they called an order really loud so hit that hit that three times 1 two three go ahead hit it call this me I call this meeting order I call this meeting to order call this meeting to order I press it Mr are are you able to call roll please miss calves Miss Carisa here miss Carr here Mr Corey here Mr Hayward here miss garelli here miss Stevenson here miss Randell here Dr Robinson present we have a quum all right Miss Callahan and Miss sne are joining us would you be able to do the Pledge of Allegiance yeah come on stand up with me gra your mics take your come over here right by me you stand right in front of me perfect right right here come over here come back here come here come here come back to me face the flag okay whenever you're ready one two three go iedge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for very good turn have a seat good all right all right open public meetings act um adequate notice of meeting in accordance with PL 1975 uh chapter 231 notice of tonight's meeting was mailed to the record and the Bridgewood news on January 9th 2024 notice of this meeting was also mailed to the borrow Clerk and was posted on the bulletin board of the Board of Education Office in the admin administration building on the same date copies of the procedures in effect for regular board meetings are available for the public at tonight's meeting Mr Bengal would you be able to read our board mission statement the Glenrock School District founded on principles of education in partnership with a supportive Community provides an exceptional education to all students to cultivate resilient responsible and engaged Global Citizens thank you so much all right and Dr TR yes um so we have our our board readers um here tonight we have Jolie uh Dylan and Andrew Jolie and Dylan are in second grade and Andrew is in fifth grade and uh some board members may have some some questions for you I have I have a couple if that's okay um tell me a little bit about how is second grade going for you what's your favorite subject what are you learning right now let's turn your mic on go ahead I want to think okay I know I like math and we've been learning about the quantity and the difference I like math too and we've been writing about like graphs nice do you have that's excellent um that's a lot that's heavy math for for second grade do you have um you have a a I guess what's your favorite overall thing in second grade what do you like the most about second grade I like naming the number so the number of the day would be 99 you would write a few ways how to name 99 okay good what about you what's your favorite thing about second grade that we play lots of fun games very good that's that works for me um do you think you need more recess in second grade yes yes all right excellent well you're the board the board here can make that decision would you like to ask them that for more recess yeah we only have one recess but the other grades have like two or three really and we don't have snack and you don't have snack no so we're starving wow Mrs Gomez really well your principal is here she won't be here much longer um but say goodbye miss Gomez like you're you're starving them and they can't this is not what you said in your interview um H so you want more recess more snack time yeah yeah I mean and these are the decision makers so you want to ask them to make a vote on that or may you ready for that you think they should vote make a decision tonight yes yeah great okay we'll do a resolution on that on that later on yeah you guys you'll be heroes when you go back to Hamilton yeah that's fair could be heroes what you say there's another way they could be heroes right oh yes so I heard that it might snow snow tonight now the decision to make call snow day usually uh falls on Mr caneles he has all the responsibility I don't make that decision I have no responsibility whatsoever but that being said since you are Board of Education readers tonight and you're here do you think we should have a snow day tomorrow I know how much now we're getting okay how much we're getting 9.35 that doesn't seem like a lot you think that's a lot 9 in is that worth a snow day yes may maybe you're you're we're on the same page so no snow day right we're not we're not sold on that right yes a snow day yes yes to a snow day yes maybe is a yes okay fair enough all right baby but it's more to yes okay so you're leaning more towards yes now me too okay okay I could tell one thing that you're not being fed at school with all the cookies you have so um they're so chewy yeah they're good yeah they're the most popular thing that we sell here in high school middle school so when you get here you'll be buying lots of cookies okay um Andrew um I know you're on the student council over at Hamilton do you have a report for us about things that are going on there [Music] so hello my name is Andrew bagel I am a fifth grader in Miss cl's class at Hamilton I also a student council representative I want to thank the Board of Education and Dr Charleston for inviting me here inviting me to be here tonight the student council which is led by misson kovas and Missy Loretto is working hard to make our school and our community a better place we have done Wacky Wednesday theme days such as crazy hair day and coming up this month anything but a backpack day the student council also organized a way to get ready for this upcoming Valentine's Day all the classes made Valentine's Day cards that will be distributed to senior citizens who receive Meals on Wheels we are sure this will put a smile on their faces we have also had other exciting events take place at Hamilton recently including husky cafes where students practice table manners a Winter concert where a fourth and fifth graders in band and early morning chus performed and a fun science assembly sponsored by HSA finally our fifth graders have been working on a community service project to provide snack packs to the Oasis shelter in Patterson thank you thank you Andrew you know when I come into you miss miss uh Miss Glo is your teacher right so usually when I when I come into your classroom you're you're working on really like high level math and and I I I usually leave because it's really it's it's a little scary for me what's what are you working on right now in in math so we're mostly working on like coordinate grids and um that seems high level enough for for me um yeah like what is that they're asking that's that's I don't know what that is that's I know what it is it's math it's math yeah so math that's fair um so Andrew according to Jolie and Dylan we are uh St ing second grade and not giving them enough recess is the fifth grade the same way or do you feel like you have enough food and recess time I feel like we have like enough food but like maybe like 10 more minutes of recess time okay that's fair all right so only have five minutes you only have five minutes yes and you have 10 minutes or you want 10 more minutes yeah and you only have 5 minutes total yeah that seems very unfair okay we're going to do some we're going to make some stuff happen tonight all right yes yeah we're on it um and and again uh Miss Gomez it was a pleasure right good job uh Andrew what are your thoughts on snow day tomorrow I'm like we're not sure here we're thinking no I I think I think it should happen because like I'm pretty sure all the kids want it oh okay do you think I should make the decision tonight are you like getting up at like 5: in the morning and getting a phone call I think you should um make decision I think you should make the decision tonight so that like kids can like sleep in oh okay all right that's good to know I I I I a I aim to please um so I do want to thank uh all of you for for coming out tonight you did a wonderful job and we appreciate it and we have some gifts for you that we're going to give you and we're going to take some uh some pictures is that okay and I think what would be nice if you hit this three times and say meeting adjourn so we all go home did that three times can say go home yeah that's fine too go ahead go home okay let's go all right let take some pictures come on all right e just e e yeah I do too all right so ready all right so we have tonight um once a year obviously at mid year the Board of Education um is presents sort of an update on on board of education and and District goals and the process uh starts at the at the retreat in August when the board has discussions on what they want their goals to be for the year the district uh does as well then the board votes on those goals in September and away we go and we start to work towards those gos schols um and so tonight is an update on that uh I'm going to start a little bit so Keith do we have the remote somewhere I have it okay all right so the board has two goals one is a Safety and Security goal and and a communication goal so the Safety and Security goal um and the board has already taken some action on this which I'll get into but at the end of the day the board um wants to support uh District administration uh and really for security issues whether that's emergency and crisis situations but in addition to um that they want to maintain that positive District climate which you'll see embedded throughout the entire presentation tonight and then provide Supportive Services um for all stakeholders and again you'll see that embedded throughout the throughout the presentation tonight so what I thought on the next slide would be just to focus on the security piece because the board has taken some action and we've had some some incident incidents this year that um kind of show that our security processes and procedures are in place and um and work so we've had several um and so we've had uh some incidents at the at the high school and middle school where we had to have an evacuation we know that we had the fire at Hamilton um you may remember that that non-credible bomb threat that that came out of Canada um through the uh School District that was the actual Target but happened to have a school called Central and I believe it was the Hamilton uh can School District in in Canada but it made its way down here through social media so we actually had uh our our students and staff in a hold in place uh they did a great job at both of those schools we had the the bomb dogs come in and everybody just handled themselves uh very well uh we also provided support at AOL they had a you know a loss of a student and they needed some of our support um through our our our crisis uh Team so we had sent counselors over there to to support their students and and teachers um so again our our processes work um our staff is well trained our students follow follow directions our parents um you know follow the rules as well I think the Hamilton fire would be a really good example when we had to evacuate off campus the parents were so Cooperative um in in waiting to get their students um because the line was long and and and they're just very patient and appreciative of the work that our staff did um and the the fact that the students uh also followed uh the rules so the port the board the action that the board has taken this year is a uh contracted out with poro compliance services for a security review and that uh has just recently been completed so we're awaiting uh the the the written report from that verb they were very impressed with our security procedures um but we'll wait until we get the written report that'll be shared with the board in Clos session because some things are security we don't want to share in public but some of those things we certainly can share in public as well and we' expect that report um you know next next couple weeks maybe by by maybe mid-march and the draft budget that we're going to go over later tonight does include additional security guards and increased hours at the uh at the high school and middle school moving on to goal number two which is a board goal of communication last year the board I thought was very creative in creating uh a director of community relations position that was shared so that was shared between uh pamis public schools and and us and I just thought that was creative it was a way to to to to split the cost in half um and uh have have a really a professional um come in and work with the district and the board on communication and how to how to improve that and we have here miss hoffberger who's our director of community relations who has just been wonderful um she started in I think mid to late October um and has really hit the ground running and I'll say this because I know that we want like everything right away when I say we as a society as a whole like we want this this and this and what what Miss hofburg is doing is is getting acquainted with the district slowly looking at at things that she thinks are priorities um and uh I don't want to take her her slides away so I'll turn it over to her but uh we're very very fortunate to have you and I do thank you for coming tonight thank you so much thank you for having me um as Dr Charles has said I started in October 2023 and since I've since then I've taken over the social media management uh for the three District accounts that we do currently have which is Instagram Twitter and Facebook in the media relations world I've collaborated with and maintain the current relationships that we already had with certain members of the press uh to assist with crisis communication as needed cover different school events and report all the awesome accomplishments within the Glenrock Public Schools I send out press releases regularly to be published both online and in print and I've listed there a bunch of the Publications that have been very uh re receptive and great to work with so far um I also serve as the in-house proof reader and editor for district materials I've created and managed uh an archive of all the photos posted on social media I saw a bit of a gap where we didn't have any um history or archive of photos so hopefully from here on out we'll have that that's stored in Google Drive which has unlimited storage for um Google appst education which we'll utilize I've designed a Google Slides template for all the Glenrock Public School schools and Board of Education uh Dex to have a cohesive look and I've developed a new District calendar template which is for the 2526 calendar that I believe you've seen recently um and we've updated the Social Links on the homepage of the website they were all outdated or dead links that went to old um social media accounts so we've updated those for Facebook Instagram Twitter or X and YouTube as for uh long-term goals and coming up which we've already started a full branding audit um and the creation of a Glenrock Public Schools style guide uh a branding committee has been formed and they're going to be extremely helpful to me specifically um in the clean up of all of these logos we're not changing anything we're just cleaning up and making sure that everyone has good um high quality logos for all of the schools and the district the Board of Education in all different file formats that we might need um we're going to develop a style guide with official colors fonts and logos to encourage that cohesive branding across all of the public schools and uh preserve that brand Integrity we will Design and introduce email signatures for administration faculty and staff with those new logos once they're out there and that will hopefully also include social media links and buttons um we will create custom gifts from those logos uh to be used by