e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e everybody good y yes that's correct okay good evening everyone thank you for coming um in accordance with the requirements of take roll let's do that first hello okay Miss Ross here Miss Allen here Mr delandro here miss Kenny here Mr Ryan here Mr Smith here miss Weber here Dr Zang here miss chiarelli here nine present and accounted for right okay um in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings Act act chapter 231 pl1 1975 announcement I wish to announce that the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the school district of the cadams board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted in the board administrative offices sent to the clerks of the chattam bur and chattam Township the library of the cadams The chadam Courier The Daily Record The Star Ledger and tap we already took roll here we are we're a little off that's right um please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance if you are able stand the United States of America to the IT stand okay so I want to start by moving our um reorganization action items I'd like to move um action items A1 to a16 on the regular agenda under the reor action items I second that okay okay okay any discussions for anybody on the board agenda items pass A1 through 16 90 you didn't vote I'm sorry we're going to vote on that okay yeah sorry all in favor any extenstions no okay perfect okay and then I want to move agenda items B1 to b39 any discussions all in favor agenda items B1 through 3990 okay and then I would like to [Music] move agenda item C1 I second R any discussions all in favor I agenda item c190 okay perfect thank you so much um I do not have any additional comments at this time May a few things we discussing board business but as of right now nothing all right Dr Lusa thank you Miss chiarelli um so first item under my report is a follow-up from the last meeting regarding the calendar for this school year I mentioned last meeting that we still had two uh days to return to the calendar in accordance with the CBA agreements in the district and um those two days will be 523 and 524 uh those are the two days before Memorial Day Weekend uh we did consider trying to close schools early uh and move up the end the final day at the end of the year but that wasn't possible for a variety of reasons and we looked at the week even after U Memorial day but that wasn't as good either so it's a Thursday and Friday before Memorial Day weekend and then um we've been discussing for a little bit of time in curriculum committee and other contexts uh our transition to full day kindergarten next year and the benefits we we think we might derive from having a uh kindergarten screening take place before this year is over so I'm also proposing on the calendar that on May 30th so that's the Thursday I think after Memorial Day um we have an early dismissal for K through3 students only and then uh those buildings the K3 buildings would conduct their kindergarten screenings to try to develop class lists and assignments for uh next year uh so that's under District calendar 2324 and then uh I have draft calendars for the 25 26 school year and um what we usually do is you look them over uh you can take them with you and take a look at them uh by the next board meeting May 13th and if they look okay we can then go out to the parent community and get some input and feedback on which calendar they prefer uh or if you see something in here that you think Warren's changing or the development of another alternative that isn't in front of you then we can do that and discuss that as well well and then we can try to adopt a calendar uh at the last meeting of the school year which is in June uh for 2526 uh the main the only difference in these calendars really is the number of days off around President's Day weekend uh and these calendars all do include uh school closures on dwali and um Lunar New Year which is the latter which is the 17th of February so I'll let you take a look at those we can discuss them in board business if you want or we can uh discuss them on May 13th and then we have two presentations uh scheduled for tonight um and they involve two different principles so I think the easiest thing that to do is probably um have all the board members go into the seats and then have each principal present successively and then once both of them are finished you guys can all return to the stage and then ask them any questions uh if you have any about each of their reports thank you head good evening board members and the chadam community uh my name is Cheryl Russo I'm the principal of Lafayette school and tonight I'm pleased to share with you the collaborative efforts of teachers and Specialists from all the elementary schools in the district to prepare for the two transitions that are occurring at lafat in August 2024 and 2025 it was through brainstorming and collaboration that I'm able to present our ideas to you tonight I believe that after tonight you will see a parallel between our programs making the shift to a 35 building and to a 34 building seamless we started the year with our 2025 transition team meeting during various mornings and afternoons to openly discuss strengths and challenges that would come with this large of a transition and hosting students that are one year younger than our typical Lafayette students halfway through the year Dr Lusa pulled together a second team where similar conversations occurred pushing up our timeline this first transition which I will refer to as the great three cohort will allow us on a much smaller scale to practice what will work and will not work with the younger students coming in to Lafayette our discussion centered around comparing our instructional schedule and programs looking Beyond instruction the fun stuff as the kids call it arrival and dismissal procedures our social emotional learning programs PTO and Lafayette after school clubs and teacher and school materials necessary to ensure our students have the resources they need for a successful school year our conversations revolved on around whether the continuation of the teaching team model would work for grade three students especially at the beginning of the year we consider the benefits and potential challenges for incoming grade three students these mostly centered around their organization of materials following the schedule and making connections with teachers one of the many agreed upon benefits would be the way the Lafayette schedule rotates allowing for Math and Ela classes to change from afternoon to morning on different letter days we also look closely at the effectiveness of a Six-Day versus 5day rotations in terms of minutes we believe that overall our minutes for ELA and math are comparable and there would be an increase in science and social studies minutes all students at Lafayette would receive Spanish which would be an adct class for the grade three cohort academic programs such as big ideas and the El unit Ela units of study and TCI for social studies were also reviewed and are also the programs used at the 4 five level it was important to parents and teachers that we continue to maintain the elementary Traditions that are part of each School while some of the activities have different names we noticed during our discussions that most of our activities are very similar in their intention and provide different opportunities for parents and students to get involved Lafayette is open to bringing some of the grade three Traditions to Lafayette as well as rethinking how to reframe some of the events so they are suitable for each grade level and or the class moving up what was determined was that these students would be the Lafayette students we could not develop a program that lived in two spaces the third graders would attend field trip like their third grade peers but it would be the Lafayette trip to Jeff Lake this is our beginning of the year trip to build community between students teachers counselors and administration which we thought would be a great way to welcome them to Lafayette in the reconfiguration meetings the third grade teams were very concerned with the dismissal of students since Lafayette is not considered a neighborhood School our dismissal is different from the K3 schools we have many Walkers and busers like K3 our teachers however do not bring students outside to wait for parents all year long teachers support students in the first month or so to develop a routine after this transition time it is up to students in the bus and Carline supervisors to keep dismissal running smoothly as part of my third grade cohort welcome newsletter I asked parents for their input on dismissal they shared some ideas and concerns that will be addressed before the school year begins this includes but is not limited to a safe space for third graders on the bus and supervisors in all dismissal areas based on the survey of the incoming grade three cohort most students will be walking or taking the bus home we will closely Monitor and make changes to our dismissal as needed based on what we learned in 2024 to help with our transition in 2025 our salal programs are very comparable in themes and overall purpose which is to build a community that supports and keeps all students safe physically and emotionally lot at counselors and K3 