Mr here M here Mr Mater Mr Mater's absent Miss noo Miss noto's absent Miss Shaw Sha's absent Mr Tuma here M Joyce here Mr Carpenter here please stand for the plge of Allegiance plge alance United States to the for stands Nation indiv andice for hello everybody and welcome to the March 14th meeting of the Board of Education of Branchburg please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public and media consistent with the open public meetings Act that advanced notice required therein has been provided this is a meeting of the Board of Education of Branchburg at which formal action may be taken the public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda and I will hand it over to Dr Chase for the superintendent report good evening uh I have three items for my superintendent report but first I want to start with a very positive recognition of our staff uh earlier this a few months ago Miss Ana yard had worked on building out a staff recognition program and we refer to that now as our employees Spotlight program and essentially what this is It's a program where we award one a staff member from each of our three buildings on a monthly basis to come up and receive recognition because of the positivity and the hard work and all of the things that they're doing to really make our schools an even better place so tonight I want to recognize the three recipients of our uh February employee Spotlight so um with that I believe comes preferred parking at your site um I think you'll have a gift card coming to you and maybe uh uh some swag we have from you you already got it water bottles okay good we like to keep our staff hydrated um so first I want to recognize Diana gendi and speak about what was submitted on behalf of Diana uh this reads as an aid Diana goes above and beyond she is kind and a devoted human being that is always willing to lend a hand she is such an integral part of our white and Community Diana's dedication and caring Nature has made a tremendous impact she is a team player and collaborates with teachers and related Services providers to utilize the best strategies and techniques for our students so Diana I just want if you could just stand so we could give you a round of applause and the [Applause] recognition and now um the next recipient is Allison ellic Allison and from from bcms Allison is an incredible colleague and teacher from the minute she started teaching she was ready to tackle anything she has had to handle full online teaching half virtual half in-person teaching and teaching multiple grades in four short years we call those the covid teachers she truly puts the students needs first Allison makes strong connections with each and every student and ensures they all feel safe in her classroom she is a team player with her colleagues and always ready to discuss upcoming plans and put in the work needed to create fun engaging lessons she brings a fresh perspective to teaching and is always willing to share her ideas Allison is a wonderful asset to the bcms community and I'm lucky to have the opportunity to work alongside her Allison can we recognize you and from Stonybrook we have Kathleen Shunk when Mrs Shunk walks into a classroom the students light up because they know she is bringing a big dose of fun to the learning process she exudes warmth Good Humor patience engaging methods and she meets the students where they are intellectually and emotionally so they feel confident to take chances she's a gifted teacher who works hard but makes it look effortless so Kathleen oh no no I'm I'm sorry Kathleen oh that's right I'm sorry Kathleen wasn't able to attend this evening but um I wanted to just say something to to you here it only takes one person to make a difference and I cannot thank you enough for just bringing your positive attitude and going above and beyond you're setting a high expectation for other staff and that's really helping to do the best for our students so I want to thank you and recognize you and thank you for being our first ever recipients of our employee Spotlight program thank you for coming out okay my next uh item is I want to share a few slides on some of the information that we collected from our community survey and our staff survey uh as you all know we are looking to bring on a new Middle School principal and I sent out a survey a few weeks ago and it closed and I was able to take a look at some of the data and I just wanted to share some of the insights that I gained from speaking to the community and he in from our staff so I'm just going to move over here uh Dr if any of the teachers don't want to stick around for don't feel obligated to stay just because you're here yeah you're more than welcome to but yeah [Laughter] see we fall apart without Tony I know uh oh step away from step away from the wall take out two teachers and a superintendent first rule of good photography do not okay so um if I could draw your attention to the screen up by the board so these are our princi survey results it was a brief survey it had um both an element of um asking for a check boxes of information and then also offering from the community in particular some anecdotal feedback so um the community feedback survey we had 168 folks in the community who completed the survey and just for a point of reference 20 the the grade the parents were the community was asked in which grade they have children and the highest number of respondents were from those community members who have a child in grade six and that came in at 26% so we asked the community to identify the core strengths and achievements of bcms what their perceptions were and um these are the the percentages that align to each area so our community feels as uh our academic excellence and Innovative programs are one of the strengths of bcms and we had 66% of respondents identify that 62% of respondents spoke to the strong teacher and student relationships that are at bcms which is