I'd like to call tonight's board ofed meeting into session can I get a roll call please Mr Ser here M Weinstein here Mr POS Mr kellerer here Mrs ainson here Mrs wingler here Mrs M here adate notice was published on Wednesday January 10 2024 in the Asbury Park Press the Manchester times was advised to specify the time and place of a meeting the statement to this effect shall be entered into the minutes of this meeting SE whereas Section 8 the meeting acts exclusion of the public from meeting certain circumstances where this public body is of the opinion that such circumstances presently exist now therefore be resolve by the Manchester Township Board of Education as follows the public shall be excluded from discussion here and after specified subject matters the general nature of the subject matters to be discussed as legal Personnel negotiations to anticipate these matters will be made public within 60 days this resolution shall become effective immediately motion please motion second all in favor I I I'd like to call tonight's board event meeting back into session can I get a roll call please Mr Ser here Mr Weinstein here Mr P here Mr kellerer here Mrs ainson here M wingler here Mrs here can you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America the repic it stands one nation God IND it's nice to see so many people here thank you for coming out tonight I would like to express my sincere sympathies to the family friends loved ones of Mrs Pat Ford um who worked at Whiting Elementary School at our December Board of Ed meeting I announced that some board of ed members would serve as Le liaison for the CPAC PTA and Town Council based on legal guidance from our school board attorney uh has been decided that we will not move forward to have any Board of Ed members serve in this capacity I want to clarify that although it was announced none of our members have acted as the aison to date and will not be taking these roles moving forward instead we encourage these groups to take the opportunity to speak in public sessions about what is happening in their organizations ensuring that their voices are still heard and their contributions are being recognized one of the board of Ed's goals to receive training we attended a training prior to tonight's meeting on restorative practices I would like to thank the high school and middle school administration team for a great job explaining restorative practices and telling us what you're doing in your schools to improve student relations congratulations to all the athletes who are breaking school records apparently this winter there's a lot of them we had a policy meeting on February 12th to discuss policies 1100 2419 5306 86 42 857 and 8500 we follow the guidance of Strauss Esme when reviewing and updating our policies looking ahead we will be having our budgeting meeting on February 27th good luck to all the eighth graders as you get ready to move on to your next phase of your education and create your high school schedules it was nice to see so many faces at last night's orientation seniors enjoy and embrace these final moments of high school make many memories I remember my 100 dinner which was many moons ago bonley and I hope you have an amazing evening it's one of the things that's coming up which I'm sure you'll talk about and in honor of black history month I would like to leave you with some words of wisdom from Michael Jordan obstacles don't have to stop you if you run into a wall don't turn around and give up figure out how to climb it go through it or work around it Mrs Pedroza do you have a report thank good evening everyone as you'll notice there are few retirements on this night's agenda I would like to um say I am very happy but also sad to see two of our staff members who will be retiring um in June Caroline Weinberger has been with us for 29 years she is a fantastic gifted and talented and stem teacher and she will be a tremendous loss to our district but we wish her well in her retirement Dena foot who is a therapist at I think three of our schools um she has been with us for 17 years I actually started at some time with Dina working here at the middle school she is an exceptional therapist and she will be a tremendous loss as well but we wish them well in retirement I would like to reiterate um Mrs Mount sentiments it is with great sadness that we come together to mourn the loss of our Dear Pat Ford Miss Ford was not was new to whiting school but not to the community at large she was a longtime resident of whing with deep roots in this area through her residency and years of work with local preschools children she was proud of the work she did with Manchester's youngest Learners and the ability to finish out her career at Whiting School please keep her her family your friends students and colleagues in your thoughts and prayers as they navigate through this very difficult time I would like to thank our teams for coming to assist with this loss and this tragedy school districts are prepared with protocols for handling the unfortunate loss of staff and students when they occur our administrative team organized a support team that was able to help us with the coping of this loss thank you for your support and thank you for your assistance if you would