e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay okay welcome everybody we're going to start our board meeting um thank you Tom with a call to order Miss Bose here Mr Clark here Miss Evans here miss groger here Dr King miss pasculli here Mr pluta Miss Santos here Mr van he here you have a quorum great thank you Tom um great um we're going to go into executive session first and I'm going to read the um statement uh the open public meeting act authorizes the Board of Ed to meet in executive session under certain circumstances uh the open public meeting act requires the board to adopt a resolution at a public meeting to go into exec into private session um now therefore be it resolved by the Lawrence Township Board of Ed that is necessary to meet an executive session to discuss certain items involving um this evening matters which if publicly disclosed was constitute an unwarranted invasion of individual privacy and specifically Hib no formal action will be taken um our uh executive session should last approximately 30 minutes at which time we will reconvene and start our open uh board meeting and may I have a motion to move to exec session so move second all in favor I and they can't e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e for [Music] us [Music] [Applause] [Music] for [Music] for [Applause] have in here from LMS than [Applause] [Music] saone [Music] e [Music] the [Music] w [Applause] all right we have some of our LMS orra students here [Music] um first piece of snow [Music] day [Music] the [Music] [Music] so [Music] to [Music] SC [Applause] the second piece that we will be playing is called [Music] violento [Music] la [Music] the [Music] tell [Music] [Applause] last and final piece beyond the th F right [Music] she [Music] the [Music] e [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] wo [Applause] [Music] what time did the meeting I almost had a heart attack here's a copy of that speech if you want I learned my lesson e e e e e great thank you so much everybody for coming we have such an exciting night tonight um we're just going to start with our open public meeting statement our flag salute and then we will listen to the beautiful singing of all of our amazing and talented students um after that um the open uh the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings of public bodies at which any any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon as required under law adequate notice of this meeting has been provided via email Andor fax to the times the Lawrence leder the public library and has been filed with a municipal clerk this notice was provided prior to the 48 Hours required by the open public meetings act the board reserves the right to limit public discussion of personnel items and other matters as defined in the law we'll have the flag salute I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay so we'll have the singing first and then we'll continue with our student Representatives thank you [Music] mirales [Music] [Music] are of memory [Music] we [Music] are [Music] are [Music] the [Music] all sh we are [Applause] [Music] of we are glowing growing growing growing we are we [Music] are [Music] might [Music] [Applause] and [Applause] thank you so for us here our [Applause] oh okay um okay is what we saw City from from the last meeting from the me from the last meeting at Ben [Music] Frankl it's child me okay her the mic all right thank you everybody for being patient while all the students leave that was an incredible um song and I I love love when students are here to show us all the things that we're doing in the district um so thank you to all of the people that made it possible tonight um first uh we do have our student Representatives report hello my name is Ryan Edwards and I'm going to be talking about our Deca program so last week our Deca program sent 59 students to Atlantic City for the DECA State like tournament and uh out of our students that attended we had 26 finalists and out of those 26 22 are headed to Anaheim California for Deca States Nationals in April hi my name is Ryan sler I'm a senior and I'm going to be talking to you about spring Sports so spring sports are starting up this week few Sports have already started practicing and the next other sports will start in the upcoming days um games will start towards the end of the month and we expect to do pretty well with our Sports this year as a lot of students are returning to their Sports I'm going to pass it to Alex who talk to you about the play hello my name is Alex NAB and uh this past weekend the Lawrence High School Theater Company performed foot loose and it was a huge success we look forward to Future plays and musicals thank you hello my name is Arn and I'm a senior here at LHS uh on March 6th STEM Academy hosted their first annual Pi celebration students learned about the history of pie through various interactive activities freshman hea gajar was able to recite pie up to 97 digits hello my name is Farhan shof uh this past Saturday atam alie's uh St baldricks took place and our team raised just under $ 111,000 W over the course of the entire um St balcks and Lawrence we have raised just shy of $2.5 million for Childhood Cancer that's awesome thank you and enjoy the rest of your evening thank you so much you're welcome to stay or [Laughter] go um we've reserved the front row just in case you want to stay we do have some recognitions and acknowledgements this evening um as we heard earlier March is youth art month and we are fortunate enough to have uh one of our district supervisors Sarah Foster here who's going to come up and uh make a little presentation thank you thank you I'm doing it old school on paper my phone's Away really um tonight we've had the privilege of really experiencing a just a sampling of the wonderful things and works that our student artists and musicians do here in District thank you so much to the students parents staff and all of you who've really come together to make this night possible March marks a month-long celebration for our Visual and Performing Arts programs as we recognize both music in our school