where we may may have you know encumbered some money for that health benefit that's not but odds are it's probably about $700,000 so this is included in the 1.5 yeah that that that generates your CLE thank you thank you so much Mr swisser thank you for your time I appreciate it have a good night thank you now I would like to ask um Mr coer and the his team to come up and talk about Transportation good evening members of the board superintendent um looking forward to the opportunity to present our study that we did for you on your transportation we were asked back in September of last year year to conduct a study on your transportation department um and we did a lot of things over the past several months and the purpose of our study was to provide you with recommendations that could enhance and provide the students of Berkeley Heights with the safest most efficient Transportation possible over and above what they're already receiving so to move forward can I move the slides forward yeah I think just hit the arrow button it should is there an arrow button there cool perfect so I'd like to introduce uh Patrick Doyle is a retired state trooper who is on our team um Patrick if you give a little bit about yourself absolutely sure yeah spend my time now walking School properties and riding my bicycle along past that school children take and following buses quite honestly so I make my trade doing that I'm a certified traffic analyst so I look at traffic not from an engineer's perspective but from the way humans use traffic and how they interact especially on a school level and I also reconstructed probably more than 200 fatal accidents so I look at causation and what causes accidents and what leads to them both from a human perspective and from engineering design and where that all merges together so I do that in the school environment and and that's why I'm here so and another member of our team is ingred Rano uh ing just a little bit about yourself a little bit I don't think I don't think I'm capable of that um I've been in in this industry 49 years I started out as a bus driver I have been president of STS I have been a part of the rodeo I organized and ran the New Jersey state Rodeo for bus drivers training I taught at Ruckers I've been at IND into in districts I've been Transportation director in most I retired out and I do certified training I do driver handling I do accident review name it I think I could do it thank you very much thank you and a little bit about myself I've been in transportation in state of New Jersey for over 40 years um I've been called on by the state and some other government agencies as an expert witness in different things as it relates to student transportation within the state of New Jersey uh I retired from North Brunswick Board of Ed at their transportation supervisor there for 20 years the agenda for tonight we have our introductions we have the assessment scope the definitions the methodology that we used what our findings were and the next steps so the scope of what we tracked on to was in transportation the bus management system that you currently use technology the hiring the the training uh we looked at your courtesy busing as far as consistency necessity and efficiency and with the courtesy busing ties hand inand with hazardous routes and that's a big item that we really need to discuss and we'll go into a little bit deeper here um one of the things that we found was with your Transportation Administration your bus management and the technology we made a recommendation of changing the system that you had you were using a nice system but there were other systems out there that would give you a lot more as far as your transportation when you file your state reports and they tie into reports like the Assa and things along those lines and my understanding is that the board did approve going forward with a new vendor and I think that's an excellent step that's going to help your transportation department immensely as I said we look at Courtesy busing and then we also looked at hazardous roads and at this point I'm going to let have let Patrick talk to you about hazardous roads and what we looked at so Patrick thank you sir yeah I wanted to start off with a little bit of a definition hazardous from the school perspective is really what you deem it to be hazardous it's not what the police department says and by the way their opinion is most important in this as is your civil engineer Department of Public Works everybody has is a different definition some of them more scientific than others others are perhaps more about the community and what their expectation is but you get to determine what hazardous is in terms of the way you look at the way children are transported to school or not transported so it's um it's not nebulous or vague in any way except that it is a kind of a totality of circumstances get to determine that because children we design roads I'll just give you a little idea of how you design roads right right you have them meet certain standards and they're super elevated meaning they're pitched in one way or another to make rain run off and they make cars stay on the road but the way children use that road is much different if a road is super elevated a child's walking uphill but it's a crial that it has to be that way because the rain has to run off to the right side of the road that may be hazardous even though the road is perfectly safe so you have to look at it holistically and say the way children and your staff and other people use the school and to and come to and from the schools that may be completely different than the way somebody driving a Honda Accord 2024 with perfect visibility has on a clear dry day it meets those standards but it doesn't meet your standards or your use needs so that's why we say hazardous is really the way you use the road way you use the uh sidewalks and the way you use things other than roads Transportation methods to get here so it's important to note that it's your opinion that of the superintendent the board and your professional staff and uh and your police department and other departments in town they determine what's hazardous it's not this bright line it meets strategic or I'm sorry scientific engineering standards because I'll suggest that this is a perfectly safe Town well this town Berkeley Heights to drive it I find no real extreme conditions that aren't relatively well cared for in some cases an intersection could be a little better and maybe could be you know improved on with something simple but the reality is that same intersection has a different perspective if you're a school child or if you're looking after school children and you have door to-door responsibility right so that's why I want you to just at least get the mindset of that if you think it's hazardous even if the police department doesn't that's okay because your definition can be different than theirs not it's not a you're not uh a verses them in that so that's something to consider um so does anybody we're going to take questions at the end Ray would that be best okay good just wanted to make sure this isn't about the police department says it's a perfectly safe Town it is I found no reason to doubt that a car drives through the roads and has virtually no problems obviously I would improve some things but they're not inherently dangerous to them but for school children it's different and especially when you expect them to ro walk in Crossroads or they ride bicycles or they come in cars or your buses transport them and one final point is a bus and ingr can tell you this from years of doing it a bus is a much different vehicle it's a much different vehicle than any other vehicle that goes on your roads not only is the cargo the most precious thing that transports through the town but the vehicle is different it's made to carry a lot of people relatively short distances and it does that quite well but Hills and uh Shady spots and mold on roadways and and things like that they have a bigger impact on the bus driver and its cargo than does an oil tanker going through town or something else some truck that's loaded heavy so just keep in mind that your definition is most important we help you with that we your transportation professionals and the county and others can help you define what hazardous is so this is an important uh designation I'll say um to touch methodology too Ray we looked at when we looked at your situation we'll call it Transportation situation we assessed it we looked at documents we looked at everything you had and we suggested some you don't have we're going to talk about those hazardous route policy coming up so we looked at the maps the routes the software and all the things that you use to create a transportation policy right when I say we did field examination of these I literally brought my bike and rode the town rode the PA to the school you know some of the walking paths had cut through parks and things like that so we looked at every angle of this not every single Road in every house but we looked at every major Pathway to a school including the way the buses come the way people come on foot and the way people drop kids off in uh in cars right we made special attention to certain roads which really seemed hazardous like you'll say Diamond Hill or Schnider or one of these very busy roads they're obviously it's almost in a duh moment of course it is it's high volume traffic it has 40 m hour speed zones Etc but we even went to some local small roads which you say well I don't think that's hazardous and we'll point out ways in which other roads can be hazardous even if they're not the busiest ones in town so we paid special attention to those and that's how we looked at what to study because not every single Square footed square foot of paved Surface or non-paved Surface in the town was looked at but we think we covered every major hazardous area that you have in town that's our methodology right and the Hazardous route criteria rating we use a rubric uh that's been in use in fact ingred invented it to some degree I would say or maybe to the entire degree and uh we talk about this professionally her and I and we added and took some things away from it basically a rubric now you can use it you can use it yourself or you can develop your own remember it's your opinion that's important about how you administer the use of the money in the transportation system but the rubric is quite helpful because it gives you the 25 things you ought to think about speed limit angle of the road is the sight line good is the sun in the eyes of a winter driver is it downhill in some cases we find bus stops at the bottom of a hill When the Children most of them come from near the top of the hill and we say well the rubric points out that at the bottom that's an unsafe stop but if the bus could stop at the top and get children and some of them could walk uphill it would be a much safer way so the rubric can help you kind of design where you think a road is hazardous and even look at ways to improving bus stops individually so the rubric is a really important way because it looks at those four aspects the roadways walkways the grade level how students intera so the rubric is quite helpful so I hope you'll use it going forward we certainly use it to assess your uh hazardous route conditions you want to jump in on this or so thank you and in addition we also referred to as we went along to New Jersey title 1839 as well as through the administrative code for transportation title 6A and we made sure that we followed the guidelines that are established in both of those documents um as we said our findings the management system needed to be enhanc the software we found that some of the courtesy busing areas were to be in non hazardous areas unnecessary and they were there were some inconsistencies hazardous roads several roadways found to be hazardous all five studied exceeded the Hazardous points on our rubric both bus and pedestrian risks were found routing inefficiencies and inconsistencies and there is a lack of policy uh one of the things we noted is you do not have or have not had a policy as regards s to hazardous busing nor as to transportation in general so we have worked with the administrative team on a policy to put together for you to approve the assessment findings Transportation needed enhancing as I said the software other factors parents are currently boarding special education busing to buckle their students onto the bus in their seats there are Rec recommendation is to train your staff and the students and bus aids to buckle their students on you have a huge liability by allowing a parent to step foot on any school vehicle at any time there are all kinds of reasons that we could spend tonight talking about from a legal aspect you do not allow any parent on the bus for any reason at all we recommended as I said training the bus AIDS having maybe um an opening day like a little demonstration and talk to the students as they board the bus on the first day and remind the parents to talk to their students to know how to get in and out of the seat and the seat belt properly it's important to note that in title 6A the way the word the wording reads that a school bus driver is only responsible to assure that a seat belt on a vehicle is in operating condition that bus driver is not allowed out of his or her seat to go buckle up a student or unbuckle a student their responsibility is to make sure that the seat belts on a bus are in operating condition on the courtesy busing some of the busing areas we found uh as I said were inconsistent um we go back what what strikes us most is if you look at the mats that we had provided you'll see the orange areas are areas where students are being courtesy bus the yellow are Walkers and then there are pink areas in between you'll see there some P here in these areas those are what we consider to be a hazardous bus route students that live along those routes should be bused and by having a hazardous bus policy in in place you do a few things one you've covered your District as far as why you're transporting those students in addition you're missing an opportunity for funding because you have not had a hazardous bus policy in the past any student that lived along a hazardous route that you were busing you were not getting funding for by having a hazardous policy they adjust the formula on your efficiency rating so that you are funded for those courtesy quote unquote bus students so you may have students that live in here that would be courtesy bu they're under the two and a half or the two mile radius but because you've identified this and you have a policy on record as identifying those routes as hazardous they now count towards your efficiency rating and it goes up so your funding is a little bit more increased so you've missed out on that all of these years power do you want to talk about the Hazardous res why we identify sure and as I said the rubric helps us because it gives us a place to start in fact in most cases it's most of the information we need when we look at a road an intersection but in some cases it's not the total picture because the rubric might say that it's it's an even call right the numbers don't our rubric doesn't say it's hazardous or it's non-hazardous well it's easy to see when you enter a roadway where there's no sidewalks which is okay by the way Splat even surface is okay to walk on but when that surface is entirely on private property or is flat and even but is um much too close to the road and the road itself is narrow to begin with we say that it's hazardous and there is some flexibility in that for you to have that happen in a town like Berkeley Heights which is quite hilly once you're out of the downtown area is often in shade uh paint and uh masking surfaces to create um crosswalks it Rod much faster than they do in other towns even some of your neighboring towns don't have this kind of DEC he in the pain it's not that you're using poor pain or your a public works department is not fixing it right you use more salt than other towns they're in shade so mold decays them so a road that is otherwise normal in the beginning of the year by the time the end of the winter is done it could have decayed to the point where it's got a slippery surface mold is slippery we all know that there's some areas where they have old slate sidewalks they're private obviously and other things they become hazardous at times of the year when they're not hazardous in the warmer weather so there is some flexibility to determine what is hazardous and what is not and we looked at for instance in the areas that were courtesy busing there's quite a few or at least one or two roads where I find no hazards of any kind I think what happened is people it just fell into a courtesy busing because of maybe the distance to the school or the age of the population that was going to go to that school but the reality is some areas which are in courtesy uh busing or are thought to be hazardous are not so we just suggest use of that rubric use it start with it you can always add to it certainly your own understanding of it and your knowledge of the neighborhoods and the way people come and where the light comes through at certain times you can add those to it you can add to the rubric but we we didn't look at them without a baseline of a rubric which is used everywhere this rubric is used quite widely and I suggest that you use it at least as a starting point for determining what is hazardous what is not who should get courtesy busing based on that so I hope that helps and one street might be different than the other even though they look the same when you look at it according to the rubric you go wait there's one factor uh that is just makes it yes and again it could be the sun in the winter in some streets you we all know the street right you know when it's coming come December you literally can't see the cars in front of you that's a danger to the pedestrians more so than even cars so just keep that in mind it can change depending on the time of year so as we go through you can see so here's the woodruft sending area and again the students that are in the orange or the pink area pink area is hazardous busting that we're recommending you identify as um the ones in the orange area they're rated as they're they're eligible for transportation they're over in this case the two mile radius so they would be eligible you're going to get funding for them no matter what but these students are under it and if you had them identified you would be getting some type of funding and I think it's important to know that you're not the only School District in the state of New Jersey looking at their courtesy busing right now um I've been contacted by several and I think of the 624 school districts there's probably at least a third of them that are looking at their courtesy busing at this time uh because budget are tough and with that 2% cap they have to look at everything to make that 2% cap so there's a lot of school districts and it's a very emotional time but courtesy busing is being looked at all over the state of New Jersey this is the Hugh sending area the Mary K there's really not a lot of go ahead I just wanted to mention one thing about the Mary Kay Mount Park sending area especially Mary Kay School itself in the main road that runs in front of it I deem that section is hazardous because the rubric told me so the reality is it's not a very dangerous Street per se and it you know has good sight lines Etc but the entry to that school is at Hillcrest and the Hillcrest sorry the the crosswalk is obliterated and can't be seen from both directions so you can easily get a Road off of the Hazardous bad list I would say by improving simple things like signage or making sure that that crosswalk is painted twice a year probably won't be twice a year but once every other year as opposed to once every five years it also has in One Direction it's a a school zone designated so for slower speed I think it goes from 40 to 25 it should go to 20 yeah and in the other direction there is no designation and I mean how did that happen I imagine I found an old sign poost there that was clipped off probably from an accident somebody slid off the road and the sign was just never put up so in One Direction you're not alerted that there's a school ahead in the other direction it's quite fine and there's plenty of alerts and signs to indicate that it's relatively simple fix and then it's a much safer intersection so I just wanted to point that out about about uh Mary Kay and I think it was also designated as an early Child Development Center so it's not a full school so probably no one walks to the school but nonetheless it is still not a school zone and it should be because people should be slowing from 40 to 25 when they're coming in One Direction it's certainly no different than they're coming in the other direction pretty simple fix uh and so it's