a wonderful thing to hear uh we also heard that 37% of the respondents thought that our robust extracurricular activities and our sports program was one of the strengths of bcms and I just want to make a note bcms is one of the few schools in the state at the middle level who has a robust sports program so that's not something that every school districts do so it's very well regarded from the community and also the extracurricular activities that we have that our teachers provide and that is something that we've added to over time with regard to the qualifications of candidate uh there was a strong push from the community for somebody who is able to really have some skills in conflict resolution and has the ability to create a positive School culture they were also looking as one of the qualifications somebody who had a prior experience as a principal or in some facet of educational leadership and then 56% of respondents have identified uh somebody who could prove that they had evidence of improving student achievement which is important too because the principal according to the literature the principal makes the most significant impact on student achievement shortly behind the teacher so that's an area that the Community Values with regard to leadership style and personal characteristics uh these were the findings with a strong percent of respondents speaking to wanting to have a principal who's approachable and could communicate effectively with the stakeholders also having somebody who is decisive and can make a decision but is also fair in their decision- making and a 63% shortly behind the second one is a leader who would be a strong advocate for students so these were some of the anecdotal comments that were provided and I just identified some of the themes that came off uh here so we're looking for somebody who has the ability to have staff feel inclusive and respect uh there's a culture of compassion empathy and fairness again we see that desire for strong problem solving skills and decision-making somebody who's able to confront challenges constructively and is very well versed on latest educational theories which shows that you have a leader who is Progressive and well aware of the trends taking shape in education we see that call for um somebody who has skills in positive developing a positive positive School climate and also with a track record of supporting teachers and students needs um there's also a desire for a principal who who's actively engaged in the school community and has a strong visible presence um is somebody who holds students accountable and can support a strong supportive environment for students and staff so in summary the community is looking for a principal who has a balance of firm but fair discipline is actively VIs in the school prioritizes the importance of a culture that's safe and positive someone who supports academic excellent and teach excellence and teacher development um somebody who has strong communication skills is able to promote diversity and is responsive to the individual needs of students now the staff feedback we got from Stu bcms we have 31 staff members who responded it's interesting because this parallels what our community felt um just in a a little bit of a different order uh strong teacher student relationships our staff really values that which is great to hear because they spend the majority of time with our students our staff is proud of the academic excellence and Innovative programs and the staff is also very appreciative and thanks that the supportive and engaged Community is one of the strengths of bcms same thing with the can qualifications of the candidate um somebody who has the conflict resolution and school culture somebody who has a background as a principal or an educational leadership and somebody who has that ability to improve student achievement so we're on we have our community and our teachers on the same page with regard to what they're looking for and with regard to leadership style and personal characteristics again we see just somebody who's able to be approachable and effectively communicate uh has strong uh decisive and fair decision-making skills and also our staff is identifying somebody who's open to in inovative ideas and open to new ideas which is great because we do have a staff that has a lot of wonderful ideas for um furthering our educational program and so they are then suggesting that they want a leader that they can bring those things to which is great because that leads to progressiveness so um I'm happy to so that's the the majority of the survey but I'm also wanted to inform the board and the community that we put out a call for a candidates for the principales last month we had 49 applicants as I've said before missa yard who is our director of HR and uh did screening invent did screening inter in interviews I'm sorry with 16 candidates um we then were able to narrow down that pool to seven candidates and one person rescinded their candidacy so the interview Committee just met this past Monday and Tuesday and we interviewed six candidates um so so we are narrowing our way down to finding our next leader and I could tell you from the pool of candidates that it was a very competitive pool um it was great to see that so many people who are in education have a strong desire to come to Branchburg and um I could tell you we're going to be able to find our next great leader um and this person Rose to the top uh again I cannot speak enough about the quality of the candidates that we got so I'm very pleased with this entire process so in April I will be bringing somebody to uh be appointed and then we could begin that very important transition process any questions on any of this okay I'm going to go to the next presentation uh this is the budget presentation that Miss Dolan and I are going to share with you this evening uh the 2024 2025 preliminary budget for the school district