yeah sorry got the speakers up and everything here uh calling this meeting to order the meeting of the South L regional board of education has called to order adequate notice as required by the open public meetings Act was provided on December the 6 2023 by posting the notice with the respective Clerks of the city of Lambertville burough of Stockton and Township of West Amwell and advertised in the hunter County Democrat and the Trenton Times newspaper please stand for the flag to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible and jce Andrew roll call please Martha Dennis present J pet here ran Keys here Kevin kovaleski Michael St here Warner Ronnie tomino Gallagher here uh we're going to start this evening's meeting uh SW swearing in our newest member Jen basser who's going to represent West dwell and Jen welcome to the board and I'll let Andrew do the honors here please thank SC is going to read the required oath of office for all school board members I Jennifer Bachelor do Solly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear TR faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and this state under the authority of the people I Jennifer Bachelor do solemnly swear that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education and that I am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to New Jersey revised Statute 1941 nor disqualified due to conviction of a crime or offense listed in New Jersey statute 18a 121 and that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of that office according to the best of my op actually uh if you want to take a moment um your husband and your kids want to come up and get any pictures or anything this is a great time to do it if you'd like me to take the photo I'm happy to do that right that um our next item is uh we'll be recognizing our educators of the year for current 2023 24 school year so I will turn it over to Mr Su good evening everyone this is truly one of the highlights of the year for our district and for the Board of Education each year the governor's educator of the Year program honors teachers and Educational Service professionals throughout the state whose contributions to their students are exceptional staff members were nominated by their peers parents and students a committee was formed for each of the three schools consisting of an administrator staff members and a parent representative using the following criteria to select the recipient exceptional instructional techniques Superior ability to inspire students of all backgrounds and abilities to learn respect and admiration of students parents and colleagues and the ability to Foster excellence in education as evidenced by ongoing contributions to the Improvement of student achievement and the learning environment I'm going to be calling up each of our principles to introduce their educators of the year and we'll start first from West Angell Mr Miller face uh good evening everyone um so our uh first recipient Taylor leau and this is an interesting one um a a winner we've done this before so but I promised I would write something new unlike my sixth grade graduation speech so Taylor leau has been an exemplary kindergarten teacher at West Amwell for the past 14 years professionally Miss leau has always been a wildcat her enthusiasm and creativity are evident in her engaging lessons and interactions with her students Miss leau has served the South hunon schools as choreographer for the musical Girls on the Run head coach co-president of the Sha and has sat on just about every committee at West am will school Taylor has been an asset to our elementary school teachers as a mentor a collaborator and a cooperating teacher for aspiring teachers for all this and more we congratulate you on the honor of Governor's educator of the you next from West am school we have Jean marce lover so as a par professional Gan has been able to enhance learning and transform students in our classrooms she has supported students understanding that each student is unique and possesses their own interests strengths and challenges Miss lover can often be seen guiding and empowering our kindergarten students Gan has created a culture around her that embodies our school motto at West Amwell school we are kind and caring congratulations on the honor of Governor's educational support professional of the year and then next from the lamberville school principal konas good evening well go ahead and start with Miss Silverman Miss Silverman I could not be more proud of the work and knowledge that she has put into every single day every single year since I've worked with her at LPS with this great honor I have no doubt that she will continue to be a progressive educator with an open heart and continuing to grow it is many years that I foresee her being an excellent teacher Miss Silverman has brought so much to the students of lamberville such as her work with The Walking School us and much more at LPS it is all about teamwork and Miss Silverman is an excellent example she is a huge part of all of the team that we bring every single day to all of our students and families Miss Silverman is an asset to LPS I am thrilled to have her and continue working with her thank you to miss Sil so there all right we will continue with our support specialist of the Year Mr mclen Mr mclen has worked at LPS and he has been one of the strongest pair of professionals I have ever worked with I can go on and on about Mr mclen he absolutely has grown in his professionalism and I could not be more proud Mr McCullen supports students academically emotionally and socially each and every