the public on social media at I know if you're familiar with Instagram um where you can put gifts and stories that's what we're looking to do and the students usually get really excited about that and alumni uh we're going to develop a comprehensive communication plan and maintain a climate of that open communication with the superintendent central office administration building administrators the board of education teachers and staff parents and the Glenrock Community as a whole as part of that we're going to create a comprehensive list of all social media um accounts that already exist because we need to let the public know that they exist whether it's by school building or by teacher administrator um and let them know where they can get their news in addition to where they can find it on the district social media sites and eventually somewhat soon we're going to um I'm going to lead a website redesign and we'll decide if we're going to stick with the same company or go with a new company down the line so um just to piggyback on some of the things that Miss hofburger shared uh I think one thing that would be good for the Board of Education um that would come in front of us is that once you're done with the style guide I think that would be nice to present to the Board of Ed and then I think that the board should should kind of put that in policy right so that we have a certain logo or a certain color right and those things that terara is working on with with students and staff and then present that to the board so that we're on the same page that 10 years from now we don't have 17 different Panthers and different color Reds and and today I was in TV um uh media uh Studio class and they were working on that and they were arguing over what is Glenrock red and I think part of tera's committee is this is going to be Glenrock red and so that it becomes part of our brand right is really what she's she's trying to do and that's going to be through the elementary schools as well so I do thank you for taking that ons I think that's kind of a heavy lift to do right away but you're doing a great job and we look forward to the result of of that of that committee work and sharing that with the board I think the other piece at the board when they created this goal was this idea of a communication plan I think that's a heavier lift for uh Miss hoffberger to do uh as soon as she gets here but our plan would be to present something to the board probably in April May maybe may as an idea of this is what we're working on and then get board input and then continue to development develop that plan so at least we have a good solid uh draft and perhaps even uh something to run with for September of of 24 um I think we can get there but we'll see we'll see if we if we can get there um and then the website redesign which we think is is definitely uh needed uh Tera has done a nice job of finding dead links and cleaning them up and and moving things around but I think overall that's probably a multi-year project um that would involve several people on on a committee and and ter would would lead that so she has some things that that that are coming down down the pike but I think the big one for the board in terms of wanting to achieve your goal would be that communication plan in the spring I think would be important and we look forward to uh working with Tara between now and then and presenting that in in the spring thank you Tara appreciate it nice job thank you so now we jump to our our district goals and we have uh three we have assessment of student learning you know culture and climate which is actually assessment of student learning and culture and climate have been multi-year goals um so you'll see a lot of the build that we've done over the last couple of years and then the last goal the board has always had a sort of a financial goal and this year they focused on on an EIP so I'm going to turn it over to Mr Van Nest and his team to talk about assessment of student learning yeah so thank you Dr Charleston the the goal of assessment for student learning is is the second year that we've really been focusing on this um with the goal of providing responsive instruction to me individual student needs that's that's kind of what what we've been talking about for a while and one of the things that that we're you know we're discovering as we know we we do well in our district we have high scores and all that but we're looking at at really unpacking that in and how do we meet every student's needs how do we really get into the weeds of of who who needs real targeted work and all that so that's leading to larger conversations which you'll be hearing about in the next many months and years um but let me get through with u with my piece before I bring some of the other people around here um so for the district what what we did here is separated some things out in what are some of the things we're doing for assessment districtwide and then I'm going to have each of the subject supervisors come up and talk about their piece kind of what they're doing elementary middle and high so districtwide uh we we've been focusing on this assessment goal throughout the year starting with new teacher orientation we have um our new staff for a few days in the summer uh where we're talking about things like understanding by Design and standards based rubric and responsive teaching that the the you know Hallmark of what we're doing a lot of work with to really set the tone with them um in September we partnered with Kiker learning which is a Consultant Group and they came out they they do a lot of work with technology right and and using especially using technology to assess student learning to design better lessons for for our youth using technology we had them out in September in those in that PD day that all staff were here where they had I don't remember off the top on my head six or eight different workshops that teachers could choose based on their interest and then we had them back again in October um along with some other other things to make it a follow-up so it's not just a one unone here some people and now off they go um so they could really kind of follow through on some of those conversations and in a couple weeks on March 11th is our our last PD day during the year it's an afternoon PD day which is generally it is coordinated by the gr uh but we collaborate with them so last year we collaborated with them it was really quite nice they brought in a keynote speaker and then we have a couple workshops same kind of thing concurrent sessions where staff can choose what's what's of interest to them so we have a couple of the ker folks coming back to continue those conversations keep it going for the year now that they've been using these tools for a while and then we're also going to be doing um other workshops through throughout whether they're teacher-led from G members whether they're LED from theun administrative team and we're working together uh the G leadership and I are talking those things out right now so it's it's going to be nice and it's been nice working with them about that and when we met you know that was my my thing is that we're really talking about assessment and assessing of student learning and using that to drive instruction and we're talking about culture and climate student staff well-being those kind of things so I know that they're working in in that same vein too so I'm going to move along to my first subject supervisor who I see is waiting for us and that's Michelle Dela Fortuna hi thanks so much for having us tonight you'll see in the next couple of slides that there's some very a lot of similarities I think as a supervisor team we do align our efforts um so you'll see a lot of commonalities coming up in our slides so first um in the elementary um in the elementary schools we've been really focusing on assessing fla fluency this is our second year with updated rubrics to help um teachers inform their report cards um and so that has been in our second year where we've kind of re-evaluated those rubrics and make sure they're aligned with our standards um and that we're getting an accurate judge on on the Mastery level of each student um additionally this year we started um a K5 learning team so we meet for three sessions and teachers are able to pick a problem of practice um most of them are are on assessment and instruction in response to Student Learning needs so go through a cycle of inquiry um through the learning team and that's been a really exciting um way for us to engage and and be collaborative and then we'll start another cycle of that in the spring um additionally in mathematics um we have M hirs who is our mathematics coach and she offers coaching cycles and and a lot of Hands-On professional learning focused in assessment strategies and assessing student in mathematics um in the middle school and high school um the high school teachers have engaged in a 3-day series of professional learning through nolles teacher initiative um they've been a great partner this year our teachers have really enjoyed um those sessions um and that is focused on monitoring and assessing student work in the classroom to respond to their needs our Middle School teachers attended Association of mathematics teachers of New Jersey in the fall um and there's also we've had follow-up webinars with them that specifically is on monitoring and responding to student work in the classroom um as we do in all of our departments we have planning meetings a lot of that is focused on standard align assessments and looking at student work um and and creating a consistency in how we evaluate and look at students uh Master levels throughout the school year thank you and I think one of the things she mentioned while sher's come up is this meeting together with with staff to really talk about assessments um we are much more comfortable now that that it's fairly well alarmed across teachers they're they're assessing more similarly what you're getting in one eighth grade class is what you're getting in another eighth grade class as far as rigor of of exams and and assessment and feedback and all of those things and it's it's through through this kind of work that she's doing with her staff which is fantastic so next up for language arts is uh our English supervisor Sher kraples hi everybody um so like Muna said a lot of the work that we do um as supervisors is sort of organized across the supervisory team so like in math um I'm also working with some of our K5 teachers in a learning team cycle we've got some of them here tonight hi guys um but really what we're focused on in this cycle of three of of three get togethers really is um writing assessment how do we use writing assessment to inform our instruction of in students in writing but also how do we fine-tune our writing rubrics to better meet our needs as instructors and then our students needs as students and as developing writers um Miss tell like Miss hirs also works with K5 teachers in coaching Cycles including uh week-long residencies that they're doing with our first year with some of our first year teachers now and those things are focused on how can we use assessment in the classroom to inform our instruction and Miss tell and I are also working together with a phonics committee um we're piloting new curriculum and instructional materials um we've got eight teachers across the district who are doing that two in each Elementary building K through three um and so we're working through those phonics programs to try to find an option that's going to work for us it involves a lot of assessment of our students um and it involves a lot of taking some time to look at that and see what program is going to is going to best suit our needs at the middle and high school we're continuing to work in my department on developing common benchmarks that are developed collaboratively across a grade level so all nth graders are getting the same assessment all 10th graders so on and so forth that are also designed of course to align with our standards I also have planning meetings with my teachers um we use departmental data assessment to inform instruction so some of the time we spend time taking a look at those those benchmarks and the results from that and seeing what that means for our students and what they need next um and then we've also developed new units and assessments for our updated contemporary fiction course which is now uh our new updated Senior English course um and so that currently is running at all levels historically it's only run as an honors course we've now expanded our offering for that and so we've worked I've worked with our 12th grade teachers on developing new units and assessments aligned with those units and aligned with our students needs in that course thank you m graes thanks next up on our list is Manny melli our social study supervisor hi everyone thanks for having us tonight um so with the elementary schools we are in year two of implementation of a new social studies curriculum so just as a reminder um New Jersey um revised the standards for social studies and they went into effect in September of 2022 last year so during my first year we had a committee we piloted a few different curriculum programs and then we Glenrock ified them so to say um both uh we use one program for kada 2 called TCI the teachers on the committee felt that the uh consumables the tangible workbooks were really helpful for the younger kids and then we have um a little bit more of a I would say maybe abstract program that we have for grades three to five called inquir Ed um both of them are very much focused on inquiry so in other words there are questions at the beginning of the unit that the students look to explore and then they construct their knowledge to come up with an answer um based on their learning over the course of the unit um we also have teacher leaders across the district um in grades 3 to five that are receiving training that they then can turn key back to teachers and service pinpoints in each building um the other thing I've been doing is working with the elementary principles to find out what they're noticing as they go and they visit classrooms and then therefore providing professional learning accordingly so just this afternoon I was over at Coleman school with all the fourth grade teachers across the district talking about inquiry based learning um really what that looks like not just in the social studies classroom but we had a really nice conversation about the commonalities that they see in reading and in writing Math and Science as well um the teacher leaders have really been fantastic um Point people I I really love that the capacity that's been built in them is helping to empower teachers across the district Miss Glo is one of them she's here tonight um and so what we actually have now is that the first cohort is training the second cohort so I'm hoping to continue to build out this Army of social studies inquiry Advocates um at the middle school and high school um similar to miss cries in Mella Fortuna um we do have these onetoone planning meetings I've been spending a lot of time with my new to Glenrock faculty um this year and last year uh and really making sure that we're working together monthly on course level teams so I'll meet with all the world history teachers all the um us one and us2 teachers and I really try to bring everybody together from all levels so we have College Prep honors advanced placement all in the same room and so that way there is a a