good evening everybody and welcome to the Somerville Board of Education meeting scheduled for Tuesday April 30th if I could ask everybody to please stand for the flag salute I to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all Mr Boyce can we have a roll call please yes Mrs Van Horn here Mr seril present Sir Mr Jess present Mr Carlson here Mr Pon Mrs cret is absent Mrs Dale here Mr kimick here Mr Garcia here Mrs Fai is absent thank you uh adequate notice of this meeting in compliance with chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 entitled the open public meetings act has been provided by action of the board of education at its regular meeting on January 3rd 2024 notices to The Courier News and Star Ledger circula in the school district and a posted notice to this effect on the board of education website and building Bolton board administrative headquarters 51 West Cliff Street Somerville New Jersey at this time we are open to the public for comment on both agenda and non-agenda items if anybody would like to make a comment I ask you to please go to the microphone but don't mess with Mr Boyce's computer or else you'll shoot the whole budget project right down and while some of us may be happy I don't know if he would be meeting a little bit Yeah the meeting would be a little bit short don't touch it don't touch it Sharon gck 548 Street inbrook I work at the high school here in Somerville on behalf of the somville Education Association I just want to welcome gisco pending board approval I've been told um as our new superintendent and we look forward to working with you thank you thank you thank you anyone else no seeing none may I have a motion to close public comment please thank you Mr may have a second thank you Mr Carlson any discussion all those in favor I any opposed any extensions motion carries at this time can I have approval of the minutes for the March 14th regular and executive sessions please so move sir thank you Mr shil may have a second second thank you Mr van Horton any discussion all those in favor I any opposed any extension so move all right board president's report we have some good news and some not some good news so we're going to go with the not good news first um I would just want to offer on behalf of the board our condolences to the FR family um Lindsay FR and Caitlyn who are teachers in the district and Miss Lindsay who is our vice principal at Vander their father Harry passed away a few weeks ago and we just want to offer our condolences Harry was I knew Harry from soccer because he was a referee and while we on the sidelines would always be say a little agitated maybe not as nice as we should be um he always was gentle and had a smile on his face and would come over and be like you know that's not how you should act and we're here for the kids and then he would explain to the girls or to the boys exactly what had happened and why and um you know he treated everybody like family he made you feel as if you were part of his family and he always had a smile for everybody so Lucille Lindsay and Kaitlyn really want to say we're thank we're sorry for your loss now for some good news so the board has been as everybody knows without a full-time superintendent since January of 2023 when our former superintendent went out on leave and we've gone through an exhaustive process I think most everybody up here would say it was exhaustive right we had many meetings we had a search uh we had very qualified candidates but um we settled on someone who we think is an exemplary candidate the process started where we hired New Jersey School Board Association to run our search for us and they provided us with 36 candidates broken into two specific categories category a was superintendents who met or exceeded what our criteria was and or people not superintendent necessarily and category B were people who just met our criteria and so with the board did is the board picked eight candidates from category a to interview of which uh Mr Gary lisco Jr was one of those candidates and we went through three rounds of interviews and the third round of interviews was a day spent in the district where Mr laiso came in he visited all our schools he spoke with the administrators he spoke with teachers he spoke with the sea and then he spoke with the board in two separate small groups um and we were able to really ask him anything and everything and he was able to do the same with us and based upon those uh meetings and the interviews and also on the following right so Mr laiso has a ba in history from Susan University he earned his uh masters of administration and educational Administration from cane and he's currently working on his uh doctorate uh at Rowan University in educational leadership he has experienc at all levels of Education he has been a history teacher at Lincoln Middle School in dellen as well as at dellan high school as well as at Governor Livingston high school he was assistant principal at dellan high school he was principal of the John P Farber Elementary School in Den Allan and he is currently the superintendent of Manchester Regional High School in Pay County so he does have experience at all levels um based upon the board comments and also in checking with Mr liso's references here are some adjectives to describe him he is collaborative he has Integrity he is analytical he's communicative he understands how to deal with people he is community involved and Community oriented he sees the value in teachers he understands curriculum he is a leader not a ruler student and staff success are one of his focuses and Dr Patrick pagar former county superintendent from middlex County said that um by hiring Mr laiso we have won the golden ticket and so um I am very excited and I believe every member of the board is very excited exited um except for Mr Carlson because he's the only member of the board who has yet to be able he has yet to be able to meet Mr laiso due to a conflict and so um but I think everybody here is is so very excited and before I move forward with the resolution I would just like to ask if any of the other board members would like to say anything or provide any comments or not because Now's the Time and we're not going to do this later Mr uh Mr Serio as you come up at times so Now or Never well since we're not going to do it later I just want to say I know I wasn't available for the second round of interviews and I was a I was thankful to be around the third I am looking forward to discussing as you may know my passion in character education with our clubs and activities so I'm looking forward to our first oneon-one absolutely I mean I I Echo that I want to welcome you and and thank you again for U just your integrity throughout the process because it's an arduous process to go through and you did really an exemplary job I also want to thank you Derek for your leadership throughout this um you know it it's hard I think for the public to realize just how much goes into scheduling organizing um you know the the hours that were put in are are you know um just just something that um is hard to describe so and I know you for the past couple of years have taken on the leadership role in terms of you know spearheading that process and working that through so I do want to thank you for that too thank you I I will add that this is my first superintendent search and it's far easier to select the pope than it is of nights that we met here the number of people that we met the number of titles resumes that we reviewed it was a lot um but I'm really thankful to this body uh what I learned is that the group here is a group that really cares and this committed to this community uh and it showed and I'm really happy with the results I want to welcome are um I had a chance to speak with them thoroughly on many topics that were important to me and um all of those adjectives that described in our and so we're very happy to have you welcome and you know mat o' Brian is releasing the white smoke as as we're as we're sitting here anybody else just want to welcome welcome you to the Ville welcome your family and uh it was wonderful spending the day as we toured all the schools going from place to place I happen to be on that tour of the Ville with Mr lisco and uh we just welcome you to the Bill thank you happy to have you with in our village ab and we thank your lovely wife and your kids for allowing us to have him uh we will do our best not to keep him away from you for a long period time unless you really want us to you know then you just have to call Mr Boyce and he'll make sure that he does that and we'll make sure that we get some vill gear as well for the kids because we know that you know when they go to school they're going to want to represent the vill instead of Bridgewater so we're all good so we're all good with that and in fact uh my son's teacher is an Alum all right very good see so it's all good all around so with that being said uh be it resolved that the Board of Education approved the appointment of Gary liso Jr as superintendent of schools effective August 1st 2024 through June 30th of 2029 with a starting salary of $215,000 pursuant to the terms and conditions of the employment contract as approved by executive County Superintendent of Schools and be finally resolved that the board president is authorized to sign the employment contract on the board of education's behalf with that being said may I have a motion please motion thank you Mr pantilla we have a second second thank you Mrs Van Horn any discussion further if not I will ask Mr boy for a roll call please yes Mrs Van Horn yes Mr Serio all right abely Mr Jess yes Mr Carlson unfortunately I must recluse myself okay Mr pontillo yes Mrs Dale yes Mr kimik yes Mr Garcia yes motion carried congratulations now if at this time if you would like to say anything we'd ask you to come on up and join the podium and you know have a by the way the same rule applies don't touch the keyboard I understand the rules all right uh first of all uh I wanted to make sure I got everything right in my opening statement here so I did write it down um but this is a something I'm I'm very excited to begin a journey with everybody here um so I'm incredibly honored and humbled to stand before you today as your newly appointed superintendent of schools first and foremost I want to extend a heartfelt thank you and and gratitude to the board of education for entrusting me with this tremendous responsibility your confidence in me means the world and I'm fully committed to serving our community with diligence integrity and passion i' would be remiss