[Music] thank you please be seated roll call Mr Toad yes Mr bra Patel here Mr Romano here miss Pang Miss White Mr Schneider here Mr AA here Mr Vel Patel here miss Anja Patel Mr luga here you have a quorum thank you opening statement Mr to okay in accordance with the open open public meetings ACT public law 1975 c231 Sunshine Law the Edison Township Board of Education has 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 Star Ledger and the home News Tribune thank you uh next up today we have is a budget presentation of our famous 0% tax increase this is the fourth year in a row and we'll speak more about that and the presenter is our wonderful be Mr to go ahead floor is yours e the process of thank you of uh of developing our our our annual budget um so it's my uh pleasure and privilege to present this to to you for this evening and I promise this presentation will be good enough to criticize so um before I begin I would be remiss if I did not um introduce uh the nine individuals that are that play an intrical role in the development of this budget these volunteers are intimately involved they donate a tremendous amount of time to um not only make sure that the uh district is run well but um are also um a dedicated group of professionals this is a professional board that have great opinions um and and great Insight so I do thank them for all they do um we would like to acknowledge Mr Bureau Patel we have Mr Romano our vice president we have Mr Brian Rivera Board of Education member we have Mr Lugo Board of Education member Miss anena Patel uh Miss Shannon Pang as well as Mr Schneider um Mr Vel Patel thank you so much for the work that you do each and every day um it is greatly appreciated so um tonight's presentation we're just going to provide a brief overview and introduction uh to the following we're going to do um uh new programs and initiatives new Personnel to support programs uh and then Mr to is going to kind of get into the nuts and bolts of the uh piece we're going to be reviewing budget process and calendar uh revenue and Appropriations uh as well as our Capital Improvement projects which we have a ton of going on currently right now and last but not least the estimated tax implications in relationship um to our constituents right now um one of the things that I I I want to keep in mind in that when you prepare any budget whether it's a school budget or or your home budget um the the purpose of a budg it's a fin Financial representation of what you value in your home as a school district as an organization your budget speaks to exactly what you believe is in the best interest of family members students staff all participants within the organization and where you spend your money says what's important to you and I'm happy to say that each and every single item that is listed in this particular agenda says what's important to us and that is student achievement that is Staff well-being it is student safety it's being financially and fiscally responsible while growing programs and addressing our needs in certain cases it could be overcrowding it could be infrastructure could be technology all of those pieces that contribute to the success of our students one of the key pieces and one of the things that we're actually going to drive this mission in focus is our strategic plan which has been um really kind of we're we're at the tail end of it currently right now and our strategic plan will guide our vision over the course of the next five to six years it will it will determine where we put our money what we value and how we're going to accomplish that at this point in our strategic plan we've already developed our pillars we're focusing on infrastructure we're focusing on financial stability we are committed to Growing programs and Pathways for all of our students so that they have the very best education that there is to offer engagement and that is a campaign where we bring our group and partner with parents moms dads uh members of our community developing strategic Partnerships and also ensuring that our messaging is reflective of what we do as an organization and also to hear your voices as well um Wellness Wellness both student and staff Wellness was Paramount that is something that came out of all of our survey data it is something we're committed to and focused on moving forward um and we are we're really proud to not only do that from um a mental health standpoint but Wellness encompasses so many encompasses physical wellness safety Financial Wellness all of those pieces we forget about that complete umbrella to make sure that we're addressing it for all of our students as well as our staff members as well and last but not least the portrait of a graduate what we deem to be important and what we want to make sure that every student that walks out of our high schools that have continued our path whether you are in from K to 12 or 11 to 12 this is what an Edison Township Public School graduate looks like I can't tell you how happy we are that we are almost in the culmination of this process because this is what we value this is what we value as an organization and the way that we're going to demonstrate it is that we're going to post it we're going to post our goals we're going to make measurable and actionable steps to achieve those goals we're going to put dollar amounts as well to show you what we value and where we're spending our money and here's just a couple program highlights that we're that you have to look forward W to um that are not only in this budget um but also part of our strategic plan we have our preschool expansion program which is um something that we can really be proud of uh we have our Edison Success Academy we are looking to um uh en encapsulate our Intervention Program interventionist to deal with all of our students not only from an academic standpoint but from a social and emotional standpoint as well from a wellness piece and behavior guidance counselors um increased opportunities for College and Career Pathways for those students that may not have a 4-year path we want to make sure that you have a viable understanding of what there is to offer after you get out of high school and make sure that we set you on the right path that's providing internships that's providing access to programs that um you may not have or you may not look for after after your time here in Edison Township we want to make sure that we have all of those pieces ready for you some Personnel highlights here and these are just some of the the quick components right now of where we are going to invest our capital in our staff um preschool and Success Academy teachers and coordinators interventionists and coaches um school counselors we have also super proud of the Dual language program and elll program we have over um at Washington Elementary School last year um was our first year and met with huge success so as we continue to grow these programs we want to make sure that they're properly funded so the students in those settings are meeting with success and last but not least um we also want to make sure that our leadership capacity is continued to Growing we're looking at um a vice principal over at Edison High School right in this very building we're at the final stages of this process in concert with Mr Ross as well um and this is really where um we can kind of hang our hats on and the the impact that the budgeting process as well as the funding sources not only from the local tax liby but also from the state um really kind of uh where the rubber meets the road so that's my portion of the presentation and now uh the dollars and the donuts and the decimal points I will turn over to my colleague Mr to thank you thank you very much do you know how hard that is to follow this guy when public speaking like I I just not as good as him but then again he's a doctor what can I say all right so our first screen up is our Revenue screen this is the local tax levy now I'm going to talk a little bit about this screen um some more than some of the other slides if you look at line a that's called the dist District adequacy budget which is $326 million okay the local fair share which means what we raise from taxes right by property tax is 260 million and those are numbers uh that come from the doe so our general fund Levy is 235 million okay so our actual operating budget is 353 million so when you look at at 326 and our budget being proposed for fy2 is 353 we're well over adequacy however when you look at our fair share right what we're supposed to be generating in taxes is 260 million and we're at 235 and coincidentally because of this board and prior boards that were here before I was here it's remained flat how we close in the Gap well with all that extra state aid we're getting right you guys all know that this year we got $97 million in state aid which was roughly 20 million more than last year now of that state aid 20 million will be used for Capital outlay along with some additional Reserve money the remaining state aid is using to close the gap on our operating costs so this is our our Revenue our our tax levy our state aid and others so you could see last year our FY 24 budget was 346 million now we're at 353 about a $7.1 million increase just over two 2% largely that's because of that $20 million in state aid that we got more than the previous year had we not got that not gotten that money this budget doesn't look this good and we might not be at zero but we're lucky that we are okay um oh I went I got to go down uh this is Appropriations on the general fund so this this this is the the categories by which the operating budget the different items fall so you could see the first line is is you know General instruction bilingual co-curricular extracurricular you could see the the columns on the left to the columns on the right there's increases across the board um to the tune of about just over 2% this budget has a increase for a new teachers contract along with an increase in healthare uh every building principal who was a big part of building a budget right so the Elementary School principles middle school and supervisors all of their budgets have been increased so they can allocate funds for new co-curricular programs or things that they want to do in their building so there's going to be a lot of opportunity for for the students this year Capital Improvements this is what we as an Administration and the board have discussed in committee and some of the things that we're going to be doing with the extra money that budgeted from state aid along with money that we saved in previous years through capital reserve so if you look at this there's a Litany of projects I love that song thank you Dr Tu everybody um there's a variety of projects going on all throughout the district uh some of the smaller ones you're going to see bathroom renovation work uh at at different school buildings we know we've heard that the bathrooms have been old and we're taking steps right to do sets of boys and girls bathrooms to fully renovate them make them nice new modern and best of all working um we're going to do some parking lot work Paving science room Renovations uh we're doing science rooms we're going to be doing new ceiling hallway work gym painting new gym floor re Renovations exterior lighting for safety um and we have a rather big one down there there's $30 million allocated for projects that align with our longrange facilities plan and some of those projects like you you've heard because you've been part of the other meetings jmi classroom Edition Marshall classroom Edition and so on and so forth that's part of the plan that was built prior to me being here and this board the previous board the board before that we're all carrying that plan forward so a lot of exciting things going on here improvements to infrastructure improvements to buildings and Equipment which is good for the students this is the total budget by fund so you're operating your general fund budget is 353 million less your anticipated Revenue that's your state aid and other you'll see your tax levy at 23513 which is the same as I think it's the last J helped me out three years four years four years four um special Revenue fund your grants and entitlements right Ida nclb which is now called s Dr Tui yep yeah you fail my class for not paying attention thank thank you um non-public non-public funding that we get from the state for our non-public schools that are in our boundaries um and entitlement grants so that's money that's obviously it's not raised by taxes and then we have a small amount of Debt Service money that was left over from a financing that will be used transferred withdrawn from The Debt Service reserve and put into the general fund for uh operating use so if you look at the total of all our appropr Appropriations general fund special Revenue debt Ser uh special revenue and Debt Service we have a $367 million budget along with a $353 million operating budget estimated tax impact and I say estimate but I feel pretty good about it on a calendar year the current calendar year Levy is 2023 for school funding purposes the school levy was 235 million 53 531 918 that number comes from two F two different fiscal years in the school year much like 2024 so you'll see the school levy for 2023 versus what 2024 is is going down by 51875 that's due to debt service payments that we no longer have because prior boards didn't take on debt and they paid off debt and they refinance debt so there we go so valuations are up current valuations are about seven were were last year calendar year 23 about 7.3 million they're now up to about 7.4 so you're up 38 million so that's good we like valuations up everyone's value is worth more the average home is about 183,000 which is up a th000 from the previous year so if you look at the the tax rate the current tax rate from the calendar year 23 is 3.1 191 due to The Debt Service payment dropping off it'll now be 3.68 a reduction of about two cents and when you apply that to the average home price or what we think I think the average assess value is going to be about a th more your school taxes should go down just the school tax Portion by 11 bucks over 12 months so could I I think we're in a better spot than other places who theirs are going up you guys have continuing to Trend down so um I wanted to take the time I wanted to thank everybody that been a part of doing this budget uh all the board along with committees