the United States of America to the for it stands Nation indivisible liberty and justice for all welcome everybody to the April 25th 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 and that advanced notice therein has been provided this is a meeting of the board of educ 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 thank you Mr Carpenter um today we have a large audience here today and that is to celebrate and give recognition to the students and the teachers whose classes have done an exemplary job at reading as part of the bef readathon um as part of the readathon uh Dr and Dr Miller is here and Miss Christ Christ Marty is here to provide these lovely trophies to our students as part of the readathon our students logged on to a website and they recorded the number of hours they read I know their family and friends were able to sponsor and when we look at the total number of minutes read by all the students in the district it is over 123,000 and for those of you who uh want to know it's that's about a little over 2,000 hours of reading um so tonight we have three students who we would like to recognize as those who have read the most for their respective schools and Dr Miller and Miss krishn Marty are will hand out the awards um to the students so I'm going to call your name and then you could get your award and then we could take a photo of you so uh representing whiten we have Bella Fu fruman here hi Bella congratulations look at what you're going to get awesome conratulations yes congratulations Bella um for Stony Brook School we has we have isma Aziz [Applause] here good job and then for bcms we have Caitlyn zer congratulations to our student winners we also have uh classes that collected the highest sponsor amount and another class that read the most minutes so we have the teachers of these classrooms here um for the most minutes at 15 1,195 minutes we have miss perini and miss Chang's fourth grade class so cute and then for the highest sponsor amount of $2,790 we have Miss Francis con's class congratulations I want to know her Secret [Laughter] they love it so much and they come in and just to see like the minutes wrapping up at the class they they were looking at that that's awesome um I want to thank uh the be the bef for sponsoring this event and then can we get a group photo of all of our winners we're going to not be in yeah Oh I thought yeah I just hide behind my size never you should be all right thank you thank you oh really really okay well the second item on my agenda tonight is to also recognize our staff as you know missa yard has started an employee Spotlight program so we are here to award and recognize the staff who have received the recognition for for our March employee Spotlight program so first um from Whit and elementary school I will Melissa donoway is here so um our as part of the program uh somebody nominates the staff member and I just want to read to you what has been said about Mrs donoway Melissa is a colleague educator and friend who goes above and beyond each and every day for those around her to ensure their success she always has a positive of attitude and brains any space that she enters her smile and laugh is contagious making her other making other people's day better she has established a classroom community that is safe in all aspects her classroom is a place where students can take risks within their learning as a teacher Miss donoway is described by students as a teacher who makes learning fun she answers questions in fun ways and provides us with extra help when we need it like in math she also gives us soft start time which is our favorite way to start our day miss way is always smiling and laughing making our days bright congratulations we'll get a picture of all of our employee spotlights at the end um from Stonybrook we have Caroline o who is our school counselor um Caroline Co Caroline's colleague wrote Caroline o is such an important aspect of Stony Brook School she's always willing to drop everything to help out students and staff members and whatever way they need she creates a warm welcoming and calming environment for the students and always puts their needs first Caroline excels in all the work she does and has open communication with all she's always thinking of others and goes above and beyond in every way congratulations Caroline just just a word of note this is Caroline's first year in the district as a counselor so we got to find something for you to achieve next year too um uh Miss vulpi is she in here no okay okay well miss vulpi isn't here um so Deb vulpi has won the award for bcms and I just want to take a moment to read what has been said about her Deb vulpi has stepped up this year as a team leader she's constantly advocating for her colleagues as well as caring deeply about her students she's a team player and proactively supports the eighth grade team through her enthusiasm and her sense of humor she is able to connect with students on a deeper level Deb works with all stakeholders to collaboratively brainstorm Solutions when issues arise and bcms is very lucky to have Deb vul as part of our team so congratulations to our winners so can I ask for Caroline and Melissa to come up and take a photo for our website I'm not in this one this is just oh I am in this one okay I didn't realize that thisd head will falling out so I think that concludes like the fun part of the meeting right oh no the fun part's coming we have the budget presentation coming up and for those of you who I know it's a a