alternate for I was on it for a while oh my gosh person I love these I don't know I know I know a couple times when they were I'd like to call this meeting to order adequate notice has been given this meeting as required by law notice has been forward for publication in District official newspapers Post in the abam St Creek and O high schools and afforded to all the clerks of the municip the board vows and welcomes comments and opinions from residents as long as remarks are not personal or discourteous the public comment for of the meeting allows the board to listening commity members and the hear their opinions on school policy and operations the first public portion is reserved for persons wishing to speak about agenda items only the second opportunity following the action items when residents May address the board on any school related issue each speaker is asked to limit their comments to three minutes and you are not permitted to yield your time to another the public comment portion of the meeting during both sessions will not exceed 30 minutes and upon being recognized person wishing to speak should I stand and identify themselves by name and T please stand for the flag suit United States of America stand Nation God indivisible and I ask for a moment of silence Edmond here Garrison Gunther you have a COR need a motion to approve the minute so move second the minutes from February 26 been moved and second any questions or comments on these minutes right yeah I think we've always voted based on the portion that you you're observing was accurate yeah Edmond abstain dther yes Harman yes haa yes cly yes dor yes right abstain how yes Mo approv okay before I turn the page my mistake I just want to make sure before uh they leave that I get a chance to thank chef Martin and Chef a and all the staff and the students here from gamy culinary I told the chef that we're going to be spoiled from from now on wherever we go um everything was delicious and the service was wonderful and we really appreciate all you do with the students and for the students thank you for being here tonight and for all the hard work you do the food was delicious the service was great thank [Applause] you uh we have some special presentations tonight uh I will turn it over to Mr uh to recognize his teacher of the year Educational Services professional of the year as well as the abami FB so Mr Curran the floor is yours [Music] we come with props we have more so Mr K said um joh Costco this is my I'll put him to work um this is my 21st year at abami it's my 10th year as the future business leader of America advisor here um and I have had the great Fortune to work with some phenomenal students throughout my years um this past week we did attend the New Jersey AA State leadership conference which is really the pical event for all of New Jersey fpla um we had 33 students attend and qualified to go 700 students that were there we did amplify the stage um um they Jaton is our local chapter president um he's also our southern region vice president so for the entire state of New Jersey um and he's also now New Jersey who's who winner in FBLA and I'll be representing abami himself the district and the state of New Jersey at the national leadership conference in Orlando this summer um in addition to um so in addition to that um Jon was um kind enough to nominate me for the New Jersey F advisor of the year um and there were a lot of wonderful advisors that give a lot of their time um and I was selected thank you for um as the New Jersey fbaa advisor of the year um so that was um another like a big surprise um in addition to my 10 years that you always get recognized at five years 10 years and so on um in visual design they designed a holiday display for storefronts um of business um we also had seniors uh uh push brra and Shen yuchen they earned second place honors in business ethics with test um so they play test um so they play second um we also had Junior Zara AIA who earned second place honors in public speaking and um his teammate W rep from last year um they placed um third in business plan they had to submit a prejudge report 17 pages long and present their plan to the judges and after going to the dentist today I think I would probably go to bites industry which is the one that you had in Atlantic City can't get can't get an appointment there for like nine months at a time Public Service Announcement where they created a 30 second public service announcement on everything beyond what you see in the competitive events world for fbaa and all the benefits that it offers to students excuse me it's an exam on macro and micro economics um we also had quite a few number um in the top 10 in the state which again is a huge accomplishment um including very own senior in the top 10 in digital video production um we also had s uh Sarah glass Abby Reid and F DeBlasio who placed in the top 10 in broadcast journalism our other broadcast journalism group Kaden Bole and Derek Tran were also in the top 10 um and Senior Allison Osorio Geraldo in digital animation and Junior Jacob Petroski in journalism and we had a freshman again that we had addition and then we had additional recognition going to Jaton um and also mji Patel who was honored as a gold officer for the state um and nitty Patel who was