yeah oh I'm going to bring the meeting to order Dr geny here Mr kadia here Dr Liston here Dr Resnik here Dr Wilson Dr Lou and Mr Peters is here so we do have a quorum okay can we stand for the flag salute the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have a advaned 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 provisions of this act the hopeall 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 Hopewell Valley News and the times on January 4th 19 19 yeah 2024 this meeting notice was also sent to Comcast cable and Verizon FiOS the board reserves the right to enter into executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education the meeting is being recorded for the purpose of Board review future reference preparation of meetings minutes and uh viewing on Youtube Bull TV and the school district's website wwrsd.org members of the public who intend to participate in public comment we ask that you sign in prior to speaking this will assist us with our recordkeeping so I would like a resolution to approve the minutes of the December 11th regular meeting and also the minutes of the January 3rd reorganization meeting motion second any comment all those in favor I any opposing or abstaining minutes pass okay next we're going to have a report from our student representative now there were almost through January we are at this at the end of the second marking period earlier this month over a 100 students were inducted into the National Honor Society there are also lots of exciting things happening in athletics the boys ice hockey team hosted their annual salute to service game the boys basketball team beat Trenton be Trenton high for the first time in program history and [Laughter] several and and several members of the winter track team earned medals um at the county Championship over the weekend rehearsals for the spring musical How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying are also underway we've had several important visitors to the high school this month including including the first lady of New Jersey Tammy Murphy um who met with our youth environmental Society club and the Big East commissioner Val Akerman who met with our girls and boys basketball team and finally this Wednesday the high school is hosting an openhouse and academic planning information session for all e8th grade parents and Guardians to introduce them to the high school and provide more information about core selection thank you thanks thank you any questions from our board no awesome then you are free to go thank you so much for the update next we would like to have a student recognition good evening um Mr P would you mind putting the slides up okay good evening my name is Carolyn McGrath and I teach art at the high school for those of you who don't know me in the fall of 2022 I learned that the fifth National Climate assessment which is a report that comes out of the white house uh it's a scientific report about the impacts of climate climate change in the United States and I learned that they would be accepting our work for the first time for this report I was very excited about that I shared this opportunity with students in my art Club because it didn't seem to fit at that time into my classes and I thought let me try with the art Club I have a really wonderful group of students who are in the art club and several of them are here tonight so we spent many weeks exploring the actual report we got to see the uh draft report we learned about different aspects of climate change and found out how it's impacting our country students then selected a focus area that was their choosing they also selected art media of they're choosing and once uh they worked on this for several weeks and I sort of gave minimal guidance but gave guidance and once they finished they took photos of their artwork they wrote artist statements and they submitted their applications and again that was 2022 fall of 2022 and so we waited and we waited anxiously awaiting and then we found out that um three students from our school were accepted Ed into um the report um just this last fall on November 14th 20123 next slide please uh President Biden held a press uh conference announcing the publication of the NCA 5 which is what it's referred to and the inclusion of student artwork as well as professional artwork in that report for the first time M he actually had a student introduced him and I was like a should have been one of our kids but uh can't complain it was pretty awesome to see him talking about the report and the inclusion of the art in that report for the first time um next slide please nc5 received more than 800 submissions from both professional and youth artists only 92 were selected and from that 10 were awarded prizes three students from Hop Valley Central High School were notified that they were selected for inclusion into the report which is pretty amazing um and one of the three was one of those 10 Prize winners and what I'd like to do is share their artwork with you this evening um at the end of the slides I have a QR code which and a website so if you want to go check out the website and see where it's at um so the student artwork has both featured in this climate Gallery at the end of the report but it's also infused throughout the report which is pretty remarkable and in speaking with the people uh in charge of organizing this whole thing the impetus behind it is that art has really powerful uh impact and the ability to move people in the way that perhaps just data does not and um I can attest to that so if we could go to the next slide please so the first slide is by Julia U jul just kind of stand up and say hi [Applause] it's and and Julia's piece is called the overtaker it's an expressive painting you can see her artist statement there um that looks at environmental impacts of animal agriculture it's quite beautiful it's incredibly beautifully painted um but it also has a very somber and serious mood to it thank you for asking because I didn't want to be too fussy but yeah it's gorgeous and it's it's about this big so and it's in my classroom so if you want to come see it it's there yeah and the next piece the next piece is by an Anil who's in grade 10 and an Ane who also goes by terara um this piece is called desperate ocean it's an artwork that focuses on the impact of climate change and and human activity on the North American right well what was really cool about this piece is there's actually a section in the climate report about the right whale and so this heads that section um that's it's really quite remarkable and this piece both shows a sense of sadness as well as a sense of hope and then last piece is by Amelia cloon and this was the one of the 10 Prize winners and Amelia won for a piece called cautionary tail and this centers on a young person making our against a backdrop of gray sky and factories the art shows both a sense of loss as well as a sense of possibility and Amelia you want to stand so we can acknow you and I also want to thank I don't think he's here my colleague Laura dur who is um teacher of these three students I only get to work with them in an artart club and without Laura's guidance um I don't think we'd see the same level of quality of of work so I also want to thank Lor who's who's not here but um that's it thank you so [Applause] much I don't know whether any of the students wanted to say anything about your work and not to put you on the spot or anything it's okay did any of the board members want to yeah I just want to say um those those pieces of art were beautiful and what was even more beautiful was the artist statements um to see such Civic activism through ART um from such young people is just amazing and I'm inspired by all of your work um and also a shout out to miss McGrath who's a phenomenal art teacher so thank you [Applause] all and I and I'll also add um coming from an institution that's a stem institution the combination of this critically important topic with art to reach many more people is just amazing so you should really be proud of yourselves for making this type of impact and we are going to move on to um well next is the board president report our board president is not here so I'm taking over and I do not have any comments so we will move on to our super intendant report thank you and I want to congratulate our students again I've been um celebrating your beautiful accomplishments for months now I wanted to bring you in and share this with the whole Community um thank you for all your remarkable work um I know that you don't like to release your P paintings but I have a couple my eye on a couple so we'll talk price and and see see if you want to release one of those for sale so we'll talk I know but maybe we'll have to we may have to print it out we can print them we can print make prints so thank you and I know you may have to get back to your work um so I'm going to share my superintendent report now um I know that I've received a few emails about our e-learning days and I've responded to some of those emails but I thought it would be better if I just talk you through it um because it is confusing to read and writing and this is it's been quite a history and a legacy around why we have these days um in our calendar so I wanted to walk everyone through that um so today we're going to I have an agenda here I'm just going to back up um one I want to shout out Bim Heritage Month we'll talk about that briefly I'll explain the e-learning days and then I'm going to end up with reminder about our strategic planning meeting um I want to First say thank you to our um facilities and grounds people who worked very hard during our snow days and also leading up to that containing this room I don't know if you noticed it was another color when you came in here uh last week it was blue we've lightened it up and we've also on the back wall put our new mission statement so the new mission statement um Mr here yes this was what was voted on and written WR by this community is now the hotall Valley Regional School District strives to Foster excellence in education by empowering our students to positively impact the global Community through our commitment to responsibility respect and kindness so that is the the mission statement that we all created together and we're very proud of it so now it's it's displayed very prominently honorable so thank you to everyone that and Mr Becker who helped put that decal up there this morning so we finally are all set so thank you okayy so this uh January is now moving forward recognized as um Muslim Heritage Month um that was signed uh into law by um Governor Murphy on January 11th I was very fortunate enough to be invited to a celebration in Princeton yesterday at their um their um Muslim Center there in uh Princeton where I got to learn from some historians some of the history that I did not know about Muslims in this country one of the things I did know however is that we have in New Jersey one of the largest populations of folks that that follow Islam than any other state in the nation so I think it's time I'm very excited that we are now recognizing this and we have been looking for ways to implement this diversity into the way we teach history and um I look forward to collaborating with some of these experts that shared some very interesting um history about even Muslims being part of the slave trade Muslims being in this country going back way um and during the transatlantic slaves trade where they took many of those Africans from West Africa and many of them practiced um followed Islam um I don't know how many of you saw um Roots when you were a kid but when the father holds KY up that is a Muslim tradition and the name kzy is is an Islamic name um so that history is there um it's interesting to reclaim it also the language and all the the science and the accomplishments that were made by those Africans before they became enslaved here in this country so looking at um the slave trade being you know a horrible thing but also that lost history of of what resilient people the Africans were um and especially these Muslim Africans to to kind of squirrel away and keep their Traditions even um when all that was being stripped from them so I'm looking forward to celebrating some of that history as we move forward but I did want to acknowledge that tonight okay so the e-learning days let me dig into these okay so I'm G to back up so you can see this so the tradition of um our staff working 150 days goes back as far as we can trace it and I work very closely with HR to find the origins of this but we couldn't go back any further than um you know uh 2001 so since that time staff in this state this district has been contracted for 185 days three of those days are professional development days that happened that long day in October and the two that happened in the summer before they returned back to school and then the rest of the days 182 are instructional days popall is not the only District that goes over 180 days but this has been our tradition and um probably because we we never have done as a district the minimum of anything that the state requires we always do more right and so that's always been the case um so the teachers pay is amortised over those 185 days and the expectation is that they they work those days so in the past when before we had e-learning days which I'll talk about in a moment if the school closed and we had a snow day and they were traditional snow days like we remember where you played out in the snow teachers didn't work students didn't work it was before computers right we didn't have these um we added those days somewhere in the year either they took away from a spring break or they added them on to the end they had to be made up that happens in every District everywhere right that happens still um so then um in 2016 when we went one to one really 14 but by 20 2016 we had pretty much a device in every kid's hand the superintendent at the time Dr Tom Smith had this Vision that because we were oneto one students did not need to lose days anymore we could go virtual he had this idea of virtual before the pandemic kids could literally log in to our student management system Learning System en course and they could do their work at home asynchronously and we won't lose a day he wouldn't Lobby the state the state said we don't recognize your a little virtual day sorry but we had the extra two days they said you can do whatever you want with your extra two days but you need 180 in school learning days so Dr Smith worked with the community he worked with the teachers and then we wrote in their contract at that time in 2017 that we would have these days where students and teachers continue to learn and we didn't lose those days and have to add them to the end of the year or take from spring breaks so that has been the tradition since 2017 and we have used them since then then we had the p pmic happened and teachers and students and you all were online with kids for two two three years with the the hybrid and kids going on quarantine and the teachers union and the teachers were fed up a lot of parents were even seeing articles about districts giving teachers seal days giving students days and we were getting those emails and so the union said why can't we have those two e-learning days back this year and we have an extra day the board accommodated that I added the days it was you know you had like a month notice that was not enough notice for parents who worked so we actually had a daycare day where I took kids on a field trip that day I came in and watched kids that day because you know people have to go to work I get that um so the board decided if we're going to do this moving forward we need it built into the calendar so people know where it is so they can plan their life right and so we put them in the calendar we've changed how it shows up there so that it makes sense folks are still confused about it so I'm going to show you the calendars here in a minute um but we finally they're in the calendar and they they areal days students and faculty are still expected to do something on those days but we ask that you get out in nature if you remember me sending you a little video get outside enjoy your families and then share what you did to take care of yourself on that day um so that has been in the calendar uh since then um so and that and that is how we have been honoring the 182 days since then um so on the e-learning days asynchronous learning has to take place students are supposed to be assigned enrichment assignments or assignments they can work on without your support parents so if it's too much you should reach out to a teacher it shouldn't be alive and the kids have two days after they return from the e-learning day school days not the weekend if it's on a Friday two days after they return to submit whatever assignment that was um so they have time if they had a question they were confused they can wait until they get back and they have two days to be given credit for it so it shouldn't be anything strenuous and teachers engage in um professional development requirements that they would have to do anyway but they now they have that found time to to get that done okay so the next slide I think I got everything on that one um so I talked about the seal days of you giving them back and that um was not reflected in the calendar originally but now it is um and I'll show you where it was on the calendars um and then also um if additional closures closes happen happen because we Ed it to days now they're done if we close after this now the next day will be taken out of the three-day weekend for Memorial Day weekend so the 24th of May and then we start taking from spring break backwards the Friday the Thursday the Wednesday now say because we got to stop calling it snow days now folks it could be any event it could be a hurricane a tornado rain the the pump could break at Timberlane again all these things are possibilities right thank you for that Tom Quinn all these things are issues um um any closure after that or say spring break is already gone they go on to the end of the school year and then that that moves graduation for our students which we don't like we don't want to do that and that's why we try not to do that if we can help it because we know that people come from out of town you plan your lives and we got the the date moving so that that's not good um so that's been the tradition since I've been here in hobell you want to go to the next one so here are the calendars this is the one that was um this is the calendar before we utilize the e-learning days this is on theb was on the website up until this morning these orange days are the e-learning days it says right here e-learning and there's a description down here of what that means the snow day that I just told you about the regular old snow day the only thing we have left built in is right here in glue snow day so if we use that this going is going to drop off the calendar so now we're going to show you what the calendar now looks like because we've used those two learning days this is the new calendar that we're that we're going to post make sure it's everywhere and I'm send out with this pack you use them here so now they're gone in the spring grve and over here near the memorial day now