and I'm going to call to order do a flag Sal I alance to the flag of the United States America and to the stands indivisible forence in comp with the open public meeting Act Noti this meeting provided in on Monday ADV I don't think they're on now there we [Music] go on Monday March 4th 2024 WR notice of this meeting was submitted to the Daily Record foration on Thursday March 7 2024 on Tuesday March 5 2024 advance notice of this meeting was handed forting to six schools the Board of Education offices the municipal building and theive Library I direct this announcement enter Mrs Aquino here Mrs Fenton here Mrs fera here M Gerald here Mrs Mendez here Mrs O'Neal here orillo here here and the this meeting will be going we're going to first do our candidate interviews we will go one by one through our interviews we have question our committee chair that will be asked of each individual each individual introduce themselves um and then we will move on to the next then at the end and then session foration of the next Cates have no how about me I'm good too I think Lisa is the yeah yeah hello we're gonna share hi Miss Jack no that's not working we're having technical difficulties use gun we're good did you hear me oh yes we can ho we're good okay hi Miss Jackson welcome um I don't know if you heard us um I consented we're going to be first allowing you to introduce yourself every candidate's going to be given was it five or 10 minutes 10 minutes each and then just our chairs of each committee are going to ask questions of you and you have plenty of time um to answer and respond and then um we'll close it out and you can give us any closing remarks after that okay thank you okay you're welcome and the floor is yours then is mine okay so good afternoon good evening everyone I'm uh Dr latan Jackson I have been here living in the bud Lake area for about 13 years come December hang on I'm sorry real quick I can't hear the mic and it's not being picked up over here either testing testing get CL real close real close can you hear me now even louder even louder louder that's good okay that's a little weird okay I am Dr latan Jackson um I live in Bud Lake area for the past 13 years uh Hing from New York city so I've been raising my children here uh Shiloh is how old is Shiloh Shiloh is 12 and she's here in the Middle School uh Christian is 10 at Shand Shure um a little bit about me I have a background in adult education um I'm degreed as a minister I'm ordained as a minister um I serve as chief of staff for a nonprofit organization public allies um I also dabble in and I am actually responsible for board governance so I manage the board of our organization I serve on the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem I am a board member there um I am also on the board at at uh American Baptist Churches USA um I've served in programmatic strategy and development um have a background in conflict resolution um this probably goes a little bit better if you just ask me questions but uh I am also a chaplain in the US Army Reserves uh recently got transferred to 1493 medical Detachment unit in carry North Carolina so I'm there once a month for one weekend out of every month serving there as not only a chaplain but a staff officer to the lieutenant colonel uh so the command officer there I enjoy um living in butd Lake and being um a member of this community I'm very passionate about um someone I'm very passionate about there being diversity right diversity of not NE necessarily just ethnicity but diversity of thought diversity of experiences bringing a diverse perspective um and so I am proud of the fact that I was able to attend school not only in New York City but I was here at Princeton University at Princeton Theological Seminary the uh advancing degree in um Divinity and uh through that experience had the opportunity to learn about different backgrounds of individuals gain relationships with individuals who don't necessarily look like me and don't come from the area that I live at but understood that there are so many more similarities than there are dissimilarities um I am very very excited about not only education and the education and type of curriculum my children are being um exposed to but I'm excited about what we we as a community right can bring to our students in an informal way of education so when I hear about things like um the entrepreneurship program I get excited about that right because that's their learning that's happening outside of the classroom and that's some of what I also do when I look at the boys and girls club that I serve on a board for um I bring different types of opportunities of learning and understanding and cohesiveness so that we can understand that we are a community that we are not a monolithic Community but we are a community of all types and shapes and sizes um that bring all different kind of backgrounds that feed one another that embolden one another and Empower one another so I think that that's my 10 minutes and I will end there so we're GNA Kick It Off with questions um I'm just going to go around the table so miss fit will ask the first one hi there hi Lauren Lauren Fitzgerald uh I am the finance committee chair and so my question for you from our finance committee is as a board member how would you work with the superintendent and other board members when there are differing opinions the superintendent and board member when there are differing of opinions so initially I would ask questions right really sit to try to understand um background I think context is very important to understand the differing of opinions um instead of moving quick to action to make a decision listening for understanding um listening is an action word right it's a verb and so active listening is very important because it's less about the differing of opinions and more about understanding people's perspectives um and then I believe that once there's a level of understand understanding um around why the the opinions are so different um trying to unearth where are similarities where can we meet in the middle um and then shape the narrative right in a way in which it meets both people at both ends um and then bringing the superintendent in to to help try to be the defining decision maker because I think the superintendent's voice should carry a level of weight that helps us to make those types of decisions as as well so I think being very open and transparent um I think understanding that we're not all here to agree and we can learn to disagree um but what's the what's the end goal and if we're all operating and moving towards the same end goal which is to achieve whatever that may um may be then and understanding that um the student who's the client is really why we're here right the student and the taxpayers then we're moving in a way in which that better suits and defines them and supports them thank you Miss mandz hi hi Louisa Melendez uh it's nice to have you here thank you what do you see as the major issue facing our school district what do I see as the major issue facing the school district I I honestly I think one of your issues that um one of the issues that faces the school district is lack of diversity right so when I look at this board as wonderful as you all and beautiful as you all and handsome as you all are um I believe that any institution or any body of leadership that represents the total should have mirror representation and so when you look at your student body and you see that there are people that are or or ethnicity or races or genders that are not represented on the board um that are not represented in your classrooms that are not represent right I think that that should call to question are we really meeting the need are we really caring for all of the students are we giving them mirror images of themselves to see themselves as teachers I too can be a superintendent I too can sit on a board but if I don't see representation I don't know that it's a possibility so I think that's one of the major things that I I would say up front thank you you're welcome hi Jenna quino I am the chair of the Personnel committee yes and this is our question from the Personnel committee given the issues that arise how can the board stay focused on student achievement can you repeat that question please given the issues that arise how can the board stay focused on student achievement well depending upon the issue that arises um and so since you're Personnel I'll just make it up right and I'll say if we're dealing with perhaps teachers right lack of male representation in the classroom whatever the case may be um I think one of the ways in which you can stay focused on student achievement is by always remembering that your student is the client right I look at it that way right who is your enduser who is your client who why are we doing this why are we here why are we in the classroom why are we around this board table and if the goal is to make sure that we're providing a healthy sustainable um safe space for students of all backgrounds of all um varying degrees to come in and learn and have the ability to make it the the education palpable for them to learn um I think that's how we stay focused on the endgame right which are developing uh int intellectual and wholesome and well-rounded in children children who not only come to school to learn but come to school to develop social skills come to school to develop relationships come come to school because this is also a way in which they get enrichment and so understanding that I think that is a great way to keep our eyes on the endgame which is to make sure that they are in a safe space to be able to do so thank you hello I'm Lisa Fenton I am reading on behalf of uh curriculum and technology and our question is what can the board do to strengthen its relationship with the community so I think the board does a really good job thus far with its relationship with the community um one of the things that if I was to recommend anything would probably be to be a bit more transparent um when you arm people with information it disarms all of this all of the distrust right so the more information that I have um it gives me it creates a level of trust it creates a sense of respect and it also helps me to understand and see that the people that are representing me are are actually representing me my views my ideas my concerns even some of my challenges right and so um I think transparency is imperative for any board there are things that we all are clear about that are confidential and just couldnot be cannot be shared but um working in or leveraging the technology space there are so many different ways in which we can do that right and you've been I I personally love the website I personally love the newsletters and the things that come out but um just wanting hoping that the board can think through other avenues cuz there are a number of ways in which there are touch points that you can make and to um Infuse the information into the community where it's not overwhelming but that they are well informed thank you Miss Jackson or Dr Jackson so that's the uh end of our questions but are there any other uh thoughts you'd like to share with us as we wrap up is that really the end of the question yeah oh okay um we didn't want to you know overwhelmed everyone with too many questions I appreciate that so I do have a couple of questions is that okay because as you're determining the right fit I'm determining the right fit as well I'm always taught that um when I walk when I walk into a space and so if you could share with me a little bit about what is the right candidate the right nominee that you're looking for what are those attributes I mention I mentioned one thing that I really strive on agreeing to disagree being able to communicate being able to see other sides of Stories being able to have somebody up here that might change my mind um so I could get a different perspective that is very important to me and communication is key thank you that's good I guess I'm it that's it okay were there anything other thoughts you'd like to share with us well though no there were no other thoughts I'd like to share I'd like to say just thank you thank you for taking the time to do this thank you for opening up your doors in opportunity to sit before you and it was lovely meeting each and every single one of you your smiles make this much easier than what I thought thank you you welcome thank you thank you you're welcome to stay in the audience it hello Mr poy hello so just to give you a rundown of um we're going to give each candidate has about 10 minutes um so we're going to open the floor up you'll introduce yourself give us a little bit of information you'd like to share with us your background and then the chairs of each of our committees um we'll then ask you some questions and then we'll give you the floor back to you know ask us any questions or you know give us any final thoughts okay sounds good so my name is John volley I live at 25 Sherman Place in Flanders um I have some board experience from back when I was in C caucus about six years worth um I think that you guys this board AED our district is absolutely fantastic I love it and I just want to try to be be part of moving forward to the future and seeing what we can do to make it even better Miss fitgerald hi there hi we're just making sure we got a little technical difficulty over here um my name is Lauren Fitzgerald I'm the head of the finance committee um and so uh the question from the finance committee that we've put together is as a board member how would you work with the superintendent and other board members when there are differing opinions I believe from past experience that the board the superintendent the business administrator everybody has to work together to get to a final goal if there's infighting or um we have to work it out between ourselves to make everything move more efficiently um I think by talking it out everybody gives their opinions and to see how they want to actually move everything forward I honestly believe that it has to be open which I think it will be and you just have to work together it has to be conversation with everybody if there's a question even a smallest question ask it and get an answer you have to get an answer this way that's the only way you're going to move more forward more efficiently and responsibly thank you hi Louisa Melendez uh from the policy committee our question is what do you see as the major issue facing our school district well right now I believe the major um question in the district and and I believe it's any district is budgets I think we have to be fiscally responsible use our resources to the best of our ability to get the most out of whatever money we have without burdening the taxpayer too much because I believe you have to be responsible and I can't reiterate that enough it has to be fiscally responsible you can't just go and say we want to do this unless you have a really good reason for it and I think any way you move forward has to be with that thought in mind hi Jenna quino I'm the chair of the Personnel committee so this question is on behalf of that committee given the issues that arise how can the board stay focused on student achievement well there's always going to be issues that arise I mean it's a very large school district a a really cross flow of people of everybody you have to stay focused and like I said communication is the best way I mean if there are issues with anything that comes up in Personnel it has to be addressed it cannot be put aside has to be addressed appropriately and with within short time limits I believe because you can't let anything lay and sit because what happens with that is it just gets worse and worse and it just spirals out of control I think with any personnel with any issues in the district has to be dealt with promptly and efficiently hello hi um I am Lisa Fenton I am the chair of CNT and our question is what can the board do to strengthen its relationship with the community okay I love that question and you already actually started doing that because I've joined the um Mount all of citizens advisory committee it has to be the best committee that I've ever seen in any District it's new I don't want to put anybody in the back but James kifi did a great job putting this this together we have our third meeting tomorrow the first two have been unbelievably interesting and fantastic with a lot of information and I think it's it's huge I think more people have to get involved with it I know he only has a small classroom for it but um we talked about I can't believe how many people pass school buses that was the first time it's like it's like 144 a month he was saying it's crazy I mean I didn't never would even think of that I wouldn't think that would be even a close number I maybe for the year maybe not a month and then last week we did HIV which was outrageously good it was amazing um you guys do an excellent job with that and I think doing that committee is a great step in keeping everything open and honest with people I mean people have the opportunity to join up for it and I think they really should it's been a great experience and thank you very much for that right Mr roley do you have any questions for the board um I really don't have any questions I mean I I'd love to see um the board as a whole I mean in as a whole just use all our district resources as efficiently and responsibly as it can be done with the ultimate goal being the students families and even employees the personnel and just have their best interest at heart and I mean just be common sense I don't know how to put it common sense goes a long way in this world it's not that common anymore but it would go a long way and I really appreciate it and I really think that this board can can really achieve a lot of good thank you any other final thoughts no I'm oh thank you so much for your time thank you for your time you're welcome to stay okay thank you hello Mr Capone Lisa I know you were in the other room so I'll give you just a little rundown um each candidate has about 10 minutes to you know ask qu um answer questions ask questions and the format will be we're going to open the floor up to yourself you can introduce yourself give us a little bit of um your background and then we're going to uh just each chair um of the Committees will each ask a question of yourself then we'll turn it back over to you to either ask us any questions and or to wrap up and give us you know your closing thoughts so the floor is yours Mr Capone okay I've been a superintendent of schools for eight years I've sat on a school board for three years um I I'm here tonight because I am concerned about the direction that our district is going um specifically about uh the the fiscal circumstances that you know we we continue to see um I I I started becoming concerned about the finances with the referendum in the fall with the inability to answer questions um and I continue to be concerned about where we are fiscally based on the fact that at the end of last year you had 8.8 million that was unspent raised taxes between the state and the local portion another 10 million you're getting five million more this year and yet your recommendation from the superintendent is to raise taxes even further when and that's $23 million um and I'm curious as to uh how long the board has had this information to be looking at this budget that I I'm assuming you're passing tonight and whether you were aware of the statistics that I just provided um and and how this is going to be addressed and I I would continue on of saying you know the point was made in the fall with the referendum saying that if it's not going to be paid with by the state through this referendum if you don't vote Yes that we're going to pay it 100% And now on the board agenda tonight you have an item to be paid 100% locally right that's that's what the decision is that's the recommendation from your superintendent to pay it 100% locally instead of going back out to referendum to get the state to pay their fair share uh so that's concerning to me from where we are fiscally all the way across the board um I have since I've been coming to board meetings repeatedly addressed ethics um the lack thereof of some of the things that we've seen um and again I I continue to come out and I haven't gone and said you know here's here's all of the things that are occurring uh but it's it's continuously concerning that um there's the the lack of accountability and that's what your responsibility is is making sure there's accountability within this District um transparent is a concern um as far as making sure that we're providing accurate information and at the end of the day all of your decisions should be addressing the needs of students and if that's done a lot of the other answers should come pretty easily and so that's why um I I I decided to put my name in and to come out to participate tonight thank you Mr I'm gonna start over here with Mrs Fitzgerald yes speaking my language Lauren Fitzgerald chair of the finance committee uh agree with a lot of the things you said we actually have a great presentation coming up tonight that will talk about a lot of the numbers you just shared um and you're going tojoy it's great it's very enlightening Nicole's going to be great you're going to love it but for right now uh my question for you from the finance committee is how would you as a board member work with the superintendent and other board members when there are differing opinions I think that the board should be operating on a zero based budget that that's how you should be creating the budget and you shouldn't be getting information in March you should be creating the budget starting in January and if you create a zerob based budget then and and personally I would recommend that being a committee of the whole so that everybody's able to have a conversation understand how a budget works okay because again the way that New Jersey is set up right you're not into year three before you're actually taking the school board's classes on the finance aspect aspects and understanding all of those things that's when your training occurs and yet you're making decisions in years one and two without that that training so I I think that if you do zerob based budgeting you put yourself in a position to number one understand the ins and outs of how the budget operates how it's built and the things that are going into again that can be focused on on student learning thank you hi Louisa Melendez uh policy committee what do you see as the major issue facing our school district uh I would say the uh behaviors that lead to lawsuits okay that that's I think what our biggest concern is at this point you have policies and laws by which it is that you're supposed to be operating uh that your administrators are supposed to be operating and uh every time you have a lawsuit whether you win or lose okay you're paying money that's going to take money out of the classrooms away from teachers away from students so addressing the behaviors again accountability I think is is the key aspect that that's what you should be focused on primarily hi Jenna quino um chair of personnel given the issues that arise how can the board stay focused on student achievement well I again if this is this coming from the Personnel committee um if we're looking at the Personnel answer there is that we're hiring the best candidate uh that's how you're going to raise student achievement through the Personnel Department you're not hiring Somebody's Daughter you're not hiring somebody's son-in-law you're not hiring somebody's friend you're hiring the best candidate that's going to meet the needs of students okay and if you do that you'll build the strongest staff that will lead to higher student achievement within the district hi Lisa Fenton I am chair of C curriculum and Technology my question is what can the board do to strengthen its relationship with the community I would say transparency uh first and foremost there there are too many things that I think that happen that go without explanation that could be explained or there are comments made uh that are you know the carrying the company line um and that I think discredits people when you're just going to carry the company line like at your first board meeting saying we follow all of the school district policies and state laws okay that's not a good look okay at the very first meeting to say something like that when there's plenty of evidence to the contrary well that's the end of our questions Mr Capone I'm GNA open the floor up for yourself if you have any questions of the board or if there are any uh final closing thoughts you'd like to share with the board how long if you had the school budget that's going to be pasted T when was that presented to the committee and the we can't answer questions like for the board you have to stay for comments afterwards if you don't mind okay so the questions you're looking for any questions that you have of of the board tonight's presentation will be on the preliminary budget um that home feder all I I would rather just make a closing statement about uh again I I I I I truly hope that the decisions that we're making moving forward are focused on being transparent with the community honest having Integrity okay these are the things you know having answers to things that you know you you should be able to provide um that's that's one one of the major problems um and and you know I I can tell you as I said you know working in education and being in the position that I've been in okay there are things that are said and done that are mindboggling to me and I I sat here for almost a year okay um and I I I've told people I I have been motivated uh by comments that have been made at that board table okay by by people talking about whether it's the good old boys club the cabal okay making comments about you know using your position for privilege um having somebody come forward who works in the district okay plugging for board members right like that that that's that nothing says you know we're in cahoots more than saying I'm going to come forward and I'm going to push this board member because that benefits me where your job jobs as board members is supposed to be you're making decisions on behalf of the the students that's