good evening call to order the February 6th meeting of Board of Education this time I'm going to read the public notice because I couldn't find it before in accordance with chapter 231 PL law 1975 this public meeting of the Sao board of education has been established by Sen a copy of the public meeting notice to the home News Tribune and the Star Ledger in addition copies of the announcement of the meeting have been sent to the burrow Clerk and a copy of the notice of the meeting has also been posted on the bulletin board outside the office of the secretary of the board please rise II to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all M holl call Mr Callahan yes here Mr Esposito here Mr Fernandez here Mrs napalitano here Mrs pone here miss pyck here Mr Smith here Mr Walsh here and Mrs Bloom here uh will you please summarize ex session yes the board discussed person including but not limited to agenda items grievance 2023-24 col 2 and matters falling under attorney client privilege any correspondence that we need to know about no okay I now need a motion to approve the minutes from the January 23rd meeting so moved second so I have Mr Smith and then Mrs pone yes sure um okay Mr Callahan yes Mr Esposito yes Mr Fernandez yes Mrs napalitano yes Mrs Pavone yes Miss pylo yes Mr Smith yes Mr Walsh yes Mrs Bloom yes okay and now to the nicest part of our meeting no one should take offense our student council representative thank you good evening board here are the events that have been happening at SW MHS over the past weeks The Freshman tip off was a great success in exposing the class of 2028 to all of our extending clubs activities and sports that they can be a part of in the future then parents were given the opportunity to learn about course opportunities and general school information in the auditorium congratulations to my chemistry teacher Miss booi for being crowned February's teacher of the month she most definitely deserves the honor and Domino's Pizza day was a big hit in the high school during our lunch instead of the regular menu items we could purchase a slice of dominoes and the students absolutely loved it moving on the sports congratulations to jamah Mayers for individual bowling GMC title girls basketball is 1- 21 boys swimming finished out the season 2 and four and girls swimming ended with a record of 4 to3 the wrestling team ended their season with a record of 11 to9 congratulations to Connor Walsh for his GMC title in the 285 weight class boys basketball is 14- seven coming off an 80 to 53 win over Steiner they are currently playing their first GMC game so good luck Boys in terms of ongoing activities student council is organizing a who's your match fundraiser in which students fill out a short questionnaire about their qualities and interests then during lunch students will have the opportunity to pay $2 to reveal the identity of their perfect match just in time for Valentine season and on February 29th the swmhs will be hosting a dodgeball tournament to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and light the nights there will be teams consisting of teachers alumni and students and it's definitely going to be a tournament to remember that's all I have for your board thank you thank you very much excellent job as always appreciate it and Ashton isn't with us tonight so uh we will move on uh I have no comments at this time Madam vice president do you have any comments at this time okay and we will now Dr lbby move on to our stimulating I have no comments at this time good yes we are going to resume discussing the 2024 2025 budget you're going to hear presentations this evening from our special education department led by Mr naster as well as our athletics department led by Miss badami in fact I would like to ask Miss badami to join us at the podium for her presentation thank youer good evening everyone uh thanks for having me back um I my presentation is pretty short uh and for those of you who've been here throughout the eight years that I've been here um when I talk about uh accomplishments and goals uh I always talk about the very first one and it was the very first one I had the very first year and that's equal distribution to all programs equity and um I think we've done a tremendous job as a board as a school system to continuously rotate with cheerleading um track wrestling mats Nets um you know some things that are coming down in the future we're going to need bleachers and goals and um bullpens and sleds pitching machines golf carts so um the coaches do a great job um now running their budget by projecting through those five years and give me those things so we can have a good rotation so we're not blindsided um we can't always predict um you know we've been hit pretty hard with the pandemic which put a killer on um uh helmets both for lacrosse and football so those are always hard things to predict um but we've done a pretty good job trying to manage and rotate those through keeping a pretty even balance of distribution and not being blindsided by a huge expense um we've instilled new uniforms for our now two middle school teams um when we first started it it was kind of the whole hand me down from you know and uh you know we have this little six grader in this giant uniform and now we're getting uniforms and we're rotating that through um uh through each program and um by three years we should have everyone outfitted and then keep that rotation going to uh keep those uniforms just like the um just like the high school uniforms um um we've expanded the athletic program uh when I first got here in um 2016 we had 47 teams that means like if you know you have football you have Varsity JV freshman right so each one counts as a separate team we had 47 teams uh and 81 coaches we now have 76 teams and 100 coaches it's a 62% increase in in participation for our athletes 62% more kids can play sports at seille and that is just I can't thank you guys enough for supporting that because I see sixth graders and the Middle School levels filling out teams that we didn't have in 2016 with freshman levels and all of that so that is just tremendous and I'm so proud we did that um okay now what do I want I'm just kidding okay so oh I get to click my own doesn't just change when I say I got it okay um my goals again I go back to what I just said before sustaining so this year's rotation I always try to pick two things you know or things that are about the same amount each year uh we really do for for cheerleading mats and field hockey goals field hockey goals are just falling apart we're keeping together with screws um so those are the two large items uh that I'm asking for um and then the the kind of the supplies that um have kind of gone above where um I normally nicely rotate is that we're getting really hit hard with helmets this year for football and Lacrosse and our a aeds are expiring um I'm hoping to buy them uh again before I got here we kind of bought them all in one shot and that means they're all expiring in one shot and we don't like that to happen so I'm going to try I'm trying to now spread that out um to buy them so that we can rotate them into our normal um expenditures H and of course um things that I can't control rentals and maintenance they are they're they're always going up and if we don't have enough money for rentals then we don't have a bowling team if we don't have enough money for rentals we don't have a swimming team so those are the kind of things that um uh that I'd like to sustain uh in the budget um if possible what I would like to expand in the budget um like I said we've been growing so the last few things um that would top off having pretty much every level of every team um would be so we're at the JV status right now for volleyball so we implemented the volleyball team last year um we have the opportunity we're good enough and we can easily fit into the blue division so we can easy jump right into a varsity program next year uh which gives us the opportunity to then have a JV program right away if we don't jump to that Varsity program then we can't start adding those girls and give them playing time um to gain for that Varsity program so um so uh i' would like to add a Boys and Girls JV volleyball Pro while we have the JV we're going to turn to Varsity status and add in uh that JV program so I guess technically I'm asking for the varsity program next year um boys and girls lacrosse uh freshman lacrosse um we