[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] wait when's your birthday it's the 15th dude it's my wife's birthday oh happy bir look you guys are muted already look okay good evening this is the touch board Education meeting for Tuesday February 13 2024 would you all rise flag States thank you no speak I hereby make this statement to indicate compliance with the open public meetings act known as chapter 231 of the public laws of New Jersey 1975 which became effective 90 days after enactment January 19th 1976 notice of this meeting was given by providing the location time and date of this meeting and posting of the same on the front door of the Board of Education offices by delivering copies to the burough Hall and the matachin public library the home news and Tribune and by filing a copy with the burough clerk as prescribed by this law thank you both Mr bot here miss cook here Mr derflinger here miss demang here Mr glasberg here Dr Johnson Marcus here Miss Colleen here Mr lifton here Dr spner here Mr sus here thank you there are no showas not this evening okay the meeting is now open for the public for any comment any topic okay you're in for a treat what there's agendas over here too so please help yourself um section move on to presentations Mr Harve we have the beginning of our budget process amazingly again um and I think you have some baseline data to uh with us yes so there's four hand outs for tonight first handout is the Baseline data uh the first 14 or 15 pages is just a narrative for each school that we have to submit to the NJ doe when we submit our budget package we have to submit part of this information you can just read that when you have a moment um page 13 and 14 has historical enrollment data going back to 1991 and this really depicts the growth in EN Roman over those years uh and Page 15 to 18 is detail Personnel information uh uh the number of staff at each school um so you can just look at that when you get a minute and if you have any questions you can uh email us with the questions handout number two is the custodial and maintenance accounts uh we've been working on this since probably September October um just give me a minute here if you go down to to line on the third page uh line 90 on the third page for handout number two you can see as now the increase is 133% obviously we cannot keep it at 133% with a 2% cap so we're looking for areas to cut uh to cut um and we will discuss this in our next finance committee either items that we can cut and defer for a year or two or possibly take it out of uh any surplus that we have in this year's budget um and again this the this line on a budget for custodian maintenance accounts includes all of the expenditures for salaries uh any kind of equipment repairs any kind of anything that has to do with the repair and upkeep of the buildings is included in this custodial maintenance budget and just to say again it's a 133% increase we obviously have to make cuts to that the next the next um handout handout number three is for transportation that's showing a 3.93% increase and again we'll probably have to make cuts to this we're just not sure where the cuts will be this includes the same amount same amount of routes that we had this year same amount of drivers same amount of AIDS some of the costs you know Transportation costs go up by more than 2% inflation is 5 6% I don't know what it came out today at I think it was even higher than that but so the so this is just this at 3.93% right now we're going to have to make cuts to that the two biggest uh the the biggest line items within the transportation are obviously salaries which is line 14 and line 16 and also for the contracted salaries that's line 22 that's all of our that's all the regular Ride Transportation that's all of our courtesy routes anything to votex is included in that line and line 25 is special ed Transportation that's all the added District transportation routes that we have for special special education um if you go to the next handout handout number four that breaks down all of the the the regular the regular routes we have one we have nine nine for Campbell eight for Edgar and then we have some vote routes in there we're not we're not anticipating any uh for piscatway votte or for any midday routes to any of the vote Tex and prior years we have had those we're not anticipating them for for next year but that obviously can change so this was just the the first presentation uh for the budget the the in the following meetings will review school-based budgets uh curriculum budgets technology Bud budget and special education budget any questions questions Mr Harvey Mr Su yeah Mr Harvey I know you're going back to review the uh custodial thing but there's some really big number items you know big increases like I noticed like uh Mr sus could you just go a little closer to the mic thank sorry thank you can you hear me now yep um like MHS electric was it line 60 is like $80,000 increase right so hold on I'm on handout number two line 80 right so if you look so it's an increase over the 0304 budget but if you look at what the actual was in 2223 it was 239,000 so we've seen huge increases in all of our utilities electric heat and water we're going to have we're going to have a a um actually tonight the board's going to vote to have an audit done of our utility bills just to make sure we're being charged the proper amount hopefully they'll find some Savings in there but we can't guarantee it and we're also with psng we're also doing the Smart Start program where they'll actually come in and do an audit of our