diversified experience in some ways but also it's not like just because you're taking an honors course you're getting a wildly different experience than AP um again common benchmarks um aligning with standards um really been trying to focus more on some of the active learning and and simulations that we're having so two things that um were of particular note this past fall uh in us2 the all the us2 teachers came together and for the first unit of the school year um which really went from September through right before the holiday break the students looked at the first three decades of the 20th century so looking at the the first part of the 1900s going into the Great Depression and they put together a museum so each different teacher focused on different subjects so there was uh progressivism imperialism World War I and so on and so forth and then the students all went into the media center at the same time and they were able to explore the different exhibits and learn about everything collectively from each other so it was a really great opportunity for the teachers to collaborate as well as for the students to learn um about these different topics from their peers um in uh our business department as well um we have a career road map in financial literacy which has become a Hallmark of the program um where students are really trying to think forward about what steps they would need to take not just from the um College and Career exploration process but you know how that would actively play out um and then lastly uh as the other supervisors mentioned um really looking at student work um in light of Standards based rubrics we had a consultant come in in May to work with the US history teachers um as you know United States history in New Jersey is required to be over two years so we offer that in sophomore and junior year um we worked really closely to make sure that it's a contiguous experience so it's not you're in us one and then you shi gears to us2 so we have similar themes over the two years and we have one rubric now that teachers are using in 9th 10th and 11th grade at the college prep and honors level so students are again going to build their skills uh collaborative or at each year and the are working collaboratively at um aligning their expectations um and similarly in business we're doing that with um oral presentations so thank you thank you Mr Melly next up is Mr Valentino for science but Keith you're gonna have to help me out I can't get it to move hi everyone okay and now to share with you our assessment for student learning progress in science at the element level we are in our third year of the implementation of our Discovery driven standards based curriculum we have revised all K5 common assessments and have included rubrics aligned with the latest updates to our curriculum over the summer this allows us to more universally and effectively measure our students progress as they dive deep into Hands-On exploratory learning over at the middle school and high school I am working with a dedicated and wonderful group of Middle School teachers on a committee to review new instructional materials to support our curriculum as our current contract is expiring I have also had the pleasure of holding individual and small group planning meetings with our staff which is div designed to promote collaboration in refining our skills-based assessments and instructional delivery methods in addition our monthly group department meetings focus on the exploration of formative assessment strategies to really visualize our students thinking uh to inform our instruction and just to level up all our best practices and finally the science department continues to collaborate on and revise all our skill-based assessments and Labs uh with common rubrics aligned with the updated curricula teacher goals individual teacher goals and of course the state uh learning standards in science thank you Mr Valentino yep it's still not working you're gonna have to move for me next up and um last of the supervisors is Paul cusac who's our supervisor of instructional technology give it in talented media centers and kind of whatever we else we think about handing off to them uh good evening thank you for having me here this evening um in the elementary schools uh this is the second year of our pushin enrichment uh technology Cycles so we changed the program last year um it was originally a stem program and with the new science program that most started in the elementary schools which had a lot of similar activities and lessons we went to more of a technology enrichment which does a lot of coding and Robotics with the elementary school kids so our g&t enrichment teacher teachers push in in Cycles throughout the year and they work with the students on these different activities um our gifted and talented teachers also work with the faculty and administration for the g&t identification process um starting with the rubrics that they use for evaluation um the testing and then the selection process reaching out to the parents and working through all of that with our g&t committees in each building um excuse me our media center specialist at the elementary school work with the BSI math students to support what the teachers are doing in the classroom um if students are struggling in the classroom they go through slide just jumped I apologize um they go through the uh intervention process and if the student winds up in BSI math our media center Specialists work with them to support the students and support the teachers with what's going on in the classroom um one other thing that's not up there for the elementary is the uh K5 learning teams I I'm running one we're have our third session coming up on um technology to support differentiation so as the teachers need different ways to support different students in their classes we're looking at different ways that we can use the technology that we have in the district to support the teachers and the students through differentiation middle school high school um we have our New Media Center specialist who started for the middle school high school is year one of the things that we've been working very hard with her on is in excuse me increasing the amount of digital literacy and the research that we do in the media center um she's done a great job of bringing teachers in based upon what the teachers needs are and using that space to support the students through research what databases we have available and really to support the teachers Mr melli spoke earlier about the museum that they had in the media center so we want to make that a central learning area for all the students and the teachers um as the other uh supervisors have spoken about I do have planning meetings uh between faculty meetings we have department meetings uh we we work a little bit differently in my department I have more skills based classes uh with what my teachers do but we have really gotten into developing the rubrics to establish what skills we need the students to meet at the end of a quarter or at the end of a semester depending upon how long the class is um we've also worked on revising all those Middle School electives that we did a few years ago in the reimagine program we looked at what happened in 2223 and this summer we revised our curriculum to make sure that we were meeting were we moving too quickly were we not getting enough for the students so what we've really done this year is focused on making sure that we're hitting the points that we want to hit in the curriculum as we move through it than you Mr thanks Paul one of the things I want to mention as as he's leaving I think Mr cusac is a good example of this there was a time when you know teachers needed support in just how to use technology right how to use a new website or how to use something Mr Hayward I think you know where I'm going with this right and and it's we're well beyond that and it's the same that our teachers know how to teach English our teachers know how to teach math right it's the work that we're doing is in building a a common strength across a department and a common strength across you know using the same rubric as Mr mer was talking about for all of n9th 10th and 11th grade for the writing so that a kid doesn't have to relearn how to write every year for new teacher because they're using some other different way so it's a lot of that coordination of of skills that we we hire talented staff we have already lots of talented staff that know how to use these things and know how to do this but a lot of the work that we're doing as we're looking at assessment is how do we do this across across the board for all students and as I mentioned earlier one of the things that's that's coming up and and he mentioned it here with BSI math and with gifted in talented and all of these the the students that are kind of U have some real real special needs as far as they need support or have real special skills and he has a lot of Hands-On classes the media crew that you're always with how are meeting all of their needs right and using these common assessments helps us identify and then support that um so you can you can anticipate next year a a goal similar to this but you can see kind of where I'm headed as far as what's next on the agenda it's not how do we teach somebody how to teach a novel we we know how to do that it's how do we how do we focus on those student needs and and really really move that forward so that's where we are I'm really proud of the work that that we are all doing whether it's the supervisors our coaches are here also um the building principles and of course our staff that that have just been really tremendous to work with now I'll hand it over to you Dr thank you thank you um you know Mr Cusack had mentioned something about the Middle School reimagining plan I think similar to um the bird uh departmentalization perhaps maybe it's time to B in the spring kind of wrap it up and see where we're at and just not sort of put it the rest but it's been three years and we presented each year let's kind of do a final presentation as to uh like where we started and where we ended up so goal two is culture and climate it's been again it's been a multi-year goal I think this is the third year of it um and so again this ties into the board goal as I as I said um The District administration right will continue to provide uh Wellness for students and staff so um we have I think Mr gando and Dr Daniels and then I have my climate and culture committee Warriors out there ready to go um so I think Dr Daniels is up first right all right so we'll talk about ruler and then we'll move through this um and we'll go goodhead good evening everyone as a review the ruler program is our partnership with yell University that assists our school Community understanding the value of emotions building um their emotional intelligence skills and creating and maintaining a positive School climate as many of you are aware the elementary school staff were trained on ruler last year and for this school year the program has launched into the classrooms and is being integrated at home as well the lessons thus far have focused on the mood meter and the various quadrants why emotions matter and developing their classroom Charters these lessons are led by both the classroom teachers and the school counselors at the end of each month a review is sent home to all elementary families which includes the family connection worksheets and how to implement the ruler approach in the home in mid April the elementary school counselers will be hosting a mini ruler night to parents and Guardians as an introductory into the community events on a larger scale for the fall this summer The ruler team will work on planning new lessons and community events for the next School school year the Middle School staff is currently being trained on the ruler approach and they will work this summer to plan the roll out for next year good evening thank you for having me um I'm going to talk about uh some climate and culture progress at the middle school and high school and I've tried to group things um in a way that you can see how they fit together um so at the middle school and high school together we have a huge focus on collaboration and community and if you look at the first uh three bullets there the advisory committee the internal directory and the professional discussion groups those are really intended to increase faculty member voice and input and also to increase our dis interdisciplinary collaboration so what we've done is uh every three weeks I meet with uh volunteers from middle school and high school who'd like to just come and talk about relevant topics um we meet in the morning and the afternoon so that I can make sure I get a cross-section of everybody who'd like to participate um and then from there the staff member internal directory was an outgrowth um that's something where every staff member has a slide um they have a photo they tell why they feel their subject matter is important uh they've listed some fun facts about themselves but also it's a networking tool so they've listed areas that they can help their colleagues in so it's been a nice way for people to get to know each other um people who haven't gotten the chance to do that before there's a scavenger hunt coming up so I still have to devise that but that'll be the next leg of the internal directory um and the skip committee the professional discussion groups were an outgrowth of that skip committee so that's staff members identifying for their colleagues areas that they feel we should be discussing as a group um so we worked on the different uh indicators in the dock log um so that the staff members could meet with each other middle school high school in all different disciplines when group them that way especially so again they could start talking about what things look like cross-curricular um if you take a look at the next few we have a no place for hate initiative um and there's a steering committee for students community members staff members and administration we're working with students and staff members um from Alliance the black student union the Jewish Student Union the Indian student union and the social justice club and we're working on different ways that we can increase inclusivity and make Glenrock the most welcoming and positive learning community that it can be uh so we did our first event in conjunction with Martin Luther King's birthday and we have uh event number two coming up uh that Mr melli and I are working on with the group um you can take a look at some of the others we have a student to- student Mentor program which is where our high school students help our sixth graders with transition they met for a series of events um they talked about topics such as making you friends um time management things of that nature so again that Continuum where our older students are bringing along our younger students um and then in terms of again that professional Community we have an English Department book club um Dr McKay has worked with bringing in co- teing professional development so that our teachers are learning how to do best practices as partners um and so that both teachers in the room are meeting the needs of all of those students um and then we have some fun stuff uh we reestablished our faculty event space we had a wellness lunch event the other day which was Super Bowl themed um but we we have also had Halloween themed events we've had holiday themed events um it's a way for faculty members to get