please join me in a moment of silence in honor of this beautiful soul that we affectionately called Miss Pat thank you so much the following are the recommendations of the superintendent for the Hib report there are case 8 through 12 at the high school Ridgeway Elementary School cases 2 through three and whing Elementary School case number eight yes we like to bring students from peer leadership the students from peer leadership if you can come up for your presentation so I'd like to give a little background to everyone here this evening these wonderful students actually presented to both Mr Adams myself and miss sylvestri the idea of um creating a candlelight vigil in honor of some of our fallen Hawks um this is a presentation for information and to um let people know about this vigil that will be conducted they did a tremendous job you guys look fantastic tonight and we are glad you could join us so thank you all right good evening everyone my name is Jay Jones and I would like to thank you for allowing us to be here this evening before I get started I would like the rest of my classmates to introduce themselves my name is j my name and we are here to inform you about an event that has been planned at the high school now you may be wondering who we are we are a Selected Few group of students in this Poo's leadership seminar class this class is student based this class is student based so this class helps enhance and exercise our leadership skills this as a class we as a class who work on several projects that benefit that benefit the community and the high school such as Helping Hands for Hunger new student orientation the trigger trunk and currently the memorial Gard now you know a bit about who we are we want to know a little bit more about the it was created in 2012 by the class of 2014 and um it honors the pollen Hawks at our school the pollen Hawks are students or staff members that pass during their time at the high school and Leadership became involved in 2020 with the restoration reopening of the garden and ever since then we've been maintaining and improving it so as you can see there are some visuals of the garden I'd like to start with the one that you see at your top left corner this is a bulletin board right outside of the garden and on it are all of the Fallen hulks um that's just there to honor them and remember them as you can see there's things like stockings on the board and that's because no matter like what the season is whether it's Christmas season or like Halloween we try to make a festive so even though they're not here with us physically they can still celebrate with us spiritually we have a couple more pictures that have be show in the slideshow but while they show I want to talk a bit more about the history of the garden and why events like these are so important to us so as you heard the garden was uh first created by the class of 2014 and 2012 but shortly after they graduated the doors were forced to be closed due to security and safety reasons and this left the Gard to be sort of neglected for a little while and students and faculty noticed this and they wanted to open up the doors but of course there was a lot that went into that and so it was left to someone to sort of take up the responsibility to keep this place alive and that's what the leadership class of 2020 hoped to do and they did achieve it after a lot of work and a lot of research that went into making this happen and so ever since leadership class has done what they can to not only keep these do open but to talk about it because half the responsibility is just opening doors and maintaining it but the other half is talking and educating those on the purpose of the garden because I'll admit last year was uh for the graduation it was forced to be indoors due to certain circumstances and before then I hadn't known about what the garden was I had I knew it was there but the purpose and sort of who it was representing I hadn't known about and to see the graduation happen indoors and all the students who were walking through when it was decorated you know it allowed a lot of people the opportunity to learn about it and to talk about it and this these sort of events Inspire us and give us the passion to have events like these where more people are invited into the space to sort of learn about it and keep the memory alive so the Memorial Garden is a very Sacred Space and we keep it very active and as part of last year's leadership class we hope to manifest their plan into reality every leadership class likes to have something they leave behind for the next year and they hope to have a handlight vigil and we hope to bring this community together and honor the students and staff that have passed during their time at mths um we hope in doing so we will provide music Refreshments that will be provided by us but we are looking for monetary donations or anything that the community can provide um we hope to provide a butterfly release um which is supposed to symbolize this transition into life and you know a celebration of life instead of you know the grief you know it's it's hard to deal with but we hope this candl light vigil and Butterfly release will help you know with the never ending cycle that is grief and show the families that