if I did not express my gratitude for my family thank you for being here with me on this uh very important day and and I love you more than anything as I step into this role I'm filled with excitement and anticipation for the work that lies ahead together we have a profound opportunity to shape the future of Education in this District I'm eager to collaborate with our dedicated teachers administrators support staff and the entire School Community to Foster environment where every student can Thrive and reach their full potential I'm committed to maximizing educational opportunities for all students regardless of background or circumstance together we'll ensure that every child receiv receives the support and resources they need to succeed academically socially and emotionally I'm truly excited to roll up my sleeves and get started with your partnership and the collective efforts of the entire Community I have no doubt that we will aieve achieve great things together let us Embark in this journey with enthusiasm determination and a shared commitment to the success of every student thank you once again for this incredible opportunity I'm honored to serve as your superintendent of schools and I look forward to all that we can accomplish together thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you and now with that I would ask um for a motion to take a short recess and we have a little reception for Mr liso so if I could have a motion for about a 10 15minute recess thank you Mr pel have a second thank you Mr Carlson any discussion all those in favor I any oppos any exensions we're at recess at [Music] 6:45 all right everybody may I have a motion to come back to public session please thank you Caron thank you Mr shil any discussion all those in favor I any oppos exensions we are back in at 7:03 and now I'm going to turn it over to Dr brel for the superintendent report thank you Derek and um tonight Riley's not with us so I think Ash should be doing the whole thing Ashley all right yeah Riley Riley's uh got hurt at the softball game so that's why she's not here but I'll start off by saying um invitations to the 46th annual honor award ceremony has been emailed to those who qualified uh you can check your school account if you have any questions just email Mrs Barrow and then attention class of 2024 decision day is fastly approaching on May 15th at 1:00 there will be an event on the main field at Somerville High School um for everyone to take pictures with one another in their school gear um while tomorrow May 1st is known as National decision Day this year um it's been pushed back to those who still wa waiting on FASA because FASA has been pushed back um the smack Club is hosting the third annual Megan Rose Bradley fundraising event on Thursday May 2nd at 6:30 p.m. in the gym the shs staff and seniors will face off in a volleyball tournament we'll see if the class of 2024 can break the staffs twoe winning winning streak um and you can buy a t-shirt to donate and get free admission to the game or pay $5 at the door um we hope you'll join everyone I know a lot of my friends are playing in it I am not um not the best volleyball player but it should be fun and then come out and support the jazz bands and chamber choir this Friday May 3rd at night of jazz in the auditori admission is free indoors open 6:30 snacks and refreshments will be provided um and they're completely free so obviously a fun way to just go out and and listen to the bands and then marching band season is fast approaching percussion auditions will be held on May 10th and May 13th in the auditorium no experience on percussion is required to join open house will be held on May 23rd in the ban room you can come out learn the show make some friends and join the largest extracurricular group in the school if you have questions or concerns you can see Mr Ferguson in the music office near room 118 obviously our bands are very successful I'll cover more on that later about their trip and all that but um if you're interested definitely go look at it and then spring sports are in full spring the softball team has started their season off strong with a record of eight and six that does include today um and then shout out to senior Nicole Fitz Gibbon on reaching 200 career strikeouts this past Monday the girls next game is Thursday home against South River um the baseball team has battled all season and has a record of 5 and eight but they're in the top division um so obviously a tough schedule for them and then the boys next game is Thursday home against north hunon um the girls LAX team is six and six their next game is Thursday away against Hillsboro shout out to Junior Brooklyn Peterson who recorded her 100th career goal a couple weeks ago as well as Junior Natalie Verona who was Nam Skyland player of the week so obviously huge accomplishments for both of them and then the boys lack team um has a record of three and six but theyve faced some difficult competition over the past few weeks um including some of the top ranked teams in the state um and then their next game is home tomorrow against Wong Hills and then the girls track team defended their title making their third consecutive first place win at the Skyland conference relays and they placed third overall in the Somerset County relays and then the boys track team also secured first place in the Skyland conference relays and they placed fourth overall in the Somerset County relays and both teams also just went to pen relays which is a huge track um event that was hosted I think at upen um and then back again for its yearly tradition Sommerville Got Talent auditions are fastly approaching they're looking for acts of all kinds including dancing juggling comedy singing and more to audition in battle for the crown on Thursday May 9th auditions are submitted via video and are due on Friday May 3rd to Mr Noah you can stop by outside room 120 to find the audition packet and information um best of luck and then Key Club is running a clothing drive from now until Memorial Day use your spring cleaning of closets to donate clothing for those in need all clothes are welcomed with a special emphasis on jackets and coats 1 hour service for an article of clothing and 5 hours for a bag please leave donations in the front of the main office and then Normandy Studios uh have been at Somerville High School in the media center starting April 22nd to photograph the class of 2025 for the yearbook if you do if you do not book an appointment during the time they are here you'll have to come to their studio in Somerset New Jersey to be photographed and there will be a $25 private studio session fee this also goes for retakes and all that um and then the PTO is offering um prom and wrist cores and a variety of flowers and colors for from Scots Florest and raran orders must be received by May 3rd no exceptions and then flowers will be delivered to Somerville high school May 17th where students can pick their orders up in the auditorium when they're dismissed for the day following the PR assembly and then obviously prom tickets have been on sale all this week they had students had to sign up um a few weeks ago in order to secure their ticket and then the music department performed for the Virginia International Arts Festival in North Folk Virginia the concert choir chamber choir Wind Ensemble jazz band and marching band all received gold ratings they also all received first place in the respective divisions Wind Ensemble and marching band received the highest score among all Ensemble across the entire Festival earning some revealed the title of the grand champion and obviously that whole trip for the music department was filled with a bunch of other fun activities I know they went to FL Gardens I know um they went to like this live music band thing I don't know but I was really jealous sitting in school in math class and one of my best friends was was sending me pictures and I was like okay um but obviously um congratulations to all of them they work really hard for that trip and they earn it so um the Somerville High School Color Guard is holding an interest meeting for new and returning members on Thursday May 2nd at 2:30 and room 1114 you could join them to learn about the upcoming season as well as their M interest clinics you can see Mr Ferguson with any questions and we hope to see everyone there and then congratulations to the vill March students of the month my apologies if I mispronounced anyone's name uh ninth grade was caressa Lopez Rodriguez and elani uh Rodriguez 10th grade was an Elena bash and Daisy caraza valone 11th grade was Joshua gordin and Josiah Howard Wright and then 12th grade was Jordan hmond and Cameron Walsh so that's that's it that's all great Mr President that's my report excellent we have plenty of witnesses here so we heard that Ashley is always thank you so much great job um have fun at the prom thank you and good luck with the rest of the softball season yes sorry about to but you guys are still well positioned yeah we are still well good good it's better than the last two seasons that's it take care congratulations thank you all right okay so we have a a tribute that was submitted by Ariel benrich one of our directors uh thank you to our school librarians Andrea Mark and Adriana for your dedication April 2024 has been designated nationally a school library month by the American Association of school librarians and recognized by New Jersey a state board of education you provide vital resources Foster a love for reading and support our students growth your efforts enrich our school Community we're grateful for your work and for making a difference in our students lives from Vander our fifth grade students went to the Jacobus Vander house for a history lesson and historical reenact reenactments a variety of teachers participated in the most improved student program sponsored by the Somerset Patriots baseball baseball program the students who were nominated for this award attended the Patriots baseball game and were recognized during the game bav celebrated week of the young child in preschool in first grade students had themed days each day the week and worked with their assigned buddy class on various activities families in the preschool were invited to come in to learn and to celebrate the week on April 5th Tom rorer came to speak to our students a Tim rather Timothy RoR is a young adult with autism who is also an author speaker self- Advocate and educator on disability inclusion he is the author of a teaching guide how to be a good influence to people with disabilities and two children's