who we're supposed to be here for and every decision like I said whether it's the budget whether it's your policy whether it's accountability all of those things being tied back to what's in the best interest of our students would be a breath of fresh air and and I think get a lot of buyin from the community thank you Mr Kon and you're welcome to stay for the remaining candidates hello hi hi Mr Gallagher how you doing tonight good so I'm just going to give you little bit of a rundown of uh tonight's um format each candidate has about 10 minutes to speak we're going to open the floor up to yourself you can introduce yourself in your background and you know while you're running while you'd like to potentially be on the board and then the four chairs of our committees are each going to ask some questions and then we're going to turn it back over to yourself to either ask us any questions that we're a able to answer for you and um in addition then you can give us any final closing thoughts um you have 10 minutes and the floor is yours Mr gager thank you uh so Brian Gallagher uh I know some of you probably you know have seen me a couple months ago I was able to sit down and talk to the board as well back then so I appreciate being able to do it again and I thank the board for its time uh so I'll try to not repeat everything from last time I've been here seven or eight years in town my wife and I uh with three kids in all three schools at the high school uh middle school and Elementary School uh congratulations to my high school daughter she got her license today so she'll be embarrassed that I'm talking about her um you know as I've said before thank you uh my career for the most part has been kind of transportation and education kind of based or hybrid I had a driving school with my father uh for about 17 18 years uh which was amazing uh after that we went into we stuck in transportation currently running um out of District transportation for students um I mentioned that before most people maybe are aware of what it is it's you know busing for students that go to schools outside of their home resident District um it's small it's just me and him and two Vans it's not a big company or anything like that but we enjoy doing it uh kind of playing our little part for you know students kind of getting them started on their day at school uh two two things more recently for me uh that I really enjoy uh a few i' for a few years now I've been coaching the recreational track in Cross Country program and all of Junior track uh they're having their meeting right now so I am missing it so I'm going to hold that against you guys because I like seeing the kids in the spring um and it's all volunteer coaches uh it's been an amazing way for me over the past couple years to meet so many great people and students uh out of that working with the young athletes we've also made our own little running club which has kind of opened me up to a lot of people in town talking about our kids and the schools and the district uh I've also recently gotten into substituting uh gotting my substitute CT and I had done that for a while starting earlier towards the beginning of the year uh and luckily for me that turned into a full-time position I was able to uh apply for an accept at a neighboring School District uh which has been amazing to kind of be in the schools as well and uh kind of have that point of view of how they function I know I've kind of been at a lot of board meetings and you guys have heard me talk so I don't know maybe I'm trying to help help out you gain some perspective that's just mine um so that's basically a quick rundown of me and I don't know how long it's been so I didn't type this out this time so I didn't so I don't know where I'm at we'll start with Mrs Fitzgerald sure hi there Lauren Fitzgerald chair of the finance committee M um our question is as a board member how would you work with the superintendent and other board members when there are differing opinions sure I mean you know I've you know I've I've been married for 18 years so that's a great start obviously to start um you know I you know I'm obviously very outspoken I'm not going to try to hide behind that you know I come to board meetings and talk uh you know but I'm also willing to accept if I missed a point of view or if I need to kind of understand an expert opinion uh I am a huge proponent of public education and the kind of training and career path that Educators and superintendents uh all take to get to where they're at so you know being a board memb is being a voice of the public um it doesn't mean you're an expert the experts are the people that are here every day working with the students uh hiring the staff uh you know so really their input you know not that anybody's input values more but uh you know there's definitely more knowledge behind you know talking to somebody that understands I guess the field or craft you know in general this case being education uh so I you know I'm not always right so I'm willing to accept that and you know I love talking to people that have opposing points of view to mine uh and kind of understanding why they think that way and realizing that maybe I was incorrect in something and kind of having a new appreciation for understanding something you know the right way or a better way thank you Louisa Melendez uh shair of the policy committee and our question for you is what do you see as the major issue facing our school district uh yeah that's a great question I always like you know talking to a lot of the people I mentioned in my my opening statements friends and people I've met about the school district because we have students uh all of similar age and we all have the same concerns for the students I have spoken at a past board meeting and it was also during the interview process last time that I really believe uh the middle school and the social and educational issues and struggles I guess I would say is kind of I think the real issue at hand I think that um you know the hibs The Bullying um the stress level on academics you know the high school really high bar for students coming into it and I don't think that seventh and eighth graders are being supported um you know to get their way to the high school and I don't think that fourth and fifth graders from the elementary school are being supported socially to enter the middle school and I think it all kind of crashes right there uh I've kind of called it a pressure cooker and I think there's a lot of really great ideas I brought up a great idea at a previous board meeting about implementing a tag type system at the middle school I think that alleviates a lot of the stress for younger students looking to find their place at the middle school and the older students looking for the time um so you know I really do see that as the largest issue I I think the largest issue there's a ton of issues um but I really want to be focused on an educational issue and a student-based issue so I really do believe that that is it hi Jenna quino chair of the Personnel committee given the issues that arise how can the board stay focused on student achievement um you know there's obviously a ton of achievement one of the things I like about coming to board meetings is uh seeing you know they've had a couple months ago they talk about the AP results and students that achieve really high on the AP it's amazing to see some of my daughter's friends that you know I don't know what everybody does in school but then I see somebody that I know taking four or five AP classes and you know the achievement levels you know are so high there so sorry I just drew a blank and I actually forgot the question so I'm going to have you ReRe it again yeah I'm AOW one tangent right because I don't have anything prepared that's right you're happy happy to yeah given the issues that arise how can the board stay focused on student achievement that's pretty funny that I lost focus on a question about Focus um um you know most of the people here you know not that I know any of you really personally uh our parents you've talked about your own children I think when you're a board member uh you're asked to do a lot you guys are con kind of controlling and overseeing the entire District but I think there is a place in everybody's heart and mind yourselves included where you're thinking about the students and you're thinking about your child right that's one of the big questions is always you you need to think about what's best for your child and I know that you know hearing a lot of you talk about who you are and your families you know it's in there for everybody and I think that you know the divisiveness between the board and public has obviously created an a a kind of a large Cloud over everybody seeing this way forward and making sure that we're thinking about the students um you know I'm going to be perfectly honest right now and maybe this is not a good idea but you know last time I spoke it was a divisiveness between the board and the public and more recently seems to be divis divisiveness within the board and and those things were stated by board members those weren't stated by us we see it but the fact that board members are now saying it out loud too uh just shows how much of an issue it really is but you know I think that like I said I talk to people in public that I disagree with I talk to people I'm friends with I disagree with I talk to people that not that I'm not friends with them but we have opposing views and uh you know it's just important to understand you know the reasons that we're all doing this not to be overshadowed by you know some of the things that are said online or even in person uh you know hearsay telephone tag you know all that stuff I've said it before and I know I've probably gone about it the wrong way here if anybody had a question for me talk to me and you know like people know where I live not that you know people need to show up or whatever but you know like I said I know I've done that very acely in the past uh maybe wrongly getting my point across but like I'm I'm open for business and I think everybody else should be too we're all here for the kids and I think that you know just understanding that we're still all have to be on the same page is a good way to move forward with that hi Lisa Fenton uh chair of CNT and my question uh from them is what can the board do to strengthen its relationship with the community with the community um you know I was uh I had the pleasure of being part of the uh Bond referendum committee um which I thought I was very supportive of um you know I think it's some of the meetings I kind of you know did bring up points that I thought were opposing to maybe seem like the agenda of the referendum committee but I was trying to make the point that like you know when the school district meets with people in the school setting when you ask people to come to some of the meetings like you're not trying to convince us you're trying to convince you're always trying to kind of speak to the whole entire town and I think sometimes there's a little bit of a disconnect um on understanding that you know there's a bunch of people in the town that have students that aren't in the schools anymore there's a bunch of people that my favorite type of people in town I love meeting are the people that are young new families that have kids coming in um I think that you need to I think the most important thing for the board right now to move forward for the next five or 10 years is to really get a hold of the families coming in that are young and I see them in my neighborhood all the time every year moving in they want the houses they want to be here and you know kind of get them more involved you know I think that the divisiveness and the the between the board and the public is born from non-involvement and it's not that anybody is trying to not have people be involved but I think the board I know you guys do a lot committees meetings it really is but I there just has to be a little bit of a step to try to be proactive in just doing something different than just having I I'm not trying to make fun of it you know breakfast with a board member sorry Jen you know it's great I go to them but you know sometimes you see there's not a lot of people there um you know I know they have the new kind of startup for having community members come out and kind of understand more about the district and maybe talk about what we need to do moving forward for the schools after the referendum vote and everything um you know it's just you know when I'm out there you know like I said with you know our little running club we spent you know two hours on Columbia Trail together so it's like you need to talk about something so it's boring talk about schools but you know just talk to people you know I have uh two friends of mine in my neighborhood that are young and have young kids am I coming up on 10 minutes did I get the look there or no okay sorry I thought you were about to cut the mic on me sorry I have uh two good friends of mine that I've met recently that moved in my neighborhood that have young kids that are uh barely in the school system yet and uh you know I'm kind of almost begging them at this point to come to board meetings you know because I want them to understand the things that I'm understanding now that I I wish I knew earlier um you know I talk to people people that don't have kids in the high school yet and they have elementary middle school kids and they don't know what tag is the whole thing I was mentioning about tag they have no clue and then I explain what it is and what it's done to help my daughter and they love it but they don't know anything about it so it's not just going and talking to the parents of elementary school about what elementary school is and then saying hey look how great the high school is you know try to help them go through the experience of their students going through all all levels of school and what's going to put them on the right path depending on the type of student they are I have three kids and all different so and you're talking about thousands of kids you know so getting more information from the public and being proactive I think really um you know whether it's having a committee you know I know how you have the ptas and you have this and that I don't know I mean you know do more of that you know pushing pushing these these people to come out so so now we're going to turn it over to you again if you have any questions of the board and then you're welcome to also you know wrap up and any final thoughts for the board I just thank the board for their time um you know I do want to say one little personal thing because I was talking about earlier and I know that you have the wrestling club team coming here later uh being from track and cross country I was at the winter bank with the other day I know you guys like to talk about this in your closing comments I'm going to say it because the microphone's still open uh we had you know the Mount Olive Junior Track Club is an amazing Club of volunteers uh and they have put together a program that is growing so rapidly um you know that we had you know athletes that we've worked with over the past couple years at the middle school at a recreational level that during winter track just ran a Nationals for the high school as freshman uh last week so I want to say congratulations to them um you know moving forward for all the sports you know uh which is a great part of Mount Olive as well my student my my children take part in the the sports as well uh and then I'm going to save you the rest of the time because I know you guys are probably tired of hearing from me every week every month so so we will share with you though normally we have winter Sports on all together wrestling happens to have their banquet at the during the same time as the next meeting track and field I know who's coming up it's just you know I the track program has met so much to me in this town meeting specifically recreational programs are kids from this town all students it's not club it's not travel it's not from all over the place and and I love it so much so yeah I just want to get that out yep and if you stay we have a full night we have um I'll be here all night either way we have um just for everybody uh we have the diversity Equity um inclusion Club coming up uh Council and then we also have wrestling honors we have the preliminary budget and we also have um our njsba rep is going to go over our superintendent evaluation so I hope there's coffee on top all righty thank you thank you Mr thank you [Music] e good evening I'm not used to seeing you on that side Mr schi well you know how this goes we've given each uh candidate 10 minutes um you know I'll open the floor to yourself to introduce yourself and then just uh the four chair uh chairs of the Committees will each ask you a question and then we'll turn it back over to you to close it out if you don't mind since since everybody does know me if I could just have a few minutes at the end of your questions because I have three three items I'd like to discuss with you sure all right gonna kick it off all right Lauren Fitzgerald head of finance committee um uh our question for you is um as a board member how would you work with the superintendent and other board members when there are differing opinions well the stock answer on that is you always go through the president of the board um that's how you build a collaboration of the board and the superintendent um because the board is not supposed to micromanage the district the board is supposed to set the goals and aims of the in the direction of the board and if you decide to go out on your own which you should never do the spokesman for the board is the president you certainly should have your ideas and opinions and they should be respected but that's the best way to work with the superintendent you'll get more accomplished because the one word I'd like to give you is unity and that's where you're going to have a strong board thank you hi Lisa Melendez CH of the policy committee our question for you is uh what do you see as the major issue facing our school district there's no doubt in my mind that by the end of this year we have to go back out for a referendum for space uh we will be trying to do a lot of the things that were in the original referendum over a period of time but there is no way that we're going to be able to come up with $20 million off the bat to put two additions on our uh two elementary schools and the addition on this middle school so and we will be out of space and don't forget even when if and when and if you pass a referendum it'll be two years before the kids can even get in that school and we will be out of space at that time so that's what I think is the most important issue right now hi nice to meet you I'm Jenna quo chair of personnel committee given the issues that arise how can the board stay focused on student achievement well the board state is focused on student achievement by hiring the good people who are going to work for us I mean you have we have some terrific staff here and we have to rely on that staff and they come to uh your personnel uh meetings and they give you the information you need and you ask the questions you also bring it back to the rest of the board but that's that's how we're going to accomplish a lot of things we have to put our trust and faith in our Administration we've hired them we think they're doing a great job I do I think they're doing a great job and that's that's how you're going to get a lot of things accomplished you can't do it you can't do it on your own everybody will have an idea and that's good to bring those ideas forward but you have to work with the administration okay my turn I'm uh asking for uh break Lam and Technology what can the board do to strengthen its relationship with the community you have to remember that the community has elected you officials they they put their in trust in you to represent them and all I ask from you is to listen to them to be open with them and to be honest with them and you will have a great re relationship with your community Flor is yours Mr shach you can close it out then any questions you have of us anything else you wanted to share with the board I'm sorry I didn't hear what you the rest of the time is uh for you you can either ask the board some questions or you said you had some um com want to I have I have three things that I think are important for the board to to know okay the first one is um you had on the agenda and you've tabled it the 4minute a limit for people to speak we ask our community members to come and talk to us and if you just look at the last tape you will see that maybe one person was able to stay under four minutes the rest were not including our layers on students so to cut them off in mident is not only demeaning it's insulting the president of the board has control of the meeting if a person starts to become abusive or demagogues or Rambles on you have the what all you have to do is say thank you for your time your time has expired so I would take that four minute Rule and throw it in the trash the second thing uh that I would like to speak about and that I did at the last meeting is the the five4 V vote the high4 vote signifies a couple things it signifies a majority power net majority power can vacillate depending on who's on the board at the time so I don't really like the 54 vote for that reason but the most important reason for me is that it it is a vote of non-conviction a 54 vote is a vote of non-conviction and if you think you're going to have one you should table it go back into deep discussion and try to iron that out the last thing I would like to say is to this board is when you go in and you deliberate you should get back out now this port this uh interviewing process has been advertised it's been put on the agenda it's an action item it should be treated as an action item when you come out to vote it should be a roll call vote on who you vote for the last two times we didn't do that when we picked you and we picked some someone else but when Mr Robinson was put on this board it was a roll call vote when I was put on this board it was a roll call vote when Mrs Aquino was put on this board there was a roll call vote and she got a 7 to one vote I voted for someone else and and the reason why I voted for someone else before I even knew Mr quino was that we had three months to go on that term and I wanted somebody on that board who had already been on the board who could get up to speed real quick and I explained that to Mrs Aquino but I promis that person and I'm true to my word I will not break my word the last thing I want to tell you is this and I've always stated this every year I've been on a board this is the way I Envision a board member a board member should take care of the education and Welfare students it should be very prudent with the expenditure of taxpayers money and it should have a fair and Equitable employ hire of employees in a safe en environment and if you do those three things you'll continue to have a great great board I want last one last thing I want to say is I'm very happy with the people who came out tonight to apply for this it shows interest which is is what we need and I congratulate all of them and whoever you pick I think you're going to you're going to do very well that's all I have to say thank you thank you Mr thank you okay we're actually going to open the floor up to any public comments as it it's related to the candidate do we have any public comments no I did want to um acknowledge we did receive an email from Mrs fiura in support of Mr stachi I just simply wanted to share that with the board um with the community anyone else who would like to comment so the board is gonna um Mr s s did you no you're taking a seat we thought you were going to come to the mic so at this time we're going to convene and into close session um to discuss amongst ourselves um and then we'll come back out and I'm actually Mr shachi I'm going to re have our attorney review the policy to make sure we follow the rules you're right all right we need have a motion to go me second all favor I all right we were in close session hello testing there we go all right we have mics we are back in session everyone all right um do we have a roll call Mrs Aquino here Fenton herea here fitgerald here Mendez here O'Neal here orillo here Nar here and do we have a motion for appointment of a board member I do I'd like to make a motion to approve the Appo the appointment of Tony stachi as member of the Mount Olive Township Board of Education of effective immediately where is he oh through the 2025 reorganization meeting and I will second that can we have a a vote on the motion Mrs Aquino yes Mrs Fenton yes Mrs fera yes fitgerald yes Mrs Melendez yes Mrs O'Neal yes Mr orillo yes Mrs NIS yes congratulations I would like to say the other candidates though please one continue coming to the board meetings please share your thoughts with us and please also consider you know the future for the board as well um you all made amazing you know um points you brought amazing value to this district and we would like you to continue that even when and we agree to disagree you have you know each come from a different Walk of Life you come from a different perspective and that is you know what we all require and need and that's what makes our community the differences that come together and with that we like to move to the administration of the oath of office for Mr Stacee please raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name I do solemnly swear you solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States I support the contitution United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey con constitution of state of New Jersey that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and this state say one more time and to the governments established in the United States governments established in the United States and this state and this state under the authority of the people the authority of people so help me God help me God I I an strong do solemnly swe sare that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law possess qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education member