all right at 7 pm on March 11 2024 we're going to begin this regular meeting of the rord Board of Education we ask everyone to please stand face the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America for stands one nation indivisible last Mr Mr Kelly to please take Ro Mr bosan present Mrs Cole here Mr Cony present Mr Healey here Mrs Jones present Mr maone here Dr rine here Mr Sprayberry pres Dr olot here you have a quorum thank you the New Jersey open public meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Rutherford board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place posted on the bulletin board outside the bur clerk's office mailed to the herald South bergenite and the Record newspapers and filed with the burough clerk hard copies of the agenda are available in the meeting room and the agenda is posted electronically on Friday before the meeting date on the district's website at www. Rutherford schools.org subsequent to the meeting a video of the meeting will be uploaded to the district's website www. rutherfords schools.org the video link can be found by opening the Board of Education link and clicking on public meetings and then videos uh so board members in your packets were minutes to approve for the regular meeting and executive session of February 12th 2024 any questions or comments about those all right see none we I'll ask you Mr Kelly to please enter those so we will start off with the report of the student representative Miss pimpson welcome good evening so rhs has been busy with extracurriculars and academics in this transition period to Spring the spring courts have officially finished and winter sports conclud or are officially starting Thursday and winter sports have conclu concluded with the barcity dinner in the past week which celebrated all rhs students accomplishments as individuals and teams the battle of the Bulldog spring volleyball tournament is approaching within a month where teams of students and a teacher will compete against each other in games to support the Special Olympics the fashion show for the senior class was February 7th where they raised money for the graduating class and their Project Graduation coming in Spring to celebrate the new season the pepper is in two weeks following spirit week so students Council picked themes for each grade to dress as including themes such as Country and music genre and each week each day of the week students of each grade dress in their specific genre and then this participation earns them points which will be counted at the end of the week at the pep rally similarly there's links for life where each grade can buy paper links and support the student council foundation and money towards it so the schoolwide event is a fun time for ours students to compete and then also support a good cause similarly the rhs band and Irish Club March in the art in the wetherford St Patrick's Day Parade to show their support and their roles in the school the musical is this Friday and Saturday Friday's opening night and Saturday there's two shows other accomplish to not accomplishments to note three Rs students took top places in the NJ PTA contest where they shared their talents in literature and Film Production another student won an award for her Film Production in the Elks drug awareness contest foreign like these make rhs proud and we look forward to accomplishment like this in in the future so thank you if you have any questions thank you miss bimson any questions I just want to say that the Varsity Sports award dinner was great and you're very humble because you were acknowledged uh so congratulations on all your successes thank you um so quick question you you always have very well-rounded reports um that you know speak to Athletics Arts extracurriculars so what are your what are your sources do you speak to students or how do you sort of Channel all your information yeah so some of my friends I get a lot of the band in play from one of my friends because she's in the choir and the band um a lot of times students will post on R high too which is like the newspaper committee that like students can make articles about and so that'll be like current things I kind of just ask around people friends teachers got it no you do a really nice job thank you for sharing all those things what about this was great booster that's in the program the booster club that was I don't know who writes it but that's in the program at you s about the athletic yeah that came out of the program The Night of the dinner oh envelope okay no it came out of the it was well done yeah we get that every time but I thought to um Poppy's comment it was a particularly um uh successful season both for teams but also individual accomplishments again Dr lies being humble his sun set a School record um as did other students and uh swimming sexual Championship which is really challenging thing for sexual championship in any sport but swimming in particular um so there were a lot of really outstanding accomplishments that I thought to share share with everyone um but that's usually in the background also I I think you mentioned I'm not sure if you did or not the academic cathline did you mention academic cathline oh no no academic cathline came in second um in theate State uh they were the defending state champions but they've been first or second probably five or six times over the last uh 12 12 13 years um they don't go on to the only one school goes on to the inperson Nationals but they go on to a online national competition so um it's it really is against the strongest some of the strongest high schools uh in the in the region of the state to come out in the top every year is remarkable for the students and for Mr nzi who's been at the helm for over 20 years with all this success so congratulations to them as well yeah not to uh keep going with track but I I think there was a big uptick in enrollment in the winter track field team as well which was really interesting yeah yeah and that was the thing that was interested to the number of participants in a lot of the sports uh increased a lot of the uh accomplishments for a lot of the sports increased uh speaking of the academic cathal just last year our distinguished grad graduate was Ramy YF um who I think was class in 2012 U maybe 13 I don't remember exactly I was principal here at the time Ramy was a presenter last night the Academy Awards uh the movie he was in uh won several Academy Awards uh um I can't think of the name of it now uh pretty little things