month as well as youth art month Visual and Performing Arts have a lasting positive impact in our own lives as well as our students lives student access to these programs in schools provide a medium for recognizing skills developed through expressive and personal experiences fostering problem solving creativity observation and communication Arts education not only provides a safe and personalized environment for that creative expression but also enhances academic achievement and cognitive development leading to higher test scores in subjects like math and science which I also happen to have a vested interest in please also join me in recognizing the incredible dedication and talent of our music and art teachers these teachers many of whom who also happen to be practicing artists and musicans model for inspire encourage and Mentor our students shaping not just their skills but their character and confidence as well please give one more round of applause to our wonderful students and our incredible staff here at Laurence thank you so much um and we also have the Lawrence Township Education Foundation spring grants being awarded tonight um Bonnie is here or oh there she is I didn't see you welcome yeah I will share thank you hello Board of Education my name is Bonnie Giglio I am the new executive director of the ltef and I'm so excited to let you know that we have our spring Grant cycle we got um I think over 20 uh requests and we've been able to fund 14 grants this year totaling $26,000 $633 um so we're going to go through the grants to tell you what we were able to fund we go okay um so our first grant was a wonderful grant that was for multiple schools it covers all the elementary schools it's called growing your vocabulary for $2,715 awarded to Julie Schmidt Amy Reef Kristen Potter and Karen F thank you so much Giglio is just a married name um okay um and if you're here can you please stand up so we can uh give you a round of applause thank you so much so this grant will increase knowledge of word vocabulary through interactive monthly hallway displays that targets all four elementary schools and can be used for multiple years at Ben Franklin we were able to fund two grants the first one is reaching student challenges through texts for $524 awarded to Kimberly menu um the purchase of 31 picture books for all students in Ben Franklin in order to support the personal medical and academic challenges that our students encounter um the second award was special education music therapy series for $1,150 awarded to Nicole I know it's here there she is um this program will provide music therapy services for the special education population at Ben Franklin in order to promote learning and new skill acquisition to help students obtain educational and social goals the series would utilize the expertise of Dr Carol Anne blank a board-certified musical therapist so that you you don't have to hear me the whole time we're going to switch to a board member hi I'm Charles snellings one of the Board of Trustees I'm going take you through a couple of different schools here uh we have slackwood Elementary School and guess I need to okay thanks um we have recess refresh recharge and reconnect say that fast five times that's $1,080 and that was awarded to Amy Valentino Katie DeMarco Dana bracket and Oliver Valentino um this is a the this will provide blacktop recess games and activities for the entire population of the slackwood students in order to provide opportunities for multisensory experiences social interactions peer collaboration and [Applause] communication um the second one also for slackwood is opening doors to literacy that's for $2,262 I was awarded to Stacy Moore Leah arar have yours are thank you sorry about that Sharon civil Jen and lonstein and Stacy Van Meter this project provide classroom Library provide a classroom library of wordless books for each of the kindergarten classrooms at slackwood in order to create a supportive learning environment where multilingual students can develop essential liter literacy skills and build confidence in their reading abilities and Foster a love of [Applause] Storytelling and then uh another another Elementary School Eldridge Park Elementary collaborative environment and that's for $1,191 that was awarded to sue Rodriguez Trish Murphy and Melissa dende this project will provide the ER classroom with multi-grade emot emotional regulation impairment classroom with three tables at EPS in order to provide workspace that encourages collaboration social emotional growth through Circle workers I'm GNA hand it over to another board member I'm Kathy baleri I'm also a trustee with ltef and I'm going to read the Lis Ford grants that were awarded the Lis mobile kitchen for $2,000 was awarded to Karen cger Jeanie Todd Beth Mayo Gina louisi and Melissa debero and that is to provide access to kitchen tools and appliances for fourth through sixth grade selfcontain maintained classrooms as well as students who receive occupational therapy these tools and appliances are beneficial resources in order to enhan student instruction of varied skills then we have take flight the Lis Outdoor Classroom expansion for $1,500 and that was awarded to Vina jurk Sharon reell Ali Zapata Muhammad Rohan perz Logan Kito and Gian Andre Pascal this student project will provide Outdoor Classroom expansion items that focus on observing and learning about species with wings students will utilize resources that encourage bird watching bird identification as well as environmental benefits of bats and Native pollinators this project was created by sixth graders the next one is simple gifts music Ensemble for $1,000 awarded to Melissa Clark Evan Kilgore and best cloner they're here the simple gifts music Ensemble will provide all Lis students the opportunity to learn about different music styles from around the world and hear professional musicians perform on some of the musical instruments from different countries selected students will also have the opportunity to learn how to play the spoons during the assembly the assembly will help to expand students knowledge about music from