of Board of Education and that I am not disqualified as a voter I'm not disqualified as a voter pursuant to RS 19 colon 4 hyen One pursu to 19 colon 4en one foury more nor disqualified nor disqualified due to conviction of a crime or offense Commision of crime rep listed in njsa 18a Colon 12 hyphen 1 listed listed go ahead one in njsa 18a 18a col 12 hyen one 12 and then I will Faithfully I will faithfully impartially impartially and justly perform and justly perform all the duties of that office all the duties of that office according to the best of my ability Accord to rest of my ability so help me God help me God congratulations Mr stachi please take your seat okay so we are actually going to try to move uh quickly into our presentation so we'll just go so right on to approval of the board minutes 3.1 and 3.2 we have a motion um M Menendez I present a motion to approve approval of the minutes uh 3.1 and 3.2 second can we have a roll call this is Melendez yes Mrs O'Neal Mr orillo yes Mr stachi y Mrs Aquino yes Mrs Fenton yes Mrs fera yes Mrs Fitzgerald yes Mrs Nores yes and do we have any Communications or petitions to the board no no and with that we're going to turn it over to our superintendent Dr ban for our students presentation so we have a jam-packed evening and so first of all before we begin I just like to remind everyone that we have our kickoff on planning meeting this coming Tuesday at the middle school you received an email a couple weeks ago about to um sign up to attend the meeting if not we're going sending out a reminder it's going to be your first opportunity as a community to get involved we certainly hope to see you out next Tuesday at 6:30 here at the middle school so without further Ado I'd like to invite Mr Kevin stanbury up he has some great um student groups here to celebrate all their wonderful accomplishments thank you Mr sansy thank you Dr Bia uh good evening Board of Education members members of the community it gives me a great deal of pleasure to introduce our first presentation this evening uh our diversity equity and inclusion Council uh comprised of students uh from a very diverse population at Mount Olive high school and I'd like to introduce their advisers because they'd like to share with you the work that they've done since the beginning of the year and it's been absolutely fantastic they presented to Dr bie and I probably around November and then they presented to our faculty at the last uh faculty meeting and now tonight they're going to be able bble to share their magnificent work with you their advisers Mrs shantia Boyd who's one of our vice principles for attendance and behavioral intervention Mrs Kiera Fischer who's one of our School nurses at Mal Al high school and Mr everything for us Mr SJ zad how about a big a warm [Applause] welcome are you doing a Pres presentation on the board here yes all right I'm moving good evening board members good evening community members I am shantia Boyd and under the tutelage of Dr bangi and Mr Sansbury we present to you diversity equity and inclusion this is our Dei student council just a quick fact about this wonderful amazing group of students is that they organically came together to bring about the change that they desire to see not only in the high school but across our district Middle School down to elementary school so their work the beginning of their work will speak for itself okay thank you all right good evening board members um I just want to introduce myself my name is relle I'm the head of the curriculum curriculum and instruction committee as well as the policy committee um so goad um we're going to be covering essentially who we are um our varying committees and how we operate and so we're a diverse group of students dedicated to making our school's environment reflective of our student body and our staff's cultures and identities at its core our mission is to promote diversity equity and inclusion within our school's environment for all all students and faculty as our diversity grows we aim to create a more comfortable and safe Space by uplifting students voices through curriculum policy and cultural changes we aim to unify our varying backgrounds by celebrating our traditions and educating our students through a worldview I am Rebecca I am the head of our social media po committee um some of the issues that we would like to to address in our school setting our curriculum based as along with issues in our school setting within the school and we also hope to address wheelchair accessibility issues along with mental health and we have our monthlong celebrations that we aim to um really celebrate everyone's cultures and spread it around our school so to start off with curriculum and instruction um when it comes to curriculum based changes our first step for AC are to reference students that are enrolled in particular courses throughout our school and really gauge how um how they feel they're really taking um the material that's provided to them and given that information we'll be we want to be able to add courses that are relevant to the student body and review current curriculum to see what can be changed um also going along with that we'll Review Board of Ed policy to go about changing the curriculum for varying classes so um in itself we really thought that curriculum and instruction was a significant aspect to our group um as there we saw that there were um certain disparities when it came to specifically historically based courses um we want to make sure that um when it comes to courses in that nature that it's not only reflective of a eurocentric point of view but we really get um educated on an entire world and then heading heading into policies and regulations um I'm also the head of this along with Cala and um we really just want to ensure that our policies reflect a zero tolerance for any Act of discrimination that goes um toward our student population and um right now we're drafting 1520 um regulations for the 1523 comprehensive Equity plan which was drafted by you guys um to ensure that there's an equal environment for every student with in our district and we really feel that it's important um for our um work that we're doing right now to not only affect us but the people that will be coming after us um I'm Camala Williams I'm a senior and I'm also the head of the policy and regulations committee and with this committee our goal is to ensure that our policies reflect a zero tolerance for any Act of discrimination to guard our student population as well as our staff I'm also the head of the Activities Committee along with Lorissa parado and our mission is to bring different cultures and Comm communities together by engaging in fun activities some of our plans include celebrating month-long observations including Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month Black History Month Native American Heritage Month Hispanic Heritage Month and more another extension of our Activities Committee also includes the story time project in celebration of Native American heritage month we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to launch our storytime project back in November we went to sander Elementary School and read books to kindergarten students that related to Native American Heritage with messages that the students can learn from and even relate to hi I'm Lissa and I'm also a senior and I'm also head of the Activities Committee along with Cala and so far we have been able to put together and host fun and creative ways for the high school as well as the community to participate in with these activities it's important that we keep everyone engaged and interested in learning about different cultures and communities our first activity Outreach to the community was in participating in Key Club safe trick-or treat event this was a way for us to promote ourselves the first time reaching all grade levels and showing the community what we are starting up also for Hispanic Heritage Month we put together a Spirit Week full of themed days the whole student body was able to participate in throughout the week we also had activities such as bracelet making pinning up flags for representation and Hispanic dancing and most recently for Black History Month we had another spirit week that highlighted black excellence in things like music fashion and sports we also hosted a student versus faculty basketball fundraiser in partnership with MOA who brought some of their third to sixth graders to participate in a halftime knockout contest we are successful in raising money which will also help us moving forward in other events and activities we are also able to reach the community again and get the student body excited for more of our upcoming events and we know we were successful because in connecting with our student body as we've had several interested students reach out to us to join our efforts so again I Rebecca Scott I'm a junior and I am the head of our social media committee um we have made a lot of progress on spreading the overall message of our club um through through our Council through our social media accounts we have Instagram we have Tik Tok and we have really been able to reach staff students and parents throughout um our platform so this is our Instagram account um as you can see we have many posts we have a good amount of followers it's even more um than we did the last time we did this presentation so we have our little message at the top and our um logo where we can really like spread what we're about so this these are some of the individual posts we have our post for Hispanic Heritage Month um to let the students know the spirit wear and what they can do what they can bring in um we have some of our teacher um participation in our spirit weeks we have our participation from Mr Stansbury and Mr Ben fatty uh for their basketball game um and some of these videos have reached over 2,000 plays meaning we reached a wide audience of over 2,000 people through this one platform and we're not done spreading our message I'm Jose and um I'm the head of the uh multilingual students along with um Kayla but she couldn't make it today but um our plan is to start helping ml students feel more comfortable in the mount olives High School environment and Community by providing resources and activities some of our plans are to um to make some activities to start helping the students feel more comfortable we also plan to create a buddy system between ml students and students with English as their first language and we are currently utilizing the Google form to get an overview of how the ml students are are accustoming to the environment in Mount Olive High School um to bridge the The Divide between ml students and the rest of the student body we have created a Google form to gauge the comfortability of these students to better um cater to their needs our ml committee strives to diminish a divide between these students and um between these students and the people who have English as their first language to make our student environment more inclusive and available to everybody hello my name is Nim heison and I'm the treasur of the Dei student council I'll be presenting on the behalf of Elizabeth who is the head of the mental health committee unfortunately she was unable to be here this evening but I'm going to share with you what she has been working on the purpose of the Mental Health Community is to provide resources to minimize mental health and other health related struggles for all students some goals are to update my Olive websites to expand Mental Health Resources um offer quiet spaces for students before school during tag and during lunch and to require teachers to provide trigger and just trigger warnings for any films or anything they would like to add into their lessons to reach these goals we have planned a bulletin board to display in our school intended to provide information of varying mental health and health disabilities along with providing resources for those who are struggling an an extension of acting of action plan includes reaching out to miss BOS about providing warning and possible providing accom accommodations for future drama club and performances to help these with sensitive with sensit to help people with sensitivity to light and sound so for some areas of improvement currently we are working to to recruit more people for each of the Committees being a smaller group as of right now and with how much effort goes into carrying everything out it's really important for us to expand but as we have mentioned before we've gotten emails from people that are looking to join and to help further recruit people Dei is currently designing a poster to put around the school for awareness for those who are interested in joining so some issues that we fa the high school middle school and elementary schools all operate and function in different buildings so sometimes it is difficult to communicate and plan events across the district with the other schools when planning these events we also have to consider preserving time for educational hours and making sure we as well as the other students obtain these educational hours another issue that we Face are our meeting times as a council we only get 20 minutes twice per week to meet there's a lot of work to be done in such short time help us by supporting our fundraisers promoting and spreading the word about Mount Olive High School Dei student council all right so just to wrap up we just want to thank you guys for your time and um please if you have any kind of feedback for us we're open to hear it thank you Y how about another round of applause for our Dei SC Council what a fantastic presentation and a message and uh these students are absolutely dedicated and committed to their causes and uh we couldn't be more proud of them so thank you once again to the students and their advisers the other uh presentation that I wanted to introduce is that we know that we have incredible student accomplishments inside the classroom but this also stretches well beyond the threshold of the classroom as evidenced by our Dei student counil but another group that has demonstrated excellence in their commitment uh to their school and their Community is our Mount Olive Marauder Varsity wrestling program and let me just read just a few things about this program they won uh the state sectional Championship three years in a row for a total of six in school history they were the group four runner up this year we qualified 12 wrestlers for Regions it's the most in school history we had nine District Champs one second place finish and two third place finishes we had seven district or District Seven Champions two region winners seven total placers two first place one second place two third place two fourth place we are the top Public School in Mars County we rank 16th by the state coaches association seventh overall Public School in the rankings we finished 11th in team scoring at States that's third overall with Public Schools just keep in mind who was ranked in front of us private and parochial seven years in a row with a state medalist this is the year that we had our first individual state champion in 36 years and coincidentally joining us this evening is that state champion from 36 years ago 1988 152 lbs how about a big warm welcome and Applause for Mr Anthony gedy please stand up as you can imagine that presented an amazing Kodak moment this evening so we couldn't be more proud and thank you for being here to help us celebrate uh Mount Olive is one of the top public school programs year in and year out and that's really due to the leadership of the program geez I can't even remember Sean uh Sean's been our head coach for at least 25 years and that's absolutely unheard of funny story we hired him as the varsity assistant and about two days later I called him back and said Sean guess what you're going to be the head coach and uh it's been uh an incredible journey ever since I'd like to welcome to the podium uh to talk about tonight's program and to also uh award some outstanding performances how about a big round of applause for our head wrestling coach Mr sha SMI like to uh thank the board of education for having us here tonight the mount wrestling team uh all your support uh I know we asked for a lot but uh you can see the rewards that we're getting in return we do a lot of traveling throughout the country uh we try to go out to Pennsylvania down the shore we're not vacationing okay well as coach Ry says this is business and everywhere we go it is business and uh these business trips we've been taking traveling around and we've gotten our kids some good looks and we got we sent two kids last year one to prinston division one wrestling one to Virginia Tech and we're sending two more young athletes at division one wrestling next year so we're very proud of that and that's because of all the support here at the board of education so thank you very much for uh helping us out um the support of the board I also like to thank the school administration uh Mr stanbury is at almost all of our matches and I appreciate that Dr ban thank you so much for being a fan I've see some of our matches well and I see some board members kind of come in and out I'm a little busy but I do see you guys but uh thank you for coming and uh obviously Mrs Colleen sule who couldn't be here tonight uh she's really done a tremendous job working with the program and uh I think when she first came to M was a bit of a culture shock she's definitely a soccer uh coach and uh the World of Wrestling was all new to her so uh she's done a great job working with us in our program and I also have to thank Mrs Katie rub the ath secretary cuz I'm in her office every day and she works with me which is not easy to do just ask my assistant coaches and uh got to give a shout out to her and uh behind every great program I've adopted a philosophy a long time ago surround yourself with great people and I've been able to find some great people to be part of the program and uh one of my main stes has been here for a long time is a coach Romano can you come on up here coach Romano Cy shy I was also able to get um coach baretto as a head coach of Morris NS for many years on up coach Baretta one of our recent editions in the back there Mr Brian Schneider come on up Brian and some other coaches just couldn't make it tonight uh I want to thank my wrests for sitting in the back and behaving so thank you guys you're making me look good uh as Mr stanbury said about our team this year we were 16 and five okay uh we wrestled six top 20 teams this year splitting three and three with those teams uh we developed a very difficult schedule and it definitely paid off for our kids like I said our tough tournaments we entered it was was absolutely awesome to go out there and be part of that and see some of the top-notch competition uh in the state and uh we recently just got the uh national rankings came up and I don't know if we've ever had a man Olive kid in it I don't know if Anthony guidy was in I'm not sure I talked about that later but uh tyer higginson uh actually be uh the number four kid in the country now he's the number four ranked kid in the country currently so that was quite an accomplishment so we're going to honor not just our two wrestlers tonight but it it's not about the two guys it's about the entire team so I'm going to call up uh each wrestler that I see here tonight and give an award uh our team did win the north one group four stay section uh Championship this year and uh that's a heck of an accomplishment I believe it's what five years in a row guys it's five years in a row we've definitely put our stamp on that Mark and uh we plan on going back next year down to the groups and hopefully come back with another group four state champion ship all right uh so let me do this first I'm going to give out these two Awards to higginson then I'll give out the teams the first one uh we had two wrestlers placed in our state tournament this year and the New Jersey state tournament is one of the toughest tournaments in the country it's a very good tournament I mean it is a meat grinder tournament a lot of the kids who play one3 are going to wrestle somewhere in college and at a big college uh Tyler beus okay uh this year was a Morris County Champion he's a three-time district Champion a region Champion voted outstanding wrestler this year uh he has a School record of 82 pins that's unheard of 82 pins and a career record of 114 and 29 placing third in the state this year and next year he'll be wrestling at Bucknell University definitely going to miss him that's Tyler beus Tyler come on up buddy there he is [Applause] next guy uh it's going to be honored here tonight again uh it's been since 1988 since we've had a state champ and when I came here in 1999 uh it was wow you look at the board like wow we got to get a name up there with Anthony gedy and it's very hard to do it's not an easy thing to do these kids go year round they train and um I was glad that we were able to make that happen this year and going down the state tournament I mean this could have been Tyler beus tonight this could have been uh higginson that's how tough the tournament is things went his way uh he leaves Mount Olive as a two-time Morris County champ a three-time district champ a two-time regional champ also voted ow so both the boys voted outstanding rusters this year uh two-time State play winner taken fourth in 2023 and this year he was our njsiaa state champion with a career record of 117 and 18 win that's tyer [Applause] higginson Captain Tyler higginson thank you okay now I just like to ask the I have to call out a lot of names here I'm going to have all the wrestlers come up and have them hand out individ ual Awards to them just to acknowledge the fact that they were North one group two State sectional Champions so guys why don't you come on up here if you can make a lineup coming up this side here shake some hands come on over here Justin BL you could be the line leader come on over here put the smartest guy up front Jus in the front there we go congratulations yep great job congratulations yep congratulations congratulations Chris congratulations Justin Bullock congratulations Shake hand congratulations Scotty cap congratulations congratulations Alan congratulations great job congratulations congratulations Mr congratulations absolutely congratulations congratulations great jobat congratulations congratulations congratulations congratulations great job congratulations congratulations congratulations congratulations congratulations congratulations congratulations conat so ladies and gentlemen this is this year's 2023 2024 North one group four stage section Champion Cham man alar wrestling team thank you yeah oh I didn't even have to give them permission they're all running so before all of the kids leave do we have any comments from the board because we're going to go into a five minut recess to let the children who don't want to stay for the budget and and they're already leaving and they're already gone they're gone congratulations all right do I have motion for about a five minute recess so the kids can uh clear out before our next presentation I make that motion second all in favor I all right five five minute break we'll let the kids clear out and then we're going to have our um preliminary budget presentation and then we're going to have our njsba rep give our superintendent evaluation presentation on the process moved second uh all in favor hi okay so we're back into session we're actually going to have Miss Charlene Peterson come up uh she's our njsba rep she's going to explain to the public and to the board the process for the uh superintendent evaluation that's required to be done every year we're changing it all up oh boy change the mind are we oh okay I was wondering how that was going to happen I got you okay perfect I got I just want to thank the board and thank everyone here as well for the the opportunity to talk to the board about the superintendent evaluation process and just really want to say what a pleasure it was for me to be able to be in the audience and see your amazing students um as much as we tell boards that you know that the purpose of your board meetings the purpose of the work that you do should be to be focused on student achievement when I get the opportunity to witness it it really is a wonderful experience so I just again commend the board for really focusing on the work of your students um but as much as we talk about promoting Excellence part of the way that we help contribute to that as a board is through the evaluation of the superintendent we know that you know we've um mentioned that we don't run the district we just make sure that it's well-run so the way that we do that is by exercising our governance oversight and an important way that we do that is through evaluating the superintendent so really just want to focus on the the fact that it really is a tool for us to work together with the superintendent as a team it shouldn't be considered a gotcha it shouldn't be considered anything native it it's really a working relationship between the board and the superintendent and again with the intent to promote Excellence professional excellence in the superintendent improving skills working together all with the bottom line of trying to um improve the quality of education for our students um so in terms of that it's a process and the process start starts first by making sure that we're in compliance with statute and code about this process so it's what's required of a board is that you have to evaluate the superintendent at least once a year it has to be in writing need to discuss the findings the evaluation should be based on the goals and objectives of the district so we'll talk about that in just a minute um the responsibilities of the superintendent and then any other criteria prescribed by the State Board of Ed um and then in terms of how we carry that out so that it has to be um completed by July 1st has to be prepared by majority of the board's total membership and then it needs to include areas of strength areas needing Improvement a recommendations for professional growth and then tying it to our students how are our students doing um and then there is a summary conference or a summary meeting with the board and the