time is now 7:30 and the meeting is called to order adequate notice of tonight's meeting has been provided in accordance with the open public meetings act by the following methods distribution of notice to the record posting of agenda on the school district website and parents Square on the boe's Facebook page and on the various Leon neist serves please note that the board will be moving away from the announcements via the Facebook page this serves after the last meeting of this year all announcements regarding the board meeting will be provided via parent Square which is open to the entire Community I strongly encourage you to register for an account for timely receipt of information from the board stand for to the flag United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice Miss Troy Miss pres m par Mr Zea Mr seum M Thompson Miss wild pres vice president and president L also in attendance is our superintendent of schools Dr gadens as well as this assistant superintendent of schools Dr caramanos um as well as our board attorney Mr laera as well as three student reps Hannah Choy Emily gard and Renee K okay we are switching uh d and e so we are moving on to public presentations good evening everybody thank you for coming out this evening over the course of the school year our student students have the opportunity to take advantage placement AP test exams um and Leon High School is a very very strong record of students who do well in those AP exams sometimes students do so well they do so well that we encourage them and their families to come out to a board Education meeting to be recognized there are three students in the audience today they will remain seated I call them up it's Kai Hammond Isaac young and kishan L let's give them a round of applause and I'll say why so they recently took the AP Computer Science principles exam so all three of these students scored a five on the exam which is very good scale of one to five and they scored a five the average score by the way right around a three for this examination what's notable is the fact that of these three students they scored a perfect score on the examination and when I mean perfect I mean perfect not a single question was wrong worldwide only 459 students did this in 2023 116,000 students took this test and these three students here scored a perfect score congratulations to them gratitude and appreciation that the Le only Board of Education congratulates them is the board of educations hope that this success is the first of many accomplishments that will continue to bring Pride to their families and to the school district therefore be it resolved that the board of education on this 14th day of November hereby congratulates our students on their achievement folks please come forward to get your certificates congratulations if I could emplo the Board of Education to come join us for a photo also please board members please come up including our reps we're taking a photo parents over on our camera is very very nice we're going to step right back over we here M Jo from and if the board members can join and gather around the students we take a photo together come on board members come on in it's a District's accomplishments let's go do rep over here too so proud yes so proud tonight 116,000 students it's okay it's okay the kids J congratulations and now they have studying to go home and do so they can take off congratulations thank you thank job congratulations thank you my PL little bit out of order there wanted these students to get home and finish their homework thank you because we all know that they certainly do it so thank you are they currently seniors now Juniors Juniors thank thank so the uh course the uh next item on the agenda is public comments regarding agenda items um just reminder that public comment are limited to two minutes um if anyone from the public would like to step forward please state your name and address I'm Lor Molina 104 Nelson Court um I'm also here representing the cpeg um Group which is the special ed Parental Advisory Group I know that um Personnel items and keeping teachers and staff is a really hard thing to do but it's really sad once again to see um under Section ra a the resignation of ell um Emily nap who's the ACs school psychologist the child study team at ACS has changed over maybe 15 times um and I just hope that as well as we're keeping the teachers that we're doing the same thing with child study team um especially with our young kids this is when they need that um so hopefully we can develop something or put something into protocol so that this team actually stays on um I don't know what you can do it's like dangling a you know a magic wand in front of people to make them stay but um child study team in school psychologist is really important especially at ACS so I really hope that you can find somebody to fill this position um and somebody that will stay going forward um and congratulations to the 3 11 graders that's absolutely amazing on the sport thanks 125 reles one of the questions I was going to ask is how the superintendent is doing and how he feels he's doing in the job and the challenges Associated but after tonight's presentation you must be feeling pretty good I take I take all the credit for work done before I arrived here is that a New Jersey exclusive state of New Jersey you I don't know the I I I'll address that when you're done yeah very you know very exclusive group they were the only people in New Jersey that the kids have did it uh I have a couple of questions on monthly transfer report facilities acquisition and Construction Services um what do we acquired or is that just a name that's that's uh drawing me in the wrong direction say