[Music] thank you roll call Mr to president Patel president vice president Romano president president miss Pang here miss white here Mr Schneider here Mr AA here Mr Vel Patel president miss an Patel here Mr Lugo here you have a quorum thank you opening statement yes in accordance with the open public meetings act 1975 c231 Sunshine Law that is in Township Board of educ has C caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time in place thereof posted in the Board of Education Administrative Office copies of these notices were sent to the home News Tribune and the Star Ledger thank you at this point the board will adj to privilege session uh in accordance with njsa Section 10412 the Edison Township Board of Education at Johns to confidential session for the purpose of discussing board matters uh we'll go into close session and then we'll come back U when once we are done discussing motion to adj on to Executive session motion second um all in favor I I okay I Jo to close session all to order at this point we will reconvene to open session the first thing on the agenda we have is uh demographers report Mr to uh yes we have our demographer here to provide a presentation on our most recent uh demographic report Mr George sandal the mic is yours uh thank you very much so as we've just been introduced we're here to talk about enrollment projections uh first I'm going to do a little introduction on myself then we'll talk about the township and some of its characteristics move on then into the school district itself that'll be followed by some methodology for enrollment projections then we will end in fact with some of the enrollments themselves so I actually started life as as an architect but did more planning particularly for school facilities and in the later part of my career wound up just doing demographic Consulting uh probably on the order of we're heading towards about 200 enrollment projections the most important or one of the important characteristics to know is that since uh 2001 I've done six demographic studies for this school district so I am familiar with uh pretty much what is Happening Here uh basically I do Regional District studies uh withdrawal studies impact of residential construction uh sometimes we're looking at new charter schools that are being opened closure of perial schools and redistricting so there's a lot that goes on with uh some of the enrollment projections and we have to look at each district which is always individual it is a statistical analysis for the most part it's not gazing into some sort of crystal ball we use a large spreadsheet and we do some acceptable modifications to that spreadsheet which in fact is provided by the New Jersey Department of Education what are some of those uh reasons why we can modify them as I said perhaps there's new uh developments with either Charter or procal schools school choice and cyber schools were a big deal deal a few years back uh sometimes you're bringing students back from out of District into the into the schools but the biggest reason that New Jersey doe in particular allows for you is when the housing that is going to be developed in the very near future is significantly above what's happened in the past in fact what they do allow you is all of the housing that is above the previous 6year average so if 250 houses are coming and for the last six years you've averaged about a 100 houses then they will allow you to put in the impact of 150 houses so it has to be above the previous six-year average now sometimes it's not the um housing units itself the number of housing units it might be the mix I've done studies where um single family housing was pretty much all that they used to have in a Township and now of a sudden they do have U multif family housing so again that'll be a different kind of adjustment to the to the studies when we look at these units that impact school districts we have to find out what kind they are are they single family are they multif family apartments for rent are they flat condos for sale um are they affordable housing are they one two three or four bedroom all these factors give you an individual multiplier for how many students will be generated or yielded by that type of housing over what period of time we also look sometimes at the recession level housing and have you recovered and whether in fact um there was an impact from the pandemic we're looking at 19 schools in in Edison um it's just one municipality but we do have that butou in in in the in the center of it that is not included in the school district one of the things we also want to know is where do you stand in regard to comparisons with public and and private schools there is a larger segment of your population that was going to um Early Education Centers Pre-K and that sort of thing this is a fiveyear average number so I don't think a particularly reflects uh your change to full day kindergarten uh but otherwise your other elements of or grade levels is pretty much consistent with in elementary middle and high school with what's happening in the county and in the state as I said kindergarten you have a lower percentage um in the past that were uh attending your school district we look at at Municipal population growths the red bars are in fact the township um we can see that really from 1960 which is when the housing really started to 2020 Edison grew by 140% now that's compared with only about 100% for the state and the county so you are growing much faster if you look on the right chart up top you can see that between 9 and 2000 you grew 9,000 persons but that slowed down between 2010 and 20 it only grew about 3,000 and then between 2010 and 20 it increased again to about 7,000 so you've had a little bit of an erratic growth it's not always consistent we also look at population by age group to see where really are we increasing or decreasing students this chart shows that preschool for the period between 2010 and 2020 was pretty level you did not have an increase you did have a significant increase in school AG population you also had a significant increase if you go all the way to the right in the seniors population you do have a population that is what we call Aging in place the seniors are staying in their housing and not moving out and then in fact we had a decrease in the child bar buing age an important factor for the future this is perhaps one of the most significant charts to understand in terms of our projection today it shows how births have been decreasing on average of 42 per year 42 less births each and every year for the last six years you need to keep your pul uh fingers on the pulse of the situation in regard to what births are happening here that could turn around or it could continue to decrease perhaps even at an accelerated rate but births are very important to what's going to happen in your District having said that the methodology for cohort survival is to use the average of the last six years so despite that green bar that you see that is the trend we are using the blue the blue line which is the average 1100 births per year it's still a pretty significant number another important factor is residential permitting and occupancy the red line is when permits are issued and the blue line is when units are occupied multif family is about 381 about 50% of 700 permits that were issued are yet to be occupied so there is some housing coming in the near future but it is not above the six-year average so we are not doing anything special with housing for the impact of of new housing um and there are no multifam projects that are before the planning board now or anticipated in your next 5 years only the remaining 50% of already permitted housing we look at residential sales also and you can see back in 2008 and N where it was the low Point uh that was the housing recession and it has since recovered to over um you know about 1,200 units per year are sold within the township about 3% um what we see is some pent up demand and having that demand been met kind of resettles down at a six-year average of about um 1300 units so what have I said to dat brly private schools Charter choice schools are not particularly import uh impacting your enrollments in any significant way your population is slightly increasing but that six-year birth trend is decreasing by 42 two per year again most significant the preschool age group was stable kind of bodess uh well for the future of the district but the school age group increased in the last 10 years between 2010 and 2020 um by 500 students about 50 students a year so we were still seeing increases in the school district we see that childbearing age group also has decrease that probably goes along with having fewer births in the township middle age was stable and the seniors effect was increasing we talked about aging in place there your residential permitting is really considerably lower than it was in the past there are a few remaining multif family units to um occupy residential sales however have recovered from the session recession and they are in fact um about six or seven times more important than new construction that level of resell reselling houses where new families with younger uh students in them moving into the township far more significant than new than new new construction let's talk a little bit about the cohort survival methodology don't want to beat a dead horse but some of you are in interested in the arithmetic of it or the mathematics behind it but we start out with data six years of data uh the oval that goes across the top is the actual enrollment in each of the grade levels 830 students in kindergarten 1281 this is back in school year 201819 it literally goes out for all 13 of the uh includes prek special and they're all entered into this spreadsheet and it's six years of that information as well as the oval that's standing up ver the vertical one those are births that first birth birth rate or birth count of 1263 is five years earlier from 2018 because we will do a survival rate that goes from births 5 years early to your kindergarten that is data entry next are some calculations so let's look at those red ovals if you will the ones on the diagonal when you have 853 kindergarteners who end up in the first grade as 1,150 then the survival rate is 1348 that means 130% of the students that were in kindergarten showed up for first grade we do that kind of a survival rate between all of the grade levels and all of the years lower down on the next to the green uh vertical oval the 623 is tells you that just 60% of the births 5 years earlier which were at 1219 only 62% of them in that year showed up as 759 kindergarteners so that's kind of the calculations that are done on the cohort survival sheet but we don't use the individual year-to-year survival rates we use the average of the six years so the blue circled uh averages are at the bottom of that chart we say that the survival rate over six years for birth to kindergarten was about 75% and that increase that you always see from year to year from kindergarten to first grade is about 128% but again we do that for each grade level on and on the projections then use that average you take the last year of enrollments and push them forward and we get now what is our projection based on that six-year average coort survival rate for each grade level two years ago you inst instituted full day kindergarten so we did make an adjustment to your enrollments for this new kindergarten that is full day when you have full day kindergarten you'll see that that number where you used to get 75% of births changed in this case to 11% and uh well whatever they increased I can't really read them and I think that they are not actually the the ones for for for you guys so they increase some to 130% I think in one case so it went from 75% to about 130% but we only have two rates statistically it's not really great for you to make a projection so while I am recommending to you to use the um full day kindergarten alternate projection when you view things you really again need to keep your finger on that pulse also to see what's really happening in that birth to kindergarten ratio we only used two years of Statistics in order to arrive at that projection so what was happening in the township if we like look in the rear view mirror these are enrollment levels starting with 2000 and going all the way up to 2022 and that long uphill climb of enrollments will tell you that you were adding on average about 192 students every year for the last 20 years so that's the growth that you're seeing the two little ticks down are for the housing recession excuse me and also then for the pandemic which is a re the pandemic has rebounded nicely we can also see the housing recession uh impact has been cleared up one of the things to note over this long Hall is back in 20 000 there was just 12.8% of the total population in the school district as things went on more people with children moved to town now it increased 14.2% in 2010 and in 2020 was all the way up to 15% so the percentage of the overall population that is in the school district has increased over time we can also look at so what's really happening within the grade levels and it kind of gives us a picture of um because it is different what's happening in the elementary level will be different than what's happening at middle schools or high school so we see that significant increase in K but the dark darkest bar on the left for each grade level is 2018 the one in the middle was last year and the light colored one is the projection at the end of five years so we can see K is in increasing we know that because of the pr if we look at the elementary grade levels um grades one through five we can see that they will be decreasing they decreased over the last five years and therefore the projection says they're continuing in that direction if we look at that grade level grouping for six seven and eight we can see that despite the fact that in the last six years they have increased they will for