what if you've already booked your vacation heing you're going to go on your vacation right we understand that these happen it happens and this is how it is it happens in other districts that don't have and you're going to take your days and the attendance committees in each one of the schools will know that that happened on that day no one's going to get you or ding you for that um you're going to take your vacations because quite frankly those weeks leading into the holidays You all take your vacations right if if you're looking at booking a a flight to Europe or somewhere and you can save $1,000 to take your whole family if you go on Wednesday instead of Thursday you all are going on Wednesday so the teachers try not to do a lot of new things on that week leaning into a break because they know kids are in or out we'll take care of it and we'll make sure you catch you up and you'll be fine and we'll also work with teachers that have made plans um to to make sure that we take care of everyone so these these things happen and we try to remain flexible um but that's what it looks like in the calendar we cannot change any of the 185 day setup now it's part of a contract that would have to be talked about when we negotiate the teachers contract um which is in a year and they would have to agree to it and the board would have to agree to it to come to a consensus that we would will do less um I wouldn't recommend you all do less because what you were doing in this district is um was before its time and other districts now even across the bridge have started doing what we're doing so to go backwards doesn't make sense um how we communicate it it has to be better if we're still confused um so what I will do after tonight is I'm going to share this slide deck I'm going to take the video that was recorded tonight and shave it down to just this explanation and send this out to folks with the new calendars and I'll try to do my best to continue to communicate with you um but I can't promise we won't have other days um if if I'm worried that you're not going to be safe your kids are not going to be safe on these huge buses that my drivers are not going to be safe that my staff commuting here from all over as far up to North Jersey is not going to be safe I'm probably going to air on the side of closing schools which you saw most of us all of us did I think in Mercer County I wasn't going to risk that for a half day with your kids driving and my buses out there I just wasn't um because you have these rural little narrow roads that are treacherous on a good day um and I didn't want that for you um and know that when I make this decision I'm online and on the phone and on zooms all night with my facilities folks with transportation and our First Responders and our burough people and our Mayors when are you going to be able to Salt what's the road conditions like um they're telling me there's five cars off the road right now I'm listening to all that when I'm making the decision and I want to make sure that your kids are safe and I'd rather you be mad at me for me to call it and I didn't need it than me to have somebody out there at risk um so I hope that answers all your questions and please if you have any other questions please feel free to reach out to me and um I think I have that on my last slide my my email address and my direct extension if you ever have a question about any of it please do give me a call and then finally I think I just have something on um the strategic planning because Miss Smith is going to go through all the calendar changes for the next three years or the calendars for the next three years um February 6 will be our first session because we um had to close because of the snow day on Tuesday or the e-learning day um so this first session will be on the sixth all are welcome even if you didn't know RSVP the first time I will have Dr pites send it out again just in case you were able to free up your your calendar and you're able to come everyone is invited you don't have to have kids in the district um so whoever wants to come can come and even if your kids are getting ready to graduate you have something to say as well so please I would love to have you to participate as well it's it's really um going to set the stage for how the district moves forward and um our plans for the next five years out um and there's my contact information if you have any questions about any of that please feel free to reach out to me so does the board have any questions I have just one question I just I really appreciate you sort of laying out um explanation behind the e-learning days I think that was incredibly helpful to see it in that way I think some of the the feedback that I've been hearing is around the volume of work and you mentioned that a little bit sort of what the guidance is but I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about what Guidance the teachers at different levels are getting around how much work and what type of work the student should be getting on e-learning days they're getting the same thing that I just told you and I asked the principles to remind the staff of that um and again if if it's too much please please just have your child stop reach out to the teacher and then again they don't have to turn anything in until a couple days after but I know Miss Riley had a conversation today with her folks um I'm putting a reminder out to the faculty as well it really should be enrichment and something that's not you know crazy you know assignment that they have to do that they wouldn't have to do otherwise so hopefully that's not widespread I know AP and honors gets rigorous but you know but we we have to have that reminder so thank you asking that again okay so [Music] our there we go oh much better so next we have uh January is Schoolboard recognition month and so um we have a resolution to acknowledge January as school board recognition month to acknowledge the service of all the school boards including ours um throughout the state of New Jersey um we have over 5,000 people um that work with school boards and our school board members in New Jersey public schools and they help to ensure the high quality education that we have come to know here in New Jersey and especially here in Hopewell and so I would just like a motion to approve uh the resolution into the minutes all those in favor I anyone opposed or objecting the resolution is uh so moved next we have a budget discussion okay take it away Bob okay this is um going to be just a preliminary budget discussion with some of the dates that the board is going to be looking at things and um a lot of the slides we've seen before but we're just getting the process started so again as we said before we always start everything with the mission statement and we have our new mission statement that we're now working from again just a reminder that everything we do revolves with the mission statement so this is what we're going to be working for this spring uh over the fall we did have three budg budget presentations we talked about cni special education and Facilities those are among our three largest um uh budget drivers um at this point we're meeting with all of our budget Managers from the curriculum f folks to the specialed folks facilities Transportation the principles and their budgets technology um any in all cost owners now we're having discussions with those budget managers um to see what they need and also what they want there's difference needs and wants um to go forward with next year over that time we'll see how it fits in with the state budget cap and whether we need to make any cuts um how much Surplus we we're going to use and we'll get into that um in a minute um February 20th we were going to do this on February 5th but I and speaking with the finance facilities committee last week um the superintendent and her cabinet and her administrative team want some more time to kind of run through these items that we're looking at we don't have state aid information we won't have it until the 29th of February but we wanted to get a budget discussion in um sometime in February so we could give the board kind of an update um of where we are and what we've done to get to that point in time after we receive state aid we'll have a subsequent budget session on March 4th if we need it um to discuss you know anything catastrophic loss in state aid increase in state aid those kinds of things um then March 18th that'll be our formal adoption of the budget to be submitted to the county uh superintendent on March 20th um there'll be a back and forth with those folks over there to see if they are going to require any changes um we've been lucky they have not um they've been receptive to our budgets and have not given us a whole lot of Corrections over the years and then from March 20th area to uh the public hearing the board will have opportunities and the public will have opportunities to make any further comments we can make changes um at the public hearing historically we do not make uh changes at the public hearing but there is the opportunity to make those so kind of late lays out the next three or four months of U work the board is going to be doing looking at the budget so again just where we are we're about 3,400 students in holding we've been holding there for the past two to three years um I'll show you a slide in a minute to show you the trend that's going forward we transport over 2500 students a day uh support eight buildings almost 450 teachers 267 additional staff members 25 administrators and we are an i District Factor group they run from a to J J is the most wealthy we're in the second uh category below that so we are considered a very affluent District by the state of New Jersey what makes us unique Dr T talked about that we tend to do things a little bit different than some other folks well with 182 instructional days but we maintain small schools and small class sizes as much as we can we have an extraordinary number of programs and support services for our students with a highly experienced teaching staff that stays with us we don't have a transient staff we've offered over the years many manyal and mental health supports uh up and throughout all of levels of our instruction um not only for our students but also for our staff and we have again programs that exed State minimums from the Arts and Sciences to the languages to uh Athletics uh and so many other um Services we are still one of the only comprehensive few Comprehensive High Schools left in New Jersey which means that we still maintain a lot of the Practical Arts programs autoshop wood shop we have um Science and Technology things we have robotics all of those things that make us uh what is known as a comprehensive High School some of the things that we value again we've talked about this before but providing as much opportunity for our staff and students as we possibly can from the from professional development co-curricular and sports activities Theater Arts all of those kinds of things that we provide countless uh professional development for our staff um going out and learning things to bring back to the students um as a district we value long-term planning um we are constantly looking out our academic program and making changes um either as directed by ourselves when we think we need to do something better or um by the state when they think that they know what is best for us um we also again planning for staff we try to look outward what kind of Staff members we're going to need um as we move through different curricular areas and and growth or or lack of growth in a in a district and something that Dr Trice mentioned in her in her talk before we're trying and working to provide better and more consistent messaging it's very important is to making sure people understand um what we're trying to do again just a graphical representation of what we do from educating students who are going on to colleges but also looking at the Practical Arts programs folks who are going to go into the trades folks who may want to go into the Arts um and all the different kinds of students that we worked through here um I think that picture over there is our Paul is that your group over there in that far right corner their transitions group so all kinds of kids um and all kinds of Learners we try to support them here in hope well we do a lot of things out there to see how uh the community is looking at us um both from climate surveys graduate focus groups which I think we just completed our first one Dand Stephano did this past year um again our curriculum we look at College acceptance acceptances test scores um any number of the uh online the niche categories and those kinds things we look at while they're not all en encompassing we do like to see how we are rated by those um so we don't just look at one area we're looking at at a lot of different ways to measure the success that we've brought to the to the valley again I'm not going to read through all these but there's any number of honors and achievements that the district has um uh scored over the past several years so getting into the priorities that we're looking at it doesn't much change change um from year to year but we do want what goes into our budget to reflect our values um we don't want to lose any of the programs and services that we've added um we've always said that once a program comes to Hope well it never leaves because we brought it in there for a reason and we want to keep it um we do value with a rigorous academic program we have students who um I think minimally they have to take five academic periods but many of them take six in their in their scour of studies we're going to continue to look at our curriculum and make sure that we're improving the content again class sizes we talked about we have salary and contractual obligations with not only our Contra our uh unionized employees but also our non represented employees as well to keep their salaries and benefits commen with what their experiences are we're going to continue to evaluate all of our programs from technology to transportation and look at ways to U reduce when we can but also to expand when we can and preparing a budget that that prepares us for an uncertain future as Dr Trice mentioned we no longer talk only about snow days we talk about hurricane days and rain day we had a almost had a rain day a few weeks ago where we had a delayed opening because of of the torrential rains that we had and the flooding that it caused in the valley so we're looking at you know even maintaining our buildings for that we just did a major project over at the high school uh to prevent against the hundred-year flood we thought we had done it we lost a black boox there in a gym and we looked at to make changes to that area so that we don't have that same kind of catastrophe happen again so what's driving uh costs this year we put inflation at the very top because that's driving every everybody sees it they see in the grocery store going trying to buy a car going on vacation anywhere you look the prices are higher than you've probably ever seen them um that's affecting us in many different ways not only supplies but also service providers that we're using um and energy all of our energy from electric gas water sewer all of those things are driving our budget the same things that we used to get are now costing 10 15 20% more than they used to Transportation uh are that that line item is largely statutory there's very little uh flexibility within that budget but that's transportation bus renewals are driven on the Consumer Price Index as defined by the state there's no um there's no flexibility there right now the transportation CPI is looking at somewhere between 8 and %. they haven't set a final number yet but 89% right off the bat nothing we can do about those Insurance both the health uh Insurance market and the Property and Casualty Market in addition to workers comp are all increasing in the 15 to 20% range we'll talk a little bit about that more going forward um but some things that we can't that we try to control say our workers comp rates we've um we've been having even accidents if a person has an accident that may not be the cause of the district you think the workers compy think negligence they're not looking the laws have become very liberal regarding that if somebody falls and gets hurt in your buildings it's your fault regardless of whether um they trip on a shoelace that was untied or a wet floor it's still treated the same way and the rates for workers comp have G gone up from 250,00 ,000 five years ago to over $750,000 for that insurance that we are required to carry so again things like that are driving our budget unanticipated facility and maintenance costs have been a huge uh budget driver the last several years Dr tce mentioned that in her speech the well pump that went out we did not anticipate a well pump going out like that um the way it went out and we're looking for as we talk about in the referendum discussion later um adding secondary well pumps so that that doesn't happen again because we know that when people send their kids to school they're sending them here and they're at work they need us to maintain those students while they're gone special education um largely driven by the tuition increases from the private schools that we deal with that are uh State mandated we have a 2% cap they do not they do not um M dardo does what she can to bring students back to our our district where we think that we educate them better um and at a reduced cost but again special education tuition is driving uh increases to our budget staff being and contract settlements we talked about that we're trying to maintain um and maintain employees with with salaries and benefits commensurate to other districts so that they they stay here um curriculum instruction we have many initiatives that we need to drive um through to next year additions to our reading program and our math programs um adding to the programs growth in hopo Township you've all seen that in the papers where there is growth we are seeing growth already we are seeing students coming in from the areas over on bullrun road and on Scotch Road students are starting to come in I mentioned a waiver for health benefit costs we are seeing our health benefits Rising there is some relief in the budget um for health benefit costs we may need to use that to balance our budget coming forward and also the utilization of surplus how much Surplus can we um put into our budget comfortably and what I mean by Surplus is how much money from the current budget will we not spend and push into next year's budget or how much money from our savings we have a a fund balance that we are allowed to keep 2% of budgeted expenditures in a surplus account do we dip beneath that that's something those are the things that the board's going to discussing so this is kind of an interesting slide um you can see in the last five years our our first grade population is is round up between 230 and 235 students on average um this year we've jumped up 272 students in first grade so we're starting to see a movement of students into first grade which obviously will drive we do get a pick up um increase of students from kindergarten you have a lot of students who go to private