she's like you're not late you're on time you're [Laughter] fine um to that can we have a another roll call here um Mr Peters here Dr Resnik Mr slotman here Miss Williams gallano present Dr Wilson here we have a quorum awesome please join me and oh please join me in a flag salute all right I Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible and justice for all 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 Hopewell 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 hopel Valley News the times and The Trentonian on February 14th this meeting notice was also sent to Compass cable and Verizon fos the re the board reserves the right to enter into uh executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education um this meeting is not being oh okay this meeting is being videotaped for the purpose of Board review future reference preparation of the minutes and viewing of Comcast channel 19 Verizon fos channel 32 and the school district website www.h vrst um before we do any reports and um and also our student update uh we'll go ahead and have a f minute break for those who have been here huh I know that I doing it twice madebe me think both for for e for e yeah oh that's a good idea that's a that's a good idea and then just what a little but I will it's probably see that it get it into got to get into regular you lost it too Mark I had a piece that earlier you what I had a piece that earlier oh man it's on it's on are you good now okay good yep okay we have everyone back uh yes wonderful thank you for being Swift um I would like to take a first and second to approve the minutes from the January 22nd as well as the January 29th meeting with the your changes all in favor any opposed or abstaining okay um so we'd like to welcome our student representative Angela would you pleas right Hannah sorry Hannah um wrong name Bob yes I was like Hannah okay right thank you um now that we are near the end of February we are at a strong start to the third marking period for many winter sports we are wrapping up some very successful seasons for starters the rest wrestling team won the sectional final For the First Time In Hope well history the boys basketball team made it to the finals of the Mercer County tournament um which happened on Saturday against the Pennington School and additionally the boys and girls swim teams both made it to the sectional semi-finals for the first time in program history um our winter musical How To suceed Succeed In Business Without Really Trying is scheduled for March 1st 2 8th and 9th in the CHS pack um course selection and course selection for the next school year has also begun and our counselors will be meeting with each student to help them finalize their choices and finally the physics teachers at the high school are hosting an eclipse day Extravaganza on April 8th to watch the total solar eclipse um and this will be the last visible Eclipse until 2044 thank you thank you any questions from the board wonderful thank you Hannah I don't know why Angela she just Vis she visited us from last year on the agenda so but we thank you Hannah for your time and of course you know what I'm GNA say next okay have a wonderful evening she's gonna surprise you one time she's gonna say I know she has bus she's very busy she's very busy all right I am going to um pass on a president's report do you have anything Dr Trace I just want to um add a few words about the total eclipse I have gotten a few inquiries because I know some districts are going to a half day or closing for the day for the eclipse we will not be doing that parents I know that you don't need another babysitting day um but we will be providing glasses to all of the kids we're working on Dr fitzes is working with the teachers to purchase those and we will have some learning experiences around that but like back in the stone ages when we were kids you you're going to go to school put your little glasses on and and see the eclipse all right okay with that I'm going to um for the in the interest of time because we are um going through a lot today in this agenda so I'm going to pass this back to you awesome thank you um so are you ready all right we're going to move on to a presenta brief presentation on the calendars and voting as a board on passing those calendars we're just waiting on the technology to my left look at that all right so um just a summary of the uh the district calendar so uh the calendar committee consisted of 20 members there were eight parents uh that were representatives from each school's PTO uh including the strive which is our special education PTO uh our Peach our preschool program and the single parents group we had five administrators who represented each of the uh levels uh Elementary secondary and the entire district and seven staff members represented um each School building uh just the timeline of the calendar survey in October was sent out to All Families students in grades 6 through 12 so that they had a voice as well and our staff the survey included open-ended opportunities to share ideas and comments uh November and December is when the district committee meet uh met to review the data and the draft calendars uh December was a survey to both the Teachers Association and the support professionals Association regarding changes in uh professional development time which we'll talk about in just a few minutes and then January a sidebar agreement was uh drafted with each of those associations and the calendars were submitted for board approval last month one thing I will say about the uh calendar committee it was a very very thoughtful group of individuals that represented backgrounds connections to the community more than just uh PTO parents or more than just um they had a lot of different um programs that they were associated with in the community um they read through every single one of the survey responses uh they presented all sides in the discussion some of the AR arguments I wouldn't even say that some of the discussions did get heated however they worked very collaboratively towards decisions um so I will say it was a pleasure to work with that so these were the decisions that the committee needed to make uh placement of spring break uh whether to add an additional holiday uh when to begin school um Labor Day depending on the calendar um the early dismissal days where they should be placed um placement of e-learning or emergency days I will say uh just as a note the calendar committee was not tasked with deciding if we had e-learning days just where their placement was on the calendar um that decision is a board decision and part of board policy um and then also event descriptions which I'll share in just a few minutes some of the non-negotiables just so everyone's aware there are 182 days of instruction that is inclusive of the two e-learning days there are 185 working days for staff the early dismissal day before Thanksgiving and the one before winter break are contractual as is the two full days for the njaa convention and the day after Thanksgiving so those were things that we could not touch those are part of uh contracts um one other note four hours does make a full day in the mind of the state for School attendance yes yes 185 is contractual for staff for teaching staff so part of the discussions on the beginning and the end of the school year um based on the survey data it showed that ending late was a concern for the respondents so things like camps work trips uh military requirements um those were all things that were a concern for um respondents the comments also showed a concern for starting school two days after Labor Day so that was interesting that we have Labor Day weekend and then typically professional development occurs on those first two days for staff parent par s commented on those surveys at well what am I supposed to do with my children for those two days uh the juneenth holiday something that recently was added to the calendar through the federal government and the state government um we know that where it falls at the end of the year does have a break in instruction oftentimes it's right around exams um we discussed the fact that there is the option to follow the federal guideline of uh observing on June 19th or the state guidelines of following the third Friday in in June uh we talked about the cont the contractual ramifications for starting staff before Labor Day because things would need to be done contractually for that and then also the importance of setting a concrete date for graduation planning purposes we know that when you're having a a senior you're trying to bring family in that graduation date if it keeps moving can cause a lot of problems so here you'll see the district survey results don't know why there's a block thank you very much um so for the question about uh when Labor Day falls late would you support the school year starting before Labor Day 49% of parents caretakers or Guardians strongly agreed or agreed um students and staff were also in agreement of that and in ending late if the school year ended late uh potentially June 27th How concerned were you respondents um 62% of parents caregivers and um Guardians were concerned 7 27 of course perc of students which we would expect and 85% of Staff also not not a surprise there so based on that the committee decision um after a lot of thoughtful conversation they said schools should begin before Labor Day whenever possible to reduced extending the school year into the last week of June depending on when the last day of school occurred juneth should be observed either on um June 19th or the third Friday in June to prevent uh to provide less instructional Interruption for those last few days and I think everyone was in agreement very easily that the school year should end as early as possible so those were those discussions next the committee talked about the holidays to observe so there are holidays that are required by the state or the federal government and how historically they have been observed in Hopewell Veterans Day is observed on the Friday of the njaa convention Columbus Day or indigenous people's day has been a pro professional development professional development day for staff and Good Friday has not necessarily been linked to spring break we'll talk about that more in just a few minutes the uh religious holidays that were observed by the district yam Kapur rashash Shana Good Friday Lunar New Year and deali and the question for the committee was do we include e here you'll see the upcoming religious holiday date so um what has not happened in the last three calendar series um did happen as you see in the dates coming up for the 2425 and 25 26 school year all of those days in bold those are religious holidays that we have previously observed that fall during the school week 2627 is a little bit more what we've experienced the last several years where only three or four happen to be during the school school week so that was something that needed to be taken into consideration because that would push the school year later into the the summer into June so as I said there was a lot of discussion on a lot of these points um so observing another holiday adds a day to the school calendar um the committee looked at where it would fall in each of those calendar years what the impact on instruction would be what other holidays might need to be included in the future what that impact would be Dr Trice was meeting with the Dei committee and so she was in consultation with them about the holiday yes sorry just that holiday specifically um reflection on past District climate surveys those comments were shared in the discussion um we tried to find out how many families actually observed e that's not part of the registration um process so we couldn't find an exact number but I will say that based on the survey comments there were a lot of comments from family members and students both who said they were interested in representing and celebrating their culture and the fact that they were not showing that on the calendar was something that they noted um so on the next slide you'll see the committee did make that decision to include e in the the calendar this was similar to when devali and lunar new year were included in the calendar that committee was following the commitment by the board to identify and address areas of equity so the goal was to create a more culturally sensitive School community and which would be reflected by adding in that holiday early dismissal days so the discussion in included the fact that professional development and Conference days are why half days are on the the calendar they're needed throughout the year for building District initiatives and ongoing training for staff um three early dismissal days throughout the year have been used they still count towards student attendance so if you remember earlier I said four hours equals one day for state state attendance that's what an early dismissal provides um previous calendar committees have said don't put them all on the same day of the week that affects Elementary specials um staff have two full days of professional development before school to prepare for the school year they have one full day in October so those other days are usually scattered in the later months um January February March things like that into April and May conference days these have previously been scheduled on the early dismissal days prior to Thanksgiving uh recently the district moved to a combination of both iners and uh online conferences to accommodate families historically there's been one evening and two days of conferences and there would be contractual issues if that format was trying to change we would have to go through with the associations and I don't know that they would be so willing for that type of sidebar agreement um and Survey feedback you'll see in a few minutes um indicated that that parents did I'm sorry survey feedback indicated that parents were appreciative of both having a morning option and an afternoon option so that came up several times in the survey comments so as part of the discussion comments for the committee um you'll see that the survey data showed these uh these early dismissal days were not of a concern to most respondents um several years ago we moved to trimesters at the elementary and part of that discussion I was not a part of that at the time but part of that discussion was that the timing for conferences should be adjusted because when the trimester