books Timmy story a story about autism and friendship and Timmy story a sensory friendly birthday grade 2 students went to somerville's fire Museum where they learned about the history of somerville's Fire Department and examined some of the historical fire department memorabilia April 15 through 19 Vander celebrated Autism Awareness Week and from the middle school on March 21st the Middle School rocked their socks as a schoolwide initiative to spread awareness of down syndrome by wearing mismatched or crazy crazy socks rock your socks is symbolic because people with Down Syndrome have three copies of the 21st chromosome on March 15th and 16th the Middle School cast and crew put on a wonderful performance of into the woods for our school and Community the visitation of the SMS band to vdv was a remarkable occasion allowing students from both schools to come together and celebrate the joy of Music on March 25th the middle school had an initiative to wear green celebration of cerebral py this was a heartwarming display of solidarity and support with within the Middle School community on Monday April 8th the Middle School participated in the second annual life skills day life skills day is a building-wide initiative where we focus on imparting essential life skills to our students to ensure their success both within our school and as they transition into adult on Thursday April 11th 5 middle school students were recognized at the Paul Robinson youth achievement ceremonies sponsored by Raritan Valley Community College the recipients include Amaya Jordan Amaya Adams Duwan dorsy kyes gray and Jaden Gibson and on Friday April 19th the eighth grade class visited the exchange field for an earth a trash free picnic students competed to see which Home Room class could bring the least garbage to the picnic and that's it than you thank you thank you Dr bcel all right moving on it is everybody's favorite time of the year again is budget time and with that we will turn it over to Mr Boyce for the public hearing on the FIS year 25 budget okay thank you Mr Jess this portion of the meeting will be dedicated to the public hearing on the 2425 budget and there will be an opportunity for questions at the end of okay the presentation overvie we're going to talk a little bit about special Revenue fund and Deb service fund first fairly quickly we're going to move on to general fund Revenue we're going to talk about enrollment because enrollment affects both revenue and Appropriations here we're going to talk about general fund Appropriations and including Personnel capital projects which are probably the most noteworthy things to talk about in our Appropriations so jumping right to the first side slide we have the overall composition of general fund budget is made up of three smaller budgets the general fund special Revenue fund and Debt Service fund each of those smaller uh budgets have their own revenues and Appropriations The Debt Service fund is used for the accumulation for resources or in the payment of long-term debt special Revenue fund is Anum is a fund that's set aside for the accumulation of special Revenue sources primarily federal and state grants and in general fund of course is where most of our money is and we'll spend most of our time tonight and that includes our operating budget and also um our capital projects Now The Debt Service The Debt Service fund and the general fund Levy are the two the general Debt Service fund and the general fund are the two funds that have a levy attached to them I'm going to start off with the special Revenue fund because the pie chart last year and I had a similar slide last year special Revenue fund was 11% so that's a big change and that's worth discussing so special Revenue fund we have revenues and Appropriations and as I mentioned earlier federal state grants is what makes up our special Revenue fund as you can see state grants on the revenues is St staying fairly leveled um by the way that $1.9 million of that $791,000 is for nonpublic schools so it's just a we're just a flow through but we're respons responsible for administering the grants dropping down to the Highlight at row federal grants is where where we should talk about it the district as most other districts in in the state received Federal grant money for covid related purposes for us it was over $5 million and that amount of money is coming to an end we are by by September of 24 we will be completely done spending the covid money that came our way um several positions that we fund that we currently fund are being charged to that grant that Grant those grants when they came about they were allowed for several different purposes you had learning laws to to address learning loss related to covid you had um mental health needs also as a result of covid was something that the federal government wanted to to see you address and also um even uh plant improvements such as HV AC was another thing we were allowed to spend the money on but the point in bringing it up here is that we funded several positions with that grant money that was there to address covid and the need for which those people were hired has not faded with Co so the challenge for the district was to bring in those people that we funded with this grant into the general fund given the need that still exists Deb service fund there's not a lot to talk about here um it's very stable from year to year the principle and interest the repayment schedules for for debt is is structured in a way that's it's level from year to year and then the money the revenues up top for how we pay for that debt is also stable from year to year so I mentioned that The Debt Service fund has a tax levy so you see the tax levy there it's up 0.1% later on I'll have a slide related to outstanding debt that'll be later on in later on in the presentation okay let's move on to general fund revenues the general fund tax levy is the levy that the state puts a 2% cap one as you can see our general fund tax levy is increasing 2% in this Slide the state also gives districts the ability to raise that Levy above 2% in limited circumstances if you meet certain criteria we do meet criteria for two of those circumstances one is enrollment and one is increas in health benefits and those two adjustments above the 2% is worth 411,000 to us but as you can see from looking at the slide we did not increase above the 2% we kept it at 2% and later on I'll talk about what happens with that 411,000 that we were actually able to increase on top of the 496000 if we chose to do so tuition is almost all except for 40,000 all Branch for tuition and my next two slides we're going to get into that in much more detail because that's an extremely important Revenue to us and we're following the closing I'm going to show you what some of the analysis looks like of tuition state aid without getting into the complexities of the school funding formula Senate Bill S2 passed in 2018 which eliminated adjustment aid over a 7-year period beginning in 1819 and ending in 2425 simply put it shifted state aid away from districts that were considered overfunded based on the funding formula to districts that were considered underfunded based on the fun funding formul Somerville was a district that was considered underfunded and so therefore we were the beneficiary of S2 of course the time that preceded S2 we were not a beneficiary because we were not getting that those increased dat funds at that point but S2 started that and now has concluded for 2425 and as of 2425 Summerville is now fully funded in accordance with the school funding for fund balance and release of tuition reserve and prior your incumbrances what I will say about that line line item is the district relies on $1.5 million of surplus to fund recurring expenses or an operating budget so that's about 3% of our current expense for operating budget we can reasonably expect to generate 1.5 million every year in Surplus by not spending our complete budget miscellaneous where generally speaking there's not a whole lot to talk about I feel like we do have something to talk about this year uh we were able to get a decent amount of help in our revenues and when we have help in our anticipated revenues that obviously helps us uh increase our Appropriations to deal with needs we have so when we have help with revenues it's very helpful to us in terms of miscellaneous interest rates have have gone up quite a bit we've uh been able to increase what we're anticipating interest revenue for next year and the other thing that we're doing is doing a lot of Transportation joines in this District so this year we bought three buses we already had five buses before that but we're doing a lot in the way of finding districts and it's normally Branchburg Bridgewater boundbrook that are sending kids to a certain school that we're already sending to that those districts are paying higher high rat and because we have a a very proactive Transportation supervisor goes out establishes relationships with the people and those other school districts and gets them to pull back on the routes that they're doing that are at high rates for a much cheaper price for them so they save money and in in return we we earn revenue from those districts so and and we're already going to those District so we're we're not paying out the high outside contractors we're paying a low price plus we're receiving Revenue from these other districts and sometimes the other districts do the same thing but board members may remember on a lot of these agendas that we're going through there's a lot of joint that that you're approving and we are the host and when we do that we are making money so we were able to increase what we're expecting in terms of Transportation joint interest by 200,000 which was a lot of help withdrawal from capital reserve think of capital reserve as a savings account dedicated for paying for capital projects so when we have Capital project needs we can pull from that Reserve assuming we're able to fund it and that's an effort that we have to make when we save money we have to put it away in capital reserve because as you're going to see later on in this presentation we needed money from capital reserve to fund capital projects you can also think of this Reserve as a reserve for taxpayer relief because when we need money for capital projects we're not actually raising taxes for it we're going to our savings account we're taking for it taken from there and we're paying for it okay here the next two slides go back to the the Branchburg tuition line item in our revenues made up of three components of R