school night work night if you need to leave um feel free to do so take your [Laughter] opportunity but you are welcome to stay just say thank you very much have a good evening thank you for coming we know how to clear the room one thank you and then we just thank you thank you it was like the experiment every time [Laughter] congratulations has has her own Das now yeah I will is that a it's cute shows how hard it is to sit in that chair okay um the third and most fun item for my presentation my agenda is the 2425 school budget uh as you if you may have recalled uh Miss Dolan and I presented the preliminary budget several weeks ago and we're here here to share the final budget which has been approved by the county and is on the agenda for vote this evening uh part of the work that Miss Dolan and I will do this evening is to uh divide this into two sections first I will go over the enrollment some of the pressures that are leaning on the budget our district goals and budget highlights and Miss Dolan will go over the Appropriations the revenues and the tax impact so a little bit about our enrollment right now to just paint a picture about what is happening in the district at this moment I did a 2-year comparison of enrollment over um and put the information according to grade level on this slide you could see from the sum totals at the bottom we're almost about a 100 students over more than we had last year so this is what we're trending for all of these grade levels will then move up um into next year and if you look at the grade five enrollment right now which is in the 23 24th school year at 156 they will be moving up as grade 6 students this year next year which is why we have the addition of a grade 6 teacher Ela in the budget I also put up some information about our enrollment um the ethnicity of our students the State Department of Education requires all school districts in New Jersey to identify students according to these ethnicities uh the second one which is multiple categories that signals that apparent when I identifying the registration the ethnicity at the time of registration has identified two or more races here but you can see from the bargraph that Branchburg is becoming more diverse as the years go on so let's talk about budget pressures that are leaning on this District you may have recalled this slide which this data comes from the demographers report that was presented earlier in the school year again we had the three lines here the green at the bottom is showing what the Baseline enrollment could be with there wasn't any housing being built the green uh dotted line really high up is the adjusted enrollment that is reflecting all of the development that is taking shape in Branchburg and then we see the blue line coming in from the side which is actually showing our actual enrollment and you could see that the blue is slightly higher than the adjusted so this is something for us to really keep an eye on as more students mean more students in classrooms uh more more need for space more near more need for Learning Resource materials and possibly even Support Services we're also seeing increases in our operational costs uh you could see that the federal funding the Esser grants that were received over covid period are falling off this year they all need to be spent by the end of September our special education placements are going up at around 8% and so you are aware these tuitions are not actually capped by the doe and they often change they run on a different fiscal year than us so we can see we could potentially place a child for placement beginning September but receive a bill in December uh that's an adjusted amount that we would have to pay so that adds to a further level of complexity the inflation rate is trending at about 3.1 I think that's a 6 or 12 month look back our teacher salaries when they our staff salaries were at 3.5% % in negotiation health benefits are coming in at a 10% increase and prescription is coming in at 12% I wanted to put all of these figures up here because I wanted to remind everybody that a school district is required by law to stay within a 2% tax cap Levy and you could see these figures are all over 2% so that makes balancing a budget very difficult the other thing that we have uh included in this budget is a decrease in adjusted fund balance balance for from 4.4% to 2% and essentially what that means is at the end of the school year this is a fund balance is any money that is left over that could be used to offset the following Year's budget the budget for the 2324 school year had a fund balance of 2.6 million and that is really something that is unsustainable moving forward so we cut that by half and we're looking to carry a fund balance about $1.3 million earlier the year I presented the district goals which you see up here uh the first being to prioritize the well-being of our students then we were specifically making a concerted effort to apply evidence-based resources and practices to all of our operations here we've had turnover in the business office so we really wanted to improve fiscal operations and of course update facilities that take have the the normal wear and tear from having students and teachers in here on a regular basis but also starting to look at our environment and our facilities to make sure it's conducive to the way students in 2024 learn which is more of a Collaborative Learning style so you're seeing classrooms and school districts move more towards flexible Furniture so that was all part of