ends and when the conferences were occurring was not optimal they wanted to move that up so that parents would have more interaction with the teaching staff before you know towards the Midway part of that trimester um there was discussion about leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday how that's such a stressful and busy time for families in our community as well as staff when you're trying to have sta uh family members come in Town you're preparing for the holiday and then you also have conferences on top of that um we all know that there's no school November that is the uh the phrase that many people use um and njaa Convention came up as a topic so it's already a shortened week maybe that's a better fit for the trimesters which the Elementary staff provided that feedback um if conferences were moved to the njaa convention week that would provide two full weeks of instruction in November so it wouldn't have that breakup which if you think of the calendar there was always a Friday in there and You' get a week a week and a half full instruction um and then the discussion of all right if conferences were moved up what would that do to the TMS and CHS report periods and it actually was a good time because now parents can meet with teachers before the end of the marking period typically conferences start on that the day that report cards are released um one thing to note if you made conference Days full days uh so students were not in school on those days that would add to the calendar and students would have to make up those days at some other time pushing the school year out which we know was not something that survey respondents wanted in addition uh there was discussion that the YMCA offers Child Care on early release days and that the strive PTO is actively looking into options as well to provide child care options it's important to note additional information that when looking at other school districts those in Mercer County uh and the majority of the state they all utilize early missal days for conferences or professional development so here's a list of all of the other schools in Mercer County the district and the total number of early dismissals that they have on their calendar Powell has the least with 10 days here's the district survey data you can see that 60% of respondents of parents Guardians and caretakers were not concerned at all obviously students and staff members would not have an issue with that staff have to work anyway students enjoy it but 60% of the the respondents of uh parents did not uh were not concerned with those dat so the committee decisions were to move conference days to the week of the njaa convention and ensure that those early dismissals are on different days of the week which you will see are on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday then there was a discussion on spring break so survey results were mixed on went to schedule um this was a big deal previous calendar committees decided specifically not to always link spring break to the Easter Passover holiday this was based on years of feedback from the community people said this was showing favoritism to one holiday over another that was not something they wanted to do um there hadn't been issues in the previous years because this had changed almost 12 years ago the calendar was changed so spring break fell the last week of March beginning of April that first week they were afraid changing that so that it was attached to a holiday would go back backwards um other school districts all scheduled their breaks at different times this causes hardships for for uh families with children or parents who work in other districts these were all the conversations that took place um substitutes if our staff members have children in school districts with different breaks those were conversations we looked at the number of days off depending on where that spring break fell um thinking of the concerns of the survey results not ending too late um we talked with the athletic director if there was an impact on Athletics it was around the same time and we just found this interesting the Hamilton School District sent out a survey to their families getting feedback on when they wanted spring break and they actually put the first week of April as an option to get uh interest because that's something that we do so it's interesting to note other districts are looking at us um and then overall they the it was a very very long discussion a lot of uh conversation where did the holidays fall keeping an eye on which ones would add to the end of the year um so if you look on the next slide you'll see the district survey data so while 39% of parents caretakers and Guardians wanted it tied to the holiday 61% uh wanted a consistent week not tied to that holiday so that was something the district found interesting it wasn't specific on which of the weeks it should be falling but it was not tied to the holiday we found it very interesting that 44% of students wanted to keep it the way it's been scheduled um and 70% uh overall wanted it not tied to Easter it was the staff that was a little bit more even they wanted uh 50% did want it tied to the holiday so that was something that was part of the discussion so based on uh a lot of conversation with the committee they decided to continue scheduling spring break for the end of March first week of April you'll see on the calendars during the 2425 school year it's actually connected with the eat holiday for the 2526 year it connects with Good Friday and with 2627 it falls after Good Friday the additional items that were discussed was the language so in previous calendars they've said snow days um recent years we've had flooding we've had rain we've had all sorts of other issues and so the conversation switched of changing from snow days to emergency closing dayses um as directed by the board last year days uh for the e-learning were put on the calendar in the past theyve not been actually listed on the calendar but last year that was the directive so those days were uh noted around the Memorial Day weekend and around near Spring Break and then those sidebar agreements just um surveys were sent to staff so that they would also have a a voice and saying all right if we move some things around professional development would fall before Labor Day staff overwhelmingly voted to start their PD before Labor Day in order to end the year before the juneth holiday um that was a large percentage so I have each of the calendars listed here um as I said for the 2425 year spring break Eid is uh March 31st that starts your spring break e-learning is added to the Easter weekend for that Easter Monday that was something the board suggested last year um and you'll see juneth is after the last day of school for the next year the 2526 good Fridays on April 3rd spring break leads into the holiday the e-learning is on um Easter Monday I put that in quotes and then uh juneth is after the last day of school and for the 26 27 school year uh Ed is early so it wasn't tied to that uh Easter's also early that year spring break follows so it's uh the week of the 29th and juneth is after school ends that was a summary of the calendar committee what questions do you have uh so I want to thank you for doing this very detailed presentation last meeting when you showed the calendars and the results I had a lot of questions I think this answered all of them so I can't think of a question right right now I may in a few minutes but I did want to thank you because it did answer the questions that I had last time thank you um I also was was another one of the board members that voted to table this discussion this week um as a new member I was unfamiliar with clearly the very intentional and meticulous process that goes into creating these calendars so I want to thank you and I also want to thank all the calendar committee folks the the staff the uh the students that helped out with the surveys the the parents that helped um and the administrators um and I also really do want to just touch on the notion of religious Equity that we're being very proactive acve by including e in our in our calendars um and as a former student who helped fight for the Val and Lunar New Year to be included in our calendars um I can attest to how meaningful and significant it is for our Muslim Students to to feel recognized and to feel heard in our calendar so I just want to give my you know give my props and and thank you for all the work and I I look forward to voting yes on the calendar any other question right I do have a question it's it's a it's a curiosity question question it's not our district but it was bugging me so I'm going to ask I saw one of the districts has 20 uh early dismissal days is there a limit that the state imposes on districts taking advantage of that because it is you know it may count as a full day when it's 4 hours but it's not I'm not aware that there's a limit on what I'm not aware of any limit that thank you very much thank you all right um moving on we're going to um we'll approve it later I just got that from the secretary um we're going to move on to the referend referendum discussion okay good evening everyone again George duthy fhd Architects nice to see everyone again uh we're going to touch base again on the presentation that I think we've shown already uh different iterations uh past meetings with Bob's help over there and so what are we going to talk about tonight well we're give an update on the referendum and tell you where we are today where we are today Refresh on the overview and the process the projects and the priorities and the costs with a summary overall cost expected tax impact and moving forward and what are the next steps and the steps we've completed already since the last time we've gotten together Bob so where are we today so referendum is planned for September of 2024 and I know some of this information is repeated uh uh the referendum was originally presented at the November 2023 Board of Education meeting some of you may recall the last referendum that the district did was in 2015 but there were things that were not addressed in that referendum and there are some needs that have Arisen since and we'll talk about that the state of New Jersey is going to contribute to the cost of eligible projects as they did in the last referendum and the on before that and this presentation is going to talk about the plan projects the costs it's going to talk a little bit about the doe process a process that we've started putting together paperwork for the Department of Education and also the district's long range facilities plan which is the planning tool that the district is mandated to use in New Jersey okay updates and applications under way Bob actually the long range plan was was approved today oh we received approval oh excellent okay good I haven't even seen that yet there you go got a nice message from Susan cutner today oh great very good good to know all right so project categories building Integrity what are those mostly mostly Roofing we still have roofs that need to be addressed warranties that are expiring that weren't expiring in 2015 but we knew those roofs were going to have to be done we wanted to get the full warranty out of them indoor environmental improvements and HVAC projects these are ventilation projects and Cooling and things like that we'll talk about Safety and Security interior doors the Stony Brook fire alarm system actually is being done right now as a separate project uh will not be in the referendum and uh the electrical service at tolgate elementary school space for students we're going to talk a little bit about that as we plan for increased enrollments expansion of prek and Service uh to some of our uh special needs children and site improvements and we'll talk about what those are so those are the main categories the five main categories of projects so why projects again not done in the last referendum current needs that have been identified by The District administration and by the facilities professionals the folks who work here in the district larger projects that are too expensive to fund without a referendum the state will contribute to the cost as we talked about earlier delaying the projects could potentially result in costly failures and ongoing maintenance issues we're going to get the students out of the Modular Buildings at be Tavern School improve services for children's with dis children with disabilities and again as we said prek and K expansion uh based upon enrollments and other improvements to benefit the children of hobo Valley again I just wanted to take this time Tom we talked about where delaying the projects could result in a in a failure to a system Tom can you just talk a little bit about what happened at Hope well and why this is urgent right now yeah sure um when we meet with financing facilities every month we go over all the different things that um we're seeing and what are happening and as we were planning on boil Replacements we knew we couldn't afford everything all at once so we we pushing back what we thought would last and hold off another year or another two years and we caught the very edge as close as you could catch it on hopwell Elementary um last winter it happened to be generally mild except for a couple days and those couple days were days that school was closed we had no heat on the Upper Floor of that building on those days because we were down to one and a half boilers that were operational and it was not able to generate enough steam pressure to heat the building so when we kick these projects down the road it's very very risky uh and to the point of risking uh closing a school and that's kind of where we are now it's not every project but there are a good majority of these projects that we're getting uh right down to the end of the the physical life of these projects that's actually a good point we're still waiting for the chiller right uh yes the chiller was ordered in March and it's still not here right okay I mean the so yes that's a good point so the the the projects Tom uh George talked about the cost of need asked about the cost of waiting um the last referendum we had about $60 Million worth of projects that we had identified to doing the board agreed to go ahead with 35 million you know leaving that $25 million worth of projects that were still necessary to be done um but we felt we could push them off but the cost of the those projects um