and he is going to be the host of Saturday Night Live on March 30th yep so that's not that long ago he was sitting in your chair think he might have been was he a board rep yeah he was a board rep yeah so 12 years we I expect to see you hosting see you on The Tonight Show he's going to be in the Olympics okay thank you well they can host too awesome well thank you for your report uh always enjoy that portion of the evening uh you can feel free to stay we're going to have a preliminary uh uh budget presentation if you'd like to stay for that or if you have other things you need to attend to we understand um all right well thank thank you have a good evening thank you have a good night all right so we are going to move on now to a special presentation for the preliminary budget presentation uh by Mr Kelly just to begin want to thank Mr Kelly Mr Hurley and the finance committee uh as well as the building and grounds Committee just for their uh work that they've done on uh putting together the preliminary budget um and for the transparency and all the things that are going to be in there uh so turn it over to Mr Kelly thank you very much can you hear me here uh this will be pretty quick I think we've had multiple meetings with the finance committee and with the buildings and grounds committee so I think most of the board knows what to expect ECT here um as always we start the budget process by considering our objectives for the following school year in this case 24 25 we certainly want to maintain our current programs and build upon them whenever possible we need to review our staffing needs we provide for facilities improvements maintenance and repairs and uh in addition the last couple years have have provided these other two objectives we need to consider one is the SR funding when we received the yes or funding had to submit applications we made it a point to make sure we did not to the extent possible we did not put any recurring expenditures in those grants uh because then once the grants go away then you're you're eliminating a program or you've got to find a way to pay for it um so we were generally successful in doing that there were a couple uh programs the EXL and the uh the newella that were paid for using the Esser funds and the teachers got a lot of value out of them so we've we've had to incorporate them into the budget uh so like I said I think yeah we did a good job with Esser and we just did non-recurring funds um but uh there were a couple things that uh that slipped through but you know as long as they're making good use of it I'm happy to try and find the money in addition the inflationary pressures of the last couple years are are still present they have eased somewhat so we have to consider you know pricing and and costs going forward sources of funds as always the lion shares the local tax levy we'll get into that in a second we also have state aid uh we have federal aid I'm not going to discuss that that is really just our ESA funds and the idea funds uh neither one of the well no that's not true esca does not impact the budget so whatever we Budget on the revenue side we budget for when the expenditure side it's going to wash if we don't spend it it goes back uh the idea we have budgeted about $530,000 and we do use that to offset our outer District tuition costs so so that's a real benefit to us um but that's all I'm going to say about federal aid and then miscellaneous we'll talk about that a little bit when I get there local oh you can't read this uh local tax levy we start with a base of 2023 24 the current year and you can see that for the general operating budget find it we have a base of uh 40 9 no for 467 46,700 th000 that's the budget the tax levy that was approved at these meetings last year so that that just carries forward to that we have as you know a 2% tax levy cap so we add 2% to that um and then we look at allowable adjustments those are uh adjustments that the state does permit you to increase your tax levy beyond the 2% uh and these are things that that are costs are generally escalate more than 2% in our case the only thing that pertains here is our health benefits we have budgeted an increase for next year based on the recommendation over our advisers of 10% so the 2% is obviously not going to cover that the allowable adjustment of $275,000 is intended to to get us over that particular Finish Line that adds another 2.6 excuse me6 to the uh uh tax levy increase for a total of 2.6% on the general operating The Debt Service tax levy that's not up for discussion here today because that's already agreed to committed to and uh you know that is what it is again we start with last year's number which is uh 3,19 th000 uh the only change is contractual in nature so it's the obligations of our our uh principal and interest for the 2425 school year so those are reduced by about $31,000 which brings us to a total debt service tax levy of 3,078 uh you can see the totals there and I'm having trouble reading them but it gives us a net tax increase of 2.4% the allowable adjustments we just talked about I have a few examples up there enrollment ours enrollment is is has been very flat the last few years so we don't we don't get any benefit from that in terms of the tax levy couple other things there responsibility shifted to or from another entity I don't know who's doing that but we can get some credit for that if we do that um and as we said last year that 2% cap is somewhat supportable in times of low inflation but that's not where we are right now so it becomes more problematic when uh inflation uh rears its ugly head as they say uh inflationary pressures like I mentioned health insurance premiums uh we came in about 9% increase this year and we're anticipating 10% for next year uh salaries uh most of these are already contracted the uh Rea uh we are entering into the third year of the three-year agreement there so those numbers are carved in stone and that's a 3% increase other insurances are going up 10% that's workers comp that's property that's uh uh anything else we have so that's about $40,000 state aid uh you probably saw this in the news about 10 days ago that was our number the up top there is our number for this year $3,148 th000 uh we can expect an increase of 7.1% for next year that's about 223 $3,000 which brings us up to 3,371 uh, uh this is all subject to the uh approval of the assembly down in Trenton so we'll see how that goes but uh but generally that's that's not an issue the history of state aid uh this