building principles supervisors the doc the central administrative team I asked for a lot more uh input from principles and supervisors which was uh maybe a change from you know before before I arrived but they Rose to the occasion and and through that we have a a really really good budget so thank [Applause] you just give a couple of minutes for Mr to who just worked very hard to present this whole thing the whole 350 million plus was presented in matter of minutes so you can imagine the impact that goes around so once they settle down we'll start but in the meantime um if we have any public comments on budget anyone from the public any board member comments on budget saying none last call any public comments on budget none because people often say that it's a $350 million budget and you know the there transparency and stuff like that so the budget was presented today Mr Toad did a wonderful job presenting it so thank you so much dry you chimed in and helped a lot make it shine so that being said we will now file a motion to approve of 2024 2025 school budget may I have a motion Mr barl motion to accept budget budget 2425 Mr Romano any second second second Mr Schneider um roll call Mr to Mr Lugo yes Mr vop Patel yes Mr Rivera yes Mr Schneider yes Miss Pang yes vice president Romano yes to approve uh president Patel yes motion carries thank you so now the 0% tax increase has been approved fourth here in a row and that being said Thank you so good evening everyone Welcome to our April Action meeting tonight we gathered to pass our annual budget which we just saw this marks once again the fourth consecutive year of Ed since school district's 0% tax increase ensuring that for four Street years this board and the previous boards have delivered a budget with 0% tax increase so the Addison residents have not seen an increase in their portion of the school taxes from four years now this achievement is a testament to our commitment to financial responsibility it has been an honor to be the part of this board and the budget process for the last four years now the increase in the state aid is one of the huge and major factors to the Addison School District over the past four years that's the reason the board it helps the Board to achieve this significant Milestone it's perhaps historic and unprecedented we extend our gratitude to our legislators particularly assemblyman Rob carbanak for his ongoing support and dedication to the School District Although our budget has increased this year and that's the fact which it does every year a significant portion of the budget is allocated to Capital and infrastructure updates these Investments are crucial in addressing the overcrowding crisis and improving our facilities as we strive to remain fiscally responsible we must also might be very mind F of the potential future reductions in the state a and the importance of maintaining prudent budgeting practices let's work together to prevent wasteful spending and control unnecessary expenditures it has been a pleasure for me in last few months or maybe couple of years to learn about Civil Air Patrol I first learned it from councilman Ajay pel who is here with us today so so thank you so much councilman for being here um and we learned about this program from several of my friends and several students and it was it is beyond excitement to bring you guys here today to present and inform people about your wonderful program so we are looking forward for your presentation and learning more about your the work that you do at JP Stevens we also have a boys Boy Scout presenting this evening The Troop number 17 so we'll hear from them as well last week I attended a Girl Scout cleanup project led by senior Patrol Troop leader ruhi Desai they worked hard to clean up the Thomas Edison Center at Meno Park the memorial Tower great job Scouts on our agenda today we also include a resolution to proceed with adding classrooms a gym and a cafeteria at John Marshall Elementary School once approved by the doe we can move forward with bidding and if all goes well we may be able to achieve this project within the year we also have plans for James medicine Intermediate School jmi which have been approved already by the doe and is ready to go out to bid discussions about this project are ongoing in the buildings and ground and finance committee our superintendent Dr Elder Ali and others have launch an ad hoc culture and climate committee and this initiative serves as a platform together ideas and brainstorm solutions to continually improve our school's climate continually moving our district forward and the first meeting for that is going to be tomorrow right Dr yeah so we look forward to that and we'll have more updates in the next board meeting next week Monday 6th of May through 10th of May is teacher and nurse appreciation week we express our heartfelt thanks to all of our teachers and staff members for the dedication to the students's growth and success their hard work determination and passion continue to shape our future generation we also thank all of our nurses for their exceptional care and support for our students's health and well-being their efforts create a safe healthy and learning environment for everyone and last but not least it was a great honor to attend the Dei showcase and the YP showcases where our students shared wonderful ideas and talents about Innovation great job to all the students who participated and thank you to all the staff members and everyone who involve in putting both of those together and I cannot stop here if I don't give credit to Heather Daniel who always helps out right this wonderful script so thank you so much Heather right that being said I will pass it on to our Rockstar for the night Dr Ali all right thank you board president Patel uh I'm going to keep my comments brief a lot of the events that um and touch points that um our board president talked about I just really Echo the sentiments I had the opportunity to uh visit wiar over at woodro Wilson compliments to uh the building level Administration as well as the supervisor Miss morasco uh what a wonderful job uh partnership with ruter civil engaged District project um really really uh demonstrates The Innovation that we have here in Edison Township um I I also had the one of the best parts of my day is when I get out on the sports field or have the opportunity to get into classrooms um but I I was at I was actually invited to the New Jersey band gala this weekend on Sunday it was at Trenton state in it was one one of the halls in one of the theaters there I forget it off that's Kendall Hall Kendall Hall absolutely beautiful um we showcased uh our wind ensembles there uh for Edison High School I think went on at like 250 2:30 my wife and I attended and then we went at uh 6 almost 7 o'clock for JP Stevens I mean what an unbelievable event not only demonstration of talent um throughout the state but but obviously as a superintendent of schools on partial to our group too and and I thought they Shine the best out of everybody so I I I do thank um all the music department at both high schools for for the invitation with that and please keep those coming it was really really a wonderful day um just a couple other updates we're in the process uh for the Board of Education of qac monitoring um you know that is really uh a process in which uh the state comes in um and looks at multiple facets of the organization and the operations in relationship to Personnel Finance governance uh curricul and instruction uh as well as overall operations too so I just wanted to give a shout out to not only my central office team but all of our administrative staff who have been working diligently to prepare these pieces it's definitely been a um uh uh a process which is a good and reflective process um and it makes us look at our at our internal operations to make sure that we're not only compliant but providing the best education um that we possibly can um I I've been out on the sports Fields over the last couple weeks I've I've seen some Edison High base football um I've seen some student cricket and Club Cricket events too which has been absolutely fantastic as well extremely power of both of our athletic directors for spearheading a lot of these major pieces that have been coming about and around um and I would be remiss if I didn't uh mention uh the opportunity for um our preschool expansion program our Lottery program um I believe uh uh closed on the or started on the 20th there doc am am I correct March 20th um Lottery was March 20th selection um currently right now we're placing students those students that are on the wait list as well too we're you know making sure that we're coordinating Transportation dealing with our partner um our private Partnerships and uh really looking forward to not only the initial phase of this process but obviously the end all be all goal in this is to make sure that it's reflective of uh the 200000 members of the universe for preschool students that we hope to capture so um that are that is my comments for this evening uh Mr Patel greatly appreciate it thank you so much that being said the moment we have been waiting for Civil Air Patrol the four floor is all yours and uh you guys can go ahead thank you good evening Board of Education thank you so much for having us here today my name is Saum sha I a Cadet lieutenant colonel in the Civil Air Patrol I'm also a senior at JP Stevens High School and today me and the cadetes behind me are honored to be here today to speak about our program and how we're able to contribute to the local community as well as develop leaders uh for the future of this nation so I'm representing along with the cadets behind me 166 Cadets who are youth members in the program as well as 40 senior members that are based at JP Stevens High School and we have been here for around the last six years and we've been able to contribute to the local community so above all else to start today's presentation we want to start by thanking the Board of Education and everyone here that's been able to help us develop our Squadron and be able to Branch out to the community so what is civil air patrol back in 1941 you the local members of the civilian community and the aviation Community wanted to help out with the World War II effort so Civil Air Patrol was created Civil Air Patrol was initially a civilian way for people that were excited to help the the Armed Forces uh help Patrol the area of the east coast and in 1948 after the war had ended Civil Air Patrol was chartered by congress with three main missions Aerospace education Cadet programs and emergency services and today we're going to be talking about those three M main missions as well as what we do on a national level Civil Air Patrol has the world's largest Fleet of single engine aircraft which we are able to use to help out whenever the Air Force calls upon us as a total partner and as we are the Air Force auxiliary we are able to help wherever we are needed so I'm going to pass it on to kadet Captain thoru to talk about Aerospace education good evening everyone I'm KET Captain San thuru I'm a junior at Ruckers Preparatory School in Somerset and I've been a a part of Civil Air Patrol for 5 years now I joined back in 2019 and one of the most engaging parts for me has always been AIS face it's the reason I joined it's the reason I'm still in it and in the bud Jackson composit Squadron we have many facets in which Cadets can express themselves via Aerospace we have Interactive Learning experiences as every month we have a meeting dedicated specifically to Aerospace which have classes ranging from Quantum Computing cyber security military technology and model rocketry and much more in these meetings cadetes can participate in many sorts of Hands-On activities or they can code systems and even build and launch model rockets my class but moving on we also have competitive programs where Cadets can participate in programs such as seller explorers and cyber Patriot which are two national competitions and from our Squadron our teams have always placed 20% in their categories in addition to this one of my favorite things to talk about is orientation flights which are very similar to Discovery flights if you've ever been on one or heard of them Cadets are allowed to go up in the air with a certified flight instructor from Civil Air Patrol and experience what flight feels like and even though they don't get Flight Training hours they do get to experience what it feels like to fly on a personal note if they are interested in getting Flight Training hours they can participate in something called a national Cadet special activity as I was able to last summer and get about 10 Flight Training hours in an actual Civil Air Patrol aircraft now talking about NCSA I'm going to pass the mic off to Major slear to talk more about CET programs all right good evening everyone my name is KET major yish B Nar I currently a junior at JP Stevens high school so first I'm going to talk a little bit about our Cadet programs so our kadet get to learn a lot of things through our kadet programs starting off with leadership and mentorship as the cadet join the cadet program they get the opportunity to go through 21 different achievements and along each achievement they get to create specific goals and how they want to improve themselves as a leader in Aerospace education and through Emergency Services which you hear from KC Captain premkumar behind me right after this slide uh furthermore they get to experience great mentorship from their Cadet leaders as well as their senior member leaders who are the adults in order to provide them with the necessary advice and feedback that they can use in order to grow arets also learn self-discipline and responsibility through the form of PT also known as physical training through this Architects get to take their PT tests where they do things such as the Pacer test push-ups sit-ups curl-ups and they also get to do a lot of other PT activities that make sure that they stay fit and make maintain a healthy lifestyle and this allows them to stay accountable for their actions and make sure that they're reaching those goals along with the other goals that they make with their KET leaders and Senior member leaders for the more radet leaders get the opportunity to improve their confidence because after all they are leading a large group of cadetes like CET M Lieutenant kha mentioned