what our work has been this year so in sharing the next couple of slides it all ties back to our district goals in this in these regard so one of the biggest things facing this budget was the increase in staffing needs Jen Anderson who is our director of educational programs and student Support Services after looking at the needs of our students in the special education program and our current staffing has identified a need for seven additional teachers which comes at about a cost of $575,000 we also have been seeing an increase in some of our students needs for Behavioral supports and we also only have one behaviorist in the district which is which is not a lot for a district of our size so we're adding another behaviorist which comes to about a cost of 800 $85,000 as I mentioned that grade five enrollment is coming up to the middle school next year and in an Ela class there's a lot of reading and writing that the students are doing so we want to keep those class sizes smaller so we're looking to add a grade six teacher there that's coming in at a cost of about 60,000 and we have also had tremendous success with Steve Davenport our security coordinator here who has done a lot of tremendous work with um helping us practice our drills uh in in uh increasing signage for protection of the district working with the folks who rent our facilities and so on and so forth we really need to secure him for a full-time position because he's only here 3 days a week and that comes at a cost of about 69,000 also I just want to let you know know that benefits are not wrapped into these costs um but if a person comes on board and has a family plan of benefits we're looking close to $22,000 so you could see right there that is $789,000 and because we have to stay within a 22% cap minus a healthc care waiver and enrollment that comes out to about $900,000 so we're already very close to eating up our 2% cap allowance we also have some facility needs that we are have in this budget the top three which are identified with an asterisks are Rod Grant eligible meaning that we submitted them to the Department of Education for consideration of a grant whereby we would receive back up to 40% of the cost of the project so that includes new boilers at bcms the roof replacement at bcms and the HVAC systems at whiten you probably have seen in the news uh information about cyber security and that is as equally as important to us as we Warehouse a lot of Staff information that is um confidential in nature and also student information so our director of technology and and that team is looking to add some additional security Protections in the cyber security at uh realm out of about $25,000 we also have oh sorry Mr carp can they give you like um a Time frame for when the rod grants would be accepted or not like do they tell you by June this St or they just it's a very long iterative process um in which like right now we're just in execution phase and we have to submit um documents to them and then they approve and then we can go on to the next phase so right now we're just still in execution phase so do they only do only certain applications like go through the phases like do they reject some in PH one or do do you know no it's been of back and forth with the person that's assigned to us that you know like for the I'm sure you recall on the agenda we had put the motion to accept the rod print like three times because they wanted very specific language and the person who's now our coordinator was different than the initial person who gave me the language for the initial R Grant so it's like very much government run thank you we also have additional security measures that are coming in at a cost about $63,000 which I'm not able to disclose because of security purposes but those were drawn from the recommendations that the district had by the Mars County prosecutor's office and also the um audits we had by the security specialist last year much like your own appliances in your house kitchen equipment fails and we operate three kitchens here uh those appliances are coming to about 20 years uh as you might recall we had to replace a refrigerator and I believe it was a dishwasher last year so we are being more proactive so there and we're being more proactive and replacing them before they break because what had happened was when our dishwasher broke we had to pay additional Staffing costs to wash dishes by hands so those items are in there and they're coming in about a cost of over $3 million before the rod Grant monies would be applied to offset we also have increased needs in transportation we have to purchase school buses renew them according to a timeline that's required by the doe so we have two buses that we're looking to purchase next year at coming in at about a cost of 325,000 uh we're hoping to get them at that cost uh they're a lot of Demand right now but we put those in the budget to make sure that we're able to transport our student students safely can you get them at all I know there was like a huge back order really like we didn't get them we're working very aggressively because I think as you know the um the new U mandate for greener buses and you know electric there it means that the diesel buses now suddenly have a very high demand because they're going to be grandfathered in I think for I forget how a a long longer extended time so everyone wants to get diesel now because all Al the mechanics and all the people that kind of work on the buses they know diesel they don't really know these other