District um again this is preliminary after this we do this presentation Miss Dolan will submit the information to the county and then when we get the approval from the county we will bring it to the board to have a formal vote on the budget uh tonight but I want to begin this process first by acknowledging the collective effort involved in developing this budget um and also a special Thanks goes to the members of the finance and Facilities committee Terry Joyce Charlie Tuma and Pua Desai uh we had two two meetings this past we had two a meeting this week and then we had a meeting last week where we're able to really delve into the revenues and the expenses that are going to be part of this budget so I'm happy to present this to you and I want to thank the principles who advocate for their schools and the department heads and supervisors who advocate for their programs um and Miss Dolan and her team as well uh I think you're going to be very happy with what we're able to put together so first I just want to start with an agenda for the presentation uh we are going to be sharing the district goals and some of the budget highlights that we have included in this budget I want to also share with the board and the community some of the pressures that school districts are facing with regard to budgets they're not only specific to Branchburg but they're pretty widespread uh Miss Dolan will then speak about the Appropriations and the revenues and then the tax impact for the community so each of our segments of our disc discussion is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of the financial planning and how it aligns with our overarching goals of the district which I'm going to now transition to so earlier in the year I presented to the board the district goals the first being prioritizing well-being and this is important to enhancing the educational experience by creating an environment where we seamlessly integrate well-being into the curriculum and the school culture so this budget some of the highlights that we have is um because of the needs of the students that we are seeing increase over time we are going to need to add special education teaching positions to the budget we're going to add seven of them specifically um and I wanted to let everybody know that those are not all going to be new positions where we are hiring seven new candidates we are looking to do some shifting of our staff to occupy some of those positions because those costs are obviously a driver of this budget we also have uh are adding to this budget the addition of a full-time behaviorist we currently have one behaviorist for the district for a district of this size uh it's it's a small number of behaviorists so we're looking to add one that can work primarily with the children at whiton and the teachers there to help mitigate some of the behaviors and the challenges that we're seeing and that are developmentally um appr apprpriate for our our students at this point in time we're also we also employ a safety and security coordinator at this point in time uh Mr Steven Davenport he's able to be on site for a portion of the week but we're looking to expand his role so that we can have him here full-time and also as part of uh this edition of uh FTE full-time equivalency we're going to have uh Mr Davenport oversee our facilities use requests because there's a lot that goes involve that's involved with making sure that anybody who is using our facilities is aware of our safety process and is adhering to the guidelines that we have in place there's also uh money funding in this budget to support curriculum revisions for our school counseling program so we have money allocated in this budget for our school counselors to come in over the summer and work under Dr Beth Stanton's Direction so that we could really strengthen and create an articulated program k to8 for School counseling and also supporting the student well-being throughout the district can I stop you can you just do like a really high level overview of what a behaviorist is just so anybody who's not so a so a behaviorist is a trained uh staff member who is able to work with staff members to identify and and students to identify what behaviors they're exhibiting and what type of structural enhan or modifications can be put in place to change or shape that behavior so for example you might have a student who is having difficulty tending um to attention in class and might be becoming somewhat disruptive to other students the behaviorist would work with the classroom teacher to put in uh something that would be referred to as a behavior modification plan whereby the goals of expected Behavior are outlined for that students and they're receiving rewards over time because the goal is to tweak behavior and get it to be Behavior that's acceptable reward that so we're likely to see that behavior increase thank you you're welcome our next goal that we identified is to apply evidence-based practices to improve the educational outcomes of our students these uh initiatives are complemented by the professional development that we provide for our Educators and then we are continually continually bringing in technology that is Innovative to directly enhance our student learning so I'm happy to uh speak to the fact that we are making adjustments to our instructional program specifically at the grade 6 to 8 level we are looking to add two new courses to our program of studies right now our students in grade six take a marking period of French and a marking period of Spanish um after having had exposure to Spanish over in the elementary schools we're seeing some redundancy in that curriculum and we're looking to take that course and reframe it into a more of a cultures and language class where we're helping students understand how culture shapes language and what language learning entails um and then they could choose which of the World Language offerings that