for tuition prior year tuition adjustment current year tuition and resource room charges prior your tuition to summarize that quickly when we enter into a school year with Branchburg we come up with the estimated tuition we go through the year then the year ends and we know exactly how many kids from Branchburg came here we know exactly how many from Summer attended summer high school and then we also know exactly how much expenditures we had for the year and we square up for that year so for 2324 we had $242,000 coming our way but for 2425 this 362,000 go in Branchburg way one important thing I want to mention about this the 242,000 2324 is not money that we receiv received and used to pay for current expenditures for operating expenditures because because if we did that and that 242,000 didn't come back the next year we have a hole in our Reven and as you can see that is what happened also with the 362,000 there is another Reserve we use it's tuition reserve and it's exactly for this purpose you are allowed to save up to 10% of the total tuition amount in a tuition Reserve to pay to pay in our case the sending district and Branchburg can do the same thing um money that we owe as as part of that square process that I talked to you about so the 362 did not hurt us because we were paying Branchburg because we had previously saved it in a reserve account so that it did not affect our operating expenditures this year if we take a look at what the current year tuition is made up of it's made up of bransburg sending us money for Capital expenditures and bransburg sending us money for operating expenditures and you can see how that's broke broken up similarly as to the prior tuition adjustment money that we receive from Branchburg for capital projects are not used to fund operating expenditures because if we have a project and as you can see we have two years that are similar but if we have a year where we do no high school project capital projects that would be zero and we would have a big hole in our budget so what do we do with Revenue that we get from Branchburg for Capital expenditures we put it back towards capital projects we reinvest into our capital reserve or use it to pay for capital projects the other thing we try and do is keep that number fairly level because if we went 700,000 then zero then $700,000 that causes quite a big big big fluctuation with the Branchburg tuition and that's not good for our relationship with branberg so we do our best to keep that number fairly level the money we receive from Branchburg for operating expend obviously we do use that money to fund operating expenditures um resource room is just a another category of operating expenditures that we get money from rburg they require us to pull out that particular piece and account for separately but it's essentially operating uh money for operating expenditures from bransburg now the next slide I want to go one step further in the analysis of the subtotal you see there for the current year tuition of 10.9 million and 11489 million so you can see down at the bottom that's how those two numb are arrived at so up top if you take a look at the 20 million and 21 21.3 million those are the expenditures that bransburg and Somerville are sharing the percentages below is what bransburg share of those expenditures are they are different because the projected enrollment makeup in Somerville High School is projected to change slightly here in this case 4/10 of 1% but you can see what the difference is just with 4 T of 1% change shift in the ad or the enrollment predicted at ransfer for next year instead of picking up 5.3% of of the expenses of the increase or the of the shared expenses they're picking up 4.5 if 2425 had 54.1% if it stayed the same Sumer would have received another 83,000 you might think 83,000 that's pretty small in the scheme of things you have a $56 million general fund yes it is but on the next slide I'm going to talk about bigger shifts in the average daily enrollment therefore the percentage that Branchburg pays and what that does for us um when you're talking about bigger shifts I'll also say one other thing before I get off the slide if the 5411 had reduced or decreased by 2.7% then the amount Branchburg would pay and the shared expenses would have been the same it would have been another 10.9 million for 2425 despite the 5.3% increased in the expenses so now 2.3 2.7% is unlikely that we see from year to year but it's not not outside the realm of possibility so let's talk a little bit more about the percentage number which again is the is is based on average daily enrollment at the high school Ranch for kids versus Somerville kids so you can see on the First Column there you have 145 along theide you have Branchburg students sumerville students and other sometimes we receive students from other districts because our specializ programs are quite good and we attract students from other districts so for 1415 you can see Branchburg was 65. 59% of the high school that's actual that's not projected now I removed the columns from 14115 to 2122 because if I included them you wouldn't be able to see anything but there was a steady decline from 1415 to 2122 and that is continuing as we see um if we go back to this slide here and say if that 53.72 remained constant from 1415 at 65.5 n% we would have received $2.3 million more than 11489 million so you can see it's only a 410 of 1% between 23 24 and 24 25 but when you look at bigger shifts that have happened over the years and we have weathered this storm so that's about 12% from 1415 all the way to 2425 so that's difficult for us to deal with because it's big dollars when you're talking about share expenses uh with Branch Bur the other thing while we while we're on the subject of enrollment we just happen to be at a point in time when both Branchburg and Somerville are are putting up um residential developments and not just one or two a bunch in each town so how many kids come from those developments and moves the needle on that 53.7 where we projected to be 24-25 remains to be seen it's something we're looking at closely um the other thing to consider when you're keeping an eye on these development projects that are going up in both towns is how are you on space so it's not just not just the finances between Somerville and bransburg that we have to look out for but it's also the space in our districts so for the Sommerville developments we are starting to see some kids come we have 15 that have come from Avalon as of today's date actually and 10 that have come from Park so and Branchburg is seeing their share of kids come to Summerville High School from Red Rock preserve so we will we will see how things turn out over time but we did have an enrollment projection report done in January knowing that this was going on we did enrollment study report was completed in January of uh 24 and what the demographer looked at he looks at five years historical data and he projects five years out so he looked at from 1819 to current and then he projected out to 28 29 so if you looked at his report he predicted that if not for these development projects we would have seen a decline enrollment at vanderbeer and the middle school and we would have seen the high school hold pretty steady compared to what it is now but when you factored in the development projects in both towns you saw vanderbeer and the middle Middle School stay fairly level and you saw the high school go up if there's any concern about space with these developments that are going on it would be at the high school because the high school has kids coming from both communities where both development projects are coming from so what he projected for the high school by the end of 2829 is that we would be at the same level as we are as we were in 1819 so at this point in the game we don't see any just notice I can turn on the volume we're not seeing any reason to panic at this point but at there is a lot of residential developments going up and there's also a lot of projecting going on so this is something we're keeping a very close eye on we might do an enrollment study every other year at this point where we normally might do it every five years just because of everything that's going on but right now we're not seeing a major problem the high school will be more kids than it is now but the demographer exit only to reach the 1819 levels okay K to8 enrollment not a lot to speak about here from 23 24 to 24 25 pretty level class sizes you usually look at at the elementary level 6 through 8 9 through 12 kids have elected or changing classes you don't really look at that too much but in K to 5 we're looking at class sizes of 17 to 19 for the gened classes except for one first grade might be up close to 21 because our kindergarten class this year is higher than normal it's up around 125 Mountain State okay Bank cap so let's go back to one of the first slides I talked about where we did not raise the tax that all that we could have because we were eligible to go above the 2% so if we go right down to the bottom of the first of the First Column you see that 411,000 so we have generated Bank cap that's not money in the bank that's money that's there and for us to use as an ability to raise taxes above or raise the general fund tax levy above the 2% you can look at what's happened over time we've generated quite a bit over time we if you do not use that ability to raise taxes above 2% for three years you lose that ability it expires so we've lost the ability to raise taxes above 2% to the tune of about 750 ,000 over since 1112 since the Inception we currently still have the 411,000 that we generated for 24 25 it'll be available for the next three years I mean you could take a look at the expired cap room and wonder whether that was a good thing or not you could debate that but one thing I think is undeniable decisions where you're letting cap room expire it's because you're keeping a close eye on property taxes and you're paying attention to it and you're sens to it because if you're going to use that extra cap room property taxes go up general fund expenditures okay this this slide is a is a little crowded so I've split it up so the first part of it is current expense you see a subtotal air current expense think of current expense as an operating budget and then the bottom part of the slightest Capital project so I'm just going to go over the current expense here right now regular education regular Ed teachers supply website subscriptions special education we have our special education teachers their supplies also out of District placements