um I call to order the Highland Park Board of Education hybrid preliminary budget presentation and voting meeting the New Jersey open public meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed and or acted upon in compliance with the open public meetings act the Highland Park Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting setting forth the time date and location to be submitted for publication to the home News Tribune and Star Ledger and posted on the board's website at least 48 hours in advance of this meeting members of the public who wish to address the board will be given the opportunity to do so before the board adjourns for the evening may I have roll call Dr batty Miss cassal dun here Dr Coleman here Dr Pixley here miss pruce here Dr scholman here miss stano here miss baman here miss Vorhees here we will now recess to Executive session be it resolved pursuant to the sunshine Act njsa 10 col and 4-12 and 13 the Highland Park Board of Education will now meet in Clos session to discuss matters related to Hib and student discipline these exemptions are permitted to be discussed in closed session in accordance with njsa 10 col 4-13 information regarding the board's closed session discussion will be disclosed to the public as soon as the need for confidential it no longer exists I move we recess to Executive session second all in favor I I move that we reconvene to regular session second roll call Dr B Sal yes Dr colan yes Dr Pixley yes Miss puce yes Dr span Miss Danel yes Miss Gman Miss Bor yes we'll stand for the pledge nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we had two Communications come in since our last meeting um one on ESL instruction at Irving and then the other one as a followup to changing the start times um the next is the approval of minutes uh for the hybrid Workshop voting meeting and executive session on February 26 2024 so I move that we approve those minutes second Dr batty Miss Calon yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes M Cru yes Dr scholman yes Miss sto yes Miss ban yes Miss moris yes okay we have our student representative report over at Irving Irving is looking forward to their Spring Dance this week complete with a DJ and a photo booth thank you to the kindergarten families who joined us for pizza and fun math games last week um and lastly as a reminder we will accept all items for preschool registration until this Friday March 22nd kindergarten registration begins on March 28th over at ble on March 14th the uh High Park drama club performed a teaser of foot loose the musical for the bar students the students loved it and were able to ask questions after after the performance also on March 14th many of our students performed at the talent show way to go ble Dolphins there will be a math parent night on Wednesday March 20th at 5:30 p.m. uh for information on signing up please visit visit the ble website and lastly uh bingo for books will be on March 27th at 5:30 p.m. at the middle of school on March 21st they will be having an assembly called dirt dirt is a oneman show that explores the challenges and decisions that young people face every day student Congress is running a volleyball tournament on March 26 right after school in the gym and next sixth graders are going on the uh going on a field trip to the Adventure Aquarium on Thursday March 21st and seventh graders will will be headed to the Sterling mine on April 24th and permission slips were sent out last week and are due by April 17th at the high school the HP monk team won best delegation in Mexico City conference last week out of the 25 individuals that went 23 won awards and flourish in their public speaking and negotiation skills these Awards range from best crisis negotiator best overall and delegates choice and more they explored the city such as visiting historical pyramids a traditional L Lucho Le fight and the anthropology M Museum overall it was a fantastic trip and they would like to thank the board for assisting them in the trip and can't wait for the next conference in April uh the Highland Park drama club held their production of foot loose this past weekend performing over 800 people and raising $1,000 for the club congrats hland Park drama club H Park high school will be hosting John Mar on March 21st to perform his oneman show titled dirt for grade 6 to 12 um there will be a meet and greet session with Mr Morell after the assembly and additional support will be provided by the teen center throughout the day uh all members of the community are invited to join uh a special evening performance update on March 21st at 6:30 p.m. in the High School auditorium and lastly next week on March 20th at 7 p.m in the media center hen Park High School will be hosting an important meeting for the ptso as they finalize their bylaws and consider an executive board for the 2024 2025 school year they will also work on plans for family engagement events for the end of the school year um and all are welcome please plan on entering the high school through the main entrance and meeting in the media center and that concludes my report thank you thank you Andrew any questions for Andrew I just want to add that I saw a foot loose yesterday with my family it was incredible so so well done you do is it sound design or lighting design I do lighting design lighting design excellent really really well done we had so much fun um I had trouble not singing along um did you say oh I know absolutely incredible all of you really is extremely tired from so much dancing thank you okay we're going to move on to our superintendent report good evening everyone uh so first I'd like to welcome up to the podium Miss Jennifer natat the ble principal tonight we get to celebrate some amazing ble students good evening everyone I am extremely excited to be here tonight to honor two of our ble Dolphins who uphold our ble expectations of being kind being responsible and being respectful we have kushie Patel and Abigail Rondon I'm going to invite their teachers up to share a little bit about why they are so deserving of this honor so miss ultar can you come up to speak about Koshi Kushi is an exceptional student and role model in our classroom every morning we look forward to her warm and inviting Smile as she walks into the room her teachers and peers look forward to her good mornings every day one of the many strengths that Kushi possesses is kindness Kushi not only exudes kindness herself but spreads it to everyone around her her friends always know if they need to pickme up Kushi will be there for them another strength is her ability to push herself to become better Kushi always strives to be the best version of herself and it truly shows every single day Kushi is always willing to help a friend in need which shows true compassion she is the first to greet a new classmate with open arms as well as pick someone up when they're down we are extremely proud of all that Kushi has accomplished this year and look forward to hearing about her successes in years to come congratulations Kushi and now I'd like to invite up Miss Leonardo to talk about Abigail hey so Miss Abby demonstrates countless positive character traits but an encompassing way to describe her is being one who has good character a quote that further shows this is character is who you are when no one is watching Abby does not complete her assignments because she needs to impress her teacher she does it because she knows she wants to be a better student Abby does not involve others who are left out because of the praise she does it because she knows the importance of inclusion and empathy Abby doesn't follow the rules because of the fear of consequences she does it because she knows that safety and respect will make our community a better place Abby is a vital member of our classroom and because of her character and Leadership all students want to be better citizens thank you thank you Miss nap and congratulations let's give them a another round of applause thank you for being such amazing ble Dolphins we appreciate your kindness and your hard work and dedication so I obviously cordially invite you to stay for the remainder of tonight's board meeting I'm going to be moving into our preliminary board presentation but if you need to leave please feel