they would like to pursue in grades seven and eight either being French or Italian and then we are also off I mean French or Spanish I'm sorry I I have the Somerville program of studies in my mind right right now which I was happy to see they're offering Portuguese too and a whole host of other courses um we do pay attention to our Somerville high school program of studies when we're doing anything here at the middle school because we want to make sure we're feeding into there appropriately so it's French and Spanish thank you we are also looking to add a course into grade six titled digital citizenship and we know that our students of today are very involved in social media and being online and what this class will do is it will help our students stents understand some of the complexities of navigating social media and the fact that they are developing a digital footprint when they go on to these sites and teaching them about um how to evaluate different kinds of websites uh for credibility and filtering and all the new things that come out that are students that are part of our students world so we have aada 5 media program as well and we're looking to tighten up some of that curriculum down there so that we have a very clear articulated program feeding into the sixth grade so that's a new course we're offering um we also have a lot of new curricular resources and programs that we're building throughout the district we have already transitioned our teachers uh in grades 1 through five to the new math program but we know that there's continual professional development and materials that our teachers need to meet the diverse range of our students so we have a lot of that funding in the budget we are also looking at some new social studies resources because that is an area area of materials that hasn't really been upgraded for a period of time so we're looking to put some funding behind there we also have a lot of professional development for our staff in grades K to8 um this is a an area that we have had to absorb a large cost from because the Esser funding that was provided to school districts during covid in three separate grants is ending um September 30th so most of the money here in the district was used for professional development for staff so we now have to absorb that cost but that's in the budget because we are committed to making sure that our teachers are always learning and growing earlier this year we put in some additional extracurricular activities so rather than being uh running these programs based on what we receive in from the title money which is under the elementary secondary Education Act of federal funding we absorbed these extracurricular activities into our budget because we believe that it's really important for our students to have a sense of belonging and develop in other areas across the board so we're happy to report that we are going to be able to keep the robust activities that we have this year for next year and we've heard a lot of positive feedback from our community on those uh another goal was to improve fiscal operations so these are some of the things that we've been doing in this area that this budget funds we have implemented a School treasurer which is um a recommendation that we've that our auditor uh has suggested over time and this keeps separation of Duties in our business office so that's leads to clearer transparency and better operation we are also going to be purchasing a new facilities use program right now we use a program that um after speaking to our our secretaries and some of the folks who are responsible for working in that program they believed it was somewhat cumbersome so we have a more UPG upgraded program that we're going to be using which will help uh renting our facilities and keep keeping track of building billing um as the policy committee revised the facilities use policy earlier this year so we're now collecting uh that money according to those guidelines the board is now using a new board meeting software and that has uh several advantages on the back end whereby we don't need to have our assistant in the business office uh watching the board meetings and transcribing the minutes they're able to um be actually generated which is a positive thing and um I put the assignment of custodial Services uh as you know the district had been Outsourcing with companies for several years we now hired our own custodians and as a result of that we have recognized the cost savings and most importantly we now have direct oversite of our staff who is in our building and there's more of a culture and a sense of community that having our own people on site also there's a lot that's being done with updating facilities uh we have some Energy savings additions that are in this budget specifically we're looking to add new boilers at bcms um this will ensure comfortable and reliable heating systems and all of this is in our long range facilities plan that was completed 5 years ago and we're redoing right now uh we also have the completion of the roof replacement at bcms we have some HVAC systems at whiten that need to be replaced um and these again will be an energy savings measure and uh reduce operational costs and we have enhanced security provisions I can't really go too deeply into those because we need to keep them confidential so as to not compromise but I could tell you that we are really doing a lot of work with security and we are our tech department is also looking to increase cyber security protections um to make sure that we are preventing the sensitive and confidential data we have here in the district from being compromised so the second part of the presentation is just speaking to some of the budget pressures that we're facing so I want to speak directly to enrollment projections so enrollment projections play a pivotal role in our budgeting process anytime enrollment goes up it affects certain aspects as Staffing