the most part see a decrease in the next 5 years only grades 9 to 12 which will which increased during the six historical years will also continue to increase in the projection another important factor almost as important as the birth the birth rates in that decreasing 42 per year is what's shown on this chart if you look at the we're showing in dark green what is grade 12 and we're showing in light green what is grade one the red is the difference between them if it's above the bar it means that more first graders were coming in than 12th graders were leaving so we can see that the enrollment should be increasing if what's happening in the Middle grades isn't too significant however in those six years of historical showing up before that blue bar we can see it changed more students were leaving departing from 12th grade then we're coming into first grade so it went from what was about 181 uh extra students in each year down to about 90 fewer each year and in the projection that in fact will go all the way up to 221 for an average on average aage there'll be a little over 200 students leaving the 12th grade and not being replaced at the first grade level so this also is a an indicator and an important statistic in in what's happening in the township the important thing that everyone also needs to understand this methodology is used I Believe by all 50 states in the United States it was developed by ran Corporation after the second World War and it's been used for school enrollment projections for years and years and years it has an accuracy of plus or minus 1% per year so next year's projection is maybe off plus 1% or minus 1% the fifth year projection is off maybe plus 5% or minus 5% this is as accurate as we can get and as I said it's the method it's the standard method it's what they consider the um um the best form of enrollment projection that we use in the country so that's an important thing also to keep in mind every time you look at one of these graphs that that you'll see so on these graphs the blue bars are the actual projections that's six years of History the dark green bars are five years of projection and the light green are 6 to 10 years highly inaccurate sometimes used for planning just in terms of what general um uh direction are the enrollments going in then there are red lines drawn on each chart these are two of the different capacity formulas used by New Jersey Department of Education the one on the bottom is is uh the one they use for financing the one on the top is the one that the school district in fact helps develop and uses for what they call District practice how they really use the facility when you see the red dashed line that was plans for increasing capacity in the long range facility plan they have not been realized to date uh but they were in there as a as a plan now finally as I mentioned you'll find on each one of these charts in the purple line above the bar an alternate projection for the impact of full day kindergarten it's slightly higher than what we will find in the standard projection uh what I have found in the studies I I've done are that the uh increase in the survival rate at um at kindergarten is offset by a decrease in the kindergarten to first grade rate because one one survival rate goes up the other one goes down however the decrease in the kindergarten to first grade is um usually shows that more kids are winding up in the district parents who now send their kids earlier to the public school system stay there and it's a little bit of a higher rate and of course the parents do like the prek I mean the um kindergarten full day to um you know Assist them in their activities of their daily living so it's a a program that does generally send enrollment slightly increasing in this projection the standard one we see the a decrease of about 870 students in the next five years in the alter alternate projection it's only about 700 students and we see the uh capacity after the plan and expansion would make um enrollments equal to what was planned as a capacity right now enrollments are far in excess of uh the capacity within the school district at the elementary level we see the same thing plan capacity that red dash line will almost meet enrollment as it decreases but again enrollment in the element Elementary School is seeing the biggest decrease in the standard projection it was going to decrease 674 in the alternate it's only going to decrease about 500 students now for each school well for each of these grade level groupings that we have elementary middle in high school there is a table that shows you Year bye what happened in the actual historic period in the five-year projection and in the 10-year projection and gives you the other statistics it gives you all the grades Year bye gives you an average During the period change during the period and some percent changes so this is in the I can't possibly spend the time going through each one of them but it's there for each and every one of these grade levels and so you have these are pages from the report you have the graph that shows everything the table for the standard projection and then a second table for the alternate projection they're both there Year bye grade level by grade level in the middle school we do see decreases but it's fewer than at the elementary level um only about 358 students decreasing over the 5-year period and again if the expansions were uh implemented then cap capacity will house all the students that are are projected at the high school we see For the First Time The enrollments continue to increase and they will go up to a planned capacity they currently are under the capacity level that District practice capacity level but they will come into balance if and when you implemented the plan in that long range facility plan in fact that increase over the five years is 162 students and there's a graph that just shows the green line in the center increasing which is the high school and the other two lines decreasing which are elementary and middle then for each School those were groupings by grade level then for each school there is also the similar chart that you can go read and it gives you for the elementary level again a grade byg grade year bye count of students for every specific School each and every these are all the reports and again we're not going to spend time going over each one of them moreover for the element level using the New Jersey doe standard maximum students in a classroom we also tell you what your section count would be you can look at that kind of chart and see is it going down or up for the future now uh in most of the elementary schools we see um the enrollments going down if you'll just look at this sample and you see that purple line which is the alternate projection for the Ben Franklin School you can see that is increasing so because of what happens at the individual level of the school some will be increasing and some of the elementaries will be decreasing just because Elementary overall is decreasing doesn't mean that every school does that is why we do the individual School analysis and then there's comparative enrollments at each grade level um that just show you how one school is doing compared with another same with the middle schools and the high schools so what did we just as a summary see here the district is decreasing between 700 and 870 students in over the five years kindergarten to grade five between 500 and 700 grade 6 to 8 decreasing about 360 students and grade 9 to 12 actually increasing by 162 students so the again in the um executive summary of the report there's a chart like this that gives you capacities and percentages for each School District shows you an average During the period again it's not a chart that needs to be explained it's a chart that needs to be uh looked over and spent some time with a cup of tea to understand all the implications though there are some coloring codes that tell you red might be a problem and and green is where you have some excess capacity um even better I think than that chart uh is the use of a map and I would just tell you the maps this kind of a map is not in the report it's here in the slide presentation but you can see very quickly where the red is geographically where there are some capacity problems and where there is green uh there there is excess capacity though it might only be in some cases as in Washington five extra students but it also could be Marshall which has 250 extra student capacity and we didn't leave it at that that was the map for the standard projection um but there's also a table like the last one for the alternate impact of kindergarten full day kindergarten projection and another map because the results from each of those projections are different uh you might see red in the same places but the severity of either the extra capacity or the insufficient capacity changes a little bit and that is my presentation for this evening thank you any board members have any questions yes Brian hi and thank you for the presentation um so my questions for you is based on all this data you know your professional opinion you know what are the pressure points here in in Edison what are your recommendations and what do you think that we should focus on that that is what you find in the data I think that the board has to look it over you have to look it over with your architect and you have to make those decisions but in each case in every school and and on the map you can see this is the capacity and this is the um the future enrollment there and you need to decide well have we lived with it in the past and it's sufficient or is it in fact so severe that we have to do something about it but I would say it's an architect and board kind of thing to look at any more yes is there uh zoning capacity or the capacity of each individual unit is that being considered in any of your data um I'm not sure what you mean by unit in other words if there's an apartment that has a one-bedroom unit okay and there's four children in the one-bedroom unit was that taken into consideration it would it would be if I was doing an impact of accelerated residential construction what did I pay for sir you paid for an enrollment projection there's no new housing there's no new housing coming up there's no about the 600 units that's going in Rendell that wasn't discussed we did no I can't no I can't hear you say that again we did Rivendell in the last study there there was no Rivendell was being added now this is I do this in conjunction with your planning people at the township they tell me this information okay uh Mr Schneider had a question but let me only say if in fact the information was insufficient from the township and there is really something happening at Rivendell I'm more than happy to make an adjustment to the study and to Incorporated I I was given no housing from the from the township thank you Mr Snider yeah the only question I have is regarding the affordable housing legislation there's a lot of it's not unique to Edison there's been a lot of discussion about affordable housing and the the requirements each municipality will have um Governor Murphy just signed something about that in the past week or two to reinforce those laws um are we aware in this study what the town basically owes in terms of how many affordable housing units need to be built again if there were applications into the township to do affordable housing then they would be considered but there are not there may be wide speculation by on some people's part or even the town fathers may be setting aside sites but it's not in the next five years so I'm sorry Mr thank you that's go ahead Mr so in other words the planning board doesn't know anything well I certainly didn't say that the question well your projections are is that that's not going to happen well if that's not going to happen okay I agree the question to the planning board is what was recently approved and in fact I showed them what we had in the last study so I said in the last three or four years what do you know of any projects that may be brought before the planning board or are being talked of in a conceptual nature that's the question that is put to them I can't fabricate these things I have to use your officials in order to to do this what did we pay for this cost yeah what what was the cost of this I could have went out and done it myself have you walked around town and seen the houses that they're knocking down and they're building huge houses they not going to be any kids I know that I want to educate all the kids but you're telling me that our schools that are overcrowded now are not going to be overcrowded next year please tell me that I did not tell you that some some of them ultimately after five years may be have you walked into JP Stevens have you walked into Edison High have you walked into John Marshall have you walked into Ben Franklin have you walked into lyonell have you walked into Martin Lu King Mr Romano your tone of voice is not a should do I I want to see the kids Romano the kids have to walk around school Rano let's let's maintain order here all right any other board members have any comments All right so thank you for the presentation uh one of the questions I had is uh and I kind of agree with uh about enrollment numbers so I'm really surprised to see how can the enrollment numbers go down when a property comes for sale in Edison and some portions is more some portion is less any home if you see if you go and see open houses in Edison every single house or many houses are going above the asking price there are lines in open houses and the house gets the deal gets closed in like a week or so and what we have researched and seen is every time when someone moves to the the house they pop parents with one or two or three or more kids and seeing that what's happening in Edison compared to what we see here is the enrollment numbers going down is just does not match so what is your explanation on that well as you saw the housing sales in fact