have plenty in um um on the um that want to play lacrosse to have a freshman team um and then for Middle School cheering like the high school we have two programs uh a game day and a competition uh I would like to um you know I would like to have that at the middle school program as well so what is that going to cost us well it's actually not going to really cost us anything except coaches so we need coaches for the JV um because we already have head coaches for the volleyball program so we need one coach for the boys one coach for the girls for the JV program we would need one coach for the boys freshman uh lacrosse program one coach for the girls freshman cross program and a second coach middle school cheerleading is the only sport that doesn't have a second team at the middle school so uh and it doesn't have a second coach so then the middle school cheerleading would have a head and assistant coach um and then the only other cost that would go along with that um would be um officials um because if you have games you need officials we already have the supplies for those teams they would already be be in our uniform rotation so uh it really is just coaches and outfitting um um officials ration if you if you create another team uni ration no no no um I'm not I'm not creating another team so we already have the volleyball program and we already have the uniforms work no we're just adding a JV team we already have enough uniforms for that they're they're playing JV right now yeah so she's moving she's they're going to Varsity and we've already we've already outfitted for um 36 uniform so we're anticipating more kids so you'd have kids playing varsity and now JV y oh you bought more uniforms we already have enough to because we we didn't just take enough for Varsity we took enough for we had I mean we had 60 girls try out none of which played another full sport so that's that's so we added 20 more girls playing that did not play any other SP Sport in the fall right and that's what my data had shown growing a volleyball team it wasn't soccet players it wasn't uh field hockey players that wanted to jump to volleyball it was a whole new set of athletes and we bought enough for a JV and and freshman program already uh we have enough equipment they all use the same balls they all use the same um equipment so really all we need is coach and uh some officials so and that's the same thing for lacrosse how have the numbers been on the boys um volleyball it didn't happen yet so registration is going on right now but it's it's exploding too so yep and uh as far as I can tell it's no one Jumping Ship either from any sport it's a whole brand new uh set of kids that haven't played a sport yet before so would you start the boys just with JV and then the following year go to boys are going to have JV this year JV this year already that was already in last year's budget so we had the girls and they in the fall and there in the spring so now I'm asking for the 2425 season to both jump to the perfect Varsity setting we have to turn away you said 60 girls that's a lot for volleyball do we turn away kids but yeah we you know but uh eventually if we keep having that we could grow to a freshman program and we could nearly keep all of them yeah so no it's good yep I had a couple questions for you um I know it's probably easier for you to keep track a little bit because you can the Middle School sports like the girl Sports and everything else you can kind of see what's coming up um I I was glad to see that you had helmets on here I I don't know if you're were aware but with the eighth grade football in town we're probably going to have our largest yeah at least at least 30 coming I mean we've split we've had between 40 and 30 kids they're all coming except for one I know a couple kids said they were leaving with the coach or whatever but hopefully do a great job hiring someone we get all those kids back um I really want to make sure with helmets I think the last time we had a class like this coming in was probably like my freshman year and that that year we didn't have helmets for like no listen helmets in general have nothing to do with so so here's the here's the situation with helmets I was going to say they had the there was a different helmet back then they Mak fun so um you didn't need yeah I know it's it's it's it's hard now not leather I'm kid that's the R so um but um so we've been buying helmets over the years when the pandemic Hit Factory shut down there we still ordered helmets there was one year that we didn't get our helmets for an entire year right because they were so back ordered and that destroys how the continuity of a budget it just it just rips it apart so that's so that's why we are definitely in need and I asked for an extra amount of money for helmets because we're trying to catch up because helmets are actually out there yeah um I said want to be blindsided I know you can keep track of it but we W football in you know we're not through the middle school yep so I didn't know if you knew the large numbers coming those kids wrestles we have our biggest probably wrestling class of eighth graders coming up no I do my research I do my data I know exactly who's coming up and exactly what we have to order and that's why helmets are in the budget and then just last question for my own why don't we let sixth graders Tri out for baseball in middle school because so when you play baseball in sixth grade you play on a uh 5070 field they don't jump to a 6090 field until they're 13u so they don't have that experience playing on a larger field and the numbers of eighth graders and seventh graders we have trying out for baseball it it wouldn't be productive for us I understand that but my whole logic with that is you're GNA like somewhere those kids are going to get cut so either you're going to let the ton of eighth graders and seventh graders go in middle school and then you're going to get to a freshman you know you're going to come in as a bunch of freshman no no no no no actually if we take the sixth graders we're not going to have enough for a freshman team so how it works is that if you right so again going to two teams right so let's start back when we only had one team well you take about 16 kids on a baseball team right right for one team okay when it was just seventh and eighth graders for one team let's just split into half evenly we had eight eighth graders and E seventh graders so now we're only pushing eight eighth graders up when you need at least 16 on a freshman team okay if we add sixth graders in the mix and we take a hey a strong good sixth grader over an eighth grader then we're we're cutting that eighth grader and never giving them a chance to develop or we're taking on 20 kids or 25 kids that are not even playing so that's why we split the two teams and we can take between 16 and 18 kids on each of those teams and now we're taking a full set of eighth graders and a full set of seventh graders in hopes to gain our freshman program back pushing 16 kids straight through and again sixth grad it there's rarely sixth graders on any Middle School baseball teams no that that's a great answer I I I thank you for that my logic always thinking it was I was always thinking that if we cut or let the sixth graders come out now some of these kids are going to fall off baseball but then they're going to go join the lacrosse team or they're going to go join well here's the other thing let's say we let sixth graders join so now woohoo 20 sixth graders or 10 sixth graders want to play we can't take 10 or 26th graders right so who are we going to cut first so I want to avoid cutting all together because when you cut a kid if you say hey sixth graders aren't allowed to join wait till seventh grade they're going to say okay all right no problem I have my 5070 field I have my club teams I I'm going to wait to play in Middle School in 7th grade and they make the team if we ask sixth graders to come out and we cut sixth graders what message are we sending them so that's what that's what I've been trying to avoid doing and we and we have different sports so you know we've been adjusting and each year we do adjust if we take sixth graders we take seventh graders because it's about keeping them it's about them enjoying it and it's about it's not always possible but we don't want to cut them yeah listen I appreciate the answer I thought it was fantastic I looked at it in a different thing I would