all right the time is now 7 o'clock I'll call this meeting to order Mr Gibbs please read the statement of compliance in compliance with the open public meetings ACT public law 1975 chapter 231 notice of this meeting has been properly advertised in the Daily Record and Suburban trend its agenda has been posted at the appropriate locations and a copy has been filed with bana Township Clerk thank you we please call the RO Mr Bloomer here Mr cesi here M Dempsey here Mrs Esposito here Mr gon here Mr mcweeny here Mr Pompeo here Mr siic here and Miss shenton is absent we have a quorum thank youone please stand for the flag SL okay good evening Welcome to our February 20th regular business meeting tonight the board will receive a presentation from Mr Shay regarding e rate which concerns FFA agenda items 11224 and 113 24 additionally once again our students have achieved milestones and success that the board would like to acknowledge first congratulations to Addy van Lenton for reaching the Milestone of 500 career rebounds second congratulations to the banic percussion group for placing second at the West Milford competition third congratulations to the pth competitive cheer team for winning their competition over the weekend fourth congratulations to the pghs swim team for setting a new school record in the men's 200 meter relay and best of luck to them at the meet of Champions and last but not least congratulations to Ryan trar for becoming the group one state champion in the 400 meter men's Dash and for setting a new school record of 49 seconds uh 49.97 seconds very fast okay additionally tonight under FFA agenda item 11-24 the board will vote on naming our main gym after Ruth kellet who was a former teacher coach athletic director and mentor to many in panic if approved this will be the first step in the process that will culminate in a naming ceremony before the start of the next basketball season the board has received testimony from her form noral students and players and personally I feel the dishonor is well deserved last I know many of you are here tonight divorce your concerns and give input concerning the Freshman baseball team the board wants you to know that we welcome you to the meeting and we look forward to hearing from all of you for the record the board has not restricted any resources to the baseball program in any way nor were we asked to approve any new resources we understand that there are concerns over the freshman team that came to light over this past weekend and we look forward to hearing from you all and then working together to support the championship baseball program that we have in p and for your information if you do want to speak about the baseball program you can speak during the first public comment session because that is an agenda item and now I'll pass the mic to Dr Portis thank you Mr senic uh before I provide my report I'm gon to send it over to Emily and Caitlyn zaggler for the student representative report thank you hello everyone so glad to see you all again tonight here are the updates the 100th day of school was this past week there were many different celebrations throughout the district here at pths Mr Hon's marketing classes made a video highlighting their favorite moments from students all over the first 100 days the winter Ensemble concert was held this Friday the Jazz Band winter percussion the noctis and Winter Guard performed there are also was also a sneak peek of Beauty in the Beast winter tier took first place in their last competition this past Sunday the boys and girls basketball teams are heading into state tournament play the boys will play at Vernon tomorrow at 600 p.m. while the girls are home against Lenape Valley at 5:00 p.m tomorrow come out and support the boys basketball game had their senior night last week congratulations to our three senior players in our two staticians congratulations to Khloe Vasquez who surpassed one ,500 career points last week and Carson kuko who surpassed 1,700 career points both seniors are finishing up fantastic basketball careers here at pths congratulations to Addy van Lon who reached a milestone of 500 career rebounds this past weekend congratulations to Ryan trar who is group one state champion for 400 meter and breaking his own previous School record congratulations to the boys 4x400 meter team of Ryan TR clar Luke mcgory Nathaniel celd and Derek lonberger were placing second in the group one state championships good luck to the 4x400 meter team who will compete in the meat of Champions Sophia clutcher was the first female in school history to win the N Jack for wrestling two weekends ago and congratulations to Sophia clutcher and Gavin whiz for advancing in to Regions for wrestling Emily will finish up the r hello Posta organized a blood drive here at pths last week and over 50 students and staff donated blood the Juniors will be taking the NJ GPA assessment the week of March 11th Mr hazler will be meeting with the junior classes next week to talk about the testing with the students Junior meetings are taking place with counselors this week students will be learning about the college application process and planning out next year's course schedule the World Language Honor Society inductions will be held on March 7th here at pths auditorium at 7M the National Honor Society inductions will be held on March 14th also here at pths at 7M the SATs will be taking place here at pths on Saturday March 9th this is the first time the SATs will be fully digital students at pths took the pcts online this past October so it gives us some practice to get ready course recommendations and requests will be made available to pghs students and eth graders on Thursday this is the first steps of the scheduling process for students next year Mr hazler is meeting with the Hope peer leaders at their monthly meeting to discuss leadership strategies and to do some Cooperative activities with the group The Guidance department is sponsoring an F a FSA night for senior families who will need assistance in completing the F FSA for their college application process this Wednesday night at 7 pm it is a free program for parents that is all thank you for your time and have a great night right thank you Caitlyn and Emily and best of luck in your state game hope it goes very well thanks and uh just one one quick followup to that too is um we did have a scheduling concern that literally hasn't been announced yet so you guys are getting the first scoop on it the national IR Society inductions actually mooved back to the 20th because we had a conflict with dates so I'm glad that you brought it up because it joged my memory to point that out to people so to make make them aware of that and good luck to all the senior families for working with the new and improved version of fafu which I understand is virtually impossible to use so any thanks girl last week I was able I was fortunate to be able to attend the aasa National Conference on education in San Diego beyond having the opportunity to network with superintendents from around the country I learned about tremendous resources from some very engaging vendors some very aggressive too I was able to attend Roundtable discussions workshops and keynote speaker presentations that provided information that I'm excited to apply to our district topics ranged from the incredible resources available through AI to school safety to ensuring Equitable access for all students and families few sessions that I was able to attend that really stood out were um one was called do what matters most how to create a personal work life balance that's one I intend to push out not only to the admin team but also to our staff uh collaborative approaches family engagement through key Partnerships that's something we want to keep digging into more deeply uh transformative principal evaluation obviously that will apply to the principles another topic that actually came from a group in New Jersey was about Executive coaching uh one session that was actually incredibly interesting was about the portrait of a graduate processes and outcome was able to see examples from Durango Colorado as well as West Claremont Ohio and a session that was also provided by Professor from Stonybrook about news and informational literacy was really really interesting so it's a great experience and even though I'm still sifting through a lot of work that carried over from my time away was well worth it to learn about how I can help to make our district better and provide resources to our staff and our community uh last week in regards to prek we had a we're partment ongoing conversation about how to maximize learning experiences for prek students shared a podcast two Fridays ago thank you to the IT department for helping with that and also co-host at app parent University last Monday on the topic what we are proposing is a schedule that enable the tools of the Mind trained teachers to spend the entire day with your Young Learners entire school day which we are confident will produce outstanding results we are also aware of the logistic challenges that are opposed families that are involved in ending the day earlier bless you and are still working on finding solutions to support our prek community finally I know there's been a lot of discussion surrounding our baseball program most specifically at the Freshman level full disclosure does not seem that the information that I had lines up identically with what is being shared uh which is something that's not unprecedented in any