newer buses so we're trying to just kind of strategically put ourselves um in line but we do have a quote from someone that we're going to look to execute on thank you there's also a $42,000 cost there Rel related to Transportation Staffing uh we have been partnering with Readington in the shared service agreement and we have found that although we're very appreciative to Readington we have found that it would suit us better to have our own director of transportation and then provide some support to our director clerically because there's a lot of work that needs to be done in transportation which would require our director to work you know 16 hours a day so having somebody there in the afternoon would allow our director to go home because she's there in the morning doing the dispatch so that comes at a cost of about 367,000 so in order to balance the budget we really needed oh I'm sorry I'm forgetting our curricular enhancements most importantly um these are not things that we buy year after year so if we buy math textbook workbooks for our students they're not in here they're just in a reoccurring costs these are new things that Jenny Anderson and her team are looking to put in for next year we are bringing our counselors back this summer to do some count some curriculum writing for their School counseling program under the direction of Dr Beth Stanton we are also adding some educational technology at a cost of about $14,000 and both of these are for our prek-8 programs at the middle school I think you might uh in the curriculum committee we talked about enhancements so we are adding two new courses there one being digital citizenship and the second being language and cultures so we're going to need some curriculum writing there and also some resources and materials um in this year we did an excellent job at building out our extracurricular programs for our students so that they feel even more included and involved in the schools historically the district has had their extracurricular programs based on what money was allocated by title 4 which meant that some years you might have a program but the next year if you didn't receive the funding you might not because we believe extracurricular programs are so important to students and there's a lot of evidence and research that indicates such we really want to put these in the budget so that they're reoccurring programs for our students and that's K to8 there uh the next thing is mathematics resources there's been a new mathematics program that has been implemented K to 5 and that is going to roll up next year to 6 to 8 so we're going to need to purchase more resources there uh our social studies resources in grades 3 to5 needs some updating so we have money in the budget for that and literacy is a very complex thing thing to teach we could always use professional development our teachers at the middle school by um they're mostly secondary Ed trained meaning that they have more of a background in English rather than reading so having them have ongoing professional development in the teaching of literacy is really important so we've included that in the budget as well and those all some total come in about $139,000 so in order to balance this budget we've had to to really look at some cost savings measure and we looked at our current positions that we've had in the budget and B and we've examined the real need of what we H what we require here in Branchburg and we are looking to make some staffing reductions uh we are one of the few I think maybe only one of two districts in Somerset County that have Library aids to work in the libraries uh we have one staff member retiring and then we have another staff member who will potentially be shifting to another position so when you calculate the cost of those positions and the benefits that brings in about $119,000 and we are looking we are working with the principles to see if we can have either staff who have a prep period cover or have a duty to do some bookshelving or maybe we would look to bring in more parent volunteers which is always a positive thing to have stud parents in the schools we have a guided Aid position up here and after working with the admin team up here we do not believe that we need that position anymore so we have that in as a reduction you may recall we have instructional coaches that were hired to help Miss Anderson uh Implement programs since we have hired two supervisor three supervisors to help coach our teachers we believe we could do handle appropriate educational programs with a reduction here of two which is coming in at about $195,000 we've also um tried to absorb the kindergarten AIDS because they were originally funded by the Esser grants so as those monies are Falling Away uh we are going to be uh reducing those positions and at a cost of about $95,000 and you could see that there was a shift in addition of special ed teachers so the students who some of the students who had been receiving instructional support might be classified so we have been able to reduce in two instructional support teachers out a cost of about 32 $224,000 I'm I don't think that's actually the correct amount I I apologize that should be um calculation should be corrected but that brought in some cost savings there as well the other big thing that we did this year with the support of the board and with Mr Moy and his team we were able to bring back our custodians so we had been contracting with a service provider that was costing about $840,000 a year we had seen increases