requirements classroom capacities resource distribution and facil utilization so from this chart you could see a trend that predates uh right now and that is extending outward based on the information that was provided in the demographers report so you see three lines here um the bottom green line is our Baseline enrollment uh and that was comes directly from the demographers report and you could see that when you compare that to the adjusted enrollment that's projected out based on the increased Housing Development that there is a significant increase the blue line is our actual enrollment and you could see right now that's actually higher than what was the adjusted enrollment so it's going to be very interesting to see how that Trend progresses because to see if it maintains um the increase over the adjusted or if it levels out but nonetheless there is an enrollment increase happening in the district and like I said that puts a pressure on the budget because that means that we need more classroom teachers we need more resources materials and we need more space Sometimes some of the more enrollment causes uh more students with specific needs which also affects the budget so I just wanted to bring this to everybody's attention we are also seeing some pressures from operational costs so I had mentioned before that we are that the Esser funding is falling off at the end of September so we are absorbing that professional development cost that we've histo that the district has been using has been supporting with federal funds we're also seeing some of our student supports increase um and Miss Dolan will speak to in later in some of the slides the out of- District tuition placement costs that we're seeing um we also are seeing a decrease from 4% to 2% of allowable fund balance so let me explain that at the end of the year whatever money the district is not has not used becomes part of fund balance I believe it was in 2021 Governor Murphy allowed school districts to carry over 4% of fund balance that was moved down to 2% when the 2324 budget was created uh the 4% of that fund balance went to balancing that budget and that came out to about 2.8 million so that means whenever we go into any budget we already have to come up with $2.8 million from the previous years and that's not sustainable so what we've done for this budget is we've lowered that amount to 1.5 million and we want to continue in that regard because that means that we have to just make sure that we're running this budget um which we know is challenged to begin with and taxed and we're keeping a surplus there there's also we've also decreased without raising taxes due to operating efficiencies and adjust adjustments um which helped in this regard and also another pressure that we're seeing because many people people are seeing this with even regard to operating their old household there's an increase in supplies cost of supplies cost of materials if you want to get anybody to work on your house you're probably seeing increased costs there because of Labor in education we're seeing that with our teaching Workforce uh being able to switch positions is something and and recognize uh financial gain is not something that was usually prevalent in education but you're seeing more teachers switch districts so that means it's becoming a more competitive Marketplace we also have an increase in our health care costs I believe this year we have a 10% increase in health care and a 12% increase in subscriptions and then just like everybody at home we're seeing our utility costs go up so when you have a 2% cap which means you can only increase the tax levy by 2% and you have all of these things coming at a budget it makes it very challenging to balance a budget and you have to um make sure that you're very strategic with long range planning and that you're trying to at every opportunity increase Revenue whenever possible so I'm going to turn over this to miss Dolan who will go over the appropriations of the budget and then the expenses you stay there okay great so Appropriations are how the funds are spent um and this chart can you hear okay perfect thank you um so the blue here on the chart shows the funds that are directed uh to students so that's about uh 68% and then when you account for all the other um aspects of Appropriations or costs that are within our controls such as Administration operations and capital 80% is what we are uh spending directly on our students there's a a 15% for health benefits that we can't control as well as debt and funds that we pay to Charter Schools but overall what we control we are very dedicated to focusing on our students needs um and the next chart shows the actual amounts from last year and this year and the changes um you'll note that for tuition which is for out of District tuition uh mostly to Somerville there's a reduction of $317,000 there that is an adjustment that they're required to make um and based on the certified tuition rate that the uh state issues and it's a two-year look back so that accounts for that large decrease um the other big change that you see is capital outlay we have fewer projects and the projects that we have um planned for for this coming budget are going to be offset also by uh Rod grants and the other big change that we have is you'll see in operations and maintenance and a lot of that is attributed to our increased operational um efficiencies and bringing um our custodial Services uh in in District um so the next slide takes a deeper look at the allocation of tuition since that's the second highest um cost and so as you can see 84% of it is paid to Somerville high school we have 1% um going to votch and then 15% is for out of District placements um and the next slide dimensionalize our spending year on year so you can see that a majority of spending goes really focuses on students um and then you know the things that and that we can control we're trying to keep