##VIDEO ID:aRAjZxA8ybM## good evening everyone calling the meeting to order we have a roll call Sir here Mr kapadia Dr Litton here Mr Peters Dr Resnik and body Mr slotman Miss Tracy Ms Williams gallano present Dr Wilson theum wonderful thank you the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of the act the hopwell Valley Regional Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof communicated to the hille Valley News and the times on January 4th 2024 this meeting notice was also sent to Comcast cable and Verizon bios the board reserves the right to enter into executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education the meeting is being recorded for the purposes of Board review future reference preparation of the minutes and viewing on the YouTube b Bulldog TV and the school district website www.hvs.org members of the public who are interested in participating in public comment we ask that you sign in prior to speaking this will assist us with our record evening with that said please join me with flag salute flag United States can I get a first in a second to approve the minutes for July 15th all in favor any opposed or abstaining a minute are past oh and I yes I just want to take a moment to welcome our new board member Sarah Tracy yeah hi yeah so Tracy for those you who may be newer to the district or your kids are just Aging in uh Sarah Tracy has been with the school board previously um and will be filling the remainder of the Year prior to the election but she is um joining us back after how many we won't we won't count but anyway welcome back and thank you for putting your hat in the ring all right that said um so um for my report today uh I know that uh folks have been monitoring in the newspaper some of the responses to our referendum we are going to be having a town hall which will be virtual because that's what's most convenient for our parents is that it's virtual and that we record it especially once the school year starts it's crazy we understand that you have a lot on your plate uh we will be answering questions in the webinar there will be a panel of people available for your questions I will be there um Mr Cavo will be there our uh District architect will also be there and we this will be moderated so that you can ask all your questions so we'll be available for that I am going to go through some of the slides though tonight because I wanted to make sure that we cleared up some misconceptions misunderstandings about uh the referend that were presented in the newspaper um and also we want to just make sure that we're being as transparent as possible as we move through this process much of this is not new information to the to this community that folks that have been able to make it to our meetings we have been talking about this since the you know middle of last school year um as before we moved into this this decision to appeal to the public with a referendum so quickly I'm going to go through some of these slides and I know if you have questions you'll you'll present those to us in public comment so just mic on over here see wait my big head okay so yeah okay so what is a b referendum a referendum is an opportunity for for the the is that that one I guess it is this is an opportunity for uh the board to get ahead and plan for um some of these big capital projects that we have in place when we can't keep Pace with them with our regular General funds what's good about going this approach for a referendum when we ask the voters to borrow those funds by selling bonds is that if this is approved um if if the public okays it and it's approved then the district can get some funds back from the state with some of the projects that we've proposed so we're going to talk about those projects here so 25% % of these projects that that fit the criteria from the state and Bob you can jump in whenever you need to as I'm talking 25% of the projects that we propose will qualify for this local state aid taxpayers already pay into these These funds and other districts who go out for referendum which many districts are doing that now they're struggling the same way we are with inflation with the um expansion of our um our needs to spend and not being able to spend over the 2% cap we're not keeping Pace with the repairs that these buildings cost and you can't access these funds that we all pay in unless you go through a referendum process so yes we can continue to do what we've been doing which is pick them off one at a time and we're losing ground as we do that however you won't have access to this if we keep doing it that way um so it's an opportunity to not just attack more projects at once you can also get some cost savings that we return back to the taxpayer by going this route um it's a better way to plan instead of you know we we make a long list of things that we need to do we prioritize what needs to be done first then something happens we didn't plan for and that sucks up the money um our finance and Facilities budget has been flat for a long time and it's it's not keeping up with the inflation the cost of things the lead time to get things all of the issues that we've had um with our facilities so this is a way to long-term plan for some of those things that we know we need to fix and then finally the timing folks said why September why not do this on in November with the regular election vote well if we do it in September we can get ahead of the other schools that are doing this in November and in the early spring we can go out to bit early and hopefully start some of these projects that we need to do like the expansion on bare Tavern for example sooner than later especially something you know is going to take a year or two to complete yeah if if we are able to get this passed we will be in construction mode next summer absolutely so most most of this propos proposed referendum items are restoring and renovating our facilities that are very old most of these buildings you know are in a situation where things are failing this building is approaching a 100 years old like this year I think togate and Hotwell Elementary are all about 100 years old the other we have two of our schools that were built three in the 60s the newest school was 200 um four was that built two two 2002 so now these that even our new building is in need of some attention so we're restoring some of these failing and obsolete systems like our HVAC systems that are struggling and limping along oh by the way costing us more energy because we have these inefficient systems and they are failing and also Shing up the building Integrity to protect against extreme weather conditions which we're feeling more and more of in the face of all these repairs that we know we need to make because things are aging and failing over time we have these sort of things that happened this is Timberlane uh Middle School where we had some pipes that were instructed by uh tree roots and this has resurfaced it's another issue we're having we have bathrooms set down at Timberlane right now for continued issues around um big trees and things that were planted in our um our open courtyards some of them were probably put there when I would have been a kid and you know people met well at the time but putting a redwood in the middle of a area like this not a good idea right so now it's in the building in the pipes we had galvanized piping here that broke um last year I don't know if you noticed half of the board office dug up and we still have some prepars that we're we we need to work towards well we had more price break just recently this summer so this kind of stuff throws a wrinkle in our plans um in addition to the work that we have that we we know that we need to do that's ongoing three reasons why we need more space one is a raising enrollment and we are already starting to see folks enroll at in our new developments that are coming in some folks are Renning houses before their houses are even available in the news developments and some are ready to move into some of those properties um I've already had to split a section at be Tavern that the class size was up to 26 already and at the elementary school I mean at togate grammar school in kindergarten because we were at 26 that's not something that we do here in this District have these large class sizes especially at the primary grades so that is one of the reasons why we need expansion Tollgate is not necessarily receiving the new development but it's already tight we already have tight um space in that building um so one is renovating um for I mean expanding for that the rising enrollment the the rising number of special support services that we offer requires more room right so that's another reason why we need to expand yes according to the state they come in with a measuring tape and say if you have this much square footage you should have enough room for your kids they don't account for the special classes we have for autism for students that may have disregulation issues that they need to work through and they need more room in an even smaller class size of one two maybe three eight kids they don't account for some of the other programs that we offer our students for calming rooms and all of the things that they need so bringing kids back into District where they belong getting the ex education that we know they they deserve staying inh house is something that we um Mr Nardo has been um very uh integral and working on that um and we want to continue to do those things but it takes more space we offer kindergarten full day now where we used to only offer it half a day that requires more space we've expanded our preschool offerings and we're looking into even going further with that that requires more space um so as we look at these things and there is some funding that's available through the state for for these the building is used in a different way than it was in the past and then finally I already talked about Main maintaining the class size as best we can at some point it's going to get tough but we're trying to maintain that class size so that means that's that's using more rooms um because you have more teachers right so um what uh president Williams gallano is stating is to have kindergarten rooms in preschool rooms they have to be equipped with bathrooms and sinks at the size of the child some of that stuff has been we've been grandfathered and we've we've been allowed to do at tolgate and at bear but now that we have an opportunity to expand we would equip all of those rooms to be able to receive kindergarten or preschool or primary grades so that it even if we put fifth grade in it it's fine but you can always go down to the younger grades and accommodate the growth in the in kindergarten and preschool thank you for that all I think we also cover so we talked about um the rising enrollment we already talked about this one so if you go to the next slide there we go and also protecting our students right we have students outside of our buildings in these trailers which I my kids went to school in trailers in another District I'm not a fan of these I don't like kids outside of the building for a lot of reasons they're harder the cool they're harder the Heat and also if there's ever a crisis I I don't want our kids outside the building especially are some of our youngest children are in these buildings or some of our children with special needs are in these buildings they are safer and it's better serve if everyone is in the building um so these are not optimal the ones at Tollgate would actually be removed the students can stay in these while we're we're doing some of the work but we want to remove the ones at tolgate and actually expand the access around the building um in my newsletter that I shared with the community this weekend um uh Mr Quinn is actually out there showing parents what we mean by providing access right now emergency vehicles can't get all the way around togate because of those trailers that are sitting there um there's like this little narrow narrow space they've complained about it for years so it's an opportunity to correct that and any spaces that are against this that are outside learning spaces for our students can be moved and relocated and we will do that and that's part of the architect's plan to relocate those with the help of the PTO um but we also um want to avoid away from these trailers talking about the main buildings now we also want to avoid catastrophic fail failures that interrupt learning by doing some of these Renovations that we're talking about just this past year we had three major events toward the end of the year that we just dodged some serious stuff one was um the the well died on us the pump the well pump over at Timberlane we weren't sure if we were able to get another pump so I actually got a call from the director of facilities saying we're going to need to close Timberlane indefinitely this is in the middle of the day so I'm like that's not that's not something we can do what do we we got to do something right I can't tell parents kids aren't going to school and there's in determinate amount of time for how long they're out right we have to figure this out we can't get another pump because it takes you know like we're we were waiting on HVAC equipment that what took two years and it came damaged and then we had to start all over waiting this is not something we can move quickly called all over the place into Pennsylvania they actually robed a motor from another piece that was sitting on somebody's yard and put it on the pump right yeah yeah well not robbed but you know what I mean they borrowed and they were given by the company and and they bought okay they didn't steal it but they they took it off another item and like I'm not above it right now we're in trouble no but no they actually had to take it from another item to repair the pump and that's what's in the ground running right now an old pump with a motor off of another pump that needs to be replaced and we're waiting on that piece still right so what needs to not happen is we have one system only so in this referendum are backup sister pumps now for Timberlane and Bear Tavern that's still on on a well right I can't have your kids just going home like that unceremoniously but if we don't get a handle of these projects and Bob and I don't enjoy coming to you asking for this we can't continue to do this and we're going to continue to have problems that we can't fix quickly on top of that all happening at once then we had the fire trucks at Stonybrook that was air conditioned unit motor burning in the building that's on the referendum we had burning at Bear Tavern same thing air condition unit motor burning we had to evacuate all the kids we had it raining in bare Tavern roofs that's on the referendum and I know there's a misconception like oh these roofs were fixed on the last referendum roofs systems on a school are very extensive and we rarely replace them all at once we do it in sections sections of the roof replace roofs were replaced and others were not these are the areas that were untouched now that cost more money we probably should have made the investment then but that's hindsight here we are now and we need to to fix these things now we can't continue to kind keep kicking the can as we've been doing because now it's becoming exponential and we have to we can't keep up you also have to remember that Stony Brooks roofs are on the reference now when we did this in 2016 they weren't expired yet so we wouldn't have it wouldn't have made sense to do them then and a lot of those groups are now coming to the end of their useful life they weren't then they are now and we just really um just miss a major catastrophe at Stonybrook was flooding this past weekend with the rain that same area that we need to do something about