before in our Squadron 166 Cadets and throughout many other places the same goes as well furthermore arat get the opportunity to go through unique challenging opportunities to the form of of encampment which is where KET get to go to a base and learn everything that they need to know about the three cores of the Civil Air Patrol and furthermore our Cadets get to attend National Cadet special activities such as Cadet Officer school where Cadets from the grades of Cadet second lieutenant and onwards get to learn everything they need to know to complete the rest of the kette program along with the other emergency services medical Aerospace and cyber National Cadet special activities that are available to all of our Cadets and to talk more about Emergency Services I'm going to pass it on on to K Captain premkumar good evening everyone I'm K captain sarves premkumar and I'm going to talk about Civil Air Patrol's mission in emergency services the Emergency Services field is one of Civil Air Patrol's most integral parts for example Civil Air Patrol members are involved in search and rescue operations communication strategies piloting as well as drone operations Civil Air Patrol members have the opportunity to become trained in highfrequency radio operations which is integral in the field of stem as well as achieving basic certifications in first aid and emergency medicine ultimately CET members are able to go through uh further training that allows them to become well versed in emergency response in fact it's through the training into Civil Air Patrol that has encourag me to join the Edison Emergency Medical Services to further serve the Edison Community ultimately the Emergency Services part of the program is an integral part of what we do and exemplifies our volunteer spirit good evening everyone my name is conect second Lieutenant Justin mosar and in suel volunteering is one of the four core values everyone you see here today is not being paid to be here but instead paying to be here from buying uniforms to paying Squadron dues we're able to participate and help our community in many different ways one way we do this is by Aerospace education events for the public to help better their understanding of Aerospace topics I this is done solely because of the location of our Squadron since we are centrally located we are able to reach out to different events such as the New York City Veterans Day parade and re Across America and Elizabeth New Jersey but in Edison specifically we have been able to participate in the Edison Memorial Day parade for the past 3 years and we have a team responsible for volunteering their time outside of our Squadron meeting at the Meno Park Veterans Home so our Squadron has been here at JP Stevens High School and here at Edison for the past six years now and we started off at JP with around 20 Cadets in Archy body ever since then Archy body has grown to 166 cadetes making that one of the largest units in the country and out of those 166 Cadets nearly 80% of them attend Edison schools whether that be the two high schools or the four middle schools and over the years we've had various open houses for the community to come and learn about Civil Air Patrol and also enroll into the program and through these open houses we found a lot of enthusiastic response from the community and as we have more open houses as time goes on we look to have that same enthusiastic response and figure out what we can do to better serve our community here in Edison in Civil Air Patrol we strive to reflect the values taught by the armed forces and as a result of this we have many Cadets that have graduated from Edison high schools and gone off to to served or gone off to college with the intent to serve as you see on the screen there are cadets that are currently going to be graduating from the US space force or are currently at universities and gain scholarships for their Roc programs which will ultimately put them in a position to serve this nation additionally Cadets have also earned Congressional nominations for serviceis including myself and Cadet moscarillo to hopefully go on and graduate from these schools and serve this nation but not only are we contributing to how we're able to serve this nation we also contribute and develop our students to be ready for the fields in College of Academia a lot of the cadets who finish this program don't actually join the armed forces so trol helps shape them in order to be well prepared for life this can be to help them prepare for the next becoming the next generation of doctors engineers and it computer ristics that they can um become whatever they want because super upol will help shape them with decision-making ethical decision-making and goal setting mindset which they will learn once they join this program good evening everyone so you see my beautiful Carrs right like how outstanding they are but without our senior member they cannot do anything so we need our senior member in this program which we help uh carret to learn all the programs about the current program Aerospace and so on and so forth do you think like only cetes can get to fly no as a senior member we can also get to fly we can learn about the how to become a pilot how to become a es speciality so we need senior member and without senior member our program is nothing so I would like to whenever we have the open house I would like more people to join as a senior member and help these young leaders thank you so much all the um education board to help us and come here to show our presentation thank you so much and good [Applause] evening Dr Elder Elli I'll try very hard not to hello everyone my name is John Cerise I'm first liutenant squadron commander of BU Jackson F Squadron i f pardon me I first heard about civil of trol in uh May of 1992 as a junior here in Edison High School I went on to become a connect earning my mitual which me my mitual and it her wordss which are made me connect Captain two days later I transitioned to become a senior member because I aged out of the program as 21 and became a senior member moved on spent another few years here with civil air trol after that I moved on moved on with my life changed jobs Chang changed careers in the area that I lived and I came back to civil a patrol six years ago when I had a a small unit very similar to the one I grew up in come to our our school at JP Stevens while I work there it has been my honor and privilege to watch this group of young people progress and grow and become the leaders that we will have for our country in the future now excuse me I'm getting older we came here tonight for a few reasons primarily to thank you all for your support over the last six years our program could not have grown could not have become what it is today without the support and enthusiastic Community Serv uh response that has come out of this Addison Township and the surrounding communities okay my eyes Okay the second point we when it come here to you is open the door to a conversation in order for us to progress and grow and become more effective and as a unit and organization within the community we need your help and we need to I would like like to start that conversation invite you all to join us in a meeting see what it is we do on a daily basis as opposed to what we show show here tonight on the slides and start the conversation about what we can do to better serve the district and our area the last step reason we're here is to give you a small token of our gr gratitude and our appreciation to all of you because I'm bring you up this is a certificate of appreciation for your time and your support and one of our unit patches as a momento of what of our unit and what we've done and how we've grown as a result of your support thank you all very much for your time thank you thank you we're here yeah any questions you have we'll be happy to answer them thank you very much that's awesome that's really cool very nice thank you so much really proud of all of you and all of your efforts and thank you so much for being here today before you guys leave uh please see Miss Daniel Heather Daniel so she can get some information from you to put in the newsletter so again once again great job everyone and thank you so much for giving us something I have never unless someone can correct me over here did we get anything from anyone before it's the first time the board members are getting something from the community which is great so we all are very thankful about this so great job thank you yeah very much appreciate that thank you all right next is uh troop 17 uh Scout Troop so you can go and speak good evening my name is Harsh thean and I am a boy scout from Troop 17 Edison matachin and I'm a seventh grader from wood Wilson Middle School I'm currently a star Scout and I'm ranking up to reach Eagle Scout Boy Scouts is a voluntary program in which millions of boys around the nation are living through and we separate ourselves from the Modern Life and survive in nature many many people know Boy Scouts for camping however it's not all just about pitching tents and building fires but it's also about the independence and appreciate and appreciating nature and the outdoors this world is not a distant dream but a reality experienced by millions of young boys like me throughout the through the tradition of Boy Scout camping on these camping trips boys learn to navigate through dense forests to conquer towering Peaks and to cook their own meals over for crackling campfires but perhaps more importantly they learn to navigate through life's challenges to conquer their fears and to nourish their souls with the beauty of nature in the wilderness every task becomes a lesson every obstacle an opportunity for growth whether it's learning to tie a knot to read a map or to lend a helping hand to a fellow Scout in need every experience shapes character and instills values that last a lifetime but Boy Scout camping is not just about individual growth it's about the bonds formed between boys who share the same Spirit of Adventure in a in the glow of a campfire stories are shared friendships are forged and memories are made that will be cherished for the years to come through the Boy Scout motto of be prepared boys learn the importance of Readiness in all aspects of life whether it's being prepared for a certain rainstorm or being prepared to face the ch challenges of adulthood the Lessons Learned in scouting lay the foundation for success in the future in a world increasingly dominated by screens and virtual experiences Boy Scout camping stands as a beacon of real world Adventure and authentic connection it's a reminder that the greatest lessons are often learned not from textbooks or screens but from the world around us and the people beside us extreme dedication is seen when Scouts Triumph over high adventure trips these trips are higher level trips in which Scouts go through rigorous hikes and survive for a week in tough environments these trips are held annually and next year our troop troop 17 will be traveling to seabase in 20125 this is a trip which is where Scouts uh survive on a boat for a week straight and seabase is located in Florida Miami and many Scouts love to go there from all over the nation seabase is not the only one however trips like filmont are often are often visited too with many hours of practice as Scouts are expected to hike from 50 to 100 miles in a week's time Northern Tier is another high adventure trip in which Scouts survive in a mountainous terrain and where they travel with a guide for a week and and try to catch food Scouts also commonly go on backpacking trips this is a singular night trip where Scouts hike around 10 miles and then come back home activities like swimming and other skills like first aid will always stay with the Scout for their entire lifetime our troop loves to host whitewater rafting trips in which a scout travels on a raft with several fellow Scouts on a high class Rapids which may end up giving Air Time Scouts also spend a week every year in something called Summer Camps Scouts they cook food for a week and they take part in many activities and gain Mar badges Scouts contribute a lot to the community as we participate in in community services for hours and Scouts can have almost 100 plus hours in pure work just for the community Earth Day is a national day and Scouts take part in it and clean up their communities in places that require cleanup Scouts upon achieving the rank of Eagle are required to take part in Eagle projects which is often done to provide quality life to people in our community it is as a it is a project for the benefit of the people and it increases the quality of life for the people scouting also has merit badges these are advancements in which Scouts get to research and learn about different fields like law culture science engineering Sports economy personal management and many more there are more than 130 merit badges that can be obtained in the adventure of scouting each earned to represent a Scout's determination and dedication Scouts are all allowed to work together and continue their lifelong Journeys Scouts like us spend many hours helping the community and ultimately the entire nation as a whole Scout Masters which are adults that have gone through their own experiences help the newer Scouts and show them the true meaning of what being a scout is scouting is to find good in every boy and to develop it while working on the citizenship and Community merit badge I I got a chance to interview Mr be Patel and he invited me to speak out loud about scouting to our community thank you Mr B patal for giving me the chance to speak thank you thank you for being here and educating everyone about the Scout great job right next up is our Edison High School secretary Mr viik upadhi uh good good evening Board of Education members and public my name is V gup I'm the secretary of Edison High School student council and today's representative for this meeting our boys volleyball team recently beat St Joe who are 11th in the state and cross town Rivals JP Stevens their current record of 13 and four is the best start in programs history we are incredibly proud of them and hope they will continue succeeding last week was a class of 2026 spirit week Monday was monochromatic Monday Tuesday was tropical Tuesday Wednesday was we wore pink Wednesday Thursday was tiye Thursday and Friday was friend group Friday we hope this Spirit Week