professional environment but I do however want to share a few clarifying points as I know we're going to be discussing this tonight um there were concerns brought to my attention U this is primarily over the weekend about whether the uh baseball program has lost resources it has not what is in place for this year Alli precisely what we have had for each of my previous years as superintendent was also asked about um questions about potentially adding coaches this time we're working on completing the budget for the 2024-25 school year the altic department has included for consideration formal requests from four different spring Sports to add assistant coaches for the 20 2025 season baseball is one of the sports to have made that request and it is certainly be given close attention uh another item is per policy 2431 the authority to eliminate a team Ides within board approval such a motion has not been made nor will it that said if the number of eligible and capable student athletes who try out for a team does not meet the minimum requirements obviously we would not feel that team that does not require board approval it's important to keep in mind that the head coaches are the stewards for their programs and work closely with the athletic director to present proposals on how to improve their programs ultimately those make their way to me which will then be submitted for board approval and finally I just want to reiterate that I truly value being accessible as a district leader I know a lot of people in the crowd right now so hopefully you feel the same but while it's critical that families and students follow the chain of command as they raise concerns move their way up the ladder um I also want to just stress that you know you can always follow up with me and I'll provide the best answers I can in as timely fashion as possible um and then finally on a totally different note and a personal note even though I discouraged my parents from watching these my parents watch a lot of these meetings or watch the video recordings tomorrow was my mom's birthday so if she's tuning in first stop doing that and second have a happy birthday that concludes my Mr Gibbs do you have a report oh yes good evening tonight we have Mr Shay the school district's Chief technology officer who will give a presentation on eay Mr sh uh can everyone hear me all right excellent uh it's pleasure to finally get in front of the Board of Education thanks for having me tonight uh thanks to the huge crowd that came out to hear about e maybe that's not what happened but uh my my goal is to keep this uh high level I could probably talk about eate for an hour which is why uh Mr Gibbs brought me out I will try very hard not to do that but if you have questions I'm I'm here to entertain any questions uh so first of all and I think we have a a fairly veteran um board of education but in case you've never heard of eate uh rate was passed uh with the tele Communications act in 1996 under the Clinton Administration um it's part of the FCC so it's a a federal act um and it's it was to provide schools and libraries and colleges with internet access and at the time telecommunications so telephones um later under the Obama Administration the Act was renewed and changed so instead of telecommunications that was phased out uh and they included infrastructure to support getting uh internet to students and then under the Trump Administration it was renewed again for 5 years uh and the change for um that Administration was instead of making funding by building they made it by school districts previously you only had so much funding per building that you could spend and now we have it as a whole District so it's up to the district how to how to spend those funds building by building um and presumably we we all think it'll be renewed in 2025 so we'll see how that goes so eate is managed by the Universal Services administrative company I I always call it usack and I always forget what the acronym means so uh so that is the the com the uh organization that we answer to for our bid process and that was established by the FCC uh and E rate funding is based upon free and reduced numbers so uh and and that slots you into a certain calculation so quanics calculation uh traditionally has been a 6040 calculation meaning that for every dollar we spend we get 40 cents in reimbursement um when I was in uh Philipsburg it was like a 9010 so we like every dollar we spent we got 90 cents back um there are two portions of that uh again this this change under the Obama Administration so category one includes internet service and Wan service so that includes the internet coming into the building and then the fiber optic in between buildings either uh lit or dark fiber and we have lit fiber with light path and then category two was the change where they phased out telecommunications so now we we pay for all that out the general fund um but category two now covers infrastructure so anything that delivers internet to students is now covered so that's your firewall your routers your switches your wireless access points and potentially even uh bus Wi-Fi so if you're providing um Community Wi-Fi via your busing that can also be included in rck we don't do that yet uh so what you're going to be uh approving tonight so if you looked at the agenda and you're like what a z rate what am I what am I why am I voting on so much money and that was one of the reasons I came out tonight so uh for category one um it just so happened and and by the way I'm very glad to be here this is my sixth month uh and in this time our internet service is expiring and so is our dark fiber and so is all of our licensing for our infrastructure so I got to kind of walk into this uh Mr jablonsky my predecessor did not leave me high and dry he had budgeted for all this had given me kind of an outline for a plan and then I executed it with our rate consultant um so I've been kind of planning this out all pretty much since October um so we we think we've done our due diligence and that's why this is on a resolution in front of you tonight so category one is uh there was a bid for our internet service and to renew our our Wan or our lip fiber the lip fiber was actually still under agreement um we were in Year we're in year one of a three-year contract um but we needed to bid that out so it would be covered by usack to be to continue to be erated um so that one you're not actually going to see the resolution to approve that we were in the middle of it this is more just for formality for the paperwork um the thing that is a difference there is that we are reducing the number of lines some of the lines that expired were not renewing uh we had set up a a redundant dark fiber ring uh at sjg that uh after some discussions with our network administrator and Mr Gibbs we decided not to renew that because we think um I think that uh everything is redundant enough uh and we have enough 247 365 warranties that if anything happened we'd be back up within a few hours or by the worst the next morning uh I feel pretty confident in that and I've worked with like path in in previous school districts so if someone hit a telephone outside the front of the building by the next morning we we should be back up and that you can see the savings there on that line between the bid for the ISP uh for the internet service and then the reduction of fiber lines we should save just shy of $100,000 over two years so that's some of that again is reducing the the U the Redundant lines and then the internet service the price went down so but we also increased our internet speed so we'll be this summer we'll be doubling our internet speed from 2 and a half gigabits per second to 5 gbits per second hopefully kind of future proofing you know what we're doing in the classrooms uh and the reimbursement for that should be approximately $35,000 a year from eing for that portion and then category two the infrastructure um this was for again this is almost all of our infrastructure was expiring in March so this will be for April 1 renewal as well uh and so that was for I don't know if I know all the numbers but about 240 access points about 40 switches our firewall uh we actually this was fairly competitive we had I think four biders um and so I'm I'm uh recommending that we award this to High Point uh a they were the low bidder uh and they provided an additional option um that the other vendors didn't think of that we decided oh actually we want that option and so our R consultant said that that could be included uh in this bit so that'll be $107,000 in licensing and the um reimbursement for that should be around just shy of $43,000 so approving both resolutions tonight should secure us an e- rate funding approximately $3,985 I know that was riveting any any questions anything I can answer for you about our infrastructure uh the the mid fiscal year is not super great but it's kind of where we are right now so the some of these licenses will actually end then on June 30 2026 but the the ISP and Wan um right so th those are going to come up again in March 202 so we're going to be a mid fiscal year again renewal so I'm hoping at some point to to alter that bid to extend it out um one interesting thing for the category one bid was one vendor and this was not what was in RFP uh bid to build out our own fiber and sell us the whole thing outright instead of leasing it slowly to us that was a very interesting idea I just I'm very new and I wasn't ready to say hey I want $450,000 instead of 