different regions and help them to appreciate music from around the world and finally we have Lis the elll library reading and reading in Russian and Ukrainian for 1,455 awarded to Gabrielle casier and this project will provide Lis library books in Ukrainian and Russian for our growing elll student population hi everyone I'm Paula Linsky I'm also a board member and I'm going to announce the LMS rants um first one is LMS General music for 49 $ um awarded to Deborah Harington it's for the purchase of six ukul Alles and instrument hooks for eighth grade Cardinal time students music teachers will also have access to the ukulele Le and the next one is for recipes for success for $68 awarded to um Douglas ler and Heather da and this project will provide printed copies of cookbooks to students in Mr learner and Mrs Dow's writing 2.0 classrooms at LMS all right I'm going to finish it up with our two biggest grants this cycle um at the Lawrence High School the first one is Moore cowbell for music department with an array of Latin percussion instruments to better serve the needs of our diverse student population these instruments can be used for concert Band percussion Ensemble honors wind jazz band and marching band and our last Grant is ping pong and pickle ball for $3,600 awarded to miss Lynn at the high school this grant will provide funding for coaches from the Yip Table Tennis Center to conduct instructional lessons at LHS catering to all World language students interested in acquiring fundamental skills strategies and tactics of table tennis with just an hour of expert coaching students will gain the confidence to Showcase their skills with their peers so as you can see we get asked for uh you know an array of different things that we are proud to be able to fund but obviously it takes money to fund these grants um and on that note we have a brand new fundraiser coming up at um ltef it is I'm sure you've seen it the Lawrence has talent the tickets are officially on sale today so I'm going to give you guys these flyers I have little flyers in the back with the QR codes and it'll be here at the high school we have 15 different acts seven of them from the high school some adults we have a hula hooper it's intense it's a really good act um and it's going to be a really good family show at 7:00 p.m. on April 11th we really hope you can come out and see the insane talent that we have in this town awesome awesome if we could do one picture with everybody down there and all the teachers with their grants and then you can get back to business thank you so much thank you thank you sure cussion e e e e e e e okay thank you so much ltef and all of our teachers that work so hard to write grants for us um really appreciate it um now we're going to move on to the adoption of a of the minutes from the 22 2124 meeting can I have a motion so moved second and a second Tom with a motion from M seconded by Mr van he right correct Mr Clark here yes Miss Evans yes Miss groger yes Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes Mr van he yes dispose yes motion carried great thank you um and and now we'll have reports to the board um a superintendent's report okay thank you Miss Giglio and the ltef for your continued support of our district um and all of the amazing grants that were awarded um especially tonight I did challenge miss Lynn to a pickle ball match so if she's listening now it's on recorded she's back there um I always look forward to these presentations at our board meetings um it really gets us excited about the wonderful things that our teachers are able to do with the grant funding in our classroom so please know how appreciative this board is and myself when we watch how happy our teachers get when they get funded it's really exciting um in our classrooms across the district our dedicated music and visual arts educators are not just teaching notes notes and brush Strokes they're nurturing creativity instilling discipline and fostering expression in every student please join us in formally recognizing The National Music in our schools and youth art month throughout the month of March by celebrating our young artists and musicians continuing to Advocate and support our Visual and Performing Arts programs across the district you'll note the beautiful art display that um Miss Foster and her team worked on setting up so I appreciate that it's beautiful and it was lovely to walk in this evening seeing such color and Delight tonight during the draft budget review you'll gain some insight into our future Financial plans which includes a 5-year operational plan that is still in the early stages of development although not explicitly detailed in the budget I want to be transpar arent with all of our stakeholders about our intentions to eventually shift our grade levels from a curriculum standpoint this transition aligns seamlessly with State learning standards and promotes academic and developmentally developmentally appropriate practices for student growth and achievement looking ahead our vision for the future includes significant changes we envision Elementary buildings evolving to accommodate grades preschool through 2 grade while Lis undergos a transformation into to a true Upper Elementary model it will be thoughtfully rebranded and reconfigured additionally LMS will transition to a middle school model serving grades 6 through 8 it is important to note that there are no plan changes for LHS at this time we understand the intricacies of district reconfiguration and recognize that there is no one one-size fits-all approach therefore we're committed to a deliberate and strategic process prioritizing input and collaboration from all stakeholders our goals to ensure that every step forward is guided through careful consideration respecting the diverse voices within our community every single step of the way just a reminder um again that all schools will be closed for spring break for students on Monday March 25th through April 1st and we will be returning on Tuesday April 2nd we are wishing our District staff and families a safe and relaxing break and hopefully some nice Spring weather