kindergartens and then come to public school um we're starting to see more students entering first grade than we've had in over 10 years so that's going to drive it our population uh it dropped a little bit this year due to a high uh lower graduating class but we are seeing that level off and we should start seeing our population uh enrollment increase over the next five to 10 years so we kind of hit that bottom area and we're going to start to grow and just a basis of where our money this is last year's budget you can see starting from the top of the chart with Athletics and down to that lower uh leftand part more than almost two-thirds of our budget goes to directly to the students educations the remainder of that are the benefits related to that staff so almost 75% of that budget is going to educate students because our students are educated by teachers and we're a a very human oriented basis that's where our money goes into Human Resources the remainder of the quarter budget goes into our debt service payment which is our mortgage that we have the only mortgage we have left is on the most recent referendum um and other District services such as transportation and facility maintenance folks like to know where the monies come from our budget 92% of the budget is funded with local funding 86% of that is taxes and other monies 5% uh is from Surplus and then the remainder is miscellaneous revenues that we generate we do bring in a few students each year and charge tuition there is a transportation fee that certain members have to pay um in the community and we also charge uh rent to use our facilities my folks but that's only one % of our total budget now our property tax values have um the property tax amount that we've used has dropped um it's gone some more to Surplus which in one way or another you could tie back its property taxes that were unused and carried forward so again the large portion of our budget is funded by local funding we get very little money from the state it's actually less than 1% but it rounds up to 1% but the state has increased its funding a few years ago we were probably down into the four and a half% range from State funding so we have seen some monies come back from the state this is the last year of the S2 law where funding was being taken from some districts and given to other districts we've been a getter so we've received state aid over the past four years we should receive some additional state aid this year um but they don't they don't hint even hint at it uh there's you don't know what you're getting until it comes out on February February 29th so I'm anticipating that funding um will maintain in this these same percentages for the 20124 25 budget and just you know so we can talk about a little bit of the things that we've done to control costs I did mention health benefits was a huge driver in our budget but we have um made efforts to contain it by being a self-insured program we do not pay premiums to a carrier who keeps them if you don't use it we collect and pay out what we need um and anything that is not spent comes back to us to use to C keep costs down in subsequent years so that is that is still working well for us we are well below um what we would be paying if we were in a fully insured program or even the state uh health benefits program we're doing much better than than those organizations um again special education M dardo has done a great job in finding less expensive placements but better instructionally because they are in their home school um here and we will continue to do that as space provides and as she can generate programs to to handle the different types of students that we have um we've done our best to reduce staff and administration based on enrollment we don't just keep um staff members the way they are and find things for them to do um we have reduced when when we have been able to we may be at the end of that area I don't see any um reductions maybe one at the elementary level um where we have uh sections that can be reduced we do start we are seeing students come in both to our elementary middle school and high school at all levels right now so we're going to maintain a a Keen Eye on our enrollment work we do participate in a school choice program where we we we receive about 20 students um at about a $113,000 a student clip that helps to offset um our budget that money goes directly into our budget and we um take those students in from those other districts so it is helped to the tune of about $300,000 over the past five to six years of money that we didn't have to fund for ourselves technology we continue to find ways um as technology grows we have a very um forward-thinking technology staff who finds ways to reduce costs when we can and even in a in a onetoone environment we've moved to less expensive platforms we used to have a lot of Macintosh and Apple devices we've moved them out and moved to a Google environment where a lot of the software comes with the devices and is free to the user and virtual servers and storage have always been a huge issue and we're working on more virtualization to reduce the amount of actual equipment we have to purchase we do a lot of Cooperative purchasing um which means that we are with consortiums who bid out large amounts of items for us to use both school supplies office supplies Construction and building supplies all to reduce the cost to the to the taxpayer there by by having these things all professionally bid and we have choices where we can use different co-ops that have different prices and these again encompasses all things from energy to our phone services supplies equipment and techn Professional Services we try to use cops as much as we can and again facilities I wanted to single out uh that department um we do have we have been installing higher efficiency equipment over the years and we have seen a reduction in our energy uses or at least uh energy uses that's that's flattened out because we've been able to install higher end um efficiency models but we've also been able to do a lot of the repairs inhouse um Mr Quinn has talked at meetings before where you know we've got a quote to have I'm going to say an hru unit installed on top of a roof and we get a quote for 15 or $20,000 for a um a contractor to come out and do it we can do that for less than half the price because our guys purchase the equipment can do the installations themselves so that's been you know that department has really helped to keep his costs flat we're looking at a a facilities budget that's been basically flat now for the past 15 years so that helps control that's the end of it right now we don't have hard numbers right now we're still working out the nuts and bolts of it and we'll be you delivering hard numbers to you later on uh this winter but at this point are there any questions from the board budget we I mean I can off the top of my head this we looked at that this afternoon first grade classes sizes are looking anywhere between 19 and 21 right with that oh uh yeah we'd have to pull that up yeah so historically where they were we we haven't we've pretty much been in that same rail we can pull that up no problem but they've been we very seldom have class sizes higher than 22 23 in any level as the H as the houses become built we're going to have to yeah that's just the the getting started you know letting you know where we are and what we're going to be doing and then we'll we'll be back with you um in February to discuss you know where we are and the things that we're looking at either adding or removing as we go forward so stay tuned and I promise we won't show the same slides again be different next time all right I'm gonna call Tom and George up to the front we're gonna have a second pass at our referendum discussion okay so we're gonna get started this is a um reprisal of the essentially the reprisal of the the program that we did back in November U there's some tweaks to it based upon some feedback that we got from the board um and the community the community um for a referendum that we are planning on why is call the original okay we're going to talk about where we are today talk about the process that we're going through the project that we're looking at and the priorities and how we came to those a summary of the costs an expected tax impact and then where the Board needs to move uh going forward so is this working oh there it goes where we are today thank you Bob so where are we today well for some of you have been at the earlier meetings we're planning a referendum for September of 2024 there was a presentation that was made at the November meeting as Bob alluded to earlier we talked about much of this at that time there was a referendum already held in 2015 as some of you may remember but there are still needs that the district has in terms of facilities and some other things have cropped up even since that time and George I'm gonna introduce for a second there just in for those who don't know this is George duthy he's the principal architect on the project um and Tom Quinn was working with us as well he's our director of facilities sorry about that that's my fault for the most of the projects you're going to see later on the state will contribute towards that cost as they did in the last referendum we'll get into those details a little bit later in the presentation we're going to talk about the projects the anticipated cost the estimated tax impact and the timelines that are involved and then we're going to also talk about some of the process what we have to go through in order to be able to submit this project uh in for referendum approval by the state and then conduct that referendum vote so we have categories of projects building Integrity things like Roofing right roof leaks addressing old roofs which creates an opportunity for additional solar in the district by the way indoor Environmental Quality HVAC ventilation there are still equipment and systems in the buildings that need to be addressed and Tom and I will talk about that a little bit later on Safety and Security we have projects like a new fire alarm system at Stony Brook Elementary School and an electrical service at tolgate elementary school which is one of those projects that has come to light since the last referendum was done space for the students program enhancements we'll talk about those some increasing enrollments and a pre- expansion initiative in the district we will talk about what that means and some limited site improvements we'll also discuss those yeah good yeah all right so why are we doing this Project's not done in the last referendum needs identified by the district larger projects that are too expensive to fund through the district's normal budget and savings account the state will contribute to paying for the projects delaying the projects just going to kick the can down the road potentially make things worse we want to get the students out of the modular buildings over at tolgate and Bear Tavern we want to improve services to children with disabilities and this builds upon the district strategic plan which was discussed earlier and so this is sort of moving in the direction of improving those services for the kids right that's really what all these projects are about whether it's approving a system or improving a program that's what these projects are for for the kids prek and K expansion based upon enrollments and other improvements okay and you may say what were the projects that we didn't do in the last referendum we've we've talked about this with many folks before but the last referendum the initial estimate for projects was over 60 million uh the board at that time decided to cut that almost in half um and only do 35 million at that time but those $3 million worth of project didn't go anywhere they stayed there um and those are the they were the start they were the basis for the new referendum the problem was they didn't cost $30 million anymore they almost doubled in cost in that time period so an important point the district does ongoing facilities maintenance I know Tom is going to have to uh tell you about some of the things that the district does with their in-house Crews and their in-house resources but the district is expending those funds they make emergency repairs and Emer repairs and as you can imagine with all the buildings those things come up on a fairly frequent basis but the larger projects again cannot be covered by The District's budget so we're going to talk to you about some of the projects that the district has done inhouse with with their own Crews and with their own resources so we replaced um HVAC equipment uh throughout the district as it fails or is starting to fail uh heating line water line replacement at the admin building this past year we had um a 3inch line break in the crawl space of the administrative building and and we had another line break within the wall of the um between the stairwell and the uh rest rooms so we had to repipe all of that um various sanitary line uh problems that are continuously going on I I feel we snake more lines than anybody does um we've done a lot of electrical service upgrades for um where we moved in timberlan when we uh changed the lunches to just the one uh lunch group so we had to put a second uh satellite kitchen service in for a serving line so our electrician did all that work saving us a lot of money and then we also have had to um remove a lot of dead trees um with with all um ash trees that have died we've had to uh do a lot of tree removal and then also uh where trees were planted in Courtyards merely a foot from the wall of the building and they can grow to 160 feet uh we have to take those out and most of those we um that are like that we did ourselves we also hire out for um some of the major ones and we also on the left side of this slide we have you may ask why is why is did the district delay so much of the maintenance that they did well we did a lot of work um as it came up we but Focus changed there was a time period back where we felt that emergency generators and security vestibules were very much more important at that time we pushed those to the top of the list and pushed off some of the HVAC equipment and and uh roof work we had tons of Paving and sidewalk and we still have more that's going to be in this referendum almost $2.2 Million worth of Paving that we needed to get done um the windows in this building had rotted through and they needed to be replaced we did two boiler Replacements um we had Timber Lane Bear Tavern and Hope Elementary School to almost the tune to3 million so there's been a lot of money um put towards Capital maintenance and the only way to get money for Capital maintenance outside of a referendum is through savings that is generated through not spending appropriated funds there's no money in our general budget to put towards cap big Capital maintenance because it would take away from the educational program and as we're planning capital projects we discuss with Finance facilities each month the different things that have come up and what is in most need and we got to a point where we only had so much money left to deal with and we K we start kicking projects and saying well how far can we push this one the hope well Elementary boilers was pushed almost too far if it had been a cold winter last year we would have never been able to heat the building and keep it open the couple days that we had that were actually very cold we had no heat at all on the top floor of the building so we that project was kicked too long and fortunately we got it up and running for to start a school this year okay and believe it or not the projects that we're putting into this referendum doesn't Encompass everything that we need to do we do have um a modest capital reserve and somewhere in the area of uh $7 million but that is going that is that's difficult that's for for projects that become an emergency later on we do want to keep money in reserve in case those projects that are maybe a little few years out uh not ready right now for replacement we that we have money set aside for those as they come due I wanted to mention that the capital project planning process is always underway here in hopal Valley and we are constantly you know with Tom and District facilities and and Bob and and and the staff looking at projects moving projects into a five-year capital projects plan and re-evaluating the priorities every single year and adjusting the costs so this is an ongoing process that the district does continuously not just once a year right and the members of my finance committee through by nodding can say you know that we've done that with them for the P there they go have done that with them on a continual basis for probably the last 10 years right um going through you know letting them know what is going on and how they're being planned to be fixed so projects Pro projects and priorities it's okay Bob the Central High School just going to go over the projects that are planned in the referendum this information is going to be available um along with the referendum publicity information but at the high school roof replacement of remaining roof areas uh we still have HVAC to do in particular the 400 Wing the science Wing that HVAC equipment is Obsolete and improvements can be made some pieces of it are failing that's right and parts are hard to come by we have a plan to do a concession stand restroom building to make uh the football stadium Athletic Complex uh barrier-free accessible and to uh have better serviceability by creating those facilities to concession stand and the restrooms so some folks uh might recall that the these areas down in blue in the lower right um we used to call that the new gym and the new gym is now over 20 plus years old now so the roof the original roof there is now needed to be replaced but you know we still have called at the new gym for the past several years a lot of work was done on Central High School in the last referendum as you all probably know so Timberlane again Roofing there are selected areas you can can see them here indoor environmental uh improvements most of that is uh to to take care of the the larger classroom Wing in the back and uh replace that ATAC equipment which right now is Obsolete and really not functioning well again being repaired by District in have house staff on a regular basis to keep it operational and then we're going to add air conditioning to the ox gy which is the only gym the only space really in the district that doesn't have air conditioning right now we're going to do some uh improvements to the site we're going to improve the main entrance to timberlan going to uh aesthetically improve that make that more serviceable uh and the synthetic turfield at aft yeah that the um entrance there at um Timberland if you see that picture on the far right that Tower the bricks are actually falling off of that um got up there on the lift and pulled off the ones that were loose trying to prevent a trategy or anything but it's something that needs to be addressed the and the the as you can see on the middle picture there's pavers and concrete and they've deteriorated to the point where it is uh a constant tripping Hazard and as Bob was talking about before with um insurance cost and everything it cost more to uh for