in there overnight with our previous provider so we didn't know where that cost would be coming in we also found that having our own custodians would be beneficial to the district so we were able to save about 183,000 there to help offset some of the costs of the other things that we including in this budget so I will hand it over to miss Dolan for the appropriation section okay so um this is reflects really how spending is going can you guys hear me okay how uh the funds will be spent in the school year um as you can see the the blue section really um directly uh touches the students so these are the kids these are the instructions that that are directly impacting students um so where we can control cost you know are the other pieces of the the pie that we're trying to keep it very small so um 5% is for our operations and maintenance largely that's due to our increased operational efficiencies and bringing our custodians internally the 1% of special revenues that's grants Grant funded um administrative costs are at 5% um 15% this is stuff that we can't really control but these are um employee benefit costs um the capital outlay are the projects that we have for for the summer and and a million dollar of that is eligible for the for reimbursement of uh Rod Grant and then 4% is the repayment of debt that we have outstanding so um we're going to look at the 26% here um that is tuition that we're paying um to see how that breaks out so do you have that um so as you can see 84% of this or $12 million is goes to directly to Somerville high school for our students um a small percent 1% or 69 $70,000 about goes to the votch um for students that attend there and 15% are for the out of District placements based on students I APS and these are for Approved private schools and the rates are set by the state for what the tuition is has have many of these G up the Summerville School versus last year or versus previous year for the well should oh I did actually look at the slides but I remember they always go up yeah I they they always go up but remember um it also students going there no what is happen okay thank you okay okay so this is the cost um year on year and you can see the big changes were heavily investing in instruction and student support the tuition cost is going down as you can see the $317,000 but that is um a credit we're receiving from Somerville High School um that they're required to give us because the certified tuition rate from 2021 was lower than what was charged to us um so it sort of distorts a little bit The Run rate of what the tuition cost truly is um operations maintenance is going down substantially also a lot of that again is attributed to us um operating much more efficiently and bringing the custodians um internally uh special revenues that decrease is largely triggered by the um the Esser grants going away we still have a small amount that in will'll it terms in September so we'll have to finish the use of that then um administrative costs are pretty much flat um employee benefits are higher that's a class that we can't control that's just benefits um Capital outlay we have fewer projects and like I said we're we're eligible to have u a reimbursement of a million 48,000 um for the rod grants and the charter schools relatively flat and The Debt Service payment that's for the bonds that we currently have outstanding do we know so sorry just with the tuition my assumption is that there's fewer of our kids going to Cal High School is that is that an accurate assumption like I'm just wondering if the I feel like previous year the cost per student went up so I'm just curious how much more up did it go again this year given that we'd have to get the specific figures from you for you um but I can tell you we get the lost projection from Somerville school they do a 5-year historical look back and then they predict a trajectory moving forward so um that's how that comes out it's just yeah it's always interesting we have less kids going there but we keep paying more to someone go I actually just got the enrollment from Somerville and we have more students from Branchburg attending Somerville High School than we do than Somerville has their own students that's equalizing but historically has been always more BR since the summer but our enrollment is declining it is becoming more even we end up paying roughly the same because the cost per pupil goes up even though we have fewer students I'll get you that okay okay and then this dimensionalize is the spending the Orange is the uh 23 24 year and blue is the budgeted 2425 so again as you can see cost our spending is heavily invested in the students that's represented by the first three columns and where we can control costs we're working very very diligently to keep it flat or you know lower and and the one that you see trending up higher is employee benefits which we we just don't have um any control over that um and then part of the increased cost right that you shared before like the prescription cost yes so that's yes and like you know there there are a lot of new medications on the market and so you know that's D driving cost up as well um but we try to you know operate um efficiently if we can uh by you know forming strategic Partners Partnerships and having shared services with um as many of our Services Commissions as possible as well as the Readington Township uh school district for transportation purchasing um uh special services Transportation supplies all of that so these are all of the groups that we