thank you oh now we're going to queue up oh it is queued up thank you Joey um so Mr Eldridge and I are going to briefly go through a a draft budget presentation um as I said we have a lot of initiatives that we are embarking on I'm really excited about the next five years um part of the budget includes a continued expansion of our preschool programs I feel very proud to say that we're going to be opening up a class in eldred's park following spring break uh the following September we will be opening slackwood so that means now that we will have preschool available to our families in all of our elementary buildings including our Cardinal kids over at the high school we've also made a commitment to mental health and student wellness in this District as you'll know from our strategic plan we've included two license I'm sorry three licensed clinical therapists in our base budget that is a reminder to the community that we are solely committed to the supports and services available on our school grounds we have a therapist at Lis LMS and LHS s um we also plan to expand media specialist time at eld's Park and slackwood for next year which is an incredible opportunity um and build equity across the elementary buildings in our district we are full steam ahead with our reading initiative and building uh the building blocks of um kids and student learning so we're sending you'll see on the agenda this evening um a lot of teachers to Orton Gillingham we are committed to the imsc approach for reading instruction you will see um as part of our budget plan um maintenance of our police officers our sro's and our class three officers Safety and Security is very um important um not only to our community but our staff and our students um we will be engaging in a lot of community conversations around um our financial shifts and changes as we make them and always looking to bridge um you know our communication and access we are looking to also refine uh programs and positions and instructional practices and over the summer we will be working with the leadership team and the board to develop a 5-year operational plan some of the goals and objectives um again just to remind everyone our strategic plan is really centered around Wellness student achievement and Equity diversity and inclusion my superintendent goals include preschool expansion supporting uh curriculum Pathways and making sure that we're making meaningful connections to the community some of the economic influences that go into developing an operating budget um include salary increases um staying competitive with our collective bargaining contracts and making sure that we we build in the percents that were negotiated um we are in the middle of an educator staff shortage so please remember you know we are not hiring necessarily at a step one we're looking at um some Educators coming in that are really looking for competitive rates they're leaving districts to come and work in Lawrence so when they are being afforded contracts with us we're looking at steps way higher than even five um if you're going to have Specialists and um Educators in our classrooms that are ready to go ready to teach kids um benefits and insurance is of course always um you know ever um facing inflation along with the pension costs and transportation along with contracted services and contracts just in general for related Services um and professional development continue to go up I'm going to turn it over to Mr alridge who's going to explain these lovely pie charts sure Joey if you could for the next one um wanted to put some things in perspective for you in terms of where we were 10 years ago on your left and where we are in our proposed budget on your right and the idea is um I suppose no quality exists in itself except by comparison so we compare two years or and they are 10 years apart from one another and so we see that on the right the majority of our budget is made up of 79% of it that is of salaries and benefits we are a people intensive industry it wasn't so different 10 years ago where we had 75% and had you gone back to N9 years ago it would hover between 75 and 80% so things haven't really changed in terms of when we look at what we buy whether we buy Human Services or we buy supplies Energy Services transportation out of District tuition they hover and they they're plus or minus a couple percentage points what changes is what happens with what those folks do and so we'll go to the next slide this is a comparison between years and so the table at the top the largest table compares the actual budget from this year to the proposed budget for next year and you'll see the driving forces in the change off to your right hand side however I'd also call out to you that you should be mindful of the total dollar values that you see so for example regular education or general education as we call it is upwards of $29 million and in special education following at $18 million and if we look at the change in those two we see 97,000 to General Ed and $20,000 to special education I'll call out for you however that um this is a little bit different than we've seen in the past years general education as or special education is typically disproportionately outpaced general education um in this particular year general or reg regular education is higher by about $300,000 because we've brought the sage Thrive contract or therapeutic if it's not Sage into our base budget it's no longer outside on a grant that gets renewed every year it is now part of what we do it's the bottom line so there it is and it's solidified so we see our regular education going up by 900,000 otherwise it would be somewhere around 600,000 for health and attendance um we have a small decrease and that's typically breakage when we look at Administration our our technology department our legal services and insurance we see that we have a $155,000 increase and forgive me for reading these things out to you um and security maintenance utilities at $287,000 but the big one is benefits and that million dooll increase that you see there is a composite increase of Health uh being medical prescription