a claim than it does actually repair these things this why we want to get these in the referendum so Bear Tavern again Roofing projects uh HVAC systems in various areas of the building particularly the larger core spaces that equipment is obsolete we're going to replace classroom doors in the main classroom PODS of bar Tavern Elementary School with security glazing security locks we're going to construct an addition at Bear Tavern School 10 classrooms prek classrooms we're going to relocate all of the services and the kids that are located in the modular right now in the Modular Buildings into this new addition uh including a very robust uh special services department for the kids uh for the kids with special needs okay so that's going to be moved into the new addition of Bear Tavern much more accessible closer to those classrooms closer to those kids who need those Services right we're going to prepare that building have receive a future second floor it's correct yes absolutely that's correct yes yes looking out Beyond it's hard to look Beyond five years but based on what we're seeing you're right right correct we're trying to plan smart yeah are we incre the the the most we expect the most influx of students into the bare Tavern zone right okay and then some other sore again infrastructure improvements the sore pumping station for example and we're going to uh improve the staff entrance to the building as well so this is the be Tavern addition you can see it's going to be added to the back of the building where it's going to be attached and you can see the Modular Buildings they're going to be remain they're going to remain in place uh work was done on those they are serviceable and so they will be used for district offices um non-student facing departments and storage okay the the other reason why we're keeping them as George mentioned we have done uh some considerable work on them um so that they are viable buildings but it would also it's also going to give us the opportunity to Stage the work where we won't have to put um transfer those students elsewhere while the new Wing is being built those students will be able to stay in those uh spaces until the new spaces are ready and this is just a a schematic drawing of what the new addition on be tavn proposed to look like and you can see some of the layouts some flexibility in some of the rooms we've added some space some faculty toilets gender neutral facilities and things like that have been added into this addition as well and uh two classrooms on the end shown option are actually going to be included in the plan so we are going to add those classrooms at this time we do think there would be a need to have those so they're included in the cost that I'm going to show you oh just the functions those are just key different colors for different functions yeah the prek rooms the the CST spaces uh The Faculty offices and the support spaces okay so Hope Elementary School school here again we have uh some Roofing work replacement of exterior doors which is also a project that's contemplated at be Tavern elementary school as well uh again uh HVAC this is uh the completion of the HVAC project that's been started already at hopa elementary school remove removal of the old steam boilers replacement with hot water boilers we're going to convert the building to hot water the remaining portions of the building to hot water should increase Energy Efficiency security project as well classroom doors again and we're going to take two of the existing kindergarten rooms which have U non ADA Compliant Compliant toilet rooms and make those ADA Compliant and with the door Replacements a lot of the doors are original to the um building itself so in the older part the doors are um a good 50 60 years old in the primary Wing they're uh pretty close to 50 years old they're not um fire doors or fire rated and the exterior door Replacements are where the um doors have deteriorated and they swell in in when the Sun hits them and then they don't close property and that creates a security issue Stony book Elementary School some Roofing again you can see again exterior door Replacements those doors believe it or not are also at the end of their life cafeteria HVAC equipment we're going to add a chiller uh to compensate for sub degradation in the geothermal system that is at that school believe it or not those Wells are now over 20 years old and they do degrade over time we're going to correct a slight drainage issue over there so and um those are the projects really place for Stony Brook it doesn't need a whole lot of work but it it does need some attention so Stony Brook will also have some work done tolgate is next yeah right that's an example of a project that district is going to support with the local funds uh because of concerns of the condition of the fire alarm system so Tollgate Elementary School again Roofing exterior doors we're also looking at HVAC improvements here on the third floor of the old building to uh improveed ventilation and air conditioning and heat there uh replacement of electrical switch gear the service the whole building at the same time enlarge that because we're going to be building an addition on the school as well with six prek classrooms we're going to demolish the uh the uh modular buildings that are on the side we're going to expand that parking lot provide more parking head- in parking and better access around the site okay so those are the plans for togate yes yes sure yes yes very narrow yep yeah so that's a great point we we are going to make we will completely connect around the building which will allow access for emergency vehicles completely around the addition which is ideal and eliminating that choke point you have when you try to turn off that front driveway into that side parking lot we're going to widen that and make that much better moving those modul will give us that opportunity to do that so this is the addition proposed for togate smaller than the one at Bear Tavern but again you can see the pre rooms in there again smaller bathrooms or adding some bathrooms at tolgate there's a lack of uh small individual toilet rooms at tolgate we're going to we're going to add some of those and we're going to add also U A Faculty workroom at tolgate elementary school as well okay to in this area of the building and repurpose the existing faculty work room so how much is it all going to cost bottom line $ 87.5 million I always said that first but you can see the breakdown by School uh you can see the re Rehabilitation projects okay which are the non new construction projects not the additions and you can see the bulk of the work is Rehabilitation projects and then you can see on the right column the cost anticipated cost of the new construction now these numbers are pretty solid there's still one more step in completing this process we have to fill out all the cost estimate forms with the Department of Education that will determine the final final amount it should be very very close to this number okay George so tell why why did you keep the parts for them the the second column the addition renovation Pro great question Bob I was actually get that the next slide but um okay actually should go back just for a second so in that leftand column Rehabilitation projects what are they these are they're projects at the state will pay up to 40% for if they're eligible and most of the rehabilitation projects are eligible on the next slide I'll show you what we're expecting to be eligible for State support now for new construction okay the addition portions the new construction the formula is different the state still pays 40% but they pay 40% of a prefixed believe it or not $143 a square foot so new construction now pushing $600 a square foot even $700 a square foot it's a very small number usually comes to about perc of the project or so I'm going to show you that calculation uh when we get to the next uh page okay very little I think very little of this project uh uh will be supported by the funding from new construction for the district because you have to have what are called unhoused students which are students that cannot be uh housed in the building under its existing capacities okay moving on here are the numbers estimated numbers again grand total all projects 87,500 th000 and just overall we expect about 57 750,000 57 m750 th000 to be eligible about 66% of the overall costs we expect the state therefore will pay overall and again this this includes you know what I was saying about the new construction not really getting much of a contribution so $23 million so about 26% % of the project cost will be paid for by the state which is actually better than I thought it was going to be so that's good so 74% of that 64.5 million will be what we call local share the portion that the district has to pay on its own and just to be clear the state doesn't give you the money up front they give it to you over the life of the bond so if we Bond the full 87.5 million we will get a bond payment they will pay us a portion of each Year's Bond payment so it's called debt Debt Service Aid and you saw that actually on the budget and that is the amount of money the state contributes towards Debt Service Aid every year in the budget it's a part of the budget process so the elig the exact eligible costs are going to be determined by the Department of Education we won't really know that until we receive the approvals from the state then we'll know what the state will deem to be eligible and we'll have those final numbers it's an estimation okay best guess more details to follow we expect the tax impact I guess his number still right Bob between 500 and 575 dollars a year per household uh the average household being $500,000 right assess value $500,000 that number will be further refined more work to do with the financial people on that once we finalize the numbers that go into the state the uh tax impact is based on a 20-year Bond it will vary by municipality and it assumes that home values remain stable okay and average home values vary by Town depending on which town is sending to opal Valley uh and interest rates remain stable so we're hoping for us by the time we actually go out to bond the money the interest rates will drop they are now right actually we should p a five actually we had expected 20% it's actually 26% so I think we did definitely did better on the estimated State share based on our projections so going forward next steps we have to finalize the referendum and submit everything to the Department of Education um that will be done around February sometime in February we'll have that those submissions made we'll get our doe approval in June or July of this year and then the Board of Education will vote on approving those projects and then we have to notify the clerk of Elections there will be of course an engagement and publicity effort that will be taking place to support the project so there's going to be a lot more information coming later on and then conduct that referendum on September 24th that is September 24th 2024 and you can see below the timeline of where of all of the key events so as you can see it is a very long uh and drawn out process um by the state the state requires a lot of forethought and planning um and early submission to make their deadlines a lot of work goes in which are basically statutory I think that's that's it so more to follow thank you from the board I have a quick question um I'm not sure who can answer this um the students in our Modular Buildings currently in Bear Tavern and togate what classes do we have um scheduled hi so at Bear Tavern um we have um preschool classrooms so we have uh preschool dis disabilities class which is two full day programs for just children and there with IVs and then we have um general education Peach programs threeyear olds in the morning four year olds in the afternoon we also have OT and PT Services we have a Rob in the trailer for that as well thank you togate togate we have child study team office and I believe we have no prease in the building I and we oh no we do we have a prease we have a peach class there and we also have a resource room of all I was on the finance committee all of last year I'm chair now for the community I do want to say when we went into this we asked the administration to well we specifically asked Tom and B and said give us the things that will break not a likely to break not you think need to be fixed but will break and um when they break they will cause problems and that's the largest chunk of it right right then there's additions that we knew we would have to make because of where the enrollments are going so um I'll have a couple of comments but I don't want those to kind of model the fact that 90 I I mean there are no bells and whistles here and if there are any they're they're very very small I don't know what's left idiomatically if you take BS that's what's um that being said a couple of questions about the presentation so one thing we mentioned compared to the original presentation there were two projects taken out one we mentioned was the Stony Brook fire alarm and the other one is right so those were planned and we basically got to a point where we can't wait for this to go through which and and get bonded and get bonded so we're bonding those out of capital right yeah it's timing we we had hoped that we could push those projects off to be part of um the referendum it's just not the fire alarm needs to be taken care of but we also um one of the other reasons we took the Central High School boilers out was we did get a grant for that project that's going to fund the same 40% that the referendum would have so we're going to use our capital reserve money to fund those boilers because as Tom was alluding to they are starting to fail there's a panel of boilers there's smaller boilers um yeah and they're starting to fail so we figured because we got a grant we have some money in our capital reserve we'll take that out and get it done um sooner than later now the state is is again in their whatever the way they do it they've told us they've given us the grant but they haven't issued the contract yet so we can't do anything until they give us the contract um which we we think they're holding um until they know that people can't do the work over the summer and they can hold the money for another year and collect another round of interest on so we were hoping to be able to do it this summer we may have to do it through uh next school year during during next school year um so again for the I was calculating right the projects that you said were already done right those were done out of capital reserves not out of the previous referendums I I added up about eight and a half yeah give or take and with these projects we would have about down probably around $10 million of projects out of ENT itially annual budget right because the capital reserves come out of that so we are pressing up now the one project I didn't see mentioned in there and I want to make sure that that's in the numbers the TMS well yes TMS and Bear Tavern and be and for the and for the folks that don't have kids in middle school do you want to explain why that suddenly came about um what happened was the our our well pump um suddenly stopped functioning um on an afternoon and we we ran out of act water in our storage tank even we we have a 5,000 gallon storage tank that was down to a th000 gallons we could not make it through um the next school day but we were enable we were able to um through a lot of phone calls and and recommendations connect with a well company that just happened to have a motor in stock that they could replace with that well it took a little bit longer than we had anticipated because it was stuck coming out of the ground but we got that we got the motor back on and within 24 hours had that well pump up and running and then we have since uh over the winter break replaced the pump itself too because both pieces needed it but the motor was the part that had actually failed and and if and if the Well Company didn't have it in stock what's the lead time I'm just it it was about a week yeah so so that so I just wanted to kind of paint a picture because the number we took some projects out the number has not changed drastically my last comment there was one project in TMS which I do put into the bells and whist category and that's the tur field and my recollection is the last time we talked about it uh we kind of still had it on the list still to be discussed um I don't recall us ever coming back to it either in committee or meeting here I was a little surprised it was on the list of things done I thought the one last time we just nobody said anything about removing it so we left it in uh okay so I have a different recollection I I I'd like for us to still have a discussion sure whether this is something we want to do I know it's not a lot of money but on the other hand it is a big referend we I I I'd like to see us do stick to the referendum being the things that need to be done that and we're redoing um some bathrooms that were not redone in the previous referendum but desperately need to be and if you have children in the middle school you're well aware of the multiple issues that we continue to have there all right I'm I'm I'm all done with comments Mark you excuse me you took a couple of mine find a little bit of a cough right now um yeah I think we should talk a little bit more about the turf field but I do I recollect the conversation to what you guys did not out not yours so we we can we should talk about that some point um I have just a comment he took two of my questions I think just for the public it's important understand that uh at least for me you know I I ran to join the board because of fiscal related items and I think that um we should be very confident that we've got a team sitting in the corner here that's going to be this transparent about this I've said this in the past publicly but this referendum process is going to be long it's going to take a lot of discussion with the community and one of the things that I personally have asked that crew in the corner is that we need to be completely transparent on this with everybody so that everybody knows what we want to do so for two reasons in my opinion one we we need to be able to share the full details and more important 5 years from now when this does all come back to bite us it's going to happen that is going to happen that we at least say hey five years ago we had a plan and you guys decide not to do it um I think or or decided to do it candidly I'm not assuming anything here um I I think the third thing that I would say is as we're thinking about the budget this season um and and not the referendum one one of the things that I would ask the community to consider is as we're talking about transparency and we're talking about the referendum being transparent uh again me being a year into this role running for the fiscal reasons um I didn't know what I didn't know and it's been amazing to see how much we actually don't control when it comes to spending um in the finance committee we argue about a couple hundred, here and there on a100 million budget so I share that only to say I would ask the community let's not assume the worst when we're talking about the