continues to Foster school spirit at Edison High student council also had a battle of the class event which consisted of an airplane contest and egg hunt at which the Juniors won Edison High School rotary also had their annual TR trivia night on the 24th and UNICEF held their annual BL blood drive today thank you thank you uh next is JP Stevens corresponding secretary Miss Reena Robinson good evening everyone my name is Raina Robinson and I'm the corresponding secretary from JP Stevens High School since the last Board of Education meeting our student body has partaken in many events through their co-curricular activities recently our music department featuring band choir and Orchestra flew to Orlando for a trip to Universal Studios the bottle United Nations Club recently attended the Cornell M conference and won the best large delegation award furthermore The Odyssey of the Mind competition Odyssey of the Mind team had participated in their states competition and some of our teams have advanced to Worlds we have also taken many strides to provote inclusivity within our school as part of this initiative our Dei team our diversity equity and inclusion team attended the conference at wooder Wilson Middle School as previously mentioned and giving they gave presentations to students from all four middle schools additionally our theater team performed the musical A Chorus Line last weekend pulling off a wonderful performance and having a great turnout in addition to these events the spring sports are in full swing with our boys volleyball team doing great this season with the JV team winning the Bloomfield Invitational Tournament and remaining undefeated until recently our boys tennis team won their last game against Oldbridge with a grand slam of 5 to0 in Spring Track we had a strong start by defeating Colonia 69 to 53 and have continued with that fighting Spirit moving on to student council matters we have just concluded our student council elections for next year and we have also hosted our new event JP Stevens Family Feud which was also held at wooder Wilson Middle School on April 26th we recently had the spring spring prep rally and in the coming weeks we are preparing for our botc event that is near the end of the school year we are also continuing our botc mini games during lunch periods to help us Foster school spirit in the last one we had played a game of seven up or heads up where each grade had a team which had to find the quickest words possible overall JP has been conducting many events and it hope the board has gained a good perception of JP's current affairs thank you for your time thank you so much next is um public comments on resolutions ni thank you thank you I just would like to say Kudos and I'm I'm very proud of the young people who came up and I I love that that you you know your sports and everybody's things to think that our kids are just involved in just the phone and stuff but you make me proud when you come up and we have our people that are air uh in air traffic you know cuz all those things we need pilots and stuff they say we have they don't have any pilot syst Vietnam War so we need people to get into that area and I'm very you know just very very pleased with them I myself was a girl scout okay so I know and the traveling around and stuff but I sleep in the cabin not in the tent you guys can have that at all but I think it's very good and I think you learn a lot of good morals and I think you do a lot of great stuff for the community and also I like the fact that these young men and women go out to the a veterans place and make the veterans feel important because they need us to support them because they supported us when we needed it thank you thank you anyone else Mr shei Jo I forgot to say your name and address oh I'm sorry Jerry Edison uh I just have a question for the uh Finance resolution item number four um there are 11 items that's being granted to uh Academy construction if you add the total dollar amount it's about $2.4 million $2.5 million so that's a lot of money and these are summer projects why we're not going out to bid and uh you know give this to one company uh we have four Architects that can write specs we have four right now on record they can write our specs this is you can't you can't start any of this job until uh June 19th anyway we have time so I would urge the board to table this and uh try to bid it and also I have a question about uh item number five and also part of the the uh resolution about um uh GMI I thought the multi-purpose room renovation was part of the jmi uh Expansion Project Uh current me if I'm wrong um so why it's here and also if jmi is being renovated there will be constructions trucks coming onto the the property and where are we building this tur field which is number five so if you go to JP Stevens the parking lot is like a crap so I asked multiple times to get it paved the answer is constructions going on but if a jmi construction is going on unless the truck is coming from the back of the the mckeny street where are we building this artificial turf and uh again this is a this is the a co-op no no bidding $200,000 okay number seven um the um video War for the uh um you know uh for the Academy Edison Success Academy if I remember correctly our staff built the video war in JP Stevens in the cafeteria uh I'm pretty sure it's less than $153,000 so can we consider that to have our own staff do like what we did in JP Stevens it's a lot of money and also item number nine the uh renovation of the Success Academy half million doll for roof $1 million for renovation I understand that that you know it's going to the same Academy construction so if you add the two items together from the number four and number nine it's $4 million $4 million go into one company okay I know there are companies that you like to work with but $4 million go into them without bid it's a little bit too extreme to me um I know you need to get the success uh um Academy done I can understand you can give them an interior construction but Academy construction is not roofer they're not a roofing company so if you give them the roof they're going to Outsource it anyway so why do we work direct why don't we work directly with our roofers that we have worked in the past several years we have worked with multiple roof roofers and I don't know what is the total square footage of this roof for half million dollars just to give you guys some background information it should be somewhere around 40 35 to $40 per square foot so this is for your calculation and number 12 uh for custodian supply of contract of 400 you know half million dollars so what is this that we are getting you know from uh this uh you know uh Spruce industry do we have a list of these items that that you know it's costing half million dollars right now so those are my uh my questions thank you Mr shei so Dr elderi I would U like to from what Mr shei pointed out jmi so I know we are contemplating And discussing within the board so can you explain about um jmi portion of this from mr's question by the way sorry you have a meeting next week you can you can discuss it and come back again next week that one's I mean the the the turf the turf is for the courtyard correct Mr to ACC yes yes I'm not sure the the parking lot piece but the turf is for the courtyard in relationship to that okay thank you rep General repairs of the parking but um we can re revisit anything that is um with the jmi anything that is included as a part of the plan that we are going to review and potentially if it passes to make sure there are no overlaps of anything so let's review that uh for it does we need to take a look at that those plans for the jmi sure this is the first time I'm seeing that too um unless you want to answer any other questions I'm going to move on to next p anyone else public comments for resolution saying none motion to add public comments for resolution motion second all in favor I right uh next we will do a motion to approve Personnel report motion to approve second right roll call Mr do one second Mr Lugo yes Mr Vel Patel yes Mr a yes Mr Schneider yes Miss White I'm sorry I forgot she's absent hope feeling better Miss Pang yes Vice president Romano yes president Patel yes motion carries thank you next is motion to approve Administration curriculum instruction people Services reports I make a motion Mr Romano second second Mr Vishal Patel roll call Mr do okay Mr Lugo yes Mr visha Patel yes Mr a Mr Schneider yes Miss Pang yes vice president Romano yes president Patel yes motion carries okay now before we go to the finance reports thank you Mr shei for the comments um from the finance reports I am putting a motion to table section 4 5c award for a Cooperative purchasing contract to academic construction and table nine Cooperative purchasing contract to academic construction for roof replacement and interior construction table section 4 and section 9 of 5c from the finance report um I need a second I second that Mr V but a second uh anyone has any question any board member about this yeah I have a few actually Jerry you're missed I'll tell you that you're very thorough in the stuff that you look at so I appreciate you bringing that up um trying to get back to this and it's freezing so just give me a minute me and Chris were talking about some things yeah I mean I mean I want to say thank you to we I mean I missed it too but the number looks too big not to go for bit so we should look at it before we vote on it so thank you I'm sorry it's freezing so anyone has any concerns about the table this is tabling means we are not voting on that item today I wanted to ask question I know we used the academy last year and I agree with jery we used them for the bathrooms and I believe they did a PR pretty decent job so you agreeing with Jerry or you're saying they did a decent job what speak it's my time okay go ahead um so thank you for bringing that up so I do agree there's a lot of work being offered to this particular company so my first question is do they have the theand power or the capacity to even do this yes yes do they have like the other thing I agree too I think they did we all agree they did a pretty good job with the bathrooms and stuff like that do they have the C capabilities of even doing Roofing that's actually a very good point yeah yeah so they're qualified to do all this work yeah because I know we did uh a Cooperative purchase agreement with them last year when we did the bathrooms and I know we use that process a lot to get things done my main question is if we put a pause on this is this going to hinder us to be ready in September well there could be the potential for that yes right so anytime you delay anything in relationship to construction right in relationship to the bathroom summer projects things along those lines the Success Academy has a start date of September 1st so that you mean it could delay it correct but don't don't we have a finance meeting like tomorrow right so we don't have a finance meeting V uh but uh we have a board meeting next Tuesday so when we are tbling now we are tbling this in this meeting we cannot predict what's going to happen in the future but at least today my position is to table this agenda uh this number four and number nine because the amount ount total of amount for this one company is something that I'm personally not comfortable with and you seconded the motion yeah I let's see who else I want to save money yes so for this this amount for one company I'm not comfortable with that so we are tbling this motion is to table four and N so we'll just want to check with the attorney we'll motion the four and n and then we'll do a roll call for um for the rest of that right no four and nine right okay so Ro roll call Mr to so real real quick on the to be clear on the contract portion 5c I have a motion to table item 49 is that accurate Mr Patel yes I'm I'm putting a motion to table four and N unless someone else any has any I'm saying five too right about about the GMI thing cuz you know why are doing that separate motions or just to be safe you should make a separate motion that's okay so let me put four and n and then you can go ahead and do five if you would like to propose it motion so this motion is to table four and N Out of Section 5 C fin us okay this keeps freezing I can't read it where where am I going just keeps freezing there so there's four if you scroll there's nine all right thank you roll call Mr to yes we are doing a roll call now Mr Lugo hold on his was frozen too sorry four just four and nine you said four and nine four and N for four n so it's just Academy Construction I believe the issue is the cost the amount of money I'm St yes the rooll call has started so Mr lugu we we only tabling 4 and N this motion is to table four and N we are not talking about anything else in finance right oh no no I know I understand that but we going to have an answer for these next Tuesday correct we intend to because I don't want to take CH the way table works is an attorney can chin is we are not voting on it tonight just for this board meeting we are not voting on number four and number nine that means table it'll be out of the agenda sir sir you had a chance to com will there be another chance to comment okay so Chris if we vote if we vote Yes on tabling it will not be a part of agenda today now we can work as a board to move forward with it after today whether we do bid or whether we go with this company whether we go with same amounts or whatsoever today we need time to digest this or look forward to it or anything else we do but at least for today we are not voting on it worst case we can still approve it next Tuesday right that's always a possibility um yes yes Mr Vel Patel yes Mr a yes Mr Snider yes I'll vote Yes next week too Miss Bang Yes vice president Romano no president Patel yes motion carries table four and nine so so I want to put a motion to table 5c as well I mean we are doing the GMA as a whole while we are doing the you know Turf as a side project do I have a second it's not fair second Mr Vishal pel Mrs Pang okay five so have a motion on the floor by Mr visha Patel second by Miss Pang table item 5 C5 yes roll call Mr to yes Mr Lugo yes Mr visha Patel yes Mr a and I'm sorry because this keeps freezing why are we tbling number five so sir yes sir sor Sor just keeps freezing on me okay we v a roll call so Brad he said yes yes yes okay next noted Mr Schneider I'm