elected the membership in the southern region the first place March of dime donation award for their fundraising efforts the first place Financial Forte award the second place passport of progress award here somewhere Award of Merit and we also nominated business people of the Year Joel and Lila Carlson who are owners of fara's Coffey house who have contributed a lot to FBLA for our chapter um for our sister Chapters at oest and um and Cedar Creek um and also on the state level as well um so all in all we had a wonderful experience um again we thank the board distri Administration our building Administration and everybody students um we have a little token of our appreciation which J and passed around um which are our little pens together we achieve is actually the national theme this year I know it's also the Board of Education theme on its website together we achiev so one of our students design these at the businesses that might want to sponsor us foral that is coming up [Applause] [Music] in four years ago I would never be able to stand in front of you and talk to all you guys confidence not only Bow by the state leadership conference I was able to talk to more than 3,700 people on stage it just gives you so many public speaking skills and so many skills that would transfer to the workplace ever since the very beginning as a freshman um he even when we were virtual during Co he attended the the national leadership conference right even though it was virtual and state leadership conferences um and was able to make those connections and got a paid internship that you still have right yeah I still work there to this day it just gives you so many connections you meet so many industry professionals me them students that I'm still friends with like I made so many new friends from all across the state and even the country from this organization it's just like a great place to be involved and I know Mr Rea thank you so much she served as on our panel during her southern region Summit so much even though it's future Business Leaders there's like so many different fields that business covers from education computer science literally everything in this one organization well done thank you very nice great very good questions yeah did anybody have any questions I I was going to ask how the experience was for Jon is it and you hearing this I mean first of all congratulations because it seems like your team did wonderful and you you know your students are definitely motivated but I love not only hearing what what what you did and where you went the being able to hear from students is always like something that the board really enjoys to know you know what the students are receiving and what they're getting out of some of the experiences that have so thank you very much for coming tonight and for coming tonight and uh I appreciate it I could not have spoken as well as you speak now in front of people when I was in high school would have been scared um so thank you very much for coming tonight thank you much you have a question I I just wanted to say you kind of you know with all of those accolades how how much you've given to this organization was kind of hidden in the middle of all of that and I just want to thank you because none of that could happen without the wonderful leadership of of you know staff and teachers that care about this so much so we didn't give you specifically a round of applause for yours and I'd like to they make it easy awesome job they have a great officer team and U they're gonna be missed because most of them are leaving us as sen so thank you very much thank you picture car hold on amazing SCH recognizers [Music] weers how are you tonight stand just I get to introduce abami teacher of the year teaching Spanish at abami for 22 years throughout her time here she has tought almost every level of Spanish class this includes nine years teaching AP Spanish her ability to create engaging lessons not only instilled the passion for the Spanish language but also makes the learning experience enjoyable in addition to teaching she organizes the World Language Honor Society induction she completed the eth grade testing of students for our heritage program organized the Seal of biliteracy and has served as a mentor to several new Spanish beyond all these accomplishments car's talent to for forming positive connections with her students that is truly Comm she F supportive and inclusive classroom environment that empowers her students to excel we are blessed to have her as and as such an amazing teacher here in our building so I'd like to congratulate miss harak the teacher of the [Music] [Applause] year I'm here to present to you this California wat who started inab in 2009 as a freshman I graduated from ABAB in 2013 and came home again in 2021 as part of the specializ depart as par profession she's been with us since 2021 working with our kids some of them learning so she's always there supporting usually find her in English class but she has a passion for English she works very well in any other class I can stand up here and talk about you all the great things but I had the kids tell me about I want to share what she has Watson always helps with my work help understand I do well much school work just advice she's an amazing helper great person to