have have increased back to pre preh housing recession levels that peaked and then then it came down uh there's no question that you have people moving in and people moving out all the time what people fail to see the very hard part to understand is that everything that's been happening in that nature is built into the survival ratio from one grade to the next if in fact there were a lot of third graders moving in then the ratio from one year second grade to third grade would be high if if it's not it it would go down but all those survival rates include all the kids that historically have been entering into the district so it's built into that's why everybody likes this methodology so when when we did not have full day kindergarten our enrollment was lower when we implemented full day kindergarten our enrollment numbers went up now we are going to have full particularly kindergarten free pre for all so our enrollment numbers with that the houses being sold the apartments being built and everything that that is happening in the town and how how is the enrollment number really going to go down so enrollment going down in hundreds that's unbelievable seriously like I If if that's the case then we should stop all the infrastructure projects we should save over money in capital and maybe not do any infrastructure projects right now our schools are overcrowded our hallways are SE severely overcrowded with the amount of money we have we are struggling to identify which project should we do because we need help upgrade all the facilities upgrade our infrastructure add more classrooms and the reason we are doing that is enrollment numbers so if we were to believe this and don't do something maybe four years from now we have a bigger problem so this is it does not really match for the understanding and what our students experience every day what our parents see through and what we see through in the community um for all Six studies I ever worked you I went to Lily and triola in the planning department for the information regarding what else is happening you most of you were the ones who are talking to me about this seem to think that there's a lot of construction for the near future I got nothing from them except what was the the things were already permitted that have not been built so what what really changed between the previous demographic report and this one I think your company did that right so what change yes you're it's it's based on six whole different years of projection and the birth which I keep tell on you you're getting 42 fewer births every year right now so that's 42 last year and then that means 42 fewer kids five years from now let's say but then it's 42 the next year too now that's 80 that's being impacted two years of the of the enrollment projection and in another year so every time you're there's 42 less students your enrollment is going down and and I also showed you that the students the number of students leaving 12th grade is far more than how many are entering first grade so that's also the other reason you have fewer births coming in so that General class size is going to be smaller and the graduating classes which were larger are are just causing some enironment decreases does it have any connection to any real estate data where the real estate data this is is built into the cohort survival rate from year to year we've been documenting what's happening in the housing market both new construction and resale through the cohort survival rate year to year now New Jersey doe sets the rule that you can't add to your projection unless it's above the the six-year average that's what when they say that they mean uh as I said if you had a 100 units per year in the last six years that's built into the projection if you're having 250 for the next 5 years yeah they'll tell you put in the impact of 150 units every year that's above the last sixy year average you you are not seeing that based on the information I received from the township how much of the community input was included in this survey from the community no okay so Dr I think the good thing to do will be bring this up in strategic planning ction committee where we discuss the finance facilities infrastructure we can seek some more broad input from the community as well well let me just tell you what the community thinks doesn't impact an enrollment projection what you're talking about is having the data at hand like this school has a capacity of 300 and it's going to have 400 students that's where you need Student Community input now what are we going to do but they don't impact or change the numbers we I personally strongly believe personally it's just one person me I can speak for everyone else very strongly in stakeholder input the gentleman sitting there back there back there may tell me that a home on this street sold for 100k above the asking price and there are three more children moving in so we have a responsibility to factor in everything so that's why we want to bring it us up in the strategic planning meeting because that's the vision we are looking for for next few years thank you any other board members yeah board president ask a question um I remember remember you guys did a demographic research six years ago with us right yeah yes yeah years and I big I I can find that report probably in that report did you also predict our high schools are going to have an increase or decrease in the next five years I mean do you still have that data not in my head okay can you check can you check and tell us how accurate was that report I mean like was the number actually I I remember that I believe believe your staff analyzed it and and all of the data was in within a plus or minus 5% as I said are is the accuracy of an enrollment projection okay all right and uh sorry there is no public comments at this point you will get a chance for sorry this is not in order so U we'll go to our public comments you may choose to wait during your portion so one more thing about um immigration issues uh like you know Ingress of immigration factors was that considered and at the same time there were certain benefits at the state level due to which the seniors may choose to stay and then things could become different were all those factors considered in the report uh if you me mean immigration from outside the United States yes your staff brought that up and we looked at it and it is recovered to previous levels so okay thank you so no adjustment was made but we did look at it it's in the report thank you any other board members right thank you so much all right thank you right uh next we have superintendent report Dr aleri thank you board president Patel uh good evening ladies and gentlemen I hope all is well I just have a few comments this evening a couple highlights uh number one we I think we are two days away from spring break so I know I speak on behalf of the board um and the entire staff here in Edison Township that we're wishing everybody a happy and healthy uh spring ber hopefully you have uh the opportunity to spend this time uh with family and friends rest and relax and recharge uh as we kind of Hit the uh stride of the last few months of school uh and uh looks like spring weather is on the horizon for the weekend as well too so um I know we always see Smiles on our faces with our students and staff members when they're able to get outside at this time so uh um a point of note right now uh we are in uh kind of the the home stretch of our strategic plan uh currently so um I know in the very beginning one of the Board of Education goals was to develop a long-term strategic plan five or six years uh we H uh convened a advisory committee that met over the course of March that was uh created for multiple stakeholders within the district we had really robust conversations that ultimately ended up in um identifying a few pillars for which uh we are going to create action steps in order to achieve goals and um and set the plan for the district over the course of the next few years uh our action teams are currently headed up by um central office and building leadership um Administration uh they are going to be meeting over the course of April and May to not only identify goals but prioritize them and develop specific measurable steps for which um we will present to this board in June um that will set us uh on a path for future success so um I know this this you know the Strategic plan doesn't get the glitz and Glam um it's something that I I believe passionately in I think that anytime you're able to talk optimistically about the future in relationship to the goals um and identify what we do How We Do It um it's easy to uh you know embark on a path for Success so um I do uh applaud the board for um allowing us to uh move in this direction uh we had a parent University over at men Park Elementary School uh over in the in March uh it was an unbelievable success thank you so much for the team that put that together and parent participation uh we're looking to do another session our final session coming up uh in the springtime um that information will be forthcoming the ever popular preschool Lottery um was uh successful that uh took place I believe on March 20th Dr Tui um Dr Tui and uh Miss netel selected uh ID numbers uh and uh in in the order that you know they were kind of pulled out of the basket at that time further information regarding placement will be communicated through the parent portal on April 16th I know there's a lot of questions in relationship to this uh we do have um uh I believe a an information piece on the district website uh and as always you can reach out to Dr tu's office with any specific questions that you have uh a couple things that I I I think that uh we're also part of our Board of Education goals we we launched uh the the Insider our our new newsletter which to be honest with you I I don't know if you had the opportunity to read it I was blown away by it not only with the content um but the uh the different modes of media I mean you had opportunities for video we had um a lot of school as well as District leadership participation uh I think it really kind of encapsulated all the great things that are going on here in Edison Township if you have not read it it's located on our district website it was put out through a Communications as well too uh I couldn't be happier with its appearance it's our first one uh and I look forward to the others that um that will be on the horizon and and last but not least um the the person that really kind of spearheaded uh that newsletter which is our very own Heather Daniel our director of communications and policy um although she's kind of shy in relationship to this I did want to announce that our very own Heather Daniel was recognized by the New Jersey public relations Association uh for being the New Jersey state Communicator of the year for 2024 so I would just like a round of applause yeah for Heather I have firsthand seen the impact that she has had in not only branding the um things that we do here as a district highlighting the successes um but but has also been an unbelievable addition to our team um and I know I speak for the board that we we probably couldn't be prouder of this anytime that our our our staff or our students receive accolades that's something else we should celebrate too so um although I'm not as uh as techsavvy as our communication director I I I wanted to make sure that I highlighted those pieces um and that closes my comments and my report for this evening there board president Patel thank you Dr Eli and I have something written down but I should not start that without seconding what Dr alrai said about Heather Daniel without all her hard work I could not probably conduct even a meeting properly so thank you so much Heather for everything you do so that being said uh welcome everyone to for tonight's Action meeting we have several important items to discuss today as Dr eldi updated uh we just saw the demographers report I would like to express my huge gratitude for the wonderful opportunity to participate in read Across America activities across all elementary schools in Edison it has been a privilege to engage with our students in their literary Journeys for the fourth consecutive year now now I had the pleasure of reading to multiple classes at each school and I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to the exceptional teachers exceptional support staff members who contribute tirelessly to our student is their learning experiences every single day I read to all 11 elementary schools more than you know uh three or four classes in schools and met close to 1,000 students that's the number of students I read to over two weeks it kept us very busy but it was a incredible experience their dedication of all the staff members all the principls all the reading specialist is truly remarkable and it serves as a testament to the commitment of our entire educational Community towards Excellence I would also like to thank many of our esteemed community members who also participated went to the school schools and read to the students we truly have embraced reading across Edison I'm also thrilled to share some exciting news regarding our students's accomplishment in Ori of the mind their creative Ingenuity and problem solving skills have once again shown brightly showcasing the remarkable talents nurtured within our schools congratulations to all the students who participated and EXC in this challenging competition and in the next meeting we will have probably uh some of them speak parents come in and speak their names additionally I'm also pleased to report um that during our previous meeting we approved on Thursday our preliminary budget for the upcoming fiscal year I'm proud to announce that for the fourth consecutive year we have maintained the famous Addison 0% tax increase as everyone knows this achievement reflects our ongoing uh commitment to fiscal responsibility while ensuring that our schools have necessary resources to support our