a yes next week and I I I suppose I count what's to pass this it's four votes or five five what your vote is yes right oh I mean who who is next I I mean sure yes I think it's going to be four you don't know it's four right majority is four yeah yes and yes yes Miss Pang yes vice president Romano no president pel yes motion carries we will now for motion to approve all the finance reports motion motion Mr V put do you have a second I'll second it roll call Mr to Mr Lugo yes Mr visha Patel yes Mr Rivera yes Mr Schneider yes Miss Pang yes vice president Romano yes president Patel yes motion carries thank you Mr to next up is committee reports we'll start with U building and grounds committee report our chair is uh Mr duck Sneider okay um buildings and grounds uh committee met on April 23rd it was myself B Patel Joe Romano and anena Patel we met at the board office and we talked about a bunch of Summer Renovations which may or may not get happen I hope it happens I'm a yes vote on Tuesday to make him happen but everything that we just tabled was discussed in that first part of the meeting um um the next thing we talked about was some change orders and finally most importantly there's three projects that we're most excited about this is um continuing our phase one report um phase one project from a couple of years ago which are our our board and previous boards have worked hard on uh J jmi James Madison intermediate and John Marshall are in dire need of some help so we're trying to figure out some uh financing mechanisms and making sure they're already down at the division of uh the Department of Education and we also talked about Edison High School um personally I would really love to see this building get um just as much love as all of the other buildings are getting if you recall in our building projects um Edison High was part of phase two but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't start getting that ready now so we need to move that forward by starting the planning I know that last year's board worked hard on some designs with the archit protect and we need to dig into those continue those discussions and that's going to be something we're working very hard on this year so we have three main projects we're working on amongst all these other Renovations and maintenance uh things that we need to work on thank you thank you Mr Schneider next is transportation and vehicle recirculation planning committee Mr Lugo you are the chair and you can read the report thank you thank you very much uh the transportation committee we met uh uh on Monday April 15th and it was uh myself uh president bough Patel board member Vel Patel and board member Virginia White we started our meeting with a just a general overview of the uh the current state of the department and currently we're looking at the department um having uh 46 drivers and uh 16 AIDS and the department is currently looking at uh next year's routes and contracts and evaluating what we could uh take back and what we could approve upon on and we're going to be looking at bids for next year that'll go out in May in addition you know also the department is working with Dr tu's team and working on uh supporting the uh any issues with the extended school year the department is also continuing to add students for subscriptions as seats become available which is first come first serve and um there are some challenges that were recognized and are being worked through uh one of them being noted in a meeting of only 30 minutes in between in between the tiers the busing tier and that uh creates a challenge of going back and forth subscription busing was addressed and the the department will continue to promote the use of the parent help desk for information and that's going to be imperative moving forward for obtaining any information that parents may need for transportation and and other board related things uh the applications for busting will open on May 1st 2024 and it'll be open through June 30th 202 24 and the payments will be collected prior to placing the students on the bus so the students will not get a bus pass if payment is not yet received you know prior to these dates um the fees will remain unchanged and that was also discussed and the district will re revisit and review the impact of the street index and what that has had on subscription busing the uh stop finder and the applications and the camera status were also discussed and uh these are only used that are on buses that are district own um not any vehicles that have subcontracted out at the time and then for the cameras are waiting on two or more quotes uh prior to the approval in installation of these cameras on our buses and last but not least uh there was an update for the transportation for preschool and the transportation department is currently working with Dr Tui to secure the trans ation needs for those students who were selected through the lottery for the preschool program and that's all I have thank you Mr logo that was our first Transportation committee meeting this year very good one yesk you thank you um the next one is curriculum technology and student achievement I'm the chair uh we had our meeting on April 17th uh at fir in Center uh Dr Mr Rick Cohan presented U new courses the committee discuss disc two new course proposals Esports and Spanish communication and culture one and including the course summaries and objectives and rationale behind those courses The Next Step will be for the administration team to plan out the details and Logistics of the courses for the board approval in the near future um Mr Rick Coan and Heather also presented Varsity tutor usage report how it's being used and it's pretty impressive so thank you for speing that last year um the usage report for the demand platform uh a free platform provided to entire District without any cost it's um 247 chat tutoring for all the students to provide enrichment courses help and review essay feedback self-study offerings the usage reports reflected very good use among middle school students across the four middle schools comprehensive promotional efforts across all Aid levels will be provided to the kickoff for the school next year so thank you the next is U Township le as in committee report Mrs White is not here president Patel Miss White asked me to read her report if you don't mind absolutely go ahead okay thank you uh Township Lees on committee meeting was uh held on Tuesday April 16th Virginia White is the chairwoman anena Patel Brian Rivera and myself were in attendance uh also in attendance were uh mayor's Chief of Staff Bob deal uh council is on chair John pointer Dr alderi Dr hus drille Pac cassan Heather Daniel and also uh Fire Chief and from the office of emergency management Andy to councilman AJ patile and um we began our meeting with Chief to um and Pakistan they reported on the donation of bleed kits for our schools all of the schools now have a bleed kit through the office of emergency management um Mr cassan stated that our School nurses and security would would receive stopped the bleed training the next day which was April 17th uh at that time it was right after the earthquake which was interesting for everybody I'm sure and um Chief to stated that the earthquake impacted only one school and that happened to be wlaw harridge so that's still in Edison so that school had one shattered window all of our schools seemed to be okay uh Chief of Staff Bob deal provided updat seven new police officers were to be sworn in April 17th at 11:00 a.m. um um they um are increasing police presence and a substation is set up on Oak Tree Road due to burglaries in the area he also announced the celebration of Eid scheduled for April 20 20th from 3:30 to 7:45 that was a very well attended event in addition JP Stevens graduate Pala V Sharma published a book entitled Edison it's a fictional account of Asian Indians coming to the north end of town 40 years ago it's realistic fiction and the book launch is scheduled for June 4th at the Edison Tower the cricket pitches um will be main by maintained by the board of education but the rolling will be done by the township Dr aldarelli clarified that maintaining means picking up trash cutting grass um anything of normal scope of what our grounds uh would normally be um maintained and lastly um Mrs White asked for the status of the master plan Mr deal stated that the next meeting is potentially set for May 21st the mayor's office will have an update on the status a revision was presented in March with modifications based on feedback to the planning board and councilman pointer stated that a sustainable Edison update is forthcoming he asked a question regarding the demographic study by the Board of Education Dr Al aldarelli shared that the demographer presented trends at the last board ofed meeting the South End appears to have a future increase in enrollment several North End schools appear to be declining the administrative team is confirming that the plan takes future development into account out um Dr aldarelli also updated the committee on the status of the strategic planning committee and its Five Pillars the public relations Communications coordinator Heather Daniel apprised the committee of implementing communication systems updating the website and future plans for continued commitment to community engagement Dr hus and Dr Tui updated their departments Dr Tui gave us a status of the preschool expansion which we heard about Pac Hassan shared the Police Unity Tour has been rescheduled new date is forthcoming he also announced the fire department Junior Academy is in the process to be started um Mrs White also informed the committee that The Pedestrian activated crossing signs are in place at Old Post Road in Boulevard of the Eagles um that's a big one so that that would be the headline here so we have uh pedestrian activated crossing signs at Old Post Road in Boulevard of the Eagles that was that was something that we've been talking about in these meetings for quite a while and um Mrs white reminded the committee that registration for subscription busing begins May 1st and ends June 30th and the next meeting is scheduled for May 21st thank you submitted by Miss White thank you next is um Finance audit and oversight committee the committee met on April 23rd in attendance for myself Mr Lugo vice president romano and Mr Schneider we discuss the change orders TJ capad JP generator and JP classroom from Bismark uh Builders we discuss a shared service agreement I want to highlight something here the way my understanding about shared service agreement is and this is just my understanding our ba Mr to is going to research further into it reach out to the bond Council and get some more information and answers but if Township passes the shared service agreement or enters into a shared service agreement with the board of head certain facilities of the school district such as a gym such as an auditorium can be utilized the funding can be a part of the bond that Township does and School District makes payments over several number of years so the way I personally look at it is right now we have a good amount of money in capital in cash and we have some ability to finance but we have a huge need to upgrade our schools jmi John Marshall John Adams Middle School and there is EHS also on the table in in the agenda that we saw earlier to upgrade all the schools yes people say that we got a huge amount of state aid that is true it's a good amount of state aid it is still not enough to get every single facility in addic upgraded if we get more money if more funding is available we can upgrade every single facility at least put for plans to upgrade what happens with this agreement is that dollar amount would be paid over time in for several number of years and our payments would go significantly down so it's a helpful thing so this is the first time we brought up that in the finance committee and we have asked Mr to I have asked Mr to to work with the bond Council and give more information to the committee and to the board as a whole so the board can look at share service agreement of course it will need Council to pass a res resolution potentially and you know work with the township but at the same time from if we see the finances of board of head it seems to be a beneficial um thing to do in my opinion um the next thing we discussed is contracts and renewal we reviewed the contracts and the committee decided to go for bidding for Paving for boiler and committee decided to put on the agenda for substitute staing the ESS uh procurement um there was architect RFP done there was an internal Evolution completed by our be Mr to and his team and this will be reviewed in the committee in month of May um there was attorney proposal received for certain work that Dr toi and his team needs um that was run by Dr aler Ali and the committee reviewed that uh Health broker and risk manager rfps are out there which is not the results are still coming in it's due May one so we will have those in the future meetings there was a discussion on the software application right spot does something similar to what spotfinder does there are multiple applications the committee discussed that depending on how many parents are usage it the um usage is not very clear to the committee and we don't have accurate data at this point of the parent usage so this I to look forward in the future meetings that was Finance next is my favorite Communications community relations uh committee and this was one of the best meetings we had this year so far the committee met on April 16th at Ed center from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. right before the Dei showcase so it was all um wonderful events lined up back to back um in attendance where myself Mr Lugo Miss anjuna Patel Mrs White uh Heather Daniel Dr Ali and Dr toi with all the PTO leaders and um each School were asked to send up to four PTO representatives from the school and in attendance there were over 35 PTO Representatives so uh Miss Heather Daniel director of communication and policy welcome the attendees introduce herself she provided a brief overview of community engagement and our strategic planning process that is outlining the district's vision and goals um I was introduced to the committee I introduced my fellow committee members uh to the uh to the committee to the PTO leaders um Miss Heather Daniel provided communication update about the parent