superintendent um to go over the evaluation and says that it should include a total of the a majority of the total board membership so again this is what's required of a board um going through this process um so New Jersey school boards has a tool to help the board um to um be in compliance so first starting out um uh any board member who has a relative that's employed in the district would be prohibited from participating and I believe you usually had one maybe two right board members that that that was the case so recognizing that when a board member has a conflict such as this that they essentially have no more rights than any other member of the public so they would not be able to participate in the process in any way whatsoever and again that just comes down to you know any perceived kind of benefit that come could come to your relative as a result of you being on the board so you know initially we were asked okay well this is all great you just told us what we have to do has to be done by July 1 like what happens if we don't do this um so um the a few years ago the state changed some of the requirements in qac the monitoring process and now has assigned some points to these things so there are now six points to a board making sure that they complete the evaluation process by July 1 um so we you know don't want to give up any points if we don't have to right that so you want to make sure that from the board's perspective that we're doing our part and then another area that's come to um really a lot of attention lately is the fact that one of the requirements also is that new board members have to be trained on the evaluation process within 6 months of taking office so which would make sense you should be trained on the evaluation before you do it right um and it's really you know difficult somewhat too because as a new board member here you are coming on in January and we'll see that the evaluation year starts July 1 so six months has already passed be before you're even being sworn in um to be you know to be part of this process so that's why it's important that you you know at least get the training on it so one of the um like I said this is now one of the components of QC so essentially the evidence that um that the state will be looking for is that your board members have completed governance one but that really just kind of checks the box of making sure that you did do it but um in order for it to be more effective it is you know best to have a training like this where the whole board is together um hearing what this process consists of so and really wanted to make that point that it is a process so like I said the evaluation year starts July 1st ends June 30th um and it usually starts with the setting of those District goals um so that we are you know allowing the superintendent time to to get the goals accomplished um and then an important part that I wanted to talk about is where the um kind of the the starburst is they're talking about the evaluation preconference so as we um before anyone starts writing the evaluation doing the evaluation just wanted to emphasize the import of the board and the superintendent coming together and having a conversation about the evaluation process about what the accomplishments were answering any board member questions you know we all have different lengths of experience on the board different committees that we serve in so we want to make sure that when it's time to start the evaluation that all of the board members have the information that they need in order to make this be an informed process and you know it was one of the things I was just talking to to the county superintendent about this and um you know she was saying like that this is really a great opportunity and finding that in her work with superintendent that they don't don't always have the conversations with the board about the evaluation process and just the importance of doing that so we said okay we're both going to kind of push the initiative on both ends and so that we can you know help this to be a better process um so I'm just going to kind of take you through all of the steps here so like I said it starts with the goals piece and again it's because part of what it's required um and then we really um if we think about that and why it's such an important part of this is we think about all of the work that goes into running a school district all the responsibilities of the superintendent when we can hone down onto three or four goals that we think are so important to move the district forward that we are going to hold the superintendent accountable by putting them in her evaluation that's that's how then we can ensure that we are helping to move the district forward and you know it was mentioned that you were going to be starting a strategic plan so that's really an important way then from here on out that will help form what these District goals are we want to make sure that the work we're doing the priorities that we have have come from our stakeholders so what better way then to hear from them have them explain to us what that road map or what that direction needs to look like in the next 5 years and then as we consider what our work is annually that's how we carry that strategic plan out by looking from the Strategic plan for guidance then as we set these District goals so it's really great to hear how all of these pieces are coming together and working together as a way to move the district forward um involving your community and stakeholders in that process so an important part two of the evaluation is evidence so I've mentioned you know that as especially for new board members when you come on in January and that 6 months has already taken place and now you're being going to be asked to evaluate the superintendent you need them to rely on evidence what evidence can be provided to you for you to be able to determine what accomplishments have taken place in the district and that's another area where there should be a conversation between the board and the superintendent because one of the things that I'm finding is that sometimes um the board perhaps needs that they need the evidence in one way and the superintendent's providing it in another way and saying like I really wish we would have this conversation so that we're all in agreement about what kind of information we need and what format we want it on so um again another area to really come to an agreement on so the process starts um like I said W with those District goals so again just wanted to show you that the way um New Jersey school board's tool is set up the tool is set up to allow the superintendent to provide evidence so that when you are in the tool when you are evaluating the superintendent that the you will be able to see evidence that the superintendent has provided and just be able to click right on those links or click right while you're in there so that you can see that evidence that has been provided to you um again to help this be an informed process so um our tool is um set up we have two areas is the first one are those District goals that we just talked about then also importantly as we talked about identifying those areas of strength identifying those areas where more growth and attention is needed um one of the ways we do that is by evaluating the superintendent's Performance Based on leadership standards professional leadership standards so it you know it shouldn't be like what each one of us think individually but we should be evaluating the superintendent based on you know Professional Standards that that had been identified for this work and earlier when I talked about the um kind of the legal guidelines and it said other such criteria prescribed by the State Board of Ed well the New Jersey State Board of Ed um did adopt the that the national leadership standards um so those standards are what are the basis then for the standards in this evaluation tool so the tool is kind of set up that it goes into three progressions so the first one starts by making sure that each individual board member um has their input into this process then we take that individual input New Jersey school boards does and we have um a program that's set up that kind of um starts to compile it as soon as the first board memb is done it starts like a compiled document then when the second one's done it adds that one when the third one's done it adds that one so that when the full board is done there is a compiled document of all of those responses and it's Anonymous so so it now is a a a tool available to the board um to help the board have an understanding of what the board's thoughts are you know about the evaluation and then the third part of this then is um so that compiled document represents everyone's responses similar to all of the other work that we do the the superintendent evaluation should then be based on the majority opinion so this is what helps us then to be able to extract the majority opinion because we now can take that compiled document see everyone's opinions and then now can extract from that the majority opinion and then that's what is the superintendent's actual evaluation then that annual performance report so we'll help kind of see what some of these look like so the process starts with actually the the superintendent is the first one that that logs in um into New Jersey school boards tool so we recently just sent an email I don't know a few weeks ago or so I think to all the superintendent in the state making them aware that that the tool is open if you know any of them were ready to get started um so that the superintendent logs in inputs the district goals um and then inputs whatever other evidence she's going to provide and then once she's done and hit submit then there's a 48 hour window for her to go back in in case she said you like I should have said this or forgot to put that in or any additional information and then once that 48h hour window is up then an email is automatically sent to all of the board members to each one of you individually with your link then to go in for you to be able to start the process so the this is kind of what the tool looks like then so from the goals portion um like I said the superintendent logs in would input each one of those District goals and then is able to provide a self assessment do she think the goal was achieved think satisfactory progress was made or think little or no progress progress was made and sometimes one of the things that we're seeing are that more and more goals are sometimes multi-year goals that can't be accomplished in one year so seeing something as satisfactory progress made you know we would need to think of that sometimes it could be the best that we were able to do in that particular year because it's a multi-year goal um then like then the superintendent is able to provide comments able to provide evidence for the board member consideration then when you as an individual board Member log in you will be able to see the information that the superintendent put in you'll be able to see the superintendent's rating and comments and then you'll be able then you'll be asked to provide your rating what how what do you think do you think the goal was achieved satisfactory progress was made or little or no progress and then you are able to provide comments as well and a lot of times I see board members in the comments they provide is that they're speaking to the superintendent but what you're actually doing is Prov providing comments to your fellow board members to help your fellow board members understand why you gave the rating that you did so that when the board comes together to have a discussion about that majority opinion you now have a clearer understanding of the thought process of each of your board members um because of the time that was taken to provide these comments so then the next portion then like I said were those Professional Standards so these are that the six standards that are in the superintendent evaluation and a few years ago we updated the tool and the standards used to kind of be more along functional lines like Finance facilities curriculum and then said you know what there's really kind of a realization that the superintendent's jobs are much larger than that and a lot of it has to do with the professional capacity culture of care like kind of really those other things that are equally important in terms of making this a successful District um so one of the areas that I wanted to call to the board's attention is that one of the options you have in this rating is to say not observed so for those new board members who just got on the board or board members that find themselves in situations where you just don't have enough information we want you to be able to evaluate the superintendent wherever you can but don't feel compelled to evaluate something that you don't have enough information on and it's not considered a negative it's not considered a positive it's just I didn't get I just didn't see it so this is an example of like what one of those six standards looks like um so there's a you know an explanation of the standard but then what one of the things we did as well is for each one of those ratings exemplary proficient one of the things we're finding in the past is that two board members may have had kind of the same thought about what the superintendent's performance but what to me was exemplary saybe to you was proficient so we wanted to make sure that we the boards kind of had more of of a Common Language about what that meant so we now have then a unique definition for each rating for each standard um you can kind of see in the red there then where those links would appear if the superintendent had put in you know links so usually what we see happen is that you might have like a a Google folder say that will be standard one and then the superintendent would put all the information related to standard one in that folder so then you just have to do one click open up the folder and see what's in there relative that to that standard um we also take the standard and break it down into kind of some more smaller meaningful Parts which are the indicators so and we um have the board members give ratings next to the indicators even though what we're really looking for is the overall assessment of the standard but we want to make sure you're being thoughtful about it want to make sure that you have looked through you know all of the parts of that standard so that when you do go down and give an overall rating on that standard we know that that you've thought about it you just didn't go right down to the bottom and click a box that you you know you had to think about all of the components of it so um so the system does not fill out like that overall standard rating so even if you had checked all the indicators say in one column you you're still going to be asked to go in and fill out you know what you believe the overall rating of that standard to be um and then you also can provide comments for each standard for your fellow board members so then again I said once all of the board members have the individual board members who are able to participate in the process have completed the process um then New Jersey school boards like I said our program is set up that it automatically compiles those reports um into anonymous documents that are available um accessible to the board president um with the understanding that they will be shared with the other board members but that's just the the portal then that that the documents are accessible from so this is an example of what that compiled report might look like so here's an example of a goal so in this goal example it was an eight- member board participated the superintendent um in their self assessment so the goal was achieved six members agreed one member thought satisfactory progress was made one member thought little or no progress was made and then the asteris under the member comments would suggest that that a different member speaking each time so that's how it remains Anonymous but you get to see what everyone's input is um so this then you can see then how this could be a working tool for the board to be able to identify what the majority opinion would be and then this is a sample of what a compiled standard would look like so again taking all of those indicators showing what each one of the board members ratings were um what the overall rating was for that standards by each one of the members and then the comments again would be shown um with the asteris so again so we now have gone through individual input we then compiled the individual input into one Anonymous document so now like I said similar to other work that we do we now need then to look at that Anonymous compiled document and say okay for each one of these areas what is the majority opinion what is is the thoughts of the board um to then be put into the final piece um which is that annual performance report template so and again that helps the Board stay in compliance with the the areas that were required of us it will you know talk about the accomplishment of goals the areas of strength um areas where more growth are needed and allows the board to provide some overall summi of comments and the the work of our students and then this is the document that um when CAC comes to look for the the the superintendent's evaluation um this is the document then that the board president and the superintendent both signed um as the evidence that this process took place and took place you know it was completed by July 1st um so here it allows the board to take each district goal give an overall majority opinion evaluation on whether that goal was accomplished or not have identification of overall supporting remarks do the same thing for each one of the standards and then again to take again using the standards as the basis to identify those areas of strength identify those areas where more growth and Improvement are needed and then the opportunity to provide any open-ended um you know summative comments from the board and then the last piece of this is the you know that important then sitdown conference to to go through the evaluation with the board um so while it was stated when when we were looking at the statute and code it said a majority of the board members were supposed to attend this um it would be our recommendation to have every board member who's able to attend to to attend this as well because as much as we said that the annual performance report or the document that the superintendent receives um reflects the majority opinion one of the rights I have is the if I'm a hold of the minority opinion it's I have the right to be heard so when we looked at that example of that goal where you know six board members thought it was achieved but one didn't if I'm that one that didn't that may not find its way in the document that the superintendent received but I have the right then to say you know what everyone else you know the majority opinion says this goal was achieved but I was expecting to see these things that I didn't see and that's why I think differently so this then provide you as the holder of that Minority opinion um the opportunity to be heard so an important part of this work to make sure that we meet that July 1 deadline is that the board should um set itself an evaluation calendar and so ideally it's suggested that you um take that July 1st deadline and work backwards and kind of say Okay when's your last meeting in June whenever that is then make sure that you have that you know that summary conference sit down meeting with the superintendent then back up from there and say okay when do we need to make sure then that we have that annual performance report done that includes the majority opinion then we need to make sure then before that when our each one of our individual evaluations done then we'd have to back in when does the superintendent need to have her part done so that all of those steps can be aligned to make sure that we're done by the July 1st deadline and that IDE we can accomplish these steps that we need to by using the existing board um meetings that are in place rather than having to schedule any special meetings um to try and accomplish this work so if we look at then kind of you know what makes for an effective process again the importance of everyone's voices being heard individually that the board coming to a consensus on the majority opinion the rights of the minority to be heard the importance of this use this as a tool to strengthen and build a productive board and superintendent relationship make sure that we're in compliance with statute and code um you know and I have to say sometimes board members will ask well like do we have to use your tool and I'll say you can use whatever you want what's important is that you have to be in compliance with statute and code and this is just a way to help ensure that you do that um recognizing that the the end result that we're aiming for in this process is Student Success so in terms of food for thought of this to think about this as you know uh not just a once a year thing that we're doing but really to look at it as a process so when we talk about setting those District goals in the summer or you know affirming them then throughout the year we should be getting progress updates how are we doing what's been accomplished so that when it comes time to do the evaluation there shouldn't be a surprise to the board about where we are in terms of the accomplishments and there shouldn't be any surprise to the superintendent about what you know she thinks the board's thoughts are about that so we should be scheduling it as part of our meetings parts of ways to make sure that that you know we're informed on the progress that's been made um we also to tend to as boards sometimes give higher priority to the latest and the greatest like whatever is happening now and sometimes that gets higher weight than um really thinking about or being reflective of what's happened over the entire year so again sometimes as much as we say that you know the superintendent May providing us evidence we should also be thinking about ways to you know maintain evidence ourselves and say oh this is great like I'm going to remember this when it comes time you know to do the evaluation come up with a system for you to um retain evidence and then you know I just can't emphasize enough the importance of this being you know a really critical govern governance responsibility so for all of the board members that are able to participate to please do so you know usually I'm working with the board president and saying like Okay six done like we got to get that last board member to to to try and get as many people done as we possibly can because just the value of um of hearing it from everyone's voice and then I think that might be it that's why I think nothing's clicking as I'm moving it right yeah so um just wanted to see if the board had any questions for me at all about this process are there any questions from the board for Miss Peterson okay well thank you everyone thank you yeah good night thank you so we're actually not going to move our seats because next up is are we doing our presentation on preliminary budget we're going to have that up on the screen as well so as we wait for Blake to bring up the presentation I would like to first um thank you michon for the hard work she has demonstrated so far um starting this District michon started in August late August actually and she really has truly hit the ground running to make sense of our budget in order to ensure that we are maximizing izing our money um to the point of servicing our students um so I'm at this point we're going to be bringing up our um presentation so just to give you an idea as far as how our present AG is going to be organized we're going to start out with looking at our state aid followed by enrollment numbers as well revenue and expenditures what exactly is going to be put into this budget the impact on the tax levate impact and then obviously questions for the board at the conclusion of the presentation um but before we get into that um I wanted to take a moment um if you can just click on to that is to look at our um calendar concerned as far as our budget development Miss Shon do you want to go over this so um budget development actually started in November as Dr Banja had said I started with the district in uh late August and one of the first things and in addition to everything else was I needed to learn the district's budget what is included what is not included um every detail of the budget every line item was scrutinized and questioned and reviewed um the board adopted this PR Min Ary budget schedule at their December 18th meeting and this is from that meeting I did not bring mine uh with me it has been updated as each uh target has been hit it's about three or four pages um I did meet with every building principal every Department every office staff worker and we went through their entire budget we went through their current year budget we reviewed what was budgeted in the current year what was spent what hasn't been spent are you going to spend it uh what's in next year's budget I am um a believer in budgeting for what you need some will call it zerobase budgeting um I think that's the best way to keep your budget managers your building principles your department heads where they can effectively manage their budget so if any um emergencies arise and I say to them I need $20,000 where can you find it in your budget they're able to do so because they built their own budget and they're managing their budget so that's how we went through um this budget season I would like the public and also the board to notice if you look at this calendar what a collaborative effort it was Miss Shon T took a great deal of time as she pointed out to me with everyone on the team including the board members for that everyone to have a clear understanding as far as um what the budget looks like this year as well as what we're going to be get into next year so it was really a great um process to be a part of go back we need to make that a little bigger yeah they dat yeah I just said it to that's not it state aid I'm sorry for oh that's better okay okay so this spreadsheet is um to try to bring some sense to the state aid that Mount Olive