was flooding and we had water in the school so these are things that we need to address we know they've been problems and they're all happening all at once so um again we've already talked about this we we're touching every building and we're going to quickly go through what's happening um if this should pass so the high school we're looking for replacing the roofs that weren't touch that are leaking one of those roofs is over our pack so I'm really concerned about that um restoring pavement over the where the solar roof canopy pocking lot is accessible bathrooms and concession stands for the stadium I want to clear that up so so right now bathrooms for the stadium over at the high school are porta-potties there are bathrooms outside around the corner like down a little bit of ways closer to the building that people can travel to the way schools work now because of the people bringing weapons into games and things like that we've TR changed our protocols for safety once you enter the Gate of the field you cannot leave and come back for any reason so if someone needs to go to the restroom that is not interested in using porta potty me or is not able-bodied and can't get in and out of a porta potty they leave they can't come back in that is not the best experience for some of our grandparents some of our people that are not able-bodied some of our people that are not interested in going to porta potty right so adding bathrooms was something that we decided if we're going to do this this is an opportunity to do that and the architect suggested well if you're doing bathrooms it's not much to add on the concession stands now you have an opportunity to raise revenue you're doing the bathrooms anyway it's not much more to just put the concession stand and make it one one standing thing and then now the band boosters can sell the sport Sports booster parents can sell we can sell things for graduation we can provide Refreshments when you're dying out there during graduation and get your water and all those things so that was an opportunity to just piggyback that on the restrooms accessible restrooms was the point though making sure that everyone had that access and then finally the agback improvements that we didn't do um with the last referendum mm thank you okay the Middle School um and we always call her um Jan Brady she doesn't get a lot of tension in the middle here that front building is needed help since I I was principal there so replacing some of the the um the roofs again the ones that weren't done and covered in the last referendum replacing exterior doors to align with the current safety standards on this refurbishing that front entrance there's a lot of trip hazards and uneven um pavers that have heaved up that canopy that's above the Middle School um doorway or entrance used to have little bubbles on them you're not allowed to put them back because they're a safety H Hazard now they were then because they blew away right um so that whole area needs to be torn down and replaced and it's need that needed that for some time that pillar where Timber Lane is written down the side is collapsing and crumbling and has to come down so those are some of the things that we have um on here um replacement of the floor in the auxiliary gym to provide a safer surface for our kids because that floor is in bad shape and needs to be replaced so those are all the things that we have for um for for timberling yes I going to address the turf later because the turf is is near Timber Lane but it's it's sits on the on the back end of that property be Tavern Elementary School same uh the I talked about the the um the the renovating the pumping station the backup pump in well in case of failure restoring the entrance walkway canopy same thing there's no protection from the weather there um the roving that needs to happen in there replacing exterior doors for safety standards replacing um the obsolete air conditioning unit that one in the main office is one of the that one that caught on fire the summer this past spring and then some interior um improvements replacing the classroom doors again they're the original doors and they're old and they need to be brought up to code um doors that kind of shed on their own um the that that lock differently than what we have now um build a 10 classroom Edition we talked about that already to address the increase in enrollment and then modernize the cafeteria and the hallways to allow for more traffic flow hopeall Elementary um has a little few fewer projects because we touched some of the other projects during the last referendum but Roofing replacing the exterior doors the air condition unit at hopeall elementary has been limping along a long time we've had some real issues with that and just B basically missed having to close because of some extreme weather with that one um and then the classroom doors again being being um upgraded and then upgrading the kindergarten classrooms to make sure that they meet the state size requirements Sony Brook grooving um exterior doors again the drainage problem at the back of the school we're going to work on replacing the air conditioned units that are obsolete or are getting outdated and install a chiller uh to supplement the geothermal system with the the raising uh temperatures we're facing um it just can't keep up with the heat the way it is now so we need to to um add a new Chiller to be able to supplement Tollgate we're going to replace some roofs if this if we're able to do this replace exterior doors again widen the driveway for better traffic flow and for Access for emergency vehicles I spoke about the air conditioning there as well needs attention um replacing um electrical equipment to better control and protect the school's power system and a build the sixth classroom addition to again bring kids into a Better Learning environment inside okay so what would this cost a taxpayers 87 million for the improvements 20 million point. three of that will lower the impact on the taxpayer that's what the state will match um the property tax impact will be anywhere between uh 433 to 515 annually and I have a chart well I'll get into that a little let you look at that a little more closely by Burl so the turfield I know that there's um that's there's been a lot of discussion about the turf field the reason why we want to bring a tur field to our campus is to keep our students on campus right now they go to Twin Pines they're just dropped off so if there's a weather situation if there's an emergency if someone's hurt our trainer is on campus our security guards are on campus as our administrators so for our safety we would like the kids to be back on their own turf turf is better for our athletes to play on it's healthier for them as athletes and if if we were going to explore this turf field and you said yes we would go about it in a green way where we would look for a company that has Greener turfs with no um peos and that it's recyclable and um I know people are concerned about the chemicals there's chemicals maintaining a natural turf field you're spraying paint you're spraying chemicals to keep the grass so that that still going to happen less of that happens when you have a turf field you don't have to paint it as often and it's not washing away you don't have divots and holes and things like that that the kids can get hurt on so this is really better for our parent or our students our student athletes our marching band students who use it and it's also an asset to the community just like twinfalls fields are always being used by recre Recreation and travel teams for tournaments that would alleviate the stress on our one field that people like to use spread it across too and then it'll it'll be something that the whole Community can use um 1.6 million of this is going to be covered by the state aid we didn't know if they would cover any of it but because it is addressing the drainage issues that are over there they're willing to give us that much to support this this um upgrade of our of our turf field which will improve the kids access as well Bob did you want to add anything to that the current field that we did put in uh last summer um is also it's you that's where we got into the The Greener product that is a pasas free field um at the current time so you're happy about that okay and the per and then finally which is is separate from the referendum but it's part of our general um budgeting that we spend during the course of the year is our per pup cost people say that we have a very high prup cost rate and why is that so and the reason why it's so is because of our smaller class size um I just said that I added two more teachers because we weren't comfortable with 26 in other districts you would have 26 27 kids in a classroom that's not something we're comfortable with here in hopwell our class sizes generally are under 20 like 16 17 18 kids in a class occasionally we will hit a 24 or 25 in a class it's usually one section or one teacher and it's an anomaly and if we can split it like it happens in the summer we do if it happens during the course of a school year it's a little harder hard to find quality teachers once the school year starts so sometimes we have to write it out um but that class size is the number of teachers which is salaries health benefits which makes up over 80% of our budget so that cost can be cut if we cut programs and we offer an extensive amount of programs the state talks about adequacy we are well above adequacy in our class size and the number of PA professionals we have here in the district and the number of programs that we offer nurses in every building media specialists in every building music two types of music sometimes two music teachers in a lot of the buildings including elementary schools that doesn't happen in a lot of other districts and that's why their P per pupil cost is less they don't have steam facilitators they don't have in-house clinicians necessarily they don't have relationships with Comprehensive Mental Health where we're providing services to the families that can't afford it they don't do all of these things and these things have a cost the number of the electives AP courses clubs the facts that we have a comprehensive high school with wood and auto shop it's expensive so these are the things that parents in this District demand I got several emails when parents were kind of concerned about the class size in kindergarten at tolgate when they showed up to kindergarten class and saw there were 24 kids we were already panicked because we don't do 26 25 kids in a Kindergarten class here it's rare that that happens so that's what causes our cost to be so high that's something that we've come to expect that the parents here move here for um in addition to all the extensive special education programs we have is what our kids deserve and they people move here for um so and um Paula could you talk to to folks a little bit about the number of kids that we have in classified versus other districts hi everyone so we do have a higher percentage of students receiving special education um services and over the last I'd say 10 years we have seen an increase um especially in movein um there is a point in June last year where we had um over a two-e period we had 14 students register for this coming September who are receiving special education services um so you know we take pride uh we work really hard to provide programming with in our districts we we've really worked and dedicated a lot of time and training to um provide um you know literacy instruction for our students with um significant learning disabilities K through 12th grade we have special classes autism emotional regulation we have um we have a lot of inclusion opportunities I we don't have any self-contained programs because we really want our kids to be able to access um and their least restrictive environment and being with their age appropriate peers as much as possible so we do do a lot we do a lot more than most of our surrounding schools and so as a result we um people come here seeking that service that we do a really good job um delivering to um our community I get I feel calls all year long with people wanting to pay tuition for these services and I say no because I know that we're already stretched right um but this is something that people seek out about oh well because we do a good job that is why our per po cost is so high because it goes directly to serving your kids right so I just wanted to make sure that everyone's clear on that it's not sort of us wasting money it's tied up in a lot of salaries and benefits for the people who deliver these programs and just to to point out we do um in my opinion we do among the best in the area regarding our health benefits um and health care that we provide to all staff members we're a self-insured organization which means um we don't pay premium to a carrier we pay claims and if we are have a we have a good year the money stays in the district if we have a a bad year we're on we're on the the hook for that um but we do have secondary insurance for that a lot of folks have said well why don't you just switch to the state plan if health health care costs are rising too high well we're we're doing way better than the state health benefit plan and if you read uh in the paper over the last several months the State Health Benefit Plan is going up 16% in January so we've done our homework we've we've managed to keep our health care costs lower than a lot of our uh neighboring districts it's just the inflationary cost towards health care right now in the in the country is skyrocketing and that is just that is what's driving even though we're doing the best we can to contain it it's out of control right now thank you okay so here is a breakdown of the projects the turfield and the concession stand SL restroom um folks were kind of saying okay that's nice to have but you know I argue that it's something that really we should consider doing for the benefit of our students and our and our our families that come visit our Fields is only 9% of this overall pie 10% of it is the addition to to um to Tollgate I took it apart from the bare Tavern addition so you can see how much that is bare Tavern is 20% of that um and then 61% of it is is the rest of it is just infrastructure things Roofing HVAC doors restrooms the backup well systems the main entrance repairs upgrades and other repairs that are just the things that need to be done in addition to these so yes yes that's it if we don't do this um I'm sure finance and facility can share what's been going on all summer which has been not good is we're going to have more of that picture of like timberlan with the floors open up we're going to have more of that we're going to have this Interruption of student learning because when things fail um we're going to have kids evacuated out buildings when things fail we're going to have buildings flood and we're going to have classrooms not available and we're going to be running kids and rerouting them we're going to have air condition that doesn't work on an extremely hot day and teachers are running from room to room to try to stay cool that's what we're going to have and um we don't enjoy coming to you with this but I feel like I would be remissed by riding off into the sunset just kind of putting band-aid and duct tape and doing whatever robbing Parts off of things right until I retire and then I leave you in an even worse situation ation um we are literally doing this to fight for what your kids deserve and um I I can't tell you what to do yes or no um it's really your decision and I'm going to make it work no matter what as best I can but this is me telling you that we're in trouble if we don't do this um and I don't want it to affect you who are sending your kids here