talk to very nice very F when I don't understand something she breaks down all the way so I can do better watch as made become a better person in all are of my life is great person and teacher super help he always has aile on teacher someone that is always there for you no matter what there for me when I have issues at home issues at school work p us to best and the word teacher was repeated over and over again joined us in 2021 I have been pushing her in English and I'm hoping that the next couple years may be honored as one of our new teachers of the year one of that's my go from this California education professional [Applause] w [Applause] 3 oh my God it's okay once again that's um the best part of our night is hearing all the wonderful things going on at school so thank you to everybody that was here tonight and um for all you do for our kids every day committee report um this Garrison here uh can you do it just let you know I won't be offended if anybody wants to leave that's the best I've ever heard you you know here um finance committee meeting was held on March 14th U the main reason for the meeting was budget so we went over the budget information and tonight we will be approving the budget for submission to the County Office of Education uh it is due to them by the 20th so we'll get it into them actually after tonight's meeting I'll push the button and it'll be input to the state uh tonight in the packet I gave you an email dur over the weekend I have some information on the budget um first page is goes over budget revenues as you can see our total general fund uh for 2425 will be 81,1 70,000 uh that's up over 77 million from the year before our special Revenue which is all of our entitlement grants federal and state uh is 1,749 th000 basically what that is uh the state tells us to take the current year amounts and budget 85% of that million down from about five million from the previous year and that's based on what our debt service looks like for any given year so our total budget for 2425 is proposed at 87 mil 698 or 3.3% increase over last over next over this current year as for tax levy we're allowed to go up 2% uh the 2% that we went up this year is a increase of 78,000 our debt service tax levy actually went down by 55,000 so our total tax levy increased is 1.68% over the previous year um May 6 we are doing our public Hearing in PowerPoint we'll go into a lot more depth I just want to give you the gist of what's going on as we input this to the state the next page shows a history of constituent breakdowns uh this is something that we talk about every year there kind of winners and losers and who's responsible for um the taxes uh a Carper city as you can see in the 2004 compared to 2003 they uh re equalized valuation that comes from the state went from 83 million to 103 million so their responsibility went from 3.7 million to 4.1 million everyone else kind of stayed the same and went down a little bit so when we get to the tax tax you'll see a harvest City had to take the hardest hit when it comes to the actual tax rate you go another two pages is The ratables this is the assess values that come in um from the tax assessors in January um this also affects how the tax rate affect is affected by the as you can see everybody went up a small amount Egg Harbor City actually went up the largest amount of 1.8% the next page shows you the tax implications of the budget um top is General next area is Debt Service and the bottom is the total of those combined so I'll go over the bottom amount um of the 653,000 that our taxes are gr up egg harbon city is responsible for 169,000 of that so that means they will have a tax increase of just under seven cents so for $100,000 home magg Harbor City will see an increase of6 $69.30 Gallow Township their responsibility is a $375,000 increase their increase on a penny is17 of one penny so 2/10 of a penny basically is what gallilee township is going up so on a $100,000 home they will see an increase of $1.70 Hamilton Township will see an increase of $146,000 or their increase per tax rate will be a half a penny and their assess value of $100,000 will see an increase of they will see a decrease of a penny a little more than a penny so for $100,000 home they will see a decrease of 10.9 dollar uh the pages behind this we'll show you the breakdown for fund for the general fund um again we're going to go more depth at the May 6th meeting but anybody have any questions on the budget portion uh the only other things we talked about the finance committee meeting we talked about some stiens uh we talked about the possibility of creating a Security Supervisor is basically taking one of our security guards or sros and making them a 12 month position to help with overseeing the others and then we talk about covering positions uh throughout the year thank you thank you okay I'll move to member reports I'll start start with the students um Aliana hi everybody hello evening um media and dance toed hosted dancing with the staff which was a great show there was a lot of teachers who came out to support and participate this UPC this upcoming Monday we will be having a women's history breakfast our National Honor Society Society induction will be held on Thursday night March 21st at 6:30 choir will be having our annual black