together on their off time and have a time to unwind again meet new people um and focus on some self-care which is also in our Communications administratively we only send out emails at certain times to the staff as a group um and then we also encourage them on their time away from school to make sure sure that they're turning off their email and taking a little time for themselves um if we look at what's going on with Wellness counseling across the middle school high school that's the next slide maybe there it is uh so we have individual counseling sessions our three Wellness counselors take regular appointments for long-term goal setting with our students who need that initi additional service they hosted a wellness Fair back in October to focus on the combination of physical and mental health awareness together they're doing Wellness wed Wednesdays during high school and middle school lunch with our students again increasing that connectedness for some students who might be having a harder time with that um they were doing lessons with our classroom teachers most specifically nutrition and health Teen Mental Health First Aid um they're working in advisory and they're also helping out with no place for hate uh we always have the therapy dogs uh every other Friday which is great um and then the iced Club is our malale identified students discussing mental health typically that's a group that is reluctant to talk about topics of that nature so we have a great advisor who's bringing them out and then they're working with the wellness counselors as well uh we had a speaker for Red Ribbon Week Matt botch who is very well received by our high school students um and we have for the spring Stephen Hill step Ben vist and Sean Simons and all of our oos they are coming in to talk about uh substance use prevention drunk driving prevention that will be in conjunction with prom uh for our seniors and for our Juniors and then after the fire is specifically for our seniors that's about the seat and Hall fire um and they talk about not only fire safety but again that good decision making and all of these are really focused on that per uh personal development and the balance between academics and social emotional learning specifically good decision making just at the middle school we continue this year with minute meetings and midyear check-in surveys so each counselor at the grade level at the start of the Year meets with every student for just a few minutes and asks a series of questions connecting onetoone with them and noting anything of particular interest but establishing that immediate connection and then they do a midyear check-in and they meet with kids as needed based on their responses uh they're running leadership groups across grades 6 through eight and then miss Higgins is also running social groups just for grade six again as part of our transition initiative our counselors go into the classrooms and they've been working on lessons for respect and positive decision making um we continue with the Middle School reimagine plan with our team leader meetings and professional development for our teams as a whole to work on that interdisciplinary approach that I've been talking about uh we have quarterly reset meetings we had our first set today for quarter three with our sixth and seventh graders and those are to focus on what's going well and where we can improve so we do a lot of self-reflection there uh we're working continuing on with the advisory program which is eight sessions uh focusing on respect ownership compassion and kindness and that's our precursor I've talked about that here before to ruler um and then we're also working with the Travis Manion Foundation we had a full grade assembly for each grade in October and we're doing breakout groups for a character course in March and April again to work with kids on developing not only their leadership skills but but just to make sure that um you know we're bringing out the confidence in them and lastly just at the high school we've been focusing on a partnership with challenge success which is out of Stanford we did a fall student and parent survey um and we have our rep from challenge success coming back on February 28th to do presentations for our n9th and 10th and 11th and 12th grade students to go through the results of those surveys um we have a steering committee much like no place for hate May made up of students parents faculty and administration um we do individual coaching sessions with our challenge success rep that's a great way again for us to have more student voice just like we're looking to increase student voice um this is a great way for our students to have an input into some small changes we can make to move us more towards that balance between academics and the social emotional uh we recently hosted uh and Social Justice Academy workshop on understanding identity and intersectionality and we have one coming up on strategies for being an effective bystander um again those are initially opened up to our students who are working with us in no place for hate through the social justice Club Alliance black student union Jew Student Union Indian student union and then we open it up to the rest of the student body to see who else is interested in joining us um we continue to do mental health first aid with grade 10 um and that's a program in which students are trained to identify and help their peers find the the right help someone who might be struggling so not try to take it on themselves but we do know that students will talk to their friends first so we're working on them with them on ways to respond to situations like that at this point our 10th 11th and 12th graders have all been trained and then we'll continue to train 10th grade each year we would train ninth grade but they won't let us Mental Health First State says that it has to start in 10th grade um we have professional learning communities or plc's for our teachers run by our teachers so you can see those uh few there those are all dedicated to making sure that again we're really working on this idea of inclusivity collaboration and Community we've uh returned the student of the month award which is very popular uh when the kids come in to receive their certificate and their pin they're very not I I don't want to say surprised but they're very pleased so even our 12th graders who are 6 fo two and you know you think oh it's just a just a little certificate in a pin but they're really thrilled by it so it's so nice to be the one who gets to hand those out to them um and then lastly I've also started the advisory committee for students I have a ninth and 10th grade version and an 11th and 12th grade version we meet on that three-week rotation only in the morning at 7:15 it's dwindled a little bit but I might have to bring munchkins or something to get them back in um but again once again student voice student input collaboration and Community across the board um so hope we've made some progress and I I'm looking forward to the doing more thank you Mr gando um and and Dr Daniels uh this uh next one is members of our uh climate and and culture Committee of which I am a member of and I call them my climate and culture committee Warriors because they um really come up with a lot of good ideas and they they put themselves out there there uh and I'm just really pleased to to work with them um so we have several members here tonight I'm going to let them introduce themselves and co go over the next couple of slides so I think Miss piol is up first thank you yes thank you for having us we're several of the members of the culture and climate committee I am Nina peel I am a teacher at Coleman school um but our committee was formed out of this goal with the focus of promoting Wellness of all staff across the district when we get together we are talking about making meaningful connections and opportunities for all of our staff um that Foster our own wellness and we don't just mean physical wellness but also social emotional as well as you'll see through some of the activities that we are going to talk about um our committee is made up of representation from every building as well as different roles in different departments which is nice because then we are able to see a big picture and get different insight and input as we talk about um some of these uh activities that we've set up um and it is a collaborative effort and I would not say that that effort ends with our committee as you'll see we've reached out to the whole district and we really try to listen to their voice when we're making some of these activities um so with that we can get into the next slide which talks about some of our activities um the first one we did was send out a survey to all the staff getting their input on activities that we did last year some ideas that we had for this year and what they felt would be best um and again we really tried to look at the data and determine what would be best for all for everyone two ideas um or two examples from that one is when we set up yoga which you'll see in a bit we had originally started to talk about doing that as an early morning activity but when we went back to the dat data it showed that after school was actually the best time for most of the staff which is when we've scheduled that um another example as you'll see later is our kindness affirmations which we cannot take credit for that was an idea shared from someone who filled out the survey we thought it was a wonderful idea so we just took it and set up that opportunity um again to just create connections for all the staff and and promote the wellness hi I'm Sharon banano or in other places they know me as Sharon likes bird bestest banano not necessarily true but I'm here to talk about Step Challenge which a lot of you were involved in and there was actually I think 183 members um total so that was fabulous this is the second year that we did it um was a lot of fun um bird school did wi in case you didn't know and um no it was really great and it was a great way for everybody to get together it was a different way to come together as a school a lot of people went walking at lunch it you know it I think it made people realize how important doing steps were without even thinking about it we as our jobs were moving all the time but even just taking that little walk at lunch um and then getting to talk to your coworker while doing it and bonding together and trying to win and doing the thing it but um no in in reality it was really great everybody who was involved got a t-shirt um which was really fun and um their overall winners received Awards and I don't know if everybody heard about you know our first place winner who showed up at I think 400 a.m. right to start walking and he won with over I don't know 100,000 steps I think 100,000 steps yeah so there's that um we got a little crazy everybody got a little crazy but there were also three other prizes for uh best newcomer um uh Overall winning and and what was the other one most improved most improved so that was really fun we have decided we did it last year and this year that we're going to take off next year um because it made some people a little crazy so for in good ways in good ways I keep walking um and um we'll take it up a year from there I just want to comment on Miss P she know she can't get down until I make a comment so last year she was on the central team which is not do as well and then this year she went on a bird team and had a much better effort so that's why she has the reputation liking bird more and I will also say that Miss banana would not let me beat her she I tried my best but she she started walk yes yeah she was it was upsetting and I and I tried and I tried and I was walking 30,000 steps a day and she just kept on beating me and beating me so um I won't I won't forget that uh but I do I do thank you for for for for taking the lead on this and I agree it was a fun challenge Mr Clump hello I'm Frank Clump I'm the student assistant counselor for Middle School High School uh one of the things that we introduced was the workout Warriors at Alpha Fit club uh for those of you that aren't familiar with Alpha fit uh it's kind of similar to Orange Theory so it's a circuit based workout um high-intensity training with cardio and really a full body workout uh so that's something that the staff across the whole District participates in um it could be up to I believe 24 uh staff members and we get a pretty good decent workout if you kind of sweat next to someone that you don't really know that well you get to know them pretty quick so it's a good way to know some of your fellow staff members uh as well as people that maybe you don't interact with from another building so uh it's just a good way to uh build some katerie around the uh staff uh as well as uh we' been trying to push the two programs of the njwell and the active fit so these are two programs through our health insurance that um one NJ well you do a bunch of different uh like paddle boarding or going for a walk and different types of things as well as getting your blood test or going to the dentist and you earn points and when you earn a certain amount of points you can get a $250 gift card um which we've already been able to get some people to earn it and then I believe if there's a certain amount then uh the district gets awarded money through the state so we've been really trying to push uh staff members to sign up to that uh another one is active fit so it's also through our health insurance um basically it tracks either your steps I believe it's 10,000 steps a day or if you go to the gym uh you can earn earn uh one one point and basically if you have 12 for the month you earn $20 you can get direct deposits so it's a good incentive um it can track your location my gym happens to be next to Uncle jpp's so Sunday went to pick up canoli's and I still got a gym visit so it was kind of nice um so those are two programs through the uh insurance that are really really uh good um yeah Mr kudos to Mr Clump and and Miss Higgins in particular uh the whole committee has done it but they actually set up a table to try to get staff um to uh to join the New Jersey well an active fit and in particular as I shared with the board and the committee's well aware for New Jersey well we need about 70 staff members to to to hit that and I think we hit about 35 we had an increase so our goal is to get that number by December and if we do I believe we get 1% of our um premium back which is about $7,000 and we had shared that we would we would certainly uh be share that back with the climate and culture uh committee so we can continue to do activities for for our staff uh on well-being in regarding to workout Warriors at Alpha fit I have recently gone there and I worked out one day with Mr mlli and the next week with Mr Valentino and neither of them have come back again so I'm not taking it personally but it's a little it's a little upsetting so Mr Cusack I see you there I will see you there on Thursday and that's that's not an invitation uh it's a requirement uh but um I really enjoy that and and I agree with Mr Clump it's so fun to see the staff out and about and and interacting across different schools and departments so uh uh as the Comm as the committee continues to come up and share these things I know that they want to thank um the board of ed for their support in uh in staff uh Wellness by by sponsoring a lot of these things so we appreciate that hi everyone I'm Nicole hch I'm the elementary math coach um thank