day from the classroom to the playground I could not be more proud of him and I'm very sad to say but happy to say he will begin with us as a student teacher on May 1st so I will have a loss again could not be more proud and I continue to believe he will grow as a professional so I forward to having him as a student teacher as of May 1 congratulations Mr and from the middle school high school Jennifer mcnight good evening so Mrs Christine Diley is South hunon middle and high school educator of the year I've had the privilege of working closely with Mrs DIY for many years and throughout this time I have consistently W witnessed her unwavering passion for education and her commitment to Student Success Mrs dialy goes above and beyond to create a dynamic and engaging learning environment that Fosters curiosity critical thinking and active citizenship amongst her students Mrs DIY is deeply invested in the personal and academic growth of each of her students she takes the time to build meaningful relationships with them providing guidance support and encouragement both inside and outside the classroom her genuine care and dedication have had a profound impact on countless students inspiring them to reach their full potential and become informed responsible citizens her passion expertise and unwavering dedication make her eminently deserving of South hunterton middle and high school educator of the Year award and Mr Tom Bill cannot be here with us tonight however I would love um to just say a couple words as well about Mr Bill Mr Bill demonstrates exceptional dedication compassion and Effectiveness in his role as South hunon student assistant counselor making him an outstanding candidate for this honor I have been continually impressed by his unwavering commitment to supporting the well-being and success of our students Mr Bill approaches his work with empathy and a genuine desire to make a positive difference in students lives one of Mr Bill's greatest strengths is his ability to connect with students on a personal level and create a safe and supportive environment where they feel valued and understood he actively listens to their concerns provides guidance and encouragement empowers them to overcome challenges and achieve their goals in addition to his direct work with students Mr Bill also plays a key role in promoting a positive School climate and fostering a culture of inclusivity and respect he organizes and leads various schoolwide initiatives and programs aimed at promoting mental health awareness and building positive peer relationship his tireless dedication compassion and commitment to Student Success made makes him deserving of South Hunter's Educational Services professional of the Year award thank you Mr bille and in conclusion I just like to say again congratulations to all our honores uh in a a week from Friday all of our honores will actually be honored at a hund county educators of the Year luncheon which are really excited about they'll get a chance to share that honor with all their other colleagues throughout the county so again congratulations all um moving uh to our next item uh we will have a report of our student representative Miss Reed oh there you go okay so high school students went to Camp Fairview this past month as counselors for the LPS and West anall sixth grade field trip where Upper classmen were able to guide students in hiking team building and other activities um the talent show was held on Friday April 19th hosting a variety of performances from across the student body the South Hunter environmental Club attended a youth climate Summit on Friday April 19th High School Middle School banding chorus concerts are coming up where students will perform a variety of pieces that they have been practicing for the past months seniors are beginning to make their college decisions with deadlines landing on dates throughout May and prom will be held on Friday May 17th very and we had something special today right what was today it was a big special event blood drive right right we had a huge turnout so we hadn't done that in a while from what I understand and uh thank you to our students and our staff who did a great job organizing a great day good okay um next up uh do we have a report from the PTO or PTA okay no so uh Jessica again West dwell PTO um I just wanted to start with um on Thursday we met a group of us met group of West dwell folks in um Lambertville and high school middle school all around and we discussed the future of the um parent organization and we kind of decided on the south hunon Regional School District PTO um we came up with a mission statement and this is just a draft of the letter that will go out and it was also decided that um well not officially decided but we kind of came up with allowing every member of the school district to be a member of the PTO um as like a pilot kind of situation um and then not necessarily do a a dues kind of thing more like a donation kind of situation which allows everyone to be to participate have access to our membership platform and have access to the directory and we're just going to kind of test it out and see how it goes next year and next year is going to be a funky Year anyway so so might as well see how see how it goes I do have a copy of this that I can pass around to all of you and then just a like a a new structure of how we kind of see it happening I did a map people were getting people weren't picking up what I was putting down so I kind of created a map in canva to help visually guide people um so there's way too many copies but if you each wanted one um there's also a