facilities Acquisitions I presume by that title look like we're trying to we're getting some facility somewhere I don't know so I like an explanation of that um I also have a question about the amendment to the shared services agreement looks like a good deal now I don't know much about that looks like the counties pay us almost $90,000 is that um is that correct do we make money on that um are there more programs like that where we can collect more money that was the amended amended Amendment to the shared services agreement between Bergen County Special Services uh Board of Education Leon so I this read that but it look like we're we're collecting some money from them um finally um after you go through the bills like I I go through a lot of the stuff you know month week month after month after month you kind of get a feel for where a lot of the money is going and a lot of the money and I'm I'm going to have I'm going to stay up front this I have absolutely no problem with the services being provided because I had commented on on when Le only a library had a financial problem about 10 15 years ago I recommended Alternatives and all of a sudden I was branded as being anti- Leonia which is carry forward to this day and that's not true so the question is looking at this first of all in the monthly transfer report you're looking the regular programs run around $12 million and right below it the special education basic skills remedial rning about6 million about half of that so it looks like about a third of that budget that combined budget um is U is for special the services we provide and if you go through a lot of the bills you find you know we're paying $40,000 $50,000 up to I think $90,000 to send eight kids who have special needs to a facility that can can train them and and take care of them and teach them which is fine the the the issue I have is that um that we have to pay for it I think and I and I'm not saying we shouldn't pay for it what I think we should say basically a statement is we should be obligated to pay the equivalent cost of of providing tuition and education for the average student here and the state the county and the federal government should pick up the difference what I'm saying is and I'm not sure how we approach that but it's a pretty significant chunk of our budget it comes up time month after month after month there's a lot of money and when you blend that all in you look at the cost of providing education to everybody it's distorted by that amount of money so I think service is great it need to be done I just don't think we need to somehow figure a different way of skinning a cat uh and that is just a statement that U that I wanted to say because it just comes up over and over and over and this is a huge portion of our tax bill the education and that's a huge portion of what we had I'm not against providing the service we should continue to do thank you see on move on to Board of Ed um or student representative comments members of the board of ed I I'm going to respond to comments that made so so thanks M Molina for your comment regarding the as staff I I just want to to your point the idea of holding on to staff is that mean everyone have staff G right and I want to want to mirror that with you I just want to point out that on the agenda under letter and new business this cops Replacements already on the agenda to be yeah yeah yeah in many ways Leon is a very advantageous place to work people want to come here um and they want to come work with us so that person was interviewed today and was on the agenda for this evening so that's there'll be there'll be no interruption in point that out to your point um uh to author your question there you know I don't know the New Jersey based data of how many students took the test that's actually a good question I'm going to poke a little bit at that see if I could I'm GNA ask Miss Stein to sort of ask the College Board about that I'm curious now but R3 students doing so well we're done follow the relation to everybody else exceptional well C perfect scort um and and your your comment regarding special education costs um I and I completely recognize the idea that you're not talking about Services the idea of cost there's been discussion for a very very long time about how expense that comes with special education should be supported at the state and possibly the federal level that local school districts that budgets are swung in either direction back and forth predicated upon the needs of special education students and those costs as you can tell by looking at our bills as our agenda are just breath taking breath taking in many ways we're we're we're clients of the market right the market drives that um so your point is very well taken and that's been in my my when I was the president of the County Association we talked a lot about that we advocated the trended about that they they nod their head they agree with us but then they don't fund us so what are what can the voters do to put the pressure on well voters should agitate directly to you know taxpaying resident directly to their legislators because that's it's a legislative solution the idea that there should be a minimum threshold that when you pass the threshold the different is made up at state federal level if I could speak to that for one moment um I've had the opportunity to be on some County and state level committees and uh interact with some legislators and what I tend to hear over and over again is that they're unaware of a lot that goes on with um with running a school what the expenses are so it's worth reaching out to your legislators especially the local ones um and just educate them um because I'm tell you time and time