dental and vision at uh roughly 8% on a composite but you also have a significant increase in pension cost specifically for the public employees retirement system as well as Social Security and as salaries go up those numbers will go up as well with Transportation the increase you see there at just over half a million dollar that picks up about $150,000 of our preschool costs however we were able to shift out costs and equal numbers over to the preschool budget so it's budget neutral for preschool but you do see the VAR here and just to keep things consistent that change right there overall oh sorry I'd be remiss if I didn't say Capital maintenance C uh Capital those are our projects um in the current year we brought um over $2 million out of Maintenance Reserve brought it into 2324 we don't have plans to do that in 2425 so you see a decrease there but that was completely funded by our own syncing funds where we set monies aside and pull from it as we need so overall you have almost a half a million dollar increase uh at the top and if we look at the bottom those numbers are represented again once more except for instead of program at the top gened meaning regular Ed and special education and so on it goes back and it ties into the majority of that is spent on salaries and benefits out a district tuition Transportation um and everything we talked about before I sent you a budget analysis upwards of about 15 pages I understand and pasculli read it and still she came tonight the um so um that's there it's also on our website and that same information that I gave you is there for every year all the way back to 2008 2009 so let's flip to the next page how we're funding this um so I told you we uh funded the capital projects through our syncing funds last year since since we don't need that money you see the decrease there so we are using in the first line approximately 1, 150,000 or 1,47 in Surplus from what we anticipate leftover from this year to fund as Revenue next year we see a minor increase in in miscellaneous revenues and rents however our state aid went up by 463,000 we talked about this at Finance what we talked about was this is probably the last year we're going to see a bump in state a so we've been increasing in in uh 1 increments this was the 5 fifths this this year and we may see a percentage increase next year but we weren't see we won't see a formula increase next year unless things change then finally tax levy is uh going up by $2,250,000 and that translates roughly uh into 2.6% at the bottom of the page for those who are interested we calculate cap for you I won't go over that here it's a little dry um but it's there if you'd like to see it uh nevertheless let's flip the page for people who want the bottom line look at the bottom line the bottom line is for our residents um we see a a potential increase of $52 per year is what we have that's overall that's including our debt service wrapped in and our debt Services decreasing a little bit so let's go to the final slide um transparency all of our information is online what the Board of Education uh has the public also gets so in in fact it's already there posted now the only thing that's not there is this presentation where we're going to go next Joe The Next Step says we'll submit our budget to the county Mercer County Department of Education we'll hold an official budget hearing on May 7th which will look almost identical to this our numbers typically don't change we don't expect much in the way of changes so and lastly if there are any questions we'd be happy to answer them I'm amazed that I know it's dry so I know I know all right so on the agenda tonight um I'll just segue right into to the board secretary's report and summarize this um and then I won't steal any of your Thunder Kevin is that on the agenda tonight are the resolutions for you to approve the budget uh that which you just saw those numbers agree with what's up there what you're approving are the budgets for the general fund special Revenue fund and The Debt Service fund and the tax levy for next year there are a host of other things that are there that are compliance uh oriented in those resolutions and you can pick them right out of code there are no surprises there for you so there's nothing out of the ordinary from what you typically see um so that's all I have for you tonight and I'm sure Kevin will pick up everything else in the finance committee report thank you thank you so much Tom and Robin for that presentation I now I'm on the finance committee so I really can understand the amount of work and time that goes into it and now I really understand the budgets um so thank you and I I just know how much um goes into what we do here and um I really appreciate it and the board recognizes all of the hard work this that you and your team do I know you don't do it alone um I also would like to give a little president's report um today we celebrate the creative Spirit of our youth youth as we Mark youth art month it's a time to recognize the invaluable role that Arts play in education and to encourage the flourishing talents of our young artists their creativity enriches our lives and our community by inspiring us to see the world through A New Perspective thank you to Amy Amit and Sarah Foster and all of the wonderful art and music teachers in our district we appreciate all that you do not just for our students but for our community so thank you in addition to honoring youth art this month I would like to just take a moment to honor and celebrate the outstanding contributions of women for women's history month we are so very fortunate in Lawrence Township to have countless women who are making a difference every day in our school and our community I have it's a privilege to work alongside of some incredible women Robin and her team um and so many of the wonderful teachers and parents um that come out and support all of our kids um I think I just think a month is probably not enough time to recognize all the things we do but um thank you to everybody and lastly I wanted to express my heartfelt appreciation to all who have participated