budget let's assume that we're all doing this for the right reasons and I think if we take that attitude kind of get through it together right so just wanted to share that kudos to you Bob Tom and the team for just being transparent about this yes I want to thank the team as well because um and I know that some board members have some more things to say but what I do want to say is that you know when um when Bob in the finance committee you know started talking about this and and we decided that a referendum was probably the way we needed to go um listen you know at the this point in my career I could keep limping along with you all and play this game um but I'm going to feel bad if if when I leave this District that list still looks like that um you know this this District shouldn't have schools where you have your little ones out in in portable trailers you shouldn't have that um so these are you shouldn't have roofs you shouldn't have Windows falling out of out out of this this building here um so I was hoping that we can at least get these things going and and if we do pass this referendum hopeful we will um I won't even see the fruits of this these labor the labor that's going to come um but you're going to be set up and prepared for not just the future but to keep this District um the district that wins Awards and draws people to this community and I I would like to have that for you so I want to thank them for all their work and we'll continue to make our rounds we're going to be going to um probably Township meetings we'll go to each School we're going to be meeting with the hvf also um we're going to be going around doing this presentation and showing you in each specific building the work that we've talked about here today and we are taking your feedback because we did have those things as well one last one of my friendly questions I wanted to ask up to clarify because we discussed this in the finance I'm not sure the referendum is should it pass right is a authorization to issue bonds right those bonds only get issued when they're needed as the work requires them right and should a different source of fundings appear somewhere magically for some portion of this then we would simply not need to issue that amount of fund and we don't have to bond all the money do we have to bond the entire amount over a certain amount of time you can do it oh yeah yeah a um generous yes fure yes yeah okay okay one final thing so I would say um based upon what Alex and Mark both said I think there was kind of a misunderstanding I think we heard it in different ways that maybe we have Mr Becker come in February um to discuss it George we have time for that right to make the final that decision on that night um but there was and perhaps the high school principal um to talk about that particular project um it's I don't know that I would consider it a complete Bell and whistle thing I think there is some basis for it and why he requested being put in there but I would rather have him come in and discuss his right the yeah the guy I mean the the basis was to bring the kid kids back from having to be shipped out to satellite practice sites um because of that and giving alternative places to play on site on campus so we can definitely have that discussion prior to um making a final vote just a quick clarification on the TMS turfield is there a cost estimate for it right now of the 26 million that's allocated for TMS so what it would do just for your sake um it takes aft one and two the as you drive up the drive it's the first two fields on the side it'll Turf that whole area and then I'm sorry and then what's the yearly upkeep or what's the down the road costs to replace it yeah like how so how long will it last what do we have to do to it yearly to put in a new field 10 to 12 years is um typical on on the turfield and as far as upkeep it's just a matter of grooming is any other okay thank you so much that was really really um a great presentation and very informative okay any old business no okay so we are going to go to public comment on any items of interest uh members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for a maximum of 3 minutes during this portion of the meeting meeting you are asked to state your name address and municipality in response to your comments the Board of Education May respond or direct the superintendent to do so the board may also opt to take the matter up at a future meeting so that the matter is researched by District administration um Alex will be our timekeeper just so everyone knows when you see the yellow it'll be a 30 second warning and then red is STO uh good evening my name is Joanna MAA and this is about like maybe the fourth um Board of Education that I attend so I wanted to say thank you to all of you and the more constant attendees because it's it's a lot of time um I learn a lot um but I still have some questions um and and the main reason is I remember last year when we that was like maybe my third time attending uh that we lost this stem uh seats and that was very dear to my heart I'm a scientist I work at BR still Myers SB and um so I came and spoke about that and I was very surprised that day because I thought oh I'm going to maybe say something that is going to sway the board and you guys were ready were ready to vote that day so when I'm looking at all the dates that were shared uh by Mr Kavita today I had some questions about the granularity I I heard about a fiscal team uh but in the sense of transparency is there more details in terms of the budget that we would see so if there's changes like oh we're going to cut here or we're going to add there that we could come and speak to you about it uh so that there's time to maybe change people's minds or or or or consider other things that could be done instead of like okay I'm just sharing my comments and it's too late um so I heard a February date but I don't know if this is like very granular sharing with the whole public or if you could speak to that and um and yeah regarding that turfield part of me was taking notes I'm like Oh my kids's not going to believe that there's plans for it to field because I know uh they they had pizza with Mr turo and that was one of the jokes like oh we want a turfield and I'm like come on like can you ask for something more serious that he can actually do um so um so anyway I'll pause um uh in uh the yeah mainly when would you share oh I did have another question um is there consider are is there a minimum number of students in a class um to justify it or would you consider okay well there's only four kids in this advanced class we'll cut that off the budget to allocate elsewhere thank you and I'm sorry I should have stopped you before because I don't think you said your name and address so the next person up oh did you okay I apologize guys should I just start hi um I'm Hannah Williams I live at 217 Hill Street in Pennington um I need to pull up my email I emailed the board members and you Dr tce um on Saturday morning and I'd like us to refocus a little bit to e-learning and the 182 days I I guess thank you for your presentation and clarifying maybe I'm making this too deep but um I'm going to just read my email because it has a few questions that I feel like maybe didn't get fully touched on and then after your presentation I thought of a couple more um I hope this find email finds you well the valley has been chirping and chattering about recent e-learning days and 182 um days in the school year I have two hardworking students in the district a seventh grader at timberlan 11th grader at the high school when Dr Smith was superintendent I protested loudly about e-learning days being introduced to the district um at the time I was in the minority and I obviously lost that battle back then um I have participated in calendar committee meetings when my daughters were younger I definitely understand what a difficult task it was for the calendar committee to represent a diverse community of needs um I know tonight and now after what you just said Miss Moy I'm wondering if that's if this is even relevant but I know that you're going to approve the calendars um for the upcoming three years I'm disheartened again when I saw them to see the use of e-learning days to fulfill the district's 182 instructional school days of learning policy my questions are as follow can you please clarify explain why students need to be slated for 182 days instead of the 180 days State mandate because I guess hope well goes above and beyond and therefore I I guess I'd like more to that answer that didn't feel like a very great answer other than hope well were a bunch of over Achievers maybe and so we have to have our kids two extra days um they're also not recognized by the state so to slip in that question if they're not recognized by the state why do our kids have to have work that then is being graded I have an 11th grader and she had plenty of work that is all being considered for grades otherwise I would have happily have said to her hey don't do it although I don't know if any of you have 11th graders it's really hard to tell a junior not to do her work especially when she's a rule follower so that that doesn't go over well anymore in my house um I understand teacher contracts of working days May differ from the students so this doesn't seem like a valid explanation did the calendar committee and board consider slating March 28th and May 23rd days 181 and 182 as days off unless there are school closures then these would become in-person learning days if the board and committee did consider this what was the rationale for keeping them as e-learning days I've been overwhelming impressed with the district's digital Wellness initiative educational series about substance abuse and supporting our students mental health challenges which is why I am not only confused but also disappointed that the district talks as if they prioritize social and emotional health of the student body yet when I see e-learning days built into a school calendar and two additional school days it is a direct Contrition it's time thank you um I also wanted to give a shout out to miss Pedro so happy to hear anyone else or comment my name is Mason song I live in 68 Stanford Road East Pennington New Jersey and I'm a fifth grader at Stony Brook Elementary School I would really like to bring back the stem programs for Stony for all the elementary schools and the middle schools and high school so I like I I used to enjoy many things in stem including the 3D printer project in third grade when I I was in third grade and the cowy dissection in fourth grade the third grade project taught me how to like use my imagination and I got to see many things that I could create with my own imagination in fourth grade the Cai dissection did help me with a lot of things I learned how to describe many body parts of the eye the parts of the eye and it it really helped me to like know how it functions and yeah I would really like to bring back stem for all of them all of the all of the schools in this District thank you hi my name is Marcus Young I live in 69 Stanford Road East my brother Mason told me about cool things from stem that were really interesting to me and I was looking forward to a lot of them and then when I heard that that stem was taken away I was really disappointed so I like really want stem back [Applause] good evening while I appreciate the thorough PowerPoint presentation about e-learning days and introdu I'm oh sorry Kate ham Pennington while I appreciate the thorough PowerPoint presentation about e-learning days and snow days which should now be denoted as school closure days the disconnect still exists I heard you state that the staff contract includes 185 days to my knowledge no one has asked to alter that number the state of New Jersey requires students to attend 180 days of inperson learning yet hope well policy or protocol dictates 182 days why the additional days is it because the plethora of half days throughout the school year can't accommodate them can curriculum not be taught and requirements fulfilled on 180 days or is it because it's always been that way for many years the idea of e-learning now looks very different than it did in 2016 the cost of groceries and bills has increased the struggle to seek meaningful employment exists the level of stress for each individual has increased some drastically staff students and families have endured a worldwide pandemic the mental health of our youth is is at a level of extreme concern and requiring urgent attention taken from an October 2023 time article filled with research this new world has taken a toll on us teenagers if the Staggering data on adolescent mental health has any indication in 2020 16% of us kids ages 12 to 17 had anxiety depression or both a roughly 33% increase since 2016 according to an analysis research group the following year so 2021 4 32% of us high school students said they felt persistently sad or hopeless this is a concern if staff are required to fulfill 185 days is there a reason that the two built-in days cannot be utilized for staff to complete necessary PD while supporting the mental health of Youth and families by not assigning work neighboring school districts build a calendar 180 days for students and 185 for staff without requiring students to participate in online learning during school closure the digital Wellness initia in this district is proudly supported and it seems contradictory by having our students Tethered to devices on school closure days while I heard you Dr Tre state that students have two days to complete work after returning that doesn't work at the secondary level upon return to imperson instruction continues and if a student utilizes the time you indicate they remain behind causing an elevated level of stress and anxiety since the new calendars for the next three years are on the agenda for approval this evening I would ask you Dr trece and you board members to consider the following questions are the decisions made in 2001 and 2016 still meeting the needs of our students families and staff members are the calendars as they are presented supporting the mental health of our students and in line with our digital Wellness initiative are you willing to make a motion to engage in public discussion regarding the implementation of e-learning versus inserting School closure days without work for students which Fosters and supports a positive home setting while fulfilling students academic requirements and as Maya Angelo said when you know better you do better thank you good evening my name is Alis yakis I live on um westc Boulevard in hopal Township I'm not sure if any of you saw the recent article published in November regarding the top 30 most expensive school districts in New Jersey while hrsd placed number 11 out of the top 30 most expensive some of our neighboring districts such as Montgomery and West Windsor didn't make the top 30 30 list and Princeton placed at number 20 so we are outpacing them in this spending competition that is not a good thing according to greatschools.org a central high schools NJ SLA assessments placed us below the state average for geometry and algebra so how can we be just shy of the top 10 most expensive school districts in the state and have below average testing results in addition taxpayer dollars are going towards amazing programs like exceptionally able and pltw um yet we can't seem to figure out how to get the students in both of those classes at the same time so they have to drop on and take art um so what's the point of taxpayer dollars paying for these programs if you can only get three kids into one of the programs I'm sincerely concerned for the fiscal and academic responsibility to the students and as well as taxpayers for this community we can do better or at least spend less money in the near future we are expecting an influx of many more students due to the Township's housing projects and the financial burden for this future growth should not be placed on the current taxpayers I think it's safe to say that no one here wants a property tax increase poel Township received money monetary benefits from the pilot program tied to the new housing and how is this money going to be used to support our growing School District that's our responsibility to work that out in the school district current is the school district currently working with hle Township on a plan to improve the school infrastructure timberlan has unmaintained grounds with overgrown Landscaping outdated facades crumbling ash trees in the perimeter of the property along with um a road gutter that's in the South timberlan Drive that cars nearly pull their bumpers off every day after school because there's no place to park so the parents make their own lot in the grass and then almost pull their front bumper off as they're pulling out with their kids in their car and some people have really nice cars to do that it's a shame um so it appears there's a lot of work that needs to be be done academically financially and um especially if we're planning for growth and I'm just wondering if there's a team of people involved in what the future looks like for acquiring some of the pilot program money and how that's going to be utilized to help put the bill for this because the taxpayers shouldn't have to do it thank you thank you for good evening my name is Christine Rule and I'm From Hell Township I'm here to talk tonight about the unexpected vacancy for the school board seat um for those of you who are listening who are not aware and I'm surprised it wasn't brought up today but uh Andrea driver stepped down at the January 3rd board reorganization meeting before being sworn in Miss driver just ran for re-election in November and she won as a result of this unexpected vacancy the board and not the voters will decide who takes her place I understand that there are circumstances that come up but this has happened now two years in a row and both times very soon after the election when this happened in December of 2022 the board president stepped down midterm and we saw this process play out the board selected Pamela Lilliston even though John slotman received 177 writing votes during the November election it is extremely difficult to find 177 people to write your name on the ballot and it shows that John had a lot of supporters John applied for that vacant seat back in 2022 but the voters intentions were ignored and the seat was given to miss lilon who made no effort to run for the board seat in 2022 which was just a month or so prior to this happening she did not have not she did not have one single right in vote that year I checked fast forward to 2023 John slotman ran as did alen mataki and they both received thousands of votes and a Leen lost to Pamela by an extremely small number votes I pray that if aen or John decides to apply for this vacant seat that the voter's intentions will be considered of utmost importance aen and John are both outstanding people who spent a lot of time money and effort running for the board this past November next Monday the board will interview all interested candidates um and I hope that you will listen to the public and consider our wishes um I had a couple questions um um why would you choose someone else that was subjectively picked who didn't come who