something that you just need to stay on top of by doing this hazardous route review every few years certainly every five years if not sooner so just a point about that District as we move on the Colombia ascending District so this is where it really struck Us in that the students in this area here should be if it was designated Hazard they would be transported because they are under the two mile radius but they are getting busing now they're getting courtesy busing when the students here meet the same criteria and they're not getting Transportation so there's a discrepancy there can you name the streets because we can't excuse me we're gonna wait for questions till the end thank you I'm just asking for the presentation to be more like we can see in a minute you'll get that and then with the high school here all of these students here are eligible because they're over the two and a half mile we're we've identified some hazardous roads even though these students are relatively close there's a hazardous Road here that we feel they should be labeled hazardous as well as students in this area I let you talk on the hazards yeah yeah so I hope and we'll answer questions about it you have a understanding of when we say haszard is it's not some bright line set of facts that a engineer would look at but they certainly can be included in that because their opinion is important to it but your opinion on top of it or in addition to that is is quite important but we I found that these aren't just for the pedestrians in your system they're for the buses as well in some cases a route can be hazardous because the bus has a difficult time accelerating or difficult time stopping doesn't mean that we can't use a bus there it just means that or shouldn't use one it just means that there may be some rerouting that would have the bus stop as I said at the top of the hill as opposed to making a stop at the bottom so they're both pedestrian and bus risk spound and to some degree risks to the people that are coming to drop off children in cars but that's much lesser because they're more agile and the drivers only have one person to watch not 50 or something like that so not so much the cars but certainly um bus and pedestrian risks and I would say the risk is highest although not high and certainly not high compared to other schools it's just that you don't have a policy by which to point to um the risk to pedestrian is probably highest if I had to say buses are pretty good at it drivers are good they like their job they're something that they they're members of the community usually and all that so you get a benefit that they're they're invested in the place so they drive carefully and I and I followed them and I couldn't really find any I mean once in a while you'll see one that maybe you know has to go past a stop sign but it's almost like you have to do that they stop and then they nudge out who doesn't do that I did that you know coming here tonight so I don't find that they're a big part of the risk um the routes themselves are and the pedestrians are more at risk so uh busing less of a of a risk in terms of the way the buses are operated they also seem in great shape we didn't do a study of the buses but I happen to look at many of them while we were following bus routes and I think they were uh in quite good shape the routing and inefficiency inconsistency is another thing that Ry pointed out in your software I think you're already embarking on that is going to help quite a bit I'll give you one example on the other side um towards um well north towards let's say martown on the north side of the Main Street buses go into that small neighborhood over there and they come back across your busing software had them going directly across an uncontrolled intersection across the Main Street ac across the you know the commercial District that's just hard to do in any car so the bus can easily make a right and then turn left and come past uh the middle school but instead the routing software forces the bus driver to go across that Main Street and of course there's parking on all sides of your of the main street right on all sides so it's hard to see in a car you have to pull out so the bus has to pull out quite a distance in order to see left and right and even then it's hard to get across in a bus just making the bus uh do right turns and then left turns with a the assist of a left turn lane in one switch the busing software made it easier for that bus to get across and continue on its route it doesn't need to go straight across true that's most efficient from a transportation standpoint we don't want to waste diesel fuel for what it costs but the point is making it make a right and then a quick left not a quick left making it right and then a left is so much safer for everyone and it doesn't affect anybody's stop there was no stop on the other side anyway so that's just one point about the inefficiency of the busing software and as we said the policy if you have a policy and you have the rubric I mean to me you're three quarters of the way there and then just use it periodically to redefine because roads will change new subdivisions will be cut in um you know some areas with houses may become Parks other areas that were open areas will become Housing Development so you have to revisit it so those are kind of the explanations of the Hazardous policy to further explain the bus routing system the system you were using as I said it was a good system but it didn't have a lot of bells and whistles the new system that you're going to situations like Patrick just explained to you you can put it into the system right on the roadway buses are not allowed to enter that no right on red so that it's a safeguard when your bus person when Kelly is putting the routes together you can't miss it because it's automatically built into the program so the program will not allow that bus to make that turn or to go straight it's that sophisticated you can put into this bus routing system Peak periods of time if you know that from 9:00 in the morning to 2 o'clock Mountain AB Vue is piece of cake you can ride right through it but try doing it from 6:30 in the morning to 9:00 in the morning it's a whole different story you can adjust in your program the speeds from 6:30 in the morning to 9 o'clock if it's posted at 45 and you know you're not going to do any more than 25 you can post it and put it into that program so that what that does is when you're timing out your routes and scheduling bus stops it gets it pretty accurate to the minute as to when that bus is going to arrive in the morning big help to parents so that they can plan their days out go there we go so I think we covered most of this but just a little bit of a summary is you know we we just think that the transportation management the software component of it is incredibly important um personally I think the three of us having looked at a lot of schools work at them we probably think a person managing should be solely focused on that and not also driving a bus but you know you have you have to do what you have to do we understand that we're not here to talk judge you we're just saying that someone solely focused on Transportation seems ideal if you can afford that so that they're not I mean in an emergency they could go out and drive but having them have a regular route is probably less than ideal and not what we see in other in other um school systems so in that case you're probably I'll Off the Mark a little bit so um as we said having the policy is going to be very help because you can point to it use a rubric develop one on your own we can help you redevelop that one there are some out there commercially you can buy but quite honestly your opinion is can be you can derive your own opinion from looking at um the conditions so we think administrator to focus on the busing the busing technology you're already doing develop that policy I also offer this to you happy to help you do this but I think you already have great relationships with the County DPW which I think has some of many of the main roads in town your own town uh Department of Public order works regular meetings with them are great and with the police department who has by the way it's a great Police Department I know every Police Department in in the state of New Jersey and this is a very fine one but involving them in the transportation conundrum you're in needing to make routes more efficient Etc getting their endorsement of your recommendations even if you bring to them and say hey we don't think it's safe for the bus to go straight across Springfield avue what do you think I know the police is going to say you know what I don't think of it that way but yeah I I second that where do I how do I um you know support you in that so I think those are things that are going to help when you make this Consortium of Transportation related entities and have them be your allies because they certainly are doing a good job it's just not tailored to your needs as I said one one final thing I wanted to mention too is just the consistency of the traffic devices around town that varies everywhere we go you'll see crosswalks that are just two straight lines across th some that are the zebra or the ladder Stripes which is greatly preferred around schools and in some cases they're I don't know seems to be what somebody thought would be a crosswalk which don't meet any federal or state um traffic control standards so while you're going about this slight change over in this I would urge you to even if it's consistent but not exactly what the state or the federal government says should be your traffic design consistency is critically important for pedestrians who they go to the Mary Kay school they go to Mountain Park and they end up at the middle school and then they end up at the high school I mean they literally do that parent or somebody might drop off a a young brother or sister and then pick up a middle a i you know teen young teen and pick up a high schooler and so do the people that drive around your districts and so do your buses and so do your visitors to town they see consistency at these schools and they go wow right yellow sign School Ahead next one I'm going to see is the the typical crosswalk sign you know the points down that sign is before the crosswalk not afterward another slight critique of what I've seen in town sometimes that sign which says a crosswalk is after the crosswalk and the point is to have it before the crosswalk this way I see it and I say crosswalk coming up when I see it and I'm already on the crosswalk not quite as effective right so consistency of that signage the painting and the schema even if it's not exactly according to the standards I'd be okay with that uh like to see it hit the standards on the way the designs are and the quality of the paint High you know 3M reflective but if you can't consistency would be um I think would be most beneficial to this population your your school population be it the parents teachers and the uh and the students so yes just wanted to expand on what Patrick was saying as far as the transportation management having your supervisor in her office when buses are on the road is a critical part of her job in the event you have a school go on lockdown there's a bus incident she needs to be in charge of that incident and control it and communicate to the superintendent the business administrator the assistant business administrator what's going on and take direction from them if you're in a lockdown and you need to evacuate a certain portion that person needs to be able to handle that situation working hand inand with your administrators so it really is key to have her in the office as often as possible knowing that there are some situations when you have 32 drivers out and you've got 40 runs to cover okay so you're gonna hop in a bus but getting her into the office is really a key to her operations that's pretty much it I wanted to add and thank you for making us aware of some of the things that were going on but we did meet with the county we also met with the town we had our discussions on some of the things that you had brought to our attention and they had spoke to it and said you know some of the issues they had were Staffing at the level here of over the uh course when we had covid supplies were uh at a premium trying to get a hold of those things uh what they did take under advisement is reining some of the streets here in town they do have money in their budget and they will address it uh we spoke we spoke with them and we'll meet with them probably speak with them again probably I'm going to say maybe March beginning of Spring to see where the status is of of those items that we discussed with them and hopefully uh they wouldn't just use paint they would probably use the uh um this the material that would stay a little bit longer yes and not use the paint uh so then this way they would uh do it once and do it right the first time and have it last for a much longer period of time so some of the things that you had suggested to us uh we did speak with them and they will do that and to defend them uh Public Works I can speak because I my position in North Brunswick I oversaw buildings and grounds as well and during covid you could not get traffic paint to save your life State County Road departments would actually Park their vehicles in the parking lot of the distribution center and I've watched videos at four o'clock in the morning they would get their order it never made it to the warehouse it was distributed to all the trucks that were parked there and State and County took priority so you couldn't a Township or in a county could not get paint we couldn't get paint to do the lines in our parking lots around the schools they laughed at us so I know your Department Public Works went through hell to try to get the materials it's a good thing they're working with you and and lastly we have a kickoff meeting for the uh with the software company on March 25th at 10: a.m. uh with myself and Kelly so that's another thing that's hopefully moving forward thank you so much we now have 10 minutes for questions is someone like to be recognized Mrs Penna hi good evening good presentation thank you so I just wanted to touch on when you talked about parents not being on the bus and I know you talked about special aid but I'm assuming you're talking about like Mary Kay younger students as well so how do we ensure if parents are not to be on the buses how do we ensure that young children and special ed children are strapped in correctly since the driver can't get out of his seat the cruel answer is you have to have bus Aids on the vehicle okay on your specialed vehicles as long as a stu it it depends on what is in the students's IEP if a bus Aid is not recommended in a student's IEP you don't need an aid on that bus but the majority of the time a bus Aid is recommended in the child's IEP for whatever reasons if there's one student on a vehicle that's required to have an aid on the bus as per the IEP you have to put an aid on it that Aid oversees all of the students to go to prek a prek student can ride on a regular gened bus doesn't have to go on to a special needs bus right the state of New Jersey all the buses are equipped with seat belts again we instruct the parents to help and educate their child at home and the drivers when the students board the bus reminding them to put their seat belts on as they get on the bus so it's a real tough thing but on a special ed van most of the time there's going to be at least one student that in the IEP requires a bus Aid and the legal ramifications if you don't have an aid on the bus and that one student has an IEP that requires it you have some legal problems that you're going to face thank you is there anyone else with a question Miss Jolly thank you for the presentation um just a couple quick questions the rubric that you mentioned can that be shared can we um see exactly um the end result because I think we see it on the maps right yeah the author says yes sharable want she wants you to use it she forces me to use it but I like it I just yeah absolutely thank you Miss sorry I'm not done yet so and then looking at the maps and um and uh talking about hazardous um routes do you equate which it seems that you do based on how you label the color code of the maps do you equate courtesy busing with hazardous routes they go hand in hand so if you have a student that in elementary is under the two mile and you're providing busing that qualifies them as a courtesy bus student if you've identified that area as hazardous then they would receive transportation and you would as I said you get an increase in your efficiency rating but technically that student is courtesy bus but by having that hazardous you overcome that and and having Hazard is helps you in the long run to avoid those inconsistencies so if this is a courtesy bus area and there's no Hazard is policy you're going to adopt the policy will say no you don't get busing unfortunately if you've identified it as hazardous then you can go back and put the courtesy busing thank you m oh sorry just on that train of thought so um in I believe in terms of the numbers that we report to the state um it's either uh mandated um busing and everything that's non-mandated and I think the state's definition of courtesy includes everything that's non-mandated and from our perspective we also have some kids that are getting free busing um they may or may not be on hazardous routes as you've identified them um but they're also getting we also have subscription busing as well have you addressed that as part of your um review View and Analysis and so I because it's hard to see like so for somebody who's currently getting subscription busing like where they fall out on these new maps so you gotta watch how you read the numbers on the state reports because just because it says you have a hundred students that are receiving courtesy bus that counts in the students that are receiving subscription busing because technically they are Cur courtesy bust but not all of them may be accepting the subscription busing so it skewes your numbers you got to really watch to two-edged sword if you say we're not going to name any hazardous routes and we're going to give everybody that lives under the two miles busing the district eats the cost of that there's no refund nothing else if you say well we've identified these areas as hazardous now it's going to on that one on Columbia where I showed you the the one section's paying for busing because they don't get courtesy the others getting courtesy busing so it would level the playing field by having that hazardous policy Mrs Conor question thank you again for the presentation um I have two questions one is specifically when we look at the hug sending area there are some areas that are if you can bring that up yeah okay so while you bring it up if you look at that map it's largely yellow yeah let's stay with this one it's largely yellow when you look at the streets on the other side of the railroad track so they are within the two miles and if I can somehow tell you how to identify the railroad tracks right do you know do you know what I'm talking about yes that's that's the one in the rubric that that you have how do you define that type of a of a road and would that fall like it didn't show up as the pink but if you think about it these are third fourth fifth graders that were technically under two miles but if they choose to walk it's going to take them 40 minutes and they have to cross the railroad tracks how does that fall in that rubri each of us are going to answer that yes so the railroad track not in apparently hazardous don't throw things honestly relatively safe to cross in the areas in which these children cross I cross all of them I mean not preferred that there be a railroad track in town but it's nice to have a railroad station in town so you can ride it uh East uh so not inherently dangerous the railroad track The Crossings are all to code and I watched several Crossings of the road of the railroad and I think there's 12 trains in the morning and I think 12 in the afternoon and a few in the middle of the day so it's not high volume I'm more worried about the cars not inherently dangerous and I think ingred will speak to that as well but it's it's not necessarily A Hazard because you have a railroad crossing and they're paved and have decent sidewalks that lead up to them so that's my opinion and don't forget the rubric is open to anything you want to put in there so if you decide that railroad crossing is a hazard add it add it got it got but be cautious yeah it you know as Patrick and ingr both have said just because it's a railroad road crossing does it mean it's a hazardous road if you label it and you want railroad anybody that lives past that railroad you're going to be busing all right but and to your point what if it's G to take a student 40 minutes to get to