again I hear oh I didn't know that um and you can also um I know Miss Voss is hugely supportive of education so it's another good person to reach out to thank you there is a chip chip in after certain there is a little bit so we get state aid for each student right whatever that tree amount they day but um there's an application for Extraordinary Aid that you do at the end of the year that you can get however if the student is placed in another Public School setting or or public uh special school whatever it is you can get a portion of the amounts that you pay over 45,000 for a private school you can get a portion of the amounts that you pay over 55,000 so the state does a calculation every year people make all these submissions sometimes you get 70% sometimes you get 80% but again it's the amounts over that so if you have a kid who's going to a placement and it cost 660,000 that's a private school you're going to get a portion of that 5,000 piece so there's something but it's not 100% by any means so it's but your points well taken in Leonia like every other school district in the state struggles with it so you go through the bills like said they come up you go through there just smacks you in the face thank you and relating to your question relating to the um on the monthly transfer report the facilities that's basically uh relating to the projects that we budgeted so that amount that you see I believe it's uh might be like 20 something thousand on that monthly transfer report indicating the the year to date net transfers yeah showing a budget of 1.5 million and then yeah so the budget is is relating to everything that we kind of um when I presented the budget all the projects that we were looking to provide through Rod Grant um as well as you know debt service assessment anything that gets charged to the fund 12 uh lines yeah the year to-day transfers are 27,000 correct that was actually um appropriation to close out uh the Border bed building uh project and also the El M project that was approved previous meeting the title was misleading so yeah that that's actually that that titles actually comes from the state but it it entails everything in related to um capital projects more less on you know ceg you U moving on to item F Bo of member or student representative comments okay um moving on to item G approval of consent agenda items motion just just real U before the motion there just needed to be two um one clarification and one change uh relating to uh under Finance letter F relating to that uh revised Amendment share service agreement there was a um an error in that agreement that was um identified later so the agreement needs to be pulled and then Bergen County Special Services is revising it and we'll we'll approve it at a a later meeting okay so um minus Finance F correct okay and then for ification under uh Finance AG um in that column the reir maximum legal service budget um it's a little bit not as clear that column should be 65,000 so that's going to be changed from 50 it's 655,000 the increase is ,000 just to clarify so it's going from 50 to 65 correct we don't need to p h okay so um through of consent agenda items I have motion and second are there any items anyone would wish to pull for a discussion n roll call please miss shy yes Miss Jus yes Miss par yes Miss row yes Miss SEO yes Miss Thompson yes Miss WS yes and vice president M yes motion carries on consent on to letter I administrative reports um first we'll have Dr gon our superent I have a general rule that I follow I let myself to 10 items 10 that's that's the rule I make um I'm going to go to 11 tonight but there's a bit of an asri in there um so the 11th is actually related to qac so we have a qac is a trianal every three years more or less the the County Board County Department of Education visits the school district spends an entire day here and goes through half the botom of the whole organization um as part of that qac um evaluation we have to show that we've done certain things time but I just want to if you'll notice on the agenda it says tuac compliance indicator student safety day report this was presented back in the in in the spring presented by by Dr caros back in the spring but I wanted to do it now because I want to put on the agenda so when they come to visit us in January they we have this on a recent agenda uh this is nothing that has not been heard before by by the public really repeating it here and I just want to emphasize little the course of the 2223 school year um when it came to the incident involving um uh student safety um where it be violence dandism substance abuse or even weapons which were Zero by the way um but there were 17 H in at the high school over the course of the entire school year for contacts that's 180 school days 800 students per day come into the building 17 totals of the Year 13 for the Middle School um and AC that's led the way with absolutely zero incidents so I want to thank our pre-or our fourth graders for their excellent behavior when it comes to that um for a total of 30 incidents that we're seeing there so I just want to say that that's not new data um but it's memor in the minutes and we can show that F accuse like this uh other great things we have going on around the district today we hosted 350 parents here at at ACS for American Education week I was here with Mr Brier and Dr Martinez for helping out um fantastic visit it's a day that was established um I don't know how old American Ed week Ed week is it was established during a time when Public Schools were under assault and they were being picked on and it was a day um designed by the Nea to bring family members into the district to see the work that we're doing in school so