you all for having us today and like Dr Charles and said thank you for all of your support of these initiatives um I'm here to talk about yoga and wellness and so like Miss peol said one of the things that came out of our survey was um people saying yeah we're doing a lot of really great things for our physical fitness and our physical wellness but what about mindfulness um and so we were trying to think of different ways that we could incorporate that and what came out of that is Yoga and Wellness um with Jennifer Knight who is a Glenrock parent um and so like Miss Pierce all said we we were trying to figure out when is the best time for this and we played around with a lot of ideas but we really listened to the input of the staff um and so now it's on Tuesdays after school at 3:45 at Central School um it gives enough time for people to get over to the building but it's early enough that people can still get home to their families and so it's been really well attended so far um it's been a few weeks that we've been doing this so the kindness affirmations was our first year of doing this and again this came out of a suggestion from one of our staff members and we thought it was a really easy great way um we had done it right before winter break which as you know can be a very stressful time and so it was optional if staff wanted to participate if they did they were assigned another staff member who was participating and then for two weeks anonymously leave positive notes um Post-it notes emails um little things in their mailbox on their door just things to lift their Spirits things um such as like a countdown to how many days till break you're doing a great job remember you make a difference and it was just a nice way to um come to work or come back after lunch and and something easy to lift your spirits and it was a a nice way to connect and it was Anonymous so you you don't know who it was but um you know it was nice to see everyone's smiling face and just an easy way to to keep going um during that you know somewhat stressful time no I agree I thought that that was great and I participated in it and I had the best partner I don't know who it was but every day they left me a die Coke and I thought that was just Great die Coke and I just it was like the best thing ever so I would like to do that again miss P Soul thank you hi I'm Rebecca T I'm the elementary literacy coach and I'm just here to talk about one of the upcoming events that we have planned um one thing we're looking to do with our staff is find a book club that generates you know interest and we're hoping to reach out to like our media Specialists and get some recommendations and just thinking about ways that we can get together with people kind of like in our off time but still to grow ourselves like in our mindfulness with our bodies and also with our thoughts so we're looking forward to that as well and I'll finish up that's right so so you're looking at me like yes please please finish up so um the last two things we have talked about at our committee uh was a spring sta staff social not necessarily it would be it could be a lot of different things uh we had talked about I think there was a place opened up called is it Pinstripes is that what it was called up something like that bowl I don't know what what it is but they are talking about going to to somewhere going to event whether it's bowling or something along those lines uh we talked about having a pickle ball tournament between the schools softball game between the schools so we're we're batting around some ideas probably reach out uh to the staff when we get back from from Spring Break and and and solidify that and the last thing um that the committee wanted to do was uh run another climate survey through through Ruckers the last one we did was in the fall of of 22 right fall of 22 so um we thought uh to do one in the spring of of of 24 to kind of see how far how far we've come it's a free survey we you know and our committee is willing to to put the effort into it so we're going to talk about that some more we'll certainly share that with the board prior to us uh making that commitment but something to keep on your radar and I just really enjoy working with them they put a lot of of time and effort into it they put their names out there they're on all the emails that go out for climate and culture and um I think uh it goes without saying that they care deeply about the district but also their colleagues and uh I I really enjoy work with them they're they're they're a great group and I thank you for coming out tonight I appreciate it and I'm going to turn over to Mr canel I think for your esip goal not as exciting as climate and culture but I get to wrap up the show with probably the most interesting thing on the list um so the board uh last spring had identified um a energy conservation plan uh that they wanted to uh look into um it's called an esip it's the Energy savings Improvement plan and really what it is is it's a it's a financing vehicle that allows you to take savings achieved from different um energy conservation measures take that money that saved over a 15 to 20 year period and borrow against those funds to in fact one uh complete the projects that will conserve the energy and then two with any excess funds redistribute them to maybe some capital projects that aren't maybe as sexy um and sellable uh to the public uh for instance things that are behind the wall like rooftop units like insulation like weatherization um and try to get those um in and completed on a net net basis of zero dollars because the savings that we achieve is in fact used to um Finance the projects so the process is pretty um elaborate we've been uh working on this since the summer um we've had an investment grade audit that's just about wrapping up where we've had uh energy consultant and Engineers running through every crevice of our buildings looking for lost energy and looking for opportunities to save energy uh we recently had our client sheret where a lot of those results were then translated into actual uh projects so for instance uh one of the items on the list is a weatherization of our buildings um another Pro uh project is a um an enhancement of our building uh control Control Systems lighting controls and probably the the the largest energy conservation measure is the introduction of LED lighting in as many places as we can um the numbers are escaping me but I believe it was in the multiple hundreds of of of actual bulbs and ballasts that would be changed uh throughout the district and in essence we add up all those conservation measures and uh borrow against that uh in the form of a refunding bond uh typically uh these in the past have been uh funded through leases but the leasing Market is not as uh uh attractive in terms of interest rates currently um and so our investment advisor um is really uh directing Us in the in in in the way of issuing refunding bonds to finance our our projects uh we believe that we will be selling debt uh sometime in in May um we where we we'll have a uh an earnings call um and get red for our our our bonds um issue the bonds and then in summer late spring kind of breakr on what will be certainly a 12 to 18mth uh project uh time frame so uh upcoming events for for the board is sometime in March um we're going to uh bring the uh investment uh I'm sorry the energy conservation company in who will explain all of the projects that are available to us we'll decide collectively which projects we are going to move forward with um and then we are off to the races um at our next meeting you will be uh approving uh or more like it awarding a contract to a third-party uh energy uh engineering firm that will take the plan and test out to make sure that the savings that our Esco currently says we will have that we will have and then we will go before the BPU you for final approval so that's kind of where we are um stay tuned um and there's some information in your packets that I put in there in terms of a timeline so you can see kind of where we are and and where we're going thank you Mr canels so a lot of information was thrown at the board regarding uh two board goals and three District goals um so if the board has any comments uh at this time we like to hear them all right um Rond um so I just wanted to say thank you to the um army of people that came to present tonight uh I'm always impressed when we have these presentations and it's really nice to see our board and go districts kind of in action uh so thanks again to everyone um and just one last thing I know we have community members that have asked for our supervisors and other people to come and speak at our meeting so I really hope that this checks that box it certainly did for me so thank you very much any other members of the board any comments okay again thank you um everyone for your thorough presentation today um it was uh well received on my part and I uh look forward to any questions that any of the board members may have feel free to send them our way and we'll make sure that we can communicate that to um the members of our district that we saw today all right um at this time I'd like to just take a five minute break um for us to reset before we continue on with the agenda um so we can come back um at 8:20 p.m thank you so um tonight we're going to uh present a draft of um of the budget let me pull it up here and these are just overall highlights which is similar to what what we shared in the past um the board has in backup all the materials that have been shared uh similarly in the past in addition to a couple other documents that Mr caneles had had put together uh before I get into um the draft of the budget I do want to thank uh Mr caneles um and his team for I think putting together uh a really solid solid plan in uh how we built the budget it was very organized um it was a collaborative with the administrative team uh and I think what was most most impressive for me is that uh Mr Mr canel's Focus was always students students first and I thought that was um uh refreshing and uh I want to thank you for that you did a nice job uh so a couple of things uh kind of say this every year our building based Bud budgets are are really essentially flat um it's it's it's based on their on the on the pupil enrollment when we snap um or when we submit the October 15th uh report to the state that's how we base it if if if um if a school has significant increase in enrollment we increase uh that that budget a little bit um an example would have been like maybe Hamilton with the four additional classrooms the middle schools growing by I think 31 31 students but for the budget purpose out of a $63 million budget it's really negligible in terms of the of the overall budget but we just wanted to share that we're not just throwing things into uh the building uh based budgets we do go through them um we do try to keep them uh flat the um some of the things that are added in in into uh or included in the budget uh proposal we have uh two positions uh one is a special education um teacher and we identified that as K to 12 and while most likely will be an elementary position uh because the middle and high school gives us a little bit more flexibility and moving uh teachers around we wanted to identify K to 12 just to give us as much flexibility as possible uh there are there are also some staff members that have you know made made uh inquiries into possibly wanting to transfer so um instead of saying it was going to be an elementary special ed teacher we just identifi it as K to 12 but the board should be aware that it will most likely be an elementary position and that is is needed due to just an increase in in students with with IEPs we are um we do have a full-time art teacher uh in the budget this would be specific for the Middle School um it would give us an increase of three uh sections in the Middle School to help address um the increase in enrollment in addition it's an easier position uh to fill because we already have several existing art classrooms and through scheduling we'll be able to use the existing Middle School and High School classrooms to fill those additional three sections which would take pressure off the existing art classes in terms of the numbers but also in terms of our other electives uh that we've done through our Middle School reimagining plan every year we have unassigned teachers uh so this this year we have two unassigned teachers K to 12 uh the board may remember that we added this year a middle school um or middle school/ high school special education teacher as one of the unassigned teachers uh it does give us flexibility should we get students that move in or an increase in enrollment in a certain subject area where there could be a need for an additional uh teacher and that's consistent with what we've done in years's past um aligned to our goal on security and over what we've shared over the last three years is it's starting to increase our security guards so in the budget is two additional security guards these security guards would be for um identified for the elementary schools which would give us a security guard at each of the elementary schools uh right now we have two that rotate uh amongst them uh while the Elementary uh security guards would be sort of of uh I think our plan is to still rotate them amongst the four schools and to have a guard at each time there could be uh significant events that would take place at a school which would necessitate having additional security there um but at the end of the day the plan is to have an elementary guard in each school and for the high school middle school and I I believe this is one of the things that will come out of the report from porio that the board contracted out with the security assessment was that that that bridge between that four 4 to 6:00 p.m. 4: to 7:00 p.m. uh time frame when there's really no no no no uh security here we wanted to increase our high school middle school security guards of which we have two of them from the six to eight hours per day which would give us additional coverage so at the end of the day um we would have six uh security guards and a director of security um which again we've been phasing in since I first started in July I believe we corrected we uh created the director of security in that November December of 2019 and we've built this security Force up since since then we also have two out a district unanticipated special education placements at I believe the number is $93,000 per student um again we've always budgeted for this this is in case uh a student moves into the district that we don't that we didn't anticipate that needs an out of District placement so we have funding available for that the board may remember that last year um right after we struck the budget we did have a student move in um that needed an out of District placement and took one of those one of those um positions so it's good for us to have those two out of District uh unanticipated placements in hand should we get students that that move in probably one of the biggest drivers um in our budget is always going to be uh staff and and help health benefits we're we're a people a people business and about 70% of our budget um is staff and health benefits well one of the things that has increased um pretty significantly is health benefits year-over-year um a little over a little over uh $400,000 I think it's about 430,000 off the top of my head um and that's based on uh the recommendation is based on Brown and Brown who's