and fromont their bus stop all right I was a board member served on a board for three years unfortunately sometimes it comes down to parent responsibility that parent made to CH choose to take their student to school how many parents do you have driving your students the school now dropping them off and picking them up so it's their decision as to what to do understood um and my second question is when you did the analysis and we have these areas that are colorcoded pink which is basically your recommendation of um applying the courtesy busing only to those areas would you have any clue if that would reduce the number of bus routes that we need as a district because now you know we have moved to something that's a little bit more defined uh that is perhaps defensible because of the existence of a rubric say we Define a policy do you have any clue if we've you know dropped like five rules because now you don't have to technically bus those kids who are getting the busing today uh in the absence of a defined policy so to answer your question it probably will level out because those students now are are probably getting courtesy busing the difference is you're going to still be transporting those students but you're going to be getting some funding back for that the other thing is you may increase or decrease your subscription bus depends on the amount of seats you still have available you don't want to add another bus just so you can have parents paying you for that because the cost is astronomical but in the first look and talking with Kelly and everything kind of thought it was going to balance itself out thank you is there oh excuse me the the versatran program that you're going to have we'll give five more minutes for discussion will tell you if you do it you can plug in certain codes and it'll tell you it'll give you a fiveyear projection as to what your busing is going to need got it thank you is there another question wanted to answer one question as far as the streets On the Hazardous policy that I've been working with AJ and Kelly on we've identified every single street they're all named so that you can't if Elm bumps into Mountain Avenue and you only said Mountain Avenue to avoid confusion we listed Elm so every street is listed in that thank you but I was would you have a question you may ask your question now I my what is where is that pink line because I can't see the names are written so small I couldn't read it oh you can't read but when we did the maps we enlarged everything does anybody you know the backs that we got are right from Berkeley Heights I got them from the tax office and that's your most current map these are most current meaning 2023 whenever they did your last tax M so you can't identify what that pink road that you're calling it as hazardices is that Diamond Hill Maybe yeah okay um I'm sorry there was another question hang you had a question um no no Dr forer did you have a question yes uh uh page five uh in your definition of hazardous what is your definition of risk and how is it measured you want to hazardous sorry your question Sor go ahead he wants you to one more time the question please okay on page five of your slides you have a a definition of hazardous and it refers to risk what is your definition of hazardous and what is your definition of risk and how is it measured the definition of risk Hazard how's it how's it measured it's also measured in the rubric yeah so we we create a so basically the profile that the rubric creates all right us to cut you off because I limited time y uh in your definition of hazardous how does your definition of hazardous differ from the one used in science and engineering and why should we prefer your definition uh okay it's not mine I hope it's going to become yours but it's the one we use for the assessment you're free to make your own and the reason it's I find more suitable for a school system is the scientific version of hazardous let's call it the civil engineering hazardous refers to the average person the average use of the roadway or walkway in other words I'll Define it with a use case a small person that's 80 pounds that has a 10 PB backpack is carrying what 20% more weight beyond their in other words carrying 20% additional amount of weight whereas a full-sized adult or an adult that shoots in a civil engineering example would be 136 pounds and carrying a 10 pound backpack much easier to control it the school population is also less attentive to Transportation because they're distracted by you know their youth uh and so your version of hazardous adapts the Civil version to what is best for the population specific to your concerns plus we also I hope that help all right minoc site landscaping and so forth that's all taken into consideration when you identify the RIS you said there are if there are federal state and local laws and regulations as to what is hazardous or non-hazardous shouldn't we follow those as opposed to your own definition I encourage you to follow those and add to them because you're allowed to and why would you not adapt it to my question you rhetorical is why not adapt it to your population and to your unique town as I said hilly Shady moldy you know all these things absolutely you should use those the rubric uses many of those speed limit you know curvature and things like that and you should add these extra asset extra layers to make it unique to your population okay and you're going to show us the details of the rubric I guess yes and uh uh if there are points uh there are points I guess assigned to each roadway uh I'm sorry let me skip if the parent is ultimately responsible for the safety of Their Own Child isn't that true isn't the parent responsible for the safety yes yeah New Jersey law inates that it's all right responsibility from bus A's perfect in terms of buckling who who has the ultimate responsibility here the bus Aid or the parent or the poer buckling the parent okay so yeah all right so um uh let's see did you do any sort of I think we're going to have to it look sounds like we're going to have to get into some of cost analysis here because you're saying we get additional money additional State a uh but then we have additional cost and uh there's also a tradeoff with the uh subscription busing so there that going to be have to be some kind of financial analysis I think Dr forger thank you for your questions we have one more questions may not be done yet um we timing we have spent 15 minutes we have one more question and then we'll move on to our next presentation are you don't you have no such policy to interrupt us you you talking over me my position is to move the along you have the floor I think that's a misinterpretation of my question is um I know the town applied for I I know the town applied for a safe roots to school Grant I'm not sure if you've been in conversations with them and I'm not sure when if whe whether they'll receive that or not some of those roots that you may have looked at is hazardous and I know that the grant uh I think is Mountain Avenue to some degree is that something you can relook at to ensure that if we do get the Grant and that's something that the town does actually adopt that may change some of the Hazardous roots that you may potentially have either the board on as a whole would make that determination Bo you could retain our services and we would come in and re-evaluate that's board's decision but we would encourage that because even one element changed on some of those roads is going to at least take it out of what I hopefully you'll consider to be that hazardous bright line because it really isn't a bright line it's one thing can change the RO State you so much we are going to move on to our next presentation Mrs Airi if you have a question please submit it no I need to ask it right now Mrs Bradford all we are moving on to the next no I need to ask okay fine I just need to know isn't the may go ahead we are now going to turn it over to New Jersey school boards Association I see Miss re back there and and looks like she brought a friend so if you guys would like to come on up and um start your presentation on school board ethics that was Diamond by the way sorry about that no thank you so much for your presentation and your time so much hi my name is Jean clear I'm from New Jersey school boards and I was recently hired and I'm shadowing uh Patricia Ree and I am happy to be with you and just encourage you to uh know that you can reach out to me I will be um working along with Patty um in Union County so I look forward to seeing you all again right well thank you for having us tonight as Jean said she is um newly hired uh we are njsba is hiring uh additional field service reps so we can enhance our uh services to the boards and to you as board members uh and so Gan is our newest hire and as she's shadowing me now ultimately she will be handling uh Union Hudson and Essex I to think about that because it's different than what I'm handling and I'll be moving a little further west closer to where I actually live um but that's you know that's exciting and I'll be here with you uh while Jean Transitions and learns the ropes um put this down and uh we're now doing our um annual ethics training and I don't know if if everybody here knows who I am most of you do uh Patty Reese I now handle Union County I was on my school board before I worked for New Jersey school boards for uh 12 years uh served one term on my Town Council uh 10 years on the zoning board currently on the historic preservation Commission in addition to what I did for my my my school board I did many uh just about every uh committee and so I'm I'm pleased to be able to bring my experience as a board member to um to the boards in in this area and interesting when I was on my board maybe about 10 years ago the whole thing about courtesy busing was a big issue I live in in Western Somerset County so um hazardous roots or is very um very different than here like most most of our areas do not have sidewalks and have what he described as the side so it's all it's been a discussion for many many years and I don't know if there's ever going to be a suitable resolution but good luck it's um it when you have your kids at heart but so we'll start with our um excuse me um with the presentation this is our standard disclaimer essentially it's saying uh that this presentation is only for informational purposes it does not uh replace the advice of your attorney now that you're a school official you serve the public and this position comes with responsibilities uh Theo scho ethics act uh I is you are held to you held accountable by the school ethics act which essentially says to do your job well uh people need to respect you and have confidence that you will conduct yourself properly and not give the impression that you are not acting properly but that's the actual wording of the school ethics act and trying to be cognizant of of your very full agenda um um and I'll take questions at the end because we have a lot to get through but I'm certainly will be here for questions um the school ethics Act established the school ethics commission what it considered what is considered a prohibitive act by um school officials uh what the mandatory training requirements are um are are are listed and the different disclosure statements who has to fill them out and what they are and nine years after the the ACT came of the code of ethics so who was accountable by the school ethics act the uh the provisions of uh conflicts of interest and disclosure statements are um are all school officials are held accountable to that that would be school board members Charter School trustees School administrators New Jersey school board staff uh and the um state officers of of of the school boards Association they're all held accountable uh to the conflict of interests and having to fill out the disclosure statement every single year the um provisions of the code of ethics and the mandatory training apply to school board members and Charter School trustees the school ethics commission uh is the body charged with enforcing the school ethics Act and the commission is comprised of nine members appointed by the governor to a staggered three-year term of those nine members two members have to be school board members five are non-school officials and two are School administrators the jurisdiction of the school ethics uh commission has to do with issuing advisory opinions and ethics complaint an advisory opinion is uh can be requested by a a sitting board member prior to an action being taken to see if that action might constitute a violation so that can only be again only be sought by sitting board members or Charter School trustees prior to an act being taken if you're if you have a concern that you might have a conflict um you can seek a advisory opinion ethics complaints can be filed by anybody uh with um alleging that a violation of the school ethics act has been uh committed um any The Advisory opinions can be made public um by a vote of six of the school ethics commission uh on average every year the school ethics commission uh feels uh 85 ethics complaints and 30 and 35 advisory opinions one of the things that I've said that the school ethics act identifies is the mandatory training requirements and this has changed somewhat since last year last I believe it was last February the only change really is your first year uh your first year uh School Board member Charter School trustees you have 90 days to complete your uh mandated your governance one mandated training uh I know some have gone to uh the new board member orientation weekend which is a fabulous way to do that um but um we also have other ways uh that you can can um finish your Mand mandated training so in year two you have to do governance two which is your finance and and labor update um governance three is student achievement and um those you have to do um within one year of your second year you can do them a little bit ahead of time but you have to do them um in sequence and close to the years that that you would actually redo the first year of every year that you're re elected you have to do governance for and again you have one full year to do that uh we offer uh and New Jersey school boards in the school ethics Act is the um identified as who will provide that training we keep records of who who um completes that training um and um we offer several different versions We have the in-person we have a live virtual which is a virtual meeting but it's live so some you're actually talking with other people we then also have self-paced online which you can go through at your own pace the disclosure statements um new school officials have to uh submit their disclosure statements within 30 days of employment School official being an administrator or um 30 days of taking office subsequently you have uh returning board members have till April 30th to submit their uh Financial dis your disclosure statements generally you get that um in an email from the from the State Department of Education directly the school ethics commission can impose one of four um penalties if an Ethics violation if they deem an Ethics violation has occurred uh the first is level is a reprimand which is a rebuke by the governor I'm Sorry by the commissioner of Education a centure is a formal disapproval by the um commissioner followed with a resolution at your local board meeting identifying such they can uh recommend uh suspension of a of a school board member for a a period of time that they Define and they can also recommend removal of a board member well now there are all the different tenets of the uh School ethics um the code of ethics and not GNA read all of them you can read them in your own um just kind of paraphrase what they are this onea talks about uh you will uphold and enforce the laws and regulations and court orders of the state of New Jersey on all of these slides the standards underneath um are what the school ethics commission um identifies as the evidence that they would need to accompany any claims uh keep in mind that most cases all cases are pretty fact specc specific to that individual case b talks about upholding um that you will make decisions in the best interest of all students see you will confine your action to policymaking and again the standards list what if somebody were to file an Ethics complaint what they would have to provide D is you will not administer the schools you will see that they are well-run what that really means is that you are not um the board is board members do not have the authority to run the day-to-day operations of the district you hire a superintendent and administrative staff to do just that a is about the authority resting with the full board at a noticed meeting with the form present if you're not at a meeting you you the board there is no Authority as an individual board member you do not have author have any extra Authority than any other citizen might have in your town on F you will not yield your individual your independent judgment to any special interest or partisan political group and in that one again at the bottom it says um um you know the evidence just to give some Give an example the evidence is that the respondent took action on behalf of or at the request of a special interest group um and just having to provide that evidence Jay is all about confidentiality and keeping items confidential um that that would you know if disclosed needlessly hurt uh staff or um staff or fellow board members H talks about appointing the best qualified uh staff member at the recommendation of the superintendent everything uh as far as uh that has to be done at the recommendation of the superintendent wa through why didn't I yep I did there we go on one Trigger Happy on the arrows sorry um I is is about supporting and protecting School personnel and the proper performance of their duties and Jay kind of call the um the chain of command uh tenant it's that you will refer all complaints to the school year to your superintendent and will only act on comp on those complaints at a public meeting after the failure of an administrative solution um and keep in mind that um it it the the administrative solution might not be what the parent or whoever wants um but you have to give the administration time to to go through that process um so I just thought I'd talk a little bit about the chain of command and that that the chain of command is basically in place to allow any issue to be handled in the quickest most efficient manner uh and that if you do get um a a an issue from a parent or a resident um the best bet your what board member should do is refer them to the lowest level in the chain of command so if it's a parent about a teacher send that parent to the teacher and then let them work their way up um up to the um you know as far up as as they feel to go that and if that happens just let the superintendent know that you did that uh keeping in in mind that the um the the board should be the court of last resort so if if the um if the parent is not happy with the results uh they may come to the board and you need to give your as I said earlier your Administration time to work through and then to present to you what their findings were and whatever the results are and this talks about um and I'm not going to read through these I I think they're here um for you to um read through them the cases are noted as C 9821 is a um code of ethics case um and and you can actually go to the Department of Ed website and look at um and look at those and see what they are but I just identify I'm GNA just just to to show what your your reading um reading app I think I'm again again sugarhead there we go I'm sorry um so each case has its own specific situations and facts presented uh these cases are here to help you um um to help you in your understanding of the school ethics act uh and there you know as I said read when you get a chance um but I did want to just um go into one uh just to kind of show you what what what's there the first one uh the member copied and pasted uh info from a board email and sent to non-public members um the nonpublic contents to the township officials uh that would was revealing the board's intercommunication and had the potential to compromise the board the uh School ethics um act School ethics commission um ruled that it was a violation of of e and G that Authority rests with the board uh and they recommended a a reprimand and so that's when you look at that they and the citation is the um the case the um I'm sorry the code and again more cases that are um just um for you to read when I I'm going to send to your business administrator PDF file and the cases will be linked so you should be able to um go through them the school ethics act also talked about what is uh a prohibitive act um and um if if any if any of these apply you should recuse yourself um if there's a benefit to you or your immediate family due to any of those lists um and recusal