just thought you know I just do lacrosse and baseball and I'm you know same season on my fa but we don't have a we don't have lacrosse um middle school anyway right so they would only be playing Club teams on both yeah so you would you would same thing you would make miss your eighth grade year because you got cut from baseball that year and go H I'm done with baseball I'm going to go play lacrosse that was my whole thought with it but uh thank you for that answer that was awesome no problem Jen one quick question for you too aeds yes um super important super important in athletics because we see what can happen especially with youth do we have enough aeds right now for every field that we play for every home game that we have went on site so are these and we travel with we travel well so are these aeds now at their 8year lifespan or we replacing pads or we we've been replacing all the pads we can and we're we're getting ahead of this okay we're getting ahead of this because like I said I don't want to buy a because eight aeds are not cheap no they are not no they are not um and that's but yes but we are outfitting uh like you know like I said now that we have two middle school programs and uh we play at the burrow we you know we play um you know we travel even though you know Wilson has it it's always good to have a coach take the ad with them because they're not always familiar because we practice at all of our schools now um because we're just you know growing and um so uh it's important for them to be able to take the aeds to the bowling alley to cross country all of that and so again I'm getting ahead of it they're not all expiring next year no um so I'm trying to get ahead keeping them in the rotation like everything else great yep thanks um question back to baseball sorry I tried to jump in stick on the baseball topic but um in terms of the fields at the high school I don't see anything on the list for next year but where in your kind of couple year plan do you see any improvements for um the varsity field and the JV fields in terms of like bullpens dugouts yeah it it's coming it's coming um bullpens are tough because of the actual space and the concrete and and we've been trying to we have makeshift ones right now so we actually have bu pens they're just not um ideal they're not they're not ideal and they're not like um um the where they're not they're not stationary they're not like they're not a full Bullpen that these are removable bullpens right now and with the way our land was changing it actually probably worked out um better so but we do have bullpens for softball and for baseball um but they're in my next hopefully next year's um rotation that along with baseball fences um you know with in my supplies I was able to buy some poles that's what cck the most um but I would like to you know eventually we're going to have to buy new fences and and all of that as well yep and that's part of that's that's yep coming up not going St are you looking to go real fence or are no no we're never we can never go real fence because we have multisport yeah because you know we have the field hockey field and the and the basketball yeah and the soccer field and our kid got out ESPN catching that ball I know no no no and we want to we want the Breakaway to make you know sure no you know everyone's safe but um yeah but those kind of fence and then they they break those polls broke when my conell was awesome over it uh and we replaced them so we we have that kind of Maintenance in our budget but we're eventually going to need um it's in there any other questions Mr Dam thank you as always no thank you no problem to the baseball uh basketball game now thank you so much thank you guys got a score I can I have [Laughter] wow thank you Jennifer thanks Jen and now let's transition to special education with Mr Nasser but I do want to point out basketb basketball our entire special education leadership team is here to support him and the department needs and goals thank you Dr lby so on behalf of Dr deina Mrs too Mr vanderbeck the entire special services Community we would like to thank this board for allowing us a few minutes tonight to share with you some highlights from the current school year as well as some major goals that we're working on and the corresponding budgetary implications for those goals so beginning with our high oh and Mr Walsh the under is set at 20 okay okay for the under so beginning with our highlights this board of education did support some build out of our staffing needs this year so we do have a new supervisor for our 18 to 21 program and as you'll see throughout this presentation it's already paying some pretty good dividends for this board's decision um we also in conjunction with Mrs Burns um hired a a child study team member for our Slover school um with the buildout of the the preschool expansion Mrs Burns was required to have a social worker in that building and we also of course need a child St member to service our students with disabilities over in that location we serviced record high enrollment this year in conjunction with Mrs Burns and Mrs Grossman's learning acceleration program we did service just under 600 students this year in our um summer Extended Learning Program we continued our onetoone and small group instruction for students with disabilities we are in the third and final year of public L 2021 chapter 109 which I sh with this board was a piece of legislation that allowed certain students who would have graduated at the age of 21 to remain in school for one additional year as a result of the learning loss that occurred during the pandemic in many cases some of these specialized schools were shut down for the entire year and these kids were just home this uh initiative is fully funded by the State Department of Education so that we will receive back the uh 100% of our tuition costs as well as our transportation costs but we did budget for it this year because we do have to pay the bills along the way we increased our bombers Beyond enrollment from our initial startup of nine of five students to the current nine students we have this year we also phased out our partnership with the ed services commission for what we call Community Based instruction it's a program we have at the high school that takes certain 12th graders with significant disabilities out into the community to experience um life skill training within the community we're doing that through our traditional Cooperative education program at a pretty good savings to to the district we opened bomas Beyond Cafe this year um for several afternoon and evening events near and dear of course to Mrs Bloom's art was our popup art show standing room only as as is case now over at Palmer Beyond um and we had some really amazing students from the high school come out and showcase their artistic talent whether it was print um paint or or Ceramics holiday parade we did have to cancel due to inclement weather um but we did have an acoustic night just two weeks ago and Mr vanderbeck and his team had several members from the community come out and perform some really good music for us um it was standing room only again and they did exceed the two hours that we had allotted for their schedule because nobody really wanted to go home also one of our student colleagues did standup comedy for us and one of our student colleagues also sang a song and that was unexpected it was really nice to see and of course Dr L's been holding his parent advisory committees at the cafe also so it's kind of a nice home Main Street feeling for those meetings thank to Mrs Kar our unified coordinator and Mrs ment our Unified High School advisor and our Unified High School coaches we did travel out of district for the first time to another District to compete for unified soccer is the next um expansion of our Championship School status for UniFi um our kids got the experience that feeling you get when you invade another team's gymnasium for competition much like any other sports team or athlete in the district has done for many years did we win did we Mr vanderbeck did we win um it was an excellent game I think the score is Loosely a lot of cheering a lot of support I'll take that as a win sounds like a win sounds like a win yes thank you U the first of our two goals focuses on curriculum instruction and it really reflects the department of education's local annual special education report in which they set