at this point has probably doubled since 2015 so the cost of of you're saying was why are we going out for such a high number 87 million the reason is because if we delay it any further the chances of those projects going up and cost escalate at that point so getting them done now um can bring savings long term I was going to say this later but since we're on the topic I'll say this now when we first identified in the finance and Facilities committee and it's been a while now that we really had no choice but to go to a referendum um I felt and I I think other members of the committee felt as well but they can speak to themselves but I certainly felt that it would be a worst possible disservice for the district Community to go to a substantial referendum to ask for a lot of money and still face a significant risk of having to close our schools down because of a significant facilities issue be it an agac issue or well issue right and so um I was someone who asked Bob and Tom I said you know since we have to go down the sou anyway let's get a comprehensive list of things that you believe are likely to fail and and also when they fail right this will impact our education because we're going to have classrooms that are unusable or worse yet schools that are unusable right and get those in there and that's really the core of this referendum it's stuff that needs to be built because of uh demographic projections and stuff that needs to be done so that we can continue to use our builds yeah yeah we did come in with a lower number originally to the finance facilities committee and we were CH we were tasked with going back out and identifying all of the projects that were um so this was you're right this was a case where you originally came in with a lower number and at least I don't want to say the board but the finance and facility committee at the time challenged you with coming back to the bigger number and and I am cheap um so I feel the pain of the of this referendum but I've also owned homes for 20 years I know the cost of when you let something like that go it's going to hit you and it's just going to cost you a lot more and the scope when you're talking about a school building is much bigger than it is for a house so I guess the the question that arises you know for the board question this too at when at the time is why weren't we doing these projects um on an ongoing basis and the answer is we were we've been trying to repair things and we'll show a list in a second um of the things that we've done it's just that the cost of these projects prohibit them from being included in the general fund budget without taking monies away from the educational program take us to here and these are just a sampling of the projects that Tom um and his crew have done um on the right side projects that were completed by our District staff and then other projects that we've done um through capital reserve monies okay moving on yep significant those are significant projects I think that's close to $10 million that the district has managed to do in house over time but again U there's more to be done so the projects the priorities and the preliminary costs and let's go and let's just take a look at what they are broken out by category uh here's what they look like building Integrity just over 2.5 million uh indoor environmental improvements HVAC over six million Safety and Security projects um there are uh not many of those at Central High School I'm sorry this is Central High School uh we we did a lot of that at the Central High School at the last referendum okay same thing with space for students last referendum at the high school so we're not going to be doing that in this referendum not really necessary and some site improvements just about $2.1 million just over $10.6 million at the high school so here are some of the projects I think we discussed just to give you an idea these are the roofing projects uh indoor environmental improvements at the 400 uh wing of the building which is the science area site improvements at the stadium complex Ada improvements we talked about accessible restrooms and concession stand at the stadium complex so next okay and something interesting to point out that the the roof the roofing that's being done in the in the um left the right side of the slide are the uh pack and the new gym what was called the new gym um those facilities were new when I got here 22 years ago and now they are getting close to the end will end uh end useful end of the useful life of those roofs yeah and if I could just say real quickly um you were you had on there the 400 Hall yeah and the HVAC there every winter we struggle with that and for about two weeks this winter we had little or no heat in four the classrooms because the units keep breaking and we have to keep repairing them and we're able to get them up and running briefly and then they just fail again so right and I believe that Wing was added in the '90s which at the time when I again when I got here was relatively new 22 years down the road this is again an older portion of that building now so here's uh timberlan middle school again building Integrity just over $4 million primarily Roofing HVAC indoor uh air quality improvements environmental improvements just over 14 million that's a substantial portion of the classrooms in the building that are being done Safety and Security projects very small number relatively $156,000 based for students about 1.5 million and we'll look at the details on that and sight improvements including uh two Synthetic Turf fields at the AFT complex uh just about uh $6.8 million for about 26 just almost 26.7 million at Timberly okay so here's what those projects look like uh again building Integrity Roofing you can you can see the areas affected there on the little map indoor air quality uh improvements environmental improvements HVAC equipment and that'll be again primarily in the A and B areas where the classrooms are Chiller replacement adding air conditioning to the AUX gym which Tom I think is the only gym that doesn't have air conditioning in the district now yes it's the only space only space that's not air conditioning there you go thank you right Renovations at the aux gym and again some site improvements we talked about those fields as well as improving the front entrance to timberl talk a little about the front entrance yeah the over the years the the front entrance has um deteriorated quite a bit uh there there's really no place for anyone to stand without getting wet in the rain so it although it doesn't need to be as large as it um was originally to be able to cut that back and at least put a covering over some of it so when people are standing they waiting to get in and the rain they're not getting that wet and the this the sidewalk and the pap area is in really bad shape it's a huge tripping Hazard and again as we look at these things and we start putting them together in finance and Facilities they all start to add up and and what happens is you get numbers going out three or four years that are 10 million 12 million and you know there's no way we're going to have that we've been running around one and a half to two million in capital projects and again something that we've discussed for the past uh several Finance facilities committee meetings in the last two referendums uh discussions in public we've talked about the addition of um a second secondary Synthetic Turf field process and I wanted to ask our athletic director um trip Becker to talk a little bit about the uh request for this type of a of a facility at aft yeah so our um our turf field is great it's it's unbelievable uh all the teams love it uh but there there are some issues because we overuse it uh it's used every single day uh whether it's for games or practices uh and once the seasons get started there are pretty much games every day on our turf so we send a lot of our teams uh in the fall and the spring over to Twin Pines Twin Pines has been great the Township's been great with us using it but there are some drawbacks to that uh one is Transportation uh our transportation is um taxed to say the least and they have a tough time getting our teams over there every day when they do get them over there they're often you know late uh not because of their faults they have runs uh but our teams do not get over there uh probably until 3:30 quarter or 4: and they're picked up at at 5 o'clock so that cuts in on their practice times uh over there um we do not have a trainer uh we don't have to have a trainer on site for practices but we do have have to have a trainer on site for games so we cannot play any games over there so the only thing we can use Twin Pines for is for practices over there um they are dropped off and the bus will come back and pick them up uh after they run the elementary school if there are any weather issues uh any emergencies they have to run very quickly over to Stony or Stony Brook uh and that's where they have to take shelter so all these things and they they also do uh sometimes from time to time um get into some uh arguments with people who aren't supposed to be there using the field so that causes another issue so all these things uh go into some of the reasons why we would like to get a second turf field a lot of schools are getting second turf fields a lot of school already has second turf fields going for third uh so it makes sense to keep everybody on site uh it's safer uh it's easier on transportation and as far as the turf field you know everybody wants to play on Turf it's it's you know you can play on Turf every single day weather does not impact uh the field like it does um if you're playing on grass you know grass is great to play on uh but grass is only great if the weather's great and the weather has been great uh if it's if it's been too hot the grass has dried out and you're you're playing on on you know dead grass and dirt if it's raining a lot there's there's puddles all over the field and you really can't play on it or you're tear it up tear it up more so a lot of our sub Varsity games are cancelled because uh they cannot play on the grass fields our varsity baseball and Varsity softball games have a lot of games canceled because their fields you know if it rains it can be not playable for two three days depending on the amount of rain that we get so in the The Proposal that we have for the possible new turf field we do have baseball and softball in there as well as every other sport so all the sports that be affected would be football boy soccer girl soccer field hockey boys lacrosse girls lacrosse baseball and softball and this is all levels and not only at the high school but the middle school too I know at one point we had talked about just the cost of maintaining turfield versus the grass and um I think that's an important discussion for the larger board um you know that it would seem like one's more expensive but yeah there there is there is maintenance involved in the turf field uh we get our turf field at the stadium groomed uh twice a year once in the fall once in the spring um but that's it and then our grounds crew will will groom it uh every couple weeks as well so there is maintenance to a turf field some people believe that once you put the tur field down that's it and it's not you take care of it and it lasts longer just like anything but in regards to a grass field the grass fields need to be cut and in the spring they are cut several times a week because they need to keep up with it those fields need to be Lin multiple times uh and you also need to uh seed the fields and fertilize them so there's a lot of cost involved in our grass fields so I don't know if you want to talk about anymore but um yeah I would the the grass fields actually um cost quite a bit to take care of because of the constant mowing um seeding um if you get any kind of weed infestation then you have to follow IPM and take care of that um if it if the weather dries out you a lot of times lose the turf and then you can you can really only seeed in the late fall and if the weather's not Cooperative then it just doesn't take well so Turf is um less care than natural grass is a lot of the savings that we're going to find um with the grass the turf field versus the grass is the ability to re um distribute our ground Skies into other things besides lining and uh cutting grass on fields um the other thing that was asked and I'm going to jump back to trip for you this um at the finance facilities committee we wanted to know is total down days what were the the the total down days that we talked about so I sent that do you have that you get it no I don't have it with I didn't BR my computer but I I went back I was able to go back to 201819 for the high school and I believe 2020 for the middle school and Bob has the exact numbers I I can share them as well but the the number of cancellations and again depends on the season uh typically your spring season has more cancellations because of the amount of rain you get in the spring and also baseball and softball being cancelled so between the high school and middle school games uh like I said if it rains it can destroy that field for two three days depending on how much rain we get so there are a lot more cancellations in the spring than there are in the fall but there were quite a bit if so it looks like it it averages anywhere between 20 and 30 events lost uh per season and when you say events is that practice is end games or is that games it's G that's just all games I I can't I don't have to 30 games for and and and and great one more thing that we touched on and necessarily go deeply into the condition itself of those grass field what condition are they in if you were to project our couple of years condition yeah you our grounds our grounds crew does a great job maintaining it but it takes a lot of work to make sure you maintain that uh those fields back there are wide open and a lot of times there are people that will go on there and hit goth balls and put divots in them um you know their dogs are on there tearing it up so they do a nice job keeping up with it and we do a nice job making sure that we don't put teams on there playing games and destroying them uh but it comes at a cost of those games get canceled and sometimes they don't get made up uh because of the short season so you know the fields are great but you know we do shut certain Fields down each season so that they can come back uh the one JV uh soccer field we