it's really it's really going to be tough um and for those you know who who don't have kids in in the district anymore um we all kind of um as community members support the school districts because it does help us with our um with the the value of our house right but also that social contract where you know people paid for my kids to go to school I'm going to support the schools for them because people supported the schools for me so I'm hoping that we can do that because it's it's it's what's really best for our young people and again there's not a lot of sex appeal on here it's it's all things that that we know we need to do we've known we need to do and we kind of keep kicking the can down the road because we can't afford it so this is this is the amount that the state is is going to um support of this referendum we will not Bond all of this at once so that doesn't mean all 87 million will come to all at one time you bond out as you do projects and then here is that that bigger graph I I uh promised you I want you to be able to see it the impact on the taxpayer and for those um members of the community that are that are senior citizens there are waivers for People based on certain income levels is that correct Bob that they can apply for so voting information um the um County U must receive your mailin vote application by September 10th in my newsletter I know there's a lot of legal ease in these ballots That's How It Was Written the last time it's written by lawyers um but basically what you're voting on is what I just showed you those items I just showed you um so but check out my my uh news letter if you have any questions about that language September 16th um the the county uh must receive your vote by mail application um by 3 p pm. on the 16th and then the polls will be open on the on the 17th all voting will take place in person in one place at the Pennington Fire Company um we wanted to make it convenient for everyone with plenty of parking and also no confusion on who goes where so um we've had them look at that space um they are sure that they can accommodate us and make sure there's plenty of parking on the 17 and this was done in conjunction with the Mercer County um uh election officials office and they suggested that we do it for this this type of a a vote to do it all in one location so there is no confusion and so just um I know that there's questions out there feel free to reach out to any of us if you have a question we're here to answer your questions we will have a town hall on September night that will be virtual but you don't have to wait till then if you have questions you can visit our website that has has all the frequently asked questions as you email us these questions we don't just answer it for you we also make sure we post it online for people to see later because if you have the question someone else may um you can also follow us on social media we're pushing out information all the time there and um I've already talked about the the um the town hall there's one more thing I I wanted to talk about and Bob could you find that one slide about the money in the bank so there's always this misconception that we have a lot money sitting in the bank that we kind of sit on um and any one point in time when we're audited the Auditors may come in and they'll look at what we have in our reserves right okay so do you want to walk everyone through this quickly so um this was pulled from a snapshot in time um at our audit this is was our position on June 30th 2023 where we did have total fund balances as defined by the state of $15.9 million of that 15.9 million $8 million of it is money that was sitting in our capital reserve kind of our emergency fund should a boiler break you know those kinds of things outside the realm of um a referendum type thing we actually are going to be pulling money out of our capital reserve to um handle another area of timberling that we had to dig up we were joking about that but we weren't we actually did have to dig up Timberlane dead again this summer for more pipe issues um and we also have what's called a maintenance Reserve account it's not a quite a capital project but a smaller type project of $91,000 so that is money that's set aside that's close to you know8 $8.1 million that is money that's sitting in the bank but it's it's restricted it can't be used for anything but capital projects and the board assigned that money there through a vote it's not something that can do on my own it's done in conjunction with the finance facilities committee and the and the board as a whole and the only way the money can be withdrawn is by a board vote um and also it's the the project has to be approved you need to get State approval to be able to pull the money out the $621,000 at the top are per uh monies that were at the end of 2023 for example we ordered uh a a bottle and the bottle didn't arrive on June 30th it arrived on August 1st that money carries over from one year to the next and is reserved to be used on that one thing and that is an audited number so that money to me is not sitting in the bank it's just sitting there waiting to pay for the things that have already been ordered the 4.7 million are monies that were left over from 2022 23 and also revenues that we did not anticipate getting there are there are revenues that come in from the state for transportation um for uh special education extraordinary Services those thing those things come in after the fact and we are able to reserve them and we use them to help fund the next year's budget so as one of our finance committee members noted so we are using money from this year to pay for next year not not the best thing to do but that's what we've been doing to stay ahead of the game all right we're over we're we have a lot of things in our budget that are not that are above and beyond so that's how we cover it we try to scrimp and save and generate savings from year to year um the last number is the state permits you to keep up to 2% of your audited expenditures and that's your true rainy day fund that can be used for anything but you still need Commissioner of Education approval you have to demonstrate that you've utilized every bit of the current budget that's there then you can tap into that money so that is truly a rainy day fund 2% over about an $85 million spend is not a whole lot a reserve so we just felt that we wanted to kind of explain what those balances are we do not have $16 Million worth of money to be able to be used for anything that we should desire to use it for and so we were doing I I when I was talking to some folks and just putting it in Lay terms it's sort of like looking at your bank account right after you get paid right on the 1st and the 15th it looks like I have a lot of money in the bank until my husband starts cutting the checks right and paying the bills that's what this is in a snapshot in time quite frankly it's a lot less than that right now if you know once all the bills get paid and even what we have is not enough on the the amount of properties that we're trying to to maintain having 15 to8 8 million to 15 million is not enough to have squired away when a project like Timberlane is probably going to hit the million dollar Mark by the time we're done and this is the second time we're digging up that building in a year so I know that sounds like a lot of money it's not and you certainly can't reroute it and pay teacher salaries or anything else with it because that's not what the state will allow us to do with this money there again there are a lot of restrictions the state doesn't allow you to keep that money set aside to be able to use as you see fit you need to you need to justify any withdrawal from that 2.4 million at the bottom and the 8 million um is capital reserve all has to be approved um at multi levels before it can be be expended I know we talk about the importance of yeah um I know we talk about the importance for the educational experience of our special needs kits uh of keeping them in District whenever possible but I'm going to be a money man here for a second pette what's the average cost roughly it when we do have child out of District student the average cost when we don't include uh transportation is around anywhere from 75 to $200,000 a year per student per student right so we're not I I I just want to and I'm not trying to diminish the importance of the educational experience of keeping them here but that is not necessarily a cost the district can reduce by by by looking at Alternatives Oh by sending folks out and and and no it's going to be more expensive and and they don't do the job that we do necessarily right because you know some of them will deal with um some of the issues that a child is having but our kids are are very high performing and they're not getting the what they need academically and we do want our kids in the least restrictive environment if possible some kids do need a of District placements even at I don't care if it's 300,000 right if that's what they need that's what we need to provide um but a lot of these things I feel like we can do a job in house and a better job in most cases yeah I just wanted to make that clear that even though it is a significant cost to us mhm MH it's a better investment need we have to provide um those services and it is less expensive to provide them in in District and that so it is but again we're looking at each child and making sure they get what they deserve which is a free and appropriate public education and if that means that this child needs to go to an add of District placement to meet their needs and we're going to make sure they get that um as well as with our like our autism classes per the New Jersey Code we cannot exceed six children in that classroom so we have to adhere to the code as well to make sure that um we're meeting their needs all right moving on we are going to have a presentation by Dr pitus okay thank you um hi everybody I'll be presenting the uh the data on our New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment also known as NJ GPA just a little background on this assessment this spring was the second year that that NJ GPA was administered and it counts for and the second year that it counts for a high school graduation requirement okay um however for for since as I mentioned this is a graduation requirement um however if students don't pass the njtpa because the lights can you zoom on it there we go I don't think for the other ones you need at just for that one yes yeah yeah yeah yeah okay okay there we go thank you thank you everybody um so as I was as I mentioned the njp oh just kidding uh I don't know okay yeah um the NJ GPA is a high school graduation requirement however the state has put forth two other alternative pathways so if students don't pass um njpa then they have two other Pathways that they can fulfill the requirement for but in order to be eligible for those Pathways the students must at least sit for the assessment um so some of these Alternatives so if they if they sit and they don't pass the assessment then they go on the second path pathway which is to meet certain scores on other assessments such as the PSATs acup Placer sat s um and and act and then um if students don't receive those scores on those other alternative assessments then there is a portfolio option so really the take-home message here is that even if the students don't pass NJ GPA we're going to get them to be able to fulfill that requirement with one of these Pathways that has never been an issue okay yeah I I don't I think there okay do you want to just like exit out and then go back into it maybe okay once once we get this up I will review the the math and the ELA data thank sorry for the technical difficulty okay okay there we go no no no back back okay so I'm going to begin by talking about the NJ GPA math data okay um so um the way I arranged this the presentation is as I mentioned this is the second year that that this test has been in um Administration so I only have two years data and so I only have the data from last year and this year for the district and I only have the data comparable to the state so I don't have other districts um performance on this assessment so I'm just putting this disclaimer out as we go through the data um so overall Readiness um in 2024 the average score for the state was 735 to pass and the average score for the district was 759 this was very similar to the 2023 data in which the average score for the state was 734 versus hopo Valley which was 761 so overall this year 77 per students per of our students were graduation ready versus 55% of the state which were consider graduation ready okay yeah um so Readiness by gender for math so overall there was no difference between male and female ready Readiness level um all non-binary students were graduation ready but please note that in last year's data there were no students who identified as non-binary that's why there's those the zeros on the presentation this shows the breakdown of graduation Readiness by race um so in terms of the class of 2025 the racial breakdown is 4% Hispanic let Lao 15% Asian 2% black 76% white and 3% two plus races so overall it seems that students regardless of race were more graduation ready in last year in 2023 We are continuing to look um at the standards document that we were given to ensure that we were thoroughly covering all the standards that were assessed in this assessment um this is the breakdown by economic status uh please note that students who are as e identified as economically disadvantaged comprise 2.3% of the class of 2025 um and overall as compared to last year's data students who are not economically disadvantaged are more graduation ready uh Readiness by students with disabilities so just to give you some data in terms of the class of 2025 20.2% um of students have IEPs in that class um and so students who were identified with no disability are at a 90% Readiness um students with a504 are at an 89% Readiness while students with an IEP are at a 23% Readiness um this information was shared with pupil services so that they could do a deep deeper dive to see if there are specific standards to focus on provide more support to those students okay so um I'll now be reviewing the ELA data or the language arts data data so this year the average score for the state was 767 well the average score for hopeall Valley was 771 so overall our district is at an 86% Readiness rate um so this was a slight decrease from last year with a Readiness of 89% um however in both years our district has outperformed the state in comparing the 24 to 23 results the percentages are not sign significantly different however it seems that females continue to have a higher percentage of Readiness in performance as compared to males um and again as I mentioned before we did not have any students who identified as non-binary last year again that's that's why the the zeros are there um this shows the breakdown of graduation Readiness by race for last year and this year and so overall there was a slight increase in Readiness for are Asian and black students um this was the Readiness for economic status for ELA and again it seems that our economically disadvantaged students were slightly more graduation ready um as compared to last year sta so they did slightly better this year and then for disability um this is a comparison from last year and this year and overall students without a disability continue to have a higher graduate tion Readiness um and the Readiness levels are higher for E Ela as compared with the ma data so what are our next steps um so we have shared this data with the administrative team um who will then share it with the teachers and as I mentioned at Ed program last week when we receive this data from the state we don't