Ed week very successful today last week Dr car and I had the chance to visit um LMS and we were the we were the soulle judges for the door decorating contest for the Spirit Week um we we told the winners we we announced the winners of the three grade levels of the four grade levels and then we burned all those records because we're never going to show who SP one um we literally like treaded them when they were done um but fantastic job by the middle school really really great spirit good enthusiasm there um just had their homecoming dance they had the homecoming dance a weeko it was the largest dance that they've had in recent memory over 400 students came out 400 students came out um and a wonderful even wonderful a lot of fun I think that's a very uh positive indicator for a school district when students on a Friday night we'll voluntarily go back to school so we're very proud of them and thank you for that and I hope that our student reps may make a comment about that event when they give there talking um we mentioned the AP perfect scores tonight congratulations to our three students here um I want to share that the the long delay lockers at La Jess are finally arriving so those gaping holes of concrete on the first floor of the school are being filled um there was a hall moment for us because I've been calling the person every single day uh for the past few weeks to get those installed coming up tomorrow morning at 9:00 the community will receive a notice about the upcoming Holiday Market which will be held in December at LHS that is a student council fundraiser student G the fundraiser we sent out our first FL going out tomorrow morning and will be sent out uh prior to um Bergen County Choir fantastic success there of the 40 schools in Bergen County that are students selected Leonia had 23 students picked it was the most students ever from Leonia was picked to be part of the County Choir congratulations Mr dun um this week we also held a joint HSA meeting Dr caros and I met with the parent leaders from all three schools thank you for their time that uh yesterday was World kindness day organized by miss Emily lamb student had the chance to uh send in anonymous messages of uh of care and concern for each other very very nice and my last and my 11th and the 10th item I want to I want to thank you and congratulate Miss Melman and Mr Lee for for being reappointed to the Board of Education I know that Dr Meer is in the audience tonight will'll be joining us in December Dr Miser congratulations on your election board of education and Miss thank you for your time serving on the board as you rotate out that's my entire report thank you Miss um we'll move on to's school business administra thank you president Melman um I do have a few items uh the first item is the 2425 budget which you know I would like to let everyone know it is under way uh we did um open it up all the worksheets for the various departments and we plan on having uh various department meetings as well as finance committee meetings following um over the next few months the next item is the application for state aid which Mr La commented on relating to some of the state aid relating to special services so that is underway that has started um and what we do is just a snapshot today uh October 13 data this year for you know next next budget um determining how much statea that the district's going to get so the business office has completed its verification of the data for inputting onto the State website uh there were meetings that were completed with Miss Russo and her assistant Miss Bach as well as uh Miss scander so I would like to thank all of them for their assistance and making sure the data that is being reported is accurate and you know validating and confirming that you know the district is getting the the required amount relating to you know special services as well as LEP students uh the application is to to the state early December uh the next the next item um just the backup relating to the asssa just as far as a snapshot the overall number is pretty pretty consistent um however the enroll number did drop about 50 students as a result of Edgewater residents uh slightly decreasing uh from the prior year roughly about 30 students as well as there was a slightly decreased number of uh parent p uh paid pre students that we you know receive from Leonia residents as well as non residents uh so that that ca for the decrease as far as the other uh categories students that were're sending out of the district uh relating to special services special ed services um that's pretty consistent as well as low income numbers are pretty consistent as well as LEP num so all the other categories are pretty consistent so hopefully you know the state a you know won't fluctuate as far as the decrease the next area is technology um relating to the overall technology of the district so Mr Samuel just something to keep you know um down the road Mr Samuel is in the process of completing a technology plan um and he will present it to the full board at the January 23rd meeting so that is in the pipeline uh to kind of you know go over a little bit more detail as far as you know the to the total snapshot of the district as far as the plan for the future uh the last item relates to the capital projects update just to kind of you know give everyone an update where we stand you know and how we're moving going forward um relating to the various projects so there's two project relating to Insurance one is the JY doors at LHS as well as the LHS Electrical uh both those projects are underway with the architect as far as finalizing the drawings um he's uh planning on hopefully uh going out to bid late December so you should