students staff members and their academic success I'm also pleased uh with the very pleased with the work of uh our Communications and Community Relations Committee I have myself Mr Lugo Mrs anjun Patel and Mrs White uh members of the committee in the last week um you know since it's uh we we published the newsletter out there as Dr elderi said since we publish it we have had 2700 unique views 2700 uni users over 3900 total views of The Insider over 1,600 visits to the links provided in the resource the committee would also like to thank all those people who all those parents who attended our webinar on February in February for the curriculum and placement criteria spearheaded by Mr Rick Coen so we had over 500 attendees we had 327 community members who participated in the followup thought exchange which is very helpful tool and we our committee plans to continue those efforts the district's curriculum team is now reviewing the feedback from the survey and very soon they're going to bring it bring it up back to the curriculum committee for U more information and I look forward to productive discussions and collaborative efforts as we continue to prioritize the educational needs for our community and thank you for your unwavering support and dedication to the students of um Edison that being said I will proceed with our wonderful student Representatives let's start with Edison High School Mr srihari Ari SEL Kumar thank you hello Board of Education members and the public my name is Shri har arti sentto Kumar and I am the current student council treasurer and speak on behalf of our student representative charvy pavini who cannot attend today at Edison High we recently allowed the class councils to take a month and host Spirit weeks with an abundance of spirit weeks we believe it will further boost our school spirit this week is the class of 2025 their Spirit Week for Monday was stress your age freshmen were babies sophomores were toddlers Juniors were adults seniors were senior citizens and staff were high school gear Tuesday was the 2000s Wednesday is workout Wednesday Thursday is dressing your favorite tropical or vacation gear last week we sent students to the SLC conference in Cherry Hill there we had 11 teams get silver 14 get gold and three get bronze seven students qualified for Nationals everyone who competed placed and earned a medal the EHS student uh the EHS theater Department performed Legally Blonde which was extremely successful and had several positive reviews recently we organized a board council meeting for all our club presidents to discuss ways to improve our school together they came up with numerous Positive Solutions and this week peacock Society a South Indian culture Club at Edison High is hosting its annual play with a Bollywood twist they make it relatable to Da students at our school their play Operation PR is this Thursday at Edison High at 6:30 and the tickets are sold at the door and we advise you all to come support thank you for your time thank you so much if as long as you have idly and Dosa in there I will probably stop by and have some but thank you for doing that it's a great uh it's a great new thing that we are hearing and I would love to stop by for there thanks uh next is Miss Shivani Patel from JB Stevens thank you good evening everyone my name is Shian Patel and I am the first vice president of JP Stevens High School since our last Board of Education meeting there have been many new exciting changes at our school our winter sports season has officially concluded and many of our athletes have receiv received notable accomplishments senior bowling Captain Shanda competed in the njsia State girls individual tournament and placed 47th in the state in winter track HIIT biffet took seventh place in the high jump at the meet of Champions the spring Sports season is soon beginning tryouts have completed and the teams will soon be completing student council hosted our first annual volleyball tournament on the 1st of March and we had an amazing turnout furthermore the student council is collaborating to create many more events for the upcoming months student council is also preparing for the elections in April and our final botc game at the end of the year we are continuing to have BC mini games during the lunch periods where participants from each grade compete in fun challenges for Spirit points for the class and we have gotten great feedback in spirit our Deca Club just competed at the Harris competition in Atlantic City and made it to ICDC which they will compete in soon HOSA conducted their annual blood drive on March 8th with great participation and they have an upcoming state competition the orchestra went to raway high school to display their musical talents and choir participated in All State Choir in Atlantic City the creative writing class went to an arts festival and hawkey is working hard to ensure that their spring release newspaper is ready the Science Olympiad team just competed at a state competition at the middlex county competition and are awaiting results furthermore The Odyssey the M competition participated in their regionals competition and many of our teams Advanced to States overall JP Stevens is hosting many events and fostering great school spirit thank you thank you thank you so much for your contributions uh so the next is uh public comments resolutions only only on resolutions do you have a comment on resolutions okay uh I would like you to recognize yourself your name and address definitely uh this is jti gani and uh this is regarding the transportation I would like to talk about and is that a part of a resolution because at this point I mean this is my comment and I would like to speak so that everybody listens and I'm sorry it's not on the resolution so we are to have same rules for everyone so there will be a public comments very soon so we'll still need to see it I'm sorry this uh that's how the board order works so sorry about that I apologize for that um any any public comments for only for Resolutions Beth good evening Beth taly 15 Midwood Avenue calendars is part of our resolutions correct absolutely okay I see next year's is up thank you congratulations two questions well one's a question one's a comment I'm assuming that two snow days are built in because it has like give back days there just in case correct now if we go over the two days there's nothing in here showing when we might be giving back for that has there been any thought on that you know if we go over the two snow days and have to do three where are they coming from so just just as a reminder that you know this is we're not answering questions uh back and forth with regard to if you have questions just you know ask them uh when the public session is done um the appropriate person either will answer or will well I think it would be appropriate to answer when I'm done asking my questions I'm just I'm just let I'm just letting you know that the process that the board is following is going to be that public this is public question I mean uh public answer excuse me public question and comment period but this is not a back and forth so you can ask your questions uh when your time's up you can sit down the next person can comment or ask their questions sit down uh when the close when this session is over um then the board may or may not answer all or some of the questions uh or otherwise get back you to follow up with whatever the questions are okay and secondly my question is we are a very diverse inclusive community it's great to see all these holidays being recognized but this year's calendar as well as next years's not one Christian holiday is listed on this calendar and I understand like even this Friday we have off it says spring break it does not say Good Friday and I just think if we are inclusive in such a diverse Community we should recognize all or none so we should include that in here and I think everybody should be included I don't think anybody should be um not recognized but we should be inclusive of everybody even you know winter break it does include Christmas spring break includes Easter perhaps we can kind of do better in the for you know moving forward to recognize all holidays for everybody if we're going to have them on there at all thank you and I hope you can answer my question about the sodes thank you thank you uh so about the diverse Community comment uh I agree if we if we do have in calendar Diwali and Eid so we should certainly be accomodative of other religious holiday that's something I will ask Administration to look at it and we can probably revise uh how the wording is over there but I agree with your comment on that um any more public comments on resolutions is a resolution it's only only resolutions is a resolution same as a policy if it's a part of a policy that you see on the resolutions it it's it's for items that are currently on the agenda about to be voted on so if there's something that's about to be voted on then any more public comments on resolutions saying none question are you voting on no all right so uh motion to and public comments for Resolutions motion second all in favor I I okay uh motion to approve personal report motion M SP m m Patel uh roll call Mr to Mr Lugo yes Mr anj Patel yes Mr visha Patel yes Mr Rivera yes Mr Schneider yes Miss White yes Miss Pang yes vice president Romano yes president Patel yes thank you uh motion to approve Administration curriculum and instruction pupil Services reports motion Mrs Bang second Mr Schneider roll call Mr to Mr Lugo yes Miss Patel yes Mr Vel Patel yes Mr R I actually have some concerns with the calendar um I didn't like this year's debacle with the snow days and I notice we're doing the same thing with spring break if we're going to say we're doing on break spring break then we need to honor it so I'm a no on this calendar because I'm not sure the details if we looked at it I also looked at the revised calendar and saw that we're actually opening school on June 19th I'm going know on that as well so no on calendar and no on June 19 everything else I'm fine noted Mr Schneider yes Miss White yes Miss Pang yes vice president Romano yes president Patel yes motion carries motion to approve Finance reports motion Mr Mr V pel second Mrs Pang roll call Mr luga yes Miss andan Patel yes Mr visha Patel yes Mr R yes Mr Schneider yes Miss White yes Miss Pang yes vice president Romano yes president Patel yes motion carries right thank you everyone uh we have a bunch of committee reports but um keeping honoring some kids over here today so we would like to uh change the order a little bit I would like to go them first them to go first and say their com so they can leave go home because they have school tomorrow and then we'll go over the committee reports and then general public commits so the Scout kids over here you can start first so we came here today as representatives of the Boy Scout to just talk about our organization and how it could help improve our community in Edison and how it can impact our students from K to 12 all throughout all grades all ages and how it can improve everyone's life and we have a few remarks to talk about the scouting organization in general and as we all know scouting's goal is to uh prepare young people to succeed in life but is this actually working for three years a research team from tus University worked with the Boy Scouts of America to measure the character attributes of both Scouts and non-s Scouts to aiming to better understand youth's character development the project funded by John tumbleton foundation and led by many experts surveyed nearly 1,800 Cub Scouts and nearly 400 nons Scouts under the age of 12 using interviews and Survey data across the Philadelphia area these Scout these youths were measured in six key areas hope hopefulness obedience cheerfulness helpfulness kindness and trustworthiness in the beginning there were no significant differences in character attributes between Scouts and non-s Scouts but by the end the differences Were Striking over time Scouts reported uh significant increases in several character areas while non Scouts did not Scouts are most more likely to embrace positive and social values than non-s Scouts the change in positive character attributes for Scouts versus nons Scouts has become evident throughout the study after two and a half years of research cup Scouts have reported significant increases increases in cheerfulness helpfulness kindness obedience obedience trustworthiness and hopeful future expectation no significant increase were reported among nons Scouts when asked when asked what what is most important to them Scouts were significantly more likely than non-s Scouts to choose helping other and doing the right thing versus being smart being the best or an answer such as playing sports Scouts are significantly more likely than non-s Scouts to embrace other oriented values including helping others and doing the right thing with fun and Discovery at every turn scouting makes the most of right now but what's more is that it builds a positive character it provides young people with a foundation that they can stand on to embrace opportunities overcome obstacles and make new discoveries all throughout their lives our town is proud to have 330 Scouts across the grades of K to 12 and spread out among eight separate units our Scouts are highly engaged in our community and have taken on key leadership roles and have supported excuse me have supported local organizations over the years we have organized and participated in several community service projects such as food drives community garden and park uh dog park creations and Community cleaning initiatives we are thrilled to announce that we will host open houses in May and June to welcome more families in Edison and expand our membership by joining us you'll become a part of our thriving community and have a chance to make a positive impact in the lives of others Scouts are committed to the future of Edison and helping everyone in need thank you thank