100,000 so um but that's something that may be for that next for that next round that we want to consider but that's that's right so for the WAN and the ISP we're going to be mid fiscal year again for that you mentioned e consultant is that somebody that we hire is that somebody that is somebody that is issued to us through the program uh most districts every District I've ever been in and every other District I know normally has a e consultant to handle the paperwork of the applications with usack um and so we when I came aboard we had another consultant that I wasn't feeling very confident in so we pretty early on Switched to a company called eate Consulting LLC they won the state contract for the njsba contract um so they're with school boards um and and I've had an experience with them in the past I've had other business administrators in the past that that liked working with them uh and so they helped navigate us a lot through this this process some of it was based upon since we were reducing some of those Wan lines and since it was mid- fiscal year they really helped kind of navigate um you know what that would look like midf fiscal year so yeah it's pretty traditional that you normally have a consultant that's that's doing a lot of the official paperwork for you as as experienced as I am with eay I wouldn't feel super confident in my abilities to uh go and post those applications and Dot all the eyes and cross all the t's legally with the with usack so for most of the time uh every district has some sort of consultant they lead on and to some degree hopefully that makes sense if you're and I'll I'll I'll add you to two sents that you you maybe didn't ask um our eray Consulting when I switch companies we we almost haved our our Consulting fees so it's only about 6,500 a year for the Consulting fees good questions it's a good group any other questions I work with e on a daily basis at at work it's a very confusing topic did a great job distilling it down to something that I think is understandable um and I wholeheartedly agree that we need an eay consultant because the paperwork is very uh complicated and the timelines are complicated and if you miss one of them then you have a problem with your funding and everything else so I'm all in favor of having a consoler thank you I I learned a lesson the one year uh when we went to RFP for the dark fiber um in the wording uh I didn't I didn't put the difference that they could bid dark fiber or or lit fiber we only put dark fiber and so usack refused us that year because they said we didn't offer enough of a of options for for vendors so I I've learned a lot as I went but I I've also learned I listen to the consultant so thank you very much great thank you all for having me tonight thank you so continuing with my business administrative report he was noted that the last board meeting that there was some question regarding the stage lighting which some of the bulbs have been replaced we are looking to uh having lighting fixtures either replaced or repaired in the near future uh the the insurance company is going to do their engineer um engineering report for the high school on Wednesday February 21st to assess the laminated beams in the media center that were damaged in order to determine whether the insurance carrier will cover the damage for the beams and this is just a reminder for those who have not completed their financial disclosure statements uh to let me know if you have any questions or difficulties in submitting your statements and finally there will be the nine month ninth town meeting on Thursday April 30th 2024 starting at 7 pm located at the high school auditorium the town meeting will be a zoning Board of adjustment meeting regarding the approval of one school Global's new facility that will be located across the street from the high school thank you the date for the insurance review was when tomorrow tomorrow okay yep okay at this point I'll open a meeting up to uh public comment on agenda items members of the public may speak once for a maximum period of five minutes by the clock during this portion of the meeting the public may speak on any agenda item only during their five minutes which would include the baseball coaches um if a member of the public raises a question all questions should be directed to the board president and please state your name and sign in before you begin um hi my name is Caitlyn mcweeny I'm a senior and I'm also president of pths ps's future Business Leaders of America are also known as fbl hi I'm Jacob tone and I'm a junior and also one of the vice presidents of fbl here at ponic we are speaking today about CIS 6924 student field trips and the anticip ated approval of sending students to the FBA State leadership conference in March thank you in advance for approving it which I certainly hope you will do the FBLA has over 90 members up from around 30 just after covid like many organizations the pandemic really decreased our membership we have worked hard to get fbaa back to where it once was a strong organization that works collectively for the school the town and our community fbl represents pths in many ways here in town we work with the Chamber of Commerce Chilton Hospital March of Dimes and Boys and Girls Clubs organizations on variety of projects for the last three years we have partnered with the hospital to bring homeade blankets to the cancer W each holiday season recently we just completed our latest community service project The Polar Express which was a community event that took place here at the high school and which our club raised toy donations to give to children in need our goal is to help make improvements for the benefit of panic in our school we also represent pths at the regional and state fbaa competition and if we perform well at States in a few weeks some of us may have the opportunity to represent Panic at FBLA Nationals in Orlando this summer only the students with the most Innovative and best presentations for business projects advance to the states and Nationals our district has been very generous over the years and funds 100% of the cost for our athletic programs I myself am a varsity cross country and TR athlete so I do not take the generosity for granted however we do not fully fund some of the largest academic programs or clubs such as FBA HOSA and mock trial where students often compete and represent the school sometimes this forces deserving students who worked hard at local competitions to decline invitations to state or national level competitions because of the cost our students who will attend the state level fbaa competition in March will pay $275 out of their own Pockets we would never ask our athletes to pay to attend the state championship game at the metaland or the credential Center or another pristine location I don't think we should ask any student to pay for programs when they publicly represent the school district in speaking with members for of fbaa from other towns those districts fully fund and support their FBA programs at least up to the state level competition many students are aiming to compete nationally this year this the first time since the pandemic although we try our best to fund raise for our trips the costs are still substantial academic programs and clubs are just as important as athletic teams I ask the Administration and board to consider equal funding for all student programs such as FBA moving forward thank you for your time and consideration good evening everyone my name is Ann Marie finnen I'm an Elementary music teacher and the president of the panic Township Education Association um and without offering an opinion about the last um speakers I just would like to commend them um very proud of our students here at pths um they were both I thought very well spoken and prepared so it was nice to to hear that um I wanted to just mention briefly about um FFA 11-24 the naming of the gym for um Ruth kellet um I was so excited to see that you were considering that um in addition to the personal excitement that I have having worked with Mrs kellet after she kind of reinvented herself as an elementary teacher um her reputation preceded her we knew um her all of her accomplishments at the School level and as a coach and then she became an elementary gym teacher at sjg and at the beginning of my career I was lucky to work with her so um I I know many of my colleagues share um you know my my joy in in hearing that she will be recognized in this way but I think in a broader way um anytime a decision is made to name a large important space after a staff member a former staff member it really serves as inspiration ation um to the whole Community to the students who are here and as I said to her colleagues um and and people who have followed in her footsteps so um thank you very much for for making that happen and and voting on that tonight um I think it's a really wonderful thing for our community um Mr senic uh would it be okay if I quickly announce the three winners since we have a little audience here of our friend of Education um I won't thank you sir I won't uh take up um too much time but just to say that the PTA is honoring our friends of Education tomorrow um the board of course is invited and the three winners are um Mr Jeff Bruner Mr David Cole and Mrs Kathy shico um and we are just thrilled to be able to thank them for their many many years of s service to our schools and to our students thank you [Music] hello hello my name is Christy Friedman I'm at 12 Elizabeth Avenue