be able to to provide the necessary documents that the district can adverti to go out to bid in late December um and hopefully the project will you know get under way early January um depending on how it you know impedes the the school um so we'll look at that the next projects relate to the FEMA mitigation projects relating to LHS and LMS those are also in the process of getting completed by the architect he's just waiting to receive the engineer drawings um at that point he's planning on hopefully uh getting everything he needed and then we're going to be setting up a meeting with with him myself uh Dr gadens as well as uh Mr Woods to go over the scope of work as far as what you know um will be done the the final budget numbers and putting together uh the information needed to go out to bed uh those projects are are going to be a summer project because of what it entails um how it you know it it will uh you know hinder the the instructional um you know the operation of the schools so those will be during the summer but we will look to go out to bid end of January for both those projects uh the last piece is the 23 24 projects that we uh that myself have put together in the in the the 23 24 budget the first project is the rod rod project uh relating to the ACF roof that was approved uh the district has received a preliminary eligible letter uh but we we're still waiting to receive the final eligible letter uh once we receive that then we could go out to bid but at this point the architect will start the design process uh to put that together uh from the previous meeting arth that you had asked about um I guess the nature of the replacement is it going to be replaced the roof is it going to be an added layer so from speaking to the architect the intention is is um that scope of work will be a replacement of the of the complete roof it's going to be ripping off the old one and putting the the new roof down just because of the nature of it um but he's still in the process of finalizing you know the drawings and and all that uh the last piece is the projects that didn't get approved by Rod Grant so from speaking to the architect and uh uh verification by myself as far as funding so we were able to identify the projects that uh we are able to fully fund 100% now that you know the rod Grant isn't isn't coming up with the difference the 40% so based on that analysis the architect will start putting to together a proposal to move those projects along the key thing is uh with the mitigation projects we we're going to wait to determine the overall Budget on the mitigation projects to kind of see how it uh impacts the capital reserve you know we have to come up with additional funding not covered by FEMA uh so those you know will be moved along but you know they're they're kind of on a on a slight for and that's it I realized when I made my report I never mentioned when the Holiday Market was is actually on Saturday December 9th from 12: to 4m. at the high school gymnasia thank you thank you um moving on to item J committee reports um student Representatives exciting upcoming events in at Leon High School specifically so tomorrow we have a food and security night that is run by the conversations in Humanities rppa JSA service club and the national art Society um and we'll have a speaker and food drive that will be taking place there so that'll begin at 6:00 p.m. in our LS Little Theater so that we're looking very forward to that and then we have a BDI against gun violence tournament on the 16th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. that is with the Mom's demand action um obviously to support the victims of gun violence which is very important to all the students and faculty LHS and then we also C we have a Chipotle fundraiser going on um at the edge water one in City Place I believe and then today we had the DECA Hunger Games event I was not in school today I don't know if you guys were but um we did have that going on okay then we also had our career Readiness event which will be next week so that I believe that we had that last year well like a little career fair for people to attend we can just see like things that we're interested in for other students at Leonia and then for a new club that we have it's ski and salsa club which sounds really cool and exciting so um and just an update on the spirit week that we had and I know Dr gon's kind of touched on um our homecoming it was very successful and being on student council we saw a big jump from last year the amount of people who participated even in homecoming so I think school spirit now has been um a big upgrade and I don't know if you guys go on the leonus stuco 25 page on Instagram you guys will see um a lot of cute pictures of I think oh Dan's not here but the Yea on golf that he wanted to see really bad you guys will see that on there um yeah she's just giving you a slides show but overall I was very successful I also want to promote beat night which will be this Friday the 17th I love beat night I go up be going every single year I'm actually mcing the entire event it's really fun we have over 10 acts I think like 12 or 14 out of Performing songs jokes um we have like really cool bands coming to it's just a really fun event I encourage everyone to attend great thank you uh education Maria we met in early November with the committee we talked about a few different things we got a preview of the plans for uh the spring break trip for spring of 25 um which sounds pretty exciting we reviewed the changes to the physics curriculum we spoke about enrichment opportunities in class for ACS students and then we also uh reviewed the various Tech projects that are going in within the school and uh what