our third party benefit advisor um and we've always taken their recommendations they're the experts on what they anticipate next year's uh health care costs um would be uh so again that's a significant number from from the previous year we do have in there $200,000 as a line item for capital reserve um we do have some significant capital projects going forward not only this year but in future years the B the board has since I've been here had a line item for for capital reserve um so that's uh what we identified for at this time which is the $200,000 we did meet with the um with ESS leadership those are the providers for par professionals um and we did discuss uh some of their needs and like what would make us competitive with other districts because CS uh does um cover a lot of districts throughout throughout New Jersey um so they as you could see there they shared um what they think the salary increase should be but in addition they they they had said that other districts are starting to give them uh sick days so their recommendation was to provide our par professionals with three sick days three paid sick days so what James did in the budget was to provide for the salary increase but also the budget for the substitutes should the par professionals have to use those three sick days um as of now when our pars are out um they do not get paid for that day so it seems uh like sort of like the right thing to do which would be to provide them that opportunity should they be sick uh to be compensated uh for that we do have several capital projects that we're recommending one we've already discussed and that was the board accepted the grant at the last meeting and that's the prek expansion um of 1.3 million the one difference here is that the board should be aware that the 150,000 for the uh playground will not be included in this year's capital reserve withdrawal because that project would take place in the summer of 205 so that would be in in the following Year's budget um we did uh uh bring in uh field Turf our Architects to look at the lower and upper uh turf fields um so we are recommending that they are at end of life the lower field is so we are recommending a replacement of the lower turf field which is 1.1 uh million this does include a 30 foot increase on both the length and width and I had shared with the board the images of that the rationale for that I guess when the field was first put in was to limit it to to to the size that it currently is and what you have is you have the field and you have a concrete strip and then you have grass dirt mud and then you have a a metal like drainage grate so we have students going from dirt to the concrete block to the turf and you see that in in in the pictures um since I've been here the uh even our goals actually are half on dirt and half on on the turf field so since I've been here the coaches athletic director has asked um that when the field gets redone that it would be a safer field for our student athletes to go to what it probably should have been at that time which is to the fence line that currently exists and so our recommendation is to put that in in in place there are some options for the board um one is the cool play infill so the coolplay infill uh helps keep the field cooler by about 35 deg um I don't know if James brought his thing um so James has a sample of the cool play infit yeah it's she's happy about that um so uh it's it's based on um it's like a lighter gray color but it's not necessarily the color which does reflect some of the light it's also the technology of the of the rubberized pellets um but it does keep the field cooler by 35 degrees we know the field gets very hot that um is is $40,000 for the lower uh field um and so while it's optional we think that it's something that the board should definitely um consider uh we put in their lights because there are lights down there now they're just the the gas diesel I guess diesel lights I think there were seven of them so they are used um we thought that at least give the board the option should they want to go to lights so the board's aware those lights would be similar to the ones on the The Stadium Field so it would be four uh the lights would be different um they would be more directional uh LED but they also would have very little light spill over right because they're they're just a newer newer technology um so you would the neighbors wouldn't have to deal with the gas right the noise those types of things um so that's an option for the board uh as well um we we've looked into since I've been here trying to renovate the High School Middle School culinary room but always just came in really expensive so what James did and did a really a good job of meeting with our Architects and the teacher and Mr cusac um to say like what do we like let's drill this down to what we need um to make it you know a good healthy uh safe uh renovated place for our students so we came in number of 748 th000 um The Culinary room was last renovated in 1991 uh as you could see from the pictures that I we shared with you um it's kind of falling apart uh the handles on some of the stoves or wood uh the the cabinets are falling apart this is not going to be a chopped kitchen uh it will be uh stainless steel it will have new appliances um we will have new shelving um there'll be ventilation um and uh it will still have five stations uh which is four students uh per station so that came in at 748 th000 the two other projects I put in there just as informational because the board has already approved those in the previous uh at the previous meeting we put them in there because it's coming out of this year's budget so just because we wanted you to know that these are capital projects so that's the high school middle school roof the rod Grant and the Coleman roof um uh Rod Grant and then uh two more things uh that has come to our attention again thanks to James uh the hard work and due diligence is the elementary syn encounter cabinets need to be replaced across all the elementary schools outside of the new construction at Hamilton so what we did was we came up with a three-year plan so this is year one of that phase in so we're going to hit 13 classrooms at 195,000 uh it's not just the Saints it's also the cabinets themselves and what James and his team would do is hit multiple like two or three classrooms in each of the elementary schools um and in addition we have a paint painting uh budget as well through buildings and grounds and then he would hit classrooms we aren't getting the sinks done so our goal is that when teachers come back from from summer we would hope that their room would either have been painted or got a new sink and cabinet if that makes sense right and then over the next three years we we would continue that that that process the last Capital project is the um the high school gym exterior concrete stairs um to be candid uh I was not aware of how bad of shape that they were in until James brought this to to my attention um we went out there and looked at it and I shared those images with the board they're falling apart to the point where we had to build a wooden box U underneath where the kids exit so that debris didn't didn't fall on them um when they exited the the the lower um the locker room so that's 131,000 and that would replace both of those of those stairs so the total proposed capital projects minus the any options is $3.5 million um does not include the roof projects again as they're in this budget as they exist our existing capital reserve budget is 7 million and we anticipate a surplus conservatively of of at the end of this year of sweeping in about 500,000 it may be more but at the end of the day um if you do the projects that are list listed you're looking at um having about $4 million um left over for future projects which we would get into we are painting uh 38 Elementary classrooms this goes through uh buildings and grounds there is about 47 left that's an estimated cost of 80,000 and what James wants to do is have once these three years are up is then to develop a maintenance plan so that so we're we're always updating our rooms going forward ver is painting them and not touching them for many years uh he wants to keep uh U on top of it and so um we support that at the 80,000 couple things were taken out the board can see that in front of them one of them uh we discussed uh before at the request of one of the athletic trainers in the high school was to move from full-time to uh to part-time uh and so um that that is uh in the budget now as a part-time uh position um we did have uh the elementary permanent Subs uh we had two in each building we're looking to reduce that down to four after meeting with ESS and seeing now that we're several years post post pandemic that we believe we'll be able to um get substitutes back again and speaking with the elementary principles they are supportive of this you can see some of the other things that were requested but not put into uh into the budget so what are the financial impacts so uh we're looking at a 3.4% increase in the tax levy which is about 1.7 million so the question is like where does that Revenue come from so Glenrock is a district that gets 94% of its uh uh um I guess Aid taxes what revenue is a better word 94% of his Revenue come from the local tax levy and about 6% from state aid so if we just go based on our tax levy at 2% which is the cap you're looking at $1 million um so we do have some uh waivers that the state allows last year we took a waiver for healthare costs um because Health Care was just had had increased by such a significant amount similar to this year so we have $265,000 that we're using as a healthc care waiver which is about 0.52% % the board remembers my first three years here we came in at 175 175 and I believe 1.1 last year was 3.42 um the reason that we were able to come in at 175 for those three years or two years into the 1.1 the biggest reason was that healthc care really was flat or even decreased however that's changed now with the New Jersey educator plan um the bulk of the the the the employees unless they uh get raises they'll contribute a little bit more but once you make $125,000 your your contribution is capped so I always use myself as an example my contribution is capped at $375 per paycheck for health care that is regardless of the increase in premium prior to the New Jersey educator Educators plan my premium went up uh my contribution went up as the premium went up so I actually saved about2 to3 thousand by going to the New Jersey educator plan and it's capped in perpetuity so the board will always experience the the brunt of the increase in in health care costs because our staff is Cap capped once they hit 125,000 now if a staff member makes 60,000 there's a certain ratio there's a certain rate they have to pay and if they get raise and I don't know the numbers off the top of my head to 65,000 they'll pay a little bit more and you'll keep on paying a little bit more until you get to 125,000 but it doesn't the increase will not cover the increase in healthcare premium costs if that makes sense then so uh because we went to 175 175 1.1 my first 3 years here we had banked cap so when we didn't need the money back then we do need the money uh this year so we're we're uh uh proposing $333,000 of Bank cap which is 65% of the budget um and then we have Bank cap that's expiring so what that means is after four years you lose your bank cap expires it goes away and you can't tap into it I believe last year we did not we let some banked cap expire I think it was about $100,000 change so if we don't tap into this $120,000 this year it would expire and the board would no longer have access to it so we're we we suggest that we take that which is 024 so that 0.2 and those other three numbers gets us to the 3.4% increase in the tax levy which is 1.7 million so why do we need the 1.7 million well salary increase year over year for all staff this is for myself um I see uh Lisa out there it's foris Thomas Elli right it's for everyone for Greg so on that's your salary increases year-over-year is 1.3 million that's already $300,000 over the 2% tax levy and we haven't factored in the health care costs you know the benefit increase year over years four 4 million or excuse me 0.4 million 400,000 and change and that gets to you to your $1.7 million so that's where we got to 3.4% we're not funding taking any funding right now from Community School um what we're going to do or recommend is that we'll tap into community school as needed we believe that's more transparent than just taking $100,000 and burying it in the budget as you know this year we Ed money from the community school to purchase a bus and if we had something come up next year we would certainly uh discuss that put it on the agenda and the board would vote knowing that funding is coming from the community school there are some future considerations uh and I had not put this on uh in my other budget highlights but I thought worthwhile since we have some significant projects coming down the road um however uh before I get to those projects if there is an increase in state aid we recommend creating $100,000 maintenance reserve and then add any remaining funds to to capital reserve this is the last year what we call S2 so it's a seven-year phase in of uh of the state fully funed school districts so Glenrock has been fortunate in that we've been on the receiving end of getting additional funds uh other districts have not so we do anticipate an increase in state aid we just don't know how much Governor Murphy has said it will be the highest ever um so because we have some significant capital projects coming up our recommendation is to create $100,000 maintenance reserve and put any remaining funds to capital reserve uh as a line item so that we can can fund future uh projects some of the future projects are the renovation of The Stadium Field Press Box and track press box and track don't necessarily need to be done at the same time as the Stadium Field could be a good opportunity to do all three but the Press Box does need to be redone at some point in the future and the track would need to be resurfaced someone asked a question why not why not do both fields at the same time so it takes about 8 to 10 weeks to do the turf to turf fields if the board were to choose to do both you'd run into a predicament because you can get to the lower field probably shortly after after uh June 1st give or take but you couldn't touch the upper field until after graduation so now you could write off the upper field probably until late September early October if everything goes well but if you have problems on the lower field our kids wouldn't have a place to play for next fall so we recommend splitting it up doing the lower field which we can attack or start on June 1st give or take a day and hopefully get that ready by early September but we know that our students would be able to play on The Stadium Field and also still practice on Hamilton's field as needed they would have a place to go and play their games um The Stadium Field is in better is in much better shape than the lower field um even though we've done all the maintenance on on both Fields the life expans the uh the lifespan of these fields is about 10 years give or take the fields were put in in 2012 the boards reminded that um the state the football team did not start playing on the football on The Stadium Field I think until the following year 2013 just doesn't get as much use as as the lower field um