counselors teach lessons we have seal days and schoolwide assemblies to build community Through the school year the grade three teachers and counselors will use the current Lafayette lessons and some of the second step program program and analyze their effectiveness throughout the year as we plan for 2025 our PTO after school enrichment programs were very similar in how they are run as well well as the course is offered Lafayette does host some school district of the chadam clubs that are run by teachers some of which will only one of which will only be available to grades four and five such as the broadcasting Club our other clubs such as the environmental club and playwriting and stock market game will be open to all students ongoing discussions about materials are centered right now with LMC specialists we are analyzing reports from fet to identify popular titles for the incoming gr third graders the plan is to retain all current titles in the Lafayette library and incorporate new titles for grade three readers as for the classrooms all Mentor text and book club books will accompany each grade level while titles specific to Lafayette such as the book of the month and Multicultural books acquired over time will stay at Lafayette teachers coming into Lafayette will relocate with their classroom materials and classroom libraries just like arcade three schools Lafayette also incorporates ways for students to give back to their community and surrounding communities with the help of our parents and teachers the students this year wrote letters of appreciation to community workers they participated in food drives and bridges Outreach we are currently working with the PTO this week to create toiletry B for the homeless as next year approaches we'll continue working with the PTO a larger committee to create community service projects that occur three times a year for each class we're also proud of our Lafayette cup which is our schoolwide competition where each class is awarded points when students show sportsmanship acts of service in school and out of school these points are awarded individually or as a group as noted earlier we want to give all the Lafayette students the same or similar experiences any student interested in being in Chorus at Lafayette school can sign up in the spring or fall in the area of band and Orchestra this presented us with a complex problem to solve and it is not typical that students in third grade start an instrument because of their size and the size of the instruments thanks to miss Gaul and our supervisor Miss Spooner we have been researching our options and we're able to find smaller alternative instruments to help prepare students for the instruments they'll be playing in fourth grade we have already sent out an interest survey to parents whose children might be interested in playing an instrument this fall in the area of Orchestra all students will be able uh to choose violin um as they come in different sizes and then in the fourth grade they can choose different um orchestra instruments the incoming third grade cohort will also have an opportunity to participate in the applied learning program the applied learning program is finishing its first year at Lafayette this class just like applied music will occur during the school day the classes are not gr it and are offered in the area of Art Theater library and DNT there will be a chance for parents to sign up in the spring and the fall the applied music program can accommodate all students who are interested the applied learning program may have to use a lottery system if the interest exceeds our class sizes those will run on there'll be about 10 lessons per trimester as I mentioned throughout the presentation we have already sent parent surveys to families in the grade three cohort to address questions and concerns last Wednesday Lafayette hosted a parent orientation for all incoming parents we are also discussing bringing back certain activities that align with the third grade such as our t-shirt contest birthday gifts from the office and mystery readers I will work closely with the Lafayette teachers and Lafayette PTO transition team to support and follow through on some of these ideas we are now working with the fourth grade classroom teachers and students on our student orientations which will take place throughout the month of May the Lafayette broadcast Club is in the midst of creating how to at Lafayette videos which to provide the students and parents with short videos that highlight routines at Lafayette this will allow for a sneak peek into Lafayette so it will look familiar when they come to school in August many hands make light work and I believe that with our Collective voices and collaboration our two transitions will support all students and staff and families and continue to main maintain what makes Lafayette such a special place to learn thank you for your time for uh good evening I'm Doug Walker the principal of chadam high school and tonight I have the pleasure of presenting the report of the graduates from the class of 20123 so the class of 2023 saw 95% of our students decide to attend four-year colleges or universities and 2% um chose two-year and 3% chose other and as you can see those percentages are fairly consistent going back the past four years and even prior to that one of the other metrics that we look at from our graduating classes is the distribution of gpas and what you can see here from this this graph is that the largest percentage of our students fall in the 3.0 to 3.99 percentage with the second largest grouping being in the 4 .0 to 4.49 percentage one of the things that remains consistent over the years is that we find our students regardless of where they fall in a GPA band um tend to have really great options when it comes to postsecondary I took a snapshot here of just some of the schools that students who had a GPA below our 3.5 band um had a chance to matriculate to and these are schools that had a number of students from chadam high school matriculate to not just students in below a 3.5 um but what it demonstrates is that the rigor and the programming at chattam high school it's pretty well known within the post-secondary community and um students regardless of where they fall on that Continuum tend to have really great options when they leave here one cohort that we take a look at each year is our special education population and these would be students who grad graduated in the year 2023 with an active IEP and of that population 88.4% of those students uh moved on to fouryear programs fouryear colleges you had a 4.7% who went a two-year option and then we have 6.9% who did other and sometimes those others are for some of those students continuing within our 18 to 21 year old program um or there's also some workplace training type in situations that they're involved in but overall our numbers consistently each year have students above 80 percentile going to fouryear schools or 2-year um year after year here's a snapshot of some of the schools that um our special education students matriculated to these schools also have General ed students who matriculated as well but each of these are some really fantastic options that were available to these students each year we look at where students are attending in terms of public and private institutions and we've remained fairly consistent over the years with just under half of our students attending public and just over half um attending private over the past few years that number has been rather consistent and terms of regions um we looked at this we go this slide shows the last four years um these numbers also have been fairly consistent over the years with small bumps here and there but a majority of our students attend colleges and universities on the East Coast um a little bit of a bump this year for New Jersey based and the last couple years we've seen a little bit of a jump in the South um and a little drop on the west coast going into this year but overall the numbers really are fairly consistent from year to year with a majority of our students staying on the east coast of the US so this slide breaks down some of the application data that we process so last year there was 3,058 applications amongst the senior class there out of those 3,058 applications there were 1442 acceptances that was a mean of a about a 47% acceptance rate for that class and they averaged about 9.1 applications per student we had 162 early decision applications last year early decision is The Binding agreement that means when you apply to the school early decision you are committed if you're accepted to go there and you're expected to withdraw all of your um applications once you received that acceptance we had a 46% acceptance rate of those 162 early action we had a larger number 1, 143 that's just um an early um action is has an earlier deadline and you'll find out a little sooner than General applications if you got accepted and we had a 55% acceptance ratio there one thing I did want to point out is we we work year after year to help students really um really focus their list focus on schools that they really would be willing to go to that they spend time investigating ating and really narrow that list and we did see a little bit of a drop this year in terms of number of applications where last year the average number