is a little difficult to see here but you see the little blue bars at the bottom those are those represent state aid over the last 20 years or so and you see it's generally pretty far flat uh prettyy consistent year after year there was a little dip in I think that's 1011 and that's when Governor Christie came in and you remember he pushed through some uh some cuts um and our budget that reflected in our total budget as well uh but generally we're on you know an upward path I mean that's kind of what we want to see because uh you know it reflects the reality that prices go up and uh you know we want to maintain our programs so um so the orange bar s the the taller ones are the general operating budget year after year after year so that those are the ones I'm referring to that we do ideally like to see that that slight upward trajectory throughout the years uh the the squiggly line across the middle that is the percent of that's a state aid as a percent of the budget so you see 20 years ago we were up at 10% uh the percentages are on the right hand side of that screen uh so 20 years ago the state was contributing 10% of of our general operating budget uh it bounced around a little bit then there and then the lowest point is when uh Governor Christie came in and he did cut state aid dramatically at that point we were down at about 4% of our general operating budget uh since then it jumped up over a couple years it's been relatively flat at about 6% uh year after year there this year it's about 6.3% and it is slightly higher and that's because there was a 7% increase in state aid for next year that has been uh has been committed to uh miscellaneous sources of of funds uh there's a number of these um excess Surplus this this is an audited number that comes out of the audit of our 2022 23 financial statements uh and that number has to go into the next budget development process which is this one right now so last year was $500,000 we had to build into the 2324 budget now we're looking at 468 ,000 to build into the 2425 budget that is in there um that is a TR trajectory I do want to see a slight decrease year after year after year ideally I'd prefer not to have this at all because when we look at the budget surplus for the year following the audit what's left I'd like to put into capital reserve so they can work on some projects here so um so that's my goal every year is to work that down and and sometimes I'm more successful than others uh capital reserve U we'll get have a whole slide on that you'll see exactly what's in there for next year it's about 1.6 million last year it was 3 million um that's that that that swing doesn't really impact anything the money this money is coming directly from our capital reserve account and there are specific projects that total up to those amounts last year the 3 million that was primarily the field out here that was about 2.3 million um so this doesn't have any impact on any of the other spending because it's coming from a separate pool of money the capital reserve fund um but it is a source of revenues for our budget as we move forward in addition we have the Bulldog Academy they've been very successful and we are uh we are uh building some of that those proceeds into the budget as well uses of funds no surprises here challenges and assumptions you know Staffing is an issue salary increases are like I said not much of an issue this year because the Rea you know it's 3% uh we have salary guides for that we know exactly what what those members will be uh getting next year uh we are in negotiations as you know for the administrators and the supervisors so that uh you know we've tried to put a number in there that makes some sense based on uh how those negotiations are going health benefits premiums we talked about that already we're going up about 10% for next year uh technology needs I have a a slide for that uh out of District placements I can talk about that and facil maintenance that's an ongoing challenge but we're addressing that with the capital reserve funds and I'll get to that in a second Personnel uh staff not not only teaching staff all staff we have quite a few retirements this year um so that's enabled us to uh uh maintain some of our programs uh for our needs in terms of staffing needs for next year the budget now includes a uh an additional one FTE science teacher for the high school uh in addition the Kindergarten Center we currently have a 084 uh RTI teacher I think it is going up to a 1.0 it's not a big swing in terms of salary dollars but this does make this person eligible for benefits but uh there is a need for a full-time RTI teacher and at the district LEL we're looking into uh hiring two full-time painters uh we got a lot of requ requests from every school this year to paint the buildings hallways classrooms um and we used to be on a schedule every year we do one school and we rotate throughout we kind of fell off that the last couple years I'm not quite sure how that happened but we are we are off that um so we're looking and you know this is subject to change uh but bring in a couple painters work to 3 to 11 shift plan out paint jobs for them throughout all schools throughout the school year classrooms hallways everything so uh that's that's something we're talking about uh teacher assistance we've budgeted what we need uh that's subject to change throughout the year as uh student needs change so we keep that in mind we try and build a little extra in there just to cover that uh technology and equipment needs we are leaning into uh the use of leases uh these are lease purchase agreements uh for next year we have significant technology needs and I know the uh uh the strategic planning committee is aware of this but the core switch the switches at high school and Union Middle School need to be placed they're at end of life right now uh cabling we have applied for e-rate funding that's a federal program to support schools uh technology plans uh that brings us 348,000 uh the needs for those uh those items but we're looking at a 5year lease so there's a $73,500 lease payment built into the budget the 348,000 is not in the budget um similarly Chromebooks we lease these every year so four or five 5 year lease and then as the old one rolls off we we enter into a new lease agreement on that uh this is for I think it was first and ninth grades um fouryear lease on this one $35,000 a year uh we also have need for a school bus uh by law once the school bus assuming there are no exceptions provided by the