didn't care to run over a person with the highest votes if you truly want the community's voices to be heard I strongly urge you to listen to the voters in this decision if community members want to speak their minds to the board before next Monday's interviews um who should they contact if they want to like send an email or something and what is the format for next Monday is it open to the public what time will it be um um if you could just little explain a little bit about that I'd appreciate it thank you thank you anyone else for public comment seeing none public comment is closed I um could I get the board secretary to respond to miss rules first before I go into the other um items one started you know the process why they the process will be that there'll be an open public meeting starting at 6:30 on Monday people are welcome to watch we've asked that the candidates um not attend so that the process is maintained that's what we did last year we had the um we asked the candidates who weren't up yet to not arrive until it was their time they could stay afterwards if they wanted to but again yes it starts at 6:30 and anybody's welcome to attend and the the reason why the board interviews instead of picking the next one is that's a process that's part of our our part of the part of the state process that's part of the state process so when you know you have someone resigned before uh the end of their term the board gets to interview and select who that person is next they don't take the they don't have to take the next person they can interview and open it up for maybe other people that didn't want to run that didn't know to run or was thinking about it it opens up the process at that point so we are following the state guidelines for that any other questions and um we will be interviewing them um next week start yeah starting at 6:30 well it's the board's decision so would you like to receive those emails to the board email address or and if I get those I will forward them to you as well yes yes I I bring them on yes we want to hear from absolutely okay oh I got have to ask some more of these okay so for um for all of my stem questions we do have stem facilitators back in the um budget for next year again I took a pause we didn't save any money for what we did last year by um kind of pausing the stem facilitators I added um math teacher leaders and I added language arts teacher leaders and because of the work that they've been doing we've already seen growth in math and language arts with they the um teacher leaders have not only been supporting the kid the uh teachers instruction in the classroom we have strong benchmarking in place now we're re-evaluating our math programs we are re-evaluating our English programs based on the new Math and Science standards and what we know about the science of reading so that work has been tremendous and we're bringing back the stem facilitators next year probably because these two young men came up here and talked that's even more reason to do it so that's going to happen um the um Elementary schedule we have a committee working on it right now and part part of that plan is the elementary exploratory which every child will experience which will be consistent in every building K through five and you will um we'll be doing the uh climate change standards we'll be doing food sustainability work in those classes and also the tech the technology pieces will be happening in those classes and we were going to be taking a steam approach because you already see the great work that we're doing with combining the Arts and and some of this work we're doing with stem um so that part will be also you know some of that social social studies programming will be absorbed in that stem program as well so we're very excited about the work um that the stem facilitators the new stem facilitators will bring and there'll be one in each building um again the 182 days is is the way that the district work and it's contracted contractual um having the kids work on those two days is a larger board conversation that will happen I guess we can put on the agenda genda for the education program committee um to look at um but in but as far as the contract's concerned that that's can't change until the negotiations happen the 185 days um when I was in Trenton we went longer than 180 days because City kids needed it I don't know that um I I guess I'm worried that our kids can't handle two days of e-learning and we got to send them out into the world U so I that you know I'm not sure um that it is the strain that it that that um we're we're concerned that it is I don't want it to be strenuous though so I think maybe an approach before we just throw the baby out with a bath water is to look at making sure we're very clear about the assignments that should be assigned and they should not be causing the kind of this uh stress that I'm hearing that it's causing um but these are things that again the board is up to the board and um I'm definitely open to whatever the community and the board ask us to do and we will put that on the agenda for edcom program committee and probably should talk about it as as well um and then ultimately it has to be personnel and the negotiation committee to talk about what happens moving forward um after we're going to change what we're requiring of our Educators here in the district um so I that was one of the other questions um I think uh the scheduling issues was also came up um I know that there's times when students have conflicts when they try to schedule something um I I don't you know I I know that uh we have a lot of electives that we offer at the elementary at the middle school and the high school level at the secondary level there will always be times when kids try to schedule something it's going to be a conflict I don't care how much money we spend how many teachers we have that happens at the at every high school that's going to happen at the college level when they go um we do our best to try to make sure that doesn't happen but um it's very difficult especially since we offer all the choices that we offer it's tough you can only do so many uh permeations of scheduling before something runs in a something else it's very tough to to try to to do that um but I can say that you know though we and and we shared our budget here how the spending um happens in this District we're very fiscally responsible we spend based on what you all the public want and a lot of that is tied to this class size that we enjoy here which is unheard of in other districts and that adds staff and that adds salaries and health benefits which is a major portion of our budget so when a class class creeps up to 24 25 which someone asked what's the class size cap we try to stay under 24 on average we're hovering around 19221 or but when we go up to 23 24 I start getting calls the board start getting emails you all get very unhappy we have to add a teacher right and then adding a teacher adds to that that bottom line so a lot of this is human resources a lot of our budget um so as long as that's a value that the community has that's that's going to drive a lot of our cost something else that drives our costs Dr tce is that our schools are relatively small compared to um what Montgomery and West Windsor have that was two examples West Windsor typically has and Montgomery has low per pupil cost because their buildings are seven and 800 people that's two buildings for us so it's the maintenance and the upkeep and the administration on two separate buildings adds up in that way but we we are running neighborhood schools in there not in a lot of ways um there was a class minimum size um ask um we we don't run a class with four kids in it anymore we very the board has had us for years audit our classes if the class size is small we collapse a class we cancel classes we don't run the classes um does it always equate to getting rid of a teacher probably not you might have to cut a course it may be not be enough to get rid of a whole teacher but we have the high school principal and the Middle School principal audit every class and those that are under subscrip cribed we either eliminate or we do something else which is what we did with the um the the um home economic classes that we had we revamped those because they were under enrolled or we eliminate them so we do monitor the the bottom end of that um as well and we don't run classes that that are under under um size the pilot program um we have been in communication with the Mayors with the township with the township Council we don't control any of the funding we can't make them give us any of the money we are still in conversation with them about that um but I don't have a number that they will that they they're saying they're going to give us this amount and nor do I have control over it I mean I can continue to meet with them we will continue to meet and have conversations but that is a Township decision that um we really can't um force them to make that decision did I miss any others okay all right thank you thank you okay so now we are going to move on to our consent agenda um I need a motion to accept the consent agenda motion I'll second Dr L motioned any questions no all those in favor I anyone opposed or abstaining okay motion carries we are first committee is uh finance and Facilities all right so I think we covered a lot of the stuff that we talked about we spent a lot of time on the referendum uh we talked about the timing I think Bob mentioned we're going to eliminate the February 5th working section uh but felt that the administration team is not going to be ready um I think the board members or in the committee we happy to have one less meeting uh and then what we're going to do on I'm not sure you mentioned this Bob but uh we were going to propose and I guess we'll get to during the calendar discussion start with February 20th meeting early at 5:00 pm. and then I guess start with a working session on the budget um and then the rest of the timelines you shown regular facilities update should I start on the higher Noe or end on a high node let's start with good news the good news is we went through a period of a couple of storms a fairly cold spell and we've had no issues related to those um that's a good one um um and then a couple of other things that are going on I think the most significant is we have a new sewer issue at TMS uh there is a potential to replace as much as 100 ft of additional sewer line um this is old uh galvanized pipes silver line that when he described the issue it it's it's pretty clear that it's just uh and and it is under the building so that's going to have to be done um I think the plan as Tom described it is to kind of model through until the summer get this started and the summer the challenge with this one is he is concerned that we will not be able to complete all of this work the issue with this one is it runs through a classroom yeah we may have to do it pieces yep so we'll we'll we'll need to make some backup PL there uh there are some waterline issues in bar Tavern AR um and I think they're looking at it I at least I don't have any more details in my notes and the H back work at opal Elementary is still not completed the chiller still going in um the hope is to have it in by April well have it in and operational by April so that it's up front in May should we need it the the H the HBC issue hope us is a control issue it works but we can't control oh yeah that we can't control remot what we want do but it works okay and that's about it and then I need to see I don't think we have I think all the items were on the consent agenda so questions tomatoes to throw tomatoes okay okay a personnel oh I hope my voice stays with me here all right um okay so a couple items for tonight first and foremost we're going to be celebrating some retirements uh both who' have been with the district for a long period of time you're going to see on the agenda Vincent G and Bonnie Brown 1995 and 1999 respectively so thank you for that we're also excited to talk about some permanent appointments on the agenda uh Miss Lori and Miss pigram uh for the roles there so we're very very excited about that as well uh we talked a little bit in committee about this memorandum of agreement uh between ourselves hopeall Township Police Department and Pennington Police Department um the real three big changes to that memorandum of agreement that we finally were able to execute with them has to do with some of the new laws with marijuana usage um items related to body camera usage and also this concept of Handle With Care um we're going to be talking a lot more about the calendar uh so I'll let U Miss Smith uh be able to take the mic on that one um there's some other items in here on the agenda around some sidebar agreements again related to calendar which you guys can read about which we'll talk about and then last but not least um we made some updates to some job descriptions in our Tech and our network administrator side uh of the district uh those are revamped to more of the 2024 what the need is thank you very much and um we're not going to be taking any action on that today but these are in here for us to be able to talk about as a board and to the public any questions uh I do have a question you said handle with K and I have no idea what that is Miss Smith if you want to take that away I'll I'll take that one all right so handle it with care is something that um was started a few years ago um every time something happens at a home where the police are called typically after hours um and it involves one of our students from any of the school R I'm sent a form it doesn't tell me the specifics of the nature of the event just that the police were involved with something in the household and a student was involved uh that way I can share with the building principes who could then share with the counselors if need be we don't know the incident that occurred again it's just to make sure that we can check in on those students and provide them any support that they might need I need a motion for a roll call vote on the items under Personnel Dr Liston yes Dr Lou Mr Peters yes Dr Resnik yes Dr Wilson Dr genovas yes motion carries education program thanks yeah so we talked about a number of items in our last education um committee meeting uh Miss Lis Botwin the supervisor of word languages proposed adding a Latin honors four course currently we offer honors three and and the AP Latin course adding this mid level will be um uh offering additional opportunities for our kids to learn Latin language and and this will also be a staff neutral decision as we already have teachers teaching this course um two additional proposals from Miss Balwin were um for our district to participate in the AP Spanish exam our cultural committees pilot and also a waa pilot for the first one um the idea is for us to get to know more about the new performance tasks as um the uh assessment committee sometimes rolls out new um assessment formats and a benefit for our students to be part of the pilot program is for us to understand what those new assessments are um and for the WEA pilot waa is wi is a Consortium in assessing English language proficiency uh it's quite popular and used in 48 states um it's normed and they have a curriculum for this particular change their um access kindergarten um assessment is going to expand their language assessment from uh assessing two skills to four skills and again the benefit is for our students to get the uh first access to this newer test um and then in in a couple of month uh Miss Lewis is going to give an overview of the language offering in our districts and uh um how we're doing the language area um a big chunk of um the last education committee time would spend on a presentation from Miss Jessica uh basla a physics teacher and uh Natalie Ville a senior high school students uh who was just admitted into Princeton University um they talked about the research they did on sixth grade math placement uh review the impetus for their very thorough research um is really because there were concerns uh expressed about the current placement test and score use for example there is a uh 95% cut to allow students to go into higher level math courses and the current setup almost makes it impossible for some students to um learn geometry at eth grade which had significant impact on students college application and we know there is abundant research showing the level of math preparation and students college success and even their earning Powers down the road as they're in the workforce so the idea is really for us to look at new ways to change the current placement and also to change the um assessments and the score you use um metrics so we can expand the pathways for our students to get into higher level courses um the research was very impressive they they did a lot of analysis looking at the current test the test content and corations and also the performance by gender ethnic groups um and then uh Mr Steve wilin followed up with some next steps discussion um one of them is about revamping the math placement test um in into sixth grade by looking at both the assessments and um bring in additional measures right now is 80% looking at the um test results and 20% um teacher evaluation and then we could also look at the criteria for placement into seventh grade math for example currently the 95% um cut off is very arbitrary we could look at the impact um on how many more students we could bring to higher math classes by lowering it to 80 or 85 or 90 so that's some analysis to be done and then um also we can look at exploring options for professional development uh for implicit buyers in the stem classroom so we encourage students of all backgrounds to um really enjoy the stem classes and be given the opportunities they they could have um so that's pretty much it I wonder if because I had to leave early I wonder if my uh fellow members had anything additional yeah that's very very thorough thank you um just two more small items F that discussion one is we also discussed um making the waiver policy clear uh to folks and then Mr Wii uh committed to coming back to us in the March meeting with some some specific recommendations both for what you recommends to be done in the short term and then because there's some shortterm things that can be done and um then there are some longer terms things which he may potentially recommend so for the folks in the community and I know we've had a couple and speak to us who expressed concern about the current setup of the program um will hopefully have some specific things thank you uh Community viations okay okay um and then seal also did not have a meeting but um that's what I was going to say I had to cancel unexpectedly because I was dealing with a student issue today so we're going to meet hopefully in the next next week um anything on climate action no no okay um so policy is next okay so the policy committee did meet we met on Wednesday January 17th and because it was our first meeting of the calendar year we definitely spent the early part of the meeting just resetting around the purpose of the committee as well as the procedures for the committee um we revised two policies policy 0131 bylaws policies and regulations as well as policy 2270 religions in