very low and very limited um another uh thing that we do is we try to in in an effort to keep cost low and manageable is we um engage in a lot of shared service agreements and so that allows us to increase our operating efficiencies and these agreements uh also um helps us build strong Partnerships with our colleagues and our neighboring um town towns so we have a one with Readington we have one with um the township itself for landscaping a lot of Cooperative purchasing with the Ed Services Commissions and also for um special education and transportation services next we'll go focus on revenues to see how we're uh funding these these costs so there are three sources of revenues for school districts federal state and local Federal is primarily grants like the the Ida and the esa um state is from State 8 and local is property taxes and District Operations um so the next slide shows you how that actually um is allocated to the district so as you can see 1% is from federal grants 6% is state aid um 4% is debt that we have outstanding 81% is um local with another uh 8% from the district so that kind of bifurcates the the local um resources and the next slide shows how state aid has trended in the last two years so we've had an increase this year for next year of $388,000 which is about 11 and a half% of state aid um the next slide shows you the breakdown from external sources and then District sources so the first is the tax levy and then debt that we we have outstanding bonds state aid and then the special revenues which again are the grant funds from the federal government internally we're using What U Dr Chase talked about is being fiscally responsible so that we are putting funds aside for the um the needs that we have in the future so this budget we're taking money from tuition Reserve that we've set aside to help offset the cost for um our payments to Sommerville high school as well as a capital reserve to fund the projects that we have with the roof in the boiler Replacements um additional revenues we've realized from renting uh old jork school as well as having Partnerships and using our um transportation Fleet during the day when it's not being used for um students uh home and and back um for field trips and athletic trips to neighboring towns and then additional Aid are things that we it varies depending on what our qualifications would be for that um and then by law we are required to have an amount in Student Activity Reserve um and this is the tax impact for the um for the tax levy for the school district so this information was provided by the town's tax assessor um um and based on the average homeowner uh residential assessment of $500,000 the annual tax impact would actually be a $278 reduction annually um and our next step in the budget process will be to submit to the state in the county by March 20th and then once we receive uh approval from the state and the county we will bring it up for a vote um on April 25th any questions I've got no questions I have commented um so first thank you to the financing facilities committee um thank you to Dr Chase and to miss Goan and your team because I know that this is a very intensive process um secondly I just want to reinforce the reality of the fiscal pressures and the increased enrollment pressures and I think in the news you'll start to see that a lot of districts are going to have to make tough decisions about things that they want will have to cut that are not necessarily popular and I think from our standpoint you'll start to hear things like um the referendum get ramped up a little bit more you might hear some Rumblings about a second question so I just want the public to be aware that we recognize those fiscal pressures and we're going to try to be proactive versus reactive um but basically I just want to say thank you because I know it's a lot of work so appreciate it thank you okay next is public comment on agenda items only the board the Board of Education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues in school matters of community interest in support of this position the law establishes a period of public comment at every board meeting individuals wishing to speak must State their name and place of residence comments are limited to 3 minutes per person for a total of 30 minutes an individual may speak a second time after all others who wish to speak on the topic have been heard please understand that our public forums are not structured as question and answer sessions but offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer and no participant May address or question board members individually all speakers are requested to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy rights of others whose legal rights may be affected please note while it's not the port's intention to stifle comment on matters of legitimate concern to the school Community the public should be aware that if their statements violate the rights of others under the law governing defamation or invasion of privacy they may face personal liability to the injured party if speakers are uncertain of the legal ramifications of their comments the board urges them to seek guidance beforehand from their own legal advisor any comments on agenda items seeing none we will move on to governance I have a brief report um I am just going to ask all of the board members if you get invitations to the board meetings or committee meetings via Google Calendar can you just um respond so that the people running the meeting just know if you're available or not I know most of us are pretty good at that but every once in a while we get some committee meetings that have less than three people and it would be nice to give other people the opportunity to attend um we do have a few voting items we have one approval of minutes two approval of Hib investigative report three approval of hi findings report can I have a motion to move these items motion second