state which there are not right now uh once the school bus hits 15 years it has to come off the road so we have one coming off the road in December of this year we're looking to replace it so we'll get that moving over the summer that's about it's a 54 passenger bus it's $125,000 we'll lease that over five years be about $26,000 a year and that brings our total lease obligation assuming all these go through as I'm as I've laid out here to about $350,000 our annual lease obligation and like I said every year some roll off and we enter into a few more uh out of District placements we touched on that a second ago uh some students are classified as special needs through their IEPs um specialized programs are not always available in District we have to look outside of the district uh to provide those services our first uh Port of Call is the southb and jointure commission that's a as you know a uh Public School District uh it serves South Bergen County um and they provide a lot of special Ed programs for students they also do a lot of trans a lot of hour Transportation um and and some other uh Cooperative type uh uh Services as well uh if they can't help us we go to other public school districts uh these are generally the least expensive options uh but if if we can't make that happen then we have to go out to a private school for students with disabilities those are more expensive they typically need uh require uh higher transportation cost to get the kid out there kids out there um and often uh well with all any of these kids often there are extraordinary services that are needed OT or PT or nursing so you know we we we do what we have to do but we do look for the most coste effective way to do that did you what years does the jointure serve how old the what grade is all of them prek up through 12 yeah yeah so having said that this is what our out of District placements look like over the last 20 years the blue bars are the uh are the tuition dollars budgeted year for year uh you see you know from 20 years ago we had a you know pretty significant and uh consistent increase it maxed out in I think that's 1516 at that point we did introduced a couple of IND District programs so we were able to bring a lot of those kids back so that reduced our tuition uh in uh expenditures dramatically the red line the red squiggly line going across the top is the number of students who are currently or placed out of District in each of those years you see it's down significantly for next year that's the plan we do have a couple of extra spots budgeted in there just in case but we've had a lot of students graduating this year and quite a few moving out of District as well so that's that explains that that decrease just a little history on that uh facilities needs there's that you saw that number before the 1.5970 uh this is the roof on the overlooking the playground on the back side of the original building um it's been leaking like a Civ so uh we'll get that done too uh Union School the UN event Replacements we've talked about this this is the SDA grant that we're eligible for which is about $160,000 this project is about $400,000 this will replace I think eight univ events in in eight classrooms at Union uh we have to demonst R in the budget that we have the money for our share the 240,000 so um I'll be letting the uh the SDA know that tomorrow but that is our share of that project that is that we're already working toward uh minor roof repairs at uh the high school and then uh this was uh Mr gamboa's uh major request his biggest priority HVAC and plumbing Renovations throughout the district uh we got things springing leaks all over the place um hbac issues all over the place so uh um I asked them to document it uh buildings and grounds committee has already had this conversation um but we want to just see if we can knock it out in one fell Su this summer so uh uh it's a situ situations throughout the district where there'll be a pipe in the basement that Springs a lake we patch it and 10 feet down the line it Springs a lake again so the whole thing has to be has to be looked at and replaced in addition there's the SDA assessment that's uh when the the schools Development Authority when they go out to bond to pay for all these projects throughout the state now they're pushing their principal and interest payments back to us and every every District not just us this has been in the budget for the last 12 to 15 years this exact same number so uh uh so we have to you know factor that into the budget too uh so next steps uh March 11th that's today is um asking for your your approval so that I can submit it to the county office uh it's due by March 20th um and then 29th is the public hearing on the budget at that point I will have heard back from the state if they have any concerns any changes they've I don't remember them ever changing the budget they may have asked for different documentation but it's never resulted in a change to what you're approving but at that point assuming everything's under control I'll ask uh for the board to approve final approval on the budget and then the next day we'll go out and uh and put it into place any questions on any of that Diane we're not buying an electric bus although we being Ur no we don't have the infrastructure to handle an electric bus um we're even you as you know on a day-to-day basis we're not quite clear where we can store the buses so you know the electric needs the uh you know the plugins and it needs to recharge overnight so we just asking not yet okay not yet not yet Mr spr just what you saide Mr yourself presentation of what needs to be done in the Aging District what we doing so oh thank you standpoint getting those that that amount of Renovations done or repairs done at one time be a huge on yes yeah and focus on bigger things yeah absolutely thank you nice job oh thank you Dr ol uh yeah not th really thorough presentation two quick questions so the the bus lease you said the shelf life about 15 years so we lease a bus for five years then what happens well that hours so then we own it we own it Finance basically yeah we we cannot we are prohibited from entering into a lease any longer than five years normally you try and match these up with the expected lifespan so we try and do it over 15 years we're not allowed to do that so like the uh the switches that you saw there that was a fiveyear lease you know that should match pretty closely to the lifespan of those switches ter the thing is these are all leases to own got