of applications for students was 11.1 this year the average was 9.1 and that resulted in improved acceptance um so there was 47% acceptance rate this year with an average of 9.1 applications in comparison to last year which had 11.1 and a 41% acceptance rate this slide puts that a little bit more into context and here are in the First Column the number of applications so our first column you can see the first row these would be students who applied to 20 or more colleges that represented 4% of our senior class or 14 students and there was a 35% acceptance right there you can see as as students as the numbers go down in terms of the number of schools you're applying to the acceptance rate increases so applying to more schools doesn't necessarily get you more options it having a more focused list that you've spent time in that you're invested in the process tends to give you much better outcomes this slide shows some historical data going back 10 years from the class of 2023 we can see from in the First Column the GPA the average GPA over each of the years the SAT scores the average ACT scores the number of applications and the acceptance rates and just sort of gives you a snapshot of sort of where we were and kind of where we've been trending to I think what stands out on the applications as I mentioned before if you look at 2013 17 smaller number of applications higher acceptance rate um as Trends have as as we've trended up in applications the acceptance rate has taken a little bit of a bump can see that our gpas have increased over these years as well as our SAT scores it's important to notice that in the early years of this chart there was a change to the SAT at that time so that resulted in some changes to sat scoring and our ACT scores have been fairly consistent over the years here are the most attended schools of the class of 2023 so Ruckers and University of Delaware had the tide for the most matriculations of our students from the class of 2023 and then a multi-way tie with six students attending towards the bottom of this chart this chart identifies the 10 colleges of universities that had the most applications from the class of 2023 so Ruckers New Brunswick to the chart that had 74 applications um to it and down to number 10 which was Clemson at 47 so these are the schools that students the most students in chadam high school are applying to I think this is a good reference point for students in the class of of future classes to look at this chart um it gives you an idea on the schools that chadam students are applying to and you know the competition that exists not just around the nation but also within the high school and you can also see here how many students from the applications were accepted and who actually attended number of students that actually attended those schools this chart is again another reference point something for students to take a look at when they're applying to schools this expands that list and it's the colleges that had 20 or more applications in last last school year for last year's graduating class so here you can get a chance to look at each of these schools and see you know how many students from that class applied there and recognize that these would be schools where a large number of chadam high school students are applying if you decide to apply there our last slide here is matriculation for the class of 2023 these two slides again more of a reference point but it lists all of the univers I ities that the students in the class of 2023 matriculated to and how many students in that class are attending there so again this this document is really more of a point of reference but there are two slides that cover it and cap off our presentation with just an overview of our continued College and Career and counseling events we continue with our College rep visits every year this year we totaled 156 total visits 156 admissions reps visited chadam High School 140 of those were in person the remaining 16 were virtual some of the more popular visits amongst our students had the largest attendance are listed in that gray box on the right and we also continue with our programming a lot of this is organized by Caitlyn slay our college and career counselor as well as our counselors in the counseling department but in the early September and as every year in early September and we will again this year we have our senior College Planning night where we talk about the application process and the Common App and navian and everything that goes into starting those college applications so that will happen happens in um usually very end of August early September right when school starts just prior to starting senior conferences with the counselor we also hosted a College funding night and this is financing college education so this is Merit money as well as financial aid this year we had a speaker ah head of financial aid from Mammoth University who presented on the tips and tricks and what you need to know about funding the College funding college and financial aid we continue to have our alumni return day which happens right before the holiday break in December where we invite back uh graduates from the prior year to sit on a panel on our in our Auditorium and we invite our seniors in and we do a moderated discussion for those graduates from the prior year to share words of wisdom things they've learned advice for our graduating seniors this year um to prepare for post-secondary life we also continue our life after CHS Junior planning night so that is a presentation for junior F parents and and families to start talking about the the postsecondary planning process that happens before our Junior conferences we had a spring College presentation this year where we had a speaker who was an admissions director uh for the University of Miami who did a presentation for our families and students to give some insight into what's happening in applications and Trends and we also continue to support postsecondary planning and transition with our special needs population and our learning skills classes and our uh Kate slate has done some parent presentations on this topic as well this year we had a military and law enforcement openhouse we had the Army Air Force Coast Guard Marines and navy um and New Jersey National Guard the New Jersey State Police and Department of Corrections we did sort of a affair in our in our library during lunch each of them set up a table and students were able to visit to learn about opportunities in each of these branches this slate also offer Al also hosted an alternative college entry week where we had representatives from the schools listed the county colleges and Vocational programs come to talk to students about options that exist there and lastly we continue our uh standardized testing offerings we offered the psat1 in October the prea for 10th graders in November the psat1 just recently in April and we also offered an on-site act and sat here at the high school and that would be the end of our presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have thank you impressive I was cuz I was like this I had to go like that oh that's why thank you both for clear and succinct and uh informational presentations just a couple of words I know all of you are familiar with Dr Walker and his annual presentation and uh I think it gets a little more crisp and and clear every year uh so you can ask your questions uh as you see fit I just want to mention um Cheryl Russo here I think it was in October it was around Halloween where I had an idea that I ran by Mary quickly before I walked down to Lafayette and asked Cheryl to sit down uh because I was wondering if it might be a decent idea to bring a group of third graders over to Lafayette uh a year ahead of time and she thought about it and said I think that could work and from that day honestly until the present day she has spearheaded the effort uh she has been more proactive in reaching out to the teachers involved than I have been uh we had a meeting just last week Dr donu and I and Cheryl and the and the three teachers who were coming over and uh it was just so beautiful to watch the interactions we brought the teachers into their their classrooms that they'll have next year I felt like I was uh walking around with Taylor Swift because the kids would oo in awe when they saw their third grade teachers that they hadn't seen in a long time and they would run up and hug them uh and the Lafayette teachers whose classrooms we were in were uh equally as welcoming and it was just a very invigorating and and warm uh kind of experience so I really want to thank Miss Russo she's been ahead of the game uh thought about things that uh we wouldn't have thought about and I think that uh she's just done a tremendous job of welcoming these 66 students who are heading over to her school next year uh a year earlier than we we thought they might um so you can certainly ask her about that process or about the 2025 Target I know she spoke to it quite well in the presentation uh but I just want to really thank her as well as the teachers who volunteered and um of course also thank Dr Walker and his team for everything that they do around the the the whole graduation and college and post-secondary um efforts but but it's all yours for questions um can you hear me I have a question for Dr Walker um there