the school um which will be up for first reading in just a few minutes um we also reviewed two additional policies uh the co-curricular activities policy and the uh activity participation fee program and this was really to ensure that we're in compliance with the New Jersey Department of education's comprehensive Equity plan statement of assurance um so under NJ Doe's comprehensive Equity plan the district has to confirm that we're in compliance with all codes laws and regulations that govern equity and education so this was review was really part of that Assurance process um so the first one co-curricular activities essentially defines what extracurricular activities are the purposes behind them and guarantees equal access to school facilities for all activities that meet this definition um it also lays out the process for how new extracurricular activities can be developed and approved and the basic guidance around the eligibility standards um and the second one was the activity participation fee which we do not currently have in place but it does allow the district to charge a fee for student participation in athletic and co-curriculum ular activities um should it be needed so the committee was recommending no changes to either of these policies at this time um so you won't see these up for first review um but we do have uh two policies that are up for first reading so can I please have a motion and a second to move policies 0131 bylaws policies and regulations and 2270 religions in the schools up for first reading motion okay thank you um so the first policy that we'll look at is 0131 which is bylaws policies and regulations um the committee did have some revisions to the specific policy the purpose of this policy is to really assis assist the Board of Education in bylaw policy and regulation management so it's very process oriented um and the latest revision to this policy was made in April 2009 so the current current revisions are really seeking primarily to align the policy language with what we have as current practice um 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 the distribution of policy online through board docs because we're not really using that paper manual anymore um and we also added language indicating that board members welcome feedback on policies and our regulations from members of the school Community um last I do want to draw a folks attention to the first page where it says select one option below in bold um basically the proposed revisions provide an option for the board to abolish a bylaw policy or regulation at one meeting or to not proceed in that way um the committee did not select this option uh 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 meaning that will will suggest that a policy be abolished there will be sufficient time for discussion there will be a month to get feedback and then at next meeting that's when the policy will be abolished so this will ensure that the bo board always has at least one month advaned notice for input and discussion um just note here that the policy does provide that policies bylaws and regulations can be adopted revised or abolished without prior notice under emergency circumstances so it wouldn't require that month wait if an emergency circumstance were to arise so does anybody have any questions feedback or Bob please jump in the way that happens is the board would vote we've done this before when an emergency you vote to suspend the rules yeah and you vote to suspend and then you adopt the policy change on an emergency basis it's very seldom used but we have used it I think we used it around Co when we had to do something um right away so any comments or questions about that quick question for um you made a comment in the beginning about a policy related to a fee for extracurricular activities can you just clarify that that policy is still in place that if we wanted to make a decision to make a change on that we still can yes okay exactly we were just reviewing that policy it is in place we just currently do not charge the Fay is that right Dr so we didn't abolish it because if it ever becomes a budget issue where you want to bring it back it is yeah it is there for you we just don't we don't use it thank you for but in it it does say that um we made sure we had language in there around identifying kids who had need right so if you do bring it back there is a requirement um that we do have to identify students that can't pay the fee and that we need to absorb that as a dist and does the policy require board approval if we were you would have you would need to agree to that yes and and Bob not to put you on the spot but what on average what is that what are we doing to subsidize that total price for the extracurricular by pay by not charging what that became how much money a year that we would lose in Revenue I think it was somewhere in the area of 100,000 K 612 any other questions or comments from board okay so then we have one more policy up for first reading this is 2270 religion in the schools um so the proposed revisions that you see here are in response to updated guidance from the US Department of Education um the policy provides that students hold rights to to prayer and religious expression in the school setting although Public Schools cannot promote or favor specific religions they also cannot discriminate against private religious expression by students teachers or other employees um so the last revision to this policy was also made in April 2009 so the revisions that you see here are are pretty small in nature they're not they're not super substantive but what they do is uh they change some of the terminology and in particular they change the language around religion to prayer and religious expression and then what they also do is reference the Department of education's 2023 guidance as the resource on this subject which essentially eliminates the need for us to revise the policy every time there's a change to the subsequent Federal guidance any questions or comments on that one okay uh so the last thing I just wanted to share is that uh some members of our our committee thank you uh Mr Resnik as well as folks from the administration have asked us to look at the random drug testing policy um we are slated to do so at the February policy committee meeting um some board members uh have as I said have raised concerns about this what we did want to share was that we've invited principal Riley to discuss and share data related to the high school's experience implementing this policy I do want to note that we are recommending that any abolishment of this policy or changes to this policy do occur at the end of the school year um the reason that we discussed for this is first of all to ensure consistency and implementation across the school year and second to align timing with the current vendor contract for the testing um we also think this this will allow sufficient time to gather feedback from the school district's drug and alcohol committee as well as other stakeholders who want to provide input on this policy so that's it um we don't oh okay um so all those in favor of uh the policies for first reading Al the anyone opposed or abstaining no okay and then the next item are the school calendars so I'll just share a little bit about the process um I apologize I wasn't looking to present this evening so it's just a summary for you uh and hopefully I can answer some questions from the committee um so the the hobo Valley calendar committee consisted of 20 members uh it included eight parents five administrators seven teachers uh Dr P Dr tce also brought the calendar to the Dei committee after the drafts were created for their input as well um uh you may remember in the fall a survey was sent out to all parents K12 it was also sent out to students 612 and all staff uh we had about 2,000 respondents 56% of the respondents were parents 26% were students 177% were staff the committee worked very collaboratively to establish uh the following updates to the three-year calendar so the addition of the Eid holiday uh they changed parent teacher conferences to the week of the njaa convention uh they started staff professional development day before Labor Day weekend um students begin the day after Labor Day which was a big comment that showed up frequently on the survey and school ends before the juneenth holiday each of the three years um with the assistance of the hva and hvpa Leadership uh based on survey of staff on how they would feel about starting prior to Labor Day and actually in August for their two professional development days uh that was overwhelmingly positive and in support of that uh the two sidebar agreements that you saw on the Personnel agenda were um were created and drafted for your approval this evening a few things from the survey that I thought would be helpful for all of you to know um so regarding spring break uh it was all over the board with responses so we had 33% said they wanted it to be the first full week of April 16 wanted it the first um the last full week of March 12% wanted it the second week of April and 39% wanted it tied to the uh the holiday so that was a little bit of a mix in terms of that um the end of the school year was overwhelmingly 69% were very concerned about the year ending late and some of the comments from the survey included summer camps uh pre-ol programs those who go into the military have to leave early students who start working vacations that are planned and then basically students are spent by the end of the school year and when we have the juneth holiday in there the way that it falls it often breaks up the last few days of school and then students have to come back after that that long weekend which you know messes up the instruction a little bit there um in terms of the half days I know that this has been a topic of conversation however 70% of respondents said they were e they were not concerned at all about the half days that were built into the calendar um there was a lot of discussions on the conferences and when they should fall uh comments showed a few things one a few years ago when we switched to trimesters at the elementary level those conferences were supposed to be changed where they fell did not fall um where I guess that committee had discussed they should when they went to trimesters they really wanted something that was more in the middle of the trimester not towards the end and addition having them during njaa convention is before the end of the marking period at the 612 level so it gives parents a little bit more heads up and conversation with the teacher if there are any issues with their students in that um families responded that there was a lot of stress on them having those half days leading up to Thanksgiving especially with the holiday and people coming into town and planning for that um so the committee decided to change that to the njaa convention week so it's that first week of November um in addition for the spring breaks um historically we've had spring break the first full week of April or sometimes the end of March into April um based on when the religious holidays fell so for the next two out of the three calendar years the religious holidays actually fall during the week for the last three calendar Years A lot of them have fallen on the weekend so you might have gotten one or two but for the 2425 school year rashash Shana Vol Lunar New Year Eid and Good Friday all fall during the the the work week um so they were trying to balance when that fell and then also how many days were off and looking at the survey and the end of the year trying to end prior to that juneth holiday um so for the 2425 year the spring break actually includes the eat holiday for the 2526 year it includes Good Friday but they're all that last week of March first week of April and then just wound out working for the 26 27 school year those are the three calendars for your approval can I um ask a question and just make a comment I just I am so impressed by the participatory process that went into creating these calendars truly I filled out the survey as a parent and I was like wow that's so great that they asked me um but no but the fact that there was a committee formed and huge participation I mean this is just a massive response rate and even from the students which I think is super cool so I just want to thank you all for engaging in that process in that way um this is more a curiosity but did you see differences between the students responses and what the the parents and the The Faculty were saying or the staff were saying in in any of the items where you had to sort of decide students just wanted more time off sure okay they actually wanted four day weeks whenever possible but they they I will say the students were very supportive of ending the school year before the Jun holiday as well they were concerned about going too far into June I have a question so for the 2025 year right which is the first calendar well 24 2025 school year did you say that you intend the spring break to correspond with Easter as well is that the decision no the first year eat actually falls on March 31st and that starts off Spring break okay so that first year it's e corre that corresponds with the spring break right and then for the other two years it just so happens that Easter this the second year the second year is is Good Friday with Easter the third year it actually is after the fact yeah so they were just keeping it with the same end of March beginning of April they had done it for the first two years so they did it with the third year so if the morality of responses wanted to align the Cal the spring bre to the religious holiday it seems like you did seems like kind of kept it as it is is the first week of April last week of March well it it aligned with Eid for the first year it aligned with Good Friday for the second year and the third year third year it didn't so they were keeping with that because some of the responses it was as I said the responses were a little bit all over the place there was you want me to go through the percentages again or no no I got the percent and that's why I'm saying the wanted to right there was stay consistent because that was something that the parents on the committee really felt was important that there was consistency over those three years so they all fall at the end of March beginning of April for the three years and they were able to work it out so that we ended before the juneth holiday I'll I'll uh I'll make a comment that I was actually planning on making even before we had a lot of feedback I wish that there was a presentation from the committee before we were asked to approve the calendar right and not kind of being thrown at this because I haven't seen any summary of the feedback and what the committee was thinking and so when I as a board member or a Community member have an opportunity to say oh well this is what you this oh yeah I was saying that I wish that there was feedback I minut and that that's a a good point I don't think in the past that's ever happened with the board so that's why that didn't take place but you know I can certainly bring that up for the future right if want to change that's um send surveys out have a committee get people from you know a nice CR s of students parents all these folks weigh in so that we don't have the pull on discussion that's you're going to do it then everybody weighing in that that looks very differently um so the committee usually makes the decision I share on the but if You' like us to take a step um that to the board first um it that be well well well certainly as a board member I feel like I need to understand the reasoning for proving something now if I if I don't have any issues with what I'm seeing at all I I will usually approve it right because it makes sense to me but um you know there's going to be times where I'm looking at things and if I feel like the community's interest is well reflected in what's going on even if I'm not personally 100% on board I I'll be inclined to go okay we've done the the job we we we've done it but on this one um I'll say I'm personally not happy about the timing of the spring break right but I also don't know really what the discussion behind it was so I don't know if this was well reflected in the right if the community input was well reflected at least I didn't know until 5 minutes ago and I have about five minutes to proc before voting on the approval right and you didn't also sh all they did one of share the data of what people said on this spr break it really was all over the place so then what the committee did was they actually took the calendars from all the districts around us that we get a hold of and U most of the districts around us really only have next year they're working on next but we were able to get next calendar um we saw that a lot of them were aligned to what we were doing which me something for teachers who have students in different areas districts parents who live in this District that also have kids in different school districts so they took all of that consideration as they landed on and trying to you know honor the request for recognizing certain holidays all of those things and then finally coming down to well if we did this for two years why don't we be consistent that the other year so all that all that was part of it um adding that other step will we have it the board kind of go through something as complex as this um and and and that's not what I was proposing right I'll tell you what my what my wish is right what I would like to see I'm going to State this I would like to ideally table the motion have us in the next meeting have a presentation um that actually just summarizes with you said what you Tana said but in a in a in a slide format right and and also they'll give me at least one well more than one night but at least one night right so that's the preferred approach uh for me personally I seven other BS here you want to talk first um so Alex I appreciate what you're saying and um you know and I know calendars are uh almost like a hot button in this because you can never please everyone um but after hearing all of the work that was done I mean it sounds like the committee did the due process so like us as a board we work through committee and it sounds like this committee really did their due diligence and got teachers and parents and community members and everyone had a voice in it um and so if we want to T it I would actually prefer to put it to a vote of board members who may want to table it because I feel like you would Happ yes we're we're just seeing the calendars for the first time but I trust the process I trust the process of the board I trust the process of the committee and the team and it sounds like so they did a very good job in getting all of the different sort of stakeholders that this calendar affects and coming to a decision that was very thought out um so I I understand wanting to know more about the process but I also think so where we are so I agree with you on the process and I'm not trying to eliminate the committee process but to me the committee process means that at the tail end of it when a uh when the committee makes a recommendation because at the end of the day right the committee makes a recommendation not a decision