the district is doing to identify what the priorities are because there are quite a few projects our update we'll be meeting again in December thank you um finance and [Music] so in in place of President Lee I to comment um so we met last night actually uh some of the items I kind of discussed in my uh Business Report uh but I'll just go over a little bit so we discussed the technology plan uh you know what that would somewhat look like from Mr Samuel um with the date second meeting in January uh the next item we touched on was the 2425 budget uh we discussed health benefit rates uh for January 1st 24 with the you know how it will directly impact uh Leonia with you know the new increases uh but what we talked about is how it you know kind of uh Blends out based on Leon's data where you know where this current staff Falls um as well as you know the open enrollment so we're you know we're looking at that closely to see you know some of the benefits going forward related to potential impact for future rate increases and what you know other options you know the district could potentially um take advantage of uh the next area was capital projects we went through which I kind of went briefly over the various projects the status the update from the architect um and the last piece was uh we touched on insurance coverage update pretending uh pertaining to the uh claims that we have outstanding relating to the sexual abuse that's itk you uh next is community relations and Communications oh we have and policy uh we met at the end of October and we 12 different policies relation updates we we them on the most them actually we work of them um the most of most of them are okay but there's are like a couple of items um we might want to um um table it for the next meeting next board meeting so that we want disc because I mean because of the whatever uh some of the stuff is quite impact in our the bud purposes Bas on the the mandated regulations so we like to discuss about table in the board meeting so we can more discuss thoroughly and then um I mean pretty much I mean the uh hold most the U most of the um the you know updates are um it's a combined they just making one and type thing um it's okay but yeah I mean the details we not just this all thank you and I'll go over Safety and Security um not much we did not meet November 1st we are meeting again November 29th our committee reports correct me if I'm wrong we are moving on [Music] to I have a motion are there any items anyone to for discussion roll pleas Miss Troy yes Miss yes Mr par yes Miss Rocka yes misso Miss Thompson Miss walls yes vice president M yes motion carries on new business uh next up is public comment um if anyone in the public would like wish to speak on non-agenda items pertaining to the theonia public school district um please state your name and your address Arthur the chair for Isaac um there was an item regarding policy on hit that there was an open issue that you were going to work on at committee and I'm just trying to find out what the status of that change is I promise I would follow up and I'm following up yeah is this the review so the they Rie I usually when you revise it it's in there and right like um what happen was that um the because of the our the board president he want to invol table so thank you one other comment uh for Eric um one of the things that I brought up and Dan's not here but he's the chair of the capital strategic plan of capital planning is that um the long range the real long range I know it's limited to five years but you really got to think beyond that uh strategic plan for the district was being it was intentionally holding up until Brian was was was hired and on board had a chance to S you may not have a chance to go through really thought about it yet but in the budget process you may want to uh budget some money for possibility at some point during the year that you want to start doing this what you need you might need a consultant you might need to do spend some money exploring uh the feasibility of what the district wants to do where they want to go I'm not talking about you know changing doors and planning stuff I'm talking about where you're going to take this thank you thank you regarding the uh strategic planning so the the rough time frame time frame I'll share it again we've talked about it before was to really spend this year having be this year and then the 2425 school year really was focused on the the full-blown Community involved with the 5e Strategic plan um one thing that the I'm going to recommend that the board does that they put an R pain request for proposals for outside Consultants to purpose of assisting with the writing of that plan we had a my previous District had great success using New Jersey school boards they did two full five-year plans for us Matt Lee runs that for them did a very very nice job but I do think for the purpose of being thorough that the board should definitely you know put something out there and see who wants to do that outdoor outside Consultants would be used and we have discussed from a budgetary perspective having that next year's thank you any other members of the public wishing to speak okay seeing none um we will move on to item P or comment um we are moving into close session okay session awesome so okay um we are on our approval of personnel items can I have a motion motion second ISAC um any items anyone would wish to call for discussion um seeing none roll call please miss Choy yes missus yes missar yes Miss Raa yes misso yes Miss Thompson yes Miss WS yes and vice president mman yes motion carries on personel okay we [Music] are yes just motion and the second his Carm yeah I'm thank you right Daniel when they