any questions or comments can I have a roll call please yes do you guys see the vote no not yet not yet oh wait I'm almost on the wrong thing did you see it now yes yes okay Mr Carpenter yes Mr FTI yes M Joyce yes Mr Tuma yes m s um obstain from all do I break it down you can if you want you can okay thank you very much next up is policy Mr I don't think you have rep because we didn't meet no report we'll meet after the spring break I believe in April thank you very much and we have no voting items so I will move on to curriculum and instruction we met a couple weeks ago um Dr Chase you covered most of what we talked about we met with Miss Anderson Miss landisburg and Dr Stan and Miss Nash to provide some updates planned for the districts 2425 school year focusing on bcms um so that was kind of things like adding new courses to the curriculum one thing I will say is that Miss Anderson and her team are really doing some Innovative things looking outside of the box to to add new programs um I'm just very happy with the direction I know Charlie we had a very very good discussion and just uh proud to be working with them and proud of all their work that they're doing for the district we also have a few voting items under curriculum we have one conferences in travel two approval of service project and three acceptance of Grant funds can I have a motion to move those items motion second any questions or comments about those can I have a roll call please yep Mr Carpenter yes M FTI yes M Joyce yes Mr Tuma yes Mr Sai yes motions passed thank you very much next up is Personnel Mr T do you have a report a brief report Personnel committee met last week spent a good amount of time discussing the positional changes that were outlined in the budget earlier tonight with uh the addition of the seven special education teachers and some of the moving around which was very informative uh we spent some time on the custodians finally coming inh housee and realizing some of their savings which were also reflected in the budget presentation we also spent some time on well-being and and how well the wellbeing program is doing and how well it's being received by The Faculty so it's very you know just to say it again I said every time an is doing a great job and and she really really works hard to make sure that everyone kind of feels a part of that Branch workg family and makes everything very easy and very easy to be part of and um we also discussed the the new position for the new principal at the middle school again a lot of hard work a lot of work going into it I think we're going to see the the benefit of that once the uh the announcement is made so I think there's a lot of good things that are going to happen with the budget and the some of the new Staffing that's going on so all very positive thank you thank you very much we also have some voting items we have one approval of resignation two approval of retirements three approval of personnel four approval of extra duty pay five approval of extended school year security hours six approval of sub stitutes seven approval of revision of Title One tutoring eight approval of revision of RTI coordinators nine approval of athletic stien and 10 approval of revision of personnel can I have a motion to move these items motion second any questions or comments I have one if you don't well I sort of have to comment that this substitutes are now my children's age it's terrible but they're wonderful people you always need more so old I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who's retiring I don't know if that's what you wanted to say I have personally um thank all three of them um I know Miss B her daughter is Amanda is one year older than me so um just for me the name bom and the bom family means a lot of what Branchburg is because they've been throughout my lifetime just a staple in the community um Mr B over at whiten with the art teacher so her Legacy will live on but um just I I remember driving past their house and seeing all the Christmas lights so they're really it's they're just what it means to be part of Branchburg and sad to see her go but so proud of everything that she was able to do for our community and our schools so thank you very much thanks you said okay can I I have a roll call please Mr Carpenter yes M fitti yes M Joyce yes Mr Tuma yes Mr yes pass thank you very much next up is finance and Facilities Miss Joyce do you have a report um I just have a brief report obviously um Dr Chase mentioned that we spent the last two committee meetings uh this past Tuesday and the previous Thursday reviewing the budget um but on Tuesday we also I wanted to let the public and the board know that there were a few other discussion items just so that you know that there are still some things on the table we're talking about um the turf field initiative we are still um considering we uh got some are in process of getting additional information from the group that has proposed the turfield or recommended that we look into putting it on our property so we're going to be gathering more information about that and that will come back to the business committee for more discussion um the other item is uh hunting on the Harland School Road property again um the administration is still looking into that trying to get more information we're connecting with the township um so we'll get some more information on that as we uh as the business committee moves forward and meets hopefully within the next couple business committee meetings we will have more on that that's it that's it okay we have a bunch of voting items under finance and Facilities we have one the bills list two secretaries report three treasurers report four line item transfers five monthly transfer report six approval of purchase of one 54 passenger School Bus seven approval to pay bills eight adoption of the Branchburg School District tentative budget nine approval of accounting and