slide deck that that um we presented at the meeting that also will be shared I had every intention of doing that over the weekend and compiling notes and sending them out to people but that didn't happen um but I also um I created a new Facebook page so for the new um District Parent organization so moving forward any communication on that um we hope to put on that Facebook page and we'll obviously send it out through our membership platform and districtwide any decisions that are made um but we had we had a fairly decent turnout and we had really really good conversations about um what we wanted to continue new New Traditions that we wanted to start um so I I feel really confident moving forward that this is going to be this is going to work out and Excel um and next we have our um PTO Mega 5050 that is currently happening the drawing is May 10th at 2 pm um this is our biggest fun Riser that we do last year um the winners won $3,000 a lot of money to win um I'm hoping to hit that goal again um we're off to a really great start so if anyone would like to contribute I will be back there after the meeting so um and then our next kid Night Out is May 17th it was wrong on the news bite so we'll we'll correct that and make sure everyone everyone knows it's always 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. in the west anal multi-purpose room our next member meeting is Monday May 6 at 7 pm and then um we've just been busy working on teacher appreciation week uh we're we um constructed a signup genius for West Amell and the middle school high school that did really really well so we'll do a snack day up here um and the PTA the PTA will split the lunch with us on Friday um and then we'll just follow our same model that we usually do with breakfast snack day and lunch and that's it thank you thank you thank you very much I just wanted to say just real quick I want to thank Justice for spearheading the district PTO and then one other piece I wanted to share which I'm really excited about it will also include a high school PTO which we have not had um for quite some time so there'll be representation at all three levels so we're really excited about that and again thank you for keeping us organizing on task and agenda and you did a great job in the meeting is there a l a representative wants to give a report to okay um with that we will move to the correspondence we did have several letters uh those are posted uh on the website along with the agenda um so that brings us to approval of the minutes um I need I I need a motion to approve uh uh items A and B the regular minutes and the executive minutes from March 25th meeting Ronnie thank you and second please second by Martha thank you any discussion on the minutes um okay uh this is a voice vote so we can all vote I or nay or um abstain if you wish but all in favor anyone opposed anyone abstain you don't have to but okay uh next up uh big item for tonight is our budget hearing so we do need a motion to enter into our budget hearing for the this is for the school budget for the 2024 25 school year um being presented tonight uh there'll be a presentation and there'll be an opportunity for the public to comment and ask questions uh on the budget so do you need a motion to ENT with that can I have a motion please some R thank you and a second second Brian thank you all in favor I okay the hearing is open and before we start out for our educators of the year you're wor than welcome to stay but obviously if you have other things to do you're more than welcome to leave as well I you feel like you have to stay little need all right so we're going to kind of do a little tag team here on our public budget hearing and presentation I'm going to do a few slides and then Mr Harris our business administrator will also do a few slides as well so when we talk about our budget we always start out with our mission statement uh this is really important more than ever because we spend a lot of time last year working on our new strategic plan and obviously this was something that we looked at in our strategic planning process and was front and center in the work that we did so I really want to just make sure and remind folks what it is because our budget should reflect our mission statement and then our district goals so each and every year we have typically five district goals that are really the the district and myself um and some of these look familiar to you it's things we've been working on over the last several years um and then obviously some that you know like goal number five um that's been a big one and and we'll take you know front and center starting in September so it's always good to look back at our district goals and kind of where we are and at our May meeting I'll give some updates as far as the progress we made throughout the year on our district goal and then our board goals so the board set goals back early in the fall and that was just to um you know provide the support and resources to me to implement our new strategic plan and then determine next steps with our district reconfiguration to maximize educational opportunities with the least disruption to our students and then what is a budget it's really a planning tool it reflects what we value um we have to be physically responsible to our taxpayers and it's also a planning tool for us to help with contingencies and min minimize risk so there could be things that go wrong depending upon a school year with different things related to facilities or what every May be obviously we need to build in that contingency into our budget to make sure that we can keep our