free to to leave at any time thank you and thank you Miss Alara and Miss Leonardo Miss nap thank you okay I the budget presentation is my favorite presentation of the year so could you just um Mr da to go to slide one we'll start there go back yeah uh slide one we'll start with perfect uh no is there is there a First slide that was the okay I thought it was like an intro slide okay wait go up to slide there we go okay not that everyone knows who I am but um so we're presenting tonight the fiscal budget for next year myself and Mr Rosa you can flip to the next slide I don't have a clicker sorry Mr odato is my clicker so um a couple of things for those who are not familiar with the budget process so our fiscal budget year planning process our budget aligns with District goals and objectives the esca which is the elementary and secondary Education Act the Essa which is the every student succeeds act and New Jersey student learning objectives so we make sure we look at all of those big buckets when we're planning our budget in addition um to to those we have uh sort of a philosophical approach what am I okay yes a philosophical approach to the budget planning process so what we do when we plan is we talk about three levels for money the first level are our legal requirements so mostly that's special education um that would be contract obligations anything that is aligned to the New Jersey student learning standards for example students need x amount of years of World Language or something like that we need to make sure that those are within our budget the second level philosophically on how we budget are those that are required by board policy so after we get through all the legal requirements we then look at board policy for example um I know at at one point we had more units to graduate uh therefore requiring having higher Staffing levels so that would be something that if you put in the board policy it's something that we then do as a level two budgeted item our level three budget items are not required but are of a high investment for from the community so those would be for example our music program so we have a really robust uh music program we have an expanded World language program our mental health support program so those programs would be that um those that are not legal requirements they're not policy requirements but they are of high investment from our community am I missing wait can we go back a couple slides I feel like I'm missing one go back okay there we go so we'll go there so our budget that's okay our budget planning process so what we do every year is myself and Mr Rosa meet with each of the building each administrator uh building administrators and central office staff and that's usually between December and January that we meet with each staff member and we go through their budget so they actually start uh budgeting probably around October November is when they start building their budget so School opens and guess what they're doing budgeting for the following school year that's typically what happens and what they do is they put together a a wishlist of of budgeted items and then they meet with us and they go through those at each of those meetings we do have our uh Tech manager and our director of facilities at those meetings because we want to make sure if they have Tech needs if there's uh staffing needs if there's facility needs we kind of look at the whole picture in terms of every Department in every building in addition at that point during those meetings we're able to look at what comes out for State mandates if the state has updated math and Ela standards for example we look at those uh pictured items uh big bud budget and ticket items in addition we also look at our state and federal funding sometimes grant money can subsidize the cost for things for like professional development so sometimes we look at it saying okay we can move that money into Title One or title 2A so that's how we we look at the sort of first line of budgeting with our administrators then each administrator goes uh into the finance and Facilities committee meetings which I know you've heard from uh chairperson puce over the past couple of months to talk about and you can see the dates of those meetings to talk about their budgets and it gives the finance and facilities and the community an update on what we meet about and what's discussed but again it's just some line items typically it's uh items that um weren't budgeted before if they're new programming or something like that to to talk about it especially in the facilities category technology and areas like that and then obviously tonight is um and then we do an overview of the budget alog together with finance and faciliity so once it's all done the larger buckets of money in terms of personnel um maintenance um Capital reserves and things like that uh Mr Ros and I do for finance and Facilities tonight is the preliminary uh board budget and then we have a budget hearing on April 29th which we will pass the full budget so we do have some wiggle room between now in April 29th if any adjustments need to be made okay so in terms of our budget so there are some areas in which our budget like I said we have some fiscal responsibilities that you'll see in this preliminary budget which will be available on the district website there's a userfriendly one uh because I know School budgets can be a little bit tedious and cumbersome to read so we do have a user-friendly budget that will be posted on the website after tonight um and after it's board it's approved by the county right yes after it's approved by our County Superintendent it goes um or the county ba it goes on our website so our budget this year will um allow for the continued increased cost for students with disabilities that's a state uh a legal mandate so we do have um a significant population of our students that uh have disabilities so our budget will um allow for that increase and that is a fiscal responsibility in addition some facility maintenance obviously our federal and state mandates that we're required to have uh like I said contract obligations one of the things that's important to note which made this year's budgeting um a little bit um cumbersome some to do and where you might see some changes between now and the final budget is that we still haven't ratified our contract with the HPA yet our te teacher and staff Union so we're hoping um to be able to wrap that up soon so that we know the final numbers going into into that but we had to budget accordingly um not knowing sort of where we're going to land with the negotiations so it's important to note that the preliminary budget um we've built in some stuff but it's set to expire June 30th 2024 and we have to obviously negotiate um negotiate that in addition in terms of our fiscal responsibility we did look at uh ways that we could save some money so I want to thank again Miss D Rosa and her team for and and the HPA for and HPA for working with us in terms of looking at our health care plan and approving us to move out of the state benefit plan to Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield which will give our staff equal to or better than medical benefits saving the district uh close to about a million dollars so that was an area for fiscal responsibility other ways that we look to save money were possible Transportation joint ches so we have students that go to add a district placements for special education so we're looking to other districts to see if we can like if they send students to the same school maybe we could pay them to transport our students versus versus us uh paying the transportation company directly um or sometimes offering a jointure with parents as well so we could give parents a voucher and pay them for example let's say $50 a day to transport their students versus you know $300 a day that we'd be paying a bus so that could come savings so we're looking for ways to do that as well and another way that we're looking to save money is our student enrollment in needs so we had each of the building admins and special ed really look at enrollments and look at our special ed needs and and figure out where where is it that we um could you know save in terms of our our needs so we really looked at that