targets for districts to meet regarding inclusive education that another presentation for another time but suffice it to say that um the the the research is pretty strong on the um benefits of educating our students with disabilities as close to the regular education um classroom as possible the first goal um reflects the students who are being educated with general education students 40% or more of the day and those are really your self-contained students who are in one special classroom for most of the day might go out for Lang for for um um Vette um lunch maybe a special maybe an academic subject and the state says that we should be at 14.75% and you can see we're just 9/10 away from that um target also by the way the most recent data that the state released just a few months ago was the 2122 school year they're always about a year and a half behind as far as releasing the data the second category is also a district goge as this board knows and it reflects the percentage of students who are being educated 80% or more of the day in the general education program and the state says that we should be at 45% and we're just about 2 .4% away from that goal as well and finally we did meet the third um Target that the state set for us and that's the percentage of preschool students with disabilities for being educated in a self-contained classroom or an out of District program the state says we should have no more than 6.75% um in this category and we were very comfortable at 4.54% of course a reflection of Mrs Burn's giant preschool buildout that's occurred over the last few years the um information at the bottom of the slide I won't go over but that really is just the action steps that we're sharing with all stakeholders throughout the community so that they understand and support the benefits of inclusive education as well our next goal focus on the continued buildout of our 18 to 21 program um we are looking to increase our students for September actually for July to 14 again from the current nine students we have this year and to do that we will need to run three rotation cycles for the first time Mr vanderbeck Mrs finini Mrs cornette and and Mrs Falone are working hard to to put that schedule together for us but we do Envision one group working within the ca cafeteria another group going out to the community for some life skills training and other experiences and then a third group having paid employment somewhere else beside the cafe we recognize that not all of our students like food services and we believe that our students at to 21 should have some choice if they either try the cafe and don't like it or know right away that they don't like it we would like to to to um have them gamefully deployed or meaningfully employed in other places throughout town and we think that's what makes us stand out from other programs that other districts might run we're looking to expand the cafe um I think we're going to keep stay open till 1:30 Mr vanderbeck and that will allow us to run through the different Cycles we do want to switch over though for the first time from the morning um coffee and baked goods offerings to more of a lunch offering around 11 11:30 and we're looking at doing something like a a plyer bow or a fuit bowl if you're familiar with that in this area um where we have a frozen base or an oatmeal base with fresh fruit some toppings granola some other things like that um Babar which is the company similar to PAB ball in North Jersey and also New York they have some interest in partnering with us so if we put that together we'll have a nice brand like we do for Boo and also celebrity chef David Burks um baked goods but if not Mr stino who I saw on the back a few moments ago has assured us that um his food service department can provide the highest quality um product as well so either way we think we're going to be able to get that done for September Mr vanderbeck and his team met with Ken's Crew That's a corporate level Home Depot um scholarship program where they hire adults with disabilities to work in Home Depot like anybody else they offer a job coach for a very brief period of time they phase that out very quickly leaving the young adult to work meaningfully within the community and also independently and Mr vanderbeck is very close to placing two or three kids there um with Home Dep as we speak and finally if I could take a moment to just build out this this last item Mr vanderbeck and his team they met with Bren Valley Community College and we think they're going to allow us to have some of our students take classes there they have a program that that we're working with them to to accept our students and if you go back to the I guess eight or nine years ago when we bought unified programming in and the feedback we got from our parents was that they never thought that they'd see their child with a disability on their home court or on their home field and it was very rewarding for us to do that gave us a lot of motivation we we continued our buildout those same parents when we open the cafe said the same thing we never thought we'd see our our students with disabilities working in the community I can go in and and you know they're getting paid and I can interact with them and see them at a job well now our parents are saying that they never thought they they'd be able to experience that experience that a parent gets when the child goes off to college so if we can put this together and if Mr V back brings this home for us um I think we could say Mr espo Miss Bloom those of you who've been along with us along the way pre pandemic Mr Fernandez I think we could say mission accomplished with the with the cafe great and finally the money page ask you to continue your support for our extended school year program you'll see those S um distributed throughout the Personnel section of the proposed budget we're asking you to to continue to support our on to one in small group instruction those two programs are federally funded through Ida funds but you'll see those listed in the one of the um instructional accounts of the special services um budget I'm sorry one of the 20 accounts of the special services budget you'll see wages for bombas Beyond as well as the Cooperative education students in the Personnel section um we are asking you to support um a very small but very important buildout to our Uh current effective School Solutions blueprint and I've shared with this board on several occasions that affect the school Solutions essentially duplicates a hospital program on site in our district at every level so that um we had far too many students if you recall um who would have to leave our our school go get treatment somewhere gen pych for keep Princeton House High Focus several weeks to several months and then be expected to walk back into school and resume their progress toward course completion and ultimately graduate on time we're talking general education students primarily in this program we're talking 10th graders high level math 11th graders who are out for several months and have to step back in and and and catch back up almost impossible of course so ESS takes that hospital program and offers it on site so our kids can stay in class while getting the help they need we currently have two full-time counsel at the high school and one halftime counselor we're asking this board to support the expansion the increase of that halftime counselor to full-time so we'll have three full-time counselors um at the high school so we historically have a waiting list we have a wait list right now and we have to um put kids on the waiting list and and have them hold off and um we think that this way we'll be able to capture everybody who needs help you'll see this um this this cost in the one of the Professional Services accounts within the special service budget and it does come in across the $50,000 for the increased part of of the program we're also asking this board to consider the purchase of a passenger van for our 18 to 21 program um it will allow us to not only continue the catering that we're currently doing Mr vanderbeck and his team go out every day to different schools and deliver but allow us to place kids at jobs and also use that three rotation cycle go out through the community while one group is back at the cafe currently Mr Shiga provides us with a bus and a driver he would gain those back on the back end so that he would no longer need to provide us with one of