reference guide which the PTO found it very helpful resource a recent webinar was highlighted sharing key takeaways from and insights with the attendees um the PTO were introduced to the administration team and the members of the committee and U the committee acknowledged all their efforts and hard work in the collaboration with the community um communication Department updates were provided District meeting was scheduled for February 21 for the platform for ongoing discussions and Community involvement there was Dr Al Al's meeting with the PTO leaders earlier results from the recent website survey were presented offering feedback and suggestions for improvement update on the district's website app which is in progress and very soon you will see in couple of months the whole new website up and running will sure we'll put up a show for that we'll try to try for that so showcasing the latest features and the enhancement for better user experience uh we shared Dr eldar's famous districtwide newsleter called The Insider uh with the PTO leaders and they were thrilled to hear about that some of them and see in that and uh the best part about the meeting was Miss Heather Daniel had an interactive session with the PTO leaders about the thought exchange and the leaders were truly overwhelmed and very happy about how the process works and the plan for the board is to rule out the thought Exchange in different different areas going forward one step at a time but really looking forward the for the powerful tool to receive the input and discuss and work on work towards that um next Communications meeting was internal meeting on April 17th in attendance were myself Mr Lugo missa Patel Mrs White Dr Aly Miss hether Daniel Dr toi and Ral Parker the committee discussed Improvement on help desk operations and efficiency identified key areas for enhancing the user support and response times strategic planning was discussed and reviewed the engagement pillar which is a part of the communications committee discuss strategies to increase stakeholder participation and satisfaction committee discussed chain of command and protocols which will be rolled out in couple of months it was there was proposed adjustments to streamline communication channels and improve Clarity across the district for several points of contact I'll give you an example for that and it's coming very soon and I will be in a position to send tell parents here when they have a problem with the transportation a board of member is not the right place to reach when they have a problem with the transportation they go to the transportation department open help des tiate and follow the process so likewise when someone says okay they don't teach anything in schools first of all I find the statement wrong I think kids learn wonderful things in school right so again Board of f member at least I can speak for myself is not the right place to preach hey you know what they don't teach anything in schools well no what are you talking about right so that's not true so there are so many such gaps and things like that where you know things are being miscommunicated so there is a chain of command um and protocols and how who should reach out when so like how we did the reference guide we intend the committee plans to intend to put together a chain of command to help parents out to point them to the right direction so on when they click something when they have a question and maybe M Daniel is working on making something more interactive they will know they understand learn from the website itself or that paper itself who is the right person to reach out to and what is the chain of command so the committee intends to work on that and Implement that in in the future uh potential future webinars were discussed and planned for July back to school Basics webinar was planned for end of August and a transportation webinar was planned for um after the school year starts in September uh committee discussed feedback from PTO um Communications meeting an agreement to on the need to incorporate suggestions for ongoing Improvement in several areas that was all for the committee reports I will now make it open for board member comments Mr Mr V pel so I have a question on the curriculum committee I mean sometime last year I know we were discussing offering some AP classes to the Freshman uh where do we stand on that so AP classes for freshman I know Mr Kohan was exploring some classes that can be offered to the [Music] Freshman I'm sorry I I I heard you so he said AP Computer Science principles that's the new offering let's do this uh how about uh so I know we approved some AP courses so you can email um the curriculum committee and you can email myself Dr and Vish about all those AP courses and certainly feel free to ask questions at point and we can discuss that thank you thank no problem uh next board member Mr Lugo go yeah thank thank you yeah I just want to make a a comment to all the young people that were here earlier from the Civil Air Patrol and uh the scouts I'm sorry to say that they had left but I I definitely wanted to condone their efforts and participating in such organizations I'm a big fan those two organizations and stand Head and Shoulders above the when it comes to teaching young people leadership and um very applaudable for them um and I hope they stick with it great great programs um also too um I I do owe uh the public an apology um a couple of Finance meetings ago um two two meetings ago I was not able to attend and thank you for for stepping in and um on on my behalf um so I would like to just uh you know just like to just uh just you know make a um little reminder to the board you know especially the chairs um to to to kindly be respectful of uh of work schedules because I definitely want to be able to be a full participant but um you know hopefully we just keep uh work schedules um in mind um when planning you know future meetings um and and thirdly um I know I as part of a food committee um people were reaching out to me um um about the uh about the flyer which it appears uh with with Edison Township Public Schools On Top um do we have anything um any um further knowledge about that uh because it because it does seem like it was endorsed by Edison Public Schools but being on the Fon committee I didn't really know much about that so yeah Dr yeah you know I I did see a copy of that flyer I can tell you that it was not submitted or approved by myself was not disseminated in any way by a school official I'm not sure how it kind of wound up in that capacity it wasn't distributed to parents in any way was notification um from a partnership uh in relationship to uh masio and a local business um that correspondence only went to building principles but I think the flyer that you're referencing is not the one that I approved nor the one that went to principles no thank you Dr arer thank you thank you anyone else for board member comments I do oh miss p yeah just um we had a special at committee meeting recently and I heard a great a lot of great things about our prek program just want to say great job Dr Tu and your team I do have a follow-up question from the parents um so I heard that some of the kids in North Edison was assigned to South EMB boy schools and some of the South Edison kids are going to attending North bronswick schools uh I'm sure there's a reason for this but I just want to you know maybe you could use this opportunity to explain to the parents thank you you take this one down oh no no you got it that you sure 100 sit back down I'm all good I'm all good you're going to say it better than me Miss Miss Pang both of those programs are are Head Start programs we learned through this process that um the state and the federal government really want us to participate with Head Starts we knew that going in but because there's no Head Start programs within the boundaries of medison we thought we were good um digging into a little bit more deeply realize that it really impacts our application and helps us move forward with providing prek to all of the students we placed if we participate with those uh with those two programs additionally a number of the students that were identified for those programs um because in some cases it does require income eligibility would not have been granted a seat otherwise there would be they would have been three-year-olds tier three um non-income eligible so we not only kind of took steps towards providing the program to more students within Edison itself but also um provided some seats for some students who otherwise wouldn't have got it it's also not uncommon um both of those locations have uh classrooms from other school districts our children won't be sharing those classrooms but you know seille South River sent to the south emboy location so um improves our chances from a grant perspective and provides uh seats where otherwise there would have been none so thank you for bring that up thank you thank you any other board members I do yes Mr so I want to start off positive and saying uh I want to thank our teachers and our School nurses um for all the hard work you you you do for all of our our youngsters in our district I know my kid visits the school nurse at least once a week for some reason I I don't know why but he's there all the time so I know he has a great relationship with her um but besides the teachers and and and the nurses I do want to recognize our our our leadership team tomorrow is national principal day so you know we do have a lot of leaders out there that are working for for children every day and they're guiding their buildings they're directing um the ship forward so I do want to recognize them I also want to say thank you to the Civil Air Patrol and the Boy Scouts you know it takes a lot for kids to come out and publicly speak um so I I want to thank them um for their hard work even as an adults it's difficult to to to communicate at times and I understand that so kudos to our kids and the last thing I just want to pick you back on um some of the concerns Chris had because I also received um some stuff from parents it should say and actually it's it's actually posted in the building I'm not sure if you're aware of it but the the picture that I received was it was posted and I could understand why you you did not approve that and why you have a concern because what's posted on that flyer is probably not appropriate now that's that's the first I'm hearing of it so if you wouldn't mind we could maybe talk offline and okay but I'm just curious where this all stemmed how there was this partnership and if you could provide that information for us we would appreciate it yeah yeah I could follow them thank you thank you any other board members board president yes Mr schn uh we talked a little bit about buildings and um uh you know it sounds like board president you're going to want to put forward some resolutions sooner than later regarding some projects um I just want to remind this board that we should really be working not just about what we can do today because we have some money but we don't have all the money that we need to do all the projects that we know the district needs so I think that doesn't mean we shouldn't move forward with planning right so for example you know think about Edison High the designs were are here do we have the money right now no but we should be talking about it and we should be figuring out how we could potentially finance things and the simple answer might be we can't do it because we can't do it all we can't offer 0% to the taxpayers and then build as much as we want but the priorities exist we set the framework with that phase one in in my Tally I think we have jmi John Marshall and some work at jams we need to get done to complete phase one right and then immediately phase two is the Edison High School so between the last couple of years I think we can do it um certainly it's not going to be easy financially so we have to talk about that I would expect the finance committee to dig into the different options so um again just challenging my fellow board members to try to move this along because every time we table things in delay it's not good for us we have to move forward thank you thank you Mr Schneider so I'll will answer to that so I don't know if I we have enough time now in next week to bring things to the finance committee right plus construction of moving forward with the construction of these projects I think um I cannot promise anything but based on the timelines and Dr Al and his team are super busy the last two months of the SCH school year so we'll need to have a board discussion about this at some point uh probably a close session discussion uh we some some of the items can be nailed down before that such as information I have sent every board member here and if I missed out someone I can resend it information on financing which Mr to has provided on how the funding looks like so if any board members has not got my email about the funding mechanism let me know and I will I'll be happy to resend that that's for the funding for the schools that document specifically shows comp comp Ison of John Marshall and jmi phase one you're right Mr Schneider includes John Marshall jmi and John Adams which we have not touched yet jmi is ready to go for bid now it's already doe approved John Marshall we approved today now it will go for doe approval once doe approves that we'll be in we'll have an ability to bid certainly before we go out for bid there has to be money either in the bank account or on an escrow account or some kind of funding mechanism so obviously we'll not be able to pass a resolution without understanding the funding mechanism so of course we as a board we have every board member has to understand the funding mechanism I work with Dr Al Ali and his team to see how we can best deliver that so the board members understand that but uh I would personally speak for jmi school is like ready to go for bid so it's sitting out there not getting on bid So the faster the the board approves is going for bid from what I understand for EHS is correct me Mr to if I'm wrong but some design was remaining and we are we asked the architect to move forward with the design correct yeah I think the uh architect which is SSP uh is just about finished with the schematics so those are formal designs that go down to do for approval um I know there have uh I think maybe one more meeting or two