and supported the St baldrick's event the gener your generosity is a Beacon of Hope for children battling cancer reminding us of the power of compassion and solidarity and making a difference in their lives Dave Adam and Jeff huitt two of our principles along with many teachers students and families participated in the event um hearing that we raised uh $111,000 this year and $2.5 million in Lawrence Township is unbelievable um it just shows you how much we can accomplish when we work together um we could not be prouder of all that participated in this event and thank you so much um that's really all that I have to say um committee reports community relations and legislative affairs uh we met March 5th at 8:30 a.m. and attendance from myself Amanda Santos uh Vanessa parciak Joan groger and pepper Evans um we got an update on our preschool our first preschool classroom opened February 20th at the high school and so far so good it's going really well and really smoothly um a few updates on community conversations we had Ben Franklin last Wednesday and we will have Las on the 18th we're inviting all third grade families to the Lis conversations to talk about the transition into fourth grade and um what to expect in the upcoming year uh last week we celebrated read Across America we had several board members and administrative staff participate um and read to elementary school students which was really great uh where we discussed a few items to for the board to work through in future working sessions uh we reviewed our board manual um as well as a few policies one of which is moved to second reading tonight and that's it thank you um now we will have AR liaison report and our student board member Sonia good evening everyone hi my name is Sonia Pollock and I am the student representative for the 2023 2024 school year and fun fact I am also currently serving as the president of the LHS student council firstly I would like to mention the outstanding performances in the recent LHS and LMS musicals uh the dedication and talent displayed by our students and staff TR staff truly made these Productions Unforgettable they were amazing I want to extend my gratitude to all the parents who participated in the recent senior parent meetings to discuss senior Awards prom Project Graduation and graduation to ensure that the events run smoothly and are memorable for a graduating class on an international note I am thrilled to share that Miss Lyn and the AP Chinese class have recently connected with a school in Taiwan fostering a valuable crosscultural language exchange the American civilization one classes at the high school will also be taking a field trip on to Pennsylvania on April 11th and LHS student council and LMS 8th graders will also continue their annual penp pal letters so the middle schoolers will craft notes and question questions about the school maybe seek advice from the student council and the student council members and I will do our best to answer all these questions and make their transition to the high school a bit smoother lastly I would also like to mention and remind our students who are seeking scholarships through the high school especially senior Awards as they just got released that you have to fill out the White cards located in the guidance office in order to successfully submit your applications thank you thank you thank you Sonia uh New Jersey School Board Association I'd just like to Echo that with the students applying for those so many times the um athletic Hall of Fame we have so few students that realize it's so easy to do and they're missing out on money so thanks for getting them mine today yeah I'm proud of you okay uh March 13th um is today I uh wanted to Quick remind everybody about the unsung heroes that's coming up next week um this week I'm going to go to Somerset counties to take a look see how they're doing their program because this is new for Mercer County so I want to kind of fill out all that we have 12 students that are going to be honored I'm so excited about that turnout so if you're interested West Windsor Plains borrow South use the Clarksville road entrance evidently there too program begins 6:30 to 8:30 there'll be a light little meal with some desserts and stuff too so come a little bit hungry um I attended school board's legislative committee meeting which is why there wasn't any legislative Affair update um this past Saturday 9 to 12 in the afternoon it's a good thing it was a rainy day um we had two guest speakers the first being Senator Angela mcnight from District 31 second speaker was Rosie boli legislative district 27 both speakers addressed the needs to to assist with teacher shortages and school funding the interesting thing is both of them have a lot of experience in education so they were speaking to people who understand and can communicate how we can work better together so that was exciting few interesting topics were brought up one um they want uh teachers to begin teaching back again cursive writing which I thought was interesting second idea which is something I had never heard of before utilizing tax returns that the residents can allocate funds back to their school district within their own Hometown so instead of taking the cash back they can elect to send it back to the school district which interesting thought um reciprocity was also discussed Sone lining up on that I'm sure they're going to be lots of people volunteering anyway um they were looking at recruiting more teachers by allowing PE teachers from out of states to come into New Jersey um looking at a new school for funding formula that is going to be looked at um for the upcoming year because this one's running out that was discussed and then Jesse and John Burns took time uh updating new laws that have been passed ones that are on the desk and ones that appear to be in waiting I'm only going to just quick read the titles of the ones that have passed and will be enacted free School Meal exp um expansion expedited certification route for paraprofessionals non-public school transportation consortiums uh revisions to school facilities law SDA operations School