was a slide uh called sample matriculation and there was a piece uh 88.2% on the employment and maybe a gap year I think if I saw it from my SE correctly I'm just wondering how that compared to Prior year just given all the news in the news you know how much school is costing and some people opting to defer a year and so if you had any insight as if that has changed dramatically from the prior years yeah um so it was about that was in the category of of other there's yeah I would say there's been a small increase in students choosing those options but nothing too too dramatic so we are seeing you know a few more Gap years there's definitely some students that are pursuing employment vocational type areas um but I wouldn't say it's been any I had seen a major shift in that yeah I have a question for Nick oh I'm sorry Nick if you could turn my mic on Cheryl just a couple um questions or items did you mention at the beginning of your presentation that there'll be more a little bit more unstructured time you know recess for the third graders or if you didn't could you comment on that um so they would we would run the same lunch recess and um I mean even at Lafayette now with the fourth and fifth graders teachers take the kids outside for breaks often um I think with the additional time for science and social studies uh we could probably fit in more um extra recess um but we didn't really take into account any differences because our schedule's kind of flexible in that way if we see in like a triple block the kids need it we take the kids outside um so no but our lunch recess would be similar to what they at the K to3s okay that's funny because that topic didn't much did not come up actually can I jump in for one second yeah um there's many um iterations of transitions taking place so Jill you might be thinking of the previous presentation um specific to the k2s yeah where we did talk about that that um when we do finally get to a K2 model that that is something that we're trying to get to with a longer lunch period so that students are not eating so with such a time crunch and then equally a little bit more time when they go out to recess so you're not imagining it you you did hear it just for the k2s okay and I did remember you mentioning that and I didn't I wasn't sure if it kind of applied to the third graders but I hear your answer Cheryl so thank you I'm good there I will say though when we have delayed openings our kids um get more time to eat in the cafeteria and um it is gets pretty like they they actually can't don't know what to do at the time um it gets super loud they don't know what to do with themselves and they just want to go outside got it so they actually have like 28 minutes instead of like the 20 and that extra 8 minutes is loud and a little chaotic uh okay and then my last question or point was you had mentioned that this year you get to Pilot a few things and you know Lessons Learned make some changes as needed you know for next year when the whole cohort comes up but you you're not going to wait until next year I mean you're going to be agile enough to say you know what this isn't working we're going to switch and oh yeah okay absolutely you're not waiting a whole year you know you just said oh we'll apply it the next year but I'm sure you'll be agile and you know as things unfold you'll change it as you go right and I have like three you know veteran grade three teachers coming up that we feel comfortable bouncing ideas off of each other already and I have no doubt that they would uh share their concerns and that's what our meetings were all about like I would come with an idea they would say it wouldn't work so um as Dr L said I'm totally fine with change you always have to be concerned when he comes down and closes the door with a giant smile though perfect thank you uh Dr Walker uh quick question on the military and law enforcement uh presentation how do you get how do you you choose who who you invited like I'm curious why some of our Municipal folks weren't there uh the county level you know some cool Personnel in a SWAT team you know uniform so I was just curious how how you decide who comes to that we actually put out more invitations than than actually who who participated so so our local uh police department actually wasn't able to attend they canceled on us on that day got and so there was um sorry there was there was a a number of that were invited but it was um we did have the um the Morris County Sheriff's office there but we didn't have um I'm sorry we didn't have we had the uh was it the Morris County Sheriff's office or the you had the corrections Corrections Officers there sorry um yeah but we did we did invite a number um it was it was beheaded by one of our counselors who actually kind of brought this to the table and we get a lot of the military organizations that want to come in and set up tables during lunch and you know kind of here and there and what we sort of decided to do was let's make sort of a career fair with it and so we invited all of them and then those that were able to come came if I remember correctly I think Navy canceled on us at the day of as well okay got it oh yeah I was just curious I think we have an in with one of our staff members for Sheriff Ganon maybe we can Strongarm him to get some folks in here we had some good attendance at it okay that's fantastic um I also sometimes in past presentations you've mentioned and I I think it's important you listed where the kids decided to go but that's not necessarily you know the highest level school that they got into a lot of times they choose the money over the you know they got into Yale prce they got into all the ivys but they chose a different institution because of the scholarship money yeah and I've been back and forth in terms of what to present so in the past like if you look at our our program our um our school profile I will list the acceptances from the class and each college and how many acceptances um and then this year I've mixed it with matriculation I think they both can be misleading because when you when you have a number of let's say very highly competitive schools that have acceptances that could be one student that got accepted into many of those where matriculation really shows you the picture of like where kids went so I've been starting to present both sets of data so I put in this report matriculation and in the school profile I put acceptances got it got got it and lastly do you have an opinion on the standardized testing at one point the schools were going away from standardized testing there seems to be a lot of buzz in the news that a lot of schools are going back do you have a any comment or thought on that yeah there's a lot of talk about it I've chatted with the counselors about it to kind of get a buzz for it we're starting to see more and more schools bring it back for certain um you know one of the things even when it was for test optional schools we've always advised students you you still take you still take the assessments and see how how you land and if your standardized test score represents you well in comparison to your GPA and the other aspects of your application then you should send it because it's another metric to differentiate you from from others um but if we didn't feel like it it represented you well you know maybe don't send it now they're for some of these schools you don't really have a choice um you're going to have to bring it back and I think the universities are just having a really hard time differentiating between students without having that metric GPA and transcripts are a big measure but gpas are apples and oranges when you compare them between two different schools and everyone uses different point measures and metrics and such um the rigor of your courses the growth and rigor of your courses still matter as well as the activities you're involved in and it's not necessarily the log laundry list of activities it's a very defined list of things that you show sustainability with and passion for that really stand out that's the feedback that we get from the emission reps when they come so I think looking at those components are just as important standardized testing I think is going to make its way back a bit we did offer the SAT this year for the first time which was in a digital format now the feedback has been fairly positive from most of the students that I've spoken to it's a shorter test it's only two and a half hours now and um you know it it seemed to go fairly well I get the impression that because it's digital and they're building these question Banks they're starting to give us more flexibility on when it can be offered instead of only on very specific days and again I'm just using my crystal ball here but I'm starting to feel like that model because they have these depth of question Banks you might start to find more opportunities to take the SAT maybe at different locations down the road like you would take a graduate school entrance exam at an educational testing service I'm hoping that's the direction it goes because they're able to not worry so much that everybody's taking the test at the same time on the same day because they have these pools of questions so it might become a little more accessible to take it more times sorry meaning you could just run your own test with chadam