really receive a lot of information we just really receive if this what the students score were and if they were graduation Ready or Not graduation ready this year in comparison to last year we did receive a document by b b broken down by standards so that will give us some data to then look at as a team to see um to ensure that all of the standards are being covered prior to the administration of the assessment as well as to see which standards maybe we need to hone in on um to help better prepare our students that was it thank you thank you so much for this really detailed presentation Dr pus I really appreciated this would you go back to the slide that looks at math Readiness by race sure so I think one of the things that's really helpful about presenting the data Broken Out by gender and race and economic status is that we can really begin to hone in on where we're seeing our challenges and this was just a quick look at this but what really stood out to me is that there appears to be a big drop among his Hispanic students and my guess is that that's driving the 6% drop that we saw overall so I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about what you think might be happening there and is that aligning with what we're seeing in other sort of similar assessments um so I I you know and so just to put only 4% of the class is is comprised of that um demographic so what we're looking at specifically when we talked about this at at Ed program was to look at um the the the different students specifically for that class to identify where where we can support them more to almost um I mean I I believe if good pedagogy is good pedagogy so if it supports one student it support it should support all students but we want to look specifically at Hispanic and black students and see where you know where maybe are there are there any patterns we're noticing in terms of like um consistent standards that that are falling short um and kind of be able to put in um interventions to address those patterns um I do in terms of you know we have not received all of the njsla data but I would say that this is pretty consistent for some of the other standardized assessments that we have m one other thing to just point out with the math so with English they all the students follow the same sequence so they take English n English 10 English 11 English 11 um but with math it's varied so these students who are sitting for this assessment they're in 11th grade so some might be have already T who might be in AP Calculus BC well some of them will be in algebra too so you know there is a that bearing um you know exposure to different math concepts which I just think is important to note as compared to to English questions yeah I have a quick one over here I'm going to use this microphone I don't have one by me so can you go back back to the uh sorry can you guys go back to the the 77% graduation ready slide I guess that was one of the first ones okay let sure okay and this is for everything right when that says overall that was for for all of them for Math and okay so I guess what I would be interested in seeing if this data is a aailable is and I'm just trying to figure out like a a comparable how do we look at like districts like ours we don't have that I agree I know well okay if we don't have it that's fine but maybe we think about it um I hate to say this out loud maybe I don't per pupil cost of this number or something to that effect if we can look at other districts that have a per people cost similar to ours and then look at what the out what that looks like I'm just trying to think about how we can show I mean on paper versus the state great it's not an equitable comparison the comparison of the state but we should look at how we can compare ourselves to other districts like ours characteristics attributes to be determined I don't know if any other board members have any thoughts on this but some point they will start us there's a lot of factors that go that not a l of it depends on that's why yeah absolutely I I guess my question just to to to Mark inquiry is are there any forums for like superintendent or Dr Pit's your peers there the discuss is happening and you can get a feel for other districts in comparison where we don't have the public data being released but we can have peer-to-peer conversations so we meet um the assistant the superintendent curriculum um every week for Mercer County um and we talk about things and we we we mentioned to the state you know because even within Mercer County it's it's very diverse in terms of apples apples and oranges um but we we talk about like we need this more comparable data and pass it on to the state so that's one thing that we've really been advocating for is just you know this is you know I feel like we're looking at this just with like such a microscopic lens like because we we we don't have that that comparable data so I mean we you know we don't really share our data at these meetings um just it's not I just feel like and I might be overthinking this too much but I just feel like we probably look at this and say like what our definition of success is and we're all going to say 76.7 isn't good enough right we're always going to say that right we know that but we have to figure out like what's the measuring stick because it's not the state like great phenomenal like we're we're comparing ourselves to districts that are nothing like ours but we should try to figure out how we can do that and I understand yeah like you're saying Mike there's a whole bunch of metrics and there's a whole lot there's a whole lot there but at the same time let's just start looking at a way to figure out different samples of like schools and try to do it somehow yes well some of this is first of all you're not in a hope well we are not only 76% of our kids 77% of our kids are ready for graduation we know that we have a very high in the 90th percentile graduation rate we know our students go off to some of the best universities and colleges they outpace the state and APS and honors courses and those sorts of things right I mean we we know that some of this is a cultural attitude that we have to these standardized test in these high Stak tests some of this and Drew was nodding are kids coloring or opting out themselves out of the test or not showing up on a test day and some of that so we need to work on that as as a commun as a community no I just wanted to say you you asked the question that I don't think we've been answering which is what is the measuring stick we're using this is a brand new test that's been administered only for the last two years I can tell you students it's also administered correct me if I'm wrong at the end of your junior year it's like March April Yeah March Juni year a time of year when we have a 97% graduation rate like we know that 76% of our students are not graduation ready we have more than that um so I think we do really have to take some of the results with the grain of salt I I will say um the statistics we're seeing around Black and Hispanic students are recurring and we see that across standardized test across all of our metrics so I think that point really does stand and and we do have to make sure we're actively intervening we talked a lot about that in thatc meeting um but I think that's really important for us to note is that when this test is taking place how new it is and yes I agree our our students attitudes toward standardized test it's not new this is just how it's always been when Park started up we had the same exact issues you can go through every iteration of a standardized test so I think right now it's hard to this is a pretty not accurate assessment of our students and you know it didn't count for a long time right the kids could okay we can take this test it's a pilot and then we can use our AP scores and our SAT scores and all these other scores now it counts so part of this is going to be working with the high school can making sure that folks are sitting for the test are taking it seriously because I know we perform better than this this is not you know this not a good snapshot so you know it's it's another measure but it's not the only measure and I wouldn't put all our eggs in this basket the state will come out with a you know eventually comparing districts to districts um and you know Vicky you can ask I don't know how much you're going to get out of folks but um certainly we all know we can do better than this um but there are some pervasive issues that keep showing up across as we triangulate across all the different measures that we offer including internal benchmarks we keep seeing those same populations that we have a hard time reaching yes that are underperforming I think the answer to your question is Mark we're going to have to continue to to to demand better well and and again this is a two-year you know T minus two years or plus two years um that this has been in place continue to press forward thank you Dr pites okay um we're going to go ahead and move into our first public comment and um again just a reminder that we ask you to sign in at the podium before you speak members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for maximum of three minutes during this portion of the meeting you are asked to state your name address and municipality in response to your comments the Board of Education May respond or direct the superintendent to do so the board may also opt to take the matter up at a future meeting so that the matter is researched by The District's Administration members of the public who intend to participate in public comment we ask you sign in prior to speaking and this will assist us with our recordkeeping and and and a reminder I'm doing the timekeeping that's a 30 second warning and that's your time is up got it hi my name is Christine Ru and I'm from hopeall Township I'd like to welcome the new board member however I'm a little bit confused I was at the board interviews and unless I missed it I was there was only one candidate who was interviewed and it was not Sarah and I thought all applicants were required to be present at the interviews can you please explain how this was possible how many candidates did the board vote on and how did each board member vote this is the third board member in the past couple of years that the board has selected and not the voters and we deserve more transparency um I also want to address the $87 million Bond referendum um as you know hopel Township approved new housing developments and entered into a pilot agreement with a developer that gives gives the developer and the new housing residents a 30-year tax break while the rest of us have to make up for the loss in tax revenue and added expenses the township has promised to give the school their fair share but these promises are not binding and have proven to be completely meaningless I was at the board meeting in February of 2022 when you were warned that this could happen and no action was taken to protect us taxpayers hell Township should be complete should be contributing a substantial portion for the expansion of be Tavern which is roughly 20% of the referendum also why wasn't this referendum split into two chunks the work that is absolutely necessary and the work that is optional none of us want to have our children learning in failing buildings but we also don't need all of the optional items it all adds up an $87 million is a huge ask for this small community Switching gears to the timing of the election the fact that the taxpayers are being forced to vote in a special election less than 50 days before the general election says that you don't care about wasting our money or our time perhaps the real reason for inconveniencing taxpayers is that school referendums are easier to pass during a special election which typically have a lower Turner lower voter voter turnout especially when there is a hotly contested presidential election as board secretary Bob Kavita stated in response to this question I had back in February to wrap up there was a comment in a recent Mercer me article made by members of this board that said the concerns of this community the concerns this community is sharing is long on complaints and short on solutions that statement is simply not true these concerns have been brought up to you multiple times spanning many years and you dismissed our concerns and suggestions not one optional project was removed the election remains in September and you still have an empty promise of money from the township thank you Kate ham hopeall Township I have two things that I would like to touch on the first is the presentation from Dr blitzes um I think that I'm reading things correctly but every single graph that I saw there showed me that we have more students who were not ready for graduation in 2024 then 2023 so if that be correct in which I believe I'm reading it correctly I know there's a Hot Topic about the money that we're spending per pupil and I know that the public is going to ask if we are spending $26,000 per pupil why are the numbers in 2024 for those who are not graduation ready higher than those in 20123 I know I am not a test taker fan but if we're going to look at that and use the information and the data from that then we have to also recognize that our numbers of non-g graduation ready are going up instead of going down so I'm kind of looking for an explanation as to why that is then occurring um my other comment or question regarding the referendum and the turf field which seems to be the Hot Topic I am one 100% for safety would love to have our students back here however I'm a little confused because I've heard that we can invite other Hopewell Valley programs to um have revenue and to rent it out to other programs and I believe I heard the same thing about the pack when that was done is that we would utilize that for Revenue however we stopped doing that and opening it to other organizations because of the way they were trashing it and the way that they've left it so my question is how are we going to make sure that a turf field if it is built is taken care of by the individuals especially given it's an outside unless you're going to put it in a cage and lock it given it is outside and free to the community how are you going to assure that it is going to be taken care of um whereas the pack was not and so you discontinued utilizing uh outside Revenue hi there uh my name is Jen dado I live in hopo Township um so I attended the public board meeting for the Mercer County Commissioners last week um I heard some serious concerns from the superintendent of Elections Walker worthy um he said that he did not budget for the hope of special election which he estimated at upwards of 50,000 okay um and that the that he only had 30 a 30-day warning um from the school board he expressed concern about the Manpower that it will take to calculate this and the enormous amount of work for their staff just one month ahead of a very big general election he went on to say that his office is selling out a lot of money over the cost up front until hell can pay them back conversely adding the question the general election would have cost them nothing the county clerk Paula salamani said sometimes this high cost will sway a district from going out for special election date outside of the normal election parameters but at other times they prefer not to have their General November ballot in order to separate it from the other items after the meeting we spoke the county clerk and the superintendent of who both agreed that the estimated total for the referendum would likely be closer to 150,000 when all is said and done I have a few questions number one it appears as though you have included the sprit in your referendum total 87 million 150,000 although I'm wondering if the