shut down on the spring to allow it to come back for the fall but um you know we don't have the ability with all those fields so some Fields take uh more of a beating than others we also don't have the ability to and know trip and I we were we were having a little debate last uh spring over watering of the fields we don't really have the ability to effectively water there are tanks that were placed out there that could be filled from the from the well we do have a well um but the amount of water and we we we got into a um a turf management company talked to us about it that the amount of water that we needed to water those fields appropriately instead of start so you can you can underwater a field and actually kill it if you water it not enough you put some water but not enough you can actually kill it we don't have the actual capability to water the fields to the level that they would need to be sustained so could we get just so that we can make an informed decision um what is in the referendum for the fields and then also what would be the change to our yearly budget to upkeep the difference it's um well we could we could throw something together it's I'm not going to I ever argue that the the cost of the Savings in what we're going to save in grounds is going to pay for the field it's not going to no no that's not what I'm asking I'm asking what what's the hit on our budget so there's there's the referendum will pay for these fields but then there's the ongoing maintenance of two new turf fields and what is the difference in cost between what we have now and the turf felds is what because we're talking about we're coming up on years where we're going to have to make some tough decisions and so it'd be nice to know what we're adding to a budget that might already be challenging I don't think we're going to add anything it's going to it's going to free up the we're not going to be adding any ground screws we're going to be re we're going to be redistributing those guys we have four groundsman and those four groundsman are the ones who take to the field so they're going to have less time worrying about taking care of a field and more time to attack tree removals and and other grounds tasks so I don't know that there's going to be an increase in cost or a decrease in cost it's going to be flat if I'm yeah so it's it's going to be a completely reallocated cost for us we're not going to see any increase in our budg I don't see us adding not in labor costs we're going to get total I want total cost replace School saying like had do something dras with that field the differ I mean there's yearly up yeah and there's yeah I mean we know in 10 years the maintenance of the cutting the painting the lines and all of that compared to you know few times that's required to be maintained and it's not about looking at the savings is about looking at um you know if we're going to keep talking about where can we pull some money even if it's $100,000 that's important to know if if there's a program out there that costs 150 right like so I'd rather you'd rather keep the program take the field and and be able to keep that $100,000 still in budget yeah I I and again I think I'm going to reiterate that we're the the cost is in the labor and we're not going to reduce a ground because there's so much work that they're not getting to that they're going to be able to do instead of not instead of pushing stuff off right but I think what Ling Lin and expensive then much are we going to save there and El I mean again cutting slicings yeah um I can put something together for that but basically the cost of fertilization overseeding and and treatment of the turf you know of natural grass will far ex that in itself will far exceed any grooming or anything that has to be done to the artificial turf let alone the Manpower and hours that are saved totally get that so like understand the question is but Tom's Tom's budget as we said during the budget presentation he's been held flat for 10 years so the savings that is going to come from the turf is going to go back to Tom to do the things that he hasn't been able to do in house so I don't I'm not sure if I'm not explaining it correctly there's there's not we're not going to reduce the budget by1 ,000 because we're going to do this we're going to be able to do more of the things that he keeps telling me he can't do because either without the time or the money to do it he wants to do some more tree removals back behind the high school and and by timberl but he doesn't have the budget to do it this frees up some of that money so he can do those kinds of things so if I'm understanding you correctly like we won't see an increased budget line to care for these turf fields like we don't have to hire out to do anything to them no the field comes with a the field comes with a gr uh what is it twice a year grooming and for how many years until we see like this year when we approved the big like million dollar almost to redo it so how long are these like 15 years like 15 years okay did you have uh I was just going to say it's not to to groom the field it's a th000 bucks um to just groom the field and we get it done twice a year that's it that's the only upkeep we do and then the in-house uh grooming that we do is our our guys there's no cost besides our our labor I already we already have the machine to do it sorry for the confusion no no no hi uh just two uh quick things really uh Turf obviously understand how folks want to play on it I just would hope they wouldn't use you know like the Giants Turf where there seems to be a lot of knee injuries so hope there's that discussion is as part of that obviously but the second thing I was asking will there be an opportunity for you know the local sports organizations like the hobo Valley soccer and baseball and all those folks will there be opportunities for those sort of that's far down the line I understand that they use the current turf field now but but like I said earlier outside groups no we're not really interested in opening up to I'm talking about the local you know the groups that all of our kids participate in that's a yes okay thank you this is on maybe um so you mentioned the 20 to 30 Games lost per season and that's not including practices as well and one of the things that we talked about in our committee meeting is the of climate change and so we could potentially expect that number to go up would you anticipate that there having this additional turf field would offset this completely or just take care of sort of a portion of it I think it would take care of a a good portion of it okay because again you know if we have our stadium turfield and then this tur field it could be used for games uh and then there is there will be space for practices so that will help offset but it won't completely um you know get rid of it all the the on a given day there can be you know between the high school and middle school and all the levels multiple games I mean 10 12 uh depending on the day so to you know unless we had 10 or 12 tur Fields no it's not going to completely get rid of it but it will help a lot do is if if if you get rain like say you get significant rain rain all day and it it breaks up around 2:00 well a baseball game is probably going to be lost to that but you could play the baseball game on the turf field that afternoon so it would save that kind of especially early in the season when you know trying to get on a baseball field in March is is near impossible because it's just muddy and wet you know another savings with time labor and material is getting our baseball fields and softball fields ready after a large rain so you know if it rained today we're cancelled but tomorrow you know the infields are going to be you know very soft so our guys spend most of the day trying to get those fields ready so at least the varsity teams can play that day so that game's not lost so there's a lot of time uh labor and material that go into getting that field ready to play so that would be a savings by able to go to the turf field how often do we lose more than one day on the grass fields after a rain and it do we ever lose more than one day on the turf oh the turf no no we unless it's thunder and lightning we play okay I have played in monsoons I think your daughter played in the field hockey game yeah it was it was pouring but everything else was canceled but we played so no we unless it's thunder and lightning reply it well what about the grass do we just lose the day that it rains or or have we lost days even after we we have lost multiple before depends on the amount of rain and it also depends some fields are better than others some Fields will you know back there will drain better than others so it might just be a day but some other fields will'll be two days mowing situation where the ground is too soft to get the mower on it but you need to cut it to have it at the proper height for the kids to play on the field okay so there's two Fields one and two and then it'll be the infield Jason infields that's essentially what the project includes as it stands right now we have a little bit of water shed there's some water sheds back there that we have to look at a little bit but that's what the project is is shaping up to be right now we still have a little more prep work to do on that so problem and I think the nice part about this is that multiple teams can practice at the same time yes yeah and rainstorms are getting worse now folks so and and we're getting more and more water when it rains uh especially in very short periods of time so anyway moving on to be Tavern elementary schools so here again projects by category building Integrity about 3.1 over 3.1 million just over endoor uh environmental improvements HVAC 3.15 again uh safety security 380,000 space for students here and of course we all remember this is one of the schools it's proposed to receive an addition 17.1 million and site improvements at about $845,000 for a total of uh almost $24.7 million at Bear tavn the projects are again you can see bottom right you can see the uh the roofing areas that are proposed the storefronts we talked about the the breezeways along the front of the building replacing all of those at their end of the life and deteriorated near the bottoms we're going to preserve the modular buildings for offices as we discussed we're going to uh move the kids we have a 10 classroom addition proposed there's going to be some other miscellaneous Renovations for the cafeteria and other areas uh we're going to have some gender neutral toilet rooms as we discussed U and some other things like exterior doors interior doors sore pumping station Renovations just to wre uh better serviceability there uh some duplication redundancies within the well systems uh and a staff entrance walkway cover so a lot of things like that at bar Tavern really just kind of um you know make these uh improvements are really going to make a difference to to the school community and just just another note on that we so folks know especially our newer board members that Bear Tavern is on its own uh water system yeah and sewer system that that filters into um the public water systems but that's something that we're looking to fix to avoid uh the problem that we had at timberling that is on its own well and we're looking at doing a sister well with it so that we don't ever run into the situation where we don't have any water at those schools yep and uh and also the sore pumping station make some improvements to that so we can have that reliability as well all right so that's bear T here's the addition uh area in blue you can see behind Bear Tavern and uh that's where the addition is proposed to go the area where the modulars are located will be used as as we said they will be preserved and used for district offices administrative functions and things like that non-school non- student facing areas okay uh so that that's the bear Tav Expansion Project Bob next slide will show just kind of what the floor plan looks like and there's those 10 classrooms uh some dividable flexible spaces moving the district child study team Suite into that addition as well many of those uh offices are now located in the modular this building will also be prepared to receive a potential second floor if the space is needed later on and kind of see dashed in what would be proposed with that so this is the expansion plan for Bear Tapp so so um if you go back to the previous slide just wanted to clarify one thing here right we're not replacing so the the additional space that's going in there right um does not eliminate the need for the mod buildings it does allow us to use the modular buildings in a way that doesn't impact students right but we we we still are going to need that space we're still going to need corre to take advantage of those buildings the the the the areas have been been maintained um the issues that we have there are that they're outside the building proper and security and safety issues we we no longer wish to use those they also very difficult to keep heated and cooled um in extreme in the extreme conditions we're now experiencing um but we also have a lack of storage space and other meeting space within the district and these provide great SP for that to make is with the even given the current population of kids in in BT but certainly with the anticipated influx of kids in to be right we absolutely need that space it's not a convenience thing that we're trying to move into nice the classrooms we need that space yes and the district has invested in those buildings they have made improvements to the sighting and to replacing the h3ac so they're serviceable for offices and you know other District functions like that certainly they've been maintained okay so here's Hope Elementary School again building Integrity uh not too much here mostly shingle roof uh again you can see environmental improvements HVAC about .4 million Safety and Security space for students $416,000 that is uh new enlarged toilet rooms for the kindergarten classrooms and no sight improvements there here's Hopewell and this is basically what's planned shingle roofs as we said uh and and some of the HVAC work that's being planned as well and then uh laring the toilet rooms for the kindergarten uh rooms in the primary way so that's hope well just about $9.6 million almost here's Stony Brook uh not as much of an expenditure here but there's still some things building Integrity things have have