means that you don't participate in the discussion and you don't vote and as always uh if you have a concern and you think any of these May apply to you we strongly recommend that you have a conversation with your board attorney to determine if that is in fact the case and just the flly that talks about the difference between an an exstension and a recusal um if you think you have a legal conflict um conflict of interests again recuse yourself uh and uh from the discussion and the vote and again have that conversation with your board attorney the um there is a difference in how a recusal and a um an exstension are um identified in the board minutes uh abstaining um abstaining does not memorialize the fact that a board member has a legal conflict recusal does and it just as he said it deter it affects how the vote is tabulated and counted and again contact your board attorney and have that conversation so in recent advisory opinions the school ethics commission has further delineated and expanded the definition of what is considered family um and and here's some of what um they're looking at and um you you know a relative used to be you know a sibling a spouse or somebody that lives in the house and now um you're talking about a a spouse a civil civil union or domestic partner a daughter-in-law stepparent is very um as I said they as a result of advisory opinions and cases they've further delineated uh and explain what um a relative is and it the relative just tells you whether what you can participate in and what you can and can't vote on um this this slide um is hard to read I I admit it's it's quite um quite small but it's um it's it's a slide about what um all the different kinds of um family relationships and what you can um vote on regarding uh negot or participate and vote on negotiations and any Personnel matters uh regarded um related to the superintendent um again if you're unsure talk to your board attorney so we all know that board members and administrators can hire family members however if you come on the board and there's already family members in the district doesn't mean you can't run for the board doesn't mean that you have to resign from the board um just means it impacts what you can and can't participate in uh as a board member um if the if the ad if it's the administrator um relative to the administrator they cannot exercise direct or indirect authority over their relative uh a board member may not take part in matters concerning the superintendent or any supervisors in the chain of command between the their relative and the superintendent um and that means you can't take part in the search selection or vote to hire a new superintendent uh and any uh superintendent evaluations uh after hire and um any U contract discussions this slide talks um speaks to um the potential conflicts and what you can and can't participate in uh regarding collective bargaining so for example uh if your spouse dependent child or not dependent child or relative works in the district you can't participate in negotiations and you can't take part in the vote the ratification vote if you go down to the next one um if you're any of those self the you know the board member their spouse or dependent child and they work out of District you can participate in negotiations but after um the memorandum of agreement salary guide um um total compensation package are are attained and there are no other conflicts you can vote participate in the vote to ratify the ratification vote um and if they work out of district and it's a child or not a dependent not a dependent child or relatives you can and they work out of District you can participate in both these are again um a few other um instances that um that may impact what you can and can't participate in uh with regard to um collective bargaining I would encourage you to read these um and again if any apply to you uh come have a conversation with your school board attorney these are several advisory opinions and again an advisory opinion can be sought by a board member prior to any action being taken to see if that might might constitute a an ethical violation or concern um the opinions are linked in here uh and when I when you get sent that um email to that um PowerPoint tomorrow you can uh go through uh and and look at these again they're here to help you understand um the um School ethics act and and um and your responsibilities as a board member this slide talks about um um the impact on committee assignments when a relative works in the district primarily if it's from the board president and these cases come from Ocean Township um the board member um regarding the board members relationship to the the employee and the impacts that that on their ability to be involved in certain committees or Personnel matters so in the first case the board pre the board President's child is an instructional insist assistant in the district uh what this advisory opinion AO -23 says is that the board president cannot choose any Committee Member um or be on any committees involved in the local in you know your local union um or matters related to the superintendent further they cannot the board president cannot choose the chair the members Andor serve any committee on any committee that remotely touches uh upon or directly relates to their family members employment um so it really does uh limit what you can and can't do and again this came from Ocean Township a few more cases um about an executive session uh when a um discussion came up to fill a board a vacant board seat a board memb husband applied um um and the the um board member participated in the discussion in in that instance and the other one is a board president um you know just multiple family uh members the the the response by the school ethics commission the penalty was a censure um and for the the reasons as cited there um there's new something that came out recently about the advice of council defense uh and that's relatively new uh that that you can use um the option if you're going to use that you're following the advice of councel these four prerequisites need to take place uh you need to um show that the uh that the advice was received prior to any action being taken that the individual who who offered the advice or approval relied upon possessed Authority or responsibility with regard to ethical issues and that the individual seeking advice or approval made full disclosure to that person of all the pertinent facts and circumstances and that once the advice was received the um individual complied with that advice um you can use that um and it may help you avoid the actual penalty but they can still find you to be in violation you just won't have the penalty aspect of you may not have the penalty aspect of that so you wonder if as as a board member can you still volunteer and so yes you can still volunteer you just have to be mindful of a few things um when you volunteer as a board member you really shouldn't do it be in the schools that often um you should not um supervise or appear to supervise uh staff or students uh and don't handle any money um and then refrain from discussing while you're volunteering any uh board business and as a courtesy let the superintendent know that you're going to be in this SP so yes you can still here you just have to be mindful just keep those things in mind so what what about voting um you know you are entrusted to review and uh the recommendation of the superintendent and a vote and vote in a way that you feel best serves the needs of the district um and essentially that's what they're saying when it comes to um staff um just and it doesn't mean you have to vote Yes every time just means you have to listen to all the recommendations and and follow what you feel is best for your students and your District uh as far as staff I just make sure that it's can't it's not going to be P any decision is not going to be perceived as arbitrary and capricious and there's some advisory opinions here that kind of identify that and now we get to the the sticky bit of uh New Jersey I think in um with social media uh you know in general you do not violate um the school ethics act or the code of ethics by engaging in social media um it does depend on the content posted the um commission's guide the school ethics commission's analysis is Guided by whether a reasonable member of the public could perceive that the school official is speaking in his or her official capacity or pursuant to their official duties um so you know if um just be mindful of what you're posting if what you're posting cannot be confused with a board position or business you would likely not be invol violation the school ethics commission strongly recommends the use of a disclaimer they recommend this disclaimer that doesn't mean that you have to use this disclaimer but you should always use a a disclaimer on all your uh social media postings and please note that the social the disclaimer is not to get out of jail fre card just because you have a disclaimer doesn't mean that you can't be held accountable to what you say the school ethics commission does look at content and they do make determinations based on your on the content of what what was written so with social media you are now a public official um you know public official of the state of New Jersey and you need to be aware that what you say and do as a private citizen and how it could be perceived as actions or speech coming from the board the community is aware of your status of as a board member and they may uh give you extra weight for what you what you're saying and so you just needs to be aware of that once elected uh you no longer we recommend that you no longer use any social media uh accounts that you used for your campaign because it can be confusing to members of the public based on prior comments past comments that you may before you're an elected official um so um you know and as a as a school official you m need to be aware that what you do and say as a private citizen can be perceived as actions or speech coming from the board um if you're going to like or um share a post from your personal account it's likely not a violation um and I'm not definitive because it's you know they they look at content the they being the school ethics commission um content matters divisive content matters and there are several cases talking about that um uh you know social media has become a focus in more and more uh cases the school ethics commission is spending a lot of time uh adjudicating social media cases um the discussion some of the things that come out of some of their recent cases the discussion of board issues belongs appropriately at the board table topics that reach the public uh before the board can discuss May potentially be an Ethics violation um your public has a right to hear the board discussed uh any issue in an open public meeting points to consider As you move forward uh we have um we recommend that boards make a list of those who may be conflicted and therefore can participate in um negotiations or um anything regarding the superintendent and review that annually um if you have any concerns about any eth ethical issues or um potential ethical issues contact your have a conversation with your board attorney and uh we send out Schoolboard notes every week um and if there are any new um ethics um cases or or decisions they are identified they are listed in there with some guidance or some um explanation from our um our attorneys and finally a reminder that um that that as board members do not deliberately disregard the ethical standards when uh when you do it threatens the Integrity of the board and may compromise your District staff um and that's that's what that is saying um and and I'll take questions but we also have some resources and links that that you can that you can go through so if there are any question it's always very dry stuff I know I like I look around and thank you Mrs Reese we'll allow 10 minutes for discussion anyone for questions oh sorry Miss Dolly yeah just a simple one um would you be able to send the presentation um so we could read through I'll send a send it out um probably when I get home or in the morning and and um your ba can send it out to everybody yep for short Miss Mrs Stanley hi so um when I first became a board member you get a lot of um stuff to read and some of the stuff that you read is about being a cheerleader for your District um and you know when something new comes up to really promote it and um to express excitement about that there's times where you run into situations where you do find an issue right we talked about Transportation today where we found some issues um how best to something like that when you find an issue how best to handle it with the staff as an individual board member I would um um have a conversation with your uh board president what are the Norms actually of what your what your board does um have that conversation with the with your board president um to see what the next steps are for you I feel I feel like um sometimes we have board members who feel like they need to bring it to a public meeting um so so that way the whole um District can know about it I was just kind of wondering like when you look at the ethics is that really what our role is is to bring it to public meetings or is it more to bring it to the attention of the district so they can change it to help improve the district I I think um you're talking about a board member not a general member of the public yeah a board member I mean I don't I don't think there's anything in bringing it to the board table however um if you if you don't if you're surprising it the staff with that at a board meeting you're not really going to um give them the opportunity to come up um with a thoughtful answer or uh address the concern that you may have so I would recommend that uh you do reach out and let them know that that's your concern um if it's out of a committee report certainly you can go to the the committee chair um but in the end if if everybody's caught if if you're caught flat-footed um nobody really looks good but you certainly have a right to bring that issue up um as a board member for sure um but just give them the courtesy of giving them a heads up that you're going to bring it up at a meeting I I mean I did that at times when I would go through my agenda um my board was okay for board members and this is when I talk about board Norms our board Norm was that if you had a concern you could go directly to the business administrator or the superintendent some boards everything goes through the president um it it really does depend on that but I would say you know what um or if it was in a committee meeting and and something came up I said you know I think this is an important issue for the public to know I'm telling you ahead of time I'm going to ask this question in public and then there have the opportunity to to come up with a you know a thoughtful answer that help helps does that answer your question yeah it's just hard break because there's that line between being a cheerleader and being the overhead right and I think sometimes that line becomes tricky right um knowing where where you do need to hold people accountable but where we also just need to support the district in making improvements right but but as an yes that that's true but as an elected official you also um are authorized to ask those you know the hard questions yeah so it is it is a fine line I would agree it's just thank you Mrs Ziri yeah I have two questions the first one is um I know we went through quickly on all the codes of Ethics the I that says that I'll support my District staff if you can go back in proper performance of their duties there is this word proper correct right in front of it what would you recommend if you see consistently your board councel is misusing that code and not putting the word proper and saying I support I basically board members have to support in performance support the staff in performance of their duties should we how do we bring it it's misusing the code I mean you're and you're talking which staff member were you I mean just staff in general staff board councel for president yeah anybody all right um if it's staff you have you have a superintendent you have an administrative staff that it's their job to um to make sure that everybody and hold their staff accountable to their job description to their certification so it's the proper so basically they have to use the right code the right which is I right which is says I will support the staff in proper performance of Duties but then if it's if this particular code I is being used without the word proper what do you go what do you do about that um I still think it it holds that it's in the performance of their duties proper um you know again the superintendent is proper if it's uh your board leadership your policy or BW should identify and statute identifies what their authorities and what it is that they can do um and so you would go back to that and can anybody file a board ethics complaint can a board member file an Ethics complaint any citizen can file an Ethics complaint um I mean it it it I I feel that if board members file sitting board members file against each other um it really does impact the ability of the board to have discussions um there's nothing that says and I'll ask your board attorney there's nothing that says you can't um but I think you have to look at the bigger picture and what it is that you want to accomplish for your students and for your community um okay thank you are there any other questions from board members okay thank you thank you very much Mrs Ree thank you okay superintendent's report and that concludes the superintendent's report thank you can we have a motion to approve the superintendent report uh vote nope we don't need to vote sorry no okay sorry um committee and liaison reports uh there is no president's report um because we I have the president has just started so um we do have something to say in terms of Staff uh congratulations to Mrs uh Miss Sharon Ley social studies teacher at the high school for being a team leader for the AP exams we want to commend our staff um again the unsung heroes please let Mr Nixon know if you're going to be attending for the board appointments according to policy 15 5 board president has appointed these committees the alternate for the finance and Facilities meeting attends when a standing member cannot attend we do not want to have four members there in appearance of a quarum that is our board president uh excuse me standing committee reminder to the chairs to work with the administration to set the times for the meetings which are mostly during the daytime for the liais on appointments um please uh take notes that you can report back to our Board of Education here of what's going on in our communities um just a reminder to the educa Union County Educational Service Commission um Mrs cona you'll have to do a a financial disclosure statement also for that and that concludes oh sorry Natasha question I was oh Excuse Me Miss Dolly please no question um just a question about the alternates it's um so the finance and Facilities committee is the only one that has that um can we not nominate um alternates for some of the other committees just because I know all our schedules are you know busy and should there be in an event that you know let's say the policy committee or curriculum committee um is short one person wouldn't make sense to have an alternate similar to the finance committee the president has decided that there will not be alternates for the those Miss Ka yes so related question and I want to talk a little bit about the idea of us having a quorum so we are a board of eight Quorum would mean five members together um in a meeting so if you're going to stick and I'm just going back to what we did last year we did have four people joined the finance committee meetings and I think it was really fruitful to have everybody's opinion so in some ways I I I hear what Natasha is saying and I think we you know in order for everybody to participate it would help us to be a little bit more flexible to have the alternate that it make sense like finance and Facilities committee is an important one but there are certain things that um cannot be discussed in K through 8 for example if there's a k through eight then our board Quorum is is four because our sending District Mr Heyman cannot participate in K through 8 so our committee uh quum at that point would be four I I totally agree so when it comes to Personnel when it comes to curriculum when it comes to policy let's take policy aside because policy is something that's applicable across the board right it's not like we have a policy that's only for you know K through 8 and something only for the high school so hear the point and we had this consideration even when we did the uh finance and Facilities last year where you know if there was a topic that was only