it yes oh yeah all of them I'm thinking about like car ownership Finance own yeah these all have a $1 purchase option at the end of the lease so that's an exceptionally good lease rate then it's only $5,000 more than Yeah Yeah well yeah well we go you know we we pursue that competitively too so when it comes time to get a bus we go out we look at State contracts we look at um uh Cooperative purchasing agreements to get the best price on the bus and then we do the same thing for the financing so uh so that's good Matt must be on the finance committee that was for James he's not paying attention uh the quick uh other question you you mentioned the the two full-time painters so is the vision for that role for a year or is it kind ideally that would be like just permanent up until about um 15 years ago maybe 12 years ago we had painters as part of our maintenance there was there there was their job um now that we still used to bring in outside vendors if we were doing a major major you know project in the summer but for the most part they were able to keep up on things and and if there was a little lull from painting they would they would pitch in with other you know maintenance kind of projects so having someone on staff um is not we we had it for a long time um but in that year probably was the year that you saw the big dip the Christy cut year where we had to roll back on a lot of custodial and maintenance staff and uh we cut back on painters so um it certainly would be able to get things done in a more timely fashion if there was a tremendous need you know um but I think we would just kind of assess it right on a year-to-year basis to see uh are we getting bang for the buck for it so and I I think also it's important to note that uh each of the schools put into their budget some funds for painting if we were able to do them all by hiring a painter a painting service to come in and take care of it over the summer we' be talking about close to half a million dollars yeah um so we try to in the past to just one a year one school a year say 60 70,000 and get that done but they're all in desperate need of painting so I you we thought this was you know the best way to approach it and you know we'll take a crack at it go thank you anything else I'm just going to note the lack of the Sally Slide Can you can you make sure you're no we talked about that no that's that'll go in in the April 29th meeting dollar side I think is salary side I thought that was the Greg SL I think we renamed that it's James slide we good any other any other questions again I want to thank Joe and his staff and U the administrators as well who contribute you know their building budgets and U it's always a challenge to project a year out and it's also a challenge to try to fit all these 3% and 5% and 10% into two% cap and um you know we managed to do that I'm I'm proud to say that um we in the 10 or 11 years that we both have sat in these chairs oops dropping our pin uh we have not had a cut anything we've been able to add despite the the U the constraints that we face and a lot of it has to do with creative financing the leasing um you know looking at different ways to get the job done so I want to thank um Mr Kelly and and his whole staff and like I said all the I mean he's the major driver but there's so many people have their hands in in the budget and the board's finance committee and building a grounds committee as well for working with us on the development of it absolutely thank you yeah thank you Mr Kelly ditto uh now turn it over to Mr Hurley for the report of the superintendent uh very brief report poppy he covered a lot of what I was going to say about some of the students accomplishments he she didn't mention the high school play coming up this weekend she mentioned uh the um there will be awards that students have won both individually and collectively so um and I put all of that in or most of that into the communication uh that I sent out with the board packet so you can see where that's coming uh Summer enrichmond Academy will be up and running again this summer at Lincoln School um uh that's where we house it and uh it's open to K to3 students Rising K to3 students April 1 I think the message already went out April 1 is the U or will be going out in the next day or two April 1st is when registration begins tuition will be the same as it's been since I think 2019 I want to thank the uh Rea M Spix's here for their um March Badness food and fun day uh unfortunately this is the second year in a row that I was out trying to assign teachers and staff up in the job fair but I'm sure Colleen I'm sure it was like every other year right well attended and really lots of people great great and and the thing is you know two cans of food or two boxes of food uh at least from every person that comes in that goes to the food pantry so that's a a great accomplishment so thank you and thank everyone for that and thank the community for uh coming out and supporting that um I think everything else I was going to mention I went over when poppy was speaking or I jumped in and uh added to it uh we will be having some committee meetings on April 1st um I think we mentioned that curriculum in instruction that we're going to be having a bunch of those meetings going forward so I'm thinking we're going to do one there um I'm not sure hopefully you know nothing goes arve with the county that we need a finance committee meeting but if we need it we'll have one and uh Personnel will be meeting usually that meeting before the May meeting uh we we have a meeting to review items there okay so I I'll be sending all this out to you ahead of time so you know when we're meeting when we're not meeting okay and that's it for me tonight all right thank I'll make some comments too various segments there some things I want to mention when we get to a part in the agenda all right questions or comments Mr early hearing none move on to the report of the president uh first off you know I think uh as a board of ed um we know that the wetherford Education Foundation raises money um for the district that's not supported by the uh school budget and so uh couple of events coming up probably shouldn't mention the Wizards game because it gets sold out in about 10 minutes after it goes online but it is uh it's sold out okay won't mention the DAT great uh wine tasting is on April 27th um so for those who are interested um we've got a couple of uh members who are also in the RAF um it's always great event um again supports the