his buses and of course he would gain back that um driver that he's paying to to to to do the the middle part of the day for us which you know comes at a premium for for drivers and that comes at a cost of the MSRP is just under $50,000 I think it's $47,000 and you'll see that in one of the um I think it's one one of the miscellaneous accounts of the special services 5 and finally in alignment with our district innovate to accelerate theme we're asking the sports to support the purchase of a software program called goldbook which will allow our special education teachers all 125 of them to use this program to build build out what we call the present levels of performance it's a narrative a written narrative that a teacher puts into an I that describes a student strengths and also areas for growth this program will then take those areas for growth align it to New Jersey state standards individualize a goal and then um allow the teacher to Target that goal throughout the year and you'll see that same standard being tested or measured at the end of the year on state assessments and that comes across 24 am I really have you're doing great keep going so that comes at cost of $75,000 and you'll see that one of the supply accounts within the special services budget and finally as Dr lbby asked me to cover although I did save it for last the alternative literacy program so um we use an alternative alternative literacy program for students who are not responding to the district's Universal tier one reading program it's highly specialized um developed for students with the slexy and other reading disabilities we currently use Project Read which has served this well but it's been discontinued and we think that um it's a real good time now to Pivot away from that and go out and look at identify and bring in the latest and greatest most research proen effective program we can find and we're currently in the process of exploring that with our teaching staff who are the most important contributors to the identification of such a program we I think that spreading it out over two years um will help us not only to spread the funding out the cost out over two years but the professional development behind a program like this is huge and we think that to ensure that our teachers are up and running for September with Fidelity we think that we should we should do about half the district in the first year and then do the second um half the district in in in in the second year and that um in first year we did budget $100,000 for that program for materials and for professional development and you'll see that in one of the supply accounts within the special services budget as well for a for a program like that do we in the special education world do you pilot a program like you do in other areas of curriculum or yes or no a program like goldbook we are currently piloting that so we have teachers at every level pilot to see if if it's if it's um if it works for the te alternative literacy um we have a lot of experts in district teachers are the ones who who who know these progr we're having the vendors come out and demonstrate to us and show us the materials present to us and then we're also going to visit other districts who are ACC and programs it's too costly to Pilot and there's really three or four programs that we've narrowed down to that we know one of any one of those will work it's just matter what's the best match for us okay I have a I have a question if if I me um a few years ago you gave us kind of a projection as to how many students we would see over probably a 10 year period okay I think he gave us like 10 years out are we are we on the target are higher or lower are we are we projected um the the the 15 students that we project are 14 students for next year I think the F year we talking about the farm beond 18 to 21 21 yeah I think we'll go to 16 the year after okay and then we kind of level off that's pretty much what you said 16 to 18 right there yeah it level off there's a year where it dips down again and then it goes back up and and if you think about fact that you know if you didn't have a program you'd send them out a district at a cost of about $100,000 a student it's quite a fiscal impact I wasn't going to go there yet but I will the B have we turned the was the word profit here but did we have we turned the profit by keeping our students in you know after the rent and after all the expenses and everything that's paid for our school it's notar a profit it's a cost saving it's a cost savings so you know I've always said that we're doing this primarily as we know for the experience of the students to stay in town but we do have to be fiscally responsible so um we projected for for many years what it would cost to send those 15 kids a year remember they go out for the first year at age 19 they're out for three years so Dr Robby mentioned $100,000 tuition on average plus the bus 2300 a day could be another $30,000 per child I'd say right now Anthony we're close we're close I think right now and that's including the renovation work that we did there and everything right it's like economy at some point you're just to but we're going to start exceeding it and if I could just just a comment you know when I came here in 2016 um I think our special needs program was okay special education program was okay you know uh and I mean this sincerely with with you and I know Dr lbby partnered with you on it you did everything you said you would do and more and I have to tell you and and I don't say this very often you need money you get it I don't think we should take a penny away from you you should get everything you need cuz you've delivered every time I mean that sincerely you did a great job and both of you and not without you know I have a great team here so good job Dr def has been with me every step of the way Alice came on three years ago and then Andrew of course this year is contributing people look to this town I know they do because I've talked to people people look to this town you know in our in our program and they want to emulate so good job yeah people actually move like if you listen to Facebook like people actually move to seille just for the special special so you really are doing a good job and just from the B Cafe the reaction to that I mean it's really spectacular thank if there any other questions please send them over to Mrs Burns and so if anybody needs anything send it to David and'll any other questions Mr Nas it's really no and again I want to thank all of you as long as I have been here which is many many many years our special ed program has always been out understanding and you have only developed it no that's okay they have made it better but people always came here because we had a solid program good Art thank you so much not since not since can't have mebody baby also speci been great for my son's whole time by the way I heard a rumor that a board of education member was supposed to sing at open mic night me I was so looking forward to that but um I didn't get any resp you how you had to sign up so I didn't get a response back so I'm thinking all right they just didn't because they said oh was based upon you know first come first sign up so I was planning on singing but I'm singing at the next maybe the next one we can do a du what is the matter with you well you were on the board you on the board to sing but I think maybe Mr vanderbeck um opening act I we'll do a du know that next M night okay yeah we should do a duet I got to come back now we had that stage presence yeah but I was so and then I seen the thing and I was like I go I already made plans because I didn't know it was um happening but my name was on the board I was like ha I made the board that's a noell Mrs Bloom that concludes our presentations for the evening presentations are done thank you so much thank you thank you all for all that you do okay now we move on to board discussion um we'll we'll let our folks leave quietly Miss napalitano do you want to give us a quick rundown on governance please so at our last governance meeting we discussed the potential rezoning of the Truman school students from the Winding Woods Department complex to the arth and Eiden higher schools in order to reduce the class size of that Truman we then discussed the revision of the draft of the 2526 School District calendar that would shorten the school year by two days and finally Dr lbby provided an update on