audit delay FASA graduation requirements eliminating April budget vote this was a topic that was brought up about a lot of districts wanting to move back to April instead of the November elections um you had to if you were going over the tax cap you had to do a meeting in the public going all over it if you stayed below you're fine and that's what they're going to go back to something for us to look at um youth disconnection prevention CI uh student Civic engagement Innovation dual enrollment two pilot program youth Suicide Prevention um skim through here transferring county college credits to meet the EP requirements school safety security task force we did talk about the ve teach pilot program earlier security drills and students with disabilities emergency bonding authorities providing School meals to parents grief instruction compostable food waste and electric School busing if anyone would like to read any of these laws I have them readily available for you to peruse and one quick note Project Graduation um please take a look on the School site there are so many fun things coming up to support um The Project Graduation so please take a a look see at that great and now I'm done thank you Joanne uh student services student services was held on March 7th in attendance was Vanessa bararia and myself arelle Clark highlights from the meeting includes uh this month is also developmental disabilities Awareness Month our schools are promoting inclusivity by doing activities in various buildings such as fundraising activities within the building connecting our students with developmental disabilities and their same age pairs classroom door displays to educate students about various disabilities and related service providers and teachers have also provided informational resources to staff and students word of appreciation to the Thrive counselors our Thrive counselors are in their seventh year within the district they have served 67 students during the 2023 and 24 year a big Thanks goes to all for all the work that they have done for our students and families upcoming events save the date for March 20th at 6:00 p.m. in the Lawrence High School cafeteria Lawrence High School Athletics is hosting an NCAA workshop for high school student athletes presented by Mike gatley uh navigating admission financial aid athletic scholarships and understanding how each impacts College Bound athletes thank you okay um do we have any review of communications no okay is our first opport un for public input if anybody wants to come up please state your name and you can write your address down and you have three minutes for your comment seeing none we move on uh board discussion and action items um Personnel committee report and Personnel action items all right I promise this is is much shorter we met March 6 8:15 in attendance Dr Robin clim Sean fry Kevin vanheist Arend Del Clark Rob Puda whoops it just jumped and me uh we reive current uh we talked about current vacancies including Ben Franklin Special Education assistant Lis nurse Le school psychologist and LHS health and PE staff member we will be recommending a new secretary in the student services department we discussed contract updates for the county office and pre-approvals we reviewed new ltps director postings and hiring process we discussed round two Personnel Staffing updates and the budget as it relates to personnel and all policies were accepted without change on tonight's agenda you will find approvals for resignations paid and unpaid leaves volunteers sub teers and assistant leave Replacements mentors you'll see a resending of an item amendments for uh new business on February 21st a stien amount end date for an unpaid leave confirmation appointments due to clearances and in athletic edps you'll also see a retirement um for Clarence Morgan he has been in the maintenance department for our district for the past 26 years and we do appreciate all of his hard work and attention to detail and especially his dedication to our district and we wish him a healthy long retirement with all of that I'd like to move please P1 through p21 second Tom the motion in a second Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss groger yes Miss pasculli yes Mr Miss Santos yes Mr van heis yes Miss Bose yes motion car uh CD report and instructional student service action items CIA APD met on February 29 in uh joining me were Diana pasculli Amanda Santos Robin clim Sarah Foster and pimmy Goomer we discussed the preschool education years's 24 25 operational plan eight classrooms will be open for the 2425 school year each Elementary School will have at least one preschool class allowing us to serve students and families in their own neighborhood on April 8th a class will open up at Elder Park Central office administrators will be meeting with prek to3 principls to see how they Envision using their space if third grade moves to lis existing should recoup space necessary to provide adequate programs project which rooms can be used for pre schools grade 6 to 8 science open SED a new program for 6th to eth grade science to roll out next school year open sad collaborated with the Department of Ed to create the New Jersey model curriculum fully aligned to the vision and intent behind the Next Generation science standards instruction Elementary instructional minutes the district is reviewing the number of instructional minutes at each Elementary level to ensure consistency for all students in classrooms grade 6 to8 summer assignments for Math and optional enrichment activities our math supervisors Kristen Burke and Sarah Foster are hosting a three-part parent series for all K12 families beginning in March the first one building confident and capable math Learners at home is on March 20th uh a live webinar with leel maconi a top expert on how the brain learns math I'll say think about how my brain learned back I think we all should go to that yeah mandatory I'm GNA go just GNA be honest uh the district is continuing to train staff in Orton Gil Billingham imse comprehensive K12 for students who require instruction in word recognition skills phology decoding