especially in lie of or as a result of a a slight uh cut of State funding so it was really important that we really look at many different areas that we can save money that didn't really the the conversations that I'm having now about Healthcare and Joint insures and and even student enrollment in needs doesn't impact instruction and so that was something that was really important to us every decision we make in terms of the budget we want to make sure we do it based on that our students needs are being met and that we're not impacting instruction so what will our budget be able to do so the preliminary budget that we're going to present to you tonight will enable the district to maintain um that our schools are fully staffed with qualified Personnel maintain certificated staff and current class sizes so like I said we are not impacting instructions so we're not looking to cut classes um and maintain our certified staff um we're looking to uh provide and maintain our instructional resources and update and align to the standards especially in language anguage Arts Math Science and multilanguage Learners those are areas the state put out some new updated curriculum and legal mandates so we want to make sure that our budget uh captures that addition additionally um our district will help to maintain all instructional programs except for Mandarin for incoming sixth graders so unfortunately um and I'm believe Alison might talk about this at at her uh committee meeting for curriculum it's been very challenging alling to find Mandarin teachers we've been working with Dr Curran from the Rucker Graduate School of Education and her graduate students have actually been trying to help provide professional development for our staff um our Middle School um Mandarin teacher has resigned um so we're looking for you know trying to find a a qualified personnel has been a very big struggle so we're looking to um we'll offer incoming sixth graders Spanish um and then hopefully from there we can figure out what we want to do but next year seventh and eighth graders will still be able to maintain Mandarin with the Mandarin teacher we have at the high school so the High new high school principal will work out a schedule with the Middle School principal to make sure that we can have that shared staff um but all other instructional programs will stay um like I said I believe um uh Miss puce shared information on some of the facility maintenance projects or will tonight will tonight thank you um I'm lost on my dates I don't remember when we meet uh she'll share some information about facilities maintenance projects that we're looking to do and um we are still able to in our budget maintain courtesy transportation for students on hazardous routes in addition the budget will be enable the district to provide um some of the facility improvements the Bartle boy bathroom the Bartle Mason uh Bartles Mason masonry repair the foundation at Irving by where the art room is and the tower is in grave need of repair and that's very expensive and replacing some flooring at middle high school and some other projects so we're able to use some of our budget and some maintenance Reserve to complete some very large ticketed items if if you've been to the ble boys bathroom especially or most of the bathrooms at Bartle uh they haven't really been they haven't been um managed very well uh slightly neglected so we're going to make sure that as you know as the money is available we'll chip away at each of those bathrooms at ble um in addition we're going to be expanding our preschool by two additional classrooms it is important to note that most of the general education preschool funding comes from the paa grant not from the general operating budget however the students with disabilities our special education students and our preschool disabled classes and autism classes are funded out of the operational budget so you'll see that we have to add an additional preschool disabled class that will come out of the operational budget but we're looking to expand that by two additional classrooms which is great um and we're looking to expand um the Middle School glow due to enrollment so we will have to add another special education classroom at the middle school for our glow program or glow Junior I see Miss Pollock in the uh in there so glow junor I will be mindful not glow glow Jr and then uh one of the things I'm proud to share is that the district's budget will enable us to maintain our interventionists so we've added additional math and Ela interventionists at ble and Irving which has been amazing we've actually seen some great uh strides and growth which I believe Miss Calon will probably sharing her report but we have students exiting from math and Ela Intervention which is really great so we're having the students come in we're closing some gaps and giving them strategies to be successful in their in their classes so that's really great so at ble we have two math and two Ela interventionists and at Irving we have two Ela interventionists so we're able to support those three so we had one we had one math and one Ela at ble and then one Ela at Irving but we're able to keep the three um Title One funding will pick up the majority of the cost for those interventionists um however the district operational budget will will be absorbing about $155,000 of that so it you know with budget cuts but I you know that wasn't an area that I was really wanted to to cut that was funded under our ressor money so I really think that our interventionists are doing a fantastic job helping to close the gaps with our students and I'd like the budget to sustain that so I'm going to pass it over to Mr Ros so she gets to talk about the fun stuff which is the monies thank you um so as you can see our our proposed uh bud in the mic so sorry in the mic close close close close close close can you hear me now okay so our proposed uh budget uh has a tax levy increase of 2.78% um this comprises of um the two% increase plus we had an enrollment adjustment because we had an additional 29 students this year um our state aid figure uh went down 4.24% uh we projected we're projecting extraordinary Aid of a million dollars uh this Aid won't be known until July of 2024 uh but based on last year's Revenue we had over 1.1 million um and our expenses this year has have increased uh due to the cost of educating those special education children uh also we have revenue of other local sources and interest of uh 565,000 this includes interest income uh it includes tuition revenue from uh other districts that send special education students to our schools uh we are going to be receiving pilot money from the burrow a portion of that from River Road uh Enterprise activities and refunds for prior year expenses uh we also are projecting Revenue uh from federal aid it's called semi it's a Medicaid it's uh the mount determined by the state they tell us what we should project um you'll see also that we're using a capital reserve in the amount of 426,000 middle school door Replacements and some flooring Replacements at the high school in Irving uh we're going to be using 250,000 of our maintenance Reserve to support U maintenance of our facilities districtwide um an emergency reserve of 60,4 uh we're able to utilize emergency Reserve either for health benefits or uh security um and we have a need to integrate our Irving and ble security camera uh software uh so that the town uh police department can access it like they do the middle school and the high school and we also have a need to replace a security gate over at Irving um with a steel structure that could withhold um the usage of it next are our expenses um so you'll see that we uh budget for uh proposed expenditures it comprises of uh regular instruction which is a little over $9.5 million this includes salaries supplies textbooks things like that um our total special education instruction went down 3.88% that's salaries and supplies but as you'll see as we go down the list it could mean that that that those monies were shifted between out of District tuition or other related Services um our bilingual education increased 8.76% those are Sal supplies and salaries um our co-curricular Athletics after school and summer programs are increasing 5.7% um our