we are there for them and we are still supporting them years later um we hope through tributes and memories of our fallen Haws we'll also be able to honor them and remember those even though you know some of us haven't really met them so we are able to honor them um in spirit and this event will be taken place at June 8th at 6:30 p.m. in the mths memorial card it will carry over into the school library and any accommodations with rain will be taken over into the what do we need from the community this is um directed towards uh many businesses that are local um first of all monetary donations that would be used for the butterflies for the butterfly release candles General supplies even food um another thing is food and beverage donations local restaurants and businesses can give us food or perhaps gift card donations to get the food um the other thing is Landscaping um what that entails is um perhaps any landscapers out there can come and maybe mix our weeds our bushes currently have disease um we really want to keep our garden you know as nice as possible to respect those who it's honoring um we would also like rocks for the pond maybe um alsoo is currently um not uh I mean it's functional but it it's it's a little room just a um sorry and the last thing is from the community we just want your support maybe it's you know some kind words a post something like that just to get the word out really I think that you know this kind of event is important not just to us but I feel like it's important you guys and we really want to drive the point home that Manchester Township High School does not just care about the Hawks that are going there but also the Hawks that are not currently going there the Hawks that this Garden is sell so uh thank you any questions I have a question so when people want to make donations like I want to donate a few cases of water who should we reach out to so that way you know what's coming your way that probably after sometime there's to be a post thank you just want everybody to get the same message anything else I just want to commend you you guys did a tremendous job you were very detailed the way you um planned it um really the website I think will allow you to be able to get a little bit more of what you're looking for to make that evening so special um I will be sending to Mrs pza Hawkins for all of you but um wonderful job tonight thank you so much you should be so proud easy group for me to follow but certainly this is the highlight of our night which is to recognize our students so we'll begin with the students that are involved in Broadcast News this is team one and I believe we have a slide for them here we go Kenny Emma Nicole haly Gavin Manny fles Savannah or Brianna and they are accompanied by their Broadcast News teacher Mrs me Kenny Emma haey Gavin nanny Savannah Nicole and aubana these fifth grade dragons are responsible for the MTS live news broadcast each morning and let me just tell you they are very very serious because I've been on this broadcast and they give you all the cues and prompt you and do a great job interviewing they work hard during recess after school and even on the weekends to make sure MTS has top quality daily newscast thank you for your hard work and thank you for your dedication are youy great job thank you guys thank you so much our next students are representing Ridgeway Elementary School we have Freddy Elena Aros Jose Damien and Kenzie who met with pontoni and cafeteria staff to provide quality feedback regarding the meals served to our rway student I think Mr were part of their feedback provided valam two good job all right good job our next group of students are representing Whiting Elementary School thank you for our officer shayen Emma and the junior impact students who decided to conduct a schoolwide Super Bowl challenge students donated over 400 cans of soup for our local food bank that's quite a lot students gave a hand to guess the winner the winning number of cans predicted in the winner were the cheaps in addition our students also participated in the districtwide serial award and assisted with prepping them at the bar congratulations and thank you so much guys you know Mrs go that was a lot of work with the cereal job and we are very grateful to them great job guys thank you so much thank you so much our next smiling face is referee representing Regional Bas school and this lovely beauty is sandrea sandrea is a friendly young lady with the most beautiful and contagious smile woohoo we got it she loves music and goes all the to the songs from Disney movie shandrea has a great sense of humor and she always reminds us of the schedule by saying it's time for lunch Mr George you got that it's time for lunch time to go home andandrea makees sure that we can hear her clear request for a cookie which is her reward at the end of each day for good behavior congratulations gorgeous thank you so much look at that smile our next student is representing our middle school and we have with us Jose is Jose here this evening I'm still going to read about Jose Jose would like we would like to recognize Jose Sano Ramirez for his achievements as a middle school student he's a student who always does his best puts forth effort and is motivated to do well