history concert this Friday and we are asking all of our board members to join us began and we are excited and hoping for a great season for all of our Sports our flag football will begin this Tuesday and we already have over 20 girls who join so we are growing thank you thank you thank you alah good evening even good evening so on March 7th C Creek hosted our annual volleyball marathon on March 11th choir students took a trip to Stockton for their High School Coral day a few songs were performed by our select choir the weekend of March 8th students took a trip took a ski trip to Mount Snow on March 14th theater and dance programs took a trip to Mica elementary and middle school and to a Carver City Community School to showcase our Cedar Creek Performing Arts on March 14th it was P day so math club took a charge and of events around the school and even sold some Delicious Pies for sports for girls basketball Mia mall was named Cape Atlantic League honorable mention for girls wrestling our very own Riley learner and Alina Cher were recognized by the national wrestling coaches association and the United States Marine corpse as high school scholar all-americans and also our spring sports are at full swing we are hoping for a very very successful season for all of our spring sports for some upcoming events next week is our spring prep rally April 10th is our National Honor Society induction ceremony from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. thank you thank you thank Ben all right um I'm going to start with the absam class 2024 uh we just announced our validator and our salutatorian uh our validator is Puig Gandhi who was the board representative last year and our solor in is J jattin Punjabi who was just up on uh presenting so congrats to them um our math club celebrated Pi Day with 11 different Pi related activities which included a Pie eting Contest and so much more asam's interact Club the trim music Honor Society and World Language Club hosted over 75 students and community members at the school's 9th intern National dinner night on Friday March 8th celebration included dishes songs dances and art from around the globe um a total of 96 students from all three greater R Harbor schools enjoyed three epic days at Mount Snow and Vermont tons of memories were made ones that will last a lifetime um the girls at abami hosted their first annual March Madness alumni basketball tournament this was hosted in our gym um abam National Honors um our girls basketball team had a real Underdog appearance in the njsa playoffs in round one it was clear V Regional after a real tough match uh we won 50 to 46 it was then the second round against the second place team mortown High School the Quakers LED pretty much the entire game but at the end of regulation it was a tie it wasn't until a three-pointer from Junior Reese Downey and a layup with 13 seconds left in overtime from a freshman Megan Johansson that gave us the win 51 to4 9 unfortunately the golden path to Victory stried short with the loss against Mainland but as the number six seed team beating the number three and the number two team as a tremendous achievement in my opinion um abami fbl had an outstanding appearance at the New Jersey state leadership conference in Atlantic City multiple people qualified for awards and scholarships as well as qualified for the national leadership conference in Orlando the abami seniors just returned from their senior trip to Disney World it was quite an amazing experience and I'm thankful for all the memories I made with with my friends and finally uh absam own media Department gamy TV uh was featured in The Shore local headlines this past week for their live broadcasting their Sports Dreams and over 42 years of Brave news uh and if you're interested in seeing the article just let me know I'd love to share it with you thank you thank you thank you any other board members have anything to share yes Miss Hosta um I had the opportunity to go to the legislative committee meeting and um it was really uh a lot of great information I'm more than happy to pass the ledge report to I I already passed it to Carol but happy to forward it on to anyone else um some notable components is that there's been an increase in um budgeting and legislation towards mental health supports in districts throughout the state um they're also discussing the funding formula in great detail and looking at where the the funding is coming from and trying to create more Equity throughout the state regarding the funding formula and the other thing is they're increasing funding um for feeding kids um which we've already done a we've always done a great job with in this District um making sure that more kids breakfast and lunches so I was really excited about that had the opportunity to see Joseph in the Technicolor Dream Coat um at Cedar Creek it was amazing and he placed it states and then placed it at the Nationals and he made his uh personal record at 16.5 feet my kid jumps much lower so I've watched 16.5 feet it's terrifying and really impressive so thank you anyone else yes I uh over the last week was had the opportunity to see the uh High School Coral day at Stockton it happened to be in my theater one of the hosts and I have to say uh this district has three of the strongest choirs in