students on a Thursday right so this year we did our own So what had happened was when they went to the digital format they they required every student to be on a computer to use this app that they make you test through and if you offer it on a Saturday like we always have they they won't allow us to limit it to only chatam students on a Saturday you have to be a public testing center meaning anybody who registers can come and every time we've ever hosted on a Saturday we've gotten a number of students probably 50% of the students who came to chadam high school were not from chatam high school they were from various parts of New Jersey New York sometimes Connecticut would come down here to take test and the only way that they would so we couldn't do that because our um technology our cyber insurance doesn't allow outside devices to access our Wi-Fi network for for legitimate reasons so the only way for us to be able to host the SAT for only our students was to do a school day Administration so we didn't do a Saturday we did a school day but they gave me a window of time to pick to be able to host it that day not like in the past where it's been the SAT must be on this day at this time everybody sits and so we did do that and we tested a large number of students in the junior class who decided to register for it and I thought it was a fairly successful Administration W that's great great thank you Dr Walker thank you Dr Walker um I noticed that um one of the one of the slides was 90 95% of the kids go off to a four-year School 2% to a two-year School 3% other are they going to Armed Forces are they going to policey or are they going to are they going to a trade school post going having been at a um at like a a county trade you know a county trade school like a vocational school and how many kids do go to vacational school and from our schools is it 10th 11th grade or is it just 11th 11th and 12th grade and we have between moris County votek and then we have a partnership with they have a partnership where they have some of their programs at County College of Morris so some kids who do a half a day at at Morris County votch or some kids who do half a day at County College of Morris depending upon the program that they're in it's under 10 students On Any Given year that are in those programs um I want to say this past you know in this class it might have been five or six but I don't off the top of my head I don't remember but we have an electrician Automotive culinary that's at CCM um there is a uh technology like cyber security program that's available at CCM as well how do they how do they find that how how do they I mean are they do they ask questions they're in nth or 10th grade to get there or they just I don't know how are they pushed there somehow or in some way shape or form or how does that work out so it's a kind of a combination so we when when they're having like the open houses and things like that we do advertise that to the kids internally it comes usually because Kate slate if you notice when she does her presentations it's it's not it's not like a College Planning presentation it's postsecondary options and she talks about all these options and so she always uh goes into all of her presentations what she sends out thinking about all options not just for your college and then a lot what a lot of times though what happens with some students is the counselors will will identify students from working with them because they knew them from nth grade 10th grade where they think that this might be a good fit just based on dialogue interest they've shown and they'll try to guide them towards taking a look at it as well targeting certain students so it's kind of through those two Pathways that that we're able to do it I would say you know majority of the other it's kind of it really is kind of a mix so we do have some students like I said before that are in our special education program who are continuing on to 18 to 21 you know so those students are part of that other we do have definitely students continuing in their trades that graduated from those programs or others just entering trade programs that were never in votch but just going that route we have a few military each year I mean we have we each year we have a number of service Academy appointments but in terms of enlisting in military you know here and there but not not a large number okay thank you Dr Walker you mentioned uh you showed the G GPA distribution slide which really shows us a school of very high Achievers I'm curious as to your thoughts and insights onto this into our GPA distribution is there great inflation um you mentioned also in your remarks that um you really can't standardize gpas differ very much from school to school so where's chadam High School School in the range of um how we think about GPA and looking at that like I always thought a 375 was a good GPA but it seems to be really average in our high school so great questions um so I a couple parts to that so in chadam high school you know we have our GPA is based on your grades and your courses and you know it's if you have if you take a weighted course in honors or an AP that it accelerates the weight of the course a bit so one of the reasons we've definitely seen an increase in GPA going over 10 years that's not only a chadam high school thing most of the schools and most of my colleagues there's been a level of great increasing great inflation happening over the past number of years there was a lot of it coming out of covid for sure but over time um so combination of things number one is I think when you see a change in GPA going back from 2013 to going to now there also has been more options for weighted courses like we've added more options for kids there's been more AP courses added to our to our program of studies some of our electives had in in the sequences we've added like Capstone honors courses so there's been a few more places in order to bring that GPA boost um there's no question that there's some level of great inflation that's happening it's you know there's a combination of factors related to that but it is something that we constantly try to look at and try to temper a bit um trying to you know it's it's that it's that focus on achievement versus learning right you know there's there's a focus to want to achieve and whatever it takes to get that grade but we also want to make sure that what's most important is the learning and there is definitely some struggle with learning the tolerance for that struggle is what's been challenging to you know to work on so as teachers and as administrators we are trying to find opportunities for students to to challenge themselves more appropriately and manage that struggle and look at how we're raising grades in general when you talk about comparing chadam High school to other schools it's difficult to to compare two schools when they have completely different GPA Vans um what I have looked extensively at peer districts around and we're not far off there might be subtle differences in in percentage points here and there but our band is fairly the same what universities tend to look at is really where you stand desile wise amongst your amongst your school so on our on our um School profile which goes out with all college applications we give the GPA bands and what percentage of students fall in each of those and that's where they can kind of see where a student falls amongst their peers and that's really where the ranking of GPA comes versus a GPA at chadam high school and a GPA at Summit High School it's a little bit harder because there could be different formulas that compute that so I hope I answer your question there's sort of a lot of factors there yep thank you yeah I'll just add that was a terrific answer from Dr Walker of course um our grades definitely have risen over over time and that's a national issue that's one of the reasons why so many colleges and universities are beginning to bring back standardized test because once upon a time the best predictor of performance in college was performance at in the high school level and the kinds of grades and GPA that students left high school with but what's happened everywhere is that grades have risen and so that no longer is a differentiator and standardized test scores are now in the eyes of many a better predictor than GPA even though it didn't used to be that way uh I'd also offer that students are more com compliant now than they were before so in terms of homework completion in terms of behavior in class students today are much more compliant than they were 20 or 30 years ago uh if you Google this kind of thing you'll find teacher testimonials about not wanting to confront with parents who are Relentless about their children's grades and pressing the teachers all the time for extra points or for a retake or my son or daughter didn't deserve that grade that you assigned him or her uh so there is some of that that has occurred across the board and um I think like Dr Walker said there is always this question that we struggle with uh regarding Mastery versus sorting or learning versus ranking so there are probably some individuals on this stage that had to take the series 7 to you know earn a certain credential in finance if I asked you well how many times did you take the series 7 if you had to take it two times or three