more meetings to follow up with Mr Ross and his staff along with Mr cbus Dr Alder Ali and and and the other stakeholders involved from the building perspective thank you so much so the design for EHS is in progress and the meeting supposed to be happening with finalization of the design so that's that's going on right what is on the table right now ready to go for bid is jmi it's like ready John Marshall is going for doe approval the doe May approve very likely it may approve they may reject it something else could happen we don't know yet at this point the intent was to send John Marshall for approval so when when it comes back we look at the money how we allocate in what when move forward with John Marshall when EHS design comes back the board will have to start working on that and make a decision sooner or later about EHS what we want to do with that but one thing that can go right now is jmi do we have money cash available for jmi 100% yes we have money for that if the board decides to vote upon it we are ready to do groundbreaking for jmi very soon so in next few days I look look forward to you know reaching out to the board members and and I think I encourage everyone the financing questions as well so reach out to Mr Toad and you know uh any financing mechanism any questions it's always going to be one second Mr uh it's always going to be helpful for the board members to know how the funding is going to happen um and how the future fundings can be allocated so certainly those are all good questions to ask Mr to so let's U you know give all the information out which we need to move forward with it than you uh Mr Romano I believe yeah Mr yeah thank you for the email I appreciate that but while we have Mr to here can you explain these four options do you have the document in front of you uh yeah I can pull that up hang on a sec yeah you you read my mind I mean I got the email but I didn't understand it in an app so so so you don't I mean if you're okay we can probably take it in a Caucus meeting and discuss it cuz I think all of us need to understand those options um we will have to move forward before the Caucus meeting discuss something else so you may want to hear Mr to out and if certainly we can connect with him later on if there is if you need Ste any more information sounds good yeah thank you do we have money for jmi total dollar amount for J so excuse me uh yes you do uh you just approv the budget right so uh the 2025 budget's been approved hypothetically uh that could be opened you know sometime during May at earliest for obviously next year spending so I believe jmi and I don't have the figure in front of me let's say it's 20 to $21 million right you got 30 allocated so you could do that project where it gets tricky is then you got to go to Marshall and if you want to do Marshall in the same time frame you're going to need some additional funding so so let me just cuz you know I'm just a dumb truck driver dear in headlines we we have money for John Marshall but we had nothing for uh no but we have money for jmi but we don't have any money for John Marshall and then we don't have any money for Edison High but we got zero tax increase and it's j Stevens do we have money for JP Stevens which Pro uh which Pro project Mr Romano I don't know how many projects are going on to JB stepen yeah everything that's ongoing has uh so like the classroom Edition Auditorium anything that's been awarded the Project's been fully encumbered and the revenue has that money that money's there correct yes okay that money is in the budget or is that money that we're going to pay every every year money on that budget right so the money is in the capital projects budget so like JP classroom edition if if you guys recall we took approximately I think a $32 million loan so obviously you close on a loan much like a mortgage right and uh we we mortgaged we mortgaged that for JP Stevens we took uh then we have money for jmi now wait a minute I'm asking a question now the floor is on my hand I would agree yes you know the floor you know the floor goad you have money for JP Stevens no wait a minute you don't have money for JB statement you got a loan on that now jmi you don't need a loan we have the money for that the budget pass so I'm just asking correct yes that's accurate the people the public the public the people that are here the people that are on sitting at home on their couch yeah sure yes uh Mr R uh should the the board choose to move forward on jmi the the revenue is there alloc ated your project is in the long range facilities plan so yes you could do that okay so we know that jmi we we can and then we can finish doing you know the money that we borrowed at the public there I hope the public knew about that wait a minute does anybody hope you didn't know about that uh the question that I have uh so let's go out and borrow some more money I mean we got people out here telling me now that you know we're Heroes JB zero tax increase let's go out and borrow more money I I don't know Mr to what do you think I mean that's an option it is that that is one path forward can we borrow more money and have zero tax increase you know those things are challenging I can only comment to the budget that we just approved but you know the following Year's budget is you know a challenge I'm just a dumb truck driver I want to know can we borrow money and not increase the taxes I'll Never Say Never Joe thank you sir you have the floor is back to you we um from what I say and I'm I'm in a different profession but I'm not a financial expert either right still I know at least this much that there is money cash to pay for jmi and even though we borrowed money last year for JP Stevens not all the payments have been made yet payments will happen over time and it is that's a reality that's a fact at the same time we still were able to do 0% and in my speech earlier I said a large part of it is because of the state aid now will things change in the future things may change in the future and we have to be cognizant of everything let me finish Mr let's borrow more money and forget about State a hope we're going to get more well we if we have to borrow money for our facilities we have to do that where it's needed if we have to do that I'm not saying we go and borrow money right now it depends we may have to borrow money for other schools otherwise we'll be dragging behind our age-old infrastructure facilities and ailing infrastructure is a concern to the students who go in the building every day the staff members who live in the building every day who spend hours and hours when next month is going to get hotter all the new additions is going to come with their Condition it's going to the temperature inside those new additions will be much better there are children of several Recreation programs I will tell you one basketball volleyball all those children play in our gym they they do tournaments we don't want them to go to New Brunswick I know some children who go to New Brunswick North Brunswick piscatway and all those play in all those leagues no we want them to play in our facilities in Edison when jmi students and this is this is coming from the principal I had a conversation with principal when I to jmi the jmi students when they have concerts when they have other things going on they go to different schools those parents have to go to different school for their concerts those students have to go to different school why do they have to go to a different school it's still a distance school but they have to travel to a different school we want if possible to give them a Auditorium a gym or anything else in their school jmi and JMP can share those things Marshall the students are in trailers jmi students are in trailers if we see those conditions of the trailers I did not grow up studying in trailers myself if I would I want to make a decision for students if at all it it was at all it was up to me to study in trailers there was a time there was a need when students had to study in trailers whether it's EHS jmi John Marshall or any schools we don't want students to study in trailers the sooner they get back into better classrooms and better facilities across the board is better yes as a board we have to plan it financially but this plan which was started before few years and Mr Schneider as you said in phase one that you had all the schools we should not stop working towards the plan the upgrade of the facilities and the infrastructure should continue so I look forward for the board to work and move forward with certain plans in coming days Mr uh Mr to you have four options on how we could fund jmi and John Marshall yep and I think what the question was like we received just the document I think we just want to hear your expertise and how you would go about these four options and what what you felt would be the best option for us as a board to take right so uh you know what's funny I don't even have my own document in front of me right now but I I'll go from memory I think it was the tune of like $53 million to combin two projects I think the first two items were one was funding it with a portion of uh capital reserve and capital outlay and the the other was for a loan uh and they were inverted you know a loan for 30 million versus using capital of 20 and vice versa items one and two items and and you could see the difference basically in uh the loan payment in those two items uh items three and four where the utilizing a um your Capital obviously the same same total amount of funds but inverse 3020 along with a shared service um and a bond pay which would be a bond someone's issuing a bond than a shared service right so and then making that Bond payment over a bond period is you know 30 years so obviously I you know the the payment's going to be you know minimal I wouldn't say it's not minimal but you know like a million bucks is in in $360 million is is in a very reasonable payment so you're saying we have viable options we can get two yeah I think I think you know you guys uh all right uh all the board members here along with the collective public right you guys have an interest in all these projects which you should right the kids deserve it there's a lot of options there's more options than just this but collectively we have to have those discussions right because realistically we're not going to be able to keep funding things with just outlay and Reserve because our our other operating costs contracts Health Care uh Insurance out of District tuitions out of District uh Support Services right in District Support Services those costs are going up so you're going to need that state aid it's eventually going to flatten out I'm I'm assuming maybe next year I hope I'm wrong wrong um and you're you know you're going to have to do something on the other side of the equation because if you see where we're at in that budget document you know our local fair share should be at about 260 so you know you you always want to be able to do as much as you can but with with minimal impact of the taxpayer so that's why you have to look at all these different options uh there's probably more this was just you know a couple hours me running through some ideas there's there's more to it than that and uh you know we can do that in finance or you know some other committee well thank you for your efforts yeah I appreciate it thank you any other board member comments saying none we'll open up for public comments uh Maria thank you hi Maria organ 83 Jefferson I don't know if you need be recognized thank you different here in then council meeting so you're good the the first thing I wanted to say is congrat congratulations to the Civil Air Academy um I'm a mother of Edison alumni graduate Army National Guard and I know the structure and the leadership and the quality of these programs I would say every Wednesday at 5:30 on the armory on in Woodbridge on Main Street is open to any student 16 years old to 30 and they give them a free workout and they do the second thing I wanted to say is thank you to all the volunteers that come to the Edison environmental we're having a cleanup Thomas Edison Memorial tower on June 9th thank you to all the volunteers from Edison and JP Stevens and the middle schools Cub Scouts Boy Scouts Girl Scouts they're all uh valuable and definitely needed the last thing I wanted to say is the Dei was excellent I wish we can have more programs like that throughout the Edison wonderful 19 school systems and showcase all of our students of diversity thank you thank you next U Beth Beth taly 15 Midwood Avenue couple questions it is May 1st tomorrow just wanted to see what the updates were on um bids put out for Brokers for health insurance for employees because it's getting to that time of year we have like 36 days left of school to see how that's going and secondly I have a couple questions about the preschool Transportation now hearing because I really thought that our schools were going to be all housed within Edison but hearing that they're not to our transportation people up there are are the buses that are going to be providing transportation for these children I'm going to call them babies because to me they are three and four year olds going to be Edison buses if that's the case we know we've had a shortage of buses in town just to get our kids who you know need to get to school the state Mand State mandated school programs as of now we've had trouble with that and on all of these buses being now that these kids are going to be traveling far to go to different schools in different towns are we going to ensure that there will be proper car seats for these three and four year olds on all of this transportation for these kids those are my questions I'm sure I'm probably not going to get answers no I'm going to oh I'm going to get them yeah and you know just because of that too now finding hearing tonight that we're going to be traveling pretty far out of you know town during rush hour early in the morning to get these kids to preschools in North Brunswick and I believe we said South amb booy what time are these kids going to be picked up these little three and four year olds is they going to start at 6 o' in the morning that add adds to the question right okay okay thank you any more questions that's it okay all right great all right so uh m t uh I did announce in my finance um report that the insurance rfps are due May first which is tomorrow so