you thank you so very much appreciate you all coming here today so I would like you to connect with uh Heather Daniel and Chris who can help you out with the communications for all your scout needs so you can connect with them now and then the kids are there so you may choose to leave after that for the meeting thank you right and there are other students that we see so you can go them first to not you moin good evening board uh I'm yashari my name is Omar shake so we own a digital marketing agency called Nexa Bridge Solutions we provide entities and build them customized uh digital platforms that Empower their digital presence so both of us ourselves are from the school district as well we're both senior years and um the people that we're hiring to do our work and our contractors and all that are also students from the schools as well which are our classmates um and the reason we started this uh agency is because we realized after covid uh everything went online right everything was online during Co and after Co that didn't change right sure things started coming up in person but that online presence became essential it was a need the people who were thriving were people who had that in person's presence and that online presence with uh 19 schools and almost 18,000 students across the district it is important for uh students to be commun connected to them uh the youth these days are fluent in social media mobile apps and online content that's honestly the only way they listen we provide experience where we can uh create content for you guys and make sure the students are not being uh conveyed why misinformation and bouncing off that topic of misinformation I've seen it for myself it's a really big deal even like amongst the parents and the communities if the students don't know what's going on sometimes with the board or like what's the with the district then how will the parents know like I've had my mom go on WhatsApp chats and random aunties are saying random things about what's going to happen but sometimes it's not even true so this is where we come in to bridge that gap for your district and the community creating that online platform each for each one of the schools and creating an input and output cuz we realize you guys need to have an input where you guys can hear the community and every single voice as well as give the output of the correct information so this is where we come in to provide that for you this year this year there were repeated snow days and until the last minute I didn't know if we're going to have school or not I found this online on Sam joi's Instagram page and I felt that as students we should get this from the school board directly and not from a third party our approach is not just deploying technology but it's about fostering a community where every voice is heard and every message is received as attended we believe that by addressing these Community challenges headon we can signify significantly enhance the educational experience for students parents and the staff within the Ed School District thank you that's it thank you thank you so muchy yes so you may want to connect with Judy Cox and she will help you out over there right thank you so much uh next up is committee reports the first is athletic committee chair is Mr Vishal Patel thank you okay the the meeting took place on March 5 at 4:30 p.m. and in attendance were Vishal Patel Virginia White shanon Pang BR DEA and Dr H um first of all the winter sports wrap up I think our school teams did amazingly well so I'm going to go through some of the achievements of of our school sports activity JP St boys basket basketball team was awarded the sportsmanship award for the Red Division JP stens girls basketball team won the 2023 2024 white division championship five HS wrestler advances to the region fight tournament after placing in the district the JP Stevens girls bowling team set a record for the most wins in a season 14-7 EHS girls bowling team played second in the Central Jersey group four sectionals JP Stevens boys and girls swim team finished third in the county this year the EHS cheerleading squad won their fifth straight championship and continues to be the one of the best competitive teams in New Jersey the tri up hockey team U made up from the three School EHS JP Stevens and matachin qualified for the state tournament for the first time in the program's history uh next update is about the middle school boys volleyball team there are some concerns about uh not middle school middle school and high school there are some concerns about hiring coaches for freshman volleyball team at JP Stevens as well as for the Middle School however the coaches were found right before the meeting so it's no longer a concern uh for Cricket the committee discussed the progress of high school and middle school cricket teams which are slated to begin uh the inaugural season this spring so it's a new sport that the district is offering starting this year and there were same you know initial concerns about finding the coaches uh for middle school but I know I had a conversation with Dr H and I think that concern is gone as of today as well uh we were able to find the coaches uh facilities the committee discussed the status of permanent multi-use batting cages that the district was exploring uh for EHS and JP Stevens the committee discussed the availability of tennis courts at EHS and JP Stevens and how construction projects were going to affect uh with the upcoming Boys season and lastly the online Sports form submission and sports physicals the committee discussed several options that the district is exploring for submitting sports physicals and uploading the forms it was noted that the most efficient method for insuring Physicians are approved immediately is to have them done at the school with the district Physicians thank you thank you next is buildings and grounds committee report uh Mr Schneider thank you Mr Patel um buildings and grounds meeting would happen on March 13th myself buo Patel Joe Romano and anena Patel were in attendance um we have two main categories we have capital projects and then we have Capital Improvements capital projects are all the things ongoing that you see throughout the district that includes JP Stevens Edition which is starting now and should be completed in June of 2025 which is the big big project we're doing in the district we also have all of the middle schools being worked on the JMP kitchen we have some Rod Grant projects and also the Edison Success Academy which should be online in September if I'm right um we did have some uh Capital Improvements listed do you do you guys have the um report is that published good so the Capital Improvements are all here you'll see a lot of um when it says set of bathrooms that means boys and girls so we have a whole bunch of bathrooms going in science room Renovations ceilings and um renovations all throughout the district and importantly the change orders that you see here are all budgeted those are things that came with the allowances that were um the allowances that were allotted by The Architects and finally we did talk about Capital project planning that was reviewed um you know we'd love to do everything the uh this committee and the finance committee needs to work together to figure out where we're spending the money the things we talked about was Edison High School classroom Edition a John Marshall classroom Edition and James Madison intermediate Edition so those are things that we're all considering and um further reports as the months go on thank you Mr President thank you Mr Schneider next is uh Finance audit and oversight committee I'm the chair of the committee and uh was joined the meeting was on March 15 joined by Chris Chris logo Mr romano and Mr Schneider the committee discuss Capital project cost estimates jmi classroom Edition John Marshall classroom Edition and EHS classroom Edition these were the three projects that were discussed um committee went over the capital project financing mechanism the loan payment mechanisms of how much would be the payment in different the for different criterias of loan uh committee discussed contracts for discussion approval the furniture Interiors ad Center Renovations and V Wilson read writing connecting professional development program programs for teachers the award was 12,550 literacy strategies Consulting professional development for teachers uh the award was 11,910 environmental design asbesto abetment project at JP Stevens Auditorium the total award was $62,900 uh big picture learning for Professional Services related to coaching and building sustainable systems of student driven um Real World Learning based curriculum for students the award was $71,000 and the committee discussed our preliminary budget and approved and asked Mr Toad to move forward with the preliminary budget um and the committee discussed U funding mechanisms to bring work with the buildings and ground committee and discuss ideas and plans for upcoming infrastructure upgrades next is uh policy committee Mr rera thank you sir so the policy committee met met on Monday March 11th 2024 at 4:30 p.m. closed session room and education center in attendance was anena Patel B Patel Douglas Scher myself Dr Al delli Dr hus Dr Tui and Heather Daniel the policy committee met um to discuss and pretty much focused on discussing policy alert 232 provided by Strauss SME Associates the policies that were discussed all of which were either mandated or revisions of existing policies address changes in the New Jersey administrative code for managing equity and education bilingual education and prevention and treatment of sports related concussions and head injuries the committee was also informed that St Esme will begin updating policies and regulations related to the audit that was conducted in January so thank you for that Eddie thank you uh next is curriculum technology and student achievement committee meeting the meeting was held on 20th March at Ed Center in attendance where uh myself Mr Rivera Mr Lugo and miss an Patel uh the agenda items were parent Community feedback on the new placement and courses uh M Heather Daniel presented an overview of the results that we received from the thought exchange survey that was administered from the communications committee meeting and uh this feedback was thoroughly discussed in the committee uh Mr kohen explained the process that will be followed to address the questions going forward that were posed by the parents and the community Through the survey the responses to all the questions posed on the survey will be thoroughly reviewed in the upcoming curriculum meeting in April um committee discussed amended uh Amendment for QC curriculum documents the Amendments made to the curriculum documents in order to be compliant with the qac indicators committee also discussed U one pager which summarizes the discussion uh about the elementary and secondary uh new courses proposal were discussed new courses listed were introduced but not discussed or reviewed yet in response to the recent designation of Addison High School as a Target school by the New Jersey Department of Education offering these new courses were recommended as an action step by the njdoe in a recent meeting which was uh which led to an initial discussion at the March curriculum committee meeting Administration is at present Gathering more information before deciding whether to formally recommend these new courses um to the board for approval and the new courses that I'm referring to in question here are American Sign Language and Spanish Communications and culture one and two committee went over the wellness program it was a followup from the previous committee meeting Mr Cohen explained the next step for in the strategic planning committee as Dr Al Ali said earlier in the strategic planning process there will be a wellness component and there will be ction committee for the entire Wellness component so committee that committee will discuss at depth and bring it back to the curriculum committee for further review um it will include an establishment of a wellness pillar which will be headed by Dr toi um for the development of goals and objectives for the wellness across the district and how stakeholder input will be a very C crucial part of the whole collecting the feedback and how we make decisions for the wellness criteria and uh in terms of QC the curriculum designed and implemented to meet grade level expectations and graduation requirements that was discussed and a few other things that were discussed was pacing guide interdisciplinary connections integration of 21st century skills through njsls 9 integration of Technology through njsls and Career Education thank you that concludes all the committee reports let's open it up for board member comments if any Mr Rea yeah I just know that um in the state testing is coming around NJ SLA so that's an important time a month for our kids and especially our our Educators that that are out there they're there supporting our kids so I just want to wish our kids our teachers everyone that plays a role in this you know good luck it's important kids sleep eat well and best of luck on the test thank you any other board member recommends Mrs White I would just like to say thank you to Dr tuy and his team for all their hard work with the lottery I know they put so much time into it and it went very very well I hear so but thank you Dr tuy you know we we all appreciate you and your team's hard work in addition to that I just want to mention that I did go to the play right here at uh Edison High legal blonde and my play partner uh Elizabeth Conway was with me it was excellent the choreography was outstanding Mr Russ you know those kids did a great job so and we did truly enjoy it you know so if you ever get the opportunity to come to the place here or at JP do it they are so talented and lastly I just want to wish all of you a very happy holiday enjoy it with your families okay thank you thank you m F