referendum doesn't pass you budget is crossed in I'm assuming that you will still have to pay it back if it passes or not number two if you've known about the referendum since the middle of year then why did you only give the superintendent of election 30 days notice to prepare number three you mentioned the need to move the vote up by one month secure the best price savings suggesting that that that weeding an extra month would significantly increased cost can you provide taxpayers with the cost analysis for comparing savings from moving up the vote against additional expenses of holding a special election in other words will the cost of the special election truly outweigh the stfe gain by voting earlier I I agree that the upgrad the upgrades are needed and the plan actually really does look rate and if I had more time I would go into that I do appreciate every every effort you put into this um it's just very unfortunate that the president uh the predicament that the township has put you in regarding the pilot funds um I that it can just be put into a more reasonable Manner and maybe a smaller burden to your existing tax pay thank you hi everyone um I'm here to talk about the referendum and I noticed um your reason on um posted on your page can you introduce yourself I'm sorry oh yes I'm so sorry I'm Beth sherline 91 Titus Mill hope thank you um so your reason for the referendum is for planning ahead I had to think about that and you said that state aid is a compelling reason to put maintenance items on a bond referendum well I just think that's ridiculous that is like such bad financial planning I can't even believe it um and state aid is not free money it comes from tax dollars and reasonable people put money aside big product project they don't wait until it's a disaster and then put out a referendum to people who can't afford it nobody can afford this right now I think you really need to rethink it um I know you talk about that it's always for the kids and I personally moved to New Jersey and came to hball Township because the school district like Princeton were one of the best right now Princeton is still ranked two and hball Township is isn't even on the map and I looked at some of the the rating proficiency ratings math is 55% reading is English is 63% and to me that's like a d and a c minus if you think about it I mean your job is to PR prepare our kids to be productive and successful members of society and less than half of them are ready and I think that's a shame it's really a shame um I wanted to mention like somebody else has about the impact study for Park the new development they expect 392 new students at a cost of 7.7 million per year I hope you're budgeting for that um because there's no money in the pilot revenues that are going to come from that the reason why the pilot tax dollars are less is because no money is given to school and I know that that the township has told you they'll give you some money um but I was at a meeting there recently and they were pretty adamant that this was not their responsibility so I really suggest you get it in writing because they're not legally obligated to give you any money um lastly um oh I had a suggestion since there really isn't money for 87 million and since the cost to taxpayers is over $150,000 for the special election why don't you cancel a special election go back and take a look at this budget and really cut it back cut off all the fat we can't afford it nobody can afford it it should be a food to table budget meaning just what we need to run the school and wait until we have more money till the economy turns around and you can always reschedule the referendum for the general election and it won't cost you anything thank you hi uh so my name is Addison Al and I'm speaking on behalf of the robotics team um so we had an occasion to reach out to some uh board members in the last year or so and the feedback we got is who are you guys why haven't we seen you uh you know why am I only hearing from you now um so this is the first baby steps we're trying to make to um maybe do a little bit of PR and let you guys know who we are and what we're trying to do um so if you didn't know it already we're kind of a big deal um we we're one of the oldest teams uh in New Jersey uh well not just in New Jersey in the world um and we've we've been uh operating in the school for over 26 years uh we've been to the World Championships five times uh which is no small feat um our longtime head coach Ed patrello uh was involved in setting up first Mid-Atlantic which is the regional uh League I guess uh that we all compete in um so we've kind of been something for a while um and I just want to Sly make sure that you all are aware of what's needed for the care and feeding of a robotics team because we've been operating um you know kind of on our own um solving our problem our own problems as they come along and um and we finally we basically we've hit an inflection point where we actually are going to need a little bit more support from the district and I'm going to make a few specific suggestions in ascending cost from virtually nothing to something less than 87 million for sure um so one of the main things that we need understand about a robotics program uh is how dependent it is on the community so we've operated with very generous support from corporate sponsors and also from uh employees uh of of of area companies not District employees uh coming and your parents and empty nesters uh working with the team for periods of five 10 15 20 years um you know very low key um but we have you we've we've really we we've had that generous support for years in different forms and and it's something that every robotics team needs and so this isn't just an issue for our school district it's an issue um for all these teams is that we're trying to figure out what does a sustainable team look like we've been sort of improvising for 25 years um but um we we need to make sure that everybody's sort of on the same page of what a robotics team looks like and so that means there's going to be a lot of people in the schools uh who who are Engineers who are scientists um who are not necessarily District employees if we're going to have a successful program um so the number one thing that we need right now is prep time uh so we have really dedicated volunteer me mentors uh who need to get into the shop and get their hands on tools get their hands on the equipment and and work to prepare for um uh for mentoring um and then a Ong with that comes access to the um it systems okay well we don't have to we don't have to consider anything right now I'm just giving you a heads up of what my asks were so I asked we' we've talked to the administrators in the building about this and we get we're getting some puckers like not sure we can make that happen yeah yeah yeah sure yeah um thank you yeah it's basically that we need access to the to the facility awesome thank you any other comments my name is Anthony arnone I live on Pennington Titus Road in Township I've been a neighbor of tamberlane school for more years I'd like to admit and I'm mostly concerned about um normal activity versus increased activity on the Tim timberlane's um field and track um I can remember running that track when it was still Cinder surface so I've been around a a while my question is does the footprint of the Timberlane field change in any way are you going to extend it are you going to shrink it um I'd like to know what what your plans are I have to admit the first time I learned there was going to be a referendum was I got a vote in ballot from the county that was the first inkling that I had that you were going to go with a bond issue $87 million is a big nut and I know that if you get approval for 87 million you're going to spend 87 million sooner or later because you're going to put that money in the kitty in some Manner and it will be spent the thing that bothers me about the voting of the referendum is that I can't tell in what category these monies are being spent for example what's the difference between the 24.4 million at Timberlane versus the 1.85 4 at timberlay what is the definition of those two monies if I don't understand that I'm sure the general public doesn't understand it I think there the way this thing is worded or the way you've explained it up to now is is is kind of it's kind of shy a little bit we need a more definitive explanation of what those monies mean I would uh agree with one of the other speakers in that I I I think a little more public relations needs to be done I'm not totally against spending more money for the school but I want to know what are we going to be getting for it are we really going to be spending the 87 million are we going to be spending the 59 million what is the difference I think you need to do a little better public relations Shob thank you very much any other comments um Allison yakis hell Township I have um a comment regarding the the money spent on per pupil um and I've brought this up many times in the past but it just seems to get I'm not sure what to do with the microphone it is it um I appreciate the money that we spent on Special Needs programs and the neurod Divergent group and I can't my heart goes out to those people and I can't imagine what it must be like but I have two pretty neurotypical children um and my older son is going into his junior year at high school and just finished um honors English and I'm appalled by how he writes I don't know how he has made it through his and I I'm terrible for saying this in public about him but um just the quality of the work and the content and incomplete sentences lack of punctuation just basic things that I feel like he should have learned in elementary school um it's just jaw-dropping to me so I think we need to be look at what we're doing for the academics regarding neurotypical or whatever you call it um and bolster them up as well because as was mentioned uh and I brought it up many times but it just gets dismissed routinely what are we doing with our test score testing scores and our placement as far as school district districts in the state it's um just dropping and dropping and dropping but no one seems to want to address it so um I'm happy to say that he's going to take advantage of the dual enrollment program and go to Mercer County for English and math this coming year and hopefully we'll get better results there um because maybe he's leaning too much on his pupils and they're sharing work or maybe he had a bad teacher over and over again I don't know what the problem is but um I just I feel like that's not looked at and it's a concern and I'm not the only one who has that concern um on another note the concept of having a separate election and wasting some $150,000 to hold a special election is a simple example of of us acting in a fiscally irresponsible manner but I say us I mean whoever selected that choice um you're spending other people's hard-earned money and you don't care and how are we supposed to trust you with $87 million when we can't trust you to recognize that a special election um is a waste of our taxpayer dollars and I'm sorry to repeat the theme here but um in addition you will not have the same voter turnout it seems that you're possibly not transparent because we know that most voters will turn out for the general election um and we're not going to get that same turnout for the referendum is that on purpose or um I'm not sure people can't take off another day of work and Miss hours of work to go vote for this special referendum everyone's working you know possibly two jobs sometimes three jobs in a household to make ends meet um and to ask people to take off another day is um just insan Insanity also there are many community members who can't participate in a zoom so an inpublic Forum I'll continue next thank we'll try that good evening my name is ky vanco I live at 200 Pennington Harton Road and I've been at Hope well here um for over 20 years and I've seen many changes I've had two sons go through the system and they make it um I I wanted to ask you to look harder at the referendum for needs versus wants over the 20 years we've seen some crazy things 32 Acres of a beautiful wooded lot that had a a cross country trail that was a wwin torn out to put in soccer fields do you know how many fields are in the athletic field uh area right now anybody okay I'll tell you there's of course the track the football field within the track there are two baseball fields a softball field and seven soccer lacrosse are they do they all have problems with drainage I don't understand why we need to put in any other types of fields back there I'm hearing a lot about our test scores I don't see anything this referendum that's really going to help the students do better on those scores yes they're for expansion and be at Bear Tavern and those talking about planning those those trailers should have been gone a long time ago I want a board that actually plans that thinks ahead and and doesn't try to sneak something in on us because that's what I'm hearing with this referendum I I think think back to a problem at General Motors in Trenton they didn't have any water now this facility was a million square feet 4,000 people and if the plant manager had to shut that down like you're talking about sending kids home in a scare tactic if that he were to send people home he would have shut down assembly plants Across the Nation he didn't do that he found other ways to to fix that he trucked water in and kept that facility running I'm thinking we need to think out of the box you have to think other ways to to satisfy and and get through without over taxing us so I'm I'm asking that perhaps you take another look at this 87 million and think of other ways that it could be spent um a little bit different thank you oops sorry seeing no other comments um we'll kind of bounce around here to address some of the um I just wanted to take a quick note B you want to address the process for bringing on a new board member sure um you know again it's was mentioned this H this is the third time this has happened I mean that's it happens from time to time that board members decide to roll off the board um for for one reason or another the latest one she moved out of the district an unanticipated move out of the district um the board advertised for um candidates I don't have the dates in in front of me it was probably three weeks or so that we gave people to submit applications we did get two applications one from Miss Tracy and one from uh Miss coder both were interviewed um on that evening um both in public um at the conclusion that the board deliberated um we came back out into public session uh there was nobody in the hallways when we opened up the board and the board voted um for Miss Tracy I believe the vote it's in the minutes tonight's minutes believe uh there were there six board members there that night Drew had to leave um I think it was five for Miss Tracy and one exstension I'm sure he's not Mr slotman abstained identified so far yeah o overall there there was a decrease between the two between 23 data and 24 data um but I just want to highlight that this is just one assessment that is 90 minutes for ELA and 90 minutes for Math and I know for math it's 35 questions and I'm assuming it's similar for for ELA so we're just you know taking into consideration what that is how the format of this assessment and and we have internal benchmarks that we've been utilizing that the students are are are are doing better on so I you know I I just you know there seems to be a disconnect between the what's Ng a is assessing and what our benchmarks are assessing even though they are both based on the New Jersey state standards um so I just want to put that out there um the other thing I I want to acknowledge