and I'm here to speak about the baseball program so um I just wanted to thank the board for making your statement earlier I think that alleviates a lot of stress from the community um to know that there will in fact be a freshman baseball team this season and I hope that the opportunity for all three teams continues and is a priority obviously as long as enrollment continues to be as is so um as a little league volunteer and a mom to two young baseball players I know that you know especially the Freshman Community this year will feel feel a little bit better knowing that there will be the opportunity this year um with that said I believe the big problem and cause for stress is that um the last few years the freshman and JV programs have become a lot for one coach to manage so um it's my understanding last year's freshman team played a very limited number of games sometimes due to lack of umps sometimes due to the fact that one coach simply can't be in two places at one time on the other hand I know it's been suggested that the Unity team should reassign their assistant coach to help alleviate the stress from the JV and the Freshman um that would leave the varsity with one coach one coach for a varsity team with 16 to 20 young men one coach to coach third as a player or an an available volunteer when one is ready and available to coach Third Base so I feel like that's kind of the bigger problem um and I have a few questions that you may have the answers to now or maybe it's just worth investigating so um has anyone analyzed enrollment data for the high school sports programs and if so have you considered reallocating funds to support teams with highest enrollment has anyone utilized data from Panic Valley Middle School baseball program or Panic Little League to make projections for the incoming enrollment numbers last year sixth grade had 28 little league boys 25 sth grade and 18 8th grade that's 71 boys and has the athletic department considered looking for volunteers who aren't also full-time spring coaches in other sports and are therefore more available to our players thank you anybody else and just you know you do not have to State your address just uh your name uh Matt ringing I'm a panic graduate and also now a resident I have two boys aged is 9 and 12 well 12 as of Thursday um and I was planning to speak here tonight and spoke to a couple of you and I was planning up to come up here and share that uh I am on the Little League board a lot of what you're referencing tonight was probably related to a post that we created um to bring awareness to members of the town of what was presented to K whether the communication breakdown is what it is um we can we can debate that at another at another time but what is concerning and what I'll share is you have a program that chrisy just outlined um both softball and baseball that over the last six years as I've been a member of the board has seen our enrollment go from three 70 some odd boys and girls to almost 500 boys and girls it is a thriving program uh it will be continue to be a thriving program because of the support of this town and last year was probably our most successful season probably dating back to I think 19 88 maybe if I had to I think Sam was a graduate around then um so he can attest to that there you go so there you go so um probably one of the most successful season they had and I and I've heard many things well yeah they've had some great they had some great horses last year they had a great senior class but I think because of the leadership of that program is the reasons for part of their success and that leader of that program Ben went on to win a soccer championship so I think he's pretty qualif ified of running a program and when that leader comes to and makes I guess a decision in its own head whether that's communicated effectively or not that he needs a fourth coach while I understand a budget may be approved a year prior we're we're probably not talking about a lot of money in the grand scheme of things to be able to Pivot we made reference earlier tonight about lights being replaced on a a stage I understand that's maintenance but you could pivot and find find money to to repair those lights and if that coach thinks that that's for the betterment of the program he's probably right last year's program played I believe it was seven maybe eight freshman baseball games when freshman played the JV did not when JV played the Freshman did not so they might be practicing once or twice a week with another coach the program can build those kids can build and develop their skills I commend these two students behind me who brought up the cost of their FBLA program what they probably don't know is some of the costs that go in for parents for for for uh the sports that they play and the equipment that they bring to this program I know there's parents up here that can can relate to a $400 bat cost so but that's neither here nor there I commend that they came up and and gave this speech to you guys tonight so what I would ask is is can we adjust can we find money to support that program this year with an enrollment as I understand at 13 today and I know that there are others waiting in the wings to sign up from what I understand can we pivot can we look at adding another coach because it'll be beneficial to the program today it'll be beneficial to the program next year and three years from now when my son if he still decides to play baseball is in this school so I would ask you to consider that as I know that longterm and it's not just this sport because softball's coming behind it softball's got a very high enrollment of girls in eighth grade you're probably going to see 12 to 15 girls that could potentially sign up next year to have exclusively a freshman team they only have three coaches as well so that means one coach has to stay down and now you only got one varsity coach again I would ask that you consider this and I'll end by saying I had Ruth kellet when I was in high school as a coach she was a phenomenal woman and she deserves that that that honor thank you Jo car little weak we brought the registration numbers the registration I think ended yesterday but these kids were told I don't know how many weeks ago that registration was done because there's not going to be freshman team people went home they heard about it and most likely do not sign off registration should be reopened and this team should be advertised that they're going to have a team uh Sean Dempsey I had a whole thing planned here but a lot of questions were answered and I'm glad there's discussions and you guys are aware um just a few quick questions um as Matt ringan uh greatly put is there a way we can pivot to hire a coach for the season if there's no money in the budget would it be possible for us to fund raise for that coach and is there a chance if there's no money in the budget of asking a teacher maybe to be the supervisor and then looking for a volunteer to coach that team um there's probably five or 10 fathers out there that would happily volunteer to take that team thank you for your time uh Glenn Corman um my question is it appears that the board and potentially the administration don't seem to be on lock step in regard to having the freshman team since it was communicated to the boys uh at the team meeting or the baseball meeting on the 31st and then again to the parents it's on the 7th so I just want to make sure that we're all in agreement or you're all in agreement along with the powers that be to run the program and to ensure that there will be a freshman baseball team because there seems to be differing information what we received tonight as to what we were told weeks prior so I don't know if everybody's in unison here with what's going on but it would be good if everybody was on the same page and the message that was delivered to the kids first and then to the parent second was the same because it's not right now so is there any way to confirm that will be done no by the board thank you anybody else all right so I want to answer that last question from Mr Corman the only person well person the board can eliminate a team the board has not voted to eliminate the Freshman baseball team the board is the board is not going to vote to eliminate the Freshman baseball team um that being said the procedure of how that gets put together is not the board's responsibility but we did not eliminate the Freshman baseball team nor do we support elimination of the fresh baseball team I don't think I'm not going to speak for Dr poris but I don't think he supports that either but I'm going to let him speak for himself um as far as the budget the budgets put together foreign Advance last year and then the presentation of how many coaches we're going to have gets provided to us by the administration the coaches that we're voting on tonight are the same coaches that we've approved for the past three years with the same exact program same number of teams nothing has changed because like I said we haven't voted to change anything so as far as we're concerned we're having a freshman baseball team assuming are the kids to support it which from what I'm hearing there are and I'll Dr poris answer the rested questions sure right I understand that Dr poris is gonna answer that question all right appreciate everybody I took a lot of notes yeah well I want to make sure I get it right or close enough to write I don't want to view the video un like my parents um so first uh bless you um thanks to both kayin