uh Mr V pel yep I mean um I'm attending my first section meeting of 2024 um so I want to you know first I want to start with apologies apologies to everybody from the bottom of my heart for missing uh meetings in January and February I was um I I think I have to give a reason I I give the reason to the board but uh I was unable to miss I was unable to attend the meetings because of series of personal medical and personal issues but my commitment to the students of this Township and residence is unwavering and unshakable um I also want to thank everyone for coming here to support me um you know your unwavering support demonstrated by your presence you know fill my heart with the profound gratitude and I want to promise everybody that uh support that you have shown me today not only touch my heart but also Fu my commitment to perform and serve this community with even greater you know greater passion and dedication lastly on our thank board president belel Patel vice president J romano and and fellow board member for showing their understanding and compassion in this tough time that I was going through and I believe together you know we have a real opportunity to make a changes in the students life and and I'm motivated to be part of that positive change thank you thank you Mr Vishal Patel uh any board members saying none um I had a comment uh it's more of a I would like to make a clarification regarding the recording of our March 21st Caucus meeting upon initially stating last Thursday that the Boe may not return the audio feed ceased which is normally our practice however I immediately corrected the statement in the presence of the board members and the administration and the public who were in attendance at the meeting and stated that we may return the district subsequently issued a statement regarding the audio issue on the meeting's YouTube recording for a full transparency to the public so just wanted to clarification and Dr aler Ali will follow up on yeah I I can just follow up and confirm that uh Mr Patel so um after after having it brought to our attention um our team immediately worked on it to provide um clarifying uh media and we posted it up on that website I believe on Saturday afternoon late Saturday thank you and um couple of more recognitions for for the Edison High School Deca team students they were um them along with JP Steven student mentioned they're going to finals of the DECA for next month or something so they make the district very proud We Wish students from both the high school who are going to NASA events next month as well and uh all the best for those all those um all the students who participated in the app challenge Congressional app challenge for DC they make us proud so congratulations and good all the best and thank you and uh we as a board are always committed to supporting all the talents and recognizing all the students and as a part of our communic curriculum committee the student achievement and the communications uh Miss Heather Daniels is going to spearhead more and more student achievement and recognition so um you know we encourage all the kids keep doing the wonderful job that you are doing and you know we are with you and let's see what all the best things we can do provide you resources to help you out in your journey thank you so much um any other board member comments saying none so we'll open it up to public comments now yes Miss I can let you go first now yes hi thank you for giving me this opportunity uh this is joy gani and uh I wanted to bring up an issue with transportation and uh I'm a single mom working mom and my daughter has been a buser which is the subscription busing for last Last 5 Years From first grade to fifth grade and unfortunately I had to go to India for 3 weeks and uh when I came back I had to unenroll her from school because that was the policy the principal told me more than 10 days if you are going it's better to unenroll and then reenroll so I signed the papers I had given the directions that we will be back by 8th of March and uh and I came on the 8th of March before actually I came on the 7th my daughter went to school on the 8th of March but then I got to know that the transportation completely took her off I paid the money this is a paid subscription busing I I believe that the busing I mean the bus should be for her you know since I have already paid upfront the money has been taken in the beginning of the year and and now I have been told I try to reach the transportation supervisor I tried to reach you also superintendent but unfortunately it has been so pathetic at the board of education I want to bring this up that I cannot even I thought it's an open door policy to meet you and talk to you or talk to the supervisor of the transportation but unfortunately nobody allowed me to even meet you guys I have been calling and calling and calling they said somebody will reach out to you neither the supervisor from the Transportation reached out to me nobody called me neither you superintendent this is very pathetic and I want to bring this up and I want my daughter to be in the bus it's it's been not 2 weeks and I cannot go to work because I I I'm picking and dropping her or else I will have to stop sending my daughter to school this is the only alternative I have thank you thank you and if my daughter doesn't go to school then it will be an issue with the court thank you right thank you you uh next for public comments Mrs [Music] Conway Elizabeth Conway 20 Netherwood Circle I have some good things to say mostly uh first of all I was invited to do read Across America and it's still a thrill every year uh to be able to visit with the children and read so uh another positive thing going on in the district was wonderful the second thing yes Legally Blonde was fabulous and I thank uh Mr Ross for making sure that I'm well aware of what's going on at Edison High so Jenny and I look forward to each and every uh play that we can get to see and performance I did read and found The Insider which was really good and it was of very good quality and I uh applaud whoever put it together I also want to talk about the JP Stevens Farm star the Farm Stand sorry it is phenomenal I pass by and I as many times as I can if I pass at the right time I like to go in and make a purchase at the Farm Stand the children at that are the um students of JP Stevens and the teachers that are working there are phenomenal and I truly enjoy the uh course going on the interaction and the conversations that go and I look forward to anybody that would take advantage of going to the Farm Stand uh each school day um one question the demographer never mentioned prek and the effect that prek is going to have on our school system not every district has gotten to the point of offering prek and I know that I had heard that there was a very large number that applied for it and as far as I can remember 500 or something around that was going to be in the first year and that means Edison has prek where I'm living now does not have prek so what effect will that have now obviously the planning board wouldn't know about prek so was that discussed with um the demographer and on the talk of the demographer how many demographer companies are there in the state of New Jersey because I believe I've been coming to board meetings for many years and I remember that gentleman and if he hasn't been he was here six years ago that's sad that I remembered him so um is that something that you look to um how many companies are available or is he unique to our district um another thing that I'd like to bring up is when they talked about the capital um goals and looking forward it was mentioned how it was discussed that jmi John Marshall and Edison Edison High's uh additions were under discussion but I recall when we talked about the schools in the past schools that are going to be done now were the most needy and this group was the second group so I'm hoping that it's more than just a discussion for jmi John Marshall and Edison High's additions um next thing is asking and getting answers Mr lawyer I'm sorry I don't know your name but I just do not agree with you and I'm sure it wasn't your idea but I think if I get up and ask a question I don't want any going back and forth but I would like an answer when I'm done because I've noticed both at Board of Education meetings and Town Council meetings by the time everybody gets up there is no guarantee that you're going to answer my question when six people are going to go after me so I'm asking you to reconsider and answer any question that I'm asking now to answer unless it's something that needs a long discussion then you can pass me off on anybody to further discuss it but I really don't want to wait for six or 10 or 12 or 15 other people to talk before you give me my answer because they may bring us in a completely different light thank you thank you Mrs con uh one of one of the questions I would or not question just a comment probably you had about the infrastructure and capital because we all you were a board member too when this discussion started and you know it's has been going on from years so absolutely If U you know people talk about stateid right so we got more state ated you know I wish we could get 600 million more we can upgrade every single facility add more classes in every single room and do all the schools right so the list that we read here is just discussions right now we haven't finalized any school right but I agree because I'm aware of the phase one and there are schools which were a part of phase one and that should be also considered so we are just evaluating discussing right now let's see what the Committees and the board together comes up with thank you next for public comment Harish Harish ttin 45 M Street so long list of questions I'll go really fast um thanks for the school calendar uh when can we expect to see the preliminary budget and the demographic study so that we can have some uh more uh insightful meaningful questions about the same will it be put up on the website uh tomorrow you can go to all of all your questions okay um second thing um trimester 3 is here for elementary we talked about the opt out choice for some sensitive topics about health education which may not be age appropriate uh for the parents to opt out if they wish so looking forward to that that was a promise made last year talking about promises uh where are we with the fans uh update the requisitions and all I really don't see anything about that uh it would be really a huge insult to the board and the administration if students and parents say that uh we have given up on you guys um the PTSA PTO whatever it is the right legal term of one school already initiated their own efforts and it doesn't look nice I think I made this comment earlier last year so let's be on top of that uh there were lot of minor Capital Improvements and all I didn't see jams traffic study and uh recently parents at jams talked about that um ABC facility walkway being submerged even for a small with a small rainfall so I don't think those would cost even 45k so most probably voting is also not required but if that can be taken up uh on a priority basis that would be great especially the traffic study because it will take probably 3 months and after that based on that we can consider rerouting of the traffic um as discussed earlier last year and uh with some of the board members [Music] so now the capital projects yes phase one especially John Marshall and jmi were the priority I see uh EHS also uh not trying to enter into a debate here I have said in the past and I will stand by my words let it be here or on social media High School is more important than middle school middle school is more critical than Elementary but there may be people who disagree with me that's fine uh but phase one uh John Marshall and jmi were uh supposed to be included and it was not part of 2025 as far as I remember last year so every time we are having discussions we are changing the priorities that's not correct jmi um I know there are a lot of uh nice to have things included in those upgrades like the pre full-time kg and many other things but uh the honeymoon is over the extra Aid uh from State and the 0% tax may not be there next year so we need to rethink and we need to hold on to this uh not arrive at a final conclusion before uh adding some more fine elements in the immigration study because that would also affect uh which schools will be affect uh need uh immediate upgrades so my request is to have a scope down watered down version of expansion and upgrades for different schools so that we can uh take a more uh sensible decision unless of course uh referendum is in the works which I'm sure nobody will support and agree to [Music] so now coming to the personal matter recently there was a huge outcry and uproar in public regarding that highly inappropriate uh poem that was uh sent out to JP Stevens uh students ninth grade students um I understand that personal matters cannot be discussed in public so I get that and whether there has been some disciplinary action against the teacher and the supervisor I do not know and you cannot make it public I understand that but my point is I I I think I'm definitely um justified in asking what steps are we taking in the future to prevent such uh unpleasant uh incidents uh my understanding is that it is the supervisor's responsibility to ensure uh that the correct websites are being circulated to the teachers because teachers are busy with the teaching supervisor supervise everything uh they have more time and they have more experience also uh that was one thing if it is not already a part of the job description of the supervisor let's make it going forward and hold them accountable and our and second thing the internet firewall especially when checking on the Chromebook uh that should have caught this so what exactly is happening supervisors are checking this on their home computers I'm not sure what where exactly we went wrong again understand