too is that last year was the first year that the assessment was rolled out and we received no data besides the actual scores of the students this year at least we received the standards breakdown so it's baby steps so this year we're going to take a closer look at what how the standards are and how our students are doing so you don't actually have year-to-year compar comparison other than the top number because you didn't get as much data exactly Y and just to clear some things up this is not a failing District this district is rated in the top 30 out of 660 plus school districts in state of New Jersey we're in the top 30 yes Princeton's number two I'd like to be number two also I like like I'm always pushing us yes yes um but we are in the we are one of the top performing school districts of the state of New Jersey and we're written up every year in Newsweek this is a top performing District yes our kids need to write better as a former English teacher driving me crazy so we're working very closely with adopting a new writing program this year um because we do need to focus on our writing um we I do want to see our kids improve with that a a lot of that is this and we in the T way they write and social media and it's translating to the academic writing but that's something that we're working on with our curriculum and also with resources to support all of our students in in improving their writing scores so I just wanted to clear that up because that was something that's um I think is um misconception we we are not underperforming as a district we're one of the top District yes we can always do better yes and I and I think the other point around Jen Ed we talk we do talk a lot about how we support and structure our special ed programs and it is unique so we do talk about it more however I know that there is a lot of work being done for Jen Ed to look at scores especially coming out of Co so that's not going to stop and it also isn't a turn on the DI moment we are addressing multiple layers last year was a lot about mental health and well-being and trying to acclimate our students to just the environment of teaching and education again so there are many layers of coming at this we we've got kids in the school district that have unfortunately had a core part of their education hit by covid right we have sixth graders M lost you know a core part of their middle school we got freshmen that had a core part of their high school year so we are absolutely catching up and there is there is work to be done that is a full stop acknowledgement um so thank you for addressing that the next there there was a question from Miss R after the interviews about the pilot and I know she stepped out but I do want to talk about just a little bit we have had ongoing meetings with all of the Mayors from the municipalities we had a meeting not too long ago with Hotwell Township um they expressed again that they are are willing to help support it but they're in litigation and they can't give us a number we cannot force the township to do anything to your point we can't so we're going to keep having the conversations um we're going to keep you know making um our requests but again we have we can't go on on promises and pipe dreams we have to address the problems that we're facing which are significant um yes I just want to make sure I underscore that 61% of the budget for that 80 plus million is infrastructure it's not it's not it's roofs it's doors it's security it's not about the 9% that's the turf field so I I want to be clear that there is no kind of slipping anything out or under or not being transparent there was a referendum 16 2016 2016 the budget that was planning that was done planning there was no tolerance for the or original referendum number it was sliced in half so the planning opportunity is now this is what the district is trying to provide is Advanced planning for the future such that there isn't a building shutdown so um I just I I know there's a feeling that we're being a particular way but I want to underscore that the board has really challenged the administration to look at the future challenges with our buildings and plan ahead which is why we are where we are if if we didn't plan ahead we could get by with far less but if you look at what's left on that slide that had the 15 million on it and you have 2% for capital projects 2% is not going to cover a roof for every building that's leaking so even if we waited and did project as we are able we would be years out and exponentially more expensive for inflation to do the roofs and the the very Basics that we're trying to make sure are in place for our children so um yes and absolutely and the lack of investment then us kind of saying we don't have a tolerance let's cut it in half let's talk about this and we cut it in half and now those things are back and then they're double the cost some of those things some of those things are double the cost so the lead time to get them and I know there was a comment about the scare TA tacket of Timber Lane there was no water in the building you cannot have a building open without flushing toilets without water there was no water so there's no busing in water and shipping in water for that you have to close the state will have Us close because it's against code to have a building with no water in it for toilets and drinking or anything like that that was real the fire trucks out in front of Stony Brook were real as were the fire trucks in front of Bear Tavern and the raining in the building um the turf field to me is safety I don't like our kids being out there and playing on fields that are unsafe for them to run on because there's holes in them and things like that or there's drainage problems they're missing half their season all of these things um we're talking about building in the footprint of where the the the um fields are we're not putting new Fields they're building right on top of what's what's already there um and the 9% that you're talking about that pie is not just the turfield it's also the concession stand and 1.6 million of that is going to be covered by um the the turf field is going to be covered um by the the state funding that's offered um that is monies that other districts are getting a hold of and going to referendum on as well uh us getting out ahead of that and being able to go out to bid sooner than later will help us build sooner than later kids are already coming 14 kids we already had come we having kids come left and right to Bear Tavern it's getting very tight over there and the longer we wait the longer it would take for us to start building and we're going to be going out with everyone else to bid and that makes it even tougher to get better pricing so that's why we're trying to do this earlier than later because that's just putting us further behind on things that ought to have been addressed a lot of these things before now but it's sort of we didn't have a tolerance we're going to kick the can but we still want all these other great things that we have which cost money and it's getting harder and harder with a flat budget to support these growing growing uh changes um to our infrastructure because we're not keeping up with it and I just um I want to avoid sounding defensive but I want to give some comparison so there was a comparison about Princeton versus us or price for student so Princeton's going to have a referendum correct and it's well I don't know they just did one and they're doing another one so how much and they just did one before that for another right yeah so so I want to we're not in isolation one we we this is not a fun thing nobody signs up for it but there are there are school districts that are out there that it is part of their three to fiveyear plan to referendum smaller buckets of money now three to five years doing this every year I I don't know that anybody has a tolerance for that but that is what others are doing and ours is far smaller than some of the um folks that Bob talks to uh on a regular basis so we're being compared to Princeton okay we're not ranked as high but there are other things that are we need to talk about in context and what it's taking them to run their own School District so we really just have to look at what is in front of us and being responsible you all you know ask for this board to be responsible and we are being physically responsible by telling you the truth about the buildings and the state of the buildings and I would love to be able to say that this could be done over time now again 83 or 87 I feel like the number7 87 million is the number that we're asking for but it is going to be um bonded over time so it's not a big bunch of money that's going to land in our bank account and then we get to spend it however we want every time we are ready for a project we've got to define the project get the money Bond the money and well well the in chunks but to cover a set number of projects and we can't do projects outside of that so it is controlled there's there's no SL fund and to to go further with that question are these accounts are audited uh rigorously by our by our auditor and reported back to the state what um the the question itself doesn't have room to list every project out on our website there are every project that we're going to be doing and an estimate um of a cost the a general estimate not each piece doesn't break it down into the into the granular like that some folks have been answered but it gives a general estimate on how much the HVAC is going to cost how much the roofing is going to cost all of those things have been broken out and they're on that website that Dr trece um pointed out um we cannot deviate we can't take that money um that we earmark for hvc and Roofing and do anything else with it cannot do anything else with it we are like I said the those projects are audited um and and deep questions are asked about each and every project there are certified payrolls that are I mean it's it's it's um it's a huge undertaking to make sure that the money is spent within the uh parameters that we have told um everybody that the the ballot can't begin to answer the questions it's it's got a lot of legal ease that the state requires those questions are developed by attorneys but they're State Attorneys and we have to we have to fit our question into that mold oh it's not done to confuse or anything like that's why there's a PowerPoint and pages and pages of items on our website that explain in detail what we are planning to do can you address the comment um I so the the first time we it's interesting what the what the um the county will say because Dr tce and I were with um the election officials from merer County and they said it was no issue for them at all um they were enthused about it said that that's why they they suggest as we do it at one location it would be convenient for um Everybody in the town and they'd be able to staff it easily I first reached out to Mercer County Clerk on February 28th I was looking it up on my email as as the questions were going to let them know that we are considering a September referendum um the cost estimates that I have total somewhere in the area of 75,000 yes it's it's an expensive undertaking um to do a special election we understand that the benefit to us as we've said for the last you know Dr T talked about it Miss uh president gallano talked about it um is to be able to get out in front of everybody else who may be delaying to a um November election a January election a December election is we're ahead of them and we'll be able to get out to bid and get contractors competition among contractors um before everybody else is has either a successful referendum or or a negative referendum it's hard to put a number on that um to see if we're going to save the 75,000 by going out early but when we've gone out early and we go out on early on all of our summer projects that we do we seem to get more people willing to bid and the competition increases um a lot of times when you wait until after a referendum and you don't go out until the spring for a summer project you don't get anybody to bit or you get somebody who's willing to throw a number out there and to see how desperate you are to take it so we're going on the advice of um historical from our our financial people our our um engineers and architects who have do this for a living who who go out to bid hundreds of times a year and they said that the best time for you guys to go out for these types of projects is in September thank you um I think I we've covered everything did anybody pick up anything we have not addressed and I think I'm glad you came though it's wonderful to to Mr ourown I'm not sure what you there's no plans for the field is behind your house that's we're not doing anything there other than you know the use that it is at at the current time well there was another question about um allowing other folks to use the fields um as it is uh folks the community wreck travel teams tournaments are played on the the um High School Turf and that's a lot of wear and tear on that one field this would spread that out um they would have access to this as people still have access to our pack our pack is still being used by the community the children's theater for example have been in there all summer we don't let just everybody run through because we do want to maintain our equipment yes right because they were being a little rough on our stuff right um but no we do the community still uses a pack and it's still available for Community use some of it um they pay for the rental some of it if it's a project that we're partnering with we just let them use the space so the pack is still available so just yeah to go to further we we have eliminated groups that we don't know um we've had we we have a great relationship with a lot of the places within the community that use our fields and our spaces um but we found that when there were groups um that didn't have a Nexus here in Hopewell um they were less than um nice to our kind to our facilities the folks who are within our boundaries treat our facilities extremely well the the basketball groups the soccer groups um we have no issues with them and there is a considerable amount of rental income that we generate uh each year um Mr Becker and I have met with all of the organizations Mr slotman put us in touch with uh some folks and we've been in touch with all of them and they're all interested in um using those fields uh understandably at a a rental fee to them they're not expecting to be able to use them at no cost but they are thrilled about the possibility of having additional space um for their organizations as well that also um have issues with weather both in the fall winter and spring it would be a year- round facility so there would be um anticipated rental income that would be discussed as if this was successful it's not you know that and that's where we left it with these groups they're willing to have discussions with us once um once and if it passes awesome um there is one other comment or yeah I guess a comment about the trailers and um there had been historically a conversation about moving out of them uh specifically at Bear Cav and then over at um at Tollgate the challenges are that there are no places in the only option would be to replacing them and the add the the um ultimate decision was to refurbish them because the we couldn't build the space at the time to bring the kids in so the alternative is at this time without doing any additions is to either refurbish or replace um and keep using them so the objective we have is twofold one is the security issue the second is um safety for our um First Responders and thirdly to make sure that our children are getting the quality of Education in the building with their peers now