it didn't really matter if you passed if you demonstrated Mastery you got your credential if someone takes a driver's test more than once it doesn't matter at the end of the day right they've demonstrated their ability to drive a vehicle they get the license and it doesn't matter if they took it one time or three 3 years down the road everyone's got the driver's license so if a educator is concerned about a student mastering the content that's being delivered it's appropriate usually to give that student more than one opportunity if a student strikes out the first time you don't stick a 50 in front of the student and say you can never improve I don't care if you learn that material we're just going go on you want that student to actually invest in taking stock of the 50 figuring out what she or he didn't understand very well and then attaining Mastery so that they actually can learn the content so they can build upon that content and then learn more if you do that you're giving kids more than one opportunity of course to demonstrate their learning and that usually will Elevate grades in in some way so there's a whole host of factors um it's something that we discuss as a team we look at that data over time and our grade certainly have gone up uh but it's not a simple you know easy you know easy problem to to solve if you will and like Dr Walker said uh the GPA alone that has a lot to do with waiting every High School Waits their courses differently uh what the colleges look at is the strength of your program relative to what your high school offers and then the bands typically in desile form of where student forms in Falls in relation to other students in their class I would like to just add one more piece to that one thing that I think has been incredibly consistent when we look at students Success Through high school you know we look at their grades the content knowledge that they that they mastered but I think what really stands out are the skills so regardless of the grades and regardless of where they land in terms of the honors class or the college pep class what I find consistently across the board is the skills that they're developing thank thank thanks to our teachers is what resonates with them when they leave and the number one theme across all alumni when we have alumni return day or I speak to alumni when they come back every year they make the comment of how well prepared they are for the schools they're at compared to their peers that are there or the feedback they're getting from their professors on their writing and their skills so one thing we can definitely hang our hat on is that when they leave us whether they're at a 3.2 GPA or 4.5 they are going they're leaving here with the skills that are translating to success where they go and I still see that persisting so we are you know that's something that we're definitely proud of any other questions for Dr Walker or Miss R thank you both thank you both yes that were amazing presentation thank you so much thank you Dr Lusa that's it for you that is is it for me okay perfect um business administrator's report okay um the school bus evacuation drills were completed in October and April the bids for the vestibules will be open on May 8th and the summer project maintenance work that are are being planned and scheduled with a completion date of by the new school year that's all I have Patricia how many U bids did you get or you don't know we it's going to open May 8th I know oh so you have no idea how many no yeah got it it could be zero it could be 100 right got it yeah and the plan is to open on May 8th uh have our our Architects attorneys vet the the winning bid and then award on May 13th okay anybody have any questions okay perfect our student Le is on Ohana um so with CHS right now um on the topic of standardized testing we've had a lot of testing going on so recently our Juniors completed the NJ GPA and the um sat that we offered for just our school as Dr Walker was talking about and um our sophomore is also completed the PSAT and then this week I think starting tomorrow freshmen are taking the njsla for English and math but CHS is going to run a regular bell schedule while um freshmen are testing and then also this week um our eighth graders are going to be visiting the high school for a tour from our links leaders and they're going to get a presentation from the administration um um and that same presentation will be available to 8ighth grade parents on Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium here and then we have a couple of shoutouts so um we want to congratulate our robotics team who play second in their State final competition um we had our senior versus faculty volleyball game off late which was um a huge success at as always and see seniors won two out of three games but the teachers won the last round but overall seniors not a surprise um and then last month we celebrated choose to include week so our played unified Club hosted some Spirit themes and lunchtime activities throughout the week and then looking ahead um AP exams start next Monday and they're going to be administered for the next two weeks so um after AP exams are over we have um senior internship beginning for the last four weeks of the school so we're having 150 seniors um leave to participate in senior internship and that is all mention um yeah guess I can mention the play one last time um our play was our musical was last month I wasn't here for the last meeting where you guys could tell me all about how much you loved it but yeah we had a really great response not just from chadam but from neighboring towns we had a really great response to our musical it was sold out yep and it was amazing and a solo was even more amazing and she was singing it from way up top on a board that was about this wide yep yeah good stuff well done okay thank you so much okay perfect moving on to our committee reports Personnel Miss Weber oh yes uh very good thank you an we met on uh March 20th and we discussed the Staffing um needs for 2025 um as you can imagine this is a very busy time for the HR team because there's a lot of movement retirements folks moving on to other districts um so you know Beth and her team are starting to look at the stamping needs and then you know interviewing which is pretty much going to go through the summer um so that was the that was the um the topic that we discussed most uh couple of other uh confidential Personnel items um but that was the gist of the meeting and you're meeting again don't know May 22nd May 22 yes thank you you're welcome um any questions for personnel Miss Weber you do um curriculum great um so the curriculum committee met twice since the last board meeting the first meeting was on the 20th where we uh were able to view both of the presentations that were given tonight first by Cheryl Russo for the Lafayette reconfiguration and then the uh graduation report given by Dr walker uh last week we met on the 24th and we were able to uh listen to the Middle School reconfiguration uh president uh presented by the principal um Mr orini and assistant principal um Mrs dunas and that presentation will be discussed at our next board meeting here on May 13th and then the following curriculum committee will also be on Wednesday May 22nd okay perfect thank you finance and Facilities Mr Smith uh finance and Facilities have not met since our last meeting we're meeting on May the 8th perfect thank you and policy and planning Mr Ryan uh policy met on the 12th um we discussed a couple of issues related to the incoming class of all the kindergarten students and some uh some appeals for tuition relief related to that that was it okay perfect um any L arm reports yes I have one for CF um a few of us were lucky enough to attend the 30th anniversary celebration Saturday night which was fabulous um we had a great time and I'm sure it was a wonderful success and then there were two grants um they're mentioned in the agenda the first uh is for about $8,100 uh for supporting Learners in the non-traditional settings awarded to Milton Avenue School um it will provide students in the resource room and BSI classrooms uh with various seating options and writing support devices and then there is a partial funding of $1,500 for a Gaga pit and 9 Square in the air um equipment for the high school which I did not expect that but yes it's for the high school and um it's just to provide more physical education for students in grades 9 through 12 and the good thing is that it can be used uh both inside and outside so we'll allow for year round use and that's it Square in the air yep okay do we know what that is square in the air I don't know you ever played do you you don't know all right get to that for the next meeting so from the chadam bur I just want to mention that um councilman Strickland um Dr lus and I met right before this meeting um councilman Strickland's actually in the audience right there in the center in the Yankees jacket um again this is a monthly meeting and it's a Cadence that we're trying to keep up you know to keep the lines of communication open to you know keep um continue to improve the relationship again most of the interaction with the m municipalities is is security right it's it's safety of the school and the class 3es and you know any incident that happens we have to rely on our our police