buildings running and keep school open each and every day I think it's really important this year to highlight more than ever and I put a link in there for our strategic action plan and you'll see when we get into what's actually included in our budget I've linked it to all the goals within our strategic plan because that is a driving force and something now it's a living document something that we should be looking at continually as we make decisions based on the district so there is a link there that you can dig into that a little bit more it takes you right to our website the homepage where our strategic plan can be found so what do we value so we've talked about this for many years but making sure that we're providing o academic opportunities for all of our students as well as extracurricular and co-curricular which I'm happy to say I think right now we're providing more activities after school for students that we ever have in the past make sure we're developing the whole child so the academics are extremely important but but also that social emotional support and then developing our staff for excellence and providing them opportunities to grow professionally with professional development and then long-term planning as we look at some of the different categories academics we know we've spoken about increasing student achievement and educational opportunities and you'll hear a little bit about that tonight when we focus on and and roll out our new schedules for next year that we'll be working through um programming wise you heard at our last meeting that we're going to be rolling out a new research-based English language arts program in grades K to 8 starting in September FFA programs or Future Farmers of America we're really talking about different ideas to evolve the program and focus on sustainability um there's so many different directions we can go with you know AI with farming and looking at possible ability of a new greenhouse and all different things Winden turbine Sol energy um all those different things so that's something that's front and center our enrichment program so next month we will have a presentation from PCG on the findings of the enrichment g&t report and review and recommendations moving forward and then a huge emphasis for us moving forward and I'm going to get into this a little bit deeper in another slide is our dual enrollment program so we really want to be able to provide students the opportunity to obtain as many college credits as they can by the time they graduate and I ideally the goal would be eventually where students can get a whole year of college under their belt by the time they graduate from our high school um so obviously that's going to do a couple things it's going to give them a head start as they you know embark on their college career and then also save them hopefully a lot of tuition money you know as we know college tuitions are continuing to rise Staffing wise uh looking at District reconfiguration so part one will be in September with our new Elementary School opening up and then part two will be in September of 25 with our new Middle School opening and then facilities you know obviously opening up the new building next year at the elementary but then focusing as well next year will be you know focusing on getting the 58 building ready for September of 25 and then continued discussions about our preschool program and facilities and that will be ongoing over the next several months so it it begins really in September um soon as we get back from the school year we do zerob based budgeting so we start with all lines at zero and say we try to analyze what are our needs um so we meet I meet with administrators I meet with he technology directors people Services curriculum um facilities manager U we talk about Transportation everything and just say what are our needs in terms of Staffing supplies capital projects all those things um starting in November December then I'll meet with superintendent and start to get an idea of you know what are we prioritizing as we move forward looking at the Strategic plan all of those things to help guide the direction the budget's going to move in um final budgets are submitted to me from each uh administrator by December 22nd of 2023 changes a little bit every year depending on whenever we go out in winter break um once we get back we develop a preliminary budget that we then sit down with uh the finance committee and we start to talk about what the numbers look like what do we need in terms of tax levy what are we hoping for in terms of state aid um we'll review the final uh preliminary budget in pretty much the end of January and present that to the board um its first round around February 20th for their work session um we've already reviewed that with the finance committee usually the Thursday before that uh once we've reviewed that then we approve the preliminary budget in March and then it brings us to tonight where we hopefully approve the final budget um now again as I said we do zerob based budgeting but there are key factors that don't change from year to year for the most part Staffing and benefits make up a huge part of the budget um those increases usually can be anywhere you know Staffing could be 3% or higher benefits historically have been five six seven 8 % um so anything over 2% which is what the state mandated tax levy cap is additional things that affect the budget are special ed programming students in District and out of District extracurricular and co-curriculars as Mr suo said we're offering more than we ever have just general maintenance and operations of