for the elementary schools we just have three people join so we always I think Angela that's the point you were making right we we always kind of you know kept that in mind that we are not violating that if there was something that was relevant only for the kr8 we would take care and I think all of us are adults enough to kind of apply the same logic to these other committees that's my point of view thank you anyone else Mrs Penna did you have a comment thank you Mrs zir yeah so I feel like um none of the committee appointments were made by you and you are also coming up with this new rule or regulation that an alternate cannot attend and you have an alternate for one committee so we might as well be fair and uniform like have an alternate for all the Committees and I don't not think there is any specific policy or bylaw that gives the president the power to say I'll only have an alternate I'll only assign an alternate for one committee so if you have the power or the authority to assign an alternate for finance and facility you might as well do it for everybody all the Committees that way we we also get a flare we get to work together and as Natasha pointed out if some some of us can't make it then the other person attends but I think we need to have four people on every committee thank you for your opinion my ruling stands as is policies anything else Dr forer yeah does it actually say in the policies that everything is just three people or what is the size of the Committees actually specified in the policies um I did look it up and it did say three it did say three well I I concur with uh some of the other speakers that for this year only I think all of the committee should be for members uh no alternates and uh with regard to the financing facilities we can follow historical practice and um just limit if there's a kr8 sort of issue to be discussed in finance and Facilities uh that person can just leave so you can hold that uh discussion at the end of the meeting that's my two SS for it Mrs Penna um Mr wiel you may remember but I know there was an issue a couple of years ago with having four members on a committee um I don't know if you wanted to clarify that or you I know because we're send receive district there was a concern about having four members on a committee can you clarify that I can clarify that I I think it was handled by porio um there was an issue um and from what my understanding my recollection is is that Finance was the only one that was allowed to have four and that person had to drop at any time that KDAY was mentioned and it was um a ruling through the prosecutor's office so I I wouldn't mess with that um actually the Dr forer you have a question you may yeah actually the uh the policies that we have say that exactly specify Quorum I forget the number but uh Quorum is five uh when it's a um K through 12 sort of thing and it's four otherwise so there would be no no problem with having four members attending a policy committee uh meeting Mrs zir You' like a return question yes um I would like to look at that decision or the memo from porio if you could circulate it around and I'm also of the impression that five is constitutes scorum and if Finance has that peculiar thing that they can drop off at k28 so can others and um unrelated to committee appointments I just want to say the way we are running this meeting today I I think we are all adults here we're not in a classroom we don't need permission and when we start speaking it would would be really appreciated and I will really thank it if you don't try to talk over me thank you thank you for your opinions the committee stand moving on to board Communications we have no board Communications oh we do thank you I have four Communications uh I have one from I should say the title is Berkeley Heights Boe and crisis uh next was the appointment of the board president next was questions of the acfr miscellaneous expenditures cuts to instructional spending need for second assistant to superintendent and last is is this data exciting news those were the four pieces that I have of Correspondence that that is it thank you moving on to the report from the business administrator uh would we like to have school boards do their presentation and I'll make my report when they are finished yes thank you Mrs Reese double duty tonight I have the water just so the public knows we are presenting part of our search for superintendent in public and this is our first presentation and I have something um I'm GNA give to you you can sent this out to thank you so information will be provided to other board members at the conclusion of the meeting or now handing out now yeah and what's in there is um we were asked to submit a proposal this identifies what it is that that njsba um provides uh and um I'll refer to this a couple of times in the presentation this won't this won't be uh too long um I know you have a very busy night tonight um but um so the selection of a superintendent is the most important decision that any board can make and only the board can appoint the superintendent um because no two districts are alike our search process is all about your District it's based on the skills and abilities that you the board and your community determine um are important for your next superintendent we uh are here to help you find your best superintendent the the best fit for your community we work with um the board and your community to develop your search criteria that includes in-depth forums with uh not only the board um and as well as your community we do that two ways we uh come in and have and I think some of you were at the New Providence where we had the the public uh input forums we do um something similar for your staff usually administrators and however you want to you know delineate who you want to have we also can do an online survey uh that is anonymous we do not take anybody's information uh and it's that purposely set up that way and so all of that information that comes from that will be given to the board um you also will have access to our uh legal and Labor Relations for any assistance departments for any assistance that you may need and your field service rep uh will be with you um from start to finish uh we also help with the onboarding of the new superintendent uh once the selection has been made so we like to say that our process is defined by um the six C's um it's a criteria driven process that's comprehensive and ensures confidentiality uh the decision making process is consensus driven we provide assistance and guidance through the contract process and uh finally for the final 6C we are there with you throughout through after the pro thereby providing continuity continuity and commitment so criteria is qualifications they are set um by the board for the ad um and they are set wide to develop a wide net for for your candidates pool um all candidate applications once you go through that will be delivered to the board uh and we and we rate them not just who who we best for you if they meet your qualifications in in the search you will get access to their information whatever that might be the only ones uh even if they're not qualified in um but but um that's for you to set um it's comprehensive um it's a legally comprehensive and legally defensible search um and it's personalized to your needs the confidentiality is the key to um any search um and qualified uh candidates know that their application uh through New Jersey school boards Association is Totally Secure here we go so it's a consensus driven process a consensus driven but inclusive process again it includes your the board your community your administrative staff uh and your your administrative staff and your staff uh are included uh in in the process to get their ideas uh on what is considered a good superintendent um so um now the the final decision is made by the um the Board of Ed because the Board of Ed is the only entity that is legally charged with the employment decision you will get uh support and training from our Labor Relations Department in contract uh negotiations and what and what is an allow what are allowable aspects of the contract and and I talked I talked about uh continuity uh post-employment training uh will Pro provide that uh and keep in mind we are your Association so we are here with you um before during and after uh your your hiring process the criteria development um we use a well-rounded approach that brings a thorough understanding of your district and as well as your community's culture and values um again we we have facilitated board discussions stakeholder input sessions and the use of facility of surveys and you see the different stakeholders um but we will meet with whoever whatever stakeholders in one in one town um we actually met uh with your Town Council with the Town Council if that's who you determine as an important stakeholder it's really who the board sets as as the important stakeholders so once once we've worked with you and with and your your community come up with um the criteria that you want to use to uh attract a new superintendent um we write the ad once the ad is written it is given to the board to approve uh um you know as I said it's it's everything is approved by the board and the ad then um goes to our uh our superintendent vacancy website which monthly gets about 3600 hits uh we have a list uh an email list of over a thousand potential candidates so your your ad your uh your notice will go to all those people we um have National reach through our online application system um we also send your position vacancy to All County associ county offices and state associations um the national affiliation of superintendent searches gets our gets the information um and colleges and universities with superint dependent institutes if you go to Pages six if you look at Pages six and seven that identifies the different organizations that we reach out to with all the ads so our online application system is done um I was gonna say I put online first I should have said second it's an online application system that um is easily accessible for um uh candidates to input their information it's also um easily access that when we do the pool delivery um in in years past we used to have a big box with all the resumés and applications uh this will um you will get access to the online site to review all the applications um as as you're making your decision on who you would like to bring in um for for uh interviews um all the um all the materials and the process that we use have been uh tried and tested and are continually reviewed by our legal department um and and so you know you're getting the most up to-date um the most upto-date information um we um give you as much information as you need to make an informed decision um as to who you you think your next superintendent should be um we schedule the interviews we um um we schedule the interviews for for you based on what you have determined is um the candidate you would like um I think I made reference to um yeah so so all the materials that come to us through the online application system you get access to um the um in that information that is included in the application process is the candidates um resume their cover letter their um transcripts their certifications their job history their references and we also have a writing sample there's a series of questions that you can ask so you'll see all of that information um by having an online application system it also gives you greater flexibility in the time that you have to review you can do it in in um you know do it at you know in the comfort of your home or or wherever um being mindful that it is a confidential process um just to identify it's it's our process that's been tested and um legally um tested and um but it's your search you you the board make all the decisions I don't make any the field service does not make any decisions for you you get all the information with help you process it we help you go work through it but ultimately it's the board's decision and if you look at um Pages um on pages on page five of the rochar I gave you that lists that we have several levels of service of contracts um superintendent search contracts that we um that we offer they all have different levels of things that you do from the the very the high the the the the one that um the higher one gives you um access I the field service sits in with you on all the interviews we sit in we sit in with you um every step of the way all the way down to a board assisted search it really is determined by what you the board feel um is important what you need to do to accomplish getting the best superintendent that you can get um and now I'll to have any questions um okay we'll allow 15 minutes for excuse me 10 minutes for questions with an additional five if we need it does anyone want to be recognized with a question Mr Heyman hi Patty uh thank you uh three questions I had uh one can you just give a feel I it probably varies by District but what does a rough timeline look like if you started tomorrow ballpark average District New Jersey what does what does that look like right I mean a a one I'll start with saying that you really want to do your due diligence and you want to give the whole process um enough time that that you get the best qualified candidates um I would say an expedited one would probably be six months but that would require a lot of work on the board's part like having the interviews um I mean generally the the best the best process um is that you you start in September and you have somebody by July one that's that's the best um but can it be done absolutely I did one in a c in in another County uh and the stars all aligned I will say um that they got it done in in we started in March they had somebody by August but again this the Stars aligned uh which is not um not always the case I mean part of what we play into this right is you have your interviews then you um and then you decide who your candidate are and depending on how many people you bring into interview we we don't tell you bring in if you get 30 candidates who don't say only bring in 10 we say bring in who you as a board feel you need to bring in if that means bringing in 20 candidates that's what you do uh that just takes time right because the interviews take time so that you're not going to get that done in in a couple of nights um but if um and and then you once you select your F once you get to the selection so that could take a month or so we like to have the ad posted for four to six weeks to get the maximum um to get the maximum uh amount of candidates looking at it right and who might want to apply so you have four to and I wrote WR it down but I it's not the notes I took up with me but we so we do the add four to six weeks uh I would say maybe another four to six weeks for uh the interview process uh and depending on how many you want you can go faster than that you select a candidate you need to enter contract negotiations which means your board attorney and their attorney enter negotiations once you settle on a contract and both sides agree the contract has to go to the your executive County Superintendent as of now they're asking for 30 days to review that uh Cal that that um that contract and if they approve the contract in those 30 days you're good to go you appoint the person at a board meeting then that person has to give notice where they are and a standard rule of thumb is that they have 60 days notice in their contract there are some remote contracts out there that have 90 days but by and large most have 60 days so now you're adding you have 30 days now you're adding 90 days on top of that um so that's kind of roughly how it goes got it it's a full moon but I'm not sure the stars are aligned anyway yeah um question two uh you mentioned New Providence so I guess I'll ask the obvious which is is there obviously this is we'll do our own search it'll be our own you mentioned this will be specific to us I get that but is there how does if at all the fact that there's an ongoing search right next door how if at all would that impact if we started tomorrow with school boards um or is just a simple flat no and one thing is nothing to do with the other candidates Etc ET I don't think it would impact um it would impact now it would not impact the quality and the amount of candidates you get they're um they've their search has been ongoing and they're still in the process and that's as much as I can say about that uh but um they're they're you know I I don't believe it will impact um SE okay last question is I'm intrigued by a lot of the value items that seem uh to come after uh contract and sort of the onboarding process that that's interesting to me um there's there's reference uh of strategic planning in here is that essentially the same like in mountain side we've approved strategic planning with school boards which is a a you know multi-part process right so if I'm reading it correctly with that top tier uh would there be support all the way through the process hiring of CSA and then essentially the kickoff of a strategic planning process or is it sort of all concurrent how does that work no no if you if the top tier absolutely does include a 3D strategic plan um generally not right away you want your your your new superintendent to get in and learn um what the the big issues are uh in in the district but certainly within that first year um that top tier you you would get a a 3D strategic plan basically it's Mee it's three separate meetings in three months and you come out at the end with strategic with a strategic plan and and and strategic planning goals for three to five years so in the top CH yes that is part of it thank you any other questions Miss Dolly hi Patty um so you mentioned that um and I know every every industry searches for candidates differently but you mentioned that there's you have like a thousand you know candidates emails and it's going to go out there's going to be a lot of I'm assuming we're you know still attractive and that we're going to have a lot of um candidates is there any um I guess priorization or any input that you provide in terms of you know because I don't know if I want to look at a thousand right I want you to guide us and give us like maybe your top five and then if we don't like any of them then we kind of go down Bel Lista do you prioritize them for us um yes um and I will say that you will likely not get a thousand responses that's just to exhibit how far it goes I would say um the going amount that boards are getting right now are between 20 and 30 applications so we will wait them you will when when you decide on the criteria um whatever that might be minimally the criteria is they have to have a a certificate um a St you know a school administrator certificate or Certificate of Eligibility if they don't have that you can't even interview them um but um there there are varying levels do you want them to have a doctorate do you want them to have classroom experience whatever that is that the board decides are qualifications that you want we I the the your New Jersey school boards Will Wait them so an a candidate meets every single one of your qualifications a b candidate meets most of them you know do you want someone with special ed background you want somebody who's bilingual so a b candidate would would um meet most of them a c candidate would not well a c candidate would not have the certificate or they would not meet if they had the certificate or the Certificate of Eligibility they would not um meet any of your other qualifications so yes you will get um the weighted ones um and if they if it's a what we call a c candidate you can't interview them because they don't meet any of you without redoing the job ad and going reopening the search but you can choose among the A and B candidates whoever the board feels they want to interview so yes and just one last question um the uh the program cost right that's doesn't have a time limit on it meaning that if we meaning that if we take six months or if we take a year it still costs the same yes and if you if you go out after two rounds of interviews and you're the board is like we're just not finding that one person we would like to reopen the ad and go out again that's you know whatever it takes at that point are there other questions Miss kaana I think they were oh sorry in the queue before I was oh sorry Mrs Stanley I think I was before her Mrs Stanley my question has to do with um the consultant interview candidates first round because that's the difference between two of the programs listed here so right so you would give us the A and B how would your first round go if we chose to have njsba go through that how would the the like so let's say we chose the 1250 or 12500 over the seven right so it says that the consultant interviewed candidates the first round that you would do that do you do that completely you would do the first round completely and then bring your