total supplement atrisk instruction is increasing 1.27% that's where a portion of the interventionists are charged um and our outof district tuition is increasing 2.57% it's also supplemented by Ida funds uh which are Federal grant funds uh for tuition and and this is where you'll see an increase in our uh attendance health related Services other support services and guidance um this is really where our nursing services are we have uh a few onetoone nursing for our students uh we have related services like oot PT and speech um and then the next line other student support services for special education child study team that is decreasing uh 3.94% it's due to a reclass of a social worker um she's now in the attendance line as well um Improvement of instructions draft training and Media Services that that's going up 3.62% um that's due to the professional development needed to Institute the new curriculum the new Ela Math and Science curriculum our school district and Central it costs are increasing uh we're proposing to add an additional IT staff member to take care of our the district's data and student data um you'll see that the operation of plants uh and maintenance of PL is increasing 5% um that is to maintain our facilities that are entire need um our student transportation services are decreasing 74% um that's due to anticipated savings we have a non-public school uh moving into town so we won't have to uh pay for uh Aid in lie of Transportation um and also our anticipated joint shures with other local educational agencies you'll also see that our employee benefits are decreasing almost 12% this is in large part due to our contract with Horizon it saves the district a lot of money and our Capital outlay our capital projects this year are much lower than last year uh last year included Rod grants for The Replacements of our Roes this year we're proposing those projects at bardle the middle school in Irving um we also have to pay for students that attend Charter Schools um so that's increasing 30% we now have 15 a projected of 15 students students that will attend so overall the the budget snapshot uh the estimated tax impact on a 2.7% tax levy um you know based on the average home value uh that was given to me by the Highland Park CFO uh the estimated annual tax on an average home will increase with this budget $191.25 for the year thank you so we will open it up to the board for any questions well I just want to say thank you you answered as the questions were coming to my mind you answered them in your presentation uh so thank you you're welcome okay all right well that concludes my presentation thank you okay all right we're going to move on to board committee reports and recommendations um I'll start with curriculum instruction the only two new agenda items for tonight are the hip reports so number four would be a hi report Ms 2324 d07 which is confirmed and Ms 2324 d08 which is unconfirmed the committee met on March 14th um we looked at Benchmark data from Ela and math there was a lot of discussion about assessment in the District in terms of how Ela and math structure pre-assessments and periodic benchmarks and how the data is best presented to us into the community it's difficult to present data showing growth because currently preassessments are based on the last year standard so a student in sixth grade in September is taking a preassessment that is based on their fifth grade standards um the problem is then when a student takes a benchmark exam on six grade standards it looks like they lost knowledge when you've put them side by side but in fact the assessment is more rigorous because it's based on the new level of standards in addition uh some assessments are not comparable in standards um I'm sorry are not comparable as comparable in math as they are in ela because the standards and skills taught in each marking period are different Ela is a little bit easier to compare across assessments because students typically work on those skills for um the duration of the year um but with math it's kind of unit specific if preassessments were based on fifth grade standards the mid-year Benchmark would not show growth a as it would show it on us like if they had taken a sixth grade preassessment and then a sixth grade um midterm Benchmark another large Focus this year has been on encouraging students to take these benchmarks assessments seriously so teachers have access to Reliable data um there's also discussion about passing students to the next grade in math instead of holding them back to repeat math there's a large body of research that shows holding students in previous grades does not improve performance so the district attempts to provide intervention while the student is in the next grade but intervention programming can be difficult in smaller schools with limited availability to schedule classes and teachers as additional courses for students to repeat the entire class um specific to math math we discussed the Middle School quarterly they are based off of Standards taught in each marking period so they're not cumulative um the high school however has moved to towards creating more cumulative assessments um there has been an emphasis on students taking the map test seriously in middle school it is a long computerized exam um and and so the first marking period we did not have uh we had less students take it than in the second quarter so that it's a combination of both just trying to get students to complete the exam but also new enrollment there is still a need in math to examine benchmarks more closely to identify target areas or trends that are not being addressed to adjust instruction or identify weaknesses in the curriculum in ela we discussed that aadience and map are being used as benchmarks based on each grade level a foundation's quote worked with Irving staff to unpack Benchmark data and identifi Trends and determine students in needs of intervention they also looked at elementary data from ble the big takeaways were that students in grades two and three need to improve reading fluency with grade level passages so the team will be integrating strategies to improve fluency performance grades four and five need to improve reading and testing stamina uh like we said before map is very long and grade four is the first year that students take map so just having them kind of experience that test for the first time can be difficult so they're really working on students trying to uh trying to help students make it through the assessment in grade six strengths include working with literary text while students need Improvement in working with informational texts and oddly enough it's the opposite in seventh and eth which showed strengths working with informational text and need to work on working with literary text especially around the standards in language craft and structure overall chronic absenteeism has also impacted assessment data negatively not only because of the impact it has on skill development but also on the completion of the assessments we discussed world language in our Mandarin program we are no longer going to be able to offer Mandarin for grades six and seven this was based on feedback from students as well as bringing in multiple cons Consultants that were not able to address the issues it is currently difficult to find language education teachers across the state especially in Mandarin Miss Felipe will provide Mandarin in 8th grade in high school students currently taking Mandarin in seventh grade will be able to take it next year and eth um sixth graders will have to switch to Spanish for seventh and eth and then may choose to take Mandarin again in ninth grade that is the preliminary plan but if we can figure something out then we may be able to have them go back to uh Mandarin earlier we also followed up on bullying prevention programs Irving uses Second Step as a resource for social emotional learning sessions lessons in the classroom uh Bartle uses the fly five program and supplements with additional lessons Middle School is using responsive classroom scope and sequence and in high school Select Staff attended the responsive classroom training last summer and then created their own scope and sequence based on what they learned some of the uh using some of the