and we've seen a slight we're we're anticipating a slight decrease in out of District placements next year for special education and that's why we only see only a 1.39% uh increase in that line item co-curricular and Athletics that's self-explanatory Support Services include nurses speech OT PT one to1 AIDS guidance child study team Media Services uh professional development all of those things are in the support services line item Administration includes Central Administration and School administration and the support staff for those Administration administrators Opera uh operations maintenance and transportation is custodial of Maintenance security and transportation so you see that line line line item up a modest amount based on what I was describing to you before about what we're doing with Transportation employee benefits so 70 that's um 79% of that $9.7 million is health benefits the rest of it is things like pentant contributions board share of F and Workers Compensation Insurance as you can see there there's nothing ex there's no extraordinary increases or decreases there the employee benefits line is up but we have a few more employees that we're adding to this to the to the budget so that number is up higher than you would normally see if we hiring no and even if we weren't hiring any employees or or adding any employees to the budget the 7.58% wouldn't be a bad number considering what school districts are experienc in these days so I want to spend the next two slides talking about the 49 million analyzed in a different way than you see in the left-hand column and also the 1.5 million analyzed in a different way because this is where most of our money is so it warrants us taking a closer look at it so the 49 million that you saw in the previous slide is split up in the following manner as you can see 79% of our of our budget of our general fund budget is spent on salaries and health benefits that satisfies our obligations for collective bargaining other employee benefits include like mentioned before pension contributions board shareff fight the Workers Compensation Insurance 2% for outside uh tuition uh kids and in all their operating expenses is classroom supplies custodial supplies maintenance supplies utilities liability insurance all of those things together only amount to 15% of our budget so if you take a look this is an analysis of the 1.5 million how where did we see the increases in our operating budget well it's no surprise to see most of it is in salaries and benefits that's where we spend most of our money tuition actually went down I mentioned before that we're expecting less outside District placements for special ed students so that actually went down all their operating expenses actually decreased and the other employee benefits increased 74,000 so now I want to talk more about what's included in that current expense budget we have this page reflects the the Personnel that we're looking to maintain that was charged of those federal grants I mentioned before the federal Co grants we added a position with those grants of an iron us coordinator now the position that exists now is just K to 5 and it also also part interventionist we're changing slightly would be just an ironist coordinator which a person which is a person who works with a teacher to identify plans for kids who are not responding to interventions in the classroom so they're very helpful to the teachers to develop plans and follow through and talk with parents and so forth um to help the struggling students in a planning way um we're looking to maintain that position although like I said changed slightly another position that we have right now that we're looking to change slight slightly is a middle school Ela interventionist the other half of that position as it stands now is a grant coordinator because with $5 million of Grant funds coming in we needed somebody to help at least half of a day or half of their time rolling out certain programs and so forth that were new programs as a result of the co grants so we needed that for this year but with the federal grants expiring at the end of this year and not existing anymore in 24 we don't need that anymore but what we do need is a maps program coordinator which we have added to the ELA interventionist position and since they're next to each other it works it works geographically also um so we're looking to also maintain that position special education reading Specialists so we have seen progress in terms of literacy across all areas because of the addition of special education reading specialist this year that we're charging to a grant to the Federal covid grant so because of that progress and because of all the success that we've seen with it we're looking to also maintain that position you have a group of people at the high school you have guidance counselors you have non-child study team psychologists and you have student assistant counselor so preco we had that group of people during Co and during during time where we had this grant money available to us we increased the resources there primarily to deal with mental health needs of children because that's one of the things that Co was looking to address postco coming out of that we will end up with the same number of people same number of those guidance counselors non-child study team psychologists and student assistant counselors slightly realigned to meet the current student needs but we end up with the same same number of people and a halftime District translator was something we were struggling with quite a bit even before covid um I'm going to talk about a slide later which shows the influx of um of um Spanish speaking uh students in particular so we struggled to have somebody at meetings for parent teacher conferences for iron us meetings for child study team meetings we had a bus Aid that we spoke Spanish that we pulled and used and you know we got by but we weren't doing it right so when the covid grants came about we used it as an opportunity to get a halftime at least halftime person in place that can be present for those and effectively communicate with our Spanish speaking parents so we're looking to maintain that that halftime position as well that concludes the positions that were adding that were charged to a Federal grant now we still have more to talk about but they're not related we're not currently being charged to a Federal Grant this year we added six part-time instructional assistance for kindergarten that were not budgeted for we did it because of what we were dealing with we had a higher uh kindergarten class tough class to deal with we did hire six part-time instructional assistants this year but it was a temporary measure that was only going to be for this year but for next year we're looking to keep two of those middle school Spanish teacher we had a scheduling change at the middle school which resulted in Spanish classes exceeding 30 kids per section so this was something we need to do to alleviate that problem bized teacher at the high school we have this thing C option to which requires uh a lot of tracking of students of logs and so forth which I believe is being account or is being completed at the middle school now but it's being moved up to the high school so that by adding the teacher we will have the person pleas to properly run the option to program at the high school this table here is could be the least flashy but the most compelling of the whole presentation what I've learned recently is the definition of a multilingual language learner and what that means to us so this table reflects kids coming to us from other countries who qualify for ESL instruction they qualify for ESL instruction because they were evaluated through testing and interviews and so forth and because of their weakness with the English language they were identified as a multilanguage multilingual language learner and if you are identified as that you are eligible for in the district must provide ESL instruction English as a second language a certified ESL teacher must provide instruction to those kids so therefore and you can see the numbers how they have jumped up especially in 2223 and 2324 and 2324 numbers there are only as of March 31st so they're probably even higher as we speak but the numbers have reached the point and the num the the number of ESL teachers we need is dictated by these numbers and also how much instruction these kids need during the day and also What that particular school schedule is so you put that all together we need a middle school ESL teacher and two High School ESL teachers now back to Capital expens can I just ask a question about that Brian sure so in looking at the numbers it seems that the highest number of ESL students is vanir so why are teachers being added to the middle school and high school but not vand ofir I had the same question okay currently we had two ESL teachers at V ofer we are close to needing a third but we're not there yet we despite the numbers and despite the amount that you see or the number you see at band we have met those that Threshold at the middle school and the high school so you know how that's determined comes to how many you have that can make up a class size so so forth and it it gets Beyond me it's not my hurry of expertise but I actually had a conversation just today anticipating that question and I had asked it once before and I got the same answer so we're not we're not quite there for Vander yet but we're we're getting close yeah two teachers does not seem like a lot for 33 students especially because Elementary School is when students typically come in not speaking any English so my concern would be if they need more support it's you know we have one particular person on staff who has a lot of experience in this area in terms of evaluating the students tracking them things like that and that's the person I speak to so you know obviously it's something she's well aware of and that administrators are well well aware of and again at this point we're adding quite a bit of teachers in this budget so we weren't forced to do that for band of year so we didn't do it but that's not to say we're approaching the need to do it I'm try just the I guess the follow up on that also is the the needs of the high school students may be very different I'm assuming down the need to the students in terms of content support and a way that it's scheduled possibly right the schedule affects things and also I believe that the amount of ESL instruction they need by grade level so that could play into it as well great people are actually listening yes um capital