received this year year um the district received an additional almost $5.1 million in state aid which was fantastic because the district has been underfunded for for several years and um I'm not going to bore you with all the calculations here but what I want to emphasize is that the main thrust of a district state aid is based on two major things which is the third and fourth line down one is the equalized valuations and that's based on the real estate value of the district and the second one is the district's income which is based on the total income of the residents in the district and I will tell you that these numbers for 2023 24 are based on um year 2020 tax returns that the division of Revenue is reflecting in the district income um for 2425 that's 2021 tax returns So based on those two numbers and with the equalized multipliers that you see below I have no idea where the state gets those numbers that number those calculations are um Statewide and that's how they come up with your Equalization Aid um and as a result if you could scroll down please you will see here that the net State you'll see in the 23 24 year um the district was underfunded by about $2.4 million um and now uh moving forward to um 2425 we have been fully funded so this is the last year of the state aid calculations so next year the district State a will be based on straight um equalized valuations and net income of the district as well as um enrollment but it's not as significant as those two other figures we can move on so just as a comparison uh these are the top five districts with increases in state aid in Morris County you'll see Dover number one Mount Olive botin Town waren burrow and parsipany Troy Hills these are the top um in the county who received the most state aid um equally speaking there were many districts in Mars County that lost quite a bit of state aid so every body is hopeful moving forward that there can be uh state aid can be somewhat um stable so that districts can better prepare for their budgets um I have some colleagues that lost $3 million in state aid and the you're you're only depending upon your size you're losing staff or you're cutting significant programs so Mount Olive was um very fortunate to be fully funded that we can provide our services to the students of the district you know I just want to reiterate that you know the term fortunate is also based upon what the state also believes that we need as a school district right so certainly when you look at you know the money that we received and how you want to connotate it as extra it's not extra it's this money is calculated on what we demonstrated as a school district in need of and you know thereby we are going to be spending this money on our students in a in a manner that's going to ensure they're both their experiences in and out of the classroom are going to be able to maximize their educational experiences while they time here in Mount Olive um and just to talk about I didn't do that slide there you go okay so just a little understand historical understanding of our enrollment here um as you can tell our enrollment is going up um certainly if you look at from a year-to-year projection you know I think we're going to be going up close to about 70 or 80 kids I want to be clear about that number too um those numbers may may be small in your mind but if you look at our special ed population for example um our special ed population has increased 15% over the past four school years 15% what those added expenses require more teachers more resources and more overall costs along with that each of those programs that we've added in the past 5 years are also into the benefit of our students so while enrollment on the surface level may not be increasing to the you know the most um basic eye but certainly the students that are coming to our district and the needs that to present are much more sophisticated and much more diverse and thereby cost more money for us to spend and as we're going to tell you as far as where we're going to be spending this money it's all back to our students you tap it's kind of small expend there you go okay this worksheet are the revenues of the district and um once the board adopts just to give you a little background information once the board uh adopts the budget this evening it then gets submitted to the county office and the county office has until um April 20th to approve the budget at which time the advertised budget is generated which will be posted on the district's website and this is the format of the advertised budget so I wanted the public to be familiar with the numbers that they're going to be seeing not just tonight but once the advertise budget is um published and of course um the board will be having their budget hearing around I think it's the first meeting in May I think it's May 3rd or something but again I just wanted them I wanted the public to be aware and the board of of the dollars and how they're presented to you so um moving from left to right the First Column are the audited numbers from last school year the second column is the revised budget usually with Revenue we do not revise the revenues they are adjusted out during the audit process the third column is the proposed budget for revenues for next year and the last column is the difference between the proposed minus the current year and then obviously the percentage going across so how the tax levy you're obviously your main source of Revenue to support the budget is from the taxpayers so how the tax levy is calculated it takes the current year tax levy and to that tax levy uh normally you're statutorily only allowed to increase the levy by 2% you can exceed the 2% if the district has other options available to them one of which would be an enrollment adjustment based on uh the weighted enrollment that's projected in the district so uh Mount Olive has um an enrollment adjustment available to that of $200,000 what happens is you would take the current tax levy of 76.5 million you add the $200,000 enrollment adjustment to that total you then inflate it by the two% and that would give us our proposed budget that's why the difference says 2.27% and not the standard 2% other adjustments that the district could uh use to increase their tax levy would be a health care adjustment that means if uh the district's projected Health Care is going to exceed the State Health Benefit allowance and mount olives does to approximately about $720,000 but the district is not um exercising that adjustment we want to put it off until next year for any type of emergency there is no need to use it at this time um there's also what's called banked cap banked cap is a term of a dollar amount that's generated between your maximum allowed tax levy what you can increase your tax levy and what the district decides to keep their tax levy at and that difference is called banked cap it's actually a little bit of savings and that will that can roll forward for up to 3 years um for those of you that were reviewing our current current year budget from last year the the current year tax levy in that $ 76.5 million uh the district exercised an enrollment adjustment of about $760,000 a healthc care adjustment of about $1.5 million and banked cap of about $520,000 and that tax levy was overall uh 5.93% so with this this year we're only proposing a 2.27% increase on the tax levy so moving down to see the other revenues can can you slide that over a little bit to the right so they can see the description okay so after the tax levy uh we have tuition in the district the tuition comprises of our paid preschool program we have about uh 30 students or so at $3,000 is the annual rate and then also we have quite uh an extensive IND District special education program that many districts in the area send their students to Mount Olive um that is valued at about $85,000 those tuition students come to us from other districts require uh tuition and some of them have onetoone aid services so that's why you see that increased difference um as an aside um you know it's kind of you usually budget your revenues conservatively because you don't want to take the chance if that revenue is not realized or not so that's part of the reason why some of the revenues may seem lower in Prior years um but I will tell you that that $800,000 for in uh for tuition received is a real number these students are coming back next year they're based on contract so we're very confident with that the next line moving down unrestricted miscellaneous revenues that comprises of our before and after Care Program um about $80,000 we uh rent our facilities out for the middle school the high school the theaters that's valued at about $75,000 uh we rent the district rents the air doome rental that's approximately $300,000 and we also have uh bank account interest um which is valued at about $400,000 I kept that a little bit conservative because as we motor through the year end we'll be spending more money the budget will be liquidated and obviously funds will not be in the bank account long enough to earn significant interest the next line down is interest earned on our capital reserve account that's um a placeholder the district does realize more Revenue but again we're being conservative with that and moving down is our state aid you can see that which is an increase of 5,940 underneath that line Medicaid this of $154,000 this Aid is given to us by the Department of Education this is based on our students in District who receive medicare Services can we move down a little bit okay and then after our semi Medicare we have a budgeted fund balance from the operating budget what that means is um as you're developing a subsequent Year's budget you're looking at your current year budget and see what kind of money what kind of surpluses you have in the budget that you can use to support the future budget so for the past several years the district has um through their U good savings and budgeting and spending in wisely they're able to save out of their current budgets signif significant money excuse me as you could say to put forth for the subsequent year for 2425 after the district's audit we had what's called U excess Surplus and excess Surplus is money that is outside of the district's allowable um Surplus calculations and it has to be put forth for tax relief so that's why it's in that column that $4.6 million withdrawal from capital reserve um in this budget we have a little bit over $4 million budgeted for capital projects and through savings we are only required to withdraw $1.2 million to support these projects and the final withdrawal is from our maintenance Reserve account which supports our required maintenance budget and our total revenues you could see is 1227 m248 47 for an increase of about 8% oh yes okay I am not going to bore you and go through each line um what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about the lines that are increasing over 10% okay okay so the third line down um just as an aside all of these accounts are broken down by programs and this will tie out this is a regurgitation of what the advertised budget is going to look like when it's posted on the website Within These account lines is everything that the district needs to spend for those particular programs salaries supplies contracted Services everything but benefits medical dental benefits other benefits are all in a line item at the bottom all of these all of these budgeted amounts include all the contractual obligations that the district is required um employment contracts contracts for our utilities our phone service our copers everything under the sun we need to account for to move the district forward um so saying I'm going to touch about what's over 10% the third line down basic skills we have in this budget um a new interventionist to support the the students needs for for next year um English as a second language which actually needs to be changed right to multi multilanguage Learners uh we have in this budget new technology to support um the various student students needs that we have who speak several languages fluently um we have we go down to the before and after care programs which you're seeing a negative 86% and the line underneath it for a negative 60% these are our programs for uh mosa and the the after school programs the success acmy um the reason why the budget is so drastic Ally low is because the district um still has their arser funds that are left and we're able to utilize these federal funds they will expire um next September and they need to be liquidated by October 19th I believe but these funds will be able to support these summer uh and and late spring programs so that's why you see that drastic um decrease right there um at risk program a decrease of 37% that's just better aligning um the budget to what it is current year it's 113 we're looking more of 70,000 next year so that's pretty much the reason for that uh moving down to tuition increasing by almost a million dollars we have um several new placements of students going out for district uh we also budget for a few contingencies because you never know who's going to move into your district and we need to be sure that we're able to service them to what their needs are um attendance went up by $48,000 the district this year hired a second staff member in the attendance office that's where that increase comes from can you scroll down please child study team 11% or almost $300,000 uh Dr banier will explain in a subsequent slide but we are we have in this budget a new prek team we have a large preschool population that really is in need of its own child study team which includes an ldtc uh speech therapist social work excuse me social work work psych psychologists so that's why you see the significant increase in that line um staff development is going down by $126,000 we are not decreasing staff development we are just funding it through our title 2A funds which is federal funds that um is affording us the opportunity to spend that with them School administration is decreasing by almost 10% or 400,000 that's really an offset to um a few lines below for our supervisors that that kind of offsets each other because last year the district realigned their administrators um and that was significant savings to the district and better um accounted for is what their job descriptions actually are um let's say going down Security in the security went up about $250,000 what's in this budget is when I met with the the principles there was a real need to have an additional security guard in each of the elementary schools to have a presence when the students are outside for um recess and other activities and to be sure that when the security officer is outside there's somebody inside the B the building to assist um so we have a security officer built um in each of the elementary schools a class three officer budgeted in the middle school and another security officer in the high school can you move down please so that takes our total General current expense which is increasing by 4.3% moving down to the equipment so we have um a technology plan that was developed by our technology department and it ranges from 2023 to 2026 and um in the current year budget the funds that should have been allocated for technology were um some of them were cut so with uh in this school year uh for 2425 we have um we're sort of making up for what was missed in the current year and these large numbers that you see they are um um Promethean boards interactive boards end to life our technology staff has worked tirelessly in trying to repair what we have in District um ordering parts and they are just at the end of their useful life so they need to be replaced because as you know most of our students learn through technology and they need this to be successful um okay let's move down a little bit more um administrative technology um down by 35% some of these like within the equipment line some of these are like one-time purchases that's why you'll see such drastic swings you know you'll need it in the current year but you're not going to need it next year because we bought it this year so the items that you see in the 2425 column will not be in the 2526 colum in in the required maintenance uh budget line we have um we have several parts that we purchase what what makes it equipment is that the individual item is over $2,000 so we have in this budget um we have to um have our inventory parts to repair all of our HVAC and plumbing equipment we try to do most of the work in house and not have to spend money on contractors because that cost more money um custodial Services uh we're in need of um a new maintenance vehicle and purchasing additional items to increase the value of our current trucks we do have a list of all the vehicles in the district and their mileage and how they're managed when um when the when the district repairs their vehicles the office staff manages them by the truck number so that the director can manage when um a vehicle is nearing its end of life upkeep of grounds um going down by 26,000 but it's still a sizable amount we have Lawn Equipment that's in there that we need to purchase because we do our own grounds work here and and and I think that's about it so equipment is going up about 20% but again these are most of these are are ontime purchases so now for our capital capital projects we have um at our next meeting in March we're going to be doing a presentation uh the district has been working with our architect and developing a 10-year plan with the um failed referend we had to try our best to figure out how we can get some of these projects into our budget on a needed basis obviously we don't want to lose the state aid on eligible projects but we really don't have a choice on some of these failing systems in the district so what we have in next year's budget we have um the CMS roof replacement which is almost $4 million we have a parking lot expansion at Mountain View and we have a partial roof replacement here at the middle school and all of those items um part of them they were in the referendum we're pulling them out because we have to get them done now and total general fund going up 8 and a half% so how much is this going to cost so oh this is Debt Service yeah sorry I'm ahead of myself I can't even really see that anymore Debt Service we're nearing the end of our um the referendum that was passed years ago revenues have to equal expenditures so um the re revenues coming in are is the tax levy from the taxpayers and then the two pieces are interest on the bonds and the Redemption of principle that went down almost $7,000 because as you near the end of your debt you start paying more toward principle and L toward interest so what's going to be put into new budget as point out by boning the fact that our Focus really is to ensure none of our Elementary classes go over 20 students um my um 18 months here one of the common um conversations I have with parents over and over again and also staff is the importance of that 20 um student number and certainly our goal is to ensure that all those classrooms won't have more than 20 students we're also creating as Miss Shon pointed out um a preschool only child study team um currently we pull our child study team from other buildings because those students eventually go to other buildings when they get into kindergarten first grade we felt it was more efficient and prudent for them to work exclusively at the preschool so that we don't um we can maximize their time with the students and that not being pulled from different buildings um we're also looking to bring um um most of our therapists in house you know this is an initiative that we started last year um one of the key things is that we currently have some vendors or outside contractors who serve a therapist whether it be OT PT and we really want to make sure that those are our employees so they get to know our students and we started that last year and we want to continue that trend for this upcoming school year we're also looking to be adding additional interventionists as as well as academic coaches to support both our students or staff um adding um additional mental health personnel such as additional SAC at the high school um additional security guards at each of our buildings as Miss Shon pointed out we are looking to hire one additional um security guard at each elementary school right now um because of the way of our outside activities whether it be fed and or um recess that requires your security guards to go outside and does not allow one to remain in this allows us to be able to maximize that and also to also have someone stay after school during activities um so that be great for um for the elementary schools we're also looking to add a class three officer at the middle school this is something that we had great conversations with our local PD in order to join that relationship we have a fantastic class through officer officer a at the high school we want to add someone else um to the Middle School we're also looking to add an a multilingual teacher at the middle school um as we pointed out our multilingual population is increasing and we want to make sure that those needs are being met along with that we are looking to add um a supervisor K12 of multilingual interventions across the board to ensure that those families have a point of contact and also our multilingual teachers formerly known as ESL um are able to work with one individual and also often some of these students need interventions and we want to make sure that is streamlined across the K12 Spectrum I I just wanted to I I realized I skipped a few things could you just go up for a little bit so on the stop so word it says equipment grades 1 through five so you'll see there's some significant increases there I did not talk about them in those lines um I talk briefly about the technology and the prometheum boards the interactive boards but at at the at the high school level there are significant um improvements in there we have new classes that the board adopted this past year an automotive class um there there's funds in there to get that class up and running such as engines and and other things that you need to learn all about it also um we have a very extensive robotics team that competes locally over the state and even nationally and they needed significant equipment to help them be even more competitive that they than they already are um and yes that was it so the important initiatives in this budget I talked about the technology plan and included in this budget is the replacement of endof Life Chromebooks laptops desktops the purchase of Promethean interactive boards it also provides proper maintenance repair and support of our devices you know we invest all these funds millions of dollars and we need to to make sure our assets are properly safeguarded um and provides for safe secure and Equitable access to all of our uh for our learning tools for staff and students I as I mentioned capital projects we have a parking lot expansion at Mountain View and we have Ro roof Replacements at Chester Stevens and Mount Olive middle school so how much is this going to cost we make this a little bigger so okay what what this slide shows you is moving from left to right that's the tax levy that was discussed in the revenue slide and the tax levy from the Debt Service so um about $80 million is the total tax levy now the school district operates on a fiscal year July to June and the town operates on a calendar year so the tax levy gets split just about 5050 so um I wanted to share this slide with you so you understood where the tax Lev is coming from because again once budget documents from the state are posted on the website I want um everybody to understand or at least have um knowledge of where these numbers are coming from so you take the current tax levy you have to add the balance of the levy from last year ties out to the total Levy that needs to be raised for calendar year 2024 then half of that gets deferred to next year and and so forth in the middle of the slide you take the net valuations you'll see for 2324 it's 3342 million and for 2425 the net valuations are projected at 3.36 which is an increase of about $21.5 million you apply that to the respective tax levy amount and that's the tax rate on the right side so to get your um to get the financial imp impact for you I separated it by increments of 100 right now the average uh home is assessed at 324 900 that's up a little bit from um the average impact that was discussed during the referendum meeting and how the current tax rate is calculated is by taking for example the Top Line $100,000 multiplied by the tax rate for 2324 and and that gives you your current uh School tax rate for the proposed for 2425 you apply the same tax rate and you'll get your annual increase so for the average assessed home you're looking at an an annual increase of about $225 you can apply that um I moved out as far as $600,000 but keep in mind this is not fair market value this is is the assessed value of your home and what your school tax is based on that's it the board have any questions board members do you have any questions about the preliminary budget presentation yes please I can ask some um most of what I'll do tonight is St stain because I haven't been involved in anything but if you can I have not received like the rest of the board the paper copies of all of that so it's tough just to look at it up there if I could have the paper copies I appreciate it um two things um on resolution 10.9 tonight we're we're we're taking a million two out of capital reserve and we're doing some projects what's confusing to me and and maybe you're you're including the rod Grand there but it doesn't say is that you are going to do $100,000 for the uh uh pavement and $655,000 for the Middle School uh the Mount Olive middle school and then on the next page it says that you're going to do another $3.9 million which total you know $4.6 million and we're only taking out 1.2 can you tell me where the other money's coming from because we don't have to we don't have to withdraw the account based on the capital reserve account and to your point the rod Grant is coming out of this year's money and we will the district will also be making a motion in June to transfer $2 million back to the capital reserve account