suggested activities we touched on the New England inclusion product uh project that is a grant opportunity for special education all around inclusion so we know that DD is going to be working on thinking about applying to this grant how best if we could utilize this in the district there were also several policies that we looked at however none of them were substantial changes just changes to language that concludes my report any questions oh I'm just gonna say very happy to hear that uh we are looking into possibly applying for the um I guess it's technical support grant for our special education program very excited to hear that looking forward to updates yeah and on on that note I've had some um just make sure you speak closer can you hear me can you hear me um on that note I've had several um folks email me about this particular Grant and I'm just throwing it out there that some folks are collecting data that could really help um potentially when you want to position it and if you want support from um from others it's available I think there's people that have a lot of interest in it thank you okay um moving on to I'm sorry I just popped in my mind um I know a reoccurring theme around the testing and the students not taking it seriously I'm just wondering I mean this may sound like a naive question but I'm assuming it's because it's not like a New Jersey state standardized assessment is that what we're thinking that because it doesn't have that high stakes level or what yeah it's a mult it's a few things some students know that they're not taking the state exam because their parents op them out in which case they kind of don't want to take the Benchmark seriously because they're not taking the test anyway so we've have that bit where we have our opt out um um you know mindset that's you know kind of bleeding into the classroom because they're not taking the assessments there um otherwise it's kids that are just just refusing to finish just they they don't want to do it anymore um there are kids that will click through and Ma like certain assessments will help you stop like it will prompt you and say please you know go check on this kid um because they're just going to click but that's also something that is seen especially on the maap exam I my map is I know at Middle School level 40 questions it is a long assessment um and you typically can administer it in different sessions which is what is done because the kids just they they run out of steam but what happens is um then you're kind of forced with the like well do I pull this child to finish this assessment and misinstruction you know if they were out first two days of the map do you then have them do that instead of catching them up so there's a there's a lot of benefits to Benchmark data obviously because we can really use it to to pull and Source uh you know our instructional methods and what we need to do and everything but um sometimes just getting the data is difficult and typically you'll each teacher knows kind of what data is usable and what's not but when you pull all the data together for a whole grade right you know that there's some data in there that's not really um reliable thank you all right uh equity and Excellence nothing new to report finance and Facilities yeah I've got I've got a lot organiz it here I'll okay that better remember talking to it um so I'll go over the minutes of our meeting we met on March the 12th finan and Facilities um we were a large group and Nikki Ethan and myself from the board um Dr Susa and Mr Rosa John Flanigan Colin Macintosh uh Miss MCN from Irving so we were we were a big group and it was very helpful to have everybody around to to add in their information um so Colin McIntosh our director of after school program reported out um he commented a Weekly Newsletter is now going out each week from each program because parents were asking for more communication so um that just started this week he also talked about having changing the way incidences are being addressed at ble and he has seen the new reporting system hopefully have appears to be having an in Impact with decreasing incidents um has to do with parents being asked to sign off on reports and all reports going directly to Colin so he's maybe more on top of what's of what's happening and so far it seems to be working um he will be meeting with us again next month and sharing his budget for next year uh uh on facilities uh John Flanigan reported on our Vape detectors um we have five up in and working they need to be moved within bathrooms um but they're working the alarms were are were very powerful um they alert both for detection of vaping and also if there's tampering there's alarm for that um so they've been so the staff involved have been working on um who gets the alarms and um so forth it was commented that the number of detections have started to decrease um which is what we're hoping for however the likelihood is that The Vaping is migrating to other bathrooms um because we have 13 bathrooms that don't have detectors um so that's still a work in progress I guess if Ving is decreasing in those bathrooms at least we have some bathrooms that are uh more comfortable for students to use that could be a positive on this and it's obviously still a work in progress um had a conversation about the Irving School sign so a year or two ago we were approached through the um the Burrows Improvement Grants I think it's the NPP Improvement grant for um the triangle part of town libridge Avenue um they offered us $5,000 from the grant towards a new sign and Irving could definitely use new sign that one's looking looking looking a little worn out out there however research back then and now again is that it's very expense to do a digital or an electrical type sign would be lovely but it's very expensive costly to maintain expensive to run the electricity um so the um the whole discussion kind of got dropped at that point and then the new Irving PTA president brought it back up again and I appreciate that Gina kazinski um and we we talked about it again and Miss MCN suggested if we had a sign like Bartle has no no bells and whistles just a nice sign um that would be helpful maybe some additional lighting and some work out front there so she's that more likely we could do with the Grant from the NPP Improvement Grant and um PTA was going to give us a little money so they're working on some quotes for that that may still happen um so that's that was good um we talked about the what's on our uh agenda tonight which is the shared Revenue agreement with the burrow for for 31 River Road aka the pilot program we've been talking about for quite a while um so it's linked in the in our agenda the resolution and also um I think what's linked there if not uh is um Mr Rosa looked at what we're going to receive from this uh pilot money which is 60% of the which is our tax rate typically 60% of the money that's being received for the property on 31 River Road um and um the anticipated revenue is that over the next 30 years we will be receiving 2, 625,000 from this agreement um this first year it's 56,600 and then it increases gradually each year um and so it's a substantial um contribution to our budget and uh the borrow Council does have to approve it each year but um being the recipient of the pilot money is certainly very helpful uh to our budget going forward something we need to be watching carefully and we thank the burough for working with us on that um and then we spent a good part of the meeting talking about um the the budget overview that was given tonight so I'm not going to go back over it um well I might a little bit couple thing a couple things that came up to me and which which was spoken about tonight um I was surprised about the charter schools and how much they've increased and what a percentage of our budget that is maybe I hear Darcy talking in my head because that was something she talked about a lot but um it's up to $327,000 that is going out to the charter school so maybe an editorial comment on my spot but that caught me by surprise in the number of the amount of that money um on the flip side of it the savings that we're getting from the work that um Dr suesa and uh Mr Rosa dead along with our associations of saving over $800,000 just this