officers and the M municipality so we want to just keep those lines of communication open as Dr lus and his staff need you know additional security or an events going on so I I just want to thank um Justin for making the time to meet with us each month to keep those lines of communication open again safety is our number one topic and I I'll just add that I did meet with Mr Choy last month too from the township as the leaz on to the school district and uh appreciate his uh reaching out to me and uh cultivating that relationship as well awesome all good stuff anybody else wck nothing no okay good um so I'd like to move the minutes from the March 18th public and executive sessions and the March 27th executive session only second uh the regular and executive session 318 Miss Ross yes Miss Allen yes Mr delandro yes Miss Kenny yes m d ran yes Mr Smith yes Miss Weber yes Dr Zang yes Miss chiarelli yes regular and executive minutes pass uh 90 for the executive session on 327 um Mr dandro and Mr Smith were not present so you obain okay um Miss Ross yes Miss Allen yes Miss Kenny yes Mr Ryan yes Miss Weber yes Dr Zing yes Mr chali yes uh executive items uh for 327 pass 702 perfect thank you so much um okay so coming up is our first opportunity for public commentary hearing of the citizens during the public commentary section of the agenda is an opportunity for any member of the public to be heard about issues which are or are not topic scheduled for the current meeting to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers will be asked to limit their comments to a reasonable length of time and when you do go up to speak if you wouldn't mind just signing in and uh stating your name evening Bill Heap uh chatt and burrow uh I have commented on this before but I think it Bears uh repeating uh I'm glad to see that the number of applications is trending down from 11: to 9: it is still the case however that nearly half the school uh kids are are applying to 10 or more schools um let me give you an example of a a real world um uh situation we we uh the JC's met and gave out the uh scholarship um this past week and we had several applications where students applied in in one case and these are um uh these are Anonymous applications we don't know who they are so I'm not calling out anyone but there was an application with 30 um applications to colleges we asked them to state where they're applying uh a couple of more with 20 applications and I can tell you that um they almost immediately went into circular filing uh because it showed us a complete lack of focus on their part how can anybody possibly uh consider 30 colleges we're not impressed that you implied to every Ivy League school in the country uh so they they did themselves in by doing something like that and um that should be noted I know that most of this or a lot of this is parent driven but I do think that uh as far as the uh school counselors are concerned they really should stress quality over quantity my own personal feeling as a as an alumni interviewer for 35 years if you can't get it done in a half a dozen applications or less you're not going to get it done you're you're wasting a lot of time um I would also like to comment that um I'm sure that you have uh noticed uh along with everybody else the rise in uh College Consultants they have certainly um been uh it's been apparent on our applications over the years over the I've been doing this for for the past 30 years and uh kids have become very Cy about their answers they've become masters of deflection uh tough to get a straight answer if you ask them for a weather report in chadam they will tell you raining in Miami which doesn't do us any good it would be nice if we got some straightforward answers but again that reflects um the the rise of these college Consultants um there seem to be at this point no more stay-at-home moms moms or mothers are all unemployed and I guess that's an attempt to uh uh evoke some sympathy for uh their financial situation but we have noticed that Trend over the years and um I I'm just glad to see that that the uh at least the applications are headed in the right direction and down thanks uh Libby Hills and wrath Chad andboro um I just wanted to comment on Bill heap's suggestions from the last meeting um and this is based on the 3% um budget increase that we're looking at for for next year uh he requested and thought it would be a good idea to do a presentation on our special needs situation both in chadam and I guess Statewide um and I'm writing from the meeting he said you know there may be special certain special needs people who might want to weigh in just to let the public know what you guys might know that that we don't uh he also brought up and I'd like to thank him for doing so and agree that um we've just raised taxes 4 and half% now we're raising them again 3% where we're painting a bleak picture of the budget we're hitting bone it's bad math but yet we're taking the full day kindergarten paid tuition from 7,000 to 5,000 and giving up a revenue stream so I don't know how that is a a fiscally responsible position to take uh I also wanted to bring up I don't know where we are with the Harding um schools first of all how that came up I I um I didn't hear how it came up I don't know where we are with that uh did they approach us why are they leaving Madison I think they've been there a while uh and also the um idea of moving moving the vote from November to April uh for people who weren't around back in the 2015 referendum um I'm going to take a page from uh the board of education book and fill people in who might not be aware but after the 2015 referendum Was Defeated soon after that uh the board chose to move the vote from April to November thereby taking the ability of the public taking the the vote away from the public we couldn't vote the budget up or down but what that also did is um limit them limit the board to a 2% cap um now that might be changing per per the governor but one of the reasons at the time that was given to move the vote from April to November is that there was there's a cost associated with opening up the polls in November and I think Dr or Mr Tequila said at the last meeting one of the last meetings that cost is around 15 to 20,000 so back in 2015 when it was a good reason to to move the vote to November to save that money now that money doesn't matter so it's again like you can't have it both ways thank [Music] you else comment com okay so we'll close the first public comment section there will be another section um after we get through the rest of the regular agenda so moving on to the action items Personnel Personnel very good thank you an I would like to move action items one through 32 on the regular agenda there's an addendum with items 4 16 and 21 and I believe we have an audible from Miss Grant on number six could I'll get a second bet and then we'll go to discussion I'll second on resolution A6 we're changing the classification of one of our middle school secretaries from 10 month to 12 month so different from the attachments that were presented to the board on Friday the new salary remains step 12 but the dollar amount changes to 48890 and this is effective July 1 of July one okay great thank you be per I also just want to mention uh one quick thing regarding the reappointment lists for uh school year 2425 which is uh this was the major reappointment of all of our staff we now will work to um translate those lists into the formal contracts and so upon doing that we often find that adjustments need to be made so it is likely that in the May or on the May agenda you'll see an amendment to these lists just with corrections okay perfect talk in 13 years I know who knew okay very good so 1 through 32 4621 and the audible of six okay um so yeah A1 through 32 addendum 4 1621 and the audible A6 Miss Ross yes Miss Allen yes Mr dandro yes Miss Kenny yes Mr Ryan yes Mr Smith yes Miss Weber yes Dr Zang yes and Miss chiarelli yes agenda items agenda items and audible items pass [Music] 90 excellent thank you uh curriculum is next no who next Finance I would like to move agenda items B1 to b32 to a vote we've got a number of Don in addition to the one Miss Ross highlighted from the CF we've got a donation from the chatam performings Arts booster to use towards the Transportation uh to the music festival you've got a donation from the Milton Avenue school PTO a donation from Morgan Stanley for Lafayette a donation uh from Miss Allison Moore on behalf of Stanley a donation from j a physical therapy uh a donation for the lafay at School drama a donation from Paul and Julia SA plans for after school enrichment and finally uh shashwat chakra orry chadam high school student is doing their Eagle Scout project at Southern Boulevard school to install a renewable energy Learning Station with informative signs and interactive stations so thank you for all of those thank you to all of them and especially the Milton Avenue school PTO uh as you know all of our preschool students currently are housed at Milton and this um very generous donation from the PTO will help us uh provide even better equipment for some of our youngest and uh smallest and uh wiggling around Learners that's quite a donation yeah I'll second it thank you perfect thank you okay agenda items being 1 through 32 Miss Ross yes Miss Allen yes Mr delandro yes