actual our lighting fixtures our heating fixtures and we still have some outdated lighting that they may find pay that they may pay for or pay partially for it so that could bring down the cost but those are just the increases that we've seen thank you other questions from Mr harier thank you we'll we'll be hearing a lot more about the various elements of the budget over the next number of months so this is just the beginning I did have one quick question oh in the Baseline data we've had these um the um the student population numbers enrollment numbers that go back to 1991 it it starts in 1991 is that because that's when our records start or why is 1991 the start date so that's when when they started preparing this was I guess they they proba I think they started preparing this 96 97 and they were able to go back to 91 there's no records that we have prior to 91 oh there are not I was going to ask if we just for interest for historical interest could we did we have figures before then like going back to the 60s 7s 60s just to see because I know that one time mouin had a lot of young children in it more more than today um but as we get ready to reorganize buildings if we come across anything in our AR as well yeah not nothing that really has any tremendous meaning to to the board at this point but it certainly would be interesting for historical uh sense okay thank you um moving on we'll move to um reports uh first the president's Ro I do not have a report this evening move to the superintendent's report just quickly Mr LIF members of the board you'll be voting tonight on um the awarding of bids and um if they're if they're awarded tonight I can assure you that we'll do everything in our power uh the administration and everyone staff to fulfill the project and and deliver it on time and is um on budget and is what we promis to the public that we can so thank you you know what I'll take it back I will make make a after being prompted by Dr Caputo's statement um it is of course is of tremendous public interest that we are in fact awarding the referendum um contracts tonight to the two low biders on the two what we called phases phase one and phase two um it's not really timing phases anymore because they will be all all will be going on at the same time but uh we are this is the the end of the beginning the end of the Middle where now we actually have to build the buildings that we that you all voted for and we promised you during the referendum process and we are going to do that and uh we I know I think I can speak for the board when I say that we're all very proud of the plans as we are awarding them tonight and they will transform the district for decades to come and uh um the board and I have all faith in our administrators to to execute the plan and um and with our professionals our Architects and the construction managers we've hired to make sure that it's it's completed the way the way it should be completed and and to give the public what they voted for and what they're paying for so uh and we'll hear more about it um from Mr glassberg a little later on as the chair of the construction committee um during committee reports I'm sure thank you um and now we're moving to committee reports so we'll start down at the far end with u Miss Cook uh policy has not met since our last meeting we'll be meeting next week okay thank you Mr derflinger same as uh Miss Cook we are we haven't met our next meeting is on the 20th thank you and now the aformentioned Mr glass okay all right so construction committee has met uh a couple of times over the past week on February 7th was a big day uh for mouin there was the bid opening um for the construction project that Mr lton and Dr Caputo were just referencing uh the committee uh looked at the bids that were open they looked at different possible additions and deductions from there uh the committee recommended accepting the base bids uh the lowest based bids that were opened on that day including air conditioning all classrooms building all the new additions at Campbell and Moss and the high school as well as the new entrance and main office area at at Edgar um due to costs we re-evaluated the current cafeteria space there taking into account one less grade at the middle school there were also some roofs of um not new roofs of course that are part of the new project but old roofs that we were looking to replace that would not be replaced at this time and some interior remodeling that would not take place at this time um that's what came out of February 7th A lot happened between February 7th and February 12th uh February 12th we met again and that meeting was also open to the public we had a nice showing for that meeting we were joined by by the architect and the construction manager at that meeting uh the presentation in case you missed it uh the presentation will be on our website within a few days we're waiting to get it back from the architect and then it will be posted on mouin schools.org where we have a link to referendum updates where we keep track of everything that's been going on uh the presentation on the 12th was highly interactive with the public engaging in conversation with the committee and the professionals uh they went through a slideshow showing all of the different changes to all of the different build some of the questions uh from the public included talking about traffic at Moss School uh busing safety uh drainage issues help for teachers uh who would need to be moving buildings due to grade realignment that's part of the plan uh the overall timelines school calendar came up as well