and Jacob for speaking um very proud of what our fbaa members are doing um and it's not just what they're doing competitively but also their contributions back to back to the community um and it's it's a lot of work and we don't take that lightly as far as the funding of trips and making it equal for FBA FBA and Athletics or other extracurriculars um I've literally done no preparation about that first time hearing about this but this is something that we'll we'll certainly look at regarding you know how how we do fund these types of programs and what is in place for that um so thank you for bringing that to my attention I cannot give you any kind of concrete answer but I look into it um and thank you Miss spinn for coming up as well um it is I I didn't realize that uh that coach Kell had been a colleague of Miss fin so it's really nice to hear that that personalized approach um and I I do think I agree with she said something about being an inspiration to know that um one of our staff members can rise to that that rarified category of having a very large facility named for her and it's certainly not something that was taken lightly it was a it was pretty long process we made sure that we had effective policy in place um as well as an awful lot of resour search that went into it and I have to say um I think she might actually be watching um coach beyonde was an enormous resource to help me to help Mr s help Mr hazler to gather more information about Miss Kell we don't plan to name too many things if not anything else after anybody so this is really a Hu huge honor and we certainly feel that um that the individual being honored warrants such such special treatment um and also I'd like to just my support for the selections for the friends of Education honores um who've certainly been friends to education to to families to students to our staff so congratulations to all three and I look look forward to seeing you tomorrow night um and then regards to the baseball um so what we're looking to do and I I had a pretty lengthy meeting earlier this morning going over it of looking at making sure that we have um subv varsity teams that that can play and I'll be careful not to say that one that they're both going to be exclusively JV and freshman you might have to change the composition in order to ensure that you get enough games in um not a lot of schools currently have freshman programs so we want to make sure that we're giving kids an opportunity to play and to learn and to grow um and actually it's interesting we did lose a lot of games last year um from the schedule because of the absence of of umpires as well as other factors I did volunteer to be an Umpire um I would have been universally disdained for it but trying to prove a point that we want to get the kids getting getting games and that that volunteering still is out there um as far as um analyzing data to anticipate what what our future needs are going to be yeah that's actually in the um in The Proposal I have for the 2025 budget we actually have projections based on Sixth Grade seventh grade eighth grade enrollment in baseball and that really helps us to make informed decisions I realized with certain certain things in education there's guess work but if you have actual enrollment numbers there's always some type of attrition for any Athletic program or really any program but with that in mind we we're we're looking at um maintaining what I would describe as a robust um baseball program and we're fully aware that that comes from the feeder program you know the kids don't all of a sudden show up at high school and be well prepared it it starts t-ball um it's it's reinforced at home um and then as far as uh looking for volunteers not full-time coaches other sports sure we can put out a call see if anybody else is interested in helping support the baseball program it is better if it's somebody who's inhouse gives us a little more flexibility with how we can deploy them um and as far as the comment being um for the next speaker about the comment being consequence of a post um that that is the that was what first really caught my eye that was that was texted to me on Friday night um I was on a three-hour different time zone difference but that was uh it was something that definitely caught my attention and then I have fielded a few questions um certainly over the weekend as well as into today um and then just as far as debating the communication breakdown um I'll never do the blame game so if if there was a communication breakdown wherever the source is um I I'm not worried about that it's uh I don't think I fully understood what was going on and therefore we are going to do blame it comes back to me so please don't worry about that I would not point the finger at somebody else um agreed certainly a thriving program last year was um our most successful year since the Sam suresi era um I know we've had other successful years and um you know you brought up that some Sometimes some people wanted to ascribe that to having great kids and we do have great kids Bill belich said it players win championships coaches have to be there to provide them and I actually made a note to myself in here success doesn't need to make excuses and certainly what we're seeing this program no excuses need to be made um I agree that coach mcb's a great leader uh he certainly has a phenomenal track record I believe I refer to as the mcmagic when we're talking about the girl soccer team um we are looking at the logistics of how of how we can make our Pro our program as effective as possible um there are systems that we follow in terms of of budgeting and allocating um we're we're already in the process right now of looking at next year and um enrollment is a huge Factor and you know there are other considerations that we look at there but uh enrollment is Big because we do want to make sure that um we're providing opportunities for kids to be as connected to the school as possible um and thank you also to Mr ringan for for voicing your support from having been coached by Miss kellet I think it's really important that people are aware too that she she had a huge impact not just as a Trailblazer on our female athletes but also on male athletes and our colleagues and that's really it's quite a wide range of influence um as far as the registration um somebody brought that up to me this morning we can reopen that um and you we're not going to do it on the slide so that would be something that we would make sure um is pushed out there I don't fully know the logistics I can't pretend to know them but there are people who are paid to know the logistics of that process and I'm sure that they will manage it and I will I will share that I made that comment um yeah and as far as as far as far as you know any steps for for this year um in terms of looking volunteers we we did have a pretty long meeting this morning um I did not meet with the the baseball coaches they were they were they were actually teaching uh but I spoke at length Mr cipa about trying to find Creative Solutions in order to provide the support I mean really we have we have in place what we had in place when we won a championship last year but I'm not a huge advocate for well it worked last year it'll work again so um I I promise nothing other than effort but we will continue to to look at um not just for this year but moving forward what we can do to support really all of our programs um and then in terms of in terms of the communication uh not being lock step with What U communicated kids and families um I I'll aware that because I was informed that there was something going on um I don't think I understood exactly what it was but that was most likely me not listening as well as I should have so um moving forward I'll make it a point to ask more clar find questions and really understand things I've been a part of sports for my entire professional career actually before as a teacher I was was actually a basketball coach um and I realized sometimes you don't have the numbers and a program doesn't run um but if you do have the numbers and they're capable like you don't want kids picking up a baseball bat for the first time as a freshman in high school but um if you can support it the program should run um and then yeah in terms of consistent messaging it is you I guess in my notes I wrote down there was a consistent message but yeah it differed from my understanding but that was uh that has since been cleared up for me and then um yeah and then there was a file question and Mr senic was responding about reopening registration and that that's in the works and I'm sure the athle department will communicate that out thank you just one more thing if you have a concern about anything we all have email addresses right and you should be encouraged to reach out to us that's one of the reasons why we're here to give you real information and to respond accurately to your concerns it's good that you came to this meeting it's good that we had this dialogue back and forth um if we don't have it then we don't know what your concerns are and what the issues are that you would like us to address so if something like this comes up in the future related to another issue I would encourage you to reach out to me anyone else on the board um and ask us or Dr bis obviously uh and ask us these questions that you want answers to you're entitled to get an answer and we're here to give it to you so thanks for coming tonight as well and one thing I'll add is like every now and