year benefits um that's huge so I I think that's a really helping us here um and I was happy to see that Transportation actually is not going up that was last year that was a really big item um so I'm sure that's also uh a credit to the work that's being done and trying to find ways to uh uh to keep these costs down um the other thing that we talked about going back to the agenda was um the preschool education Aid budget uh that we will be receiving do I have this right so um the the uh projection is that if we have 81 students plus nine uh students with IEPs um we pay for the students with IEPs however from the state we should be receiving about 1, 268,000 to fund our preschool program um again it's uh sizable amount of money and we are actually educating 90 students in full-time uh preschool education so I think um it's been it's been a job for everybody to get this up and running but I think it's really wonderful that we're both getting the money and educ more importantly educating all these students um so that was on our agenda um the negative student lunch balance which we didn't discuss a lot but each month it is going up currently we have over $47,000 outstanding in in our student lunch balance that we don't really have a way to collect on um but it is just out there and each month it's inching up even though we're also inching up on the amount that we're getting from free and reduced Lune because we're getting more reporting on it but um still that negative balances there and the only policy we had one policy 7610 on vandalism also not a significant change to what we had before that's we'll be up for first read but in April the last thing that we talked about on our meeting was um really exciting and interesting and it was coming from an she has done some research uh and she's uh began work with the burrow on a proposal to ask for a line item budget request um through our legislative delegation um and um Ann's met with the mayor the mayor's been enthusiastic and um were eager to work with us so that part of this budget request would be to include money for the schools we're um looking to earmark it for needed infrastructure improvements um and the again the mayor is enthusiastic and we're hoping for a successful joint Endeavor to bring money into Highland Park both for the burrow and for the schools it seems similar to The Joint efforts that went on some years back that ultimately led to the new track and field that we have again was a joint a joint venture that was a lot of work on everybody's part but in the end it was very successful and that also came from money outside uh because a third of it came from the state or the county so that was our agenda now the agend now that was our uh minutes now the agenda also very long um so number one on our agenda for financial facilities is authorization to adopt this tentative budget that's been presented tonight um and the numbers I'm not going to read all the numbers here you just saw them this budget will then be advertised out to the public um and there'll be a public hearing on it April 29th and we will ultimately be voting that day on the 29th on the budget that we that we uh will formalize at that point uh we're voting to approve an adjustment for enrollment um of $283,000 because of additional um I think Denise said 29 students uh this money that comes in would be to adjust for supplies and materials for additional students we are voting tonight on the approval of capital reserve withdrawal for the rep for the items that were again listed in some of these were listed um in the uh PowerPoint tonight were uh voting in let's see to to include these project in our General friend general fund Appropriations um and that includes the ble bathroom some ble masonary repairs middle school door replacement six of them I think flooring replacement at the high school in Irving waterproofing the foundation at Irving a middle school backup Oiler which is we're year two of a fiveyear plan on that this all totals 426,000 of $250,000 and I that's for general maintenance um approval of emergency Reserve withdraw of $6,400 and that's um for the security cameras that were mentioned at Bartle and Irving and the security gate at Irving approval of travel and related expense reimbursement for the 2425 school year um so I guess we're putting this aside so that uh um we will be able to as as staff members incur travel expenses that money will have been allocated for that um approval of the bill list from February 27th to March 18th in the amount of 2 million $641,000 thereabouts um we're moving to approve the uh preliminary report of The Treasure of school monies as of January 31 2024 approval of the board secretary's report um uh to certify that no budgetary line item has been overextended uh number 10 moveed at the Board of Education also um we're reviewing the preliminary monthly Finance report and indicating that there are no major account or fund that's been overextended and we have sufficient funds to meet our obligations for the remainder of the year we have a list of board uh budget transfers that's number 11 then we have a few that we mentioned last time so I don't have to do them but under 13 we have a few additional contractors for Professional Services um uh one of them is for providing uh support for counselors in the form of coaching from better lessons uh and Judy Lano to work with with staff on um curriculum design and another agency right choice to uh support our th occupa OT speech and speech needs then number 15 we have three additional students um for bedside instruction we had one earlier so we have four on that list that are on the agenda and then skipping to number 19 we are um receiving from the Highland Park Education Foundation um fun funds for the Verity day $2,000 we we thank them for uh for being able to do that for us that's in the middle middle school diversity day uh number 20 is uh using our ARP Esser funds to purchase interactive whiteboards um for Irving Bartle and the Middle School 33 of them and their installation uh 21 is the contract for uh ESS which is our uh some mental health supports oh sour source for teachers oh I'm sorrys I'm thinking the other one yes source for teachers oh we're going to use our got it we're going to use our um substitute uh agency to help with before and after care uh trying to find them substitutes um as well that's right I forgot that one um approval of an agreement with the ed services for demand response can you remind me what theand response is sure so oh you want to go go ahead go ahead it's it's in regards to our utility bills if we participate um during the summer months if if there's a need in the town uh for for homeowners to get the the electricity or you know the services they will reduce our usage and give us a percentage of the savings yes did tell us that thank you so that's another great uh place to save some money you thank you for that okay we have an addendum to our fight in case that wasn't long enough we have a few more things on finance and Facilities got got my addendum here um number 23 on the addendum is the award of Roost the roof replacement bid um this is for the high school and for Irving and it shows you here what the bids were and we're voting to award the bid to base bid uh Northeast uh roof maintenance and Perth Amoy in the amount of $686,000 and we're voting on the contract for cable vision light path um it's a renewal contract for uh for uh cable vision light path for fiber internet services approval of a contract for the rooftop HVAC unit at ble in the amount of 26,000 plus dollars um also the HVAC duck work at ble in the amount of 49 plus thousand this is all okay 100 it's part of the 100 100 uh Cooperative bid uh 100 Cooperative ESC bids I don't know approval of contract replace the HVAC electric at bardle um that's to the tune of $10,800 and to replace HVAC exhaust fans um in the amount of $32,000 and that concludes my report any questions that's it questions okay okay Personnel um so we didn't meet this week I went over my committee report last week but Dr Susa did you have anyone in the audience today that you wanted to introduce to the board and our communities we didn't have the plan well I do thank you so I actually wanted to share an update to the community I