when Mr to and his team gets the RFP they do their own work first and then they will present it to the committee so that's happening in next few days we look forward to working with Mr to on that so that's the answer to that question now all the other questions were related to preschool Transportation Dr Tui is the one spearheading the whole preschool program if you don't mind Dr toi coming and answering some questions um you can do that you don't have or you can uh speak to M yeah M Dr to will follow up with you okay all right next for public comments Mr shei so Jerry she Edison I have the same concern about the uh preschool busing and some of the daycare they're pretty small I don't know if these uh 52 passenger bus can actually get there so how long is it going to take uh for the kids to get there so uh just to go back to some of the committee reports through the the uh the the chair to the uh uh facility committee chair doc Schneider uh you mentioned that the um the stuff that the table was discussed in your meeting I did not see jmi uh the uh the turfield and uh the other stuff uh in the uh in the median summary it's only bathroom uh just to uh since uh Mrs White is not here uh just to want to follow up up about the traffic lights at the wo Wilson it's been going out for 4 years so where is it um for the transportation committee uh where is the bus tracking software uh is it ready to be to be used for our students um the other thing is um just want to talk about the demographic study uh it was mentioned but I didn't see anything was mentioned in the liazon committee uh if I remember the demographer came over here here uh he said the um he did not get enough data so we all know garbage in garbage out so how valuable is that demographic study obviously both vice president had concerns so uh you know so moving forward with a long range facility plan how valuable that is how much you can use that data I hear Dr you know um uh Al quoting some of the data uh in your response to the uh Township Leon committee so I don't know how accurate that is if we all have you know board vice president or board members have issues with a report and uh you know buau you mentioned the jmi school jmi was ready to go to bid in January right now we're in end of April okay when we originally planned GMI was $18 million or8 or $19 million now it's $21 million so what is a holdup we have the money ready to go there's no wrong decisions when it comes to adding classroom to us to our schools no wrong decision we have pread we have F day kindergartens we need classrooms there are four schools in our school district has trailers JP Stevens John Adams jmi and the latest Marshall these schools the trailers need to go I think some of the trailers are as old as when when Joe Romano was first on on the board more than 10 years ago that was a long time ago we need these trailers to to be gone they were outdated every time you turn around s the speaker finish and then you can answer let finish I I I I do every year we send out this non confirmed you know confined the classroom to to to extend this we cannot do that our kids are going to these class JP St has five five let's say five at least five classrooms that's in trailers okay so for the people on the facility committee what are you guys doing what is a holdup your brother-in-law is running for uh ETA president you one of his thing is you know quality of life of teachers are diminishing because the facility is no no good okay who's advocating for his brother-in-law is not even even advocating for you're you're stopping the jmi expansion in the last minute of JP Stevens expansion you want to stop it so for those people in JP stens and jmi none of you guys should be voting for for for uh for duck Schneider you know Bill Downer for ETA president because his brother-in-law cannot even do it when he was a world president okay and I also heard you know you mentioned about some of the bits uh it's on it's on the uh on the committee that you bid it on the uh architect so for anyone who goes to Lincoln School go to the gym take a look at the war take a look at the war in the gym and tell me if that was well designed if the war is supposed to be if you don't like it why would you want to bring the architect back the architect did not bid it okay there's a reason he did not bid it but you should not reopen up the bid because this guy did not bid it go to Lincoln School and look at the war that school was amended when duck Schneider was a board president okay so people if you like the war vote for d for for Bill Don if you don't like the war don't vote for Bill Doner his own brother-in-law cannot even advocating for you guys okay you're talking the other point is about the the uh the contract I'm asking the non-certified staff in the district put a hand in front of your heart tell me this contract is this the best contract you have received in the past 10 years okay is this the best contract you received in the past 10 years non-certified staff I I have multiple contract negotiations never seen him so I'm done thank you thank you so the architect I will respond because architect RFP uh in the finance committee we asked to do and the results were received back and Mr to and his team in my opinion has done all the preliminary work and ranking now we'll have to see as a board what we want to do um some Architects applied uh from the existing architect two architects who applied where DMR and S SSP right so there are other Architects which as a board has to review RFP and then it will go for an board approval if the board decides to move forward with the architect um you want to say something Mr Romano it wouldn't make any sense go right ahead do what you got um next Joyce jury ship Freeman 41 South M Main Street in Edison um with the shared services with you working with the town will you guys be taking the brunt of the amount of money so when they form their budget they'll just put other stuff on your name rather than you guys having a zero budget all right number two um the master plan I I you know I adore uh Virginia White cuz she's sincere and the stuff she does but you guys going to be waiting on that Master Plan cuz I've been waiting on it for about two years myself so thank you for that and I wanted to know about the money that we are borrowing I want to know the percentage on it and how much are we borrowing to offset the tax increase because I notice for a fact that if we keep kicking it down the road and depending on how much we're borrowing in the percentage rate that I don't want it to all come in this hit you know the senior citizens at all that one time that that that bothers me a whole lot you know so I'm you know I'm very very disturbed about that because I don't want because I know the town is borrowing two tons of money so if you guys are borrowing money too I mean 2025 or 2026 one of them is going to be a major debt at all and uh I love it that we have the um blinking lights for the Edison High but I'm still waiting on sidewalks in this town I don't know they they have a thing about sidewalks and we wouldn't have as much traffic at our schools if we had some sufficient sidewalks because you would let your kid walk to school because they would have a sidewalk to walk on and let's see I'm ask so um the Lutheran School is now going to be alternative school so will that be ready in September for our students at all and you know let's see okay I got that the master plan all right I just wanted to know those about the borrowed money and the interest and one last question how much you guys are spending on your website that's my last question thank you thank you Joyce so shared services I'd love to answer that so yes you know what in a way it's you're correct the township bonds but they want we don't we make the payments still it's the school district which makes the payment but because of the agreement that some residents the youth leagues and they all use our facilities which they are using anyways the school district benefits with that methodology our ba has to still look into it they're going to speak with the bond Council so we'll have more details but from what it appears like right now I wouldn't personally miss out on the deal that it's it's still the taxpayers everyone is paying for it but it's a good way to distribute the resources out distribute the funding out and move forward with our projects and yes it's borrowing it's um there was money borrowed last year for a project we will potentially have to borrow for the schools but it is for our children our children go to the schools every single day they're without their condition in trailers in you know in in classrooms which are and I compare two schools sometimes you go to James Monro right and look at the class now you go to Marshall and look at the class why would a kid in Edison Township Public School have two different views someday they got to have same and better facilities same thing goes with both the high schools all the middle schools some schools have very good parking lots some schools don't some schools have excellent gyms some schools don't some schools can do their own programs in their own gyms the staff member working there are lucky probably right soe so some some schools do not have that kind of gym when John Adams gym is going to be built after that they're going to have a nice new gym they will not have an auditorium right John Adams does not have they did not choose to have Auditorium but the other right but the other other schools will have the auditorium so either way so you know it's all all the if we do the borrowing that's for the kids for the facilities for the students so I really wanted to answer that how Bard I perhaps I myself if you if I put myself six years back I was I would ask the same question oh why is this borrowing why is that borrowing but now when we see the kids and the staff and everyone I think there's a need so next for public comments so Susan Campion Edison um first off I just wanted to shout out to all of my fellow um people that keep the buildings running in all the offices it was um Administrative Professionals Day last Wednesday and um many buildings did celebrate us so I just wanted to shout everybody out but I wanted to take a minute to remind um all of the seniors that the ETA scholarship deadline has been extended to this Friday um to get the applications in either to uh me or your guidance counselors and they will get it to me and I wanted to take a minute to thank Dr Elli and Dr Huff um for on very short notice uh getting permission and information out to the students that it was extended so that um we can make sure we have winners at um both schools for all the the scholarships thank you thank you anyone else wants to know how much so okay um each there's four uh well there's actually three scholarships at each building uh a future nurse at each building gets uh $500 and a future teacher at each building gets $500 and then there's a main scholarship at each building and um student that wins gets $22,000 it's $500 each year for the four years of school thank you so the scholarships are the best thing so I know our food vendor and architect are also doing scholarship for the kids I hope every lots of businesses in Edison some of them make a lot of money I hope they do scholarship for our kids and our kids can benefit out of that so hoping for that anyone else uh board member comments Mr Ross good evening everybody I appreciate your time as always it's great to have the board meetings here at Edison High and while I've got six minutes they didn't even start the clock let never be enough time to say everything about what's great about Edison High but today I want to highlight um just a couple of things first off we had our girls lacrosse senior night that we won today 14 to7 it was like almost every senior um scored today but most importantly all 11 seniors are going off to college we've got a girl playing at Felician we've got somebody playing at Kane our goalie is going to Cornell just another example of how Athletics and student Athletics works together to build these young people up so congratulations to that and I would be remiss in terms of shouting out people if I didn't mention someone who's retiring after years and years of service to the district and who for the past seems like 10 years has served as my right hand my executive secretary Miss Cindy Bower Miss Bower I would have to thank her for being a friend for making sure that I show up to meetings with my bosses on time and making sure that my paperwork is correct and for always making sure that I clean out the coffee pot at the end of the day Miss bow thank you so much and great job and I appreciate the our visitors from JP Stevens in the auditorium because they've been great guests so thank you thank you Mr Ross I have a request for you and I did speak about this with um Heather and Dr Al Ali uh and since Mr Han is here I see his post acknowledging the students about all the sports and all the activities sometimes when I see that I oh when did this game happen when did this event happen so if you can please let us know if we have time we'll stop by to those one of those games we love to stop by so let us know if used to get the calendar but we don't see it anymore you should have the month at a glance that should be going out I'll make sure that you get a copy of that I'll pass it through uh Miss timman and Monday we've got an opening round game of the GMC's and you know we've got let's see some volleyball playoffs coming up as well but we'll make sure we get that out to you thank you so much my pleasure anyone else public comments J all right saying none Mo Jerry your time was up no we only have one six minutes now right the attorney Matt M has spe so you only get one opportunity in public session you you used your six minutes and there you recused your or released your time so you you don't have another opportunity to speak yeah so Mr MCH had looked at the policy and he has advised that right uh thank you for being transparent not transparent Mr MCH had look at the policy and did mention to the board this is 6 minutes so if you had few seconds you to go like for that I can let you go for that we to make the same it same for everyone anyways uh saying none all right uh saying none motion to end public comments motion second right all in favor motion to adjon motion second all in favor all hi meeting is adj [Music]