you think it might be wise then to put that in that resolution because if your people are looking at that they're going to say wait a minute you're spending 46 $4.6 million but you're only withdrawing 1.2 they don't know about the rod Grant or anything that's coming out but that's but that's not part of that calculation I mean I can discuss about the balance in the capital reserve account in June there'll be a resolution that's passed that will'll talk about that all right the other thing was it's all well and good we want to try to keep a class size of 20 kids and you're going to hire more teachers you can hire more teachers but you don't have a classroom to put them in there is no more room in two of our smaller schools and you have about one empty classroom in Mountain View so I'm not sure hiring more teachers is going to reduce the 25 kids that are in a classroom now because you have no classroom to put them in that that that's the question that's bothering me that that's why I'm telling you you have to go back out in December for the referendum to put that addition on so you might want to answer that I have no no answer for it so when we're looking at those um divisions of classrooms across the district we're going to have to to kind of squeeze some of our spaces and in some cases look to um alternative settings for some of our students because certainly um right now that's a common concern that we have the class sizes that we do have um so it's something that we as a district are going to have to discuss you say alternative settings do you mean leasing places leasing leasing or um modular outside or modular and of course we already discussed that and that comes pretty expensive at about three million per thank you you're welcome there any other questions from the board I do encourage any board members that have not had the opportunity to go and sit with Nicole though um Shing and walk through um more of the presentation on the preliminary budget please do so I know um majority of us have sat with Miss owning and gone through it so that we're comfortable with it and you know just like Mr stachi has questions um you know I think all board members we should be very comfortable with the numbers and understand where we're moving as a district as well may I ask a question y um the the roofs that were mentioned for immediate concerns didn't include Mountain View so I'm wondering was the Mountain View parking lot is that more of a immediate concern than the the roof Mountain View is going to be done in the current year but okay we're actually don't worry oh I'm sorry I'm interrupt we're actually going to be going out to bed soon for that project thank you any other questions from the board yes I I have a question uh going back to the point of Mr stashi uh those alternative uh modules are included in the budget or not at this point so we're looking at that right now we're looking to see where these classrooms are going to be in um because they're not necessarily in one building we're looking at probably about um one across each elementary school as far as number of um classes we're not talking about dozens of new classrooms so we're looking at probably about four across the district so probably one or um one or so per per building but at this point that wouldn't require module but after next year it would and when you mention uh modules that give me a bad flashback yeah our trailers yeah yes yes and what is the cost per module approximately I'm not prepared I'm not sure at that point prepar for that it's extensive it is yeah so and they they what they have a end of life year about 10 years I think that's a problem can we maybe take that conversation on the modular and bring it to finance about maybe find out from our architect what the actual cost is and well we don't know exactly the time frame of you know requiring them whether it be in this year's budget or next year at least having an idea of that cost would be you know beneficial I think to all of us and to the public to understand you know one where will we get that that funding from and two you know when we make the decisions to vote down that referendum well there are other consequences to that you know we have students to house and students to educate in classrooms of some sort whether it be expanding buildings or you know putting up modular I asked the architect at the one of the meetings it was about 1.5 million per school well on a good note um Mr sh I'd like to um congratulate you and helping me understand the budget more thoroughly this year and I want to commend you for all the work you have done um you you really helped us out a lot and I I think you did a wonderful job putting this budget together I just need to let you know that thank you m Shonen will you be teaching a class on next week or down at workshop on this I have to say it you know we've actually I've sat on two presentations and we've had the opportunity of adding you know board members in and out of those you know committee meetings in order to understand it more thoroughly and I want to say thank you so much for deep diving into it in such detail too one else if not we are Beyond three hours so I know people are getting antsy or need to stretch your legs but we are going to go into our committee reports now and we are going to move to 5.2 Personnel committee that's me the Personnel committee met on Monday March 4th we discussed exit interview discussion the committee was briefed on the current exit survey and in-person exit interview process when an employee officially resigns their position in the district an exit survey is immediately sent to them and they are invited to an in-person exit interview with the Director of Human Resources we also discussed the touch Point swipe system pilot program this is a scan in scan out employee attendance system that works in conjunction with current employee IDs the program will be piloted by district office employees this spring to troubleshoot any potential issues prior to districtwide rollout this fall we also discussed an English language arts K5 teacher coach job description um the ELA position scheduled for the 2425 school year will mirror the current math Coach position and will provide support for language arts instruction across all for elementary schools and lastly a human resource update was provided to the committee regarding potential employee non-renewals of both certific certificate and non-certificated staff members I think that's all we covered I think that's it I think that's it thank you I think so too any questions from the board no okay we'll keep it moving then on to committee um CNT report SP yes so we also met on Monday March 4th um we had a discussion of our instructional coach job uh the descriptions uh we're re-evaluating all the descriptions Mrs mcder provided an overview of the instructional coach job um for the K through five Ela coach uh and the purpose of the job is uh to streamline the expectations of all current and future coaches within the district um she also provided us an in-depth update at the njsla data for ELA math and science compared to the district Factor group updates highlighted in the performance of the district and the interventions taken to impact achievement um Dr Bania shared the importance of the Board of Education approving a foreign exchange student on an F1 visa to acknowledge the placement um protocol within a school uh and and then we um that's it actually thank you we have any questions from the board no okay we'll keep moving we're on to finance and operations with Mrs fit cherl yes thank you okay um we have spent a lot of time on finance tonight so we will U make this pretty quick I do want to note in terms of Finance um in our meeting we met uh March 4th Monday um we spent a lot of time obviously on the budget preparing for this evening uh one of the things that I think without beating a very dead horse this evening that stood out to us on finance is that I think for those of us who are newer when you come to uh the school board you picture a school budget being made the same way you would a business budget right based on the numbers and I think that that is where a lot of us came from right this budget should come from numbers um one of the first things they teach you in in governance is that you can't base an educational Budget on the numbers you have to base it on the need and so um as we we're looking at this you know upcoming budget everything that has been built in it by Miss showning which again have to Echo crushed it an amazing job line by line in this budget everything that was included was not based on the number of students enrolling every year it's not based on an increase of 70 students per year but rather it's based on the need and the everchanging need of our population which is changing dramatically year-over-year and increasing so if you remember anything else it's not about the number it's about the need and I really appreciate the budget for taking that into consideration no more Finance items just uh operations our team finished up the Rock of Ages set for the upcoming musical that's going to be awesome make sure you go um from a security standpoint uh we issued 132 summons uh for passing a stopped bus that's just within the last month uh that uh equated to $2,360 collected by the town in fines and fees and then from the Transportation uh Department uh we have accepted accepted two offers for selling a couple of our old buses that have close to 100,000 miles on them um so we've just accepted those bids and we'll be making a little bit of money off of that as well any questions any questions from the board no we will move on to policy and committee and then I see the student Le is on Europe next okay all right Miss Menendez the polic and governance committee uh also met on Monday March 4th an this were Dr Banja uh miss naris miss figa miss Jones and myself uh within the items that we discussed it was um the conduct of the board meeting at the bylaw 0164 that's an updated bylaw the committee considered changes to the bylaw 0164 to better align uh with the byw to our 16 board meeting agenda Dr B would like uh to run the changes by the board attorney before acting on the revised by law uh next we went uh to the policy 2340 field trips amended policy the committee review changes to policy 2340 to distinguish between school sponsor trips and school affiliated trips the revised policy is included on the agenda for the first reading tonight uh next uh we discuss the policy alert 232 the committee review policy alert 232 which was issued by our policy consultant as TR May Associates and Dr B would like to defer the action on this on policy 2423 and and 24 31.4 until she has the time to review these policies with her administrative the remaining revised policies are included in the agenda also for first reading tonight next uh we have the consideration of former board attorney's request to resign the committee discussed the former board attorney's request to resign his termination and allow him to resign Miss figa expressed her reservations citing legal concerns Miss Melendez and Miss naris supported putting the resolution to a full board vote uh we are going to have uh actions items today 2.01 2.02 and 2.03 which are respectively policy 2340 field trips for first reading polic aler 232 for first reading and the amendment to this resolution terminating board uh board attorney any question any questions from the board with that I see our student liaison who's been here no okay do we have any any other um any subcommittees or parent teacher Association oraison reports hello I'm Sharon Ania and I am um a teacher at tins Road school and I have the honor of speaking for our PTO president uh Nikki odson who uh unfortunately couldn't be here so Saturday was Applebee's Flapjack fundraiser um March 9th over 25 staff members volunteered it was so much fun we served over 300 pancake bre breakfasts raising a little over $1,200 to fund future PTO events at tins Road School from 8:00 a.m. when the doors opened until 10: p.m. when our final table was seated the staff greeted families served drinks and hot plates bus tables to get ready for the next family to enjoy the breakfast thank you to everyone who came out and spent the morning with us special thank you to Mrs Aquino who joined us with her family as well uh Madame tins Road's wax museum was also uh this past week the staff worked hard to bring another amazing year of read Across America to Tin students and Community the theme for this year was biographies each student was given a biography thanks to a grant funded from emo a pride Grant we had read Across America Spirit Week celebrated with Master readers uh and culminated with the wax museum on Thursday March 8th um about 170 students attended and many of them dressed up in their wax museum figures they stood they came over people came over the um and talked to them and they gave their presentations it was just it was wonderful and they're about almost 500 visitors throughout um throughout the night throughout the few hours that they were there students worked hard looked great and were very knowledgeable about their subject matter subject matter we can't wait to see what Mrs Capone has in store for next year um and she wanted uh to say to the tins Road staff deserves all the public accolades and the public school and the public should know how hard the staff Works to bring all these opportunities to the tins Road Community the tins Road book fair has finally wrapped up for the year Mrs trero Mrs Rosie de Philips D philippus and Mrs Bri D philippus delivered over $5,000 worth of books to class rooms to enhance class libraries Pizza kits are this Thursday for March uh 14th which is Pi Day thank you to brandas for always supporting the tins Community glow dance is coming up this Friday March 15th at 700 pm. at uh Mount Middle School we have over 300 tickets sold for this fun family event and make sure you see pictures the kids the glowing it's it's amazing picnic on the playground is coming up Friday June 7th we wanted to thank the Jordan family and D Rentals for generously offering to donate a bounce house to tints and each of the elementary schools for use at one of our events there are local family and business and we so appreciate their offer we'll have more information coming out soon for our families about this end of the year event lastly we' like to give a thank you to our sponsors honest Heating and Cooling power place and Pinnacle Partners group for supporting the tins Road school PTO for the 23 24 school year thank you any questions from the board we have any other any other uh PTO or subcommittee Liaisons in the audience nope do we have any on the board anyone intend any no okay so I do I attended a cms's uh PTA um SCA meeting on the it was on Thursday and let's go they're pretty a lot going on there they did ask um please follow their Twitter account they did complete their Valentine's Day theme competition for principal for a day they just kicked off their great week for re Across America they included spirit week and an assembly they had 70 participants in the science fair they're celebrating the 12th day of school they reported a half day on March 28th um for spring break and they just hired a part-time staff member joining the PE team they welcomed them they had the zoria super fun assembly during February many animals for the students to observe and interact with their winter book fair was a success each student was able to receive a book for $129.99 or less candy sale picked up uh pickup will be held during the rock en roll Aon if that doesn't work please email the sca um email address and they will make arrangements they have a new SCA board member parent volunteer liaison um and they're looking for additional volunteers helping to organize volunteers so they're new volunteer L on is Caroline shoe the rock and roll Aon is on March 13th um with a student date of March 20th it is St Patrick's theme this year please have the students wear green each student will be given a necklace Hing for good weather for that um parents are invited to attend siblings and extended family are also welcome if the event is held outside um we they permitting money's raised will go to support officer bill and the mopd they're participating in the Police Unity Tour they will start in Floren Park New Jersey and ride their bikes down to Washington DC to honor officers are passed away in the line of duty it originally started with 18 people it's grown to 2,000 particip recipents this year so officer Bill and mopd um do so much for our school so please come out and uh show your support students learned dances during PE class and they will be um putting those together for the rock of roll Theon as well mlpd will also be in attendance donations can be sent via venmo they have their um venmo listed cash or check are accepted two top classes who raised the most money will receive a snack reward and three surprise guests will be to dance with the students their next meeting is on April 16th in person at 9:15 in the cafeteria there will also be a zoom option for those who cannot attend they will also be having a cultural night on April 25th um they will send out more information they're looking for a fun student night to learn about one another's cultural backgrounds the yearbook sales are taking place online no payment will be accepted in uh at the school and it is $20 uh fifth grade families baby pictures and messages this year will be free through a spring book fair will be the third book fair of the year and it will be April 26th this year uh this one will be the BOGO book fair a big surprise at the end of their year that they announced will be a CMS Carnival June 3rd at CMS with a rain date of June 4th they'll have two trailers with six games for students Supply and there will also be a dunk tank uh they will have four bounce houses ice cream and in the dunk tank will be Miss Mulo officer Bill Mrs meski all students will participate and each will get her prize and ice cream parents will be able to attend uh only uh if they are volunteering Sign Up Genius will be sent out that is all they have anything else I was asked to share information from the Flanders PTA at Mountain View um they wanted me to share some of their happenings they host hosted a boys and girls dances um they were both held here at the middle school um I had the pleasure of attending the boys dance on Friday night was very busy um I believe a good time was had by all that was they did a very good job planning and uh orchestrating the dance uh they hosted a movie night in February and they're hosting a second moving night again uh this month March 22nd they'll be providing Refreshments for Mountain View families uh the Mountain View Family steam night is on March 14th there was a fifth grade Crispy Cream fundraiser and 186 dozen donuts were sold to support the fifth grade class the second session of after the Bell is in session it's an after school enrichment program open to all students on April 12th they are sponsoring a schoolwide assembly um the push cart players will be presenting Peter and the Wolf April 27th they are holding a clothing Drive save the date of May 4th for family fund day uh that's sure to please a whole schoolwide event they are seeking volunteers to help run the event they are in the planning stages for teacher and nurse appreciation week uh May 6th to May 10th and the May Scholastic Book Fair um is upcoming they're working on in addition they're working on applications for Teacher grants and Mountain View senior scholarship for a value of $500 any comments from the board or questions no all right we will move on board president report I have nothing to report and we will move on to approval of the monthly expenditures and reports can we have a motion to move items 6.1 through 6.4 Mr Zillow I make a motion to approve um M Madam President we moved up the uh public comments first you want public comments public comments okay thinking so we're going to open up to public comments on uh action items action items only members of the community may comment on any action item prior to board discussion please state your name address for the record all comments must be respectfully presented abusive or obscene comments will not be tolerated Tim Capone Highfield Road so just so we're we're clear when we're talking about the budget and you're looking at last year's budget you had $8.8 million that was unallocated so for people that were worried about that there wasn't money to do things that was $8.8 Million that you could do things and it sounds like in the budget this year you didn't allocate for the roof but you have enough money to do the roof because not only do you have 8.8 from the year before but you raised taxes 4.3 and had the additional five okay so you have that much more money over last year's budget so instead of having excess Surplus you could have done the roof on CMS right we can all agree that that could have been done last year but nobody's providing leadership in your Administration to make those determinations so I I want to commend the ba as far as your presentation because it really highlights the things that aren't being done and the lack of leadership so if if we're looking at again this year's budget you're looking at you're getting $5 million more now again that that ends right this is the last year that you're going to have that okay so the community I guess can assume that either we're going to be more efficient moving forward or we're going to see huge tax increases to cover the excessive spending that exists okay it's going to have to be one or the other now I have a question I know this is public comment but if we have such an increase in needy special ed students why is our extraordinary Aid flat the reason why the aid is flat is because it's not certain that the aid is going to exist next year it's based on available funding from the state okay which means that that's not the actual number okay that's the let's let's make that clear that's not the actual number that's the budgeted number okay right because the applications are due in May and the Aid comes out in August okay so this is again a circumstance that there's again we can pretty much assume it's going to be more money than what's being budgeted okay and this is where these huge amounts at the end of the year come in again $8.8 million okay is what existed 4 million plus was not spent and could not be rolled over right it is rolled over into next year budet it's taxpayers relief so the money didn't excuse me the money didn't go anywhere it's going right back to support the budget which is going to support this roof project but not utilized right you could have done this last year all of this urgency and all of these conversations about the referendum from our very experienced board members okay and Educators right right we had three Educators that address your your questions to the board there were prior administrators here last year who were in charge of that so they're not here to defend themselves well the person in charge is still sitting here okay oros this is supposed to be can we please keep our comments respectful the next one is is that we just got a presentation about the evaluation of the superintendent okay now I came to the last board meeting talking about the fact that state laws are not being followed Mr Capone is this about action items sir well yeah it's it's about the hip okay you're acknowledging a hip tonight okay and that's significant in the fact that there's policies that you're supposed to follow that they're supposed to your administrators are supposed to respond within 48 hours and I've sent to the board a number of instances and that doesn't happen and hibs are supposed to to begin within 24 hours according to state law okay now not only did you tell me at the last meeting that all laws are being followed but then you you know Shadow wrote that message from Miss Bellow okay stating the same thing the district is following all of the laws even though it is well documented I've sent it to all of you board members that it's not in addition to that I sent to you again another failure of policy you passed the new hi policy in May right but it wasn't available to the public until after February 21st when I brought it to your attention Okay which is the responsible ability again of your superintendent um the Hib that I'm here to discuss again one of my complaints and one of the things that I already shared with the board and now I guess we're going to share it publicly is the fact that I reported a Hib instead of investigating the Hib and opening a Hib Mr Gilla instead talk to all of the staff members we don't talk about Personnel in the public you can't I can no yes the board does not entertain conversations regarding Personnel during the public board meeting also like to direct you to to wrap up your comments when you get a chance here there is no time limit okay and me speaking about the fact that there was an investigation that didn't take place that instead he went and talked with a number of different people okay 4 days before opening the hip but the hip law is 24 hours okay now I have requested this is now the third time for an investigation about the lack of following the state law and policy of summit of Miss Bellow and Mr gorilla and to date the board has done nothing this is now the third time okay which again means that either you're not going to take this seriously and you're not going to do anything until I take further steps okay or at some point you're going to hold people accountable for not doing their jobs and not protecting students do we have any other comments from the public on action items and action items only please be reminded that abusive or obscene comments will not be tolerated uh Martin Wells 25 woodrest Avenue Bud Lake New Jersey uh one I want to find out is that with the policy committee redoing the policies I'm really glad that we're continuing doing that for years it was neglected in the past two years you've done more policy changes than in probably the past 10 um I want most of board members to know that Strauss Esme has made some errors in the past with some of their things that they say were state law which really were advisories which some people may be familiar with so I