the ongoing plans to name the high school music suite and theater after John banjo that is okay any questions on that no uh student achievement Mr Callahan since you weren't there Erin do you want to or well if Mr Callahan wants to he can but if not if you want there for part of it but I know we spoke about the uh njsla data it was a wonderful presentation on that and on the high the new High School courses that are coming up for next year as well as some updates to some other ones um after that I'm going to have to cheat and get a little help in here uh want help professional Development coming up for next year as well um I think you did a great job yep that's great Chris I will make sure for the next one I have on the call and I mman M Gman did you want to add anything else do you want you want to phone a friend all right um so yes as you said we spoke about njsla data we also spoke about the new and reviews courses that are on tonight's agenda for your approval we reviewed the American Sign Language one curriculum which is also on tonight's agenda for your approval Mrs Bert spoke about our high impact tutoring Grant we were awarded just shy of $230,000 and identified students in grades three through five will participate in small group after school tutoring and students at the middle school and high school will have access to free on demand onetoone tutoring in any subject through pair deck tutor um and we've had a a great response to that through parents already miss Bert also updated us about the use of a new District tool Beluga which is being used in our tag and science departments it promotes research literacy and Global awareness we discussed the um upcoming PD for staff including CPI training the new teacher training sessions that took place recently our PLC book club offerings that were funded with our title programming money through Esa plans are being made for our June staff development meeting and the trainings for the RTI pilot with linkit have been taking place and we also talked about a Grant application that Mrs Bert and I are working on with our secondary supervisors um related to climate change and developing an interdisciplinary unit for our middle school students working with Mrs Carolyn o'conor Dr Mala Maharana Mr Chris Howard and Mrs Suzanne capro our application is due at the end of the month and we're very excited about that and Mr naster provided an update on the dlm uh Dynamic learning Assessment program that's going on for our special education students thank you very much AB great J great job and I know voice went up a little bit Anthony asked this question during the last Board of Education meeting Miss Gman also went over the number of students that are still that still need to meet that assessment requirement and I think I updated everybody in board summary I think we're at five students total in the district that need to accomplish the ELA assessment requirement and seven in mathematics so that's that's quite the awesome increase Awesome by the way whoever came up with public speaking I don't care who it was great idea oh great cannot speak in public they just can't yeah we had the we had the 21st century um communication course but we really wanted to flesh it out middle sex has a requirement so that's one of the courses that might be dual enrollment and um my son is in college right now and it was a mandatory class for him as well and so looking at it when they talked about tweaking that course it was something that we felt our kids need moving in it's a life literacy at this point great job good okay uh oh next is me okay middle sex uh County School Board Association the next meeting will be March 6 and that is a virtual meeting so if anybody is interested you do need to register online and you can attend virtually um you will also be approving tonight on page two my attendance at the women's leadership conference with which is being sponsored by New Jersey school boards Association and that's in April and that's it for school boards okay uh at this time we will open for public on any agenda items only thank you Mrs Board Jim Robinson Parlin New Jersey I very much enjoy the excellent presentation by the athletics department special you and they are doing great things there I appreciate that very much I did have a question about item number six on the finance and infrastructure agenda and that is the one about increasing the money for the attorney from $150,000 to $200,000 for this school year and my questions are is this additional funding related to the suit against the burrow regarding the bus depot would you like me to answer that now would you you might as well we are asking the board to approve this motion because previously we asked the board to approve attorney fees up to $150,000 so for various reasons we're approaching that $150,000 Mark okay we feel we'll probably exceed it prior to the end of this school year so to be safe we are increasing that up to amount to $200,000 so is that suit against the burrow a part of this a part of the reason that you have to increase it well it includes all legal reasons I understand that but you increasing it so there must have been an unanticipated expenditure and is this suit maybe let me ask this way with every school year we we naturally have the chance of having unexpected legal costs for example one of the legal costs that we did not expect is the proceedings involved with our power purchase agreement we didn't expect that we also sometimes have unexpected legal fees with regard to the education of our children with disabilities so with every school year there are unexpected legal expenses I understand that let me ask my question this way what have we expended on that particular suit that I just referenced and what do we expect to expend or what do you expect to expand if you know I don't know you don't know Jim we may want to ask the burrow though why they seem to be dragging their feet and prolonging this whole process I have some questions for you later Mr Smith but thank you um when you entered into this suit did you have no idea what it might cost I'm not going to answer any questions about the litig with the bur no I'm asking about expenses and expenditures and the item that's on the agenda to increase the amount that you're paying the attorney from $150,000 to 200 I I heard I heard your question okay and I'm not going to answer it you're not going to answer that question okay you're increasing the amount of money you are paying the attorney and you're involved in litigation against the burrow but the Board of Education never ever voted to approve that litigation is that correct again I'm not going to answer that question you're not going to answer whether or not the Board of Education voted to approve filing suit against the burrow you've asked this question for the previous three Board of Education meetings and each time I've answered it by telling you that the matters that are discussed between the Board of Education and the Board of Education attorney are protected under attorney client privilege so I'm not going to answer your question Mr Robinson no matter how many times you ask it no matter how many ways you ask it but the matter of whether or not the Board of Education approved filing suit against the burrow is not a matter of attorney client privilege and you're not an attorney so you can't claim that privilege by the way um it is should be a matter of public record because that if that vote took place publicly which it should have but you're not going to answer that so so I'll move on let me ask this question does the attorney's contract provide for him to attend the public meetings only when requested only one requested so I've been here I think four times and I've seen him only once and that was the time coincidentally that he gave the incorrect advice that I could only speak once in violation of policy 167 I think the three minutes are up your your time is up Mr Robinson and the way you respect time limits at the burough Council I would hope you respect our time limits as well I certainly will I will come back again on a different topic which the policy allows thank you and I understand Mr Dr Labby is not wanting to answer those questions anybody else on anything on the agenda okay this time we'll close public Dr lby Mr Walsh I will be brief beginning with finance and infrastructure number two we're asking you to accept a very generous donation of a keyboard stand