have shared service agreements with um and now we'll look to revenues um so there are three sources for revenues federal state and local Federal is primarily Grants State is State 8 and local is bifurcated as property taxes and District Operations so we'll go through through those down um so as you can see uh Federal is about 1% of the revenues that we receive um 6% is represented by state aid uh 4% of our revenues is from the issuance of bonds so that's the funds that we received from doing that um 81% is local uh taxes and the District Operations will account for 8% of the revenues um and next slide uh distinguishes the external and internal um sources so externally it's the tax levy which is 46.7 million the repayment of debt or the bonds the revenues we receive from issuing the bonds that we have outstanding is 2.1 million state aid is 3.7 and special revenues again this is the federal um grants is about $732,000 that we're budgeting um from the district perspective you know this again goes back to being very very fiscally conservative um we are going to withdraw from our reserves from tuition reserve and capital reserve so that's the 2.2 million we have to in this year's operations at the end of the year when we close that come up with $1.5 million to fund next year's budget um we have a lot of revenues generated from our leases with old York and we're also using our Fleet our transportation Fleet during the day to help other districts um do uh field trips athletic runs you know whenever possible so that's bringing in additional revenues um we' spoken about this earlier the additional Aid like extraordinary Aid and all of that that it's during the school year and you can apply for it but the funding is determined at the federal by Congress so it fluctuates greatly on how much they decide to fund what you've um submitted for us some years it's only 37% some years it's 80% so we're budgeting conservatively at 238 ,000 and then by Statute we're required to um include Student Activity reserve of $9,000 and that is the um the details behind that so let's look now at how State 8 has trended in the last two years so in the current year it was 3.3 million and uh for 2425 it's 3.7 which is an increase of about 11.6% um and the tax impact of this budget to the average tax um average homeowner with an assess value of $500,000 annually it's a $296 reduction because you know everyone wants to live here it's a great town and your valuations have increased and this was provided to us by um the town's tax assessor so that is the budget any additional questions thank you just for your yes go yes I love um the the Cho rate was approved by the sum of a board at $2,553 per student for next year you know what the increase was last year was 19 something yeah I think it was 19 looking at when I first you guys are Whispering over there just let you know it's hard to hear you when I first became the uh subal rep the tuition was at 12 and change when was that years seven years ago so it's gone up wow I would love to learn later how the numbers are arrived at so I actually went over and I met with the Somerville interim superintendent and Mr Brian Boyce who is the business administrator and they provided some insight into how it's calculated and it's basically done at the end of the year because they're looking at what the full expense is to run the high school and then they divide it by the number of students who attend so then we have two years at which we would shw up so if we are at a deficit we'd have two years to pay them back the balance or if we have um overpaid they have two years to pay us back so that's all calculated with a formula uh that's required by the state do they then to that point do they say we can we have 10,000 students so here's the cost per student and that's it or do they actually look at okay Branch you have of the Thousand students you have 400 so here's what you would I believe that they're dividing by the number of students and then prating it according to the number of students we send got in dig go of $1,150 Pur thank you know so uh that is my full report and I want to thank the finance and Facilities committee for all of their help and discussion about this budget and we want to thank you because I know it's a hard effort a lot of effort it's a collaborative effort with the building staff with um some ODS team Mr Dolan and you and I know it's a lot of work and we appreciate it looks like this year went very smoothly it's your Miss Dolan it's your first year full year here and I think um that job should be commended and if anybody on the facility committee who has like a better observation into the process this year wants to say anything you're welcome to but thank you thank you okay we will move on to public comment on agenda items only um since there's nobody here um I'm going to read the whole thing I'm going to move on to governance um I have no report but we have a few voting items we have one approval of minutes two approval of Hib investigative report three approval of Hib findings report and four approval of 2024 2025 School District budget can I have a motion to move those items motion second any questions or comments about those no can I have a roll call please uh yes one second sorry I see it not yet there it is okay Mr Carpenter I am going to abstain on one two and three and yes to four uh Miss notto yes M forzi I'll stand on one yes to the rest Miss Joyce yes Miss Shaw yes Mr Tuma yes Mr Sai yes Mr Halen yes thank you very much moving on to policy