would encourage the policy committee them not only to use Strauss Esme but also look at some other vendors for Choice um which could be benefit the district as a whole and do we know how many total policies we have in place in the district they're up on the website but I don't have the num over 10,000 5,000 cuz the reason why I'm saying that like you guys are doing a great job now doing the reviewing the policies but there's so many of them I don't know if there could be something else that can be done to FastTrack them because some of the policies were done improved back in the 70s some in the 80s I've actually looked at a lot of them and they they definitely need to be refreshed okay uh the other thing I also want to say is that in the budget today there's a transfer which I've never seen something like this before where we actually doing a transfer for sports and it says transfer to a athletic account um is that a bill or is that not a bill what is is it it's mount Athletics account to 2300 is it a transfer yeah I've never seen a transfer put on the bill list before Oh I don't have a copy of the bills list all right well maybe do you have do you have that's the account for the um the athletic account has a separate account where they pay the officials out of and the game workers out of they have a separate so so Bas what you're doing you're just transferring it as a bill payment into that all right so I've never seen that you have to charge the budget and then the cash is moved because it's managed through Quicken that's one all right the other thing I want to talk about about the budget last year when they had the budget last year I spoke about the budget and I said well we just got $8.9 million and it was gone in 30 seconds um I like the way you're running the district your presentation is phenomenal um but some of my concerns are which I mentioned last year is that the money is eventually going to run out from the state and now we're at that bar we're getting the last true up going forward you know a budget two years ago was one uh 107 million now we're at 127 plus million what are we going to do years going forward we're going to be in a situation where we're going to have to be cutting service down the road because tax levies you're limited by the state and I see a lot more hurdles coming down the road and so in in this budget there are a lot of one-time expenditures that should have been divided over the past several years namely the technology plan that I was talking about so in in the proposed budget for next year there are a lot of large one ticket item numbers so they won't be there they won't be there next year um also some of these items in the past the district has financed them um through the esa because they just couldn't get it all into the budget um I chose with the Committees um we talked about this for a while you could Finance it or if we have cash to pay let's pay with the cash now and why increase the debt for the future so that's what you know that's what we were talking about in committees it's great we can do this now how do we sustain it but some the the majority of the big ticket items are one shot infusions and then as we manage with the technology plans and the other plans there'll be small pockets of infusion in subsequent Year's budgets the other thing I want to talk about is you put in the budget that you were going to have around $400,000 attributed to interest earned on the capital which is held at financial institutions uh yes okay now last year I mentioned to the previous administrator about making sure that you're Diversified in your financial institutions and rolling into treasuries which is secure with some of the bank failures that have occurred around the country hopefully that we're using larger institutions in that you're able to start doing treasury roles where you can get 5% of your money and so you're maximizing the return on the taxpayers by getting higher yields do you know what the average yield you're getting on the funds from the financial institutions that you're utilizing that right now but I would encourage the finance committee and You' work together to monitor that cuz I roll 24 paper one week paper getting 5% plus through the treasury program and that can really enhance instead of being 400,000 it could be 800,000 but if you don't have a group that does that you're it's a missed opportunity of extra funding well but also we're not going to have large sums of money sitting there because we should be spending the budget I I know but this the township gives you like 26 $30 million out a clip is that correct when they do the taxes um cuz it's quarterly it's not they they give us about I'm going to say like 5.6 million a month oh so they give it to you on a monthly basis not on a quarterly basis okay that that changes my assumption that right um and I guess finally I also want to talk about we talk about some of the technology and stuff the products that we sell we sold all those laptops last year to a company for $5 each which had to be in working order which I was offering to buy them all to give them to the people in the community and we're selling these two buses I saw them in the in the proposal the money from those buses is that going into the general fund or is that going to go stay in the busing Department to stay for maintenance and support of the existing equipment it's it's going to be used to maybe pay off a lease payment for the buses this past summer the district purchased I think five buses okay and they um that was financed over I think it's a 5year lease so we're looking to either uh put that toward another 54 or 9 passenger bus or pay off an existing lease payment to offset that yeah in the past they've moved that money into the general fund versus keeping the equipment in the keeping the money coming back from the sales of equipment in the equipment fund well you have to record the revenue in the proper account if if if um it's the board's purview to put it toward a specific purpose usually um to memorialize that we would make a motion to say we you know we have this money and we're going to use it toward this per purpose and finally fin I just want to talk make one comment based on something Miss Melinda said about our attorney asking to resign I want the board here to remember all the emails I've sent aboard on the attorney's unethical behavior and do not allow that man to resign from position based on the emails that every board member here has received with the proof and evidence of his unethical behavior I'm sorry is that on action items uh it was mentioned in her meeting she mentioned it that I can't believe he have the audacity to ask um that it's a shame on him um but I I encourage the board to hold true to your ethics and don't let that man who's been unethical get away with his poor ethics that's all I have to say thank you thank you any other comments from the public on action items seeing none let's move on back up to the approval of monthly expenditures and reports of 6.13 6.4 Mr rillo you're back on make a motion to approve monthly expenditures 6.1 to 6.4 second roll call please Mr orillo yes Mrs Aquino yes Mrs Fenton yes Mrs fera yes Mrs Fitzgerald yes Mrs Melendez yes Mrs O'Neal yes Mr I can vote Yes on it and Mrs noris yes and um let's see Mr quo on Personnel action items 8.1 through 8.22 upon the recommendation of the superintendent I'd like to move Personnel action items 8.1 through 8.22 second I'm sorry who's second either one we both did and roll call please Mrs Aquino yes Mrs Fenton yes Mrs fera yes Mrs Fitzgerald yes Mrs Melendez yes Mrs O'Neal yes Mr rillo yes Mr stachi I'd like to thank Mrs Longo for the 22 years of service she gave us any yes on everything and Mrs noris yes and curriculum and Technology uh action items 9.1 through 9.4 Miss Fenton upon the recommendation of the superintendent I make a motion to approve uh Qui wom technology 9.1 to 9.4 second and roll call please Mrs Fenton yes Mrs fera yes Mrs fitgerald yes Mrs Melendez yes Mrs O'Neal yes Mr orillo yes Mr stachi yes Mrs Aquino yes Mrs N yes and can we have Miss Fitzgerald finance and operations 10.1 through 10.13 uh on the recommendation of the superintendent I'd like to make a motion to approve action items 10.1 through 10.13 second and roll call please Mrs Fitzgerald yes Mrs Melendez yes Mrs O'Neal Mr orillo yes Mr stach well I haven't been in on the Finance report so I'm going toand on everything except 10.7 on 10.7 because I've looked at a lot of budgets and I know the amount of work that went into that in a fantastic presentation tonight and it's a first reading and I have a chance to vote on it again so tonight I'm going to vote Yes on 10.7 and ask you when you have a chance to look at my checkbook and and you're abstaining on everything else Mr stachi for the record you're abstaining on everything else except seven yes just that Mrs Aquino yes Mrs Fenton yes Mrs fera yes Mrs naris yes and can we have um administrative action items 11.1 through 11.13 can we have um Mrs ferera not oh I'm sorry M MZ open recommendation of the superintendent I present the motion to approve uh administrative action items um 11.1 through 11 13 second and roll call please Mrs Melendez yes Mrs O'Neal Mr orillo yes Mr stachi I'll obain on 111 and two yes and everything else Mrs Aquino yes Mrs Fenton yes Mrs fera yes Mrs Fitzgerald yes Mrs naris yes yeah public do we do we usually have old business and new business before public comment I thought we moved that a while ago don't know got a little mess I know actually I'm going to put those ahead so that should there be anything that public can comment on it um is there any old business 13.1 no any new business like to remind everyone that we have our district um Elementary science fair this Saturday at the high school so please come out and support our close to 170 um students all to range from K to 5 so we're excited to see them participate and um show their passion for the Sciences excuse me what time do that start I believe 9:00 I should know I'm speaking so you know should: anyone else with new business uh the only new business I'd like to add is I'd like to um as the Pres put Mr stachi back on the finance and operations committee and I'd like to also place you back as the uh mountain view view liaison sure and welcome back um public comments now we will move to public comments students parents employees and community members May comment on any item of Interest pertaining to the Mount Olive School District please state your name and address for the record all comments must be respectfully presented abusive or obscene comments will not be tolerated hello oh now it's now you're up good evening my name is Gabrielle J I live at 5 Indian Spring Road I stand in front of you tonight not as the Board of Education Aon but as a student who is a part of the Mount of school district the reason I'm up here tonight is probably similar to most of the people in this room I sat through the last board meeting after presenting all the amazing things that were going on at the high school then we heard from the Parents Club at the elementary school that blew me away with all the hard work the parents are putting into supporting the students after that it was open to public comment and to be honest it was really hard to watch as the community sounded so upset and instead of walking away from the meeting happy to see the people of my community and from hearing all the outstanding parts of this community I walked away feeling like the board in our community were divided I love being a part of the school district and I proud to represent this town no matter if that means in the classroom on the field or in the Air Force Junior RC program which just a few weeks ago we present our goals to you right here so all that I've learned from this extraordinary program that I've have been afforded because of this District I've learned that for success to happen it it takes a team that works together and that doesn't mean a team that has to always have the same ideas or opinions but their end goal has to be the same for success to occur I believe that everyone in this room tonight no matter if you sit behind a table or sit in a chair in the audience is a part of this community and I believe no matter the stance each of you share the same end goal of doing what is best for the children and this community so I may be leaving in a few months I stand in front of you tonight for my younger sister and for of your student a Marauder I will always be proud to be a Marauder I just hope that this team of a community members can learn to solve problems together because in the end we all the same end goal for success and always remember that thank you thank [Applause] you Brian Gallagher 135 prha Drive uh I want to say first that the last speaker there I think I'm going to have her write my stuff from now on because that's the message right that's what we all want I think she spoke for everybody on top of what we all said tonight um to the board again thank you for allowing some of us to come out and speak and uh Mr shachi glad to see you back on the board there doing what you do uh I want to actually just make a quick comment about something that's been bothering me ever since I've come to board meetings and started speaking at them uh noticeably with other people speaking here uh I'm pretty sure it's Dr Bania it's not Summit Dan Summit uh you know I've heard a lot of times you know uh it was it just happened before and then gentleman referred to her by your first name but then said Mrs Bell so I'm not sure what kind of you know ego is running around town where people can't address her the way that the title that she's due that she worked for she is the leader of our schools so you know from now on when people come up here I try to I know I get very heated too I try to always address the board properly I've spoken about previous administrators and give them their due diligence and Dr bji is currently the leader of our district as an educator and she's earned every title that I think we should be respecting her with when we talk to her thank [Applause] you Tim Capone Highfield Road actually want to address this uh to Mr gerer because again at the last meeting you made it a point to say that all of the rules have been followed so on October 23rd which again you have these emails a Hib was filed but yet on October 27th having not opened the Hib I have a message from jacqulyn Bellos Friday October 27th which again is not 24 hours later that says after further consultation with our legal team we have opened a Hib investigation again is at 24 hours okay the rule rul are not followed you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing and again this board is supposed to be holding your administrators accountable that is what your responsibilities are my name is Christopher zy and I live at 29 Saunders Lane I have an anonymous letter that was given to me in my mailbox I never put credit into anonymous letters I don't know if the new board does I'm just kidding that never happens okay please bear with me as I get to say everything I needed to say at the last meeting I have written notes this time as last time when speaking from the hip I became visually upset I know Miss figary You referred to me as broken as a Broken Man when speaking to other people I appreciate your evaluation based on one minute of my life but I assure you I am not broken truth be told I was a broken man but it was when I I served on the board for 3 years when I allowed myself to be bullied to be lied to and let so many things Slide by unprosecuted my silence was intended to help the community heal the district to move forward and even part to show to show a unified board something the executive the current board preaches but obviously with actions of late does not practice Mrs naris started that stated that all board members but one were made aware Mr oril intention I truly don't believe that Mr stach's daughter is a great actress but I don't believe he is even if that is the truth a closed session should have been called to ensure the one board member had that information at least when the resolution was read it should have been tabled I truly believe these four B board members were blindsided and that Mr chotu was persecuted for his excite excited utterance buty it's good to see you back on the board I'm glad you all made the right decision the removal of the law firm during a time when an abundance of lawsuits are being filed against board members in the district a lawyer with a true understanding of district and its actions is imperative in conjunction the three new board members should have been given the opportunity to hear from senior members about shanken price they would have been able to evaluate things such as the their winning record and their billable fee compared to the new law firm in addition they should have been given the opportunity to hear the reasons why legal fees have increased things like additional charges to address what is over $100,000 in savings for residency issues the review of the student handbook the many Oprah requests that need to be reviewed to Sure ensure no sense of information is released and fighting the many lawsuits recently filed against the district that I believe is an attempt to smear the district various employees of the district and are to be used as a legal tactic but I'm not here to discuss poor leadership bad practices and legal actions I was going to remain quiet I was going to sit back and remove myself from the soap oper that is the Mount Al school board however Mr shner decided to attack me personally on Facebook by stating I wasted taxpayer money and legal fees well you can say that was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back and I just am so tired of the hypocrisy I appreciate Mr she comp concerns about the district spending on legal fees but I find it peculiar Mr sheer at one time filed ethics charges against three board members these were posted to social media unlike other ethics charges where the complaintant didn't stooped to those types of tactics we had to hire attorneys because a former board member was filing against a current board member when Mr shner received the attorney's my attorney's response and how he was used information that he was not privy to information that was closed in discussed in Clos session wonder how he got that and his claims were not arguable he just said ah forget it now my legal fees were approximately $3,300 multiply that by three and you have a number close to $10,000 totally and utterly wasted now I know for some that is a drop in the bucket in a school budget well over a 100 million but to me this is a classroom of Chromebooks various field trips math textbooks so if Mr shner is willing to pay that money back to the district I will listen listen to what he has to say about legal fees he is not of course not the only one screaming about legal fees Mrs naris and Mrs Fenton have brought attention to legal fees however they were willing to file prosade petitions where both individuals were made willing to make false statements under verification of both Mrs Nar said a board member acted unilaterally but the voting record contradicts that Mrs fent instead that stated that I said earlier this morning I filed ethics charges against Dr Z zi to purposely invoke the doctrine of necessity I never said that and I wish I could State what I really said but it was very contradictory to that statement you can ask anyone in that meeting if I said what Mrs Fenton accused me of of course they can not tell you the substance of the meeting but they can clearly tell you I didn't say that well all but maybe one the truth is Mrs Fenton insulted all the other people in that meeting I just want to point out at this point you need to be careful about confidentiality on board ma matters I didn't say I didn't say anything that happened I'm just cautioning you as you move forward I'm telling you what didn't happen in the meeting if any other per people in that room had heard me say something that deplorable they would have also filed suit heck I would have filed suit on myself the fact of the matter is I never said it nor did I mention to anyone that day anyone the day I filed my charges there were only three people that knew that day I filed I filed myself Mr Miser and the person that received them it is funny that these allegations never been opened by the ethics police or use an example of being blindsided all members of the boards were blindsided by me doing this but please understand at that time this Bo Boe had more leaks than the Titanic Mr Wells posted on Facebook that Mrs Aquino filed 10e charges blindsiding the board I can only speculate why he didn't use my ethics charges as an example CU that was clearly uh a BL side but I guess I can only speculate he didn't bring it to the Forefront because there's a clear example of something the ethics police should look after others like the self self- declared ethics police spend tens of thousands of dollars suing the district over a cell phone he continues to file suits against members of the board if all you want to do if you all want to lower legal fees then you and your friends could just stop suing the district Mrs Fenton two meetings ago you said you felt left out out or weren't receiving information for the lawyer and based on those feelings you voted to remove the law firm I am shocked you would say something like that because I'm not the only one you perjured yourself on in your proos say otion Mr zitman was another victim in addition I told Mrs fenon and only Mrs Fenton that Mr Robinson said something about employee of the school imagine my shock when I saw those statements in legal paperwork two days later from that employee it was big but not more than the shock I believe Mrs Fenton felt when I told her was lying and good luck to get any testify to that statement I've apologized to Mr Robin profusely for utilizing names but sometimes when you're looking for a mole you have to use a little smoke to get them out I'm not saying that Mrs Fenton was disseminating information from confidential me meetings but this situation strengthened my belief that she was however the bigger problem I have is that you are making decisions based on personal feelings and not based on what is good for the district I wish I had that luxury when I was on the board board if I did I would have not sat on my hands as administrator after administrator kept speaking at board meetings asking the board to act I would have voted to I would not have voted the affirmative on action items that I knew made the lives of two women I respect greatly even harder than it needed to be or I would have voted the affirmative for I would not have voted for the affirmative of safety net under our transportation drivers to ensure students get where they needed to go I know when I made that vote it would look that it was undermining an important aspect of our district I know that I am sadly risking my livelihood and my reputation by speaking here today that is another factor of why I stayed quiet and fortunately it's something that has been made clear to me numerous times by verbal warnings and actions of others because for some strange reason when people speak out people on the board and the community decide that they will discredit those individuals or try to scare them into being silent they will label people uninformed crazy and broken they will make up lies saying those who spoke out are talking about their children they will file false police reports Badger individuals via social media or even at their homes contact neighbors of individuals to tarnish their reputation file false ethics charges passively aggress and threaten individuals with comments like you need to remember who you work for purger themselves threat litigation heck file litigation with false claims and all that has been splashed across social and news media for example some people may have read that I was accused of putting in a reimbursement for a meal someone else paid for just for everyone's information School Bo board members received a stien for food not reimbursement any fact Checker could have address that I was also accused alongside another innocent individual of using the postage meter at the district buildings to send my ethics charges and he fact Checker could have reached out to me and I would have provided the receipts from the hacketstown post office but I believe the intent was to tarnish my name and the other individual during my 10 year on the board I was told I was going to jail for things that I did that if I didn't didn't vote a certain way then litigation would be filed against me I was asked to read a resolution to remove the lawyer as a sign of good faith and that is the only the tip of the iceberg of things I was asked to do by intermediaries my favorite of all is that two hours before a board meeting a person reached out to my wife because I no longer took their calls they called her to to inform her that if I voted against an employee at that time I would be served the next day at my job for some reason they thought it would be a shock to me my real problem was not with the message but their inclusion of my wife and the timing of the message this very this individual is very aware that my my wife is extremely concerned about my job she has lost sleep uh due to seeing retali statements and actions being the norm in the world of Education I did not want to relive being served in front of a people because the first time I was served it was at in my house in front of my daughters even though the board has an attorney and could have easily received the papers the main reason I'm here today is to proactively address what I believe is an action item on the coming in the near future I am worried that this board will look to Ser settle various lawsuits with various plaintiffs and yes I use the plural I want people to know that there there is no need for any District money to be spent on these lawsuits they go through the insurance and once that 10,000 $10,000 deductibles met another use for Mr sher's Money when the district does not need to spend any more money it's really the insurance company's call to address these matter and will use their judgment in making settlement offers if necessary any money used will be