to be addressed uh some of the roofing the rising wall we masonry needs to be addressed HVAC there are some HVAC issues to address there uh that those systems are that school of course is more than 20 years old Safety and Security were in pretty good shape space for students were were good and some minor sight improvements so we just about 33 million there's the roof replacement you can see we going to correct the drainage issue and we're going to replace two cafeteria rooftop units and add a chiller to Stonybrook Elementary School and why is that that's to give us that uh resiliency uh because you have a geothermal system there we want to make sure that we're going to be able to uh to take care of any issues that could arise out of the geothermal system okay oh Life Safety yes fire alarm system replacement is going right he's in design right now uh to be done that system needs to rep most folks think of Stony Brook as our newest facility but at this point now it's 22 years old right y so togate building Integrity uh about $882,000 you can see indoor environmental improvements HVAC almost 2.2 safety security just over 500 space for students again addition here at proposed at togate elementary school and sight improvements you can see together those things are just about about $9 million and so here here you go with the uh Capital you know Rehabilitation projects you see the roofing here uh third grade or third grade third floor HVAC improvements are being done that is an area that was uh not addressed yet replacing the electrical switch gear that needs to be taken care of as well we also have to do an electrical upgrade for the addition demolition of the modular buildings and construction of a new six classroom addition and site improvements and driveway improvements additional parking which everyone will be happy about out as well as some pavement restoration so that's togate there's the addition the location the area uh we're talking about doing building a building an access road around it as well uh and then we moving the Modular Buildings a driveway putting additional playground space back there doing a secure Courtyard area you can see on the bottom of the slide that's the proposed parking uh those Modular Buildings won't be there so we'll be able to put some parking there again that what's driving the new addition at tolgate is the expansion of preschool but also wanting to get for Safety and Security reasons to get the kids that are in the trailers inside the backing side um which also frees up areas for additional parking um that's so taxing at that facility which would also give access to uh emergency and fire companies the ability to drive around the building which they don't have uh right now that was something that they had have been requesting for a long time but again the the the large part for the addition is the is getting and some of our youngest students in the buildings inside the buildings so there's the togate elementary school edition there will be a additional faculty toilet rooms added to this as well as a faculty room that will be relocated to a more convenient location faculty workroom uh and there's those prek classrooms so this uh this will be able to provide um you know the the the needed prek classrooms for the school district's programs okay so that's pretty much all of the projects this is just a summary of the cost bottom line 87.5 million here here are the projects broken out into what we call the rehabilitation projects which are the projects that really don't involve construction of buildings or Renovations those are the boilers and the roofs and the HVAC projects and all those so you can see how they're broken out school by school and you can see the the total for each school and the grand total at 87.5 million next month and then you can see the categories here Broken Out by expenditures of costs and percentages building Integrity about 14.3% indoor environmental improvements in haac almost 41% uh Safety and Security relatively small amount because we did a lot of stuff uh already in the in the last referendum and space for students 31.7% and site improvements 11.8% so 87.5 million an estimate here this percentage of eligible cost and state share these your projections we we really won't know what those numbers are until we get our doe approval letters but this is an estimate you can see that we expect about 66% of the projects that we are submitting to be eligible for State support which means the state will pay a portion of the cost we expect the state share overall to be about 26% of the cost of the referendum and the state the local share rather to be about 74% % so 26% of the cost of referendum will be paid for by the state we do just for board members uh and Community um understanding the district must Bond the entire amount the money from the state is paid annually as Debt Service relief so they'll pay a portion of our debt service related to the eligible projects each year at budget time so projection of the cost per household $500 to $575 a year there are some caveats this is not a final number uh it's based on a 20-year Bond term and there's still some things that have to be done in planning for the financials and so forth the impact will vary based upon the municipality assumes that assessed values of the homes will remain stable and average home values of course value vary by Town interest rates we hope remain stable may even go down a little bit and that the state will pay that minimum 20% and as we saw in the earlier slide it looks like it's going to be more like 26% of the uh eligible costs of project of the referendum overall costs right it's important to say that the the estimated cost the to the households is is is very much an estimate the numbers will change annually based upon the value of the ratables in each town and and the cost of each home um the interest rates also have a factor but what we're looking to do is in a project of this nature rebonding sever different Bond issues to delay the amount of the impact uh to the taxpayer we don't need all the money up front we would never bond that much money in one shot but maybe two or three Bond issues based upon the need for the money um and hopefully that we would see interest rates drop during the the period of time when we're going to be going out for bid on these numbers so just moving forward next steps I'm not going to spend a lot of time here uh just basically we have to finalize the reference the project list we're very very close now uh submission of the projects to the Department of Education which is just for review of the projects will take place basically right now and then the final determination of the question and what is going to be asked for from the taxpayers will be determined in June or July of 2024 After we receive our Department of Education appr approvals you know there'll be an engagement in education process of course and of on uh referendum vote September of 2024 okay so just some details of the timeline below we've already as as you can see we've got things well underway some things done we've already got our long range plan Amendment approved we had submitted that some time ago actually and uh we've already got that approved so anyway that's the timeline and then Bob just final slide more to follow thank you questions from the board any other questions okay thank you thank you okay um that brings us to um our public comment so members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for a maximum of three minutes during this portion of of the meeting you asked to state your name address and municipality in response to your comments the Board of Education May respond or uh 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 research for district admin by by District administration public comments are now open um just a reminder before we start for anyone who's new um at two and a half minutes I will put up yellow and at three I'll put up red thank you so I want to address the board about the referendum um most of us realize that at some point Sor sorry y sorry Christine rule from hopeall Township um most of us realize that at some point we're going to have to make repairs to our homes and we set money aside for maintenance $ 87.5 million is a huge ask for the small community who is still in the process of paying for the last $35 million referendum that was passed in 2015 projects were delayed back then so you have known for the last nine years that some of these Renovations would be necessary why wasn't money set aside in the budget to put this all into perspective Princeton recently passed a $13 million referendum and Robinsville tried unsuccessfully to pass a $4 million referendum both well below the nearly $90 million you are asking us this is our taxpayer money you are playing with it's not Monopoly money why is adding the turf fields to timberlan on the list of projects when you said that the Middle School sports may need to be cut if you unable to meet budget requirements also my son has played soccer on those fields for the past two years and they seem to be in good shape to me can you please provide some insight as to why this is necessary perhaps maybe a sports fundraiser would be a better compromise my son played game games on many other fields at many other schools and they seem to be in comparable shape to ours for the past two years the people running for the hell Township committee have campaigned and won on the fact that they've lowered property taxes I have an article where they stated that the new housing developments will not impact our school en enrollment and that we have plenty space for new any new projected students you asking us to pay even more in taxes than we already do and the township has not committed to allocating any portion of the pilot money money they receive for these new housing projects even though their own website says that this money will allow them to make voluntary contributions to the school district has anyone from the district had a discussion with them it is also very curious that this referendum was presented to us at the November 13th board meeting not even one week after the election where voters could have had the opportunity to ask the people running about enrollment and the pilot F funds before they voted I've said this before we need more balance on this board and on our town committees we currently have no checks and balances in place which are so important to our constitutional republic form of government lastly I would like to know how much the September 24th special election will cost taxpayers and who is paying for that the township or the school district is there some reason why this election is being held in September when the general election is just 42 short days later moving the referendum question to the November ballot will save taxpayer money Princeton and Robinsville did that did it that way why are we holding this special election thank you good evening my name is Lucas whittenberg I live at 27 Bird Street tenning in Pennington New Jersey um last summer I spoke at a board meeting where I summarized the current scientific literature evaluating the efficacy of random drug testing in Hoka Valley Central High School which showed that not only is random drug testing ineffective it also has the capacity to increase drug misuse in schools I also outlined risks associated with random drug testing including a correlation with increased use of future drug use and poor attitudes towards School alongside false positives and negatives if the board would like me to present these sources again please let me know and I'll will provide an updated comprehensive summary of those claims and a review of their Journal citations given that many leading us advocacy organizations oppos random drug testing in schools including but not limited to the American Academy of Pediatrics the National Education Association the American Public Health Association and the drug policy Alliance alongside the American civil liberties Union I believe the evidence against random drug testing in schools and the harm it poses to our students to be very clear when the board last discussed random drug testing at Hopewell it instituted some minor forms which I believe were a step in the right direction however I nonetheless maintain that in the face of this evidence our community needs to abolish random drug testing and reinvest the funds allocated to it of at least $10,000 every year into harm reduction expanded counseling programs distribution of nooo nasal spray or other evidence-based drug policies as such I would like to ask the board whether all board members currently support the abolition of random drug testing for the 2024 to 2025 school year if not sooner if so when can we expect policy changes can the board provide or estimate a timeline and if not what reputable data is there to support maintaining the current policy in face of this evidence if such data exists can the board make it available to the public I believe it's our civic duty to inser these policies which undoubtedly have a large impact on drug misuse in our district and by extension our students are substantiated by reputable scientific evidence and in that respect I hope we can reform reform our current policies in the interest of our students thank you for your time and please let me know if you'd like me to repeat any of my inquiries thank you good evening Kate ham H Township as I came in on the tail end of the work session today i' i' like to ask if the budget slides that were presented as well as the updated referendum slides in the presentation could be linked to the agenda or if they'll be posted in an accessible location on the district's website while the superintendent provided some information at January's board meeting regarding the district school days and e-learning days additional was learned after it was pointed out in the slides that the board policy states that the students here will attend 182 days of instruction the additional days 181 and 182 were titled e-learning days around 2017 through Community discussion it was speculated that a former board member initiated the increase of instructional days thus a change in board policy I have learned since that it was the late 1980s or maybe even earlier was when the requirement for students to attend 182 instructional days began while the current Community remains perplexed and Confused it has yet to be shared the data which shows the benefit for