Miss Kenny yes Mr Ryan yes Mr Smith yes Miss Weber yes Dr Zang yes Miss chiarelli yes agenda items pass 90 okay moving on to curriculum yep I'd like to move um curriculum agenda items C1 through C5 okay agenda items C1 through five Miss Ross yes Miss Allen yes Mr delandro yes Miss Kenny yes Mr Ryan yes Mr Smith yes Miss Weber yes Dr Zang yes Miss Chelli yes agenda item is pass 9 [Music] zero okay perfect policy we don't have anything moving on to board business anything anybody wants to discuss in board business oh yes okay go ahead Miss Weber um Susan or no I shouldn't ask you on the calendar change on the curriculum item how does that get communicated out that we're going to be off of school on Thursday Friday before Memorial Day it it's gone through all of the um K3 School offices it's gone out through their um it will go out through their um weekly updates they will be well informed okay great and you let the police and all those folks know that we don't great excellent um the other item is regarding I just want to give the board an update on the Harding um conversations um I think I mentioned it last week and the week before but um an Bradley and I met again with some delegates from the Harding group so we continue with discussions um there's a lot of steps as I mentioned the last time there's agreements there's contracts uh the county has to approve it um so I just want to let you know know we're still in discussions you know sharpening the pens and working out some of the details on who's responsible for what um so that's ongoing hopefully in the next few months we should have a little bit more concrete information and uh just to mention they approached us uh Libby you asked you know how did that come about they were I guess looking to switch their arrangement with Madison I have no idea why um and think it was a fairly long Arrangement that they've had 25 years I believe um but it would be you know it's nice Revenue stream for us that's you know as our expenses go up and we paint this Bleak picture this will help with Revenue um and as we said last time multiple last meeting multiple times you know we hear Mr Heath you're giving up Revenue we hear the kindergarten parents they were there they're very angry why are you you know balancing the budget on our back that's why the tuition went from 7,000 to 5,000 so that we're not putting it on the whole of everybody's back and whether it's this board or future boards at some point the goal is to get it to zero it's a public school will we be able to do that I don't know depends on the numbers depends on how Bradley can work as magic anytime soon anytime soon but uh Anor Bradley did you have anything that you want to add on that Harding meeting no not in particular I mean not much just still trying to figure out um what makes the most sense in in Serv of budget and just as you said reiterate it's it's Revenue to the district that's coming in right and we have limited opportunity to generate Revenue we have very limited Revenue right this is kind of it very limited opportunity that's tuition is it tuition is it unless we put a cell tower on the roof which do that isn't we looked into it it doesn't pay uh but thanks an that was yeah yeah and we'll we'll continue to keep people updated as we have more information but like Miss Weber said there's a lot of steps to go through it balls kind of in Madison's court or Harding's court right now um you know they need to go through some you know different things with the county and get it approved and all those kinds of things so until that happens we don't really have any more information so we wait on them and we'll see what happens and hopefully we can come to some sort of agreement so that's that anything else for board business anybody um no okay perfect okay we'll now have our second opportunity for public commentary anybody has anything else we don't have we do not for answering what go ahead start again yep um thanks for answering those questions so Harding approached us uh is what I gathered um we don't know why is what I gathered um but we did we ever ask them like so we're just assuming that we're taking these high school kids on um that's this is what I'm gathering from what I heard we're going to take them on it's just a matter of negotiation as to what we're going to charge them is that right I mean it's a done it's a decision it's just a matter of negotiation at this point it's what it sounded like to me no not exactly I mean there is Dr lusu do you want to take that yeah well I'll say first of all I've had I've had other superintendents over the years that um you know this is my 12th year now um asked me whether we were in a position to consider taking on tuition students from their districts Harding is not the only District in New Jersey that sends to a high school because they are only a K through 8 District um so now and then over the years I've had these conversations more often than not I've told the superintendent I'm sorry I don't think we're in a position to do that once in a while I've actually come back to finance committee of the board at the time and said I just want you to know that this this person was inquiring about this but based on our enrollment and our you know facilities right now I don't think it's doable and that was the end of the conversation and back in uh I don't remember maybe a year ago the Harding superintendent was during last school year I believe um said to me is this you know is this something that you might be in a position to do now uh now that I know that your enrollments gone down a little bit and we discussed it informally and um I had continued conversations with him and no decision has been made the board hasn't voted to do this yet but there have been conversations like um Miss chicarelli has said uh between representatives from the Harding board and representatives from the chatam board to explore what it would look like uh what it would mean for us in terms of our space needs uh our student body and um most of the concerns or most of the considerations I think it's fair to say that we have are of the financial variety and protecting the district against any extraordinary expenses that could arise but recognizing that our enrollment has dropped by well over 100 students at chadam High School in the past uh 3 years or four years it's going to drop uh you know another 20 to 30 students uh over the next five or six years we know that we have space availability for certain in our high school and uh if we were able to uh establish another Revenue stream which is something that we have talked about on and off uh in all kinds of ways over the years uh it could be beneficial to us in terms of uh budget sustainability so I think that's kind of the roundabout picture right now yeah obviously the board has not taken any type of formal resolution about uh you know signing the contract we're that's it's premature we're not at the point where the attorneys have developed a a formal agreement or Harding has uh uh attained any of the the preliminary or any of the uh approvals that it requires from the state but when we get to that point then it will be before the board to do so right exactly all right um thank you for that answer so it sounds to me like it's because our enr we've been approached before our enrollment is down now and we're looking for additional revenue streams so now we're saying yes but we don't know what our enrollment might be going forward I know we have demographers reports and all of that but with the new um developments coming in uh to chadam we don't we don't really know what that might be we don't know the impact that might have on our facilities um and our our taxes so uh I just feel like it's it maybe it's a little premature I don't know you guys are in charge but I just would hope you keep the public um informed and involved maybe have some open meanss about it um the other thing I just wanted to mention about F day kindergarten is that it's I don't believe it's state mandated so um until it is I don't know that it's something that the tax pay payers should be obligated to pay for uh it' be a non uh tuition based and I also didn't hear an answer about whether the board would consider doing a special needs uh mental health rather I should say presentation one of the there were two line items in the 3% tax increase one was um I think pharmaceutical costs for uh our teachers and maybe Administration that's increasing and then the second one was I misspoke before not special education but mental health issues um so would you I think it might be helpful for the public to understand what's driving that increased cost um for for uh certain mental health issues um ones that you can talk about I also have a book that I would recommend that everyone on the board read Dr Lusa you probably know it already it's called bad therapy why the kids aren't Growing Up by Abel shrier it's a New York Times bestseller and there are six chapters in the book that talk specifically about um the benefits maybe a few but the but the downside or the cons to providing Mental Health Services in a public school Arena um so you might find it interesting that therapy by Abigail shrier thanks wrap it up we do not have another executive session correct okay back to close tonight's public session thank you for coming and everybody got home safe e