and case from the Brandon Tyler narleski charitable Foundation to the bombers Beyond program it's valued at over $700 this is not the first donation that's been made by the Brandon Tyler narski charitable foundation and we're so grateful for their support of our programs U throughout the years number three which you can find on page two as well we're asking you to proove an amendment to the American Rescue plan homeless children youth Grant application in the amount of 8,28 which includes supplemental funding in the amount of $1,395 number number eight which you can find on page three we're asking you to reject all bids received in response to the bid opening held on January 25th 20124 for the window replacements at multiple schools this was due to an error in the bid specifications number 18 which you can find in the addendum I'm happy to tell you that we have awarded the bid for the hbac upgrades at the samel upper elementary school and the middle school to Preferred mechanical they were the lowest bidder on bid that were opened on February 1st in the total amount of$ 26,31 19,000 and naturally that is being paid for through the bond referendum any questions on those or any other motions in finance and infrastructure how we doing with our grants how are we doing with our grants are we applying for more are we getting them yeah we're we're applying from more I mean as Mrs Gman said earlier we have the new New Jersey high high impact tutoring grant that we received $233,000 and um there were plenty of districts that did not receive that so we're thrilled that we were able to get that and miss grman and miss berd are also working on an additional Grant they mentioned during student achievement on climate control would be who us to hire someone would all these dollar amounts I mean we have um that would be Miss ber oh that's what that's your that's part of what her what she does I apologize good job good idea she actually in all fairness in all fairness Mr she wears four hat hire somebody she wears four hats and probably more than that but professional development um in Innovations interventions and then Grant W great great job great job give something she's also spent extensive time not you know with our elementary and secondary Education Act Grant um the revisions of it the Perkins Grant you name it and so forth she's been working hard and all that excellent and can I just add Anthony for your information that the uh tutoring program is going to be online and any student who's struggling with anything right ladies at any time 24 hours at any time at the high school too they can just go online request a tutor and someone comes on to help them like fantastic and the best is my favorite is this they have something called writing lab and writing lab is when students can go ahead and submit let's say have a writing assignment do they can submit their writing assignment to one of the tutors and they'll review it for them and give them recommendations that's great before they submit it for a [Laughter] grade we're going to get a report that Mr Walsh's kids are really exercising this a lot okay shifting gears now to student achievement if I can bring your attention to Pages N9 and 10 this was already gone over we're asking ask you to approve new courses as well as course title changes at the high school for the 2024 2025 school year number three which you can also find in page 10 and M grman did cover this we're asking you to approve the new grades 9 through 12 American Sign Language one curriculum guide soon we'll be working on two because naturally there'll be a sign language two next year at the high school number seven and eight which you can find on page 10 we're asking you to believe it or not it's that time of year prove the camp Excel extended school year integrated summer program as well as the learning acceleration extended school year program both will take place here at the samel upper elementary school and the preschool program at the Slover school from July 1 2024 through August 1 2024 the first week in which uh is independent we Independence Day I believe falls on a Thursday the kids will go Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Friday and then every other week after that they'll go Monday through Thursday any questions on those items or anything else or on student achievements all right seeing none let's move on to governance we're asking you to approve for a second reading the revised Board of Education policy 8454 management of Pedic pediculosis in other words lice and that is for a second reading and adoption numbers three and four which you can find on page 13 we're asking you to approve the submission of the annual uniform state of mamor uh State memorandum of agreement between education and law enforcement officials and that's for this school year and the creation of law enforcement unit as an addendum to the uniform statement uh memorandum of agreement between education and law enforcement and we list the officials and who they are the alason or partner with in terms of law enforcement you can see that on that particular motion which is I think number four and number uh five we're asking you to deny gri sea grievance 2023 2024 colon 2 gcn increased workload and that is on the addendum any questions on those items all right moving along to Personnel num six and seven as well as 22 and 23 which you can find in Pages 16 and 17 in the addendum we're asking you to approve the appointment of new certificated and non-certificated staff for this school year numbers 8 n and 24 which you can find on page 18 and the addendum as well we're asking to approve the transfer of non-certificated staff for this school year and number 13 we're asking to approve a sidebar agreement with the Teamster's Local 469 Union regarding salary adjustments due to contract anomalies for this school year and those anomalies are minimum wage anomalies um the starting salary um did not equal minimum hourly wage so we have to increase those so that all of our first year custodians are are being paid equal to or above minimum wage and finally this is not on the agenda but I got to give a shout out uh to my dear friend Victor narwitz at the high school who just recently celebrated his 47th anniversary in the Saville public schools which I just find simply amazing and the man is still pulling about 60 to 70 hours a week while doing that so kudos to you Victor we are so proud of you we and always we are impressed and inspired by your work ethic but 47 years here in Saville he loves his job when I was an assistant coach he was here uh and I think Jimmy Jimmy's getting close to to VI well at some point but Jim's been here quite some time too been here forever but not 47 years and Joe Coyle too Joe Coyle has been with us uh I think over 40 as well and Mrs Bloom that concludes my report one question the the Stockon sheltered instruction program is that PD it is PD and you know to give you more information on that I'll I'll turn that over to miss grman she's an expert on sorry I go here everybody just goes over there uh Stockton offers a free training program it's an online 15-hour program that trains teachers that work with multi-lingual Learners in the scop which is sheltered English instruction observational protocol so we uh approved TW uh 25 teachers back in September and we just using the PSA grant money that Mrs Bert um was talking about we just use that to approve 25 and I think we have one more coming um so we'll have 56 teachers that we compensate for their time for completing those programs that's great it's great is that is that just for ESL teachers or is that for no that's general education teachers anyone that interacts with a multi multilingual learner 5 days a week actually we've we have had such a wonderful response over the five years that we've been doing it we're now training counselors and Asi teachers um we can support our multilingual Learners across the board that's great yeah it's a great program I didn't have that when I was teaching it was a lot of sign L hand Lang M Gman how many teachers right now oh come on what percentage what percentage what percentage well over half it is it is yeah it's well over 50% of our general education teachers have been trained received this training that's amazing that speaks volumes about our was just shy of 300 yeah yeah that speaks preschool alone he knows I was English numbers are not my thing I have to get eron to help