the increase of the two additional days we can all agree that life in the 80s looks vastly different from the world we live live in and raise our children in now the state mandates 180 days in public schools with everything that we have learned about our teens their development considerations to support mental health and social emotional well-being the additional two days ignite the longtime discussion about school start time where Studies have shown and taught us about team development as well as the support support the concerns outlined to end school earlier the additional two days are not make or break students when it comes to being accepted at Ivy League schools these two additional days are delaying the ability for our students to enter post school life join the military enter the workforce or prepare for higher education as was evidenced in the uh presentation earlier this evening by keeping these additional two days and labeling them as e-learning days the board is then contradicting the district digital Wellness initiative while burdening students with additional workload as well as contradicting the results from the survey where the majority wanted to end the school year earlier the remark that 70% of respondents indicated no concern with early release days since your unable to itemize the responses by grade level these responses could be skewed the district partners with an organization to provide child care at cost for elementary students on these days it would be nice for something Equitable to be available for secondary students in addition students with special needs and students receiving free and reduced lunch are left without on these early release days while the presentation noted early release days amongst other districts it should also be noted that early release days which are not indicated there happen here at the high school for special testing and other special schedules lastly I'd like to inquire about how individuals were chosen for the calendar committee other districtwide committees have allowed stakeholders to indicate their interest through a Google doc however this one was not thank you anyone else okay just order some of our responses hold on okay so um the presentations will be posted uh shortly after the meeting we just didn't get to them they were being worked on right up into the meeting today yeah right um other I mean I can't argue or I don't really understand why certain districts do referendums when they do I know Princeton did one and they're doing another one for I think bigger than ours um I don't know George left but George is working on the principal but I think their next referendum is going to be about 130 million it is so they are doing one right after the one they just did um we did I mean I don't know if you saw the slide that was up there but we do try to pick off as many projects as we can um we do have a savings account it's called the capital reserve but it doesn't um it doesn't have the ability to cover the the bread and depth of the projects that we have we can only deposit monies into the capital reserve through savings that we generate through each budget year um we could make a sizable deposit into the capital reserve at budget time but we're limited by a 2% cap so any deposit to the capital reserve is monies that would be removed directly from our our general operating budget the state used to allow uh districts to put money aside each year for capital projects and get a cap waiver for it but they took that out of the budgeting process probably 15 years ago so you you don't have that mechanism anymore so there really isn't that way to save that kind of money to prepare for this as as we talked about in the presentation we' picked off the things that we could pick off on an annual basis the state does provide payment but only if you do a referendum so if you were to put money into your general Budget on an annual basis you'd be paying 100% of the cost as opposed to um up to 40% paid for by the state by going to a referendum or a rods project which we are we got rods projects we're going to be doing those next summer um but they didn't approve all of our rods projects we submitted probably $20 million worth of rods Grant projects and they approved uh probably just over a million two in projects so the state didn't cover those to be done on an annual basis um we did not want to come to the board with an $87 million um request I'm going to throw my two finance committee members under the bus they directed us to uh ask for more projects okay to make sure that we're addressing those kinds of things so again we yes yes absolutely absolutely right now I'm not happy to talk do you want me to talk right now no I'll just e with the sentiment that Alex had um I was extremely vocal to attempt to paint a picture that I think the community needs to hear about as to the state that we're in uh it's up to the community to vote on that but uh I have taken um to Heart the conversations around transparency and things of that nature as has the administration and for me sitting on the the finance committee this was an opportunity for us to kind of lay it out to everybody and say Here's the reality that we're in as Bob alluded to we don't have the ability to do $87 Million worth product uh projects because we are limited as a community by the state as to how we can save our money so this isn't just a we want to have all this money to do it Bob and team is going to find a way over a long period of time to put this plan in place for us to execute these jobs in the most costc conscious way possible um I I don't think that and as I am just kind of talking out loud here I don't think that we as a community um are thinking about the amount of money in a way that I would hope that we should and how I wanted to uh encourage Bob and his team to put it out there the idea of putting it in front of everybody was to say here's the reality that we Face we can look at it in one of two ways we either look back and go why why did this happen and there's a time for that but there's also a time where we have to act and the best way to act is with the most amount of information and then ultimately we and the community vote on it right so uh I will proudly carry the flag uh of somebody who said we need to put all the information in front of the public which by the way I'm also very much like Alex a Believer and not spending a lot of money and being costc conscious about how we think about doing things so um to to me there's going to be a lot of conversations about this over the course of the next X amount of months and I hope that the community comes out and talks about it um I personally have learned a lot in the past year about the things that we really have no control over when it comes to our budget and I would encourage the community if we want to get control over those things to go higher levels of government to figure that out because at our level we are limited um so I think that's the best way I can put it Al yes oh sorry Alex did you yeah first I think Mark you touched on the thing that I wanted to add right I um I look at things as what do I have control over and what can I and how can I fix the situation and it's not just here right in my own life how can I fix the situation with the tools that I have available to me separately from how did I get myself into the mess that I met right and I want to encourage people to think about those two things happen um you know why we're going to have a Democrat why we're anticipating a demographic increase why School budgeting is done the way it needs to be done um I think a very important question but it's not something that I can do anything about as a board member what I can do something about is look at the future given the data that's in front of me and say where are we going to be and when I look at this referendum we I think Mark alluded to this we as a community don't have to pass a referendum but if we don't chances are our kids are going to be in much bigger classrooms there is going to be an uncomfortably large number of days where they're going to come to school and they're going to be told no you're not going to a classroom today you're learning in the gym with six other classes in the gym because your classrooms are unusable and they're going to be unusable for the next couple of weeks and that's how what the essence of this referendum is to me my recommendation is to spend the money so that we don't find ourselves in that situation right but ultimately I second Mark's point is that we are putting this out there in front of you folks and if you decide as a community that you don't want to spend the money and take the chance of significantly impacting the way we educate our kids in a negative way um that's a choice that the community has I wish I had a I I wish I had an option seat I really do I do not see a way to for us to create an option seek given where we are and given the things that we as the Board of Education can control there are other things that we cannot control which may comeon help us and that would be awesome Alex you stole some of my Thunders so thank you but one of the things I was going to say we're in this position where you're looking at $87 million and that's all of it right is because over the years the board the my team and Dr Smith's team before me were were listen to your the public and we you know we came in as Heroes and we got everybody got five cents off their taxes and it literally sometimes was in the cents but we didn't go up we stayed flat poor um um Tom Quinn has been flat all this time it's life is not flat things cost more year after year after year and we maintain our class size we maintain all these things that we want want and the community demands of us to have that costs money salaries benefits all those things to maintain that beautiful class size um and that makes it very hard for us to generate Revenue to fix things that are failing um yes we do plan for things for our house and sometimes we don't plan sometimes things just break so you know I wish I could plan for everything that goes wrong with my house um every time I think I'm two steps ahead Three Things fall off right um and then I have a set amount of money that's coming in and that's it that I can generate so that's where we are um listen we can keep playing this game you know with with where we pretend like these things aren't going to fail um and you don't fix the roofs over your pack and now water's coming in and pouring on equipment or carpets or mold um we have it over our gym we have it in your kids' classrooms we have heat that fails we have air condition that fails I have to close schools we know we can't get equipment in for a long period of time um whatever the township may be saying in their meetings we paid for a demographer report they helped pay for that says we are going to have unseated unhoused students in Bear Tavern they got that report just like everyone else did we've been talking about this referendum since before the elections before the elections that same slide deck's been up there and we've been tweaking it along the way based on on um feedback based on questions coming here sending out trip was here to talk about the turfield and why that's a recommendation that it's in there um so we've been talking about this because this has been something that's been going on since I have been here for 10 years and it's we can keep playing the game but it's going to come back and bite us at some point and just like folks are saying well why did we take that stuff out the referendum last time because people yelled we took it out now it's three times the cost so that's this is our recommendation because we don't just like when Tana talked about those calendars and the time that was spent on that we don't need Jer can make decisions just because it's this isn't easy to come and ask you for this um but I don't feel like you know because I'll be off on the beach somewhere in a few years I'm older than I look you know I don't want to leave you all in this position for the next superintendent or the next person that comes in we'll be all long gone and then this stuff is going to come chickens are going to come home to roof they already are so I just you know and these folks have been challenging us the whole way this isn't something they came too easily um but that's why we're bringing this before you um Bob I wanted you to answer the question about the special election also that was asked because I think we covered almost everything Beyond this last piece is I I can't make the township do anything we don't run the township so I can't go to them and say and demand them to to to do anything we are in conversations with them we are setting up another meeting we've met with them all already all the Mayors and we will continue to talk and hopefully uh collaborate on that um but again we can't we don't manage uh the township and nor can we um make them participate in this the last time we did a referendum I believe the cost was $30,000 in in September of 2015 um we made a decision Dr tries and I with the board and with um with yeah the board to move the keep the election in September um to keep it away from the general election because we wanted folks to come out to vote for our projects and not uh have a knee-jerk reaction to vote down our referendum at a very highly contested presidential election that's expected um many schools do this September is the is a very Standard Time September actually in December are standard times for schools to do elections because it separates itself from partisan politics which and we are not a partisan organization I have one more thing I want to say I do want to say thank you guys for coming out here and asking us these questions because God help this community have put forward and the administration don't have the answers so I I think I covered everything there but if not I'm sure um it'll come back in the second public comment um Mr Wittenberg your question about the random direct testing yes we are heavily involved in conversations about that we're closer than you think um but we generally try not to change um discipline policies and all that right in the middle of the school year um and we're contract with folks until the end of the school year but we're closer than you think so thank you and we love your feedback and we love you keep reminding us to stay on on top of this so thank you so much and then finally Miss ham um