Mr side do you have a report um I did we just met last I did we met last week for the policy we have a few things coming up at the next Board of Ed meeting for approval um what's on the agenda today we're just revisions that were advised by the stra SMA group um nothing really major changes so it's more wording and just to kind of stay up to date and make sure our policies are current so thank you very much and we have um one voting item policy and regulations first reading can I have a motion to move that item motion second um any questions comments can I have a roll call please it is Mr here yes yes m f yes M Joyce yes M Shaw yes mruma yes Mr yes Mr Al yes thank you very much moving on to curriculum and instruction Mr Mater is not here I will give a brief um synopsis of the meeting in his stad so we spoke about the 2425 school calendar um we discussed the recent concerns but we decided um against making any adjustments um we also wanted to emphasize the fact that um eight of the ear early dismissals are because of the collective bargaining agreement um leaving six days that were dedicated to uh PD days and um it's also worth noting that the that Dr Chase reduced the total number of early dismissals from 16 last year to 14 this year and that going forward um we're going to do a little bit of voting on the school calendar as a board um just to kind of make it a more seamless process moving forward um we also talked about math placements and um that was really the Crux of the meeting um we have some voting items we have one conferences and travel two approval of service projects and fundraisers three approval of contracted service four approval of revision of service agreement five approval of field trips and six approval of acceptance of Grant funds can I have a motion to move those items motion second any questions concerns just the the service agreement oh okay it's PT got it never mind no questions all right um can I have a roll call please you see yep is G here yes Miss no yes M fitti yes Miss Joyce yes Miss Shaw yes Mr Tuma yes Mr yes Mr yes okay moving on to Personnel Mr Tuma do you have a report a brief report the Personnel committee met last week um had some good discussions a lot of it around the different movements within the budget of different positions moving in positions being eliminated new positions coming in um we spoke or we had a demonstration from the technology department kind of walking us through how they operate how their their operations are going to change a little bit from this year to next based on some new positions that are coming in and some new skill sets that are required um we discussed hiring and we seem to be doing very well and we seem to be not having as much of an issue of hiring but we're doing okay uh discuss the need for substitute teachers like we always have and um we discussed the items on the agenda and we would recommend that you move them thank you very much um we have a few vot voting items we have one approval of personnel two approval of stiens three approval of retirement and four approval of revision of personnel can I have a motion to move those items motion second any questions comments concerns uh I just want to say thank you to the retirees um always sad to see them go but happy for the time that they spent here and all the all the good things that they contributed while they were here so appreciate you and I hope that you have a happy next phase of your life with that can I have a roll call please Mr car here yes not yes M yes M Joyce yes M sha yes Mr Tuma yes Mr s yes Mr Al yes thank you very much moving on to finance and Facilities Miss Joyce do you have a report I do have a short report um finance and Facilities committee met earlier in the week this week last week last week they're all flowing together um we met last week we reviewed again some of the budget items so um we also had a uh discussion we were uh we had some of the I'm not sure I guess the rec committee um the turf the turf initiative folks came to share their thoughts again with um with the committee concerning the potential of putting a um a turf field on a property uh that the board owns so we're in discussions with them over that um we talked about all the items on the agenda including um the increase to the price of breakfast uh sorry of lunch and the new breakfast program that we're going to be implementing or that we have implemented um see I have anything else oh we discussed the summer some of the work that's going to be happening over the summer as well I think um the main thing to let everybody know is we're going to be doing the gym floors here and the Middle School those are going to be the first things done as soon as school's out so that they'll be all ready to go for whatever programs we have this summer that's my report thank you very much we have quite a few voting items we have one the bills list two approval of group medical insurance provider three approval of group prescription insurance provider four approval of group dental insurance provider five approval of employee assistance program with Robert Wood johnson/ Barnabas Health six approval of breakfast and lunch prices for the 2024 2025 school year seven approval of 2024 2025 school year Food Service Company 8 approval of purchase of new postage machine the mail center 2000 sounds cool uh approval of lease of two new Rico IM 4000 copers and 10 approval of approval to enter into an agreement with Ed data Services Inc to purchase full supplies um can I have a motion to move those