so we believe that we can get actually we know that we can get another year of our students being able to safely play on The Stadium Field and attack this project in the summer of 25 the Hamilton parking lot uh does need to be repaved it's not necessarily urgent um but because we did the construction there and part of the parking lot has been repaved um we did put in for a rod grant for that we didn't get it but uh we do believe it needs to be done and that that um is a future project that we think the board should consider uh the bird playground uh has runoff and erosion as you go there you can see everything just sweeping down towards towards the the creek um so we believe that that needs to be addressed that just is a tougher project it's hard for us to get uh a true number on that because of all the different agencies that are involved in that because there's water behind there so whatever acronym you want to use or whatever letters they stand for um there are a couple of different things that we have to address so um that's a future project uh and then we have have Under Numbers five and six years two and three of the elementary school sink replacement and Elementary School painting we know that in summer of 25 the prek classrooms will open here so we will need a prek teacher for the additional section and the board is options because you're going to have two empty classrooms in um one at Central and one at Coleman and the board is options and I shared in in the last update with the board that you know um you could do you could give Art in music their own classrooms at colan or the board can look to see if they want to create 10 sections which would be give you 10 sections for all grades K to five to reduce class size board's reminded that the district does have about $185,000 in unexpired Bank cap um that you have available to you for the 25 26 budget before we move on I did want James to explain the maintenance Reserve because that's a new uh mechanism that um we had our County uh midyear budget review the county had shared that um uh they were surprised that the district did not have a maintenance reserve and strongly suggested that we create one and uh I know we have an emergency Reserve so James maybe you could speak about both real quick if you don't mind sure um the the the the surprise of not having a maintenance Reserve um lies in the fact that tapping into maintenance Reserve uh funding is very simple it really only requires local Board of Education approval it involves no other County approvals uh as opposed to the emergency Reserve that we have had uh which I believe is currently sitting at 209,000 where you actually have to have uh the county approve the the measure they have to actually declare it an emergency and then we may or may not be given permission to touch that money um over the last couple of years uh there has been some legislation that uh we don't we're not sure when when it highlights if it will be extended but you could use some of those emergency funds uh for security measures uh so what we're trying to do is is is once we get the porio report determine if there are some measures that maybe we could tap the emergency fund bring down the emergency fund um and then build over the next couple of years a maintenance fund so that when we do have that uh oh um and and we seem to have uhoh um given the age of our buildings um we can easily via a board resolution um acquire the funds needed um and really not skip a beat thank you Mr caneles so um that's uh the kind of the budget highlights uh the board does have in backup in I believe it was a 16-page document as a draft that Mr canelas shared that was something new um for the board and in that was um I want to pull it up here there's a couple of things that I thought were important that's the board ofed packet it has the logos on it and if you go to um towards the bottom of it there's two bar graphs right um so the bar graph on page as I'm scrolling down here it's probably at the bottom um on page 14 talks about the year-over-year spend so in blue is the current budget and in red is the proposed budget and you can see there's really no difference year-over-year of of what we're proposing and doing the biggest change is the capital spending because we didn't do any real capital projects last year because of the Hamilton Construction and if you go to slide um 15 it's really almost like identical again outside of capital spending in terms of the costs so from what the board approved in 2324 to what is proposed in 2425 nearly lines up identically um uh uh across across the budget so um and then you have all the other documents there behind you um so Dr Robinson that's that kind of concludes uh the presentation of the draft budget I'll turn it over to you okay thank you very much Dr Charlston um I guess now just time for uh comments from uh board members uh yeah this carel in the sight line now I used to be over there um just Rec recognizing I guess that you know budget is a financial reflection of your District's goals and Mission I feel like you guys did a really good job of demonstrating that um you know I see alignment with our board goals the district goals Community expectations and just where we're going in the future um and most importantly it's student Focus as Dr Charleston said um I did want to say I really appreciated the document the year-over-year bar graphs were such a great visual for me um I don't remember seeing that last year so that's new James thank you so much it uh was very helpful to demonstrate the thoughtfulness the focus and um just overall efficiency it's it was very helpful thank you um breaking down just a few highlights from that I noticed um you know our board goals included Safety and Security the capital projects address these as well as the additional security guards and ours um we've also heard from our families in the community about security so I think that that's great that we're increasing um and in terms of where we're going it considers our growing enrollment um our future maintenance I also really enjoy and appreciate the shift to a maintenance plan I think it's super smart and um just a forecast of future costs because I think we all know today's costs aren't necessarily tomorrow's costs so that's just thank you um I think that's pretty much my thoughts thank you Miss carosella um Miss Carr thank you for um the presentation so I want to clarify just um I as I had um said to Dr Robinson right now with regards to the budget I'm a soft no I'm a no holds board kind of person so right now um there's things that I'm just going to be reviewing over the next few weeks but my concerns are more with the capital um Reserve projects um while I do feel the majority of them I mean are are necessary um and my that was my question why the lower field as opposed to the upper field so thank you for explaining that and the the sense of um not doing at the same time um that plays into it but um I am will definitely not support lights um I want to clarify that the lights that are down there now are paid for by the soccer programs the rec programs and there's been huge complaints this year from the residents along um uh Cornwall um so in order for that to have any play in my head I would have to get um buyin by the neighbors and if that h means having public um forums and sessions like we did when we when we went with the original lights then then then I might consider it but um I think these projects are um safety related and health related so I with the exception of the lights um and um the only other comment I'm going to say is um the two security guards I I'd like to see that before four so that we can have one in each elementary school because um how do you decide who gets what in a h a half time and unless I miss something and I apologize so just to clarify um it would give us uh a security guard in each Elementary SCH oh that I'm sorry that would okay I'm sorry okay so thank you that that's great cuz I'm not usually one who would approved to at a time I'm a equal kind of person so I apologize um but otherwise um yeah um and the future considerations um that you discussed I I'm supporting those as well thank you Miss Carr Miss Randall um so thank thank you Dr Charleston Mr Kelis I I do really appreciate um how much effort and thought was put into this budget I'm sure it wasn't easy um I also want to thank Dr Robinson for emailing us that presentation from the njpa on what our role is as a board member in this budget process it was really informative not just for new member new board members but I got a lot out of it also um I really hope everyone was able to watch it so thank you very much um I don't really have any questions it's pretty straightforward budget I believe it addresses is how you continue to meet our district goals it supports student achievement IT addresses our community's wants by taking care of our teachers uh maintaining our facilities properly um I know we had and we will certainly continue to have high increases in health care costs um and I appreciate that we're not forced to eliminate programs or to reduce staff in order to maintain the standards that you've set for the district so and as for the capital projects I am supportive of them both uh of them including both optional choices for the field because the lights would be better quality they would be quieter they would be safer H than what's currently down there and also the the cool play in Phil I think is great um so I believe it's what's best for kids I believe all of the projects are what's best for the kids so thank you very much all right thank you Miss rall nothing Dan uh so when I went through sorry excuse me uh some of the issues that we had highlighted that are easy to discuss they're tangible kind of reflect some of the issues that our town at whole has faced over the last couple years the um you know the district the school has its own facilities own requirements but a lot of these questions have been answered by the community we can go down to Faber field and see the discussion about fields and Turf and light and really understand we've we've answered these questions thoroughly we're just kind of a subset within there so I think there's a lot of Intel outside of our physical borders that is going to tell us what the right answer is uh across the community um I'll I'll just go out and say that lighting down on the other side of town is these loud generators you probably wouldn't want your nine-year-old kids standing next to so there are no Solutions there's tradeoffs not to get to Thomas soell about it but there's things that we need to consider these are long-term capital Investments not you know annual processes that we're going to look at consistently uh so we have some not tough decisions but you things we really need to consider is this the right solution right right now or is this right solution for the 10year spend that we're going to put in so for that I'm supportive to see that we're replacing the field um maintaining it really so thank you for introducing the concept of Maintenance as a school district we're not supposed to be banking up dollars and then spending them out you know the state and the county govern us govern what we can do and that's hard to put into one one board meeting uh but there's a lot of things in here that are tough spends but necessary spends I think we're we're facing and I appreciate this open form that we're having we're facing it U openly for the community so thanks thank you Karen I'll just put my two cents in for the lights I'm with Liz that we really need buyin from The Neighbors when the whole light discussion was happening for The Stadium Field it was a little contentious at times we could say if you were at any of those board meetings um but I think that if we're going to make those lights permanent we we really need to have discussions with the neighbors I think that's I just think that's the right thing to do if it's literally in their back yards and just get their input and get their buying thank you can I just ask a question about the lights that's an optional piece right it's not necessarily in it right now so that's going to be discussion right now and and then this is the but it kind of but it kind of is only because if you're going to do the fields if you're going to renovate the field to redo it that you kind of sort of need to do that at the same time because you're going to need to run all the wiring and everything so you you either approve the and I'm not speaking out of turn I was here for both projects so um you would want to run the conduits and everything at the same time so you it's something that really has to be taken in into consideration now it I I I think that's um generally why it's on the um no I understand that I'm not disagre no no I know but I again like it's if you're talking about the do it's the right time to have the discussion because we're talking about renovating the turf as well as and then now is a good time just like how um Mr Cory brought up um the discussions that are happening around the around the town about the other fields and whether or not that they should have lights so I think when you mentioned um generally you know looking at this project and determining whether or not it's something that we'd want to do now versus oh is this the right decision but maybe they can make it 10 years from now or 10 years from now are we were going going to regret not having just done it this way in the first place um all at once because you know we're renovating the turf um so that's I guess how I imagine that we um come to the discussion or come to the agreement as to whether or not um we should do the lights at the same time as this end of life project here um but but oh sorry no question but we're saying that there would be less light pollution it would be less gasy odor no no gasi odor and quieter quieter so there shouldn't really be much not that we don't shouldn't ask the neighbors but I don't foresee much of I you actually have you been down there I mean the lights the lights are going to be I mean this is this is not a conversation for tonight but this is something that is not to be and I'm getting very passionate about it because when I was a trustee years ago you know we've had this conversation and I I I've been at meetings and and forums and it's not something that we take lightly because those the residents have many things to think about as far as reselling their house and and and everything else so while yes it is um a a a huge Health Advantage and and something we also have neighbors and you know residents that we do have to be considerate of so I just my my request is if there is a time frame and the the project Dr Charleston said would start in October so I want to just make sure that this board takes into consideration a time frame if moving forward one well well two things one I just appreciate that um we all like allow each other to finish each finish sentences and finish paragraphs and and and then we you know will'll just raise our hands and call on each other and that kind of thing just so that everyone has that opportunity um second I would ask um either Dr Charleston or Mr canel are you able to just give us um just a quick picture of this being the draft budget and you know like what what the next steps would be and then um when the public has the opportunity to make come in and make comments um on on the budget so um yeah no it's it's definitely a draft budget the board will um we would submit the budget for County approval