South Jersey yeah hands down the choirs have always shown well but continue to improve um and and the students are are really behind the leadership the um multiple times the adjudicators uh pointed out how strong our Coral directors are um and and it was mentioned but uh really I don't think it was kind of impressed upon the board how strong the choirs really are in this district and I just kind of wanted to bring that to the Forefront thank you very much anyone else okay this time I'll open the meeting up to the public anyone wish to speak on any agenda item okay seeing none there's information items listed I'll move down to business agenda action items business items number B 1 through B16 can be found on pages 3 through five five a motion I'll move B1 through B16 second hey B1 through B16 have moved and seconded any questions or comments on these business items Gunther yesman Transportation items are items T1 through t32 I'll move T1 through t32 second okay T1 through t32 have been moved and seconded any questions or comments on these Transportation items who was that second I'm sorry am Amy [Music] Amy okay Harman yes yes cly yes Borio yes Wright yes Edmond yes Gunther yes how yes motion is approved education items I move E1 excuse me through e14 second thank you E1 through e14 have been moved and seconded any question education items call haa yes kly yes sorio yes right yes Edmonds yes Gunther yes Hartman yes Hal yes motion is approved Personnel items I move P1 through p15 second P1 through p15 have been moved and seconded any questions or comments on these business items oh I'm sorry Personnel [Applause] items I have a quick question what is the uh the requirements to be a clinician for sports what what makes a somebody a clinician so um a volunteer is more routinely in background and background checks okay thank you carine e four and yes to the rest notorio yes right abstained to P1 number three yes everything [Applause] else Edmonds yes Gunther yesman haa yes Hal yes motion is approved okay Mr Arena uh thank you uh first off I want to refer back to P1 and P2 two individuals that did you know 25 years plus within the district um both absolutely student centered kid first approach to what should what should happen in a classroom um Mr or Dilly was was uh actually my own child's teacher last year and she came home the first day and she said I don't know if he scares me or if I'm going to love him she came home the third day and she said I love him and and you know that the type of comment that you get you realize right up front what impact dual enrollment courses through Stockton and who are committed to um I was fortunate enough to bounce back and forth between a couple of tables that had I think 11 of our total students invited between the three buildings so those are students that are walking in the door they're going to Stockton this fall they already have Stockton credits most of the ones I talked to also had ACCC credits because you know you know depending on the course we offer a couple of different varieties but it was nice to look around the room there were students from as far north as Tom's River in Central Regional and as far south as middl Township um but it was a it was a positive night to see our kids sitting there and a number of our graduates were also among the um the student helpers if you will on the Stockton side serving as mentors that evening for the kids so there's already some relationship building going on there that was a really positive experience to see our kids excited to go as well as our kids there already kind of working and being leaders uh a couple of weeks ago um president ha talked about the tonight couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to um pop into Atlantic City at the boat show The gamy Culinary crew was part of serving food at the Captain's dinner the first night um and I will say that it was a it was a great feeling to be standing 30 feet away and have somebody walk up not knowing who you are and say did you eat that yet oh my God these kids over there did that it's fantastic and it was our kids um so that was a really cool experience our kids and our teachers represented themselves excellently to the point where a couple of different restaurants um or Distributors actually came over and borrowed our kids to go and help them work at their tables so if professionals are going and seeking our kids out in the middle of the event and saying hey will you come help me we've got a line like that just lets you know our teachers and our our staff are doing the right things with the kids um there was an event uh that a couple of students in the room uh were a part of or witnessed um did a districtwide event last week at absam we also invited EHT um it was a great conversation Amber Harris from the oakrest teen center LED an entire conversation with the students on Conor resiliency and mental health and how to take care of yourself and it was really nice to see probably 45 50 kids from the four high schools all together um working in teams we made them split up a couple times so they couldn't all sit with their friends we broke them up but it also kind of made me a little nostalgic to you know think about the fact back together again um some quick construction updates break at gamy soon as they