he's kind he's caring and he gets along with his peers Jose has made significant progress academically this year and he's an eighth grader true leader our class runs Mustang Joe's a schoolwide coffee cart and Jose is a leader while making 102 made he makes treats in the class to sell on the coffee cart he's a top employee while working for the coffee cart and he's an absolute pleasure to be around congratulations to Jose our next two students are student athletes from the middle school and I think I saw them here is Michael here and Kristen come on up we are extremely proud to have Michael and Kristen represent mtms as our student athletes for the month of February give them a nice big round of applause what I love about this is they are both great representations of what it means to be a student athlete they're both eth grade leaders of our wrestling cross country and soccer basketball teams and respectfully work just as hard in the classroom as they do in the athletic Arena they Ser as excellent example of our young student athletes congratulations we're going to continue our celebrations with the high school and it's one here Diana Daniela Sharon Kelly and myette come on down in recognition of the outstanding efforts of the MS intera club members their recent initiative to organize a Serial Drive benefiting the jar Memorial food pantry writing exemplifies their commitment to serving the community and making a positive impact the serial Drive was a districtwide event with students from each school coming together to collect serial donation through their hard work and dedication the students collected an impressive 900 boxes of cereal and if you no that's pretty impressive especially since a box ofal used to cost maybe $2 when I was a kid and dating myself that is a tremendous effort and really wonderful Fe we I'd also like to thank Mrs B she helped actually coordinate that and tremendous job I saw what you did last week and at The Rotary breakfast and bringing all the kids together your work is truly REM thank you so much so I got a little lesson from Mr lisst today because I wasn't sure what stand for does anybody know what I am is in swimming I hear it individual medl that's exactly right so I'd like to bring up Alexandra and Andrew are they here this evening and KY come on up just keep swimming is their message so Alex is a Junior member of the hawk swim team a three-year Varsity letter winner and a double A School record holder in several events Lexi has the flag record with a time of 1 minute 59 she's a member of the 200 medley relay and the 2003 relay that both broke longstanding School County records for the past year Lexi broke her own record this season in the 200 I with a time of 2 minutes 15 seconds Lexi has placed in the top eight in Shores and the top four in the fresh in the county for the past two seasons as one of the top swimmers in the shore way to go Lexi and I have to read that all because you have accomplished a lot girl so congratulations but not to be surpassed Here Andrew has done a great job too as a freshman he's an extraordinary swim season in his first season as the Hawks he broke several individual and relay records Andrew broke the 200 IM record with a time of 2155 the 100 breast record with a time of 5992 and then the broke the 53 record from 1999 with a time of 2251 whoosh that's amazing right is that amazing remarkable yes give him a round of applause Andrew also was a member of record-breaking relays the 200 medley relay and the 4003 Andrew play placed in the 200 IM and third in the 100 breast at Shore conference this season Andrew has three more years to continue so he's setting the bar very high for future swimmers way to go Andrew Wonder student my pleasure I do also want to bring up I was asked to um speak a little bit about the PTA the PTA actually I believe Mrs Las is here this evening we'll leave this up for you but we're asking you to please mark your calendars for May 11th at the blue Clause we will be hosting an event there I am told that I will be pitching um and throwing the first pitch with the principal who actually sells the most ticket um I'm training right now so we'll see how it goes but I'm I'm going to be a good sport so not to worry um and then the other thing I just want to remind you all is that we do have our PTA meeting tomorrow evening so thank you so much for coming and I'm hand it over Mr actually we're um our military Ambassador is not here so thank you m Jamie PC for joining us if you could give us a report for government good evening everyone my name is Jamie poek and I am the junior class president at Manchester Township High School the reason that I'm speaking here before you tonight is to provide the board with some important information regarding activities and events that have occurred or are being planned at the high school since the last meeting here are the some of the events that student council is working on where exact we're working on the someone special dance which is Sunday June 2nd and this is a day of fun where younger students par in dancing face painting and more and every year it's a beautiful thing I went last year it was literally incredible so and then the senior class at 24 is working on senior gifts for graduation their