paid by the insurance just like the other recent lawsuits have been these recent lawsuits have been used to falsely claim that taxpayer money was being used in an attempt to disgrace the board I believe that any use of District money to expedite this process could be very well considered a misappropriation of tax funds some may State we need to put this behind us and move on I couldn't agree more and I do think things should go away however recent actions of some and that be dealt with by the insurance however recent actions of some just Empower vindictive people I know vindictive is a big word to be throwing out but that is my belief especially when I was forwarded a text message that was sent to various members of the educational and Mount Olive communities this text message was sent right after the law firm of shanken price was replaced and with fil was filled with statements reving over the things that happened to previous board members and vendors of the district I can't find any other adjective nor can I personally believe any differently one thing I would like to say is when texts like this go out to people they should be factual many of the false comments in this text message cheater on defamation Dr Jana was not fired Mr Sor has been not demoted Mr Miller is not under grand jury indictment and I did not resign and for the love of God if you're going to bash me at least spell my name right I would also like to take a moment to apologize to the administrators teachers students and F students and families of the students in Mount Al District as our district has become the setting for a Shakespearean play I do not know that I do know that all things I have said today are contradictory to my desire for the district to move forward and my Express concern for tarnishing the school district but they needed to be said I truly apologize to all of you and I thank the administrators and teachers for of this district for Contin continuing to do what is needed to be done to keep the true focus on the students before finally before I slip back into the ether I have to remind people that the truth is always an acceptable defense to defamation and hey somebody once said the truth will set you free and I'll be damned if he wasn't right on that [Applause] one everybody Anthony jordano 39 Center Street Bud Lake hopefully everyone can hear me it's very difficult if you have if you all don't speak in your mics for people to hear everyone out there um that's going to be a tough act to follow um and I'll try to be short and sweet um we talk about transparency it said a lot during the interviews with board members transparency the community doesn't think we're transparent I always felt as a board member for 17 years it's not that we're not transparent people just don't always agree what the board has to do right there's a difference between trans transparency and what the board has to do so I'm going to try to educate some of you because I know you're relatively new board on what that means transparency is not what happened two weeks ago right could have been easily resolved transparency would have been us saying as a board let's go to committee we want RFP come out have the discussion in public we're going to RFP next month and go through that process that was not the process that was taken for the love of God that resolution was not written that night and I guarantee the five board members knew that was going to happen and if you didn't you shouldn't be in leadership roles I I say that politely and respectfully it was it was everyone was blindsided on it it wasn't happened okay my opinion is there's a larger underlying thing happening to this board it's being run by a political party and I will connect the lines for everyone at home in this audience to see it last year you both F A prosay against the board there was a clear ethics violation we as a board didn't invite you into close session we had a lively debate about whether we should file ethics against you I have the docket from the school ethics Commission in the matter of Lorenzo Richardson Jersey City Board of Education Hudson County where it was confirmed that following any charge against the board that you sit on is adverse action our former Council was one of the ones that counil to say hey let's not do this we have enough on our plate myself Mr quino Mr desire let's just move forward we thought the proads were BS they weren't going to go anywhere which they didn't you had an adverse action against our board attorney you should have abstained from that vote and went through the committee that's what I'm talking about to try to educate people you could avoid at all this that's my point you don't know what you don't know and you're going full steam ahead and and you're putting yourselves at risk for two years I've had my name my reputation my career through emails through buddy Lake through all the protons my children brought into it children that you know have been to your house you've texted that's okay right nod your head yes cuz that's okay if it was your kids or your family or livelihood I would have been side by side with you tearing down walls taking people apart now here's the idea that I'm going to connect the dots so during the election October 29th I received a text message I sent it to you miss fent you miss naris and you miss O'Neal The Secret Lives of malov board Bo bardad candid The Secret Lives of malov school board candidates The Secret Lives of Mal School candidates admins were former critic of the old board attorney not a former critic same critic in town and a sitting board member and I sent it both to you I sent it to you I have the text messages right both high powered Republicans in our town two weeks ago Monday night at 6:30 p.m. an email went out from the M Republican committee Social Club whatever you want to call it the Sunday before the meeting after the attorney was rfpd don't forget that Monday febru 20 February 26 at 6:30 p.m. there's a Board of Education meeting meeting our Board needs our support our board our Republican board what's that mean to everyone in this community that's what we talk about transparency I've been on this board for 17 years I sat out with a lot of Republicans and Democrats and none of us ever knew thank you very [Applause] much uh Brienne Jarvis 54 dear Path Drive um I have a lot of questions tonight I'm going to read through my questions and comments I welcome you to answer tonight but as I know you're not required to and most likely will not I will follow up with an email to the entire board and the superintendent as I strongly believe you owe this community answers I would like to start by asking if all current board members have had have completed all required ethics trainings and all new board member trainings what dates were these trainings completed and are they documented and on file I am primarily speaking tonight to address your actions at the February 12th board meeting terminating the contract with the board's Law Firm shank price Smith and King and Mrs narcissa's comments at the February 26th board meeting relating to this action while many that spoke at the February 26 board meeting stated that they can't speak to whether the decision to terminate the attorney was a good one and spoke specifically in regards to how the termination was handled the reality is each of those community members that spoke has as much knowledge of the board attorney's capabilities as do at least three of the board members who voted to terminate the contract including Mr orillo who brought the resolution to the board a mere 36 days after being sworn in if your job your goal is to make decisions in the best interest of this District as it should be and as Mrs naris stated at the at the last meeting please inform us how you know enough about how previous lawsuits and tort claims are handled by the law firm how the termination will affect current pending lawsuits not just from the previous superintendent but all pending lawsuits how the termination will affect every board member and employee of the district who's represented by the board attorney how the termination will affect the Departments that work closely with the law firm such as the special education department and what will be required in terms of time and cost to bring the new law firm up to date with all relevant information after only 36 days as you have failed to respond to questions and concerns brought by community members at the last meeting as you owe this community answers my questions tonight that I am requesting clear direct and documented answers to are as follows how often do board members meet with the board attorney that a new board member would have valid information to fairly assess a law firm after 36 days do you meet weekly bi-weekly monthly only when at board meetings are in confidential session specifically how often between January 8th and February 12th did each member of this board interact with the board attorney I'm not asking what they met about I understand that information is confidential I'm asking the attendees the dates the times and duration of those meetings at what point between January 8th and February 12th did each of the five board members that voted to terminate the contract determine that the services were unsatisfactory was it before February 9th if so why did you not bring your concerns to the attention of the entire board bring it up in committee meeting or at the very least add the resolution to the agenda for the February 12th meeting was it February 10th or 11th could the agenda not be revised did you inquire if it could be revised Mr orilla what interaction did you have with the board attorney that you lost all confidence over those two days after the agenda was already posted that caused you to bring the resolution to the board to clarify what contractual obligation was not being fulfilled by the law firm that weekend as I'm sure you wouldn't bring the resolution based on personal feelings or because someone else asked you to is that would be unethical five board members voted to pass the resolution to terminate the contract of the law firm shank price Smith and King Mrs naris stated at the last meeting that members came to her and informed her as board president that it was the intention of some members they wanted to replace the attorney was the resolution discussed at that time and did you as board president question these members as to what the concerns were with this contracted law law firm as you have told us that conversations AKA meetings took place on this issue as it is very obvious meetings took place on this prior to the resolution as not one of you showed even a little surprise when Mr rosillo read the resolution as not one of you asked him repeat to repeat or clarify anything although he was very difficult to understand um my questions are who was involved in these meetings are there meeting agendas meeting minutes attendance sheets any documentation at all was the entire board made aware these meetings whether in person via phone call Zoom email or text message were taking place because all qualifi meetings should be documented and are included in the Sunshine Law do you have documentation of all communication that took place regarding the law firm including dates and times do you understand that if the five of you conversed on this topic in any way that is a quorum and because you did not not notify the public it was unethical and a violation of the Sunshine Law which requires public bodies to provide the public with adequate advance notice of all its meetings the right to attendance meetings and reasonably comprehensive minutes of all meetings did you Mr orillo or did any of the other four members that voted to terminate the contract reach out to the law firm of shank price Smith and King to express that you were unsatisfied with their services at any time over the 36 Days you were on the board did you give them an opportunity to correct the problem or replace Mr zider with someone internally as would be standard practice with the contracted vendor how did you obtain information on the current Law Firm to select them and list them in your resolution as a replacement Law Firm did you contact Mrs naris to view the proposal did you even view the proposal what information did you use to determine that the law firm of scarichi hollenbach was the best option for our district moving forward did you consult the superintendent or any administrators that work closely with the law firm when making the selection did you view the RFP sub in October before making this decision or did someone direct you to this particular Law Firm is there documentation of that request or meeting was any research done to determine if there were any conflicts of interest in regards to any pending lawsuits prior to signing a contract when was the contract extended to the current Law Firm what date was assigned by both parties was it before or after the resolution was passed and do you have plans to settle pending lawsuits at the taxpayer's expense to summarize you say passing the resolution to terminate the law firm mid contract was an informed decision for the better of our district I would like you to provide evidence that supports that Mrs naris made it app point at the February 26 meeting to vocalize she's not carrying water for anyone and there is no Puppet Master however your actions to date including your filing of two petitions of appeal with the commissioner of Education seeking previous superintendent reinstatement vocalized support of the previous superintendent throughout his suspension and resignation instead of standing firmly with the district and remaining silent on confidential employee investigations and disciplinary procedures as you should as a board of education member public attacks against other board members at board meetings and figting surprise at the resolution brought on February 12th only to announce at the following meeting you knew there was the intention of some members they wanted to replace the attorney combined with the actions of Select board members who supported a resolution either with limited information to support it due to insufficient time to collect such information or who covertly met to intentionally bring the resolution before the board after the agenda was posted in after all public com comments All Point to a predetermined agenda that is not focused on what is best for this district and quite frankly a puppet master this community is not stupid we are educated professional professionals with leadership roles in organizations who are familiar with best practice standard operating procedures employment laws employee rights we are professionals who write and enforce policy and procedure daily who sit on committees and manage contracted employees personnel and budgets we maintain thorough records meeting minutes and agendas some of us work closely with employment lawyers and are familiar with the process of dealing with disgruntled employees we know and understand confidentiality and the limits of confidentiality we clearly understand that this resolution is in no way comparable to the V the board invoking the doctrine of necessity it is in no way comparable to the suspension of the previous superintendent it is in no way similar to certifying tenear charges against a previous superintendent and the few that continue to vocalize this on social media also appear to be carrying water for someone this is not no big deal because we replace vendors all the time contracts exist for a reason and why would any reputable V vendor want to sign a contract with a district that will terminate a contract without even taking the time to educate themselves or give the vendor an opportunity to address an issue yes there are clauses in contracts Mrs naris there are also contractual obligations and professional courtesy would you care to inform the public which clause was utilized as cause to terminate the contract because that information was not in the resolution was there a bio Clause what was that cost cost to the district I truly hope that you have clear detailed documentation of cause for termination that you've not opened this District up to another costly lawsuit above all else we are parents and taxpayers with a vested interest in the actions that you take and the manner in which you take them Mrs Nar Mrs narcissa's speech implying that we just don't get it we don't understand is unacceptable and quite frankly insulting we do understand and in fact after these recent events I'm certain certain that we understand better than the majority of you do please don't strive to do better the next day Mrs naris do your best every single time because that is what you were elected to do and your poor actions and decisions today cannot be forgiven because you strive to do better tomorrow I will email these questions to the board please answer these questions and provide the requested documentation to support your claim that you strive for transparency and to do the best for this District that you are not taking actions and terminating terminating contracts without considering the long-term effects on the district or following proper channels because without documentation that supports otherwise your actions are those of a board that is untrustworthy Reckless and definitely not transparent or [Applause] honest thank you Mr jvis uh we will review your email when you send it when in cons consult with our attorney are there any other comments from the public all right I think we all like deserve an award for making it through how many hours all right with that I'll take a motion um let's go on then to any board or administrative comments um members of the board May comment on any item of Interest pertaining to the Mount Olive school district and we'll talk start with Mr stachi we'll just go around the table yes thank you I have two messages to the young lady from our blazon first of all I think you're going to be a lawyer you came up here very poised and spoke very eloquently I want to try to ease your mind okay I'd like to give you my experience of many many board meetings you heard heard last week and you heard tonight people who are dissatisfied people who are confused people who are angry I think it's very healthy it's very healthy for this District to have people come up and not I don't take it as negative criticism I take it as positive information and Direction and I want people to keep coming up here and talking to us cuz we're not infallible we make mistakes so thank you for standing up and saying what you did I would also like to give my deepest gratitude to the board for allowing me to regain my seat on the board for the last couple weeks i' be very very very honest with you I had a very deep void simply because since 1969 when I moved here as a taxpayer as a parent with children in the district and as time on the board I have always supported our school district that's top top top in my priorities so I thank you for allowing me to return and serve out my term thank you very much thank you Mr St I'm glad that you're back um I just wanted to say thank you to everybody for coming mic closer closer to it all right now can you hear me yeah okay I just wanted to um again say that the robotics competition was great and um I loved seeing it at the high school and to say congratulations to all the wrestlers also U Mr KY citizen advisory C is a fantastic class if he runs it again I recommend signing up for it and choose to include week coming up in in a my different thank you everybody for coming out everybody who spoke tonight I have no other comments Miss mendz um just want to uh to congratulate of the school in the r cross America I had the opportunity and as a lot of us to go to sanure and I joined them in the reading one book The War According to Humphrey and it's a really nice book I'm enjoying it so every night I have homework um also I went to the uh CMS book fair a plenty selection over there um I got a couple of books for my grandkids so that was nice and the robotic competition uh it was fantastic a lot of energy and I enjoy it a lot um and please uh support the science fair uh that is coming up this weekend is really important for our kids um and for their education um for my fellow boards um listen to the community because the community is speaking to us and the actions that we take and we do we have to take responsibility after that so if they're asking for reasons are not reasons that you are going to look now are the reason that you had at the time that you did such or what decision just keep that in mind don't dig now looking for reasons do the reasons that you had at the time that you took action that's it no comment uh Miss Benton thank you first of all I'd like to make a suggestion uh because I've heard so much about the advisory committee I would like it if we could maybe get a larger venue so we could have more people attend uh thank you James for doing an outstanding job uh I wanted to welcome Tony back I'm happy to see you sitting there um and I also wanted to thank all the interviewees um and I'm hoping they all come out to um the next election because it was a it was a I I wish we had more seats that we could have taken more people um I wanted to thank the presenters uh the Dei the wrestling um the budget I think we did a lot and it was very positive Gabby I also want to commend you I do really appreciate your words and I hope people like you come up more often because that's what we do need we do need that um uh and that's about it thank you to Circle over to Mr rosillo I'd like to welcome Tony back and thank Nicole for all our hard work and we have uh Miss fig obvious going around the the Das here okay just a couple of things um I know a lot of our our student body left but there was a lot to be proud of in this room earlier this evening I also wanted to thank you for the budget presentation that was very informative um I wanted to thank the five candidates who applied for the open seat thank you for coming out and throwing your hat in the ring I also wanted to welcome back Mr stacei and let you know that I um look forward to learning from your for your from your experience I look forward to learning from you for the remainder of your term and I'm also very excited for the science fair this Saturday I hope to see a lot of familiar faces there and I also applied for the citizens advis advisory committee but was not accepted so I share Mrs Fenton's sentiment that maybe we could expand that for for the future thank you and I guess I'm up last Mr stachi I'm happy to have you back I will tell my father-in-law he was asking about you um I Mrs Jarvis if you could be so kind to email those questions for us um the ones that we are able to in our capacity we'll consult with our attorney and respond back to you the best we are allowed to um Mr Zer I'm happy to see you back up and and uh enjoy your your humor today um and your passion though every day um I did really enjoy the five candidates please do come out please you know share your thoughts um as well and I did have one question um Dr Bia the Dei um committee the group they had a couple questions at the end for the board if you could possibly have them share them with us and then May may we take them back to committee or you address them for the group glad you brought that up um they would like to attend our next um CN or policy meeting um committee meeting to share their ideas yes so that was that would be great I was going to email you tomorrow um and on top of that I just had a couple other notes I wanted to thank the wrestlers I know they all left um for anyone who does not know they put so much time energy um they are very very focused um in order to accomplish everything they they've accomplished but the takeaway is I think we all you know can utilize that and last but not least Gabby TRS you know I've always been so proud of you and I'm really proud of you thank you for sharing your thoughts um we do you know take them into account we totally you know look at everything I write notes if anybody pays attention um but with that also I want to make sure that the uh public knows that we've now added to our website an entire section about the board um what the board is a able to do there's a Q and uh FAQ there's you know a whole section about the capacity of the board members our ethics you know is up there Dr B did that go out to the entire Community or not yet we're going to plan on sending it out later this week okay and then addition um we are looking I did talk to our njsba rep Mrs Charlene Peterson we will actually be looking to do a board retreat in public um in the uh future so that the public can you know see us do some more uh team building and that is all I have anyone else no I'll take a motion then to go into confidential session um do I have a motion the same action may be okay I motion to resolve that the board meet in confidential session for the purpose of the disc testing um negotiations Personnel matters of attorney client privilege pending or anticipated litigation confidential pupil matters real estate matters be it further re resolved that the matters discussed in confidential session be disclosed to the public when the reason for confidentiality no longer exist action may be taken do I have a motion so moved second second what was we just have to go over um all in favor I I I all right stand pen okay yeah I'll call the the meeting back into session um roll call please Mrs aquo here Mrs Fenton here Mrs fera here Mrs Fitzgerald here Mrs Melendez here Mrs O'Neal here Mr orillo here Mr stach here Mrs naris here well I hate to do another surprise item we do have um a one agenda item for um vote it's 11.14 Amendment to the resolution terminating the board attorney it is going under Act action items and the I resolution reads amend action item 14.2 which was approved at the February 12th 2024 board meeting two one recent paragraphs 1 and two terminating the legal firm of shank price Smith and King and to accept shank price Smith and King's resignation effective February 12th 2024 do I have a motion so moved second do we need to do roll call Mrs Aquino yes Mrs Fenton yes Mrs fera no Mrs Fitzgerald yes Mrs Melendez yes Mrs O'Neal no Mr orillo yes Mr stach yes Mrs naris yes all right and I have a motion to adjourn this meeting second second fa