as some environmental uh interests such as solar panels uh which we've looked into to kind of summarize where we're at here we are going to be voting as uh Mr lton said tonight to accept the bids for both uh epic construction company and Eminem construction company to handle the two projects that make up our one large project uh epic would be responsible for moss and Edgar schools and Eminem construction would be responsible for Campbell and mouin high school if things go according to plan the this Friday as early as this Friday they're going to have a preconstruction meeting and by March in March we could see the staging set up at each of the buildings um the phasing as Mr lton said it's it's no longer really phasing because all these things are going to essentially HP start at once um you could see the staging areas set up at each of the schools hopefully in March uh that's of course pending some things in terms of the timeline of the project the timeline of the project is as it was before which is that they expect substantial completion of the project for August 2025 uh we do know and we talked about this yesterday and anybody who's been through home construction knows that things can go wrong things could uh throw us off track um but the companies that bid on the project um were given the timeline and agreed to that timeline and have every expectation that they're able to meet that timeline so that remains our goal to have substantial completion for August 2025 and to be able to uh have the grade realignment and everything and full day kindergarten and the air conditioning all happen for September we will see what uh happens and we will keep you up to date as to how the Project's going each time that we have a meeting um so this is a really really big day for matou in I'm super excited and so thankful for the work of the whole board but um you know especially the construction committee who has been at this for many many years in pretty much the same Incarnation uh and the administration uh working through the weekends nights especially over this past week to try to get things in a place where we'll be able to vote on this tonight so thank you to everybody thank you Mr glasberg um Dr Johnson Marcus thank you um I have a report from the district leadership team meeting uh that happened on January 25th one of the main areas of conversation was around the way in which our traumatic events team was able to respond unfortunately we had a couple of major losses and tragedies um and it was the conversation was around the fact that the team responded well the resources provided were found to be helpful um in terms of helping folks to process the grief around those events and of course as you just heard from Mr lton uh Dr Caputo a lot of talk around construction and the calendar um and indeed the Edgar field as you may have noticed is already completed I expected to have a grand opening in early April still on track for that yeah we expect the keys to be turned over to the burrow like any day now so that will benefit the district for um recess PE classes uh on on nice days even now and then yes our fall we're expecting all of our full season softball and baseball games to take place right on site now wonderful thank you so that was it for the district leadership team meeting and then also to save the date uh February 29th the matou and human relations commission will be hosting a Black History Month Community conversation where we engage in the topic around uh post-racial America is it though um so come talk with some of your neighbors around this interesting topic that again is Thursday February 29th at the library at 7: p.m. thank you Miss Gillan so extracurricular met last night um talked about a couple of things um recommendation for the vacant assistant softball uh position at mouin High School uh the opening of Edgar field uh and the uh hope that we can have a quadruple header to uh welcome our teams onto to that area um the reinstatement and we'll see you see that tonight here uh The Woodworking Club advisor so um now that we have the faculty member uh able to perform that we're looking to have that passed tonight um looking at some baseball coaching updates for the high school uh we had a conversation about uh the band camp trip for this summer um and we also uh kind of added a standing item to our talks for um construction impacts on extracurricular events uh for the duration of the project making sure that um clubs sports activities all have places to uh take place our next meeting is March 19th okay thank you um Mr sus Finance yes Finance met on the 7th the day of the bid opening uh we covered a number of things uh one was we've got a preview into uh the budget overview concerns and that included uh 23 24 2425 and and onward we talked about some of the res um the district responses to those concerns in in uh prior years we went through um the next year's budget a little bit more detail whereas uh obviously fund 10 is the general account um obviously uh with the constru ruction fund 40 is going to be um playing a bigger role in our financial future in the next couple years um we have the budget calendar which um Mr Harvey we is that's did you hand that we sent that out to the folks the budget calendar I believe so if not I'll send it out tomorrow so we we uh went through the budget calendar for for this year um talked about our health our health insurance experience um talked about the auditorium and you can look up look at the lights and we had talked previously about replacing some of the lights but I guess there is more complex issues