the confidentiality but we need to do something about this in the future so that it doesn't happen again so regarding the immigration I'll just uh mention one of the elements uh Governor Murphy introduced that additional anchor benefit for seniors and last few years was the honeymoon period with additional uh state aid and 0% so that could be the reasons why seniors are staying longer as indicated so that also needs to be factored in addition to the immigration one and um okay I I'll give more comments on uh both the budget and the immigration afterwards once it is posted thank you very much next four public comments uh Joyce good evening Joy ship Freeman um I'll restate what Liz said um what I find ridiculous with this body and even with the council is I I'll do it in real simple form somebody wants to know over here what's does x equal y somebody over here wants to know what color you paint in the room tomorrow somebody else answering the question over here then by the time it gets back to you and it gets to the people in audience it's no connection there's no connection whatsoever so I don't know who comes up with these bright ideas but I think it's ridiculous and everybody else knows it's ridiculous you don't ask all these different and then you get 15 people like she set up and everybody's asking a different type of question by the time the 15 person spoke if you want to be honest you don't know what the first person said unless it's it unless it's something really you know outlandish you know what I mean so this whole thing where we're trying to stop a free speech and trying to sanction everybody that's terrible that's terrible for our kids it's terrible for people to be able to get a right response and a lot of times that's why the building's empty the people come in when there's like something going on or whatever that they're disturbed about but if you just answer questions properly and answer them correctly afterwards then those other people they want to go home they don't want to stay here all night and sit here and like and pick pick pck pick they want to go home after it but you know that's my thing on that now with the one I say some good stuff too about the children in Martin Luther King School it happened to be uh I was reading there and it's women's history month so when I asked the young students to name women oh they were so inclusive they were better than adults like they knew different people from each different group ethnic group and they said it I was like okay so I got a good future going on here because these kids are better than the adults that I look at you know all the time so that's a plus and the thing whereas I can tell the board member Brian Rivera comes from a very inclusive place for him to question juneth because I was like why can't we do a double session day someplace else this a double session day then everybody can be off on that particular day since it's the federal holiday I just think it's like so weird that we have a Fed federal holiday that nobody nobody respects but then I read the book cast and then I seen the movie origin which really disturbs me and as people being Educators or if you're part of a group that sits over top of Education I think people should educate themselves like you shouldn't sit there and not know different things that are very very important to different groups and I thought it was real crazy in this town nobody even mentioned it was Black History Month and the mad curriculum has been around for 20 some years and people like they just like staying ignorant they're like okay with it they don't try to make their themselves better you know what I mean I know and my whole life I think since I was younger than young I would always even make sure Jeopardy will be a staple in my house all right because I'm Forever Learning because if you're a real educator and you're really concerned about education you always are always open to learning and as far as the proje projection of the um had demographics always talk and I always I always think they're crazy anyway because they always say 1.5 kids like where's that half a kid at where the half the kids sitting where are they having dinner you know when you get to projector stuff that's all sounds ridiculous to me then now but but they're at the point now where they're saying that people are not having children people are not having children because they can't afford uh when the baby goes when they have to S the baby out the baby is like the same price as a mortgage but like people say and projected that once the inflation rate goes down and young people are able to purchase homes and Liv in in in in a real nice neighborhood again and not be crammed up in some apartment somewhere yeah the rate will go up but I I don't see it going past one or two kids cuz I mean you're paying a mortgage for two kids over $4,000 a month in child care I I don't know I'm just sad for our kids for the future I know they'll be very very intelligent but I see a lot of barriers put up for them thank you and remember again about what I said about the questioning if I don't know what X and Y you know x equals y and then the kitchen curtain is green and this is over here remember people think it's ridiculous that you do that and they just think that it's ridiculous that the that this town the brilliant the intelligent the high school that we would have people not answer people correctly one time when they sit down and make them it's like a punishment you're going to sit there at 10 o'clock until I get ready to ask you and then I might not answer your question because I can't remember it thank you that's sad thank you so I I personally don't believe the um Administration is not answering questions Joyce I think there's a m understanding what our attorney said is when you come for a command once you are finished with addressing all the questions then anyone can choose to answer Dr aleri or Mr to or whoever can choose to answer um I don't think the attorney mentioned that we are not going to answer that's not the case here right right yeah that's that's correct if I misspoke but I also think it's it's very important and I say this not just to this board but to other public boards where I'm the attorney whether it's a board of education or a public board um that you know this is a public meeting is not uh type of conversation that you might have if you were walking into the office of somebody who works here whether it's Dr Elli or a board member um it is public comment um and I say this you know with respect to everybody but it's the board members are not obligated to answer any questions if you have questions the best way of getting those questions answered is by contacting the board members contacting the administration because sometimes depending on the topics um it can't be answered that doesn't mean that the board's not going to answer questions it doesn't mean the board's not going to respond um but it's just important for people to remember that um it becomes a problem because sometimes the questions are really simple it's a simple question can you tell me when this is coming you know what date we're off it's a simple answer um but then the next question is somebody who's trying to um cross-examine board members and they uh or it's 17 questions and then they get angry because you answer that question but not this question and it's that's the problem that we try to manage with expectations at public meetings it's not intention to be um you know which why my advice as as the lawyer um I'm not the policy maker I'm not the elected official here my advice is as lawyers is make sure everyone aners their questions um board members can respond to those questions that uh um that they that they the answers to deem appropriate and that other answers can be followed up appropriately But ultimately it's public comment time um that that's what the time is is here for thank you next public comments gentleman right there Anthony Mara 5 ketto Court um I've been here a couple times in the past all on the same matter policy 5756 as I know everyone and the board knows it says there is no affirmative Duty for any School District staff member to notify students parent of the student's gender identity or expression policy policy 5756 should not be a matter a matter of individual rights it's a matter of family relationship let me give an illustration to to drive home my point what is suppose transgender student has a problem with something doesn't matter uh school work Health his or her smartphone whatever it is let's suppose transgender student goes to Mom and Dad says mom and D I need help suppose mom and dad say h you need my help but you don't want me involved in your life decisions go buzz off how wrong how wrong I'm a parent a parent child relationship is a two-way Road really it should be parenting requires tough love but it's a two-way Road policy 5756 however turned it into a oneway road student can say the parent go buzz off oh but by the way and I don't want you to know what I'm doing in my personal life and I've got the Edison board Ved to back it up with policy 5756 but oh by the way if I need your help help me that is selfish policy 575 6 has empowered a student to be selfish to say to his parents I want your help with whatever I need but don't don't know about what my my important decisions are about my gender that is wrong that is you've taken a relationship that's a two-way Road wrongfully characterized it individual rights and turned it into a one-way road that is wrong I've heard some say that we don't want the government co-parenting with us they're so right Edison board ofed is not a parent parents are parents I sent an email to everyone on the board pointing out a couple of problems that policy 5756 creates one and I I'll reiterate them for a parent not let me give an illustration let us suppose transgender student someone in in the school system knows that transgender student for frankly any any student for whatever reasons is planning to cut off his fingers some of his fingers drug problem psychiatric issue whatever it is i' like to think that everyone here would say oh goodness we need to tell Mom and Dad get some counselors in here stop that from happening suppose it's his his toes I'd like to think the same answer right but oh no if that same student says I'm going to get a doctor to cow off my penis oh no we can't tell Mom and Dad the hypocrisy behind that is bizarre change 5756 to make it mandatory so the parent knows if if a school knows I mean obviously you can't tell a parent what you don't know but if a school a staff member knows that student going to try to change gender identity let Mom and Dad know changing gender identity can also either complete or part almost completely cut off a students ability to have children in the usual way do we really want that for our children do we these statistics also show and I included that in a second em I forgot to include in the first one that those in the transgender Community are in a higher risk of suicide category the numbers are are undeniable we don't want to tell Mom and Dad do we have to wait we don't want to wait for it to happen we all know that why can't we make it mandatory that Mom and Dad are told assuming someone at school knows that student is going to change identity gender identity so that Mom and Dad the mature ones who presumably know a child better than the Edison Board of Ed the counsel their son or daughter uh about the long-term consequences of this thank you thank you next uh Mrs Bowski Carol Bowski 39 Jonathan Drive first I'd just like to say to each of you on the stage thank you very much for being there for being here for what you do I will not always agree with you and I will let you know what I don't but I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate that each and every one of you is up there doing what you do to the best of your ability and you make a difference thank you thank you next yes ma'am good evening my name is Kim Linley I'm a former special education teacher and um from Oldbridge and I'm going to follow suit with the gentleman about 5 5756 so first of all I going say thank you very much for being on the board I know it takes a lot and um so I'm going to hit on three key issues this evening so the first is what I would like to hit on is the teacher parent relationship with f 5756 is a crit the teacher parent relationship is a critical part to the academic performance of of a student this relationship has been proven to have various um studies on how the students benefits in one study by the cons Consortium on Chicago research the results found that in the areas of reading a math significant Improvement scores have been done also when there's parent teacher relationships that are communicated lines that is one of the most important things are ingrained in you because of the communication lines and especially with the 5756 when a child is of say Middle School age that they are able to identify thems as whatever gender it's pretty hard for me to to Fathom when there's different levels you have elementary middle school and high school and at that ages there are different development biologically especially the brain so I'm off a little topic so forgive give me however right now I'm going to focus biologically on the brain so the brain is a vital organ that plays a significant role in the development of a student's personality and identity research has been done that provides significant information that needs to be considered when resending policy from 56 one article which was published was by the mental health daily at what age the full the brain is fully developed this article provides information that entails stages of the students brain which ultimately with will inform how the students personality identity will play so putting that into the child's hands I don't understand because at the age of 13 the brains are fully developed and people researchers have decided between 25 and 30 with the prefontal cortex