recommendations to us I prein I do a preliminary interview um on on on the the the top tier um just to get a sense of where they are you still do the first round it's not you know I don't I don't take away the board's Authority by doing the first round it's more of a preliminary interview um to just get a feel for who they are uh but but in the ones that I've done um I don't feel I mean I get that feel but I don't um I don't rate them differently than five more minutes if they if they have the qualifications and the criteria that the board sets I give you that information I don't give you my opinion I don't live here I don't have to live here after you appoint somebody so you know the decision is totally yours I I interview them but I don't I don't pass judgment yay or nay on them so the First Love First round interview after that um is all the boards okay thank Mrs Ziri yes Mrs Khan hi Patty hi um I don't know if you spoke enough already but I'm curious to hear the community engagement process and what does that look like the shape of it in terms of I I thought I saw the surveys and uh can you talk a little bit more about how you go about it are there public kind of listening sessions where you know people can come up and kind of you know free form have a conversation and that's with sort of the njsba team right I'm not thinking it's going to be with any candidate so it'll help so we do an online survey regardless um that that you can post on your website you can push out however you want um we do in we do um live input sessions so might generally try to do it in a day so in a day like at at the end of the school day we might have the the teachers that come in and we we ask them all the same questions um ask um what they feel are the strengths and challenges of the district what qualifications they think or background they think the ideal superintendent should have and anything else that they want to to give in we might then do the uh Administration but we would absolutely in the evening have one a public input that anybody can come and we'll briefly I you know we briefly outline what the process is um where they're going um you know and and the timeline and all that other stuff but it it's it's pretty open-ended for the public to come and and give their give their thoughts on the process and across all of these programs is there like a certain number of these listening sessions that are attached to you know one of these we generally do one um but if if you um for each of them for each of your constituencies uh if you feel that two nights or two times would be better a day and a night um we can work with that um but but in the end um you know they're giving their input and the the the responses that we get from them uh and the online survey you will get all that information and that um that will help inform you on sometimes the types of questions you may want to ask what issues crop up that that that you may want to ask so just to clarify do we do you typically get the public input when it comes to writing the job description as well or is it more around getting the questions that we might might want to ask the candidate yeah that's a good question yes the job the the job ad um and qualifications are written by the school board determined so it's more about finding out um the guidance of questions you might want to ask the issues that the public or the staff feel are important uh and and and having that be part of the questions you ask or informing your decision on the type of person that you might feel um is the best fit for not only the district but also your community thank you any other questions from the board okay thank you very much Mrs Reese for presenting this okay in our agenda all right anything else re uh report from the business administrator okay budget development continues and state aid uh figures are expected to be released on the 29th of this week uh the preliminary budget is uh to be submitted on March 20th to the state uh before tonight's meeting we've been reviewing the transportation Consultants report and looking at recommendations to implement new software review policy of hazardous routes and review and subscription busing routes facility updates uh Governor Livingston trees uh down trees were removed over the last uh two weeks maintenance crew repaired fencing there at the school night supervisor interviews were completed Pooles are going to be repaired in Spring two-way radios are scheduled for service roofing repair is continuing and TV monitors will be hung in the cafeteria for menu displays at Mary Kay two-way radios are scheduled for service there as well tree work is scheduled for the spring fence repair is scheduled for the upper playground and a new fence will be uh erected for the lower parking lot a new hot water heater was installed there uh new hand washing sinks were installed as per the health department and front door repaired for swipe card features Mountain Park roof and chimney repairs were scheduled potholes ongoing potholes are to be repaired in the spring uh painting in the hallways uh has been completed and intercom system repairs were done um at the U school we had hand washing sinks were installed as per the health department as well um and we also had equipment repairs for snow plowing um what was the other oh and at the Central Middle School uh we had the two-way radios was also scheduled for service there was also an asht tree that was removed on planfield Avenue and TV monitors are going to be hung in the cafeteria for menus in addition the district is applying for eate funding for some technology updates for the district where the district would receive 40% in funding toward the project and that concludes my report thank you Mr secretary um we have some questions oh yes yes questions from the board yes thank you Mrs cona so a quick question I believe the CMS blue gim had some ongoing maintenance uh for their heat yes and that I didn't catch it but that's uh that's been resolved now yes okay thank you yes I think it was resolved two weeks ago one yes Mrs Jolly um so I think um Mr secretary you mentioned earlier during the meeting during the transportation presentation that you have a meeting scheduled for March 25th as a kickoff for the new transportation software so this is after the preliminary budget is due to the state so how are we incorporating um the transportation survey and the findings into our budget estimates well as as what was stated with the subscription busing um and the routes as the consolidation had has was uh stated what the routes that we have are going to be more aligned to what they should be as opposed to estimated to what they were so when we go through and developing the policy which will be coming forth you'll be seeing where those routes are and the numbers once the software is going to be initiated we're going to see Improvement but until that happens I'm not going to know affirmatively what's going to happen with that uh Machin is using estimated numbers and she's Advanced students on uh in her present software in order to determine what we have for subscription busing to give me Revenue numbers and we're pretty much going to hold those the same going forward but until we have a more accurate number when that software does come out that's to be forthcoming for the next year and I believe in our conversations that we had until that software does come out we're working toward next year at this point so I know it doesn't give you the the best thing but we're working with what we have and until we it's a kickoff meeting but they still need more time to put the mapping in and the students need to be put in they're just going to give us what they're going to be doing on the 25th of March of what they're doing and probably a timeline going forward questions other from the board before I get back to miss Kaa Mrs is KH so maybe if we can just get a high level understanding of as you're going through the budget development process we had the concept of cury busing and we had the concept of subscription busing I'm leaving all the mandated busing aside for a moment can you give us an idea of in the assumptions that you're making for the budget are we still moving ahead with the idea that there there is a concept of courtesy busing and there is a concept of subscription busting is that still as it was uh for the current school year for the last school year that's correct and is it a fair understanding that the courtesy busing so that is the definition of those students that will not pay for the busing although they are within the the two or the two and a half mile radius that's correct it's it's aligning more of where those individuals lie and who will receive it and who will not okay so subscription busing is still a service that will be available to those students who are within the 2 two and a half mile radius that don't fall under a designated policy so to speak but if they wish to get the service then we will provide that service at a cost is that that that is correct and provided that there is room on the bus for that to occur I believe that there is and as we go forward Mrs um Mrs Sheen is looking at that but we do have room on the buses for that for that service okay so as we go through the budget conversation it'll be very important for all of us to understand what are some of those grounding assumptions in terms of numbers or how we've uh created the the U budget uh and the assumptions on revenues that is correct um M yes Mrs Stanley so the goal though right we had the presentation tonight the goal now is that we would send this to the policy committee and the policy committee would really decide which rows are hazardous and that we would be switching from courtesy busting to hazardous busing right we are essentially getting rid of courtesy busing for next year as long as the policy commit pull this um policy through right is that we would be switching we've had a recommendation from the Consultants that outlined uh as as they've stated before subscription courtesy and the hazards and that is all incorporated into the policy and once the board gets to see the first and second readings on those they'll have a better understanding of what we're dealing with so the goal is to have mandated hazardous and then um subscription busing those would be the only three types that we're hoping for next year as long as the policy committee makes this policy that that is correct that's why we had the presentation this evening now this sets forward what we need to do going forward and now for the budget right like the budget is just a budget right we're how much um the expenses will be next year that's why it's a budget and that's why it has to be done earlier um if we knew what those costs any costs were at this point in time that would be a crystal bll right so go going into the budget right we're estimating that we will be removing subscription busing but possibly making most of that into based on the recommendation there's as as you've seen there's parts of it that are hazardous and hasn't been deemed hazardous before so you have to start the plan going forward and in order for that to happen then that would probably make those routes um where we would get aid for that that route from the state and then until we see what we would get in based upon those figures then we can start probably putting that type of funding in the budget but until we can see it we don't know it right so we're going to budget for having to pay for that but we probably will get some funding back that's the Hope correct correct awesome Mrs Penna so just to clarify when the finance committee arranged to actually have the Consultants come in this was the end date was always to be the beginning of the new school year in September so that was always the goal to be September 2024 was when this was to be eligible thank you any other comments um and Mr secretary is I understand that Mrs shean is willing to do a public town hall meeting uh in April 29th around that time for the public to come and H have any questions also correct okay so we will be talking about that to the public um about when that comes up Mrs Stanley that's with the idea that the policy committee would hopefully have that policy actually done and ready for the public to see so they have the ability to ask questions thank you for that correction yes making sure the policy committee has done that okay and that concludes your report that is correct thank you this is our section for comments from the public I apologize for our late hour during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on agenda items only the board requests that the individual State their name and town of residence or School of attendance and address for the record all comments should be directed to the board president depending upon the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur after this public portion of the meeting has concluded although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel man matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comment made by the members of the public please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May ter terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from or adjournment of that meeting each speaker statement will be limited to three minutes in duration is there anyone for the public who would like to come up please state your name address and I'll start the three minutes at that time hi my name is Teresa bufano I live um on do I have to say my full address yes please 35 Winship Road in Summit New Jersey Teresa could you spell your last name please T UF yes o it's a summit address but Berkeley Heights um School District thank you and your address exactly again 35 winchip W N CIP thank you um this is my first board meeting so I don't know what I don't know um curious about the audit report if that is available for the public to view or is that something that only the board gets to review it's online okay and if I have questions on it after I review it what's the appropriate Forum to send those through if you'll just direct the uh questions to me and then I miss Bradford um once I view it online what is the appropriate Forum to send questions anything else when I view the report online what is the appropriate Forum to send through questions I may have on it correct any other questions you have what is the forum for me to send those questions through yes are you you finished with all your comments yes okay thank you um um our board administrator um ba would you please answer those questions for our community member well if you wanted to send them to me you can uh send them to me and I'll see if I can answer those and your information's on the website as well yes it should be under the board office thank you thank you hi I'm kin seoli as I yes oi and I'm live at 49 Klein place here in Berkeley Heights thank you and I'd like to welcome the new board members and happy New Year I've missed a couple of board meetings but um am excited to be here today um the last presentation was very helpful from the experts um on the superintendent search so that they were able to answer some of my questions but as far as the board's concerned and if you could answer collectively um what specific qualities is this board of education looking for in a new superintendent that are different than what we've had and how will this body make better choices going forward and what are two main lessons or more that we have learned from currently leadership that we cannot afford to make again and the timetable which the expert gave us was the expedited timetable was six months but as I'm recalling it took somebody from the outside of this specific Community to find you as president of the board so I'm concerned as a community member that this board may not be able to find a consensus and this may drag on and what happens in the meantime if we lose our current superintendent and we don't have a new superintendent I'm just wondering if that's a possibility that could happen that's it um and also I'm assuming that we want to avoid any kind of ethical issues like nepotism and stuff that we've gone through and endured as a community in the past thank you um we don't know what qualities we're going to look for for a superintendent because we haven't taken a survey of this yet but part of the process is going to be take a survey of our board members of our community and our staff to see what qualities we're going to look at uh lessons that we may learn will have to come out when we do our surveys and we come up with our list of qualifications uh the six months timeline was again when the stars align so it may be longer um if we do not have a consensus then we will continue with an acting or an interim superintendent until that time we find a qualified permanent superintendent or CSA any other comments from the public good evening everyone my name is Jared pupus I teach over at Thomas peugh Elementary School I would like to congratulate Miss Bradford on her appointment as president of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education I have worked professionally with Miss Bradford for many years I have witnessed her edication and commitment to this town her priority is the education and Welfare of the children of Berkeley Heights I look forward to experiencing the positive changes that will occur under her leadership thank you thank you Mr puus do we have any other comments from the public we will close this part of our agenda and we are going to move on on to the minutes resolution a all board members do we have a motion to approve I second may we have a roll call vote please oh sorry is there any discussion uh Madame President before there was some uh Corrections that needed to be made to the 18th minutes um I did make the corrections the problem was that when they were sent out there was a problem with uh the attachment and I didn't get out to the board members so I know one of the concerns happened to be on page eight um I know it was I believe Mrs Connor were you one of them and so was Mr um Dr forger um on the top page there was a differentiation I guess uh by the last uh vote where there was an exstension by Mr Kiri and Mrs Jolly for the uh meeting minutes from December 14th I believe and I guess what was missing was the word approval of meeting minutes I know that there were some changes that went on uh prior to that final approval of vote I think that was the only thing that needed to be done if anybody needs to see that I do have them with me the it's just the pro the copy never got out because there was a an issue so Mrs airri do you have a question yeah so I was looking forward for that and it's 10:00 and in the ense of time can we not just move this for the next meeting that's fine I'm just I'm just letting you know that's all thank you yeah I appreciated but it's 10 so that would need to be a motion excuse me Mrs Stanley that would need to be a motion correct to remove them from the agenda item there would be a motion to table the minutes from December 18th sorry January 18th well are we going to approve the fourth okay uh Dr forer some minor point of order here the motion is to approve a from January 4th I think we should deal with that and then move on to B yeah motion the mo motion was to approve January 4th no it's for both a what oh oh capital A I I read it as I heard it as little a okay so we're dealing with A and B together let's okay I would like to just split or divide the question into a and b and then we'll deal with a and then deal with b um as I understand it Mrs Airi is the only one who had not had a chance to see those minutes I'm going to ask that we just approve capital A both and then if Mrs Ziri wants the minutes she can get them right now from Mr uh our board attorney no I it's a motion oh sorry a motion to divide doesn't doesn't actually you just do it you don't okay yes we had the original motion there's a there's a motion and a second right now okay so there's a motion and a second on no no not table just on approval just on approval right no but AJ can you clarify if it was if it was just me who didn't receive the January 18th as Mrs no it's no no no it's the clarify thank you for the clarification it's the whole board thank you for the clarification so we have an open motion to approve our meeting minutes from a the reorg meeting January 4th and the minutes from January 18th so we have an open motion for that we had a second we've had a discussion so I would just like to add that Mrs Stanley you have a question oh sorry yes um so our the January 18th minutes we've had those for five dat um and I some of the adjustments were like so I and I think that there are Minor Adjustments is there any way we could just possibly go over and look at them real quick so we can you know move forward agree with that we have a motion we have a second we need a roll call then you could vote Yes or No the other option is to split it can we make a motion to