prom which is May 17th at the mainland is book and they're possibly looking at a student for a staff basketball game and also for the 100 nights dinner um it's on March 12 so and that's also really fun so I'm not a senior yet but I'm looking forward to it for next year and for our Junior class 2025 we're currently running a blanket fundraiser so if you get cold easily or if you want a soft cozy blanket I'd highly recommend purchasing one orders are due Friday and our prom date is May 31st and details are in the works but the date is set in s um our sophomore class is working on a possible food fundraiser and our freshman class is working on a spyball tournament during spring and possibly a movie night but they're still working on that thank you for allowing me to represent the m Student Government at the board meeting this evening I'm honored to stand before you all and share the past and future ongoings involving S at the high school thank you again and have a great night Mr Lorenson you have a report for us a couple quick things these are primarily on the agenda providing a little explanation uh we have a resolution on the agenda tonight to uh essentially we're to a resolution that the township passed to wave a $32,000 water in sewer bille when Co hit I guess they stopped they stopped taking readings on one of our water readers and we receiv a bill of $30,000 this year and uh as we were talking with talking with the township one of the things they had asked us to do is if we can put a well in instead of using pable City War they would agree to wave $32,000 because they do have gen concerns with all the new buildings that are C that are all the new building going on in town about portal water so we are going to put a well in at Ridgeway which will essentially Supply our irrigation that will be done through a grant uh so it's not going to come out of our budget uh and and in return they will drop that charge uh there's a capital needs Grant on the agenda this kind of just what I was talking about uh this is the second or third round of of funding that that's being provided uh but it does have to be used for Capital needs uh so what we are going to do is we going to utilize These funds to install the well that I was just talking about and then we're also going to replace some uh older inefficient hot water eaters uh the district did qualify for a preschool facilities expansion Grant in amount of 1 Point almost 1.5 million um these funds would be used to support a potential addition at Ridgeway Elementary a three classroom addition a Ridgeway Elementary with some office space and some conference area District would be responsible for coming up with the local share which right now is estimated to be around $2 million uh this this funding cannot come out of our local budget because the paa is its own separate entity so we are looking at some ways that we could potentially fund this project um if we can't do it then we we would wind up returning returning the money uh there's a few Changers on the agenda our our HVAC project uh which was funded through our through Esser uh is kind of winding down our Windows project at Ridgeway is completed our hbac project is near completion but we have a couple change orders uh just to get get get us over the Finish Line it includes installing some additional electrical some additional painting and uh some additional piping due to unforeseen circumstances when they were were doing the work uh they couldn't route rout route some of the gas piping the way they wanted to uh and then my last one is we have two tuition contra second last one we have two tuition contracts on the agenda for special education students that we are receiving from other school districts uh one's coming from Lavalette and one's coming from Lakewood they do attend programs here so we do charge them tuition so those contracts um actually I'm sorry those contracts are not on the agenda tonight they were already approved but I want to discuss them because they kind of got forgot about uh so they so we will be moving forward with that and there is a potential for another kid from upper freeold that could be attending one of our programs so if that's the case we will charge them tuition and then lastly uh we will be holding a public budget meeting next Tuesday February 27th uh it'll start at 5:00 pm I again this is a high highight high high light of the budget um you know I I will discuss the information that I that I have now that I can discuss the governor's address is that same day uh so he will you know he will discuss what's going to happen schools for the upcoming budget cycle however he does not we will not get our state numbers probably two days February 29th March 1 somewhere around there we'll get our state numbers and then we can start fine tuning the budget where we have to uh we are in our last year of that of Senate Bill S2 so on paper we are supposed to see a state aid reduction however the shift in the enrollment in the district with the increased special ed mbers increased ESL increased free reduced lunch I think could potentially offset a state loss similar to what it did last year so that's what I'm hoping uh but we don't have any other information beyond that uh and then when we are here for our