we as a course still have to vote for it to become a decision they ought to prepare a readout for the board that will all that we have a chance to go through right so a slide presentation had we presented it I would have seen it in the minutes I would have had time to think about it that didn't happen yet that doesn't happen all the time I will say you know 90% of things that we C are fairly straightforward thankfully um but especially if you know that a calendar is a hot but issue right uh and I'm perfectly willing to bring a motion to to table the previous motion before you do that Alex I just want to point a clarification for you your concern is just that as a board member you haven't had a chance to see the actual results of it prior to the vote it's not anything to do with public interaction or public engagement yes I I I want to see as a board member I want to see not just the final recommendation but the rationale for the recommendation okay with sufficient notice fair but I have a question would that wouldn't it be you able wouldn't you be able to to see that stuff all that that work if Tana gave you a like the report that you just gave us I mean that I it opened up my eyes to under what understand what happened I I guess I could have seen it before and I would have I I yes would that be okay so that would be perfectly fine just not right before the right not with a minut warning yeah right yes not with five minutes yeah I I also have a comment I I um I had the opportunity to listen to the here the results in the um Personnel committee meeting before this one I really app appreciate the thorough process um that the committee went through to come up with the various uh recommendations as um Jackie mentioned it's a it's very challenging to accommodate all the different needs and wants um that said there there is one issue that I would like to push us to think a little bit harder that's about the early closings um tner mentioned that uh 70% of the respondents do not have a issue with that um I would really want us to dissect the data a little bit further we know that the 400 some students they want early they want a closing if you ask them do we want of the full days closing they will say yes I'm I'm not suggesting their opinion is not important but just in the grant scheme of things how how much of uh a a decision maker they should be in the process because it's really incumbent on the parents to make all the child care Arrangements I would also encourage us to dissect the data by K through five families and six through 12 because if you have a sixth grader or older you you can leave them at home so it's really the families with younger kids um I know 30% % it's not a tremendous number on the surface but do we really want to leave 30% of our families struggling on those days and also what if the survey results is let's say that majority of the families want to change it what would be our alternative options in those cases so I just want us to think a a little bit harder on this one thing I will say though the data is isn't broken down by grade level of parents so I can provide you with the data but you're only going to see parent student or teacher okay yeah so I so yeah in the future if we do similar surveys it will be very helpful because we could say maybe 60% of the younger kids parents they really have a problem with this um arrangement I mean I would I'm favorable if we want to do a vote for what Alex is referring so well yes so I'm going to make a motion to table the previous motion second okay so all is is yes so we're not voting on it right right right tbling means we're not voting on the calendar in this meeting it'll be next V so we are going to do a roll call can you clarify the roll is about do we wantable do we want to table theal discussion yes so if you say yes you want to table it all right so so so let me revise it I want to make a motion to table the discussion to the next board meeting second the motion yes yes no yes yes yes no ftic so next and that is what civil engagement looks like uh review aboard calendars yeah yes so uh facilities going to start with them week of 12 okay it does y think we have SE on the calendar for February 8th I don't know whether that's good or not yeah so I we've been I I know you can't make the 431 no I can do the course oh no I can't I is it just that one time because I think everybody else can do the 4:30 would you mind if we held it or do we need everybody not at all and I can I can hop on late because I just have an earlier Mee so it'll be um oh my goodness my my February died uh what was I have to it was February 8th from 4 4:30 yeah I can't do the first but the eth I could do is that is that still good with you Pam and Mike yeah okay great February 8th at 3:30 February 8 at 3:30 or 5:30 or 5:30 Community relation okay 3:30 3 okay so the the board meeting is going to be the 20th at 5 o' five that's the 20th okay so Personnel I'm messing that up for that day so you need another day for that you do it earlier that day on the 20th you want to do it or uh I can do a online thing before yeah what time why um I thank you policy and cni probably like 700 pm on 14 the 13th at yeah yeah yeah I might be a minute can I ask [Laughter] like no more than five slides walking through it and then if they have extra we get them ahead of time every almost the day it's not Monday wedn okay uh motion to accept calendars motion second all in favor I opposed abstaining calendar of public comment uh oh I need my little speech okay we are entering into our our last public comment on any items of Interest members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for a minimum a maximum of three minutes during this portion of the meeting you're asked to state your name address and municipality in response to your comments the Board of Education May respond or direct the superintendent to do so the board may also opt to take the matter up at Future meeting so that the matter is researched by the district Administration public comment is now open Kate ham Pennington um while I know this is not the reason that you tabled the discussion regarding the calendar I thank you for being Brave and Bold and standing up to have a voice in saying that you are not comfortable voting on something with information that you've just received five minutes prior so I appreciate the motion and uh the vote to table the calendar discussion while you're doing that keep in mind the number of half days which apparently according to the survey 70% of parents were not uh worried about the half days I've sent you all an email didn't hear back from any of you but let me publicly state that half days are a complete disservice to some of our students in this District students who are at timberlan and CHS and receive special services related Services during pack or recitation do not receive their services on half days because it does not exist that means an entire week during teachers convention and almost an entire week during Thanksgiving our students are not receiving services in addition our students in the district who receive free and reduced lunch because there is no lunch those students are not receiving and not entitled to free and reduced lunch so while you're looking at the excess number of half days that are there keep that in mind in addition I know that at the district partners with the hell Valley YMCA to provide at a cost to families child care for before and after care on those half days at the K5 level for those someone made a comment earlier about sixth grade students who are able to stay home alone that's not entirely true there are sixth grade students in this District whose parents do not feel comfortable leaving them home alone but those students grade six through 12 in addition to our children with special needs do not have an opportunity on those half days or Child Care parents either must take off of work barter services with other or find an ulterior motive so when you're looking at half days there's a great deal to consider I'm going to circle back to the e-learning because I don't think that my comments were blunt enough we are not looking at changing the teacher contract nobody has asked to change the 185 days what we are asking is for the board to look at the requirement for students to engage in 182 days versus 180 days the teachers are going to continue doing their uh PD and however they need to do on those additional two days but I'm asking the district and the board to look at providing supports for our youth who are struggling by reconsidering those e-learning days and just making them School closure days like every other District does thank you heatherm hennington um I'm just going to follow Kate and say specialed students are different they cannot Lydia be left alone at home my son probably till 12th grade will not be left alone so if we can put that on the table because I don't think anybody's special ed here right I know you're not on the board so she's a queen thank God you're here and I want to add I don't speak because I feel special EDS unheard so I'm getting up H with because special on her hi my name is sopia kosas 7even white Drive in Pennington I just would like a little bit more clarification about next Monday's meeting for the selection to replace Andrea driver for the board uh is it a meeting that will come under the heading of the New Jersey open public meetings law meaning that will it be uh given public advanced notice in the newspapers and um will there be an opportunity for public comment like at the board meeting tonight um so if you could just clarify a little bit more the process that that is going to go through that would be helpful and again as Christine said um you know we we talk a lot about voter suppression the right of voting how important it is uh why we go to vote and it's our civic duty and 3,51 residents of Hopewell voted for two candidates who if they do put their um resumés in for this position I think the board really needs to consider the importance of that because people went to the polls and these two people also spent time and energy and put forth themselves in front of the community and the community voted so I encourage encourage you please to consider that thank you hi Allison yakis again from hopeall Township um I'm just wondering I think I heard a mention of the last referendum is there still a mortgage on that or has it been paid off and then will be is this like taking out a second mortgage on your home home with a second referendum I'm not sure exactly the longevity the financial plan for that and how that works out if we haven't paid off the first referendum and we're buying into a second one so I'm just concerned for that um I'd also like to not to beat a dead horse but the e-learning days um I have a an eighth grader and a 10th grader and I'm not sure if it's because of the scarring from covid but everyone's very much done with the e-learning and the e-learning days seem more like busy work and like arts and craft activities and Goofy things for the kids to do which is fine for the little kids but um anyway it just seems like people are done with the e-learning days and my kids actually said to me the last for the last one we'd rather go outside and play in the snow or go sledding so I think maybe we need to reconsider um the e-learning days and just give them back wa no one wants them um and then I know we're not taking a boote but my official vote on the turf field for TMS is it's complete waste of money and not necessary in a huge amount of money that we'd be spending on something that needs to be redone in 10 or 15 years I think I heard I couldn't quite hear the comment but um it doesn't there's no longevity in that and my kids have both done fine without a turf field at timberling so we can cut that off the budget that's just my personal opinion thank you I stayed here this late I might as well talk again that's kind of how I'm feeling um Hannah Williams Penington um I want to reiterate we are not asking for this board to talk about teacher negotiations I'm asking the board when you have this next week to take in information if any of you have contact with the calendar committee why can't please ask and then maybe you can have the question answered for for us why can't those two e-learning days be changed into just days off they can be marked in the calendar I understand they have to be marked in the calendar they're inperson days if there is a snow day and I took a little bit of offense to hear like so our kids aren't up to the task of two more you know e-learning days well then we need to work on that these kids are Tethered to their Chromebooks and their screens and I feel that it goes against what the district is trying to talk about in terms of the digital Wellness initiative the mental health issues but yet they're supposed to be up in their rooms spending more time on their Chromebook as opposed to being outside on a good oldfashioned snow day it it just goes against kind of the social emotional piece that the district Prides themselves on the mental health piece that you pride yourself on the digital Wellness initiative I it doesn't make sense so my one question is that didn't get answered before if the state doesn't recognize e-learning why are our kids having to do it okay uh seeing no one else public comment is closed and Dr tce um the e-learning days um we've um commented on several times and again that is a board's decision and they'll discuss it in their committees I think is is is where we'll have to discuss this it's really not something that affects the calendar committee it's really decision on whether or not kids have assignments or not and we've heard vastly different things some that they're just doing busy work in assignments some they're Tethered to the computers they were outside playing I got pictures of that so it wasn't that they were doing the work all day but again it it's a community it's it's what the community decides they want to do with this and what the board decides it's it's not something that we're married to for the kids for the adults that's contract um so that would have to to be changed at that that point but it's really up to the committee I mean to the the board and the community what they want for that and it's it's just been around for a long time I don't know the the beginning of it and it's it's really up to you if you decide you want to keep it um the referendum question Bob I'm going to defer to you on that um the question was um has that money's rolled off the original debt and it has not yes Bond issues are different than mortgages it's just a separate Bond issue we had multiples we've had up to five at one time this is these are just big the other one the first bond issue expires in 2032 this is additional debt the district would take on and then the final thing is um and then we have the comments about the calendar committee that the board has heard um then there was a question about the process of will the meeting be advertised it is the open meeting where the meeting's been advertised already it's posted on our website it'll be a public meeting there'll be one public comment at the beginning of the meeting uh the board will interview and then they'll go into close session to discuss the candidates and uh will not come out afterwards so you might you know you might also want to think about you know if I were a candidate do I want a whole audience of people sitting there I mean the person's going to be interviewed by the whole board is how the process went the last time so you know it's up to you you're welcome to come but that's what you're putting your your um neighbors through um they're going to be interviewed by the whole group here not us because we don't have a say um but they they're already on the hot seat so that's that's the only piece but you're welcome to come sure uh Miss ham I wanted to thank you for your compliment but I do have to say that to no courage if I had needed courage to express my concerns then I would say we we have a really serious problem on the board I me we had a disagreement that got discussed we took a vote that's normal stuff so I appreciate your comment but I do want everybody to know that took no courage of my part I was never concerned about being about anything that would take courage also oh I'm sorry I I just want to make a quick comment um about a claim that was made in the last public comment section um about hopeall being the 11th most expensive District in the state um the article that mentions that which was published by nj101.5 puts Hopewell as the 11th highest uh per pupil spending which is a bit misleading to say it's the most expensive and in the same article it also does not list Hope on the top 20 um highest property tax bills uh in New Jersey so I just want to make that as a clarification for the board and for the public awesome and I also wanted to clarify um actually uh students with disabilities do have a voice on the board I have a child with an IEP and had a child with a 504 um so I I do hear you and understand um from personal experience and I know everyone's experience is different but there there are ears and people who care I'll just make um jeez I'll try to make two quick comments without my voice cracking um first and foremost I I think for the board for the administration I think I've heard enough tonight that we're going to have to have some serious conversations about e-learning I mean I clearly there's a lot of discussion here and I think that we need to rethink that soup the nuts um uh that took no Courage by the way to say that out loud either um I just appreciate the feedback from the group on that and the emails secondarily uh just back again to the finance comments and spending um I'm going to say this a lot over the course of the next year I'm going to be a broken record about it a lot of what we're doing right now we have no control over when it comes to the spending and um you know for someone like myself who believes I'm very fiscally responsible and and sitting here looking at this I'm amazed every time I sit down in our finance committee and have conversation with Bob around how much we actually don't control locally and I think for all of us we've got concerns there's a reason why Bob put inflation is number one on that list for this referendum and uh there's a whole lot of ways that all of us in this room can have our voices be heard in a bunch of different ways for that particular issue that isn't local it's more at state level county level and above so uh I'm just going to continue to say that because I think that we just all need to level set around the real reality of what we got right here and this is coming from somebody who uh I'm cheap candidate so so it sounds like that we are going to have those conversations and again that's not yeah they're not they're not hard conversations to have and we do we do have on the calendar committee representation from special ed PTO um so when they come present you will see all that that um that work and effort that they did along the way um so motion to uh move into exec Ive session oh for wait wait hold on to discuss HIV and a student matter thank you for coming will action be taken the no action will be taken motion all in favor I I opposing abstain abstaining staining I just