me out it's that's fantastic and if you haven't done it it's hard trying to work with a kid who doesn't understand what you're saying but thank God art I just had to show them having 20 in the preschool just sets them up so early for both Cheesequake and um have really embraced the opportunity and part of the modules it's it's nine different um observational protocols but one of them is developing an understanding of what life is like for our M multilingual Learners and I've had teachers literally tear up when they're talking to me about I never thought of it from that perspective before every single teacher when they complete it says I'm like my standard line is I hope you found something beneficial and applicable and every single time they're like absolutely Ely that was so great it's great yeah okay all right we need a motion to accept so moved second that was Mr Smith and Mrs npal Nano Mr Callahan yes Mr Esposito yes Mr Fernandez yes Mrs napalitano yes Mrs pone I'm going to vote no on page 2 C5 vision governance yes to everything else okay Miss pyck yes um Mr Smith yes Mr Walsh yes and Mrs Bloom uh yes except Erin I need to abstain on finance number four and I also need to abstain on governance seat I'm sorry on which one in governance uh on the agenda see number five yes number five okay okay okay at this time we will open to oh boy excuse me keep it down je at this time we will open to public on any matters thank you Mr Blom thank you Mr Robinson three minutes since Dr lbby took up half of my time three minutes claing speak Cent privilege in refusing to answer I'll ask my four questions and then sit down and wait for the answer and the first one how much money have we saved or realized as a result of the solar panels that have been installed and is that all working according to plan I support that I think it's a great idea um second question during the successful cool the schools campaign it was conveyed that the State Department of Education or somewhere in somebody in the state would partially fund the $97 million cost with up to 40% of Debt Service Aid what is the status on that is that something that's going to come later when we actually start to pay it back bring me up to date on that the board's motion for summary judgment on the bus depot was not surprisingly denied and there will be a trial and I understand the Department of Education is even reconsidering their decision based on the planning board's um recommendation against this site at a previous meeting Dr Labby said if the transportation center is not located on Cheesequake Road the alternate sites would be slow Eisenhower Truman or the high school and the board as far as I know has not objected to that I hope while remaining silent the board realizes those are not appropriate loc locations my question is has anyone board staff realtor anyone considered any other less objectionable alternate sites if Cheesequake doesn't pan out and Mr Smith you and I fought together side by side against locating the Depot at Slover are you against it being first on the list of alternate sites that Dr Labby um mentioned that in response to a previous question those are my four questions okay thank you Mr Robinson that was record time Jim I don't see the clock trying okay trying thank you okay Dr lry oh you have to close public oh I'm sorry at this time we'll close public second close Okay so with regard to the the first question how much money have we uh saved or or realized with the solar power purchase agreement we we did calculate savings into that Miss Hill I don't know if you want to jump in we don't have actuals but go ahead um so the solar panels at the elementary schools only went live in September so that's when our billing actually start the solar panels only went live in September so that's when it actually started where we're getting build from Green skies I haven't done an analysis yet I would do that at the end of the school year so I don't have an answer on what we've actually saved but they are on at the schools that are finished um which is everywhere but the middle school and the high school so they are in process next question was the status as Debt Service aid for the referendum you want to cover that sure the way Debt Service Aid works is we get a payment annual along with our school aid so we pay the bond payment and then the state gives us money towards that Bond payment and that is happening that's my assumtion next question was has has anyone considered other sites for the transportation complex absolutely we've been looking uh at different opportunities Miss Hill and I have traveled out to different places um obviously we we stay steadfast in our pursuit of the the location that we were promised but yes have we gone out and looked at alternative locations absolutely and I can't answer for Mr Smith on his question so no Jim um yeah I vote against Slover once I will always fight for Slover okay thank you closed your answer then public comment is closed Clos public the answer then would beg the question are those four schools um is that no longer valid that comment sorry Public's closed the don't have to answer me the public wants to know back Jim you can ask your question after the meeting anything else any other comments from board members before we adjourn yeah I just have a couple comments okay one I want to mention that the rotary is having their annual father daughter dance this year several of our students and our families are coming out to a great time at the BFW great this Friday whoever wants to join also the second annual iHeart horror event is which is a fundraiser for D'Or har and lung will also be at the VFW this Saturday and if some board members are interested we we may have some passes for you what time do that one start uh at the BFW it's pretty much an all day event I'll I'll I'll get you exact times but it's it's pretty much an all day event with Chris so yeah daily emails it's fine text messages rather yeah exactly um and then I got a question and comment for uh Eric and I don't expect you to have an answer because I I know I'm kind of surprising on this one but I was kind of thinking about it with the recent closure of the Freehold school district and the FBI's d uh director's uh comments to to a congress regarding cyber attacks that are state sponsored from hostile States and the increased threats that we have mfas as ER as Eric knows um can reduce the possibility of getting hacked by 99% it's a very cost effective and I know Eric and I discussed this I know you're rolling it out and you've been doing a great job progressing along with this and I know you've run into some resistance along the way considering all the things that are going on in the world today and and the dramatic increase in cyber attacks is this something that we want to start to consider speeding up the uh the timeline and getting this done and can quickly can I just jump in i i i caution us about talking about something like this in public in public yeah that's fine speak about it now potentially watching this I don't want any from our cyber security plan becoming public uh and giving anybody absolutely an up on how they can hack into our district so maybe that's something and I I don't want to you know cut you off from saying whatever you want to say but I really do think that maybe that's a discussion that can be had not in public because I I really especially after what occurred in Freehold Township I don't feel that we should be discussing anything with regard to our cyber security plan in public you're you're you're you're absolutely correct Dr lavy and uh I apologize that was just something that just had certainly that's a discussion that Mr Fernandez you and I can have and Mr Glock laor you and I can have and any other board members um can have if you if you really want to have it with us but I just don't want to talk about that in public I can say at a very high level Dr lby there is never enough or a fast enough methodology for any organization to roll out any security plans or increase security and that will always be an ongoing battle um so we've made major strides in security this year and we have many more which will be in my budget presentation next meeting last um so that's just a constant ongoing battle um where we will continue to to improve and um exceed wherever we can yeah no no absolutely we can talk about Al line just something to think about okay anybody else motion to adjourn off