know Miss V did a wonderful job of sharing out the process by which we were searching for our next high school principal and I'm very very pleased to um recommend a candidate tonight but just to review the search committee was a very robust and rigorous search process a survey was sent to the entire High School Community parents students and staff in English Spanish and Chinese there were 61 responses and we had um we looked at the areas of five characteristics that they believe were important to a new principal and Leadership characteristics and qualities that were important and based on that we looked I looked over the resumés to review those characteristics and brought forth some candidates for the committee to review to try to include more voices beyond the survey we did I know you shared the speed dating round as a way to include as many staff students and parents that were interested in participating so we had uh four different rooms that our candidates rotated through um and so we had a whole list which I know the Committees reviewed of the applicants there were a total of 29 people that applied for the position one was an internal applicant and 28 were external applicants we invited nine to interview for the first round B based on the fact that they had certifications so that was important that they had they possessed New Jersey um principal Certificate of Eligibility or certificate in advanced standing um and then again like I said the leadership qualities and experience and then there were after the first round there was a set committee that included central office administrative staff um a plethora of High School staff from um special ed teachers math science ed services director um ELA teachers um athletic coordinator history teachers uh Human Resources band teacher HPA representative so we tried to get a lot of different representation on the following two rounds and from that process um one uh of our candidates standed out to the community throughout every round that was a shining star and tonight I am pleased to um recommend and introduce Dr Christina Donovan and she is with us today and I would like to invite her to the podium and introduce yourself to the community thank you so much for inviting me this evening thank you Board of Education um I am so incredibly excited for the potential of this opportunity um upon conclusion of the board meeting today I wanted to tell you a little bit about myself I was a high school uh counselor for Princeton public schools for many years and then the last seven years I've spent in administration working as a supervisor administrative supervisor and director both for Princeton public schools and most recently for the Freehold Regional High School District uh in my spare time I'm also an instructor at Ruckers University working in their leadership minor program uh additionally I am Hub faculty for the uh New Jersey chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics providing professional development on mental health for students throughout the state and I also work for njpsa providing professional development on increasing student attendance engagement and mental health uh so that's a little bit about me the most exciting part of my journey is the one that it's ahead uh I had the wonderful uh opportunity uh to meet many students parents and faculty here at your district and it is my absolute honor to be here this evening and hopefully to be your next principal so thank you to bring my other page back up now I have to thank you very very nice to meet you um just go over the new agenda items the first is part of the agenda uh the agenda number four is the approval of the new hire for Dr Donovan um effective pending release and paperwork clearance July 1 a lot of this was already gone over last week scrolling for the new items okay uh number 13 also part of the addendum is the approval of 20 2425 doctoral level psychology practicum students um a bunch of students from ruter Fairley Dickinson and Kane and Felician University actually that's it it wasn't as long as I thought all right and any questions for Miss fores okay then we have policy oh that's mea one minute I have that here under this pile of papers policy also met um this week on the 13th and we reviewed uh quite a few policies um perative Action Program comprehensive Equity plan equal employment opportunity affirmative action for employment and contract practices affirmative action program for classroom practices guidance counselor bilingual ESL education and one on sports related concussions uh most of the policies were simple changes um use of of pronouns use of protected classes referring to the uh state regulations on that um we didn't see any significant concerns the two that we are tabling right now to get more information on it was the one on guidance counseling 2411 um we had some questions on um pieces of that uh policy that we didn't understand so we were going to send it um to the people who know best and we'll come back and Dr Dr Cisco will bring it back to us with more information um the other one was the bilingual and ESL education we had a discussion on it um even just as to what what do we call this you know MLL ESL you know we all have different names for it so that's also going back to the people in the district who know best and we'll um we'll get some advice on that and bring it back for discussions those two are definitely tabled the others um will be going forward for first read and we table the conversation about electric communic electronic communications uh teachers and cell phones and so forth um for future meeting oh and the last thing we we talked about was the um um Dr suska shared with us what actually all the policies the numbers and all the policies and there significance should have known that but I I never did um and how the number of the policy guides what committee it is sent to for first review um so um I think I shared that with everybody those numbers so that was helpful we also she also shared with us the the uh recommended the way we we when Darcy was running policy how policy was reviewed and how it got to us um so that's a kind we'll look at that again when we meet as a group um next month uh but there was helpful information in there as well for us we talk about possibly looking to right now we're currently just reviewing policies that St and sbay thinks we should or sending us that we need to um and maybe there are we should be looking some of our old policies on some regular basis to to review them for language for whether it matches our practice and so forth so we'll that'll be for a future conversation that's it any questions I would just second the idea of going back to that practice of reviewing periodically reviewing our policies regardless of whether or not there's a St sesme um new guidance yeah kind of figure out how we do that yes yes absolutely on that I'm not sure if it's related but um at the njsba training I know you can partner with them and they'll help you do a systematic review of your policy I think separate from the STA so it's just something that we have yeah works yeah could be useful and it's it's free that's nice all right we're going to move uh to public comment if you have a printed copy you'll notice we embedded more of our policy on public comment into our agenda um the Highland Park Board of Education invites public participation during its meetings board policy number 01 6 4.06 allows for public comments during remote meetings which can be submitted in advance via email or Written Letter however text based comments during the meeting are not accepted comments received beforehand will be read aloud during the meeting with within a reasonable time limit of three minutes per individual duplicate comments may be summarized with each duplicate noted for the record um I want to remind people that you don't have to submit public comment verbally you can submit it in writing if you choose to email it you just have to earmark it as public comment board policy number 0167 underscores the importance of public comment on educational issues during board meetings a portion is allocated for public comment with participants required to announce their name place of rence and affiliation the presiding officer May limit each statement