finish at gamy they're going to roll over to oakrest after that um I have been working with the engineers and The Architects and again a shout out uh to board member Wright who has helped they're now going through all the specs from The Sound work that's going to be done on the three performing uh art centers also that will probably because of the lead Time end up happening over the summer but we'll finalize that as we get closer um at Cedar Creek they have complet next to the tennis courts if you remember that was the extra Basin we had to to add um they have completed all of the underground work around deep hole all along the side of the track they got all the drainage installed that is now all filled back up and covered back in or covered it back up and about the next week to 10 days in the back so that'll be the next part of that project if you remember bulldozers will show up the work that was this was an important part of the project was replacing all of the exterior doors at abami updating Hardware at Cedar Creek as well um that work I Tom again correct me if I'm wrong I believe we're now looking at the summer because of the lead time for getting the door skip here that you might have saw when you pull in that all to be redesigned if you remember we did the trailer on our own we still got to deal with the parking lot out there that's going back out to bid as well as the window walls in the library and O oest concrete and Paving that's updating and improving all the walkways around that camp I believe the goal is to award that the first meeting in May uh if not April yeah if not April so there's your updates on where we are with all the building projects any questions with that stuff okay a does the uh relining of the parking lots was that part of the um bid for here the front parking lots were were done when it was repaid right I think the side is that was just that it was pretty bad when everything we put in our budget to do that okay and we're going to start making that a three-year cycle between the three school yeah I I I was just at two of the buildings this week and it seemed like oest was a little bit yeah we had hoped to get the didn't allow so soon as it gets nice it'll okay so that's not not part of the that's referendum already out okay good thank you all right mine's very short um I had asked last time about a couple different meeting dates and reached out to Michelle Kennedy for some training um if you remember back when we did the self- evaluation last year uh it was very good it was hard for for to come up with anything but when her and I looked through the one thing that seemed a little bit lower even though it's still high higher than other things was um relationship with community so she's going to come April 8th at six o'clock it's not a regular board Mee it'll just be board training that way it won't make it such a long night so she'll do their eth ethics training for the year that has to be done yearly and it'll be just that what's the date again sorry April 8 where uh that month we're at Creek so it'll be at Creek woohoo and the time six o'clock thank [Music] you so you know hopefully everybody can come we tried to pick the date that PE that you guys could make and that she could come for um to do the training and by the one night doing it both that one night I don't to try to get her to come two different dates because she was pretty booked up and it won't make us have two meetings you know usually it's done like before a meeting then our meeting's not so long so and I'll try my best to get ice cream s I excuse me I don't think these mics are working correctly I'm having a difficult time hearing everybody are they okay I'm okay well okay he said mine is good that's because I'm speaking into it I sing a song Mart oh I I thought you'd never asked okay moving along is there any old business I'm sorry what did you say is there any old business Marge um I just just want to make a comment on some old business um I saw a flyer posted over spring break um that's impressive as a district that we continue to offer those kinds of opportunities I saw the SAT prep on the agenda again tonight um those things are super valuable when applying to colleges and looking for a leg up for honors programs and opportunities um those are the type of things that college is looking for and they're not easily accessible for families and students to go find research opportunities so to know that our district continues to offer those things to students um it's just commendable and I just want to make sure it's mentioned in a matter of record that this is good work that's happening credit has to she's not here this evening but credit has to go to Brenda Callahan for always looking for those types of programs when she is building her Grant budgets programs to offer beyond the regular debt that she is always working on that's a great so credit credit where credit is due 100% any other old business new business okay I'll open the meeting up to the public anyone wishes to speak on any matter Okay resolution for executive the public attorney client privilege anticipate that the item mention resolution can be disclosed to the public when the decision is made upon the same and in the case of personnel issues when the need for confidentiality no longer is