again um we have 182 school year yes we do for instruction it's shorter than some other districts we've done some research on um however the e-learning days were a way for us to if we had snow days not to extend the school year um again the vision was that at some point we would go completely online which we found during Co wasn't as fun as we thought right um but it is um something that I do recognize that that we don't want kids tied to a device K to 5 isn't they don't have devices at home anyway so they don't have devices on e-learning days to begin with teachers send home packets for emergency snow day assignments um but we are exploring in committee opportunities for us to maintain that so we don't have to extend the school year um and do something moreal related where kids are not on their computer working with the digital Wellness committee with our counselors to design sort of a choice Board of things that they can do where they're take they're doing mindful things for the day or things to take care of themselves oral um so say we go to 180 days um what that means is when you have a traditional snow day there are no other days to play with yes you don't have to do anything on that day but then you also lose a day so the districts that are 180 days have taken those days from spring break and they may and some of them yes yes they have because they have to make up the days if you're out and absent and there's no school and you've gone under the 180 days required by the state then you have to make them up right so that means you take them from spring break or you add them to the end of the school year that's that's what they have to do um so unless they have snow days built in that are fake days and then they just kind of take them away at the end of the year and those sorts of things but many of the districts around us are making up days by taking them from other places already that's that's what's happening I do talk to the other superintendents a lot um so that's you can do that but then when you close you have to make them up um so I I don't see taking them away yes things have changed um for kids things have gotten harder for children they haven't gotten easier since the 80s so why we are stepping backwards I I I don't I don't know why I wouldn't recommend that for the district and our e-learning days are things that people are modeling even across the bridge they're starting to do days that are called um Flex instruction days and and and and all these other things which are virtual days some are doing just straight virtual days if you watch the school closures you see them pop up that's them doing what hope well has been doing for years now um so I don't see the need to go backwards I think we can tweak these and make them work in a way that aren't stressful for kids or our parents um but you know again I I got lots of emails from the kids when we had weather pending um because they like to tell me and help me pick decide if it's going to be a snow day they always tell me that we should have them I I did not hear from one kid that they were stressed with their work and that it was a lot for the e-learning days and believe me if it was I would hear about it our kids have no problem telling me when they don't like something um but I do think we can adjust it where it doesn't need to be and there is I did hear that there is a disparity like if you're in taking AP classes and honors classes that things are getting a little too aggressive I think if we just make those e-learning days something that is manageable and really about you doing because learning can also be how do I take care of myself seal and getting outside right those can also be part of it so I think if we make that adjustment the stress that comes for parents to try to manage kids are they supposed to be on the computer should they be doing this we can take that away and we can make that easier for parents and students um and our staff quite frankly that have to run around and kind of make sure that these two assignments get done after the fact um so I don't think we have to throw the baby out with the bath water to accomplish all of those things and still maintain the Integrity of the program programming that we're proud of I I I think um so I think I covered all the questions that I forget anything Madam president think we got everything and um and I just wanted to underscore that the board is had a couple of conversations casually around the 182 nobody's attached to them however if you look at the information that was provided by the calendar committee going longer as a school district is not favored so um what what is favorite is knowing what days to manage as your family as your what what days do you need to provide support for your kids so having those days built in holds us stable except for extreme cases Beyond 182 days or the beyond the two days excuse me um of extreme weather or something else so it's it's not taken casually it's taken into account a lot of the feedback and the surveys but there is no one here attached to 182 it is really balancing a lot of different requirements that brings us to staying where we are uh with 18 182 so I can also just add two quick things um I feel like I have a unique perspective on this board being a former student who was in The District less than three years ago um from my personal experience um and I can also speak on behalf of all of my now formerly graduated classmates uh those e-learning days I I don't want to invalidate any individual students experiences um but they they were not incredibly stressful and strenuous academic days um I was involved in a a host of AP classes when I was in high school I took pretty rig rigorous schedules um and I I can tell you those those online virtual days were not necessarily in in comparison in the workload in terms of of a full day in person um and then Mr Goodwin I just want to acknowledge your um speech and I'm not going to put anyone else on the spot but I ran on a platform um that included reforming the drug policy we have here in Hopewell um so I'm particularly uh supportive of of the abolition of the random drug testing policy um and I'm I'm looking forward to helping out and parse out that that policy okay anyone else going once wonderful thank you all for the active discussion um is much appreciated and we um hope that it continues as we move uh through the year with that I'm going to close our comments um section and we're going to move on just do a quick check on any old business items seeing none um we'll move on to uh um I need a first and second to approve the consent items that are Aster on the first I mean motion second all in favor any any opposed or abstaining okay consent agenda items are passed see all right we're going to go ahead and move into uh our um different committee updates so with that I'm going to touch base with Finance although we've spent a great deal of time on it so I'm not going to talk about the referendum and the budget we we talked enough about that I will open with good news uh January's committee was uh meeting was the first one that I've participated in in a year and a half when Tom came in and he had no major unpleasant surprises yeah nothing seemed or nothing large seemed to have broken in the one month since the yes so um uh so that was great some updates on the ongoing work the issue with the water quality in be Tavern is resolved uh as of the committee meeting it was not officially resolved it was only resolved in fact we're waiting for some approvals I don't know if we have them or not but we have them good um and uh we received word from the state that we're good to go for the grant to cover HVAC work at the Central High High School this is going to cover 40% of what the state thinks it should cost so my explanation for it is it's like when you if you have insurance medical insurance and you go out of network there is the bill that you get charged there is the what your insurance thinks that they should charge right so it's 40 yeah it's 40 but not of the actual cost but it's still money uh that we can use um so we're going through the process um it's pretty significant work so Tom's plan is do the engineering this summer and then get the work done during the summer of 2025 and the HB work at hopeful Elementary is progressing well assuming the chiller actually does arrive when it's supposed to arrive we should have it installed and working by late April and ready to go for me so it's close we should be okay there and that I think is all I have in my notes wonderful thank you any questions all right seeing none we will move on to personnel and good okay yeah hi can you hear me sry I'm should be looking over hi hi hi Okay so uh Personnel committee we met uh this afternoon uh John slotman new board member joined thank you welcome aboard um couple things that we talked about that we're going to be talking about tonight first and foremost want to talk about the retirement uh 30 years of Melissa sis from timberlan um very excited uh to congratulate her on her retirement 30 years in the district is a big deal um we talked a little bit about some of the appointments of some of our long-term Subs um you're going to see uh on the agenda on the uh as you're looking at it that we talked a little bit about some of the continuing education from some of our staff members great work by that and they're getting their well-deserved uh next steps um we talked a little bit too about the continued growth of substitutes continuing to be coming into the district which is a good thing that's an issue in other districts a lot of that's coming from folks retiring from other excuse me from other careers uh which is always great uh one of the things that we you will see as well on the agenda is around um some of the new JDS that Tanner referred to earlier in the the evening um a lot of these new JDS had to be updated because many of them are 10 20 plus years old and we had to just keep up with the times um that a lot of this is around current staff reassignment uh doesn't need necessarily mean that we're going to be hiring additional staff and specifically on uh the agenda you'll see um there is a chief technology security officer job that we are putting out there but we are not trying to fill it at this time um last two quick items we just did a quick overview for John and some of the new members on um the tenure process and then uh as you'll see on the agenda talk a little bit about the CBA think that's about it aesome so we need a first and second to approve all of those amazing announcements second wonderful can I have a roll call please Dr jenevy yes Mr kapadia yes Dr Liston yes Mr Peters yes Dr Resnik yep Mr slotman yes Dr Wilson yes Miss Williams gallan yes motion carries okay moving on to policy okay so the policy committee met on Wednesday February 7th um you likely saw in your review of the agenda that we have two policies and regulations related to staff attendance up for first reading we're actually going to postpone that until the March meeting and I'll I'll give a little bit of background on that um but we also have um two policies up for a second reading today that we reviewed at the last meeting um so just a little background related to the attendance policies and regulations 3212 and 4212 um so for context here a new law was signed into place July 2023 so this summer and it went into effect immediately and it amended previous laws addressing the requirements around sick leave among School District employees so the law essentially expands the allowable uses of sick leave including the reasons for taking sick leave and also who it can be taken for so for example instead of taking sick leave only for personal illness or injury it can now be taken for care of family members um it also allows sick leave for reasons like the closure of a child's place of care or School due to a state of emergency so it does allow for the board to require certification reasonable documentation and advanced notice of sick leave requests were practical so our school district has been implementing this in alignment with the law since this summer um with oversight for Miss Smith as well as the guidance of our board attorney however our policies and regulations now also need to be updated to align with this new law so what you saw here that we're postponing until next month to get more clarity around from our board attorney um and also what you'll see in next month agenda for first reading are a number of policies that relate specifically to aligning our policies and regulations with the new sick leave Law so just giving you some background on that any questions about that okay so can I have a motion and a second to move move policy 0131 and 2270 up for second raing okay thanks so you've seen these policies before um so first we have policy 0131 bylaws policies and regulations and you can see our revisions here in the agenda so just as a reminder here the purpose of this policy is to assist the Board of Education in bylaw policy and regulation management uh the last revision to this policy was made in April 2009 and the current revisions that you see here seek primarily to better align the policy language with current practice so in particular the policy now references and defines the term regulations because school boards are required by Statute and administrative code to adopt certain regulations uh the revisions allow for distribution of policy online through board dos as opposed to a paper manual um and language was also added indicating that the board does welcome feedback on policies Andor regulations from members of the school Community um the proposed revisions do provide an option that we reviewed at the last meeting for the board to abolish a bylaw policy or regulation in one meeting the committee did not select this option instead we're recommending that bylaws policies and regulations be abolished at a board meeting only when the proposed abolishment has been approved by the board at a previous meeting so this will ensure that the board always has at least one month of advanced notice for input and discussion when we're proposing a bylaw policy or regulation for abolishment um I do want to note and um Mr kivita brought this up last time that the policy does provide that policies bylaws or regulations can be adopted revised or abolished without prior notice under certain emergency circumstances um we received no revision from the board to this policy dur during or after