while we're going to tear down if this goes uh through the trailers at Tollgate um the ones that bear will remain we've spent a lot of time keeping those up and and refurbishing and um May bringing um updating the air condition units and those so we're going to keep that space to use for additional office space and storage which is always a challenge here in the district where we store things um so that continues to be um something for adults are coming and going yes District wide yes got okay any sorry I say sure right cool is it covered in your in your no okay okay no I I'm I'm I'm gonna I think I'm going to reiterate a couple of things that you guys said but you tend to be very diplomatic so um I'll just start with a ballot question um I nearly punched a hole in the wall I don't know who wrote that um I hope it's not a hopeful Valley graduate because it's badly written um if you want to know what down to certainly tens of thousands of dollars the money is being allocated for in detail go to that um Slide the slide deck on the web page and that slide dag which was first presented in February literally shows every single project and when it comes to roofs um they've identified the roofs that were fixed as part of the last referendum um so you can see that there's no overlap but that's the part that shows down in Fairly serious amount of detail what the stuff is going to get spent on um on the robotics Club I do know who you guys are at least some of the board members do I I I know who you guys are very well um U what else did I want to say on the on the pilot because I know that quite a few of you have been coming here and speaking about the pile at night I'm always kind of how much can I say about my own Viewpoint and it not cross the ethic boundary but I will say whatever I think about the pilot um it's pretty clear that we as a district have very little leverage what is true is that Rosetta and Anita and some of the rest of us as of late have been having a lot of conversations with the town um you know you can agree or disagree whether we've taken quite a right approach but there has been a lot of attempt to talk to them some of them have been successful some probably less than successful we as a district legally have no leverage as far as I know over the township yeah um they put out a press release where they've stated their intentions um I'm going to hope and pray that they're going to stick to um but that's as much as I am I as a board member can do as far as I'm aware um and then the last comment I wanted to make about um the issue of planning ahead and the task force and the referendum um I didn't I was going to make some comments but Mark to them so uh when we're talking about the desk course I do think it is an issue um then you know I take seriously the comment about planning ahead and I'm going to throw the previous boards and administration under the the bus right let's say they didn't but uh when we approach this issue um and we first looked at the need to expand which would have called for referendum and you which you can't build out of whatever you think we looked at it and we said let's take since we have to go to referendum anyway and we're going to get our ourselves beat up one way or another let's take this opportunity and try to get ahead at least of the know problem and so that's what the majority of this referendum is 60% of it it's us trying to get ahead of the known problems right now that does mean that there is going to be a big Bill that's going to be coming you but it it's it those problems are going to come thank you okay um we're going to go ahead and move on with the agenda and um go through committee highlights of committee updates oh I'm sorry I I given the comments I am officially closing public comment moving on Alex Finance oh sorry my bad all my notes covered a bunch of things okay so um opening for any old business items okay moving on I need a first and second on consent agenda all in favor any opposed or abstaining consent agenda items pass okay now we can move on to finance all right Finance so those of you who are wondering where some of that money in the reserve is going I'm I'm I'm going to try and uh kind of get to these in some particular reasonable order um there had to be concrete work done at be Tavern and Stony Brook um to replace some fully deteriorated steps do a bit of regrading to address the flooding that was happening uh to make sure that the water goes out of the buildings I did ask Tom Quinn whether that will allow us to take some of that money out of the referendum because we do have some concrete work at styberg in the referendum and he said now what he's able to do right now with the budget that he has is basically just a bare minimum to uh get us um to a point where we can use the building um a permanent solution that will keep us from having to hopefully yeld with this issue every few months is what we have in the referendum because that needs a lot more m actually just what he did was save the building right we did water did get in but it deferred enough of the water that it didn't flood yeah um the TMS super work or as I like to call it the big dig um the INB building work is complete uh but there were once they dug things up they discovered issues that were additional to um the the actual reason why things were dug up so there were some delays so we'll be able to open the building for the kids but there will be bathrooms that they will not be able to use which means kids are going to be having to go from one uh from One Wing of the building to a different Wing to use the bathrooms we talked about the impact on whether this means that these kids that will have actually an an unusable Wing um now the wing is so the classrooms are going to remain usable um there might be a little bit of a delay the teachers will have to deal with with kids coming back to class you know the the periods in between classes are not very long and so you have a whole bunch of kids go one one to another um to there might be some delay there and um that is likely to persist for a couple of months during the um we've had uh boiler problems at Tollgate that were addressed by fixing the boilers uh there was a sewer line at hopeful Elementary um that was leaking um that's something that we're going to be able to fix in house Bear Tavern has these old sewer lines that apparently cannot be cleaned properly this the second or the third time this year that we're mentioning this so there is two kindergarten rooms where some of the sinks cannot be used those lines can't be cleared um let's see um I saved one oh yeah the admin build there's going to be an over the ground pipe for a while while we try to fix the sew ISU between the um between the transportation building back there and this building um and that's something that um again came up because the old uh the old galvanized pipes are breaking um and we need to have the water line while we're getting a one um one piece of good news um we're changing all the lighting to LED lighting and uh so the Tollgate gym is down the hopeful Elementary is in progress and Tom was able to get some kind of Grants where it is a dollar per light bul per fixture oh wow even better so uh we're saving money in the light bulbes and then we're going to save money on the um I don't think that's going to make that much of a difference in in our budget but it is a um piece of good news uh so that's the facilities review for the month we had um a also then a lengthy presentation from the climate action Transportation subcommittee um so for those of you folks who don't we had a climate action adog committee that's been running for like two years three been for a while and they came back with an extensive report that is they gave us a summary but at the last meeting all the details are being uh presented at different board committees so this one the this was the first one for the finance and Facilities uh they had identified oh so the subcommittee report was 17 pages that contained seven actions um so we had a long discussion which actions the the climate committee um can really start puring because there were quite a few there that they could just start getting to work on their own which actions we really needed to look into some more um because of potential cost andol how know about it so this is going to be a long process um and your goal is to try and find what neutral most positive ways of of going about these things and the other thing I wanted to to just give a heads up to my fellow committee members we've been running over time again and again and again so when we go to schedule things I'm going to ask you to think about an hour and a half slot for the next committee meeting because there were uh things on the agenda that we could work twice any questions yeah so I've had the pleasure of sitting this committee for about eight months and I think hopefully what Alex's presentation made clear is that we're we're holding things together with like Band-Aids and duct tape right I mean the the facilities group is doing such an amazing job but they're just fixing things as we go and I hope this really emphasizes the need for this referendum to really preserve the the health and safety of our kids just I I'd like to add just something to that I mean it's been it came up a couple of times in our in our uh public comment that the district doesn't plan and um we have presented a failors report every summer for the past five or six years um that discusses the things that we've done and I'm I'm like the committee members longtime first time um that the the level of detail which I think that we plan and look ahead um is very thorough the money isn't there to implement the plan and um the we've discussed again in public during budget time there isn't money left over in the budget after it goes towards what it's supposed to go towards which is the education of our children there isn't money left over to put towards so the money that you see that we've squirreled away and that's really squired it away it's taken time to get to that $8 million is nothing compared to the cost of doing a single roof or a single HVAC project which is why we with great trepidation brought to the finance committee the initial seeds of a referendum last summer um there just isn't money in the budget to save due to all the other things that have been D driven up since covid that have taken from that Tom Quinn's facilities budget has not been increased in greater than 10 years and that except for salaries and we have an increased staff in area it's the same number of staff and their increase in salaries is contracted but there's been no real additional money put towards fixing things we've been very fortunate to have folks on staff who can fix things I was I was just going to write to say I mean I think the other thing to underscore is that the work that is getting done is largely done with inhouse resources so we're talking materials we're you know because we already paid them we already PID them a salary so we're very blessed in that regard that we have very talented and um well certified facilities um team and we we have short start we're starting to see people retire so backfilling people with those skill sets is becoming a challenge which means we have to go outside of our our employees to get things repaired but there is been a significant savings over time by using our own in-house folks so that the smaller work things like the big dig can't do it well sure we can't but to find but also to assess the problem and they dug up they did a lot of crawling and digging here so yep yeah yeah so it is skilled work plumbers and electricians are all on St anyway okay thank you did did oh okay did you oh no I'm just oh getting ready for personnel okay awesome thank you thank you sir all right I was getting nervous I was like we're moving over here awesome I see you thank you you want me to go okay great all right so uh we are our normal meeting that we have right prior to this meeting um a lot of the normal agenda items for this time of year came up uh we talked about the appointments for the extracurricular activities we talked about some of the waiver items that you'll see on the agenda a lot of that's very basic that you would see year over year any of you in the audience or if you're listening at home would normally see uh we also uh did accept the retirement of uh Mr be beato by okay bot yep who has been here for almost 30 years so we thank him a lot for all of his service to the community and uh obviously are always sad to see him go but he has more than earned it so uh that's very very exciting um that's about it from from my end so if there's not any questions uh happy to keep the agenda moving along can can you just characterize can you characterize some of the this time things this year time of year yeah I'll this go around it was just the extracurricular appointments as well as the waivers that are on the agenda so we had a couple minutes of a discussion on that nothing major okay thank you yep you got it also we're going to need a first and second to pass the appointments yes in personel and we'll vote on that and roll call first and second first okay roll call please Mr garia yes Dr lison Mr Peters yes Dr Resnik yes Mr slotman Miss Tracy yes Dr Wilson yes Miss Williams gallion yes um I'll give the po but just jump in members um so we met last week uh Mr Umstead and Mr Harding who is the band director at um at the high school presented in a proposed field trip to Florida during the first week of December um there were some questions about um the students potentially missing four days of school and also the fact that um there would be about seven or eight chaperon out so those teachers would be out and how would that impact the students who were staying kind uh we are still in the process of collecting more data to see if perhaps we can have the field trip happen during um a uh Spring Break um and we're surveying parents to see if that would be an interest for for the parents so more information to come uh Miss Riley the principal of the high school um was present at our meeting and she spoke about the scheduling process including the timeline number of sections available and um access to certain courses based on grade level um we talked about the njpa achievement report that was presented today and then we also talked about um proposed agenda items for for the rest of the year any comments or questions from the rest of the board okay thank you Dr pitz all right moving on to community relations Mike okay thank you any questions or comments from the rest of the board um I just have one comment and Mike I uh Dr Wilson I followed up with you via email about this but it looked like the notes um were really focused on strengthening our relationship with parents which I think is incredibly important and I would love for us as a board to really think about how we can also strengthen our relationship with students and really uplifting their voices in the decisions that we're making thank you for that okay all right moving on to seal yeah we had a brief meeting and we discussed different ways to assess our current social emotional programming and practices across the district um we had a a longer discussion about the climate survey and using that as an important tool to um just obtain feedback regarding um again the different programming that we provide to support the social emotional learning of our children um and uh I also shared um the different meetings that I've been having in the last several weeks with Community collaboration of mental health agencies um that um work to support and collaborate and provide training and support our students um throughout the school year thank you any questions or comments from the rest of the board just to