in in March uh what are we looking at James March March 18th um state aid comes in at the end of February early March but regarding the the capital project the board would want to get into the queue for the field Turf for as soon as possible because if you're if you delay that then you wouldn't be able to start um in June you may you may not be able to start until July and August so I'm not saying the lights have to be decided uh tonight that's fine but at the board should make a decision uh tonight just as a verbal like go ahead for the lower field for us to be able to get into the queue to start with that because that's the one that's we're doing a delicate as James likes to say a delicate balance this summer because you have several projects that are touching the high school from The Culinary room to the stairs um uh we're painting we're doing cabinets we have summer camps we have esy we have Community Schools so there's a lot of things going on so it'd be helpful for the district to know what capital projects that we can move forward with um in particular the field Turf one would be good to know tonight minus minus Delights thank you for that I have a question on that um the coolplay infill does it use the same machine that we have currently that so that was one question I had and for the discussion with the lights if we can have some data as to what our high schoolers are using are we using it at night for them my understanding was those lights were put there as a temporary for the Youth Sports because of the other fields being taken off of line and they needed more use there so those generated lights shouldn't be there once the res the my that was my understanding the other fields opened up I know there's been discussion about do we put lights there or not that's another discussion completely but I don't I don't know if our high school students are using or high school sports are using the lights currently so if we can have that TOA thank you m scar Miss car so I sit on the rec Advisory Board and I have an answer to that um as far as as I said the lights are put in by the by the soccer program because they're the ones who basically are using wct me if I'm wrong but the soccer the the girls and the boys soccer use the upper field when they use the light so it's not so I do not I from what I'm being told by the by the at the rec committees it's the wreck teams that are using the lower field okay at night and that's why those lights are funded by those wck teams so I think um you know our District administration will also provide like just the definitive um use for of our students just to make sure that um we have all of that information okay uh yes okay well I guess for the lights specifically you know if if we were putting in new I think that would be you know an issue and we need to figure that out if they are used all the time already and they're gassy and terrible we're actually improving a situation so we do need to collect the data look at the data and then make our decision so I I don't know that it's it's a contentious thing it's a a thing we need to discuss and figure out what the pluses and minuses are and move forward um having said that um I'm in support of the uh capital projects uh in general I think uh we've done a lot to move this District forward I think facilities wise Fields wise um in terms of uh positions and uh uh teaching and staff we're increasing special education the Arts we're increasing safety these are all Health and Wellness right they align with our goals which you alluded to um and I also want to mention that you know I guess James you you've just started really this is your first budget round so the fact that you know we're going into this we're coming out of covid we're dealing with emergencies um in fact quick side note um I had occasion to be at the uh Auditorium Saturday night for a fine performance of Beauty and the Beast which was fantastic um I was also there Thursday night for the performance of Beauty and the Beast but that's a different discussion uh at the very end after the standing ovation they were all up there uh handing out flowers and thanking people and one of them got up and said first we you know we had to we had to practice without the use of the stage and it was really it was tough but we got through it and how hard they worked and this and that and then they said we want to thank they didn't say who but for f for getting the stage working and they only had two weeks time I thought they were going to call you up and give you a rose and I it was right there it was I I I saw it happening but it it ended up being the stage manager or something like that well either way needless to say it worked very well um I guess they have a line crew I think they call it now that moves the curtains and figures all that stuff out and uh certainly seemed smooth and like they'd been doing it for years so awesome on that front um so back to the topic of the budget uh being that it's your first year you've had to deal with crises you've had to deal with closings and unanticipated expenses so the maintenance fund is also important as you just said and you're also changing accounting systems uh which is a huge undertaking so for anyone who deals with schools or accounting um knows that to roll over systems from one system to another is a ton of work and uh it's it's not easy so uh full credit uh for all of that and other than that um I I I support the the budget and I I think it's a great draft and I'm sure there's things we'll talk about such as the lights and maybe other topics to confirm but that's why it's called a draft and uh I think we'll we'll get through it pretty quick all right thank you Mr Hayward m c do you just going to keep it super brief but say that I think it was um a thoughtful and thorough approach um to meeting the needs of the students in this District the teachers and the staff while responsibly spending time taxpayer money all right thank you Miss calz anybody else okay um I'll just wrap it up by saying um that you know thank you Dr Charleston and thank you Mr Canalis for this presentation um being that I don't have a finance background like it you know the budget is always um uh a bit of a different language for me but I definitely think that the way that it was presented to us this year allowed me to see um just a new way of of looking at um how the the the districts um and the borrows finances are are spent um I think the beauty of having uh such a diverse board like looking around uh we really get to have quite an interesting um discussion about um about these items and how they either affect us personally or people that we know or just the community at large and students um this is really um it's been great and so having listen into the even the district update presentation today and discussing how all of um the student achievement the um culture and climate the communication and all of these other board and District goals are addressed I definitely see how um all of those items are tied to a budget line item essentially and uh that's what I see here uh so um I am I am in support of this of this draft budget um and that's that's what I have to say um at this time I think it would be good to have like a straw poll of just saying you know so that we can identify um a way to get on a like a waiting list for some of the projects that are listed so a stle for those in favor of the draft budget and we have one two three four five six seven okay thank you so we'll get into the queue for really the field turf is the big one minus minus Delights um and then uh we'll also start the process for the um the the family and consumer science room The Culinary room is is a big one and then get working on the on on the steps as well and we'll keep the board informed as we move forward um and then uh we appreciate the support and I just would again want to thank James and his team it was really a pleasure working on on this with you and again um just to reiterate and I think uh Miss Carousel had said that I think Mr heward said that and M rondal is it was just refreshing students first and that's all it was your focus so thank you um at this time I would like to go so can I go back to yeah yeah yeah go back to the personal all right um i' would like to go back to the personal item um at the top of our cow agenda can I have a motion to discuss um the resolution for P1 Miss fondell second by Mr Corey um any discussion comments for P1 at this time okay seeing no comments um Mr Canalis are we able to take a poll or roll call Miss calz yes Miss carasa yes Miss Carr yes Mr Corey yes Mr Hayward yes Miss scarelli yes Miss Stevenson yes Ms Randal yes Dr Robinson yes motion passes thank you uh seeing no new no items for policy governments governance uh instruction and program special services or management in community um are there any additional items in fiscal management that we should discuss today okay yeah yeah there's two um uh so in the in backup we have the semi um waiver that's a special education uh Medicare or Medicaid initiative uh every year the board uh waves that there's about $4,000 in change we have 10 students students that that qualify um if you have less than 40 you can wave that it's a very difficult Grant to um to uh to spend down you spend way more uh in in in dollars I guess in manh hours or or people hours and trying to do that so we recommend on it'll be on the next agenda for the board to agree to wave that and again that's something that we've done every year um and then uh the next budget or next agenda we'll have starting to withdraw some capital reserve for our prek expansion so the board would see that we're starting to incur some costs and I'll let James talk about food service thank you Dr Charleston um our uh series of uh one-year contract and four renewals for pomptonian is up after this school year so we will be going out for an RFP competitive contract similar to what we did with our financial system um at the next meeting we will bring forward the RFP we'll get uh the board's approval to post it um and uh we're hoping to get it uh advertised by say the end of the month and then um have our bid or RFP collection uh in that last week of March and award in April um uh I I do know that it will be a competitive process this time as uh Chartwell has reached out to us um and are interested in making a proposal um so that's where we are on our RFP uh on our esip um we talked about that a little bit um the one thing that I do wanted to talk about is not too long ago the board approved uh an RFP competitive contract uh proposal for us to go out for the power purchase agreement which would have provided solar um we have received those uh those proposals they have been reviewed by our energy consultant however the savings that we can achieve through solar um does not cover the cost needed to install and the you know repair the roofs uh extend warranties on the roofs so it is a net negative so what we um are most likely going to do um is to not accept any of the bids um we will move forward with the esip without the en the solar um but would then look once we uh finish the implementation of the esip we would then look to uh once again uh price out um a PPA for the district maybe scale it back maybe do it on on select roofs maybe in the time frame from now to then we can get some other Renovations done on the roof thus lowering the overall cost so while solar might be sheld for the moment it is certainly not sheld uh for the long term it will be addressed in in the very near term um and I think that covers everything thank you very much um no new items in operations um for Liaisons um you'll see an email coming from me within the next 24 hours just um to let everyone know the leaon assignments some have given me recommendations um requ um and then for those who haven't um I'll just to sign it out thank you all right at this time uh 9:20 we're going to open up public comments for agenda items only um uh please state your name and your address and you have three minutes um we are implementing a um just a timer just so that uh for Equity everyone is able to hear when when their three minutes is is up so that they're able to um come to a conclusion and I appreciate it thank you good evening orley goldfeld excuse me that would be great it's um orley goldfeld 72 delmare Avenue um I'm here today because I just wanted to make a point um at the beginning of each of your agendas there's a statement to the public that says that before you take any action there's um consideration and a full understanding of the matter um and that's why the public might not see any conversation that you're having amongst yourselves before you make a decision and there have been a couple of instances when I have come up here and asked you to please have a public conversation about um General generally a special ed matter that um so that the public could get an understanding of what your thoughts are um that has sometimes happened and sometimes is not but um on the preschool expansion program I remember two meetings ago Dr Charleston made a statement um and I actually went back and listened to the recording several times in which he said that um the grant would not be available for new construction it's only for renovation I'd heard that other school districts were doing construction they were doing additions to schools so I wanted to prove it to myself I went and I found the New Jersey uh Governor Murphy's announcement of the Grant and the schools that had gotten the grants Elmwood Park is one of the schools so I wanted to look to see what they're doing Elmwood Park on its agenda January 23 announced or resolved to build additions to two of its Elementary schol schools to deal with the prek grant so it's just upsetting to me that um it feels like there's not a fome conversation or a fome understanding of an issue before your decisions are made and it just happened again tonight with this straw poll about the preliminary um budget approval and moving forward with certain line items before you've gotten any input from the public or had any um full consideration so I just want wanted to make that point to you and M randelle I don't know why I make faces every time I'm up here thank you thank you miss gulut seeing no other members of the public um in attendance tonight um we can close uh public comments at 9:23 p.m. all right um do I have a motion to adjourn the meting meeting or what actually I'd like to to share something if that's okay oh yes absolutely Dr TR um so a member of a public made a comment about the the prek uh Grant so there are two types of Grants the grant that we applied for was an expansion Grant not a construction uh Grant so the expansion Grant does not uh permit um uh new construction only renovation we had specifically asked uh those questions of our AR arct um so uh the the administration and board was truthful um throughout the entire process um and any illusion or alluding that we were not um is just is really factually inaccurate our grant is an expansion Grant not a construction grant for a new building only for renovation thank you oh and also Jolie and Dylan and Andrew today called the snow day uh I did not so they they got my phone and and made that decision so they are responsible if it does not snow tonight all right well we heard it here first um thank you for that point of clarification and at this time I think we would can call the meeting um do we have a motion to adjourn Miss Carr seconded by Miss calus sorry fa all in favor hi okay than