projects or Capital expenses this is the second part of the slide that I skipped over um capital projects a lot to talk about in terms of capital projects I try not to bore you with too much but you know as you can see we have $7 million of capital projects plan for 2425 and let me get into what that's about so high school hbac project now you're going to see State Grant listed in a couple of slides that is a grant program that that was established by the state they came out and said we will fund you 40% of your project cost assuming you can come up with the 60% if you can't come up with the 60% you're out of luck on the 40% and that's where we've used our capital reserve account we've been able to squirrel money away there and now we're looking to use it because we want the 40% discount on all these tier one level projects the state was willing to pay for primarily HVAC and Roots so we have the summable HVAC is is upgrad that's actually that that $900,000 Grant is actually 1.5 million but we're splitting it over two years so we talking about the rest of it this time next year for this year we're going to do approximately half so the grant related to that half is 900,000 as you can see as long as we can come up with the budget at local share of 1.35 million and by the way that $1.35 million if you take 53% of it that's the $700,000 we were looking at at a previous slide that's the share that's the that's the project that Branchburg and Somerville are sharing at the high school at 1.35 million so again it's just good for us to be able to do this because it's a lot of money that's Grant it's 40% Vander HB so that the high school HBC is the the new wing of the high school which is actually already 22 years old so the one that went up that's three three floors and borders Orchard Street that needs new unit ventilators already and in vandeir it's it's the new unit ventilators are for d-wing which is the same generation as that addition on the high school about 20 years old now again $ 3.875 million project and we're going to get a state grant for 1.55 million of it so it's really good news for us but we got to come up with the budget at local share and we are Summerville hbac if you remember with the December of 2004 referendum we renovated the Middle School 16.3 million we do not need to replace the unit ventilators in the Middle School just yet but what we do need is automated temperature controls so we're going to we're going to install those so that we can control the HVAC HVAC units better which will be good for Energy Efficiency that one's a little smaller State Grant 370,000 more state grants this time roofs Middle School roof H2 and H3 those are the roof sections schools replace roofs in sections that's just the way it is because the Roots come about at different times so H2 and H3 will be replaced next year Vandy beer root section is b-wing and d-wing routes another big project that we're getting 40% for and um we're going to be busy but at least we're getting 40% discounts more Capital Improvements this time it's a Federal grant so I mentioned before the federal Co grants paid for things other than mental health needs of children and learning loss it also for was for hbac improvements parts of it depending on the part of the grant that you received they were for different purposes so we're going to use $300,000 the last bit of our covid money that we got from the federal government towards the band ofir boiler replacement these boilers are at the end of their useful life they're the only school that doesn't have high efficiency boilers place we will get that with high efficiency Motors high efficiency pumps and hopefully enjoy a good bit of Energy Efficiency because we need it because we're going about to put a preschool Edition on Vander so we'll have extra space to heat and cool hopefully those two will offset each other more Capital Improvements this time no grants involved uh the Middle School intercon bell system I mentioned to you before the Middle School changed our schedule slightly well our Bell system is sophisticated enough to to adjust to the new schedule so we have bells ringing where kids are not supposed to move and beling where kids are supposed to move so we're going to everybody has cooked with it and figured it out but we're going to get rid of that situation we're going to replace it with a new state-ofthe-art highly programmable inter common Bell System where we're not worrying about that anymore and the Middle School auditorium seating which I haven't been able to find anybody that's still around that knows when that seating went into place but it's it's old I mean the Insignia you can't really see it because it's it's it's dark but that's an shs on the side of the chair you also see we have one of the chairs ripped off because we can't find parts you know so we do our best to repair them and then you know some of them we can't even repair it's it's it's not I mean it's probably from the night those chairs could possibly be original I don't know about the fabric original would be 1922 I don't know if it's that old maybe it's the 40s and 50s but it is old and desperately in need of replacement we can be proud of Productions which we have really good Productions at the middle school um or at all schools but but you know I just happen to know because it's quick for me to run over and see them um so it will be nice to have proper seating and the floor will be addressed also at the same time and so that we're looking not to complete that project as well and I mentioned before that we were we were going to talk about debt we talked about Debt Service but where do we stand with our outstanding debt as you can see we had 32 that December of 20 December of 2004 referendum we issued debt in February of 2005 we had $32.5 million of debt at that point in 2005 we're going to be down to a little over 4 million 4, 40,000 by the end of 2425 so so so good I mean we're getting very close to being debt free and all along that time we've been doing capital projects heavy duty additions football fields tracks HVAC roofs so we have not been neglecting our facilities as we've gone all this time and not incurred debt we've been investing heavily in them last Slide the property tax rate um you can see the property tax levy there is is 3% keep in mind that you know our budget's develop on a fiscal year basis July 1st to June 30th tax rates are struck on a calendar year basis as a result they don't match up so the levy of Levy ratables come into play when you calculate a tax rate you get a little bit of slight help there on on ratables the tax rate would go up 2.9% and therefore an average tax on a home or or an average value home in town would would also therefore go up 2.9% so hopefully I kept everybody's attention on that I uh I do want to open it up to questions if anybody has any any questions from member of the board Mr Garcia uh Brian I have two questions my first question is concerning enrollment um the number of students that graduate from bridge from Branchburg middle school and then don't come over to the high school do we know that that figure is it a high percentage of students that don't make it from ENT Middle School into our high school it's it has vared over the years and we do a fiveyear averaging every year so we do a rolling fiveyear averaging as we project how many kids are going to come over from Branchburg and then actually bransburg and us talk about that it ranges you know it's funny sometimes it coincides with the economy there were years where you know 92% came over there years 97 so we're we're always within that range um the interesting thing and I forgot to mention it this year's ninth grade at Somerville high school there are more Somerville kids than bransburg kids and the difference is 121 I'm sorry 137 137 ad so you take um both Tech kids and they count as 0.5 right so if you do that and you say that's average daily enrollment 137 Somerville kids and 116 Branchburg kids I don't think we've ever seen that since I've been here that's 23 years where we've had more and it's not it's not really close it's not like five kids to 21 kids is so the decline in students from branberg uh might not be attributed to the fact that students are going elsewhere and they're not going to our high school right but okay it's it's it's maybe similar to what we were experiencing we were we were projected without without the development to see deine in enrollment no I don't think there's any there's any appreciable change in the what we call survival rate from from 8th grade in bransburg over the year it's it's been relatively stable as we move through each year we look at a five-e rolling history and thank you um so that was my first question my second question concerns the new developments um there's a lot of I'm not still quite sure I fully understand what what pilots are or how that impacts do we get property tax money for the schools from these new developments or no or what impact do do pilots have on the school district for the development of buildings so you kind of had a combined question there if you ask me do we receive any money directly from Pilot agreements no okay um do do part of the properties that include pilot like the land for instance factor into the property taxes that the school yes we would but the the specific pilot agreements no are we short changed money or do we receive less if a property uses pilot money no no okay no because we're permitted to increase our Levy like I talked about usually 2% sometimes you're allowed to do more than that whether there's pilot agreements or not that will happen but where it does come into play is the tax room because payment in L of taxes you'll have building portion and they're structured in all different ways and I'm not an expert in it sometimes it depends on the business and there's there's different ways pilot Agreements are structured but um the the the building value of it is generally what's what's what's the pilot part of it and so no it so when it's not on the tax roles that's say the building part of it it doesn't help the school tax R because as you mentioned in this slide here the ratables if it was on the tax roles the building part that did say there was a pilot agreement to our rable our rable numbers that both burrow and the school share as the same rable number would be higher right if we were higher then our school tax rate would be better but it does not change the amount of money that we are able to bring in through taxes because that's based on the tax levy and the allowable increase on the tax levy s so they're