the second one um and it's still developing the prefontal cortex between 18 and 25 and that not until puberty does the pref fundal cortex begin to development which would be like 13 so hormones are playing significant part of this we all know as our children develop they're just trying to find out themselves and by 13 at 25 at 35 you're a different person because of this so a child may be feeling certain things as for his feelings and that um that P particular situation however they may not be and due to trauma research has shown that um that they may feel different than everybody else due to the traumatic events that have happened in our lives also and when the demographic gentleman was speaking um what I found out hold on one second is that in addition to uh students coming into your district has to do with the um topic of 5756 as far as the curriculum and this is from from the Washington Times stories about Dr queens and kindergarten forcing students to use preferred pronouns biologically boys who say they are transgenders using locker rooms and trying once to reserve for girls along with the pandemic which conveyed growing numbers of parents that homeschooling work better all of these are prompting an Nexus of parents and and now teachers from public schools so specific figures from the New York Times said about 50,000 students over the past two years have left in Michigan enrollment remains more than 50,000 below pre pandemic levels from big big cities to R to rural so that's also part of the issue as far as why the um stats aren't panning out as far as the increase in students because parents are concerned you know and as far as um 5756 that policy a separate School file is situated so the the communication lines how is a parent supposed to know if that teacher is telling the truth when you go for open house you know I was involved with my children's teachers however as far as going to board meetings I wasn't I was lacking because I was going to school I was teaching at school I had my own children my children or my children no one loves them better than me when I was an elementary teacher ESP specialist specifically I had the best job in my life it was a passion however those children were not my children they were mine for that time I forgot about my life I forgot about everything because it was a passion and every child you have to take into account you're addressing their physical needs their emotional needs and so if there is a problem you have the bullying in place which you know there's a lot of aspects involved in this policy and I know it's complex however the biology the parent relationship um all the reasons above of these all these parents moving out of different states all need to be considered I want to thank you for your time I'm sorry I flip-flopped a little bit it's not a classroom however you know it's a passion and I know children are a passion of yours so thank you very much for your time good night thanks thank you anyone else for public comments uh Anthony okay you can go ahead I'm sorry my name is Carolyn Mack and I drove all the way up here from Oldbridge um and the reason is because uh I um heard about um a so-called poem and another gentleman referred to it too that was read in a ninth grade classroom heard two two different stories though one um one story was that it was a student or or a poem that the student brought in and read um for Valentine's Day all the students were asked to bring in a poem he brought the student brought this very inappropriate poem in and I did Google it you can do it too I don't know if you've already discussed this but the poem is called first turn to me it's not really a poem it's very pornographic I could read excerpts to but you would cut me off uh it's it's pretty bad um and um so in the one scenario obviously if the teacher uh introduced this poem in a ninth grade English class entirely uh inappropriate um but in the other scenario if the student brought it in and the the poem was not vetted first it's it's still a problem either way it's a problem so um yeah I came I worked today drove from Oldbridge I do think it's important I I noticed your school motto uh for uh Edison schools nothing less than Excellence it said it's a great motto and I hope it still applies uh especially when you have something as pornographic and um a vial as what I read and again you can Google it I I found it online and I'm sure you can too the title of the poem first turn to me it's not poetry it is not uh good literature um if we're striving for excellence in any school district this this is not this doesn't fall under that category um and and I hope um maybe before I leave tonight that I can hear uh maybe you've disc discussed it maybe you've gotten to the bottom of it if there's going to be disciplinary action for this teacher it sets a very bad precedence for uh other uh students and teachers and classrooms I hope that uh the motto can be a guide nothing less than excellence and I hope that if you haven't investigated that you will I think it I think it deserves scrutiny and I think that as school board members that's probably probably uh your job is scrutiny for what's going on in the classrooms and if and if this isn't scrutinized and it's not stopped uh it it will continue and a lot of kids will be led in a very bad Direction because they've been exposed to this kind of Filth and it is filth and that's all I have to say thank you thank you [Applause] Anthony Anthony Damron 25 Wy um first of all I to the woman that was just up here from Oldbridge I could though I probably agree with her the spirit of what she's saying I could assure her though that um this District uh does its best job to uh to uh uh maintain the uh nothing but Excellence um though you could is cherry pick isolated incidents um I still uh I still have confidence in the school board in the school district so uh and the Educators here um first off um I wanted to uh commend uh the board leadership um regarding the uh cannabis situation uh for speaking out I believe Mrs pank as well uh had a had a statement as well I don't there might have been other board members that did that but um I didn't see it um I know that the council uh the board president was at the council meeting um I saw former board president uh Jerry shei here uh he was there at that meeting uh speaking out against that uh that resolution uh or ordinance uh former councilwoman chip Freeman she was there as well so there was a lot of community leaders there um and I think this District I think the school board has every every jurisdiction to to to put their two cents into that matter considering the uh the I believe the dangers of of that what that ordinance would have done um I'm happy to hear about 0% tax increases I think I heard that correctly uh great job um I also um regarding the Dem demographic study I I got to be honest with you I was trying to pay attention and I was paying attention and trying to follow along but um I guess what I took out of it was there was there's a decrease if I can find My Notes here um so Middle School had a decrease in in in enrollment correct so did elementary school then High School had an increase so if the seniors are staying in their homes then where are these kids coming from then that's what I would like to ask I guess so uh if there's going to be an automatic increase uh in into high school so um you know that that's that's where my uh my concern would be and my question um Target schools I I don't know what that means I was trying to Google it just real quickly I if somebody could Define that what that exactly means I I sorry if that's a stupid question I just I don't know exactly what a Target school is um and if it's a good thing uh congratulations to to Edison High School hopefully it is a good thing um but I I don't know um April 8th is the eclipse I was just curious to know if the school district is going to be doing anything uh regarding the eclipse maybe I know there's other districts that are doing some early dismissals I'm not for necessarily just full out no school necessarily but uh hopefully that if it's a clear day the district uh uh take advantage of this opportunity um I I'm into it um I know that you know you could really you know you could teach a lot about this this moment there's there's a lot to learn so um I'd like to know the plans of the district there if there is any plans um let's see uh the Boy Scouts individuals that came great great job wow the Future Leaders uh that's what they are uh they sounded great I'll tell you it's it's really we underestimate when kids get up here and speak at the podium I could have never have done that at their age I'm just telling you i' I've been in the back it crawled under my you know next to my mother I'm just telling you I never would have done it um I don't like doing it now but but for these kids to do it kudos to them they do a great job they're well very well articulated uh uh their points and uh they sound great and um uh I never did Boy Scouts but you know um I I would encourage it though um and man my penmanship gez um and that is uh I think that's it so thank you again board president thank you anyone else for public comments I don't see anyone Al so Beth the last one minutes uh second time right so we get three minutes oh okay I I talked on resolutions my first time now this my first time yep balky again I'm back up about the calendar and just my comment to our attorney I understood what you said about it being public comment but a lot of times we spend a lot of time here too as a taxpayer and a resident here and would like some answers as to what is going on and if I can get an answer here which hundreds of people at home are watching this meeting it will save our district and our superintendent from getting thousands of emails about questions about our calendar so forth this year we did have problems because we went over our snow days so my only question was for the 2025 calendar it says if we take excessive days they will be taken off during spring break can we have specific dates as to when so we're not infringing on anybody's holidays once again because at the beginning of the week we have Passover at the end we have Easter so just asking for clarification for our public our residents the children so parents can make plans if they have child care plans that was the only question and I think this should be a forum as the attorney is not looking at me where the public can ask and get answers to these questions rather than writing emails after emails because this is something that affects lots of people in this district and we should know if the Calendar's going out we should have it concise and pretty you know not in excess of maybe five snow days but if we're having a couple extra we should have it in writing now before we vote on it in the past past practice was we'd have a couple months of it where we'd have a first reading a second reading so if there were issues it could be brought up but that seems to gone by the wayside and I feel if I do come to a public meeting and I spend my time and I applaud all of you up up there who give countless more hours than I do coming to these meetings for all you do for our board but if the public comes here and ask questions we should answer them it shouldn't just be Kumbaya when everybody comes and look at everybody did that's great all the time I like to see that but if people residents come with questions the least we could do is get the respect to get a response thank you thank you anyone else for public comments oh Mr Ross yes good morning Board of Education and everybody else I just wanted to um good morning we're almost there see what I did somewhere it's always you know it's always morning in Edison High School because things are always looking brighter and things are always getting better but just in talking about the what's great about Edison High I had to bring up if you guys notice I've got significantly less hair than I had at the last board meeting and that's because what we talked about was the St baldrick's campaign where we put together the Edison Public Schools team now I'm not the leader of the team the captain of the team is one of our electricians Mr Steve Spore also another staff members Mr Mike aichi together the Edison Public Schools team raised almost $55,000 in the fight against Children's Cancer now just two stories real quick the first one was that we had a student who's a senior his name is Mike mikos Good Old Edison kid and for all four years of coming to high school he's been growing his hair and he never cut it once and it was down to his stomach and he not only sat there walked around the cafeteria and got over $600 from his fellow students donated for him to cut his hair he then donated the about 19 inches of hair that he had to Locks of Love so just an example of our kids looking out but even better than that was the team that got up before the Edison Public Schools team were some of Edison's bravest our Edison fire department and out of that group there were two students who were alumni of Edison High class of 2016 uh Wayne Enoch and Gavin kerski that did it with us in the auto shop that had did it with some of their relatives who were under the fire department and they came back and to me it's just an example of how great our community is when we come together for all of these issues so I just want to give that a shout out say thanks to everybody came out for the play and then I want to see everybody out at fusion and I'll make sure I get you them samosas there pel all right thank you thank you thank you I'm sure you Mr Ross you coordinated with Dr toi Dr alari and a little bit of Mr Romano for the whole thing okay uh all right anyone else for public comments motion all right that being said motion to close public comments motion second all in favor um everyone have a wonderful spring break we see you after the spring break that means a motion to Ed on the board meeting second motion all in favor I meeting is [Music] ajour