the buildings Transportation costs continue to go up every year in terms of just maintenance of buses um fuel replacement of buses and then what are our ratables and what's our state aid those are kind of the things we don't always know year to year so important terms that we should know for the budget general fund general fund is what is determined by the tax levy and the state aid um if we so this is basically what are the things that U we are paying for year year that's outside of Grants and those sort of things um next year's budget would be current Year's budget would be simply rolled over without any increases to salaries to Insurance things like that tax levy is the total sum raised by the school district after taking out all of their revenues including State a the tax levy is us to return the tax rate for property owners in each of the Cities towns and Villages that make up school district Deb service um we refer to that as our mortgage so that's whatever debt we have historically um whether it's from 2001 or 14 or most recently the most recent referendum that's our Debt Service uh fund balance is what we may carry over year to year depending on spending or if we take in additional Revenue um for example if we sell an old school bus or something along those lines that goes into miscellaneous revenue for the following school year um or if we're very conservative in how we're spending we have additional money from the budget this year that could be fund balance or Surplus um now we talked about the 2% cap there are different um mechanisms that we are allowed to use that to go over the 2% cap without going out for voter approval one of them is the health benefit budget adjustment um we qualified for that last year we did not take it it was about $990,000 uh this year we qualified for another health benefit adjustment the board is not taking it again this year is 122,000 and change uh this is something that goes into bank cap which we'll talk about in just a second so these are things that would have pushed the tax levy increase over the 2% cap but the board chose not to go to this year so more quick terms again Bank cap Bank cap is we have the spending Authority but we didn't use that spending Authority so we're allowed to hold on to that money for future budget Cycles um but there is a cap on how long you're allowed to hold on to that and that's three years um so the 999,000 we spoke a moment ago will expire in 2526 and then the bank cap from this year will expire 2627 um additional things that are budget is capital reserve um so this is money that we take that fund Surplus we put it into capital accounts and then we use that for larger projects um recent large projects have been soccer field track um security cameras bus cameras things like that and finally Equalization rate uh this is an important one for budgeting purposes it's the total assess over total market value and that is determined by the county that's not a number that we set but that affects our tax tax levy so again number of different uh budget items that go into this staff salaries benefits we talked about special education costs technology is a big one um in terms of always making sure we have the most up-to-date Chromebooks laptops desktops um subscriptions internets Hotspots for students who don't have home internet um custodial maintenance is a general cost that continues to go each year just things that we'd like to do or need to do uh transportation we talk to get again about with bus Replacements fuel costs things like that General classroom supplies for teachers um program supplies to support their curriculum textbooks always making sure those are up to date and then again the co-curricular and extracurricular activities then of course curriculum instruction this is just a visual of where the money goes um so you can kind of see regular instruction specialed instruction again that takes up a big portion those are teacher salaries uh benefit that's health benefits and dental um and then again the breakdown for others Transportation preschool which which is its own budget but it's still part of the overall P um operations takes up a significant portion so you can get an idea of you how is the money being spent each year and then again just a breakdown of Revenue so we've talked a lot about appropriation so our Revenue we get about 11.5% of our general fund from state aid um so that's school choice that's special education Aid that's security Aid that's Transportation Aid federal aid makes it a very small portion of our budget you see that number if you know from prior years it was much higher that was due to Esser funds from Co grants uh that money is now expired and now we just have our ESA grants which make up about 1.3% as you can see the tax levy makes up a significant portion of our revenues uh that then additionally we have the preol expansion Aid and then additional items whereas we have CDA rents um we have fund balance I get money that we were carrying over from a prior year pay to play and then interest from bank accounts so just a couple things I'll mention challenges related to our budget um as Andrew mentioned the co relief funds expire in September 1 2024 so on my next slide I'm going to kind of share what we were paying for out of that and then how does that work where obviously some of those things were really important to us and we wanted to keep in the budget so how can we manage that to make sure that we keep them obviously a 2% tax levy um we know that salaries are 3% and health benefits right now for next year 7% so as you can see when we get our budget numbers we