schools uh as we're getting toward the final part of the school year a reminder Rutherford High School graduation anyone know the date June 20 something Thursday June 20th so please please mark your calendars Thursday June 20th we're getting into those final uh final months it was great to have everyone there uh this past year um wanted to thank everyone who is serving on the uh negotiation groups that are working with the Raa and RSA on their uh their contract negotiation appreciate everyone's time and strategic efforts uh I wanted to let everyone know I believe a bit of housekeeping on March 10th uh you all should have gotten an email about submitting Financial disclosure uh statements completing those uh so just make sure to do that the deadlines March 25th which is in a couple of weeks so uh essentially when you download the PDF you can actually complete everything on the PDF and then save it and uh submit it online um so just make sure to get those done next year is a qac year and so they look at this year's things that we did so it's important every year but just make sure to get those in on time uh and then finally just wanted to say that njsba has uh a lot of workshops out there um so it's worth going on checking your board emails every now and then there's one on March 16th about finances and fundraising uh one on May May 10th on public relations skills uh and how to be sort of stewards of the district as communicators so if anyone's interested any of that uh PD feel free to let me know that's it any questions all right hearing none then we are going to open the meeting to the public for any items related to the agenda at 7:40 p.m. uh any items seeing none going to close the meeting at 7:40 p.m. and now we're going to move on to new business where there is action to be taken and we will start with Personnel Mrs Cole good evening there are 27 motions to be forward tonight um number one and two are resignations number three is the approval of of Miss Jessica Saxon to be the elementary school principal at Washington School effect of July 1st 2024 to replace Mr B M number four is to approve Jacqueline gagliardo as director of guidance effect of July 1st 2024 to replace Dr Shannon Hopkins number five is to approve Tamara Lee as a confidential assistant to the business administrator effective March 29th 2024 number six is to approve Samuel leut as the physics physical science teacher for Rutherford High School effective September 1st 2024 number seven to approve Vanessa calello as the art teacher for Union Middle School effective September 20 uh September 1st 2024 and number eight to approve Cecilia andler as the confidential administrative assistant registar in the superintendent's office effed effective April 8th 2024 this is a replacement position number nine to approve the head custodian for the kindergarten center number 10 through 13 is the approval of long-term substitutes number 14 is to approve the coordinator of the Bulldog CARE program for the district number 15 and 16 and 17 are to approve transfers number 19 to approve the following coaching assignments as listed number 20 to resend approve the following Middle School co-curricular assignments as listed number 21 to approve the coordinator of the summer Enrichment Academy number 22 to approve the following teacher re revision and edate curriculum for the summer Enrichment Academy as listed number 23 approve an extension in dates for disability leave with pay uh number 24 is to approve a long-term substitute teacher assistant at Pier Pon School number 25 to approve the following substitute teachers as listed and number 26 is to approve the following substitute teacher assistance as listed and number 27 to approve the following travel reimbursements as listed all right thank you Mrs Cole we need to note any of the changes that got okay uh any comments want to make Mr yeah I'd like to just um first of all um acknowledge um this is the first time we haven't had a retirement on the agenda for quite a while uh but I do want to um very pleased to welcome back uh to the district um you know Jackie gagliardo um as the new director of guidance she began her career here in Rutherford at the high school as a guidance counselor about 12 or 13 years ago uh was here for a short period of time then moved on and comes back to us with several years of director experience so we welcome her back I'm very pleased that M Jessica Saxon will be moving into the role as principal of Washington School uh has been in the district since 2008 and in the last five years has been the assistant principal of Pon and the board got to uh hear from her this year uh when the Committees were here to report and um also a b a new bulldo care um director um Mr Salvo that's you know that's an important job um but the uh we need a replacement position she's been with us since the beginning so uh we have a lot of of of key people coming in of the next couple of months and I'm pleased that we're able to bring forward Some solid candidates uh to the board all right questions or comments all right Mrs Cole do you want to move those yes I would like to move motions 1 through 27 under Personnel okay do we have a second all right Mr kti any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Kelly please take roll Mr ban yes Mrs Cole yes Mr Cony yes Mr Healey uh yes to all but abstaining from motion 27 item three thank you thank you Mrs Jones yes Mr mazone yes Dr rine yes Mr Sprayberry yes Dr a yes motions carried thank you all right uh now that it's officially approved first want to congratulate again Mr Mahi and Dr Hopkins and all their great work and because these are two big senior positions very excited about uh Mr gag from everything you said and Mrs axon for all her accomplishments in the district it's going to be really exciting um so we are going to move on now to curriculum and instruction Mr Jones thank you um we did have a meeting on March 4th on curriculum instruction um Mr Hurley Christina Cole Dr alot Mr Charles Ryan my s and Mr Mone could not make it um the main thing that was discussed and it's mostly important is the new math program that will be uh the board is approving it's the envisions taking place from the older one which was U math and focus uh there were curriculum uh approvals in ela throughout the um grades and lots of uh rhs uh I guess a lot of them are are electors are they public speaking reading and so forth the prek and K uh kindergarten program is is uh filling up nicely and summer programs are set there