with the lights and and things known as rigging um then there were a whole bunch of miscellaneous items um tuition talked about changing tuition for non- mouin residents uh we talked about a gift from the class of 1971 we talked about a pay increase for substance institutes we talked about uh passing along um for overnight trips passing along the cost of the teachers to um as part of those part of that and we talked about a utility bill audit which Mr Harvey you mentioned earlier which is item four in the finance agenda for tonight thank you Mr sus all there comments or questions on any of those uh reports Mr glasman comment on my own report uh the next uh construction committee meeting is on March 4th but the next one that's open to the public is on April 15th so I just want to toss that out there now I'll mention it at each meeting leading up to April 15th that's always at 7 p.m. in the mouin high school library thank you thank you other comments Mr sus I'll comment on my own report the next Finance meeting is on March 4th thank you other comments or questions hopefully not on your own report I had no report but my Equity committee is meeting next next Tuesday February oh I apologize no worries no worries apologize 8:30 um I had actually forgotten that you're the new chair congratulations you're the new chair of equity I I apologize for not calling on you but you didn't have a report anymore it's all okay um other any other comments questions on the reports seeing none we'll move on to our student board member report Miss dibang hi um this month I have no report um other than have a happy Valentine's and a good President's Day thank you and to you also thank you do you want to comment on your no report or no just just making you sure you fit in with everybody okay so moving on from the reports um is there any old business from the board seeing none is there any new business from the board moving on I'd like to uh move the approval of the minutes the Board of Education me meetings January 23rd 2024 special business meeting 1 January 23rd 2024 special business meeting 2 and January 23rd 2024 uh board meeting is there a second Mr glassberg are there any comments or Corrections on those minutes sing NW call please Mr bot yes Miss Cook yes Mr derflinger yes Mr glasberg yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss cleen yes Mr lton yes Dr spner yes yes Mr sus yes motion carries thank you the meeting is now open to the public for any topic seeing none we will close that section move to the recommendation of the super wait yes come come on up we're here we're just here mainly to like learn and enjoy it but I just want to say we've we've been very happy with the schools um you know my children have been been here from the beginning and uh um you know we uh have had a very um supportive experience you know we've we've used the special services and we've had a good relationship with the schools um and uh we're in the high school now and we're I'm just really happy with the feel of it um it's a very supportive environment um uh the Eli has many friends on the football team who really have lunch with him and uh you know when I gone to uh where I really feel the the cohesive uh cohesiveness of the student body and the inclusiveness of it is when I've gone to I went to a um a talent show that was thrown by the students and also gone to opening night for you know one of the plays and it's when there are a lot of students in the audience and they really all cheer for the people on the stage and you really feel like everyone's looking out for each other and um yeah I think things I really appreciate the inclusive um tone you know I know it's that that has been set up uh done deliberately with a lot of effort and I think it's been very effective so thank you everyone well thank thank you for your kind words um if you would just could you just give us your name and your your street yeah my name is Peter DME uh oh I guess I wasn't close with the microphone before we heard we heard we live at 222 Center Street thank you so much and thank you for your nice comments we appreciate it and and feel free to come back to every meeting by the way um okay moving on to the recommendation of the superintendent of schools oftentimes it may appear to members of our audience that the Board of Education takes action with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote before matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting the Administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the superintendent of schools if the superintendent is satisfied that the matter is ready to be presented to the Board of Education it is then referred to the appropriate board committee the members of the board committee work with the administration and the superintendent to assure that the members fully understand the matter when the committee is satisfied with the matter it is presented to the board of education for discussion before any final action is taken only then is placed on the agenda for Action at a public meeting I'd like to move the Personnel items A1 through 19 is there a second Dr Johnson Marcus are there any comments or questions on those items seeing none W call please yes Miss Cook yes Mr derflinger yes Mr glasberg yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss Colleen yes Mr lifton yes Dr spner yes Mr sus yes motion carries thank you uh Mr sus Finance like to move uh items B1 through B10 as listed on the agenda thank you is there a second Dr spner um are there any comments or questions on those items Mr sus just one comment on