our first reading okay I just want to note um it was originally adopted in 2009 it was rised in 2021 just to be clear right so we never adopted that revision so that is a Strauss Esme revision um so what you see so when we look at policies we look at policies that are provided to us by Strauss Esme who is a vendor sometimes when they provide us revisions it's revisions to their revisions but not our revisions so when you look on board docs we have the 2009 version but what you're seeing with the revision Below in the 2021 that's actually the Strauss Esme revision which Bob was so kind as to explain to me because I had the same level of confusion when I compared it to the what was in bardocks yeah thank you so okay but thank you for that uh question clarification okay um any other questions about that one okay so next we have policy 2270 religion in the schools um we also receive no additional re revisions uh from the board to this policy during or after our first reading um but this proposed revisions to policy 2270 are in response to updated guidance from the US Department of Education the policy provides that students hold rights to prayer and religious expression in the school setting and um although Public Schools cannot promote or favor specific religions right they also cannot discriminate against private religion expression by students or staff so the last revision to this policy was also made in April 2009 and the current revisions that you're looking at primarily update terminology in the policy including Rel changing the term religion to prayer and religious expression and reference the US Department of Education 2023 guidance as the resource on this subject which effectively eliminates the need to revise policy 2270 every time there's a change in subsequent guidance released by the Department of Education um so I'll stop there any questions to this policy policy committee have I left anything out okay all right yes Dr Resnik yep Mr slotman yes Dr Wilson Dr jovas yes Mr kadia yes Dr Liston yes Miss Williams gallano yes motion carries wonderful okay moving on and back actually to edcom wa wait wait oh you didn't we so the first one's the first one and the third one are post calendar no calendar is under the policy but we ski need go back up no not adoption of the calendar not the discuss understand not that calar yeah that calendar those calendar not the other calendar all right um we're going to do a first and second on approving The District calendars motion all in favor I I any opposed or abstaining why are you cringing over there mark just checking in he's thinking okay okay all right it pass the the District calendars have passed now we will go back hello may you may proceed thank you um so we met last Tuesday the 13th and supervisor of ela media and TV Productions Amy Baskin discussed the new uh English standards and the need to begin exploring a new program this is at the elementary level uh she began the process to select high quality literacy products some of the products um that she looked at um were aligning she wanted to make sure that they aligned with the standards they demonstrated clear intention to serve multilingual and special Edge students they help students experience authors of diverse backgrounds among others um she is explored eight different products and um the district will be further exploring two of those eight that they we felt they met their criteria which are wit and wisdom and into reading and so we'll be looking into this further this spring and fall um hvchs social studies teachers Mr Newman and Miss Silverman develop lesson plans for a PBS film price of Silence defining key learning objectives and Student Activities the director of the film rgy Hutchinson a former um Central High School graduate will put the lesson on his website for free access so more Educators can leverage the great work from our district supervisor of social studies and wellness Darren Leen discussed his proposal of bringing in a new read aloud for fourth grade graders in social studies and finally one of Dr Teresa's goals for the year was to develop a consistent grading policy at the secondary level um I presented various data that we had collected throughout the year and presented four different options um that the board could move forward with um next steps include having department leaders Co coordinate to ensure that grading policies are consistent within departments so important issues that were discussed include valuing both assessment performance and students effort the grading policy should stay away from penalizing students who demonstrate Mastery while not meeting all homework assignments and the grading policy should also reward students who have not met the performance level but have demonstrated great effort one thing I want to add the two new programs that we're piloting being cheap I asked about the budget we have existing tools that we use which we would have had to renew and pay for anyway and uh the um the administration feels they're not the greatest tools anymore the programs that we're piloting both of them allow us to save substantial money by by allowing us to continue to use the tools that that we already have and work with with that literature as opposed to um having to buy a whole bunch of new books so you know from a budgetary point of view it's a fairly good move okay anything else any questions all right moving on then to community relations that was that's sure that that completed the agenda yes excellent and seal we also had a lovely conversation on the calendar but we also did some other things um um we um just for uh future uh we know that we um have uh sorry my brain just stopped reset we know that we have character strong uh being implemented in our schools right now for seal and we have been developing um collection of data and evidence supported outcomes for that that we will be doing in um all four elementary schools um and also collecting evidence in the secondary schools that will be able to present to people later on in the spring and then let wanted to highlight some of the amazing things that we're doing around in the district thanks Jackie just uh some Recaps Bear Tavern um during the month of January had great kindness challenge um Stony Brooke did their weekly character strong lessons on Wednesday mornings they had Spirit day dressed like a teacher day and a character pep rally um hope well Elementary um they had a Super Bowl and um they also had a hope well huray program recognizing students and staff who embody leap core values of leadership empathy acceptance and perseverance um at togate um they held they actually still are holding mindfulness schoolwide each Monday monthly uh meetings they hold Gator groups um um creating a craft and holding discussions aligned to the monthly character trait and character strong and then finally at the high school um they had the ice hockey team honoring local veterans leadership core students welcoming the class of 2027 um the ath athletes supporting athletes through the athletic Council and mental health awareness and social emotional well-being training for coaches at the high school oh and Timberlane sorry and the Timberlane they had service learning project St baldrick's um they incorporate their character strong lessons weekly they have a kindness Club um and they uh promote mindfulness during their daily video announcements thanks awesome complete Jackie yes any questions from four all right seeing none we're going to move on to uh the calendars for February and March so I need a first and second to approve the calendars no Okay who wants to go first Finance for March 11th 5 o'clock that works what um we have the Strategic did you plan that night six you could Monday March 11 the morning is the morning first thing in the morning work better yex Dad what's 8 o'clock will we be done yeah yeah yeah so we can do the easy one Personnel you back to the board meeting night six o'clock okay six o'clock on March 18th head be weird start like 410 okay March 14 I'm on the road and I Just5 so I have us on the 14th at 10: but I don't think the morning works for anybody anymore so um I was going to propose 4:30 but I think that was just taken so um is there another time that day I'm fine with 3:30 does that work no okay I so it either we're doing it that week it either has to be 9:45 or in between 11 and 3 or after 4:30 what about the 13th would that be better for you that Wednesday Mike the 13th at 3 at 3:30 I'm in the car oh okay um 4:30 4:30 this 4:30 work for you Pam the 4:30 work for you Mike yes the 13th at 4:30 the 13th Anita okay so the third I'm going to readjust it on our calendar Bob but it'll be 4:30 on the 13th was that you want to Stack policy in community relations try that one I also do you you might want to try it the week before because you're close to the board meeting usually you go week for we okay okay so just bring break you don't have yeah it's Penn State spring break can do yes you want to Stack Comm community relations with that should be seven seven okay um so approve all those all those bling steam all those in favor I any opposed or abstaining all right um moving on any new business items all right seeing none we'll move on to our second public comment um which members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for a maximum of 3 minutes during the post 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 up the matter at a future meeting so that the matter is researched by District administration public comment is now open Kate ham hopeful Township in my first comment up here I asked about how the calendar committee participants were recruited various other district-wide committies allow stakeholders to express interest this one did not my email to you all asked if this committee was a true well comprised cross-section of our community was it diverse in all areas of diversity in response to the e-learning days how is it Equitable that pre 5 does not complete e-learning because they don't have a device to complete it but those secondary students are required since they have devices at home is it it is possible to meet the needs for staff students and families by eliminating e-learning revisiting board policy 8210 and amending the required instructional days to 180 while leaving those additional two days as built in school closure days is a solution we don't need to keep up with the neighboring districts we need to do what is right for our community it does not put us at a deficit in fact it puts us at an advantage AG with two less District mandated instructional days and allows built-in days in the event for the need of closure giving students and staff a classic School closure day as you and I know I believe I heard in some of the referendum the need to address an increase in prek enrollment space is one thing but a good quality program that meets the needs of all students nurtures strengths and supports weaknesses will be an additional line item in the budget in future years I'm seeing this firsthand in another District where a shiny Diamond of providing Universal pre look great and it turns out to be a piece of coal when you look at all the necessary pieces that come into play consider thinking about that which items need to be considered for elimination in future budgets once a month the public is able to come before you to voice concerns and ask questions it's very hard to complete thoughts concerns and questions in a limited time we're allotted three minutes per month to speak before you I would ask that the policy committee consider looking at increasing this sign to four minutes each lastly the turf field discussion baffles me we have brand new tennis courts that our community is unable to access though it was our tax dollars which revitalized them we have Dei concerns throughout the district which are being addressed bit by bit instead of all at once some areas in the district do bare minimum to make ends meet when additional supports would enhance programming it's time to check our priorities hi my name is Luke zberg I live at 327 Bird Street Pennington uh I just wanted to say thank you for the response to my public comment especially from Mr cadilla about advances in abolishing the random drug testing policy and I uh appreciate and encourage any further consideration of the evidence or data surrounding reducing um drug use in our school so thank you very much any other comments all right seeing none well uh there's two um one all kids uh uh complete e-learning assignments the Cade through five students don't use computers because they don't take them home they take home paper copies of assignments um and then the other question was selection of the calendar committee um Miss Smith we missed that the first time I knew we were missing something so members of the committee were chosen uh from The District Parent Council uh these are representatives from each school and voted on by each School community in addition the survey allowed feedback provided by all survey respondents and so that feedback was used so all parents and community members and those who received the survey were able to provide yes other question was diversity there was a a nice cross-section of all uh folks we didn't have you know all stayhome moms or all folks that that fit one one um phenotype and we made sure special education was represented that Sports parents were represented that employees were represented so we made sure we covered covered all our bases there um in addition to um making sure that we touched other committees um to find out and get feedback so it was very thorough work and I thank you again for that um and um Miss ham um there was a lot said after that um and I think it was a lot just for the board to consider it and we will consider and discuss all the things that you brought um in in your uh second comment so thank you for that and Mr whittenberg thank you for your comments as well okay with those responses the second public comment is now closed and um I need a first and second to move on to Executive session to to oh excuse me I need to be specific about about what we're doing yeah um we will be discussing um Hib matters as well as um a student matter and uh Personnel matter uh 7825 and action no action will be taken so first and second for second all in favor any opposed or abstaining thank you all for joining us uh we'll be moving the board will be moving into public SE uh or excuse me executive session okay