split this and um just move to divide the question that's all but but you can after that you can divide the question I move to divide the question can we just vote second okay Mrs pen you had a comment I just wanted to clarify what we're voting on here because I'm it's back and forth here right I want to be clear also so we had an open motion we had a motion to approve them we had a second and that motion was open now we have a second a motion a subsidiary to the second to divide them and and who's we have Tom Dr Dr forger made the motion div okay so could we please restate the motion for approval of the minutes for a reorg session meetings from January 4th 2024 can we get it clear oh yeah first we're going to vote on the motion to divide the main motion to subsidiary motion can we have a roll call on that Dr forager I'm going yes I I think I just went back to my uh bad habit I'm sorry uh Mrs Connor yes Miss Kiri yes Miss Bradford no no Mr Heyman yes Mrs Jolly yes Mrs Penna Mrs Stanley no uh motion passes yes I did all right we now have a subsidiary motion to our first motion to split the Motions split we did that already okay we have a motion to vote on a the reorg session minutes from January 4th 2024 for approval may we have a vote so do I have to move that or you have to move it no it's already moved it was moved and then divided moved second okay so so so I'm going back to the original one with Mrs pen Mrs Stanley just it's divided now so you're voting on you're going to vote first on AA then you're going to V separately yeah separately that's that's and so we need a motion in a second all right do we have a motion just to vote on AA so moved thank you Mrs Stanley and Mrs pen roll call Mrs Stanley yes Mrs Penna yes Mr Kiri abstain Miss Bradford yes yes Dr forer abstain Mr Heyman yes Miss Jolly yes for the fourth and Miss Connor yes motion passes we now have a second subsidiary motion to uh have approval on B regular session minutes from January 18th 2024 so moved second second any questions any questions on that so I do have a question we split this motion and if we want to actually look at the minutes before we approve it do we have the option to table it or are we going through a vote T pass if it didn't pass it'll come back in the next meeting basically okay understood roll call Mrs Stanley yes Miss Penna yes Mr Kiri obain uh Miss Bradford yes Dr forger yes I'm sorry abstain Mr Heyman no Miss Jolly abstain Miss Conor abstain and we have motion fails so the motion to approve the minutes for the regular session uh from January 18th has failed and that will be put on our next agenda regular meeting of March 18th okay we are moving on to Administration we have a resolution a through H all board members I'll move I'll move a through H okay thank you you and do we have a second second okay the motion will discussion okay we'll move on uh to a vote uh through H Mr Hyman uh no to a yes on B through h and you that was no to a you said a Miss Penna Yes actually no to a no to a you said okay Mr Kiri it's uh abstain to a abstain from d and uh yes to all yeah all others abstain from a and abstain from D okay Miss Bradford no to a and yes to the others Dr forger abstain on a abstain on D and yes to b c e f and g and H Miss Jolly I'm G to abstain from a on C I'm going to abstain from the mkm cases of the hip report so on C you're abstaining or you're I'm abstaining on certain case numbers if that's allowed um I'm sure that it is so you're going to abstain on C case is mkm Cas is ending in mkm nkm okay and then I'm going it's D Hib is D no no she's looking at C it's c c is the report of superintendent hi Mrs Jolly do you have a question you could address to the president or to the administrator on that I I do not I can continue with my vote okay thank you please do so on item c as we said I abstaining on the mkm cases and I'm abstaining on item D and yes for all the rest we because of the revised agenda I think we need to change our votes because the numbering has changed no didn't it changed from like the the version that we had this afternoon is based on what we have the votes so what the blue revised agenda that came out at 4:00 has a Hib under D and that's what we want to um no Hib under C and that's what we want to abstain on so can I change my vote AJ I have the same problem I I said abstain on D but I really meant uh wait a minute D is the substance abuse that's okay so oh so just for accuracy it has not changed since the draft thank you uh these a semiannual report okay the superintendent has these Hib things that's item c yeah okay I'm okay this is really confusing all right two separate items there's an attachment for D all right superintendent I see what's going on okay so my vote uh C is abstained and D is yes can I just ask the attorney for clarification on on changing a vote like this since it's it's not finished or what's the he's clarifying you're the has announced announced so you're abstaining from C and D is my my understanding or is it just no no I'll be very clear the report of the superintendent is the hi really the Hib reports and I'm abstaining on those and then D is uh annual some sort of annual report semiannual report that's okay yes see only so C is abstained but D is yes and arrest are yes so it's a and C is what you're abstaining from yes okay thank you for the clarification um same thing with me AJ okay Mrs K Mrs khor obain on a yes for B B um on C I want to abstain from the mkm cases yes for everything else d e f g and H Miss Stanley no to a yes for B through H okay so everything is PED T except for a we have C that is the only two items that did not pass thank you moving on to clarifications of course please go ahead um it's it's not all of C it's just sections pieces of C NK and M mkm cases because I I have there's two extensions one two and three extensions for it completely and I have and then I have two that were individuals off the cases which means that it wouldn't pass just those two right just these two cases that are mkm specific that's all but you have you have one two three others that would have it and you have two that would be for for partials which would make that in a not passing vote if I am not mistaken Happ doesn't pass I can I can yeah it seems like legal the question to clarify here is that would that apply to all of C or just individual cases in si because I think what we've done what we able to do in the past is specific cases within you know the report you obained if you obained you removed yourself from the presid in voting to go toward so if you have a majority of those who did not abstain it passed you have a majority who did not abstain for the HIV report I had I had one I had Mr Kiri I had Dr forger they obained did they abstain yes they obained so who did not abstain uh let's see Mrs Bradford Mr Heyman Mrs Penna and Mrs Stanley in the past but there's not a quorum on the question there's no Quorum on the question there's only four people that voted there's there's only four people who voted but from the extensions the abstentions are moved present voting you have you have who people a motion fails if there's no quorum they don't count as part of the quum if they abstain abstain means you're not counted as part of the Quorum it's pres it's president voting who would go to the majority so the majority of those voting pass the I I think this we could take a five minute recess to research this but I'm pretty sure that uh exstension this is this is what occurred at the last meeting Stanley's exension and it also seems that maybe people are not being dis are being dis the floor um actually miss Bradford never gave you the floor Dr for please continue okay I think this needs a little bit of research we should take about five minutes and the question of if there's not a quorum than voted then you can uh it's fails that's my understanding of Robert's Rules and last time the New Jersey Supreme Court decision that I showed was if you have four abstentions you do not have the Quorum so it fails so here we have two abstentions and two partial abstentions so there was no Quorum for this vote only four people voted out of an eight member board okay the president's going to recommend a five minute recess for our attorney to take a look the timer will start but let's can we have a first and a second to make it official because that was an issue the last time so this way we can right I can declare a recess and it's at 81018 got it right we are back in session now public session we have an answer to the question uh Mr attorney could you uh relay that information byw on board bylaw policy 165 all motion shall require for adoption the majority vote of board members present and voting except as provided by Statute of the state of New Jersey this bylaw or parliamentary Authority and provided that the number of affirmative votes is at least a majority of the board's quarum the uh motion C that that the business administrator was referring to passed however when you when you have four people abstaining only four voting then the Quorum on that question was not obtained you did not have he did not have five people voting so States a majority of the board's Forum it doesn't State a majority of the board's Forum voting motion pass we're going to move on now to education we need a motion to for Resolutions a through C all board members so moved second roll call oh sorry discussion roll call vote please stand yes Miss Penna Mr Kiri yes Miss Bradford yes Dr forer yes Mr Hyman yes Miss Chie yes Miss Conor yes to ABC motion passes motion passes we're moving on to Personnel looking for we looking for a motion two for Resolutions a through n all board members and resolutions o through V Berkeley Heights only do we have a motion so moved second roll call oh discussion chance for discussion um Dr for do you have a discussion yes on the annual audit the resolution says that we're accepting the findings of the audit but I believe that we need to have a vote on accepting the audit I check Summit Westfield and New Providence Boe and they all have we're not there yet what oh okay I'm sorry personnel let's continue with our roll call vote for personnel we have a a motion and we have a second Mr secretary can we proceed with the roll call Vote or personel I'm sorry I thought we were still never mind um Mr Heyman yes to items a through N Miss Stanley yes to all Mr Kiri S2 items a through n is this Personnel yes yes we are on Personnel okay uh so when do I make that um move the motion for an interim superon that should be in this section right correct we have a motion to approve a resolution to approve the resolution if you want to add a motion after okay yeah approve uh yes to all Miss Bradford yes to all Dr forger yes to all Miss Charlie yes to all Miss Conor yes to items a through V Miss Penna yes to all motion passes um can I make a motion Mrs Ziri yeah I would like to move a motion to um initiate a job posting um as of February 27th for interim superintendent the motion is to put forth a ad for a job posting for interim superintend the motion is to put a job posting for the position of interim superintendent for the Berkeley High School District yeah as of February 27 with tomorrow's date as of February the 2nd do we have a second I'll second it Mr secretary can we have a roll call Vote Yes the post tomorrow have a superintendent so the posting are referring to to to have the posting Ur more yeah I made a motion for to initiate and search yeah no no initiate a job put a job put a job posting for interim superintendent tomorrow so it goes on the district website and wherever we post requesting people to apply for interim superintendent tomorrow can I ask a question M Mrs Stanley um so um uh Mr jtz do you feel that that is enough time for you to prepare to do that job posting if because if they're putting a stipulation that they want it for tomorrow do you feel prepared to put that job posting tomorrow if I have one I'll take a look um and then it depends on the paper so again it's the word initiate okay so if it gets out by the following day if I don't have sufficient wording or I don't have a sufficient one I will you know do my due diligence to get one I think I can add something to this I believe um we don't really do the paper anymore so it would probably um Miss latky would probably want to talk to Miss Bradford and Mr jtz and come up with a job posting do we think that that is something that can happen in a day um she does I know she's out of the office in the morning I would say she can initiate it but I'm not sure it'll be posted on the website by tomorrow okay Mrs Penna can you recommend in a more appropriate date it would definitely be up by Wednesday I could say if if she can connect with Miss Bradford and Mr jtz at the same time it will go out on Frontline it'll be posted to edwe top school jobs all those things but when I would give her another day I'd give her Wednesday since she's out in the morning that's Reon so wait second okay so do we need to make an amendment to that motion yes well initiating was tomorrow so we're going to initiate it so I don't we need agement yeah I'm fine with just get get going with exactly yes roll call please uh Mr Kiri yes Mr Heyman yes Miss Miss Bradford yes Dr forger yes Miss Charlie yes Miss Connor yes Miss Penna this is for Wednesday right yes Miss Stanley yes motion passes moving on to business we have we need a resolution to move resolutions a through I all board members and resolutions J through K Berkeley Heights only then we have something else sidebar with a sidebar after and if you'd like me to you'd like to read it or if you like to read it absolutely that's the yes that's okay as okay so I'm reading uh a walk- on a a resolution under business this is approved sidebar agreement resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approves the sidebar agreement between the Berkeley Heights Board of Education and the Berkeley Heights education Association custodial maintenance and transportation Personnel unit pertaining to bus drivers hourly pay rates so moved discussion what's the resolution excuse me m Mrs uh Kiri say it again please one two well that's administration because you have two eyes in business so you need to clarify apologies we need a clarification um all right if we add this to Administration the to sorry to business the approved sidebar agreement will now be moved to L do I need to read it again business L approved sidebar agreement resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approves the sidebar agreement between the Berkeley Heights Board of Education and the Berkeley Heights Education Association custodial maintenance and transportation Personnel unit pertaining to bus driver hourly pay rates discussion roll call oh I'm sorry I didn't recognize the pen up sorry um okay so the the sidebar agreement is to raise uh to these rates from the current rate and the current rate was um approved I think back in September in that time frame so and I know busing and getting drivers has always been an issue so I guess my question is why wasn't this um I guess brought for forth sooner like why why now that's question one and then the second question um does the sidebar agreement need to be approved in regular session or can it be added to as an agenda item in a special meeting I believe it has to be approved during a regular session and the need was not available the need was not needed why it was not approved earlier oh sorry so we didn't realize we we started losing bus drivers to other districts and then when the last bus driver left us for a higher pay rate we knew we were in trouble so um we had to contract out and I think the route is costing us right around $60,000 where paying our own people would cost us right around $10,000 so it just seemed like a prudent financial decision for us to make okay we'll continue oh sorry Mrs Dolly M and just a follow-up question to that so um by increasing the rates we don't automatically because we are in contract with other with the carriers right so we still continue to pay um those companies that we are currently contracted for that we had to go out and contract that route right so um it doesn't we're not instantly you know if we bring people in it's not that we can get out of that contract we have until a certain point in time possibly not the one I'm not sure um as we discussed earlier uh Mr jtz will have to go check the contract however all the athletic busing that we're sending out to my limo and all these other private vendors we could have that inhouse and save money in that that manner but I'm not sure about the first student contract that we had to go out for Mrs Conor so my question is we approve save you approve this race today what sort of retention does that guarantee and maybe guarantee is a strong word but what stops somebody from saying yes quitting and going somewhere else for something better and we are sort of still stuck in the position that we are in right now I would say that this will guarantee us having someone at least till the end of the year however every District um is fighting for bus drivers so everyone continues to increase their rates to draw in bus drivers so I can't give you a guarantee past June but if somebody was to be on boarded you know as early as next month am I hearing that right that the $68,000 is that the right number it's right around 68,000 around 68 are we actually going to save those 68,000 or they are as I said Jolly we will definitely save on all the money we're spending for our athletic busing because we have to farm most of that out because we do not have routes or a bus driver for that right now we have buses we just have no one to drive them okay so we are certain that we will save that we will save that money we spend a fortune on Contracting out our athletic busing okay I can't promise the first student I don't know I don't know how that contract works okay yes Stanley so just to put like this in context too right like we just negotiate the trans um so like that was over the summer that had been finalized and since then we have seen the rates go up right so this is not like this is not that we didn't know what the rates were it's just that everyone else is trying to get bus drivers so they're going up and then we have to go up and we're going up again right we're in a fight right now to get these um so again it's not that we were so much lower than other people because even over the summer we were pretty um standard when we were looking at contract negotiations it's just that everyone's in this situation where they're they're struggling to get P drivers yes Mrs Penna in fact we actually did um just recently several months back I think do a sidebar to do it because that was the and then I think they've gone up since then so we actually did bring the rates up to be consistent with other districts and then I think they've HED this up again so it seems to be ongoing thank you Dr forer yeah we we had a list of the administration did surveys of gave us data on U hourly rates on other districts and I sorted that and I gave it out to everybody and I saw that this would actually put us at the top of the scale and there's uh you could probably uh knock about $5 off and come out more in the middle of the scale so okay we're going to go to a roll call vote okay so with regard to this uh I want to be able to amend B when is when is the time to do that I'm sorry we're business B business B yes what yes i' I'd like to actually I think I'd like to just offer an amendment to b b is has to do with accepting the annual audit um and the resolution says that we're accepting the findings of the audit but I believe what we actually need to do is have a vote on accepting the entire audit not just the findings to confirm that I checked with Summit Westfield the New Providence and I looked at their minutes and they all had a separate vote vote to accept the audit in addition to accepting findings so what I'd like to do is suggest and I did bring up in the presentation with the auditor uh some things concerns about the uh or chart so what I'd like to do here is accept the audit subject to showing the details of the business office staff in accordance with njac c6a call 23 a-65 that's the thing about showing separation of Duties on the org chart and to provide an org chart as it existed for 2223 and and then postpone this final acceptance vote uh on the audit to the next meeting so that's my Amendment Dr hoer you're wanting a subsidiary motion and yes I'm making a motion for that yes yes what is the what is your motion I did not follow it okay I move to amend the uh resolution to say we accept the audit subject to showing the details of the business office staff in accordance with njac 6A col 23 a-65 and subject to providing an or chart as it existed for 22 okay do you have that written down yes I do could you pass it over to us please well if I do that then I won't be able to read it so I'll go slowly I'll go slowly how's that okay I move