are six resolutions number one is the approval of the math series uh from Invision mathematics to two well a same part of that one is the curriculum for approval mostly English ones Ela and then um honors English on as listed uh two is out of of District placements three is field trips total in 130 four and five is uh harassment Foundation bully decision and six is home instruction for two students all right thank you um I just want to say that I was really impressed during the last curriculum instruction meeting listening to Mr Ryan and Mr Hurley's walk us through a lot of uh updates and you know the methodology the thinking uh that went into this based on committee work I thought it was uh really helpful to hear the r now and get a deeper understanding uh questions or comments I believe is five not six is the U the harassment intimidation bully got carried over the next page oh number four um and and one other just to comment on what Mrs Jones read and talked about from the committee what Dr Lotti just added over the next three or four months you're going to see these um massive curriculum approvals because of the new standards that came out in language arts particularly and also math permeate the other subject areas so they touch other areas as well so there's going to be uh several of these bulk uh curriculum uh approvals and that's why we're going to have a lot of curriculum instruction committee meetings to kind of review them ahead of those approvals uh we want to have everything in place um well ahead of September again drot alluded to the fact that we are in the qac cycle next year so we want to make sure everything is done in a timely fashion all right uh M Jones do you want to move those thank you I move resolutions one through five all right instruction thank you we have a second Mr beian any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Kelly please take rooll Mr bosan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr Cony yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr maone yes Dr rine yes Mr Sprayberry yes Dr olot yes motion is carried thank you all right uh we will move on now to finance Mr bosan the uh finance committee met last Monday to review the status of the budget development where we discussed the key drivers uh of the budget along with updated state aid figures tonight we have uh 13 motions to consider number one is to approve submission of the tenative budget to the NJ doe number two is for the district travel budget number three is submission of the semi program corrective action plan number four is routine approval of bills number five is the contracted service agreement with South Bergen jointure for various Services number six is an agreement with South Bergen jointure for Transportation uh numbers 7 through nine are parent transportation reimbursements number 10 is to accept with gratitude a donation of $2,000 to the Heroes and Cool Kids program for the from the ruford Elks number 11 is to accept with gratitude donation of Lacrosse equipment from the Rutherford Lacrosse Association uh number 12 is a lease to buy agreements for six photocopiers uh please note that the agenda States the finance rate was 3.5% however it is actually 5.9 uh and number 13 is the purchase of the district's new math curriculum all right thank you questions or comments I just want to thank the Elks every year since the Inception of um f and cool kids which goes back to probably about 2008 um or so they have um come up with this donation to help partially fund the program which I think is a valuable program for both the high school kids who participate and the students in Pon who they go and visit and also the Lacrosse Association for Their donation um uh which was appreciated obviously um very much by the coaches and the athletes and the athletic public thanks can can you just describe number three semi corrective action plan that yeah uh that's a a mandated State mandated program the special education Medicaid initiative um there are certain uh parameters certain uh uh objectives that are expected of a school district and a lot of it has to do with uh reaching out to parents contacting eligible parents and getting responses back from those parents which is not the easiest thing to do and that all leads into what we do get reimbursed from uh from the semi program so uh know we do make those efforts but it's it's largely out of our hands so this is an annual motion that we're asked to do got it all right thank you any other questions or comments Mr Sprayberry on 13 the math program it says just want to make sure I'm reading right it says at 57 SCH years at a total cost of 34600 903 is that for each year or no no no that's total five year okay I said total call but I just want to make sure I read That's everything yes any other questions all right Mr you want to move just to clarify it's actually a sixy year because it's this year and then five subsequent years yes yes so it's a sixy year program right like to move motions 1 through 13 under Finance all right we have a second Mr Sprayberry any last questions or comments hearing none uh Mr Kelly please take roll Mr Mogan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr KY yes on 1 through1 and 12 through 13 abstaining on 11 thank you Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr maone yes Dr rine yes Mr Sprayberry yes Dr body yes motions carried thank you all right thank you uh we're going to move on now to policy Mr Healey walk us through it yes uh we did not have a committee meeting since our last board meeting uh but we did correspond with the administration and received responses to our questions uh there's one resolution with 19 policies and their regulations uh for this evening to be put forth uh the majority of the uh policy changes have to do um with the categories special categories which are were embedded into most of the policies which are now going to be centralized you know through a provider has given us that direction so that's the majority of the change itself regarding Equity to those conditions that's it all right thank you any I mean it's it's it's really a antic um change uh most of the policy language didn't change at all uh it's the citation reference that changed in code that added a few more categories to protective classes uh The Only Exception um is the uh sports related concussion and head injuries which uh they they review that every couple years and U tweak it a bit but Mr Frasier who's on the uh various State and National committees that