items motion second any questions or comments just a question on the prices for breakfast and lunch do we know how much it went up lunch of a quarter like 25 cents or 25% no sorry that 25s and um and breakfast we didn't offer before we're offering it anybody else can I have a roll call please Mr Carpenter yes yes Mr yes M CH yes sh yes Mr J yes Mr yes Mr Al yes thank thank you very much next is public comment on on any topic anybody who wishes to speak is welcome to come up this is a boring night tonight and close public comment that's a good thing move we are liking the board go uh we'll move on to bardle on reports uh Mr do you have anything for somville um no uh the last meeting was March 19th so most of the items are kind of moot points um at now but we're we're meeting on Tuesday the 30th we should have some exciting news then um I will call you but until then okay cool uh PTO yes I have an update um PTO wants to thank everyone who came to their first parent only wine tasting everyone in attendance raved about the wine and the winery the PTO is working on the extra special teacher appreciation week please check your emails for further information empty bowls for the second graders took place tonight and the third fourth and fifth grade events will be happening in the next few weeks and the PT would like to thank everyone for their support for those programs and to be on the lookout for inperson PTO meeting May 20th thank you very much um Somerset County ed services I have no report New Jersey school boards I have no report other than if you are interested in the um conference I think they're starting to uh take reservation so if anybody's interested in going down to Atlantic City I think you just have to let Kathy know um Branchburg Township no report no report bef I do have a report um sorry there's two exciting bef events coming up one is a mommy and Auntie fairy mommy or aune fairy tea and squish mow Garden sorry at Hummingbird Studio on Wednesday May 1st 5 to 6 or 6:30 to 7:30 uh pocketbook bingo at rvcc on Saturday May 4th it's a Kentucky Derby themed uh party or poker Bingo um since it's on Derby Day please join us for a fun evening of bingo designer handbags store prizes Raffles and more light Refreshments will be served doors open 545 tickets for the fairy tea tickets are through the hummingbird Studio website at www.the hummingbird studio.com sspecial events and then pocket bingo are on sale through the bef website um at www. Branchburg education foundation.org or through give butter atgb butter.com and then I have one more hold on I'm sorry um then there's also one more event sorry there's date night drop off at Hummingbird Studio on Saturday May 4th 6: to 9: May the 4th be with you theme join um join hummingbird studio for a three-hour date night drop off for kids ages four and up they will have the opportunity to enjoy Yoda slime recycled material droids pizza and more tickets are on sale through the hummingbird Studio website that's cool thank you thank you um ceg yeah I do have a brief report about ceg um so the April I said at the last meeting the April town hall meeting um there was a recording and that will be posted soon it's not up yet but it will be up very soon so keep your eye out for that but just to update everybody and just um you know just to remind everybody because I know we just say cpag we say all these acronyms and no one really talks about them so the cpeg is the special education parent Advisory Group which is a group that um all school districts have to have it basically consists of members of the um of the administration along with uh parents who have um specialed students in our schools who volunteer to help coordinate sessions um for better communication with the schools to help with their students and other students including the general education students as well so um this group does a lot of work they meet and so they well no longer meet uh in person for the town hall meeting that will be recorded but they do have meetings I believe it's um once a month or every so often the schedule is on the website so I apologize but um the school-based uh groups meet so the school-based building meetings the building based meetings were held over the last couple of weeks so each school has a team of parents that meets with the administration of that school and discusses specific issues within the school um and like I said those meetings have been held um the administrators were able to be in attendance at those meetings and answered questions of course the biggest topic of discussion um is the same I believe with special education and general education students was about transitions um those are difficult for all of our kids when they move from school to school um it's always a time of great anxiety for everyone um so if you have questions or you need support if you have questions about um the special education program if you need support you can reach out to the cpeg Lea uh parent liaison for the school that you have concerns about either that your child is in or your child is going to and they can help you um navigate everything that you need all your and get all your questions answered um if you need more information you go to the district website under organizations and you'll find um all the folks that are involved and their contact information that's my report thank you um I think that's it can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting motion second all in favor I right cool thank you have do we have to vote on that