to amend to say we accept the audit subject to showing the details of business office staff in accord with njac 6A colon 23 a-65 okay and to provide an org chart as it existed for 2223 since the one we're one in the audit report is old and so it's to say and to provide an or chart as it existed in 2223 um and to postpone the final acceptance until the next meeting when we have that information thank you do yes please have discussion sure it seem it seems like what you're proposing though is to not accept the does have to be accepted tonight no it doesn't have to be accepted tonight I'm I'm giving him time to just get it to us for the next meeting so instead of instead of amending it you're basically not approving it until these things are added is what you're St I'm gonna say that the state um county office is going to take a different approach to it and I'm not sure as I as I've elated to I know that you spoke about a reorganization chart and how it was uh not sufficient to what you were looking for I know this relates to the 2223 year as I stated I'm I'm I'm in the middle of a budget and what I was been trying to state to you but you haven't listened at all was I wanted excuse me that's kind of insulting I do know but I I I've explained to you and I have explained on many occasions what I wanted to do is I wanted to work with in conjunction with the superintendent's office and get a a more straightened and aligned uh um what's the word I'm looking for okay but how much time do you need can you get it done by next month uh well I'm still I will try my best to do it by next month thank you that's all I want but then is the is your is your motion withdrawn then um well if we can get it if we can get these revisions for next month and then tonight we just approve the findings but not the entire audit then the next month we can vote on the entire audit that's that's what's in your agenda yeah but I'm I'm I'm trying to look I'm just trying to get a correct org chart all right that's that's said except just the findings right well we could do it all in once we could do it all in one motion next meeting yeah yeah I am still not following Dr borer can I we could accept the motion here and then add on to it when we get the um we have the findings but then when we get the reorg that goes to the year we can add it so in essence leaving it the way it is and withdrawing your motion no no excuse I'm talking with Dr forer okay Dr forer about your motion let me tell you what I'm really looking for here I'm looking for a corrected or chart I'm looking to get that into this year's audit and I'm looking to then vote on it at the next meeting I'm looking to give them enough time so it gets done this year that's all I want and if I can get an assurance that that'll happen then I then we can uh move on right I said that I will do my best to get it there because the next meeting is the 18th for our budget so Mr forer you are withdrawing your motion Dr forer sorry you're withdrawing your motion because we're accepting the findings but then we're going to add the information in the reorg chart that you requested by the March 18th meeting yes so we will okay as long as we have a vote on the 18th yes excuse me as long as we have a vote on the what I couldn't hear your last yeah next meeting as long as we can vote on at the next meeting okay so we're g be as it currently is drafted that correct yeah can I sorry can I make a suggestion Tom yes I think the point you're trying to get is there is the findings of the report that we would accept and then there is the actual report itself that we want to and I think we definitely need to vote on both correct I I hear you so if we were to hear motion B when you read the words it basically says we are accepting the findings yes the actual title says we are accepting the annual audit report would it work for everybody if we actually say we are accepting the findings of the 2022 2023 annual audit and that's just the findings and then you know the however long it takes to get the orc chart get it updated it's perhaps in the next meeting that we would actually accept the report is that workable I'm gonna say yes at this point I thought that's what we established I I I I I ask to amend the caption to just to be like super clear is that easier to do you TR figure out what's workable here I'm I'm I'm still not particularly clear what's actually happening but Dr foro are you withdrawing your motion your subsidiary motion uh okay I'll withdraw it but um that actually takes a vote doesn't it no because we never had a second never had a second Mrs Stanley I'm gonna I'm going to postpone your question it is close to 11 is this is essential so I want to get clarification okay if we go and change it to findings um so I already is findings no no she wanted to change the what I said to make this move forward she wanted to change B to instead of accept the 22 2023 annual report audit I'm sorry annual audit to findings of the annual audit she wanted to change 22 findings findings of findings of my question is to the business administrator how does that work with us actually sending this to Union County then so you're what we're saying is that we're going to accept the findings but we're not actually accepting the report until another month I I would suggest that we do both the findings and the audit because that's what I the intention was to be put in here exactly yeah so that was what what the intention was to do both in a combined resolution so I'm I'm I'm I'm not sure what what we're trying to accomplish yeah I'm I'm really not um so when we were when we were in um a Union County and jsba meeting um many of us were there and I remember the guy kept saying it's not the end of the world um and since we know that this is important right just making sure that board members have it for the future but when we're in the middle of a budget I'm hearing from our business administrator that this is not the end of the world and that we need to focus on the budget which we know we're already a little bit behind on um so I I I disagree with changing this I think we just need to accept the the annual audit and not keep amending this Mrs pan and I make a suggestion that we just accept this as is so that we can move forward and then if there's anything additional that Dr forer wants and he can we can put it on the March 18th meeting but I so that we can move forward please can we just accept this as is so um would you withdraw what you have I W to hear whatas just thank you um Mr Jesso it's if you um send the report to the county as is and then we go ahead and get you know in the time that you have um get the updated or chart and the changes that Dr forer would like can that report be resent to the county or does it can it or is the one that if this version if you send it now will be the one that lives as the I I I'm I'm going to say this I've never been put in that position before I I don't particularly know um the RoR chart that's been in there um I didn't have that information it's it's been in there for the last several years from my understanding from the auditor because I wasn't here last year so I I I'm I'm just a myth I I I I don't have that answer I don't the report itself organization in my opinion the the the audit report is for the financial purposes is what the state is looking for the rior chart I don't know how much Credence they put into it and whether that is anything that's outstanding that that does anything I really don't tell I really don't know because people down at the state level could probably tell me that I I don't know this is honest I don't know I would like to end this discussion I know we could keep going on it is almost 11 o'clock let us see if we can accept this as it is and then add later if we need to change the reorg and we'll ask our business administrator see if it makes a substantial change so we're going to go ahead with our vote I have a discussion on A2 okay I am closing the discussion oh is this another part of the business yes which one sorry Mrs uhi no Mrs Bradford I wanted to talk about this item and another item and I had my hand up you went through this row correct but I need to move our meeting along do you have something other than b to discuss so I have a point on B which is very relevant because we have already submitted the audit report the auditor has already submitted it to the state department of Ed so I don't understand County comes under the state department of head so what difference does it make if it has already been submitted it's on the doe website with this mistake so there is no sense of urgency for us to vote on it on February 26th we can vote on this at on the March 18th and I feel it is it is kind of you know reverse order that we are accepting the findings but you know not the audit report it's already with the state but my understanding the county that's that's sent to the state what they want is the approval done as soon as possible if you want to delay it then Q sack points Let It Be I'm going I'll leave it at that I'm going to deny that uh uh we're and go ahead and proceed with this vote as it is please call roll uh Mrs Stanley accepting as is yes I am accepting all including the new item L Miss Penna yes a through L um Miss Kiri um it's a no on audit and a no no on sidebar agreement so it's that is going to be B and L is an a um and all the rest is an a oh sorry yeah it's a b is a no G is a no and a l y is a no the sidebar the walk-in I don't want to be surprised if we don't want to be if you don't want surprises Shas we shouldn't be surprised with walk-ins thank you so BG and L is what you've voted no to okay uh Miss Bradford yes to all that to forer no to no to b g and L yes to the rest Mr Hyman uh yes on items a through I N L and L not NL that makes sense so everything but J and K Miss charie I'm going to um uh yes on a I'm going to um abstain on B yes to C yes to D yes to e f yes to g h uh i j and k um item L I am going to um I'm going to vote no for now so I have a no for L an abstain for B and yes to everything else okay thank you Miss Conor yes to a yes to b c d e f g h i j k um L is the walkin agreement yes I'm going to abstain from that so you've voted yes to everything except for extending to l okay so I have one extension of L so that brings that down to seven we have three NOS so that means that L did not pass if I'm correct with that how many Ved yes we have one two wait a second one two three four four exension oh that's right because of what we just just went through before okay thank you uh moving on to finance a motion for Resolutions a through D all board members so moved second second discussion I paid the bills sorry or I did I looked over the bill Mrs Stanley thank you and no other discussion roll call did not pay them yes you reviewed them Miss Stanley yes Miss Penna yes Miss kaana yes to b c and d on a yes to everything and no to checks 209 553 29413 553 209 413 and 209519 51 okay yes I said Miss Jolly I'm voting yes on everything from B uh B to d right and on item a um everything except I am abstaining on check number 209 413 I am abstaining on check 209 553 and 209519 so that was 209 553 413 and 519 correct and that's an abstain on those three correct Mr Hyman yes to all Dr forer uh no on checks 209 553 check 209 413 209519 and yes to everything else M Bradford yes to all Mr kry on a it's a no on check number 20955 3 209 413 209519 and 20954 and yes to b abstain from C and D so you're abstaining from c and d uh that is in yes to a and you're no no to check number 209 553 413 and 519 and 20954 54 Z okay so I have a I have three Nays for those three checks and an exstension the ension we have one two three four yeses three Nos and one exstension which means that those checks pass so motion does pass um Mr secretary the check that was uh not passed last time do we have anything on that that was in this this it was thank you I'm going to go and uh not read again the comments do we have any comments from the public I'm Karen seoli and I live at 49 fly place um my comments um concern secrecy are there other school policies that would enable or Empower our School District employees to keep secrets from parents or only policy 5756 is our district currently withholding student information from parents and do the teachers want to withhold information from parents is this they signed up for and do they feel comfortable doing that um and following up on the June diversity equ inclusion climate assessment survey last um June serving our 11 to 18 year olds about their religion race nationality gender sexuality and family income have those results come to light is this board interested in those results or was it just an exercise and are there any plans for another data mining initiative of our students um and also is there any feedback from teachers regarding the building thinking classroom in math we've had a very bad um experience in that where learning was not um the result and I was just wondering if that's something the curriculum liaison could talk to us about thank you Dr vley can you deal or answer any questions here on secrecy policy 5756 withholding student information uh teachers wanting to withhold information and then the climate survey um I'm not aware that we're withholding any information granted if students tell a teacher something in confidence um I would assume as a reasonable adult you would not share that information however I can't hypothesize on something that teachers are keeping or um administrators are keeping from parents as far as a survey results um I know Mr Hopkins has given those out to principles and they're developing their action plans um I am unsure if there will be another one sent I will reach out to him to find out that information and I will email you I do I do have your email and building thinking classrooms I know I M Dr gardano and I both met with teachers about building thinking classrooms and I know it's been brought up in the curriculum liaison I will tell you the teachers I met with were very supportive and um Wanted more professional development on building thinking classrooms and then Dr gardano was in the um curriculum liaison so I'll let him talk about that right so as I stated prior um we're not a building thing classroom District I know in the past I can't go in the past and change things I wish to God I believe me every I stay away thinking I wish I could change things it's just another tool for the teachers in the toolbox to use it's just a different Miss Curtis I meet with her regularly she's going over that with teachers is just in the tool in the toolbox um if again if you're having a specific concern with your child's teacher follow the chain of command we've had this conversation I know um but we are not a building thing classroom District we we aren't I I I'm telling you this is I'm never going to grow hair again we just aren't so I I appreciate that and I will keep bringing that it's brought up in the curriculum PTO meetings just to clarify teachers aren't required to use the toolbox of building thinking classroom but they have the option of using it their math class correct so it's a teacher classroom specific absolutely okay great there other comments from the public um Teresa bufano 35 win chip Road um curious why payroll went up over 40% from pay period to pay period and then um just in general in terms of boards again I said this is my first time here so curious where I can get information on what Miss re mentioned as board Norms so what are our board Norms how to meetings operate what are kind of the guidelines I'm hearing a lot of terms that I'm familiar with in a business setting but I'm seeing that it's different in a school board setting so how can I get more information on just how it works after the meaning I'll give you my email address to address the first question and I have some stuff that I have from school boards that might help great thank you okay are there any other public comments public session is closed we're moving to new business we had two things on here um the increase of legal spending and the annual professional appointments expired in December 2023 I move that we just wait till our next meeting to address those in new business discussion so um I had requested an item and I've given more than 48 hour notice but it was not added to the agenda and that is an RFP for attorney so I would like to um you know have uh uh the board secretary and I don't know if this um I think we had a little bit of a debate if this requires board approval in in order to um you know for the board secretary to issue an RFP um there was an RFP done back in uh September of last year but the terms of the RFP um had like a start date of January 1st 2024 and at this point it is you know quite stale so um where we might want to issue a new one to get you know certain firms May reapply that we have already applied but that's fine maybe their rates changed maybe something's changed so I think it's good that we get this done so that we are not in a rush and you know come uh June 30th thank you we'll add that to new business um The increased legal spending and the Mrs Bradford I already last time because the meeting went on till 10: I agreed to move it to the next meeting but looks like the pattern of the meetings is we are going to cram as much as we can in superintendence report and business business administrator report so it looks like every meeting is going to be you know and we are seeing new um new ways of conducting business with a timer for the board members but there is like unlimited time for reports so I would it's going to be quick it's 5 minutes uh I want you can move the annual business appointments to next year on under new business I would like to move a motion to invite the board attorney to our next meeting on March 18th and then the subsequent meeting of budget on in April that's my motion uh we don't vote or we don't have anything for motions voting for new business right right right what is the decision in new business we can move a vote who says if we can move a motion in new business it was you you got almost two month one and a half months of advance notice and the motion is on on the floor so and yeah I have a second so I think we need to move ahead with that thank you Mrs Stanley so according to Robert's rules being disingenuous with uh uh motions is kind of a no no um so I do believe that this is a disingenuous motion I also think it's improper because again we were not asked at any point that this motion was going to be brought up up so I am not prepared what yes I'll make a point of order that this is out of order because again right we were not I was not told that I was going to be having to vote on a motion tonight um which is why we try to follow Robert's Rules and our policies there there's nothing out of order point of order being called the president rules that the point of order is valid there will be no motion I I just like to mention as well that uh we're making our our our reports long these reports that we have are brought in for information for the board so we're not making them long they're here for the board such as the superintendent search the transportation presentation it is for the board it's not necessarily for myself and I'm making a long presentation I'm bringing the information to the board I just want to clarify that to everybody that's sitting here at this table so this new business will be moved to our next meeting on March 18th okay us okay Dr forer you have a comment yes I I'd like to appeal the ruling of the chair okay the ruling is appealed and denied by the chair no that takes a vote vote of the board oh the appeal takes a vote okay okay we need a vote an appeal on my um decision point of order ruling to not go forward with that motion okay so this is appeal for not moving for forward with motion point of order president okay and we have the motion was by who Tom I'll second it so you have to State it so it's clear what a yes vote means and what a no vote means this motion was to appeal it so it would be a yes would be to Grant Dr porg's appeal and overturn the board president a no would be the denying the appeal can you speak in the mic just to clarify the vote that everyone knows what they're voting on and what a Yes means and what a no means unless anybody disagrees or wants to State it differently a Dr farger appeal farer appeal is to over return the point of order determination ruling of the board president so a vote of yes would be to Grant Dr farer appeal a vote of no would be to deny Dr far's appeal and uphold the board president's ruling Mr Kiri yes Miss Bradford no Dr forer yes Mr Heyman no Miss Jolly yes Miss Connor yes Miss Penna no Miss Stanley no so we have a 44 tie so the determination is upheld I'm make a move a motion to adjourn the meeting oh I sorry I ask for a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting so moved second second discussion all in favor I meeting is adjourned she likes