if the public common portion exceeds 30 minutes all statements questions or inquir inquiries must be directed to the presiding officer who may intervene if comments too lengthy abusive or disruptive law enforcement May assist in removing disorderly individuals these rules may be waved to protect privacy and maintain order how many people do we have on our meet zero okay back to the old days no there how many participants how many participants well how many how many part how many total part 20 20 zero I can't look down appar all right we have 20 participants one hand ra and one hand okay I'm sorry can I ask a clarifying question just about the public comment uh before you open public comments I'm not taking away time but on for people who want to submit a public comment through text or how would that work in terms of having that read they just email it to us as a public comment and we I read it in real time be checking so we need someone who we know it would have to be by a certain deadline so like we would have to set it maybe the day before just so that I don't have to check the email while doing it okay so we have to establish the deadline that's something that we can discuss okay yeah I just want to be clear as how that's going to work so would have to be submitted before the actual period right okay okay full name is there somebody yes yes um it would help us when calling on you if you join the webinar to please have your first well your full name is uh would be best who's our first okay Rob Scott Dr Scott you can unmute Dr C Scott we can't hear you and you are not muted on our end well there we are there thank you now I hear you yeah I I I was unmuted the whole time um so this new webinar format's a little confusing um usually we can see ourselves on camera am I on camera or not on camera is this just voice you are not on camera okay it's just voice thank you uh my name is Rob Scott I live at 25 South 2 Avenue I'm back here again for the third time in a row uh to once again [Music] make public comment with respect to the issue of the board directing the superintendent to actually work on trying to fix the start time at the ble school um the reason I'm back is because I think this is actually a fairly simple issue uh and it's something that uh is important to a lot of people in the community and many many people showed up on February 26th and now we've reached a point where the process is has broken down um because there is no reason to come and give public comment if the public feels they're not even going to get a response if they're just going to be blown off and uh what I understand uh from the last meeting is that the entire issue of even contemplating doing anything about the start times has been booted to April and will go to I think probably die um in the central leadership team um this is disappointing um there was the budget uh presentation today which touched on Transportation issues I suspect what we're going to be told is this is too late so I'd like to get it in the record you promised a survey what stimulated a lot of public comment was a survey that was sent out that was clearly inadequate that also contained language from the superintendent saying we're not going to consider changing anything um and now we've been confronted with delay so uh I think many members of the public um share my frustration and I would really actually like to hear the board comment on the issue finally um so uh thank you very much that's what I have to say today thank you any other hands for public comment anybody in person I sorry I should have asked that first but okay we're going to move to our board action items board curriculum and instruction I'd like to move items one through four second Dr batty Miss cassal done yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss Cru yes Dr schoolman yes Miss staniel yes Miss vardaman yes Miss Vorhees yes okay finance and Facilities um I move uh items 1 through 28 second Dr batty Miss Cassel done yes to all abstain from number 14 Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss puce yes Dr scholman yes Miss stano yes Miss vardaman yes Miss Vorhees yes okay Personnel I'd like to move items 1 through 13 second Dr batty Miss cassal done yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss puce yes Dr SC woman yes Miss Danel yes to all abstain from four Miss fan yes Miss Vorhees yes and policy um so I actually didn't read the policy before I didn't uh go over it so just really quickly uh for first read you have code of ethics equal employment opportunities curriculum content equity in school and classroom practices oh the bilingual one oh that's this is the reg these are the regulations not the policy on that one um is bilingual and ESL but it's the regulation honoring student achievement also these are all regulations and vandalism and for second read it's religion the schools that we've talked about before so I move items one and two under policy second Dr batty Miss Calon oh yes Dr Coleman yes Dr Pixley yes Miss puce yes Dr schoolman yes Miss stano yes Miss baman yes Miss Vorhees yes congratulations Dr Donovan okay we're going to move on to Liaison reports um I have I know Ethan you're the uh liaison report from uh Board of Health but I do have that email that he shared with us to share with the community um so uh Jay cron who is the um I guess he's the chair of the Board of Health chair um sent us an email that he wanted uh to share with the community to clear up some misinformation it has come to my attention that the school start times have aroused some controversy in town I can assure you that the Board of Health advice provided in our resolution in 2018 Remains the Same in fact in light of the recent identification of Youth mental health as a Public Health crisis in our country by the US Surgeon General Our advice in favor of later start times for adolescence has perhaps even greater urgency please rest assured that the Board of Health fully discussed this information relating to the biological changes in adolescent sleep patterns associated with puberty as well as the potential effects on younger children of earlier St times in advance of our recommendation to the board of education and that again is from Jay crosson who is the chair from the Board of Health oh I'm sorry Dr crosson thank you um any liaison reports from anyone else I've I've been on um a little bit of the uh uh Zoom calls for the Highland Park Education Foundation they've met a number of times I made it on to one I think Alison might have as well um and they um they're they're looking for some from energy from the community to join them I think there people who've been doing this for a long time and done done a great service to our schools for a long time um there's they're struggling in terms of um uh fundraising and also uh looking for new people to get involved they're looking to possibly follow the format that the uh the boosters had done recently uh where they were all sort of in the same situation they needed they needed more volunteers new volunteers people that have been doing it for a long time as well um so they will be having a community meeting in April I'm not exactly sure the details they will be put out um certainly encourage volunteers anybody that's interested to know about what they've done they' certainly um funded many field trips and projects for our district um they didn't they're an important uh contributor to our school community so they're looking for more help and we hope that the community will will join them when that information comes out um and I'll share that as soon as I know thank you anybody else okay um I do not have a president's report this evening um old business new business okay we move to our second round of public comments read this a shortened one we're going to do a shortened version uh board policy number 0167 underscores the importance of public comment on educational issues during board meetings a portion is allocated for public comment with participants required to announce name place of residence and affiliation um anybody in person have a public comment how many participants do we have online 19 anyone online have a public comment please raise your hand got it now zero okay I move to adjourn second all in favor I I thank you