Consulting Services 10 approval to enter into agreements with the Somerset County Educational Services Commission to administer the non-public programs 11 approval of amendment to of acceptance of section 15 Grant state of New Jersey schools Development Authority and 12 approval of donation from the Branchburg PT motion to move those moved second if I could just thank the PTO for the wonderful and generous donation of the picnic tables so the past two days I've been noticing our middle schoolers because the weather's been so nice have been able to go outside and it has just been amazing to watch them outside and I know that they're going to have such a great time with the picnic tables that are going to be on site so I really want to thank the PTO I know they did a lot of work between the Harlem Wizards and now this donation so I just wanted to give them some public recognition thank you PTO so those picnic tables were placed in the middle Courtyard of the school or I believe they're going to be placed yeah I think there's going to be there yeah but right when I went out they were the kids were playing out way back by the field so and this will give our students the ability to go outside and have their lunch and so it's yeah spend more time outside which they seem to very much enjoy so thank you um question on item number six on the school bus is one bus enough with the increasing in enrollments is one bus replacement enough or will we have to look in the future to add more well this is for this year we have two budget two buses in the budget for next year okay so that's for this year yes I believe the the purchase of this bus was to get a diesel bus because we're going to be prohibited from purchasing diesel buses after this year the the state wants us to go either to electric buses or back to gas buses which um the electric is going to be interesting to investigate because then you would need a charging station so we wanted to get this bus as quickly as possible and then we have two budgeted and then 2425 school budget thank you you're welcome anybody else real quick I I was remiss I I want to just thank um our our business administrator Miss Dolan for the amazing and Dr Chase for the amazing work that they did on this budget um I don't know for those at home who were paying attention and watched last year um it was the first year with our new superintendent in place and we were kind of uh a little we'd been through some changes to say the least so um this year has been it's been wonderful to watch you two work together and pull this budget together I never thought you would be able to build us a budget uh at the amount that you did so I'm really impressed with the work that you've done and I just wanted to say thank you Kudo was yeah I'll second that fantastic thank you thank you again to the finance and Facilities committee they gave some great input last time that was really helpful okay can I have a roll call please Mr Carpenter yes M fitti yes Miss Joyce yes Mr Tuma yes Mr s yes thank you very much next up is public comment on any item anybody have any public comment on any item right now no I'll close public comment and move on to board liaison reports Summerville uh no we have not met since our last meeting next meeting is Tuesday the 19th thank you PTO Miss sha is not here Somerset County Ed Services Commission we have not met since my last report New Jersey school boards I have no report on that front other than the fact that I will be coordinating with Gwen and trying to get the ball rolling on the superintendent evaluation process um Branchburg Township BR bef um yeah there's a few things um Hershey Park tickets there's discounted Hershey Park fund Riser tickets are back by popular demand Hershey Park tickets are for sale at a discount of over 55% of retail price and can be used through January 1st 2025 so they need to be in by Monday all orders need to be in by Monday March 18th in order to distribute tickets during spring break two and under are free and tickets can be ordered through um a link on the bef website and the other thing is readathon it's the most popular fundraiser the 2024 readathon will start on approximately March 15th and will run through mid April readers of all levels are encouraged to register they log their hours reading and participate in a friendly comp competition for pride and prizes um instructions will be sent home by the schools regarding activ of each reader personal page and then last thing is pocketbook Bingo another Community favorite the bef will be hosting its annual pocketbook Bingo on May 4th 2024 details will be forthcoming regarding timing registration and ticket sales in the meantime please save the date for the funfilled Kentucky Derby themed evening got to get a special P for that uh lastly cpeg yeah I'll just remind everyone that the next cpeg Town Hall will be held virtually on April the 9th so that's right after we get back from break right um so at it's at 700 p.m. so I encourage again anyone who's available and uh to return to RSVP so that you can uh be a part of that meeting and if you can't make the meeting uh they they are recorded and you can go on to the district website and watch past meetings I think that's it can I have a motion to adjourn the the meeting motion second all in favor I thank you where are the Hershey Park tickets yes I don't see the Hershey Park ticket because I would buy them tickets thank you congratulations thank you who I don't see it like the Hershey part like oh it's like some kind of Link yeah I want Hershey Park I know me too because I used to buy them from somebody else and I I'd rather buy them I've never been there oh my God we I take my kids still they're all adults I take them still like every year it's so fun I want to go to the Hershey's Spa yeah yeah can you send it to me yes literally 25 years ago chocolate fact a lot better than it is recently really why how did it CH I've never