my own section uh uh item nine is one of the bid and item 10 is the other bid exactly thank you for pointing that out any other comments or questions on those items seeing none wel call please Mr bot yes Miss Cook yes Mr derflinger yes Mr glassberg yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss yes Mr lifton yes Dr sner yes Mr sus yes motion carries thank you um policy Miss Cook yes I'd like to move items C1 through C C5 as listed on the agenda thank you is there a second um Mr derfflinger are there any comments or questions on those items Miss Cook my turn to comment on my own section um I I just wanted to point out that item number five is the 2425 school year calendar so that we'll go live live tomorrow on the district website I believe for everyone to see thank thank you and um I would just like to make a comment on it since we've received a number of comments from the public regarding the school calendar um the 2425 calendar is the most important one when it comes to the construction scheduling and because of to create the Lo longest possible summer between of the summer of 25 leading up to the hopefully the opening of the the the the new schools and and the realignment in September of 25 um we are attempting to build the longest possible summer Into Summer of 25 what that means is that starting that year in the fall of 24 we are going to start early um the first day of school will be the Wednesday before Labor Day which will uh what is that date the 28th 2 the 28th of August um we have agreement with our teachers there's a there is a sidebar on this uh agenda tonight where we've come to an agreement with them regarding the calendar some shifting of days between years and all in an effort to to to deliver to the public what we've promised which is the schools that we've promised the renovations we promised and with fingers crossed the date that we we're shooting for which is September of 2025 we have received a number of comments from the public with some concerns about starting um a few days earlier than is traditional in our calendars we do understand that people although it is more than 6 months in advance some people may have made some plans assuming when the start dates will be um we apologize for for that um we really we're really locked into these this calendar based on the construction schedule and um all we can say is that if if there are students who will miss the first few days of school the teachers will be cognizant that it it is a bit of an unusual start time it is only two and a half days because the Friday is a half day before Labor Day weekend so it'll be Wednesday Thursday and a half day on Friday we understand the concerns of of some parents and families that may have made plans that last week of August this is what the board has to do to try and get the construction completed for for the district and for the burrow so we understand the concerns we hear the concerns it's not that we dismiss them we will we will work with our teachers and our parents and our students to make that transition and that beginning of the start of the school year as great as it can be and if some students unfortunately have to miss the first few days the teachers will be cognizant of that and and work as best they can to catch the kids up as quickly as possible so I just did want to note that that um we we we are not we we hear we hear the comments and some people are are quite concerned about it um and it's just what's requireed required to to complete the construction so thank you for your understanding um any other comments or questions about these items welo Please Mr yes Miss Cook yes Mr derer yes Mr glasberg yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss Colleen yes Mr lton yes Dr spner yes Mr sus yes motion carries thank you curriculum Mr derflinger thank you I'd like to make a motion to move items D1 through3 is listed on the agenda please thank you is there a second Miss Cook are there any comments or questions on those items seeing none roll call please Mr bot yes Miss Cook yes Mr derflinger yes Mr glasberg yes Dr Johnson Marcus yes Miss cleen yes Mr lifton yes Dr spner yes Mr sus yes motion carried um I've lost myself here so that was that was curriculum and then we get all the way to the last page and did we just appoint did we appoint the the number three the student Observer we did okay you moved one two and three yes Mr derflinger one two and three you moved okay thank you the meeting is now open to the public for any comment any more comments no okay um announcements Mr Bach sure uh just a few announcements we've covered some of them uh first of all acknowledging tomorrow is uh Valentine's Day maybe too late for flowers and chocolate but it's not too late to apologize if you forgot um Family Cupcake Wars on Friday for uh c moss PTO and they're also recruiting for spring x uh President's Day M Fe Monday February 19th we have a birthday uh in between the two oh happy birthday and then birthday folks uh and then uh again we heard about the Black History Month conversation at the library on February 29th we're about a month out from important dates at Edgar and matachin high school so we've got conferences at Edgar u in the middle of March and ditto testing for juniors at matachin high school and then the spring fundraiser for the PTC is May 3rd at Jrs and continue to uh recruit and accept donations uh for fundraising efforts okay thank you um at this point I'd like to make a meeting to uh meeting make a motion to adjourn is there a second Miss cook all in favor I thank you and good night good night thank you