March board meeting we will be I will be asking the board to approve the 10ed budget to be submitt to the county office and essentially that will be our budget that I will present in April or May when we have the public hearing onk at this time we would like to invite any residents um to comment on agenda items only if you're interested please come to the microphone do we have any board member reports do we have any old business or correspondence no old business no correspondence okay now to the agenda section one a new business numbers through four can I get a motion second all right before we vote I am going to read in one additional resolution this will be number five uh this is so the resolution will re uh resolution to uphold decision made on hip case w01 that will be number five so if you are voting to upold it will be yes if voting to we're gonna can I get another motion since we now have another number mo i is there any discussion no discussion can I get a roll call please Mr serman yes Ms Weinstein yes Mr P yes Mr kellerer uh yes four no Mrs ainson yes Mrs wingler yes Mrs mat yes okay next section B through D can I get a motion motion second is there any discussion yes for number two I have one concern about putting a well at briway after all of the water problems we've had in Manchester and it being across from yeah I mean have we looked at that that do water well they will yes of course that that'll all be part of it because they will do soil testing and all that stuff to make sure that you know it's uh it's going to be non-portable so it's not going to be drinking water it's going to be water the fields and things like that but they will be looking at that kind yeah yeah this no no no this will not be drinking water this strictly be for for irritation okay good question any other discussion can I get a roll call please Please Mr Ser yes M Weinstein yes Mr P yes Mr kellart yes Mrs ainson yes Mrs wingler yes Mrs M yes section two administrative numbers one through seven can I get a motion any discussion can I get a roll call please Mr serman yes M Weinstein yes Mr P yes Mr kellerer yes Mrs Atkinson yes Mrs wiler yes Mrs M yes okay Personnel numbers 1 to 31 can I get a motion motion second any discussion I would just like to congratulate all those retiring hope you enjoy your future retirement can I get a v call please M Ser yes M Weinstein yes Mr P yes Mr kellerer yes uh and number 30 yes all of them except for Nathaniel K Mrs ainson yes Mrs wior yes Mrs M yes student Personnel numbers one and two can I get a motion motion any discussion can I get a roll call please Mr ser yes M Weinstein yes Mr P yes Mr kellerer yes Mrs ainson yes Mrs wingler yes Mrs M yes special services numbers one to three can I get a motion motion second any discussion I'll just provide some additional information uh number two these are not new students these are students that are transferring from one placement to another which I was thankful for any discussion can I get a roll call please miss Ser yes Miss winstein yes Mr P yes Mr Keller yes Mrs ainson yes Mrs wingler yes Mrs yes Athletics numbers one and two can I get a motion please motion second discussion just want to wish all the spring athletes a great spring season good luck to you all can I get a roll call please M seret yes M Weinstein yes Mr POS yes Mr Keller yes Mrs ainson yes Mrs wingler yes Mrs no yes section three Finance uh numbers one through five can I get a motion please motion any discussion can I get a roll call please Mr Ser yes Miss Weinstein yes Mr P yes Mr kellerer yes Mrs ainson yes Mrs wiler yes m yes at this time we would like to invite anybody from the public to come up to make um any comments um at this time we are going to have to go into an executive session number two whereas section eight of the public meetings act permits exclusion of the public for immedi circumstances and whereas this public body is of the opinion that such circumstances present exist now therefore be resolved by the manchest count Board of Education as followed public shall be excluded from discussion near after specified subject matters General AG subject matters discusses legal Personnel negotiations to anticipate these matters will be made public within 60 days this resolution shall become effective immediately uh we do need to go into a second close session to discuss some things we could get through the first one uh when we come out back in public action may be taken uh just so you guys are aware um have a motion please motion all in favor contus I'd like to make a motion to resume tonight's Board of Ed meeting can I get a roll call please Mr Ser I'm here M wein I'm here Mr here Mr kellerer here Mrs ainson here Mrs wiber here Mrs here okay before we close the meeting we do have one resolution to read in uh the resolution will read in as follows resolution will authorize a letter to be sent to law enforcement agencies regarding conduct of employee number 9213 have a motion please motion any discussion yes serious all right can I get a roll call please Mr Ser yes Miss wiinston yes Mr POS yes Mr kellerer upate Mrs ainson yes Mrs wingler yes and M yes this time I'd like to make a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting I all in favor good night everybody