spelling phology and orthography so clearly I have trouble recognizing words because they just made those up morphology plus if you didn't have enough morphology now you're going to get it in third to fifth grade for students who can read and spell but continue to struggle with language comprehension morphology fluency vocabulary and comprehension this course will include an asynchronous piece on writing and grammar and with that I would like to move ois 1 through 4 second Tom with a motion in a second um I have it going through eight okay so make eight yes eight there's that comprehension piece again suck at the amended motion this is like the Late Night show yeah something's going on tonight this is good all right Mr Clark in the air yes Miss Evans yes Miss groger yes Miss pascoli yes Miss Santos yes Mr van he yes Miss Bose yes motion carried and I would like to move OSS one second Tom got it Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss groger yes Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes Mr van heis yes Miss Bose yes motion caring what was that called pepper morphology plusy plus finance committee report and school business management action items thank you and the immortal words of my predecessor uh Robin and Tom have stolen all my thunder so it is as exciting uh when you talk about the budget on uh breakfast uh bury uh vitamin supplements and six cups of coffee but uh so the finance committee uh agenda was dominated by the budget uh Tom and Robin did a fantastic job of covering that and that was a significant part of our discussion um which really sets us up it's it's not just looking at it what is it going to be in the upcoming year but it's also ensuring that we have sustainability um and and health in our finances over the next next you know several year five six years out especially as we're looking at other initiatives and and really looking to set the district up so uh again I'll just add as as the chair of the finance committee my thanks certainly to Tom Robin and the entire team for putting that together um and ensuring you know just not that we're set up just for the upcoming year but we're really set up for the next decade so um we also uh Al did discuss uh the paa expansion and uh the program remains on track and very exciting uh on that um also alluded to today and and we touched upon the due diligence for the uh kind of District uh realignment is being looked at and so we have our professionals that have now been engaged and they're starting to do their due diligence work and so uh they will be working with us um in the upcoming year next couple of years as we look at things but that process is officially kicked off uh with some initial site visits so um public will be able to stay tuned over the next uh several months as we progress down that uh we also discussed kind of our normal items looking at uh maintenance items doors floors ceilings um what else uh some of our policies uh update on our residency investigations and and policies and procedures associated with that uh and then also as we discussed tonight was part of the budget we also did um have conversations regarding our transportation renewals and again being another U signif ific cost driver in the budget um so with that that was a very uh long meeting but very productive meeting um so I will move SPM 1 through 15 second Tom with a motion in a second Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss groger yes Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes Mr van heis yes theose yes he we have our our second opportunity for public input um please state your name write your address and limit your comments to three minutes you know his name I do know his name of course but we want to for the record right Jim C uh I didn't come prepared so until I heard you talking giving credit where it credits too about the St baldwick and so I I have to brag a little about my granddaughter Emily Burns and I can't I because I didn't come prepared I'm I don't want to steal the Thunder from from the other two student juniors who took part with her in this program with theia lemia leomia foundation and worked their tales off for two months and wrote countless letters because I can every time I opened up my email and they were so articulate and they had a big bash at at the firehouse up here one night and all kinds of different events and I I was just in awe of how the uh how much how good they could do and and I I'm pretty sure that their moms didn't help them too much because I know and I I feel bad that I don't that I can't remember the other girls names but they they raised over $28,000 and they and I wanted to shout out give them a shout out along with the St baldwick ones yes thank [Applause] you anybody else with a public comment um next we have new business okay I was just trying to pull up because there was a whole big spread here are the girls um they they just work so hard for this whole thing and I want to get the totals with um Trisha her daughter I'll pull it up anyway okay for new business you'll find adjustments for leaves leave Replacements substitute appointments school psychologist for Lees go Personnel Department assistant opport an appointment clearance information EDP adjustments and destinations you'll also see a new business uh change for retirement and with all of that I'd like to move nb1 through nb9 please second Tom with a motion in a second Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss groger yes Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes Mr van heis yes M Bose yes motion carry okay with that can I have a motion one last uh recognition yes uh Tom's birthday is coming up I believe on Friday so I just want to uh Rec happy birthday Tom birday Tom too bad we're not have a finance meeting we really celebrate let's call one so called we'll see everybody we'll have an impromptu one okay um and with that may I have a have a motion to adjourn please so moved second all in favor I I thank you and have a wonderful evening know [Music] for I saw one time where [Music] a seat right thank you friends me what You' been call Kevin for a couple