then I'll have somebody reach out to me and I'll ask have you spoken to the teacher have you spoken to the coach have you spoken to the supervisor whoever um just to ensure that we're following the chain of command but sounds like that's what you've been doing so again to to Echo your sentiment one of the advantages working in a smaller district is that you become a lot more accessible you one of my jokes about that is the drawback is you're a lot more accessible but I'll take the benefit of that way over the costs because you have a much better sense generally speaking of of the real I guess the tenor of the room and how people are feeling what's concerning the community so yeah I I agree with you um you we're not gonna we're not looking to duck away from anything you know it's we're all working together okay uh moving on to the approval of the minutes I'm G to ask Mr G to approve the minutes yeah I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes from the January 22nd meeting and the February 5th meeting second any question or discussion Mr Gibbs please call the rooll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes Miss Dempsey yes to January 22nd and I will abstain on February 5th Mr G yes to January 22nd I'll obstain to uh February 5th Mr mweene yes to January 22nd I'll abstain from February 5th Mr mono same I will uh yes to January 22nd and abstain from February 5th Mr shinton yes Mrs Esposito yes Mr senic yes motion carries okay that moves us into approval of our action items the first item up is uh PMC before I ask Mr cesi to move PMC I would like to make a motion to withdraw item PMC 20224 and the reason for withdrawing is because this item never went through a workshop so I'd like it to be withdrawn from this agenda tonight put into a workshop discussion on March 4th where we can discuss it in public and then put on the agenda for the 14th of March for an actual vote so I make a motion to withdraw that a second question discussion on that Mr Gibbs call the roll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes Miss Dempsey yes Mr G yes Mr mcweeny yes Mr Momo yes Mrs shanton yes Mrs esposo yes Mr senic yes motion carries okay the balance of the items on the PMC I'm gonna ask Mr cesi to move those please I would like to move PMC 19 0-24 through PMC 20-24 second any other question or discussion Mr Gibbs please call the rooll I would like to have something to say oh yeah I'm sorry okay cool um first of all I want to thank all you guys ladies and gentlemen for coming out tonight um I appreciate that you showing The Passion of the support of golden Panthers doesn't matter what it is whether it's baseball softball across band cheerleading uh this is what this town's all about um I also appreciate Dr poris based on the information uh that was given to the parents and players that he is going to open up the signups for additional time for them to do this um I would suggest that take quick advantage of that second that window opens it's kind of like when Joe orders the you know the crunch uniforms um get that done and since Mr ringan brought it up I would like to uh just let you guys know that way back when um it's always been repaid coaches couple volunteers and um in reality there were cuts of typically 40 kids from each team back then and it's always been one coach I did some digging myself and right now most schools have exactly what we have if they even have a freshman program and it is group three and group four schools that typically will have an extra coach so I just want you guys to understand that we are doing what we can and as uh Dr Portis has said we will definitely look into that for the future um and as long as you guys keep running the program that you're running and having more kids coming out and playing that's that's exactly what we want this is the kind of problem that we want really is the best way to put it um and once again I I do want to thank you guys for coming out and I do want to reiterate what um Brian said it's better to uh get an email or a phone call from you guys than to sometimes find things out on a Friday night on Facebook just I just want to put that out there okay so thank you I'll open it up to anyone on the board that wants to make a comment on that just uh want to thank everyone for coming out I think it's uh it's important that there that everyone comes out and fights for their kids uh and you get the answers that you need and I want to make sure that that was met today um as they've mentioned the emails are open doesn't need to end today as far as the communication the door should always be open and not just for baseball but um whether it's clubs or any other sport I also want to make a an official movement that we never refer to any sports error as the Sam cesi error ever again second motion passes anybody else okay Mr Gibbs please call the roll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes M Dempsey yes Mr G yes Mr M yes Mr Pompeo yes Mrs shanton yes Mrs espito yes and Mr sen yes motion carries thank you Mr mawey would you please move CIS yes I'd like to move CIS 68-20 through CIS 72-4 second any question or discussion Mr Gibbs please call a roll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes M Dempsey yes Mr gon yes Mr mcweeney yes Mr Pompeo yes Mrs shinton yes Mrs Esposito yes and Mr cic yes motion carries thank you Mr Bloomer would you please move the items under FFA yes I'd like to make a motion to move FFA 106 24 through ffa1 14-24 second any question or discussion yes real quick uh with FFA there's not really always a very exciting vote right it's usually PMC we hired a new administrator or whoever it may be but um I will say that FFA 11-24 is probably one of the coolest FFA votes that I think um the time my you know five and a half years on the board has has been so very excited for this next stage and definitely looking forward to the next step of now the planning of it and all the uh Logistics of it so very very excited for that one yeah related to that I just wanted to thank coach biondi also for coming to the last meeting even though several of us were not able to be in attendance I watched the video um and we already knew what a amazing person we were going to be honoring by voting on this but her presentation and really speaking from the heart of having been a player and then a colleague and and then going being a coach and going and having other um you know people say wow you had the privilege to you know know uh coach kellet so um I'm very excited about that I think it's an amazing opportunity for our district and looking forward to see some nice signage going up on the gym for that I just want to Echo too like I was so happy when coach beond came here we we've been friends for a long time like we used to very excitedly compare notes on press Breakers that we had devised and other basketball related things she's she's truly taken that inspiration from coach Kell and and continue to move with it um but what I was really proud of just as her former colleague and as her friend was she spoke without notes up there like that was all speaking from the heart obviously she was very well prepared but uh when know we could only be so fortunate um have people speak like that about any of us and so I thought that was that was particularly meaningful so I'm glad to that that it resonated with the board members okay Mr gies please call the rooll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes Miss Dempsey yes Mr G yes Mr M yes Mr Pompeo yes Mrs shanton yes Mrs Esposito yes and Mr cic yes motion carries okay next policy Miss Dempsey would you please move the one item under policy motion to approve P1 12-24 second Bloomer second question of discussion Mr Gibbs please call the roll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes M Dempsey yes Mr gon yes Mr mien yes Mr Pompeo yes Mrs shenton yes Mrs Esposito yes and Mr s yes motion carries okay that brings us to our second opportunity for public comment members of the public may speak for a maximum period of five minutes by the clock during this portion of the meeting and now you can speak about any item that you would like to comment on if a member of the public raises a question please direct the question to the board president and state your name and sign in before you begin uh John Asen pumped in Plains here for the high school music parents Association um we have uh coming up on March 3rd uh our AC capella group at the high school they uh were approached by um a recording producer for Acappella groups to record a song to enter into a contest uh to be on a uh online distributed album so they'll be here uh on that Sunday he's setting aside 10 hours to to do the recording of each part and he'll do all the producing and things like that for them and and submit their uh recording um he has seen them at past years competitions and and approached the the staff to request to work with them so that that's great to see um Mr Gibbs in your report you had mentioned a zoning board meeting April 30th you had said Thursday but that's a Tuesday Tuesday Tuesday to 30 it is a Tuesday okay we we have an activity that day so that's why I was confused okay okay um as a uh a quick response to a comment made earlier about fundraising for coaches and staffs and things of that nature I can say that the district is uh very um willing to accept donations I mean the music parents raise in the order of 30,000 every school year that we donate to the school to pay for texts teachers instructors and that that