not included in the rables right when it's not included in the ratables it affects our the school tax room that's where it comes into play okay thank you any other questions from the board no any questions from the public Dennis olivan 8 South PS Avenue um just looking at the enrollment there was a great fear to 15 years ago that the development would bring in hords of kids so the numbers you gave us Mr boy you said the K to five in Roman is up five and the six to eight is down nine so the total K to8 would be a net of minus four um and you mention new kids coming out of Avalon and park did you do studies on the other apartments so since you didn't mention them yes there was there was um Dort we had one from Station House and one from Cobalt and that's it that's it so a total of 27 all together I suspect and I'm not a demographer we've had a very active real estate market in Sommerville over the last two or three years houses single family houses two family houses owner occupied houses are flying off the shelf and I suspect that enrollment figures will change as a house like mine with no kids cells my neighbor cross the street sold out and they just had a one-year-old move in so that's going to have a net effect too but I think the the numbers you provided are are very informative because we're not seeing those hundreds and hundreds of kids from the 800 units that are going in I think it's a combination of the active and and positive real estate market people want to be here and I suspect that school enrollment will fluctuate slightly because of the side streets where you know people like me that don't want to cut grass and clean gutters anymore are going to sell and young families are scooping up these houses be before they're on the market more than a week so the numbers look encouraging that you're able to keep the class sizes down and as a former educator that's important too so I'm pleased that the the net numbers and I'm pleased to see that that The Debt Service is is you know is handled because it's not what you borrow it's what you pay back so I commend you and the board on that and let's just keep an eye on those new developments communicate with our Administration that at bur Hall to let them know what you're seeing from new projects as well thank you please Dr gr Brady n leeway Somerville um one of the concerns I have is the state's initiative now to add a very strong affordable housing component to communities and I believe some of them will eventually be affected by that we do know that some of the developers have talked about putting a small number of affordable housing units in my concern or question is with the youngsters who are coming in who are from other countries um I don't believe they're coming in from either Avalon or part view they're probably moving into lesser expensive housing in town and that is going to put a strain on us I believe in the future and that is not so much a question but a comment as far as question is concerned with the children who are coming in at the high school new high school kids how many of them may have been attending Immaculate Conception School through 8th grade and now they go into Su ofo high school I know quite a few families Immaculate high school has a very expensive tuition and for many of the parents these are not good times so you may be seeing that as a trend I don't know how many of your children that came in are kids that used to be at Immaculate Conception or other schools in the Sommerville area but that's one thing that might be considered where did they come from where where where they go to the eth grade and now they're here at sumerville the other point I wanted to make is Somerville is a great town people love it here housing goes for a lot of money in this town people are doing well and I'm not talking about the people I'm seeing here with gray hair I'm talking about some of the younger people that I see on the street they love it here how do you like sumerville what do you think of the taxes nobody's giving me the kind of thing my neighbors give me who are even older than I am so I'm more encouraging encourag by this rather than discouraging you know Somerville is going to get more expensive you know something summer County's gotten more expensive and I hate to say it but if you don't want to play the game go to a new ballpark but I'd really have to compliment you on a good a well prepared budget and a budget that's look into the future and that's so important for us as a person who would be considered a senior citizen if I accepted that um I don't believe that uh I want to see the schools go downhill I want to see better schools because that means people when they move in here are moving in because of the schools Recreation and all the other things as far as pilot revenue is concerned that revenue is not stable because and I have some knowledge of power the pilot revenue is contingent upon the value of the uh the revenue that the developer can bring in and it's about 15% so if the developer or the owner of an apartment complex who has a pilot increases the rent well that increase some of that increase comes to the burrow and the b gets 95% of the pilot Revenue the county gets 5% and that is used to offset some burrow costs like a new emergency services facility and others so either way you know it's still a balance and you know no nothing's cheap here guys but I thank you for doing such a good job thank you anyone else no all right we have a motion close the public hearing please on the budget thank you m second thank you m CW any discussion all those in favor I quote any exensions public hearing is closed thank you all right moving right along we'll go to Mr Carlson for finance security and buildings and grounds please okay the uh committee me met with the township officials and our chief of police to voice uh the few concerns that we received from a few of our residents concerning the proximity to vand of the new Fire firearms store that has opened we were assured that the multiple steps necessary for the licensing of retail Firearms establishment required by both state and federal government and our own local ordinances were satisfactory and diligently completed we were also assure that beyond what was required the owners of the establish establishment have cooperated with our local law enforcement to establish safe and collaborative communication and action plans um the board takes all corresponded seriously and will continue to respond appropriately on a personal note I have met the owners they are local Sommerville citizens with Children of their own and certainly sharing the concern for the safety of our children and also some of the RS uh as far as the facilities all our work orders are completed on a timely basis um I'd make a motion to approve items 1 through 12 be moved upon the recommendation of the interm superintendent schools move sir than that's a second from Mr shil thank you is there any discussion Mr Boyce yes Mrs Van Horn yes Mr seril yes Mr Jess yes Mr Carlson yes Mr pontillo Mrs Dale yes Mr kimik yes Mr Garcia yes okay a motion to approve items 13 through 26 be moved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of school second sir thank you Mr JN I believe that's item 25 correct is the last item 26 25 yeah I believe so all right um any discussion on those items no Mr Boyce please Mrs Van Horn yes Mr seril yes Mr Jess yes Mr Carlson yes Mr pontillo yes Mrs Dale no for number 15 and yes for the rest Mr kimik yes Mr Garcia yes all right thank you um just two things Mr Caron thank you so much for reporting out on our meeting with the burough officials with regards to the gun shop we you know we just want the residents to know that we did hear your concerns we did address it with the municipal officials who really their hands are tied at some point but they are doing their very best that they can to move that along and with regards to Pilots Rich Garcia very good questions um if the municipality so desired to provide us with pilot money they could which is a discussion that we hope to um move upon in the future with Mr Always setting that up with burrow Administration and there were comments made by former burrow um Council people back in 2011 or 2013 which said pilot money will remain with us in the school we'll get none okay so that's not very collaborative relationship if you will but I believe it's different now so moving on uh technology and curriculum instruction Mrs Dale hello okay so we met the curriculum and Technology committee met on Wednesday April 17th so just a few notes about that we had some curriculum that was written to pass tonight it's US History grades 10 units 1-9 and US History 2 grades 11 units 1 through 7 there was a preschool update I know Dr brockell already mentioned the week of the young child but that was something fun for preschool kindergarten and first grade that involved singing music um prek parents were invited in and it was a lot of fun for all the kids um there is an upcoming field trip to the turtle backo for preschool may have already happened I'm not sure and we also discussed something called savs which is a self reflection on the prek program and once this is submitted to the state then the state will be visiting our prek classrooms at vand ofir we did have an update about the summer programs for 2024 which is very exciting that uh they're going through and they're working very hard on these so right now they are interviewing candidates for positions for most of the programs and there are also some trips planned and an assembly planned as well so Grant submission update the grant so I I really did admire when Mr Boyce gave his presentation how much this District utilizes grants and it saves our district so much money and I just I wanted to mention that I think it's wonderful um so the curriculum Department department does that as well so there were a few grants that were submitted one is to be approved appr tonight it's a new class for the high school it's advanced placement africanamerican studies so I believe that's on the agenda for tonight and the climate change education education and resilience grant that was um submitted and I discussed at the last meeting we are still waiting to hear if we um were are are a recipient of that Grant or not but if not the awarded teacher will still look for ways to push forward with the program and do what he can okay a few things about technology there has been some linkit uh training there will be more thorough training next year for grades K through 12 for the administrators and the teachers right now linkit has been used