clarify the agent those um meetings you were having to shore up our relationships so we have support for our students during the year okay thank you all right um don't believe we have anything for climate action update yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no yeah all right thank you um moving on to policy Dr Wilston sure we have a relatively short agenda here for policy today so the policy committee met on August 5th and we were joined by Miss Bernardo Miss tan Smith and assistant principal Smith um assistant principal Smith joined us to discuss some proposed revisions to the student code of conduct um one of the things he reported to the committee was that we've really seen a drop in repeat offenses since we introduced increased use of restorative justice practices to the student code of conduct um so he wanted to make some revisions with his fellow administrators to increase our use of those practices for additional infractions um that said when we had a chance to review the markup the committee did have some additional questions so for that reason we're going to be reconvening next month and discussing it a bit more and then hopefully Bring It Forward for a first read in September so with that said we only have one policy up for first reading tonight this is p 8420 emergency and crisis situations so can I have a motion in second to move policy 8420 up for first reading okay thanks um so this policy was last revised by the board in April 2022 so essentially ensures that our district has comprehensive written plans and procedures in place to provide for the health Safety and Security of the school population um as well as in response to emergency and crisis situations it also requires that school staff are trained on Emergency Response protocols and that drills take place to prepare students and staff in the case of an emergency so in January of this year a new state law was passed that amended the previous law Rel relateded to emergency planning in public schools and essentially the amendment ensured that the unique needs of students with disabilities were really cons considered in the emergency planning processes and that these students are able to fully participate in our emergency drills so in alignment with this amendment the committee is proposing a couple revisions to policy 8420 so if you're following Along on your computers on page one you can see that we've made revisions to address the requirement that our School Safety and Security plans address the unique needs of students with disabilities during fire drills school security drills and emergency situations in alignment with the amended State legislation on page two we've added new language requiring staff training to include procedures for accommodating students with disabilities during drills and emergency situations and then last on page three revisions require that the details around the supports and accommodations that are needed for students with disabilities during fire and school security drills and in actual emergencies are included in the students IEPs 504 plans and service plans so I'll just note that during our review of this policy Miss dinardo did indicate that all of these Provisions are currently part of our standard operating procedures in the in the district so really what we're doing here is just codifying the procedures that are already in place so do my policy colleague colag have anything else to add to that okay any questions please these drills creat certain level of anxiety and problem emotional problem kids for many some kids not all kids about uh approaches to address um students inquiries and concerns but that's sort of reactive I I'd like to see something more proactive something more and we're dealing pretty well with special Aid kids but the whole population is going to be having is possible there kids possibly having problems with some of the I iation of of being in different kinds of unsecure situations that's just my concern and I'm not sure that this is the the right policy to do that in but it seemed like it was sort of position here so I'm not a a building principle but I know you know from a special ed and counseling perspective um we do work hard to address and prepare our staff and our special classes and um students that we know are triggered by these types of drills no not necessarily well I'm talking like in the counseling office you know our counselors kind of we we know just from experiences if they've had issues at the elementary level and that you know we we identify them and our our counselors work with them if needed mean we do it yeah I'm not I'm not sure if it's necessarily needed in the policy I think that would be your decision um but it's as part of our protocols how things are described to students we follow um very specific um curriculum basically for our protocols for safety drills and things like that and they are age appropriate so there are different ways to describe the different types of drills that we do with the different age bands um and so that you know they're they're done in a way that is is age appropriate and then the counselors are also often part of those conversations so they're available if if a student is having yeah we don't necessarily have a a survey feedback on students at all age at age groups if that's what you mean but there there is the conversations that are taking place the followup yeah yeah I would say that that is accurate any other questions or comments on this one a Voice vote right all right all in favor say I I any opposed or abstaining okay um so can I have a motion in a second to move policy and regulation 22000 curriculum content and 9270 up for our second reading okay great so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these because they were reviewed in depth at our July full board meeting um but just a quick reminder here policy and regulation 220 relate to our oversight of the school district's curriculum so they itially ensure that the curriculum is consistent with the educational goals of our district as well as the State student learning standards um so the revisions that you see here are primarily incorporating updates from the New Jersey Department of Education um and renaming things like The Core Curriculum content standards as the student learning standards so just sort of aligning with the the language that's currently used and then for 9270 this policy and regulation uh lays out the rules and regulations around children who receive education through homeschooling or private schools outside of the public school system so we received no revisions to either of these policies and regulations after our first reading uh but are there any questions or comments on these policy committee colleagues did I miss anything no okay you need to roll call yes yes yes thank you okay sorry yep so I need a first and second to um review August and September calendars um 8 a.m. would be preferable for me if that's possible what day is that uh yeah 12 is have it the 16th at 6 o'clock usual um Finance I was going to say that we have the Forum on the n9th so we can't do that night unless you wanted to do it during the day and you that's not going to work so it's going to say 5: on the 10th on September 10th I'm not able to is there another time that uh the 11th that's at 5 whenever it is we'll schedule two hours be a quick one this time yeah right no we're not no that's uh yeah and then some of us are in committee meeting three hours okay is that no just say 12 6:30 uh September 9th sorry the N maybe stay away from the night yeah oh sorry isard meeting uh the 13 about the maybe the week before about the yeah six is doable okay maybe one yeah wor for can you do anything [Music] four o' 4 o00 on the fourth fifth yeah hold on one sure you want to do the fourth one work sorry uh [Music] yes okay all right oh so voting all in favor I any opposed or abstaining okay calendars are passed any new business items okay seeing none we're going to move on to our second public comment um and just a reminder members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for a maximum of 3 minutes during this portion excuse me of the meeting you're asked to state your name address and municipality in response to your comments the Board of Education May respond or direct the superintendent to do so the board may also opt to take the matter up at a future meet at a future meeting so that the matter is researched by The District administration members of the public who intend to participate in public comment we ask that you sign in prior to speaking and this will assist us with our record keeping we have our timekeeper and uh public comments are now open Kate ham um my first question is will the presentation on NJ GPA be available on the district website it's really difficult when many other things are linked to the agenda so those of us who are using the digital version of the agenda can open um and see things that you're referring to so it's difficult when things like that are not linked so we can't see but I'm not here to harp but I'm still looking for open communication transparency um and clarification when and I have um screenshots of the slides that could catch but I'm looking at the overall Readiness in math performance for the district uh in 2023 it was 83.5% that were ready and 16.5% that were not graduation ready in 2024 that 83.5% went down to 76.7% and the not graduation ready number went up to 23.3% so I'm a little confused and every other bar graph after that indicated the same thing that there was a increase in not graduation ready from 23 to 24 and so I'm looking for some additional clarification as well as the entire presentation put on the district website and linked so that I and others can dissect all of these um the same for the overall Readiness for English and language arts the 2023 graduation ready number was was 88.6% and though it didn't fall much it did fall to 86.4% that increases the not graduation ready number so I am still going to continue to ask for clarification and transparency on being told that there was an increase in Readiness when the bar graphs definitely show that there has been a decrease in graduation Readiness for our students thank you Alis and yakis again um I apologize I was cut off earlier because I ran out of time for my unplanned commentary um I just wanted to bring to your attention that there's a population in the community um that may or may not have access to or the skill set required to use zoom and the online platform um for the next a referendum discussion and I'm just wondering since we're way past the time of covid um why that's not being done in person for our senior population and those who don't have computers or laptops at home and or can't use it for whatever reason um I just think it'd be fair for everyone in general for there to be a public forum um because there are I've seen the commentary online and there a lot of community members that don't know about any of this and um and it's because they don't have they're not it's not userfriendly for them they're not on social media they're not online um and so I just want to know how we can address U meeting the needs of our senior members and whoever else may not be able to to access a zoom um and we could allow for open discussion and public commentary from the general public and in addition to that how that could be broadcasted so people would know they could attend something like that because people still don't know about it unfortunately thank you every pins and needles about what the ask was so uh so it's pretty so with access I mean building use we've been using building use requests but they aren't perfect you have to do it a week in advance and they also leave the room open while they're you know they open it up before you come in and that's probably the most attractive room in the school as far as Mis um it would make much more sense if one of us had a key one of us did have a key before Parkland uh it was taken away so that's against District policy right now for a volunteer to have a key so we I I just hope we can start thinking about that uh next thing that's against District policy for a volunteer to have is login credentials uh for the school network um and so we can't use AV Equipment 3D printers the laser cutters not whole host of things on the network that we are beholden to one of the paid coaches who works at hbsd it would really be helpful for the team to be able to get access to that third thing that's against District policy right now as far as I know is using for instance slack so slack is Hippa and it's compliant with the various statutes but my understanding is we can't just go use that we need to get approval from the board from the IT people or whoever and as far as I understand that's not there's not really a good process for that right now so those are the three things that are they should be free or near free but they're kind of a pain uh and so that's what we're trying to to talk to the administrators about um and so I I can send that in email but I just didn't want to leave everybody hanging anyone else okay seeing no additional um I did want to correct Miss ham it was I was if I misspoke um my apologies it was the 20 4 23 did go down in 24 so the numbers you're reciting are correct and while we were talking Dr tce put a link on the um on the um agenda so it should be there now that you can pull it up um and and and of course as always encourage all of us to continue to ask questions around what we're doing um and you are nothing more important no that's we are posting that in another place on the website as well right once after this board after the board examines it then we have to post it it'll be on um under cni where the other um tests are are posted and in terms of a robotics I will be in touch with you um I'm going to say no probably to slack because we have to use um District um platforms because we have to store all that information on our servers and slack is not it's outside of our our realm um but we can talk about some of the other well there's if it's not black there could be something El yeah um and then did you want to comment on this Zoom oh yes thank you please I do miss yakis um the problem is is um we've kicked back and forth a hybrid and I'm still open to exploring that uh with Mr Cavita you see how great our equipment is I just really worry about um trying to run a hybrid situation because our parents prefer um us doing virtual because you know when they're getting home with the kids at that hour trying to get dinner started getting homework started getting kids to bed they want it recorded which I I agree but then there's this piece where you know folks want it in person so I'll I'm going to explore an option where we maybe we can do both but I you know I'm just concerned about the quality of the video we're going to get out of that but we can work on that um I I'm commit to working on that because I do understand some people like it in person as well any other comments I think we should maybe we should all remove the little thing seem to work over there all right okay um any other from the board or question all right seeing none we uh public comments are closed and we're now going to I need a first and second to move into executive session all right um oh okay so I need to read um so any pending or anticipated oh sorry okay so any so just this um statement is really just to let you know what may be discussed during our um executive session and right now it is a special ed legal matter that will be discussed no no action will be taken um so oh action will be taken sorry and there so there's a after okay gotcha um I need a first and second I did didn't know you captured it sorry and um all in favor any opposed or abstaining okay thank you public appreciate