goes on every year so they're more than happy to accept donations if you believe that's something you need for your activities like we have a I think it's a a a good problem here where some programs are outside for the size of our school district and it's very hard to take a small budget and chop it up into smaller pieces to satisfy all the things that we're asking to be done at this small school a hundred kids in a marching band the schools we compete against are huge City schools with three 4,000 students the kids are there and we want to support them so we raise the money or we Fork it over ourselves I mean we're not going to tell them no and that's just the nature of a great success to a program here so the answer is yes um I I I had noticed and I just I don't know if this is if there's a short answer to this but if there was a maybe a brief EXP explanation to the step raises for some activities versus the small incremental raises for some activities like what the difference is there I'm not really sure that may be just be like a contract thing that I can't be a part of discussion but and then uh hopefully you have some announcements about your board retreat will that be in board announcements from anyone or okay and then uh if I can have more than five minutes I just want to read a quick letter um this is from this is addressed to Mr strier on behalf of the Salvation Army I want to thank you for making the supply with ponic band T-shirts available to available to us your donation is greatly appreciated and will be distributed to those who come to our facility each week to use the shower these men and women are unhoused and have no other access to showers we provide them toiletries underwear socks and gently used clothing we always welcome these items and the t-shirts are one of those Staples thank you for thinking of the Salvation Army for this donation and entrusting us to put them to good use sincerely major Carl Aver uh that was uh a lot of our trips our marching band season our ensembles we buy shirt you have to buy extra someone's got the wrong size someone left one on a bus and it was our supply was getting to the point where we needed to either give them away throw them out so Mr strier donated them down to uh the Salvation Army in Montclair so I wanted to read that I don't know if you want this for your record or absolutely okay anybody else uh good evening Joe gef uh just another brief word on the baseball situation uh my son is a freshman who hopes to play um coach told us at the parents meeting that approximately 42 or 43 boys total has registered and I happen to know that 13 of them approximately are freshmen um I know all these freshman boys from their involvement over the years with the little league and uh the Patriots travel team and some of them have played other club teams and most of them played middle school and they're all deserving for the opportunity to play I know everything they've been doing in recent years has been working up to this point the opportunity to represent and play for their high school team and it's going to be if there shouldn't be a freshman team and there are some Cuts it's going to be devastating to any's boys to not make the team and some of them may not come back you know after you know after this year so I I just hope that something you know can be done to alleviate the situation and I will say that at the parents meeting the week after the players meeting we were told at the meeting and I'm only saying this because we were told this in a public meeting that the one thing that's changed from last year was that one of the paid coaches has a newborn at home you know and his time is stretched a little more and I understand that and that's great but it shouldn't affect you know these boys if maybe if if that's the case then maybe we do need to you know allocate an additional coach paid coach to the team if that's what it takes so that's just all I want say thank you okay I close the second public comment session oh you got one more I don't know Greg I think I already closed it we're not used to so many people I waited because I'm not going to talk about any of this so the pen isn't working either I know you know who I am for those of you who do not who do not know who I am um good evening my name is Melissa massic and I am the parent of a senior who will be graduating in June from pths she has currently been accepted into numerous business schools for college and will take the knowledge she has gained from an exceptional business staff and FBLA program at pths with her into the future I am here tonight to ask you all to look into the future of what lies ahead at pths for possibly your own children as well as countless others including my third child who will one day walk through these doors a number of years ago I know some of you were here I remember the discussions regarding acmy at pths at the time our Focus was directed at stem Aviation teaching and learning and Allied Health some of our programs excelled and some had growing pains while others were completely phased out I am asking you to now look at the future of ourm and to consider creating in one that focuses on business and finance a number of high schools in our region have the benefit uh have benefited from business programs like these and can that they I can't even read tonight sorry um I need my classes a number of schools in our region have the benefit to uh have seen the benefit business programs like these can bring to our districts such as botin Jefferson and Clifton just to name a few My Hope Is that you too will see the benefit that a business Academy would bring to our students the drive behind theem originally was to fill a niche and gain more students however acmy are becoming a dime a dozen in all of our districts as you know and this makes it difficult to sustain acmis that are not popular with the masses business however is an area of focus that our Panic students would flock to just look at how many students currently take our business electives I'm going to ask all of you after May 1st to look at the pths 2024 Instagram page and see how many of our graduates will be majoring or minoring in business by creating programs of interest for our students future and my goodness I'm sorry I can't read tonight by creating programs of interest for our students our p pb students and others will have an opportunity to benefit and learn from our extraordinary business Educators as well as having the opportunity of staying put in our own home District lastly my own daughter at one time was accepted to mcst and chose not to go after much consideration she preferred to spend her senior year as an actual high school student rather than a CCM visitor for one year as most mcst students do being in a high school setting as well as part-time business internships during senior year in your home school are more beneficial to some students than others an academy for business at pths would help these students to make the choice to be a panther until graduation so I just want to say thank you again for your time and thank you for listening to the kids talk about FBA um I was very happy that they came up here tonight and though it really won't benefit my own daughter because she's graduating um and she'd probably not be happy that I'm saying this so I can say it because she left um I just have to say that like thank you for everything that you guys have done for them and I really hope that they do a great job at States and I know going forward in the future um I just hope that they're able to go back to Nationals again thank you some else I do want to say thank you one more time to everybody thanks for listening to us and Dr poris we do have an Umpire training program if you want to come out and volunteer umpire not any one of you guys we got some games that you want to get behind to play for these kids I I will GL that my daughter is part of the teaching Academy and what what a great program that was just to reiterate also I think she student teaches at either Tron or bouard I forget hi an Mar Finn and speaking about the teaching and learning acad Academy um the instructor Mr LEF was uh honored in the last week and I just I hope you don't mind Dr poris if I mention it um he's been named a teacher that rocks uh By wdha radio station he was nominated and selected and I believe um his um uh the story of of what he does um for his students at the high school in in several programs that he instructs um was read on the air there's going to be a banquet um where he'll be honored um one of uh I think there might be 24 or 30 from the area from the northern New Jersey area um so um I know he works really hard for the teaching and learning academy and also for um the other student population that he works with uh takes it very very seriously and gives us all to it so we were excited to see him recognized thank you all right thank you all for your comments all right thank you just run through my notes for this too appreciate hearing the information about the AC capella group being approached by the producer um that's that's that's pretty incredible but also a testament to the hard work of the kids and and their performance as well as the leadership for Mr Arnold and the Really the whole program in general um thank you for the correction about the uh the April 30th being a Tuesday the Thursday after that's May second which is pretty big day in my household my birthday it's all about all right um yeah and and I really like the analogy too of