bring forward a lot of these we're usually ahead of the curve even before the the policy gets enacted just want to I want to give you a shout out Mr you always has really good clarifying questions I feel like I don't have any questions after you've asked yourself M Mr Hurley has patience and he does respond to um and this is the first reading just so right right first reading of two any other questions or comments hearing none Mr Le do you want to move those yes I would like to go forward with this put forward this resolution all right we have a second Mr maone any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Kelly please take rooll Mr bagoan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr Cony yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes M Mr maone yes Dr rine yes Mr Sprayberry yes Dr aot yes motion carried thank you all right thanks we're going to move on now to building and grounds Mr Sprayberry good evening uh we did not have a board buildings ground committee meeting um we have four resolutions to put forward this evening uh number one the SDA Grant agreement which Mr Kelly covered uh in his budget presentation the ston wall repairs uh for the at the new field back here here um the submission of approval for the PSA long range Capital Improvement plan uh to for the permission for PSA to submit to the state and then waivers of fees uh for Project Graduation to use two buses uh uh for uh the 2024 Year all right thank you questions or comments Mr Sprayberry uh Mr Kelly could you clarify with the PSA long range submitted have they prepared a plan already they're finalizing it right now it's a a state requirement um every 5 years there has to be a new long range facilities plan I think the capital Improvement plan is a new addition onto that but it is a state requirement it was last on in uh 2019 so okay does it typically have any budget impact or something no what it what it really is is kind of a wish list of everything you'd like to do over the next five years through the buildings you're not committed to anything it's you can amend it if there's something else that comes up that you'd like to add into it and at the end of the five years you do it again and okay so and it's a rather as Mr Kelly said it's a rather uh large list because you want to project if if it's in the plan then you could go ahead at the time you know it's not in the plan sometimes you have to go to an amendment to get it added to the plan so um it often comes out with a very Hefty total price but that's not that's only if you choose or need to do those items thank you all right um Mr Sprayberry do you want to move this I'd like to move the four resolutions uh as for the superintendent for board's approval all right and we have a second uh Mr Hy any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Kelly please take roll Mr Mr ban yes Mrs Cole yes Mr Cony yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr maone yes Dr rine yes Mr Sprayberry yes Dr aot yes motions carried thank you all right thank you we're going to move on now to Old business M Jones uh last Tuesday night Mr fi um Mrs call and myself went to um it was actually held at be school it was Bergen County's unsung heroes 55 students from Burton County from different schools were honored their principles or guidance counselors speaking for them um in our case Olivia Griggs gon couldn't make it so Christina Co spoke our student was McKenzie of Lancaster who was a wonderful girl I know her we all you know her she's she's quite a student but it was such a moving ceremony for so many um students had such hardships besides the possib abilities of something visually uh handicapped but so many lost up par this year and still were able to you know to endure and and Achieve I I was moved with the whole thing it was quite good long three hours but uh really really wonderful I'm hoping that next year we have you know we can go again it was good very nice thank you any other old business no just on note when McKenzie was being honored and they put the screen up go ahead I'm at the podium and I'm looking I'm like Rutherford I'm like they had ruford Rams and had like the ram mascot yeah I want to thank Mr bid for um sending the Bulldog out to the uh organizer of the event so that we replace him with the the ram but then it only got like half the bulldog and the but I said to you right half the Bulldog is better than a whole Ram right anything else under old business all right uh move on to legislative update Mr Jones uh yes it is two ones that that make me laugh uh a 3677 which was uh sent to the education committee on February 12th 24 so that's just recently provides any super superintendent salary caps adopted by the commissioner of Education will apply to Charter School administrators I thought that that might be an interesting one to follow that one the beron county faic rep and um a district five when William Pearson well name there three Democrats and the other one a 3665 requires public schools to include instruction cursive rifle back up again well you see that that's that's an archaic law because that's now in the new standards so you have to do it now that's the Jones clause in the new standards well you know I was told that the other one was never going to go through because it was not enough backing for it's there the standards we have well actually the standards doesn't say curse of writing it says writing allows you to choose but I think here in Rutherford we know what we're going to deal with if we don't choose cursive the ever increasing Reliance on computers and related Technologies has left students with keyboarding skills skills but look but lacking the abilities to read in curs they're more upset that they can't read in C than write it so I don't know we'll see where it goes but I just found that interesting back up all right thank you made is the sponsor of that bill in your District that you voted no well there's it's we're gonna have to say kind of but Gary um share yeah here thank you all right thank you uh at 8:02 PM we're going to open the meeting to the public for anything related to or not related to the agenda this evening anything for us all right uh hearing nothing we're going to close the meeting at 8:03 pm. and we do have a need for an executive session for one student issue two contract issues no action to be taken be out for about 10-1 15 minutes uh so need a motion to go into executive session Mr Sprayberry seconded by Mr maone thank you oh all in favor I I all right