at the high school it's a program if you're not familiar with link it that analyzes data and it's also a storage area where teachers can put data and the it it has a program that analyzes everything um so next year it will be K through 12 there also is an AI committee made up of teachers and administrators about 17 people who volunteered their time for this new committee to provide guidance to students and staff on ethical use of AI and some of this guidance will be written over the summer for use next year and there was also a discussion on the selection of um some reading program planning update for vanir but unfortunately it was not there for that so board members do have minutes for that but hopefully I'll be able to report more on that next month and that is it great thank you all right so motion to approve that one item be moved upon the recommendation of this interim superintendent of schools second thank you Mr Van Hort any discussion Mr Boyce please Mrs Van Hort yes Mr seril yes sir Mr Jess yes Mr Carlson yes Mr pontillo Mrs Dale yes Mr Kimi yes Mr Garcia yes motion to approve that items 2 through seven be moved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools thank you Mr Van Horn any discussion Mr Boyce please Mrs Van Horn yes mral yes Mr Jess yes Mr Carlson yes Mr pontillo Mrs Dale yes Mr kimik yes Mr Garcia yes all right moving on to Athletics and Student Activities Mr seril this evening for your report you have three minutes well don't start time zero again oh no no as soon as you start it's going to start well I'm I'm going to first say I just want to say Brian great job I'll just leave it there even the attorney's leaving I'm not leaving getting a cookie anybody want a cookie I'm going I'll take another B of water um but thank you Mr President Madam vice president and to everyone out there Drisco great to work looking forward to working with you again hey it is it's springtime um hey Mark tw1 said you can count up to 136 different kinds of weather in in 24 hours that is spring but it also means the bill has kicked off its spring Sports Seasons I'm not going to I'm going to try very well not to cover what Ashley had but I'm going to cover as many bases I can pun intended so let's start with baseball and softball swing b b coach BOS winning two out of the last three the diamond boys are having thank a rough start out of the gate of five and eight uh against their cross town Fa l they did keep it close in the fifth inning in four runs they cut the deficit by four with Ethan Flynn driving in two of those um but they did scum 15 to five in that in that final score next up the vills conference opponent North hunon today don't have a score yet on and then Thursday also uh but hey Junior outfielder Chase copess is leading the stat charge for the Pioneers with two three Baggers and two trips around the diamond this April coach asked Estella and the softball Squad like LL Cool J says don't call it a comeback because in two short years The Ville is believing again and they positioned themselves well although they lost today in the scalling conference they may have taken a three- game snide including that loss of Branchburg F Brook in the somerson county tournament but they rebounded yesterday with 17-2 ouch handling of North Playfield uh yes unfortunately they did lose today but listen as far as as far as conference leaders they are all over over the map uh first I'm going to give a shout out to Riley Doo who was nominated for player of the week why because she has 11 hits uh so does Mea Bacher with eight Nicole fitg andna DEA uh the pap has an extra base hits with three not to mention her seven ribes and hey she also Riley also commands the board with six RBIs nine runs scored six Steals and naturally was nominated for player two minutes all right two minutes okay I would remiss we didn't say let's P her up to Nicole and her 19 K on the year including her 200th chis strikeout all right let's go to tennis hey in the sport where you can live once you get to serve twice all right the boys tennis Squad is 7-1 and undefeated in the conference I can't wait to hear the score from guil today didn't get it yet but against Warren Hills last Thursday they swep them thanks to Ryan rardy Kellen Vitali Jake bloomstein and Shan and Brady Ford okay the boys last team they're three six so far and for the conference but Dylan nap and Michael Pino are keeping Bill hopes alive with 18 and 14 goals respectively while Evan DPR 11 assists and 19 points along with Anthony peron's 86 Saves The Ville with four games left they're trying to position themselves in playoff contention next game is tomar here versus wat young Hills girls lack the girls lross CL hopefully will end their three- game slide on May um on May 2nd against Hillsboro but they still alive within the conference with a 4 and3 record and has been making a statement this year with Brooklyn Peterson Jr okay she's in the state state standings with 39 goals Natalie Verona with 30 goals and 12 assists Cecilia small with 12 assists Stella Rose Markle with 12 saves track and field she covered it all but I will say this Saturday the Neville plumber Memorial Invitational Tournament and I'll be looking and work the grill with you buddy uh with over 19 teams competing it is here in the bill in a tempered Tundra of Gus Vander field okay starting at 900 a.m. please be there I'm almost done right hey golf Hank Aaron did say it took 17 years to get a thousand hits it only took one round to golf to do that so hey boom all right okay no all right so I tried the 87 golf team will be swinging the clubs against 20 other teams in the Somerset County tournament tomorrow at the shanic valley last night they handly defeated Del Val 168 to 172 lower score winning team Lille MIM Patel Dylan Leonard Tim Lanana Ryan Leonard Tyler schmeltz Kushi sha placed in the top six okay that's okay vill music I am going to take a time out though to wish my son Christian a wonderful recital at rvcc tonight and and my beautiful bride who is uh recording that for me so hey uh for Heights and depths no words can reach music is a Soul's own speech she set it perfectly the department performed at Virginia International Arts Festival and concert chamber Wing Jazz and marching band all receive gold ratings and and they all receive top overall performance I will have to say you know hats off to Matt forer former instructors krasy and ginski for the seamless transition and picking such wonderful Talent as Mr Noah Ferguson um as Mr Noah Mr Ferguson and Mr Delan to take care of the respective programs and get that and keep the upward trajectory going uh so I'm going to go to robotics but this is going to be really quick because I really want them I really want them to come here and present but their team has officially ended competition season they perform well they reach higher levels than ever before and in recent years after their wi over Montgomery they went on to become the alliance captain at the Warren Hills competition and this was enough to progress the Gearheads to the district Championship focusing on the 24-25 season they are shifting the mindset to put next year's leaders in place as well as prepare for the various Outreach coming up I hope I did it I know I didn't but thank you Mr President and a thank you Mr President thank you madam vice president so for that report this Justin uh Mr lisco has tendered his resignation after after a 52 minute budget presentation and a 5 and a half minute athletic presentation so we're going back out for search all right you do have an item that yes and with that I proudly have one item to motion to approve that item one be moved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools that is the njia tri hockey membership resol the Board of Education you don't have to read it may I have a second please thank you Mr vanor any discussion I just want to say I think it's cool that we offer hockey I I didn't know that absolutely that's really awesome it's it's a try out membership with middle sex and burners yeah it's a very it's a good program we have a lot of great kids on we have Mr Boyce please Mrs Van Horn yes Mr seril yes sir Mr Jess Mr Carlson Mr pontillo Mrs Dale yes Mr kimick yes Mr Garcia yes all right moving on Personnel uh may I have a motion to approve that items 1 through six be moved upon the recommendation of the inter term superintendent of schools and please remember appointments and salaries are contingent upon verified documentation thank you Mr Kim may have a second thank you Mr Van Horn any discussion Mr Boyce please Mrs Van Horn yes Mr seril yes Mr Jess Mr Carlson Mr pontillo Mrs Dale yes Mr kimik yes Mr Garcia yes all right and may I have a motion to approve that item 7 20 being moved upon the recommendation of the inter room superintendent schools also reminded that appointments and salaries are contingent upon verified documentation thank you Mr Kim may have a second second thank you Mr Van Horn any discussion Mr Boyce please Mrs Van Horn yes Mr seral yes Mr Jess Mr Carlson yes Mr pontillo yes Mrs Dale yes Mr kimik yes Mr Garcia yes all right moving on to Old business is there any old business seeing none may have a m motion to close please thank you Mr Carlson thank you for the second mril any discussion all in favor I any opposed any extension so move is there any new business seeing none I have a motion to close new business thank you Mr sh I have a second second thank you Mr vanor any discussion all those in favor I any opposed any exensions so moved uh we do have a need to go into executive session so please uh be resolved that the Board of Education move into recess into executive session to discuss Personnel matters and matters falling within the attorney cim page and possibly negotiations the minutes of the executive session to be the extent permitted by law will be made available to the public once the issues are resolved subject to confidentiality requirements an action may be taken may I have a motion to go into executive session please so move sir thank you Mr sh I have a second second thank you Mr Dan hor any discussion all those in favor I any opposed any extensions and we are in executive session at [Music] 823 motion to go back into public session please Mo thank you Mr second thank you mril any discussion all those in favor any oppos any exension so move we're back in 9:23 may have a motion to adjourn thank you Mr Jim have a second thank you Mr Carlson any discussion all those in favor I any opposed any so move we journ at 923 thanks everybody congratulations got new superintendent one of the one of the parts of the