the the good problem that uh saying our programs are outsized for the size of our district um and it's I'll take those problems any day of the week um because yeah you have to figure out solutions to them but what what a great thing like you have so many kids who want to be involved in things and and families who support them so I like how that was framed I'm not here to provide praise but I chatted that down really liked it um and yeah as far as the why there are certain step raises as opposed to incremental raises um that that just comes down to the what's in the collective bargaining agreement um and we look at getting people increases um as they move along the guide but also each year you do see small we not small BC increments incremental improvements um and then as far as the board retreat the actual Retreat Retreat is g to take place on Thursday um which is two days from today because today is not Monday contrary to how it feels um we did have a retreat experience of reviewing the self- evaluation I know you guys talk about that later but um The Retreat itself is going to take place on Thursday the 22nd yep and I really appreciate here in the about the donation to Salvation Army um the the generosity of this community is is remarkable and to know what a difference I can make of something as simple as donating t-shirts and um it clearly meant something because of the letter that was sent and I encourage it and I really appreciate hearing about that um and then the next part about the enrollment numbers uh about kids um deserving our support and yeah and it is devastating to get cut I think a lot about there's a there's a line in in the movie Moneyball about you we all have that point where we find out that we don't get to play anymore and it happens at different stages but it happens to all of us um but as best as we can I I like the idea of prolonging the opportunity to be involved in athletics for for kids as well as for adults but more so for kids um and then as far as the The Business Academy we're actually we've had some conversations about um different ways that we can um revamp our Academy structure whether it be combining some of theems um or bringing in other ideas I proposed in American Studies Academy um the response to that has been lukewarm and I'm being generous but we've also have talked about um looking at to doing something more with our business program it's very it's very popular our business department is is quite strong and uh you see it reflected in our FBLA team's um involvement in in Regional State and yeah National competitions and uh yeah I'm very I'm curiously too how many of our kids do major in business and then I mean 35 bucks a game behind the dish I mean I don't have I don't have great eyesight but I don't think you need it anyway um when I when I used to get summoned umpire uh in Lincoln Park I would always tell people I have a Vlad Guerrero Strike Zone the older Vlad Guerrero so if it bounces and it crosses the plate that's a strike so um if you're looking to have yeah if you're looking yeah oh yeah that's great it's all good listen You'll have games that are like 58 minutes you'll love it now but I'm joking but um it is something I do say sincerely because um the fact that we have a shortage of officials is really troubling and it's not just New Jersey I know it's everywhere so if there's any way that we can that we can help with that I think it's it's really important if I get the training my wife might kill me so I'll I'll be talking about signing up for that that should be fun and then finally um thank you so much to miss finnen for bringing up about Mr LEF getting the teacher who rocks recognition it was actually announced on the radio on Friday um her colleague Mrs brenzinger is the person who nominated him and in my as yet unpublished Weekend Update that would have gone out on Friday whoops U but I I want to make sure I'm going point to include that because there is a link that's in there that you can click on to to get get information and it's it's really wonderful we talk about recognizing our students which is so important but I think it's really important for our staff to get recognized for their hard work as well so thank you Dr bis any uh board member have any unfinished business how about new business so I know um Dr ptis said he was going to follow up on the request about the FBLA funding but I just wanted to kind of elevate that to a new business item so that we can keep it on our radar and follow up on it not necessar well since we're in the budget process um but also to maybe just do kind of a holistic look at what how much of funding for athletics is coming from parent associations and fundraising um as Mr na said that we know the marching band and the music department does a lot of fundraising to support some of that um so is is there funding that can be found in the budget to offset costs for students in some of the more expensive of Club activities or are there other creative ways that we can help support them um it's fabulous to hear that they have 90 students coming back after covid because student groups across every sector are struggling to get bring students back um and I would hate to have students feeling like they couldn't participate because of financial constraints so if we can just sort of keep that on our radar and follow up in the future I'd appreciate it anybody else board member announcements I have aou oh go ahead uh so tonight actually the uh Panic West Milford hockey team won their state playoff game 11 to1 over Nutley uh I think it was a first round of States so congratulations to them um on February 14th I attended the uh moris uh Educational Service Commission meeting um we spent a lot of time talking about nursing costs um Mars CC spends a little uh good amount of time and we spent a lot of time talking about how they have to provide nursing services to a lot of the private schools in Mars County um the the costs are going up but the doe has yet to raise rates um for this year so I think that's maybe on the late for the fall at least that's what ESC is hoping um we also uh discussed something called an alternate to suspensions program we didn't mention this to Dr bis um the program that is for primarily high school students um who are facing um who have been suspended a lot for Behavioral issues um so there was a discussion with the ESC the board a couple of other towns brought it up is that a program that marcc uh runs they used to run one uh it was an Al the Outsourcing the kids or of sending the kids out to another District which gets quite expensive um so that was just something that popped up it it was interesting because probably there's a need in a couple of towns for um finding alternate to system program for these kids in high school who maybe are facing will not be able to graduate because they suspended some times that's it I have a few first uh definitely want to congratulate the recipients of this year's friends of Education uh it is always it is a great honor um I do feel it is hard to fill the shoes of last year's recipients but um uh but no it's a it's a great honor and congratulations to those recipients um I want to talk about the uh progress of the veterans wall uh Mr senic and I sit on that committee um it's not a board committee but the committee on establishing the the funding and the the plans to create the veterans wall and you know Mr syracus is here so it's suit fitting that I'm talking about this uh it was it was talked about several years ago there was a big uh display at a football game at one point um and then kind of got quiet slowed down a little bit but now we have a very energetic group of residents uh alumni and again um some board members that are seeing this through and this is going to be a great addition to the community I'm really looking forward to the progress of this uh we've had several meetings again just trying to nail down um the funding and and just the the plans to uh see this from beginning to end just you know discussion of where exactly are we going to have it in front of the school things like that so it's really exciting to see this come to fruition after a few years of discussion um and again I just want to thank everybody for coming out um I'm glad that everything was sorted out situated uh you know when it comes to any programs sports or non-sports the the key word is expansion right it was never something that we want to see sunset or go away um numbers don't call for it that's one thing but if it's there then we obviously are always there to support it uh so again thanks for coming out and you guys actually stayed after your comments which was even more impressive you guys could to laugh right after [Laughter] that any other board members with any announcements okay uh we do have reason to to exam ex cutive session tonight where we will discuss attorney client privileged matters no action will be taken and we will adjourn from there the board will host the administration in the calf on Thursday the 22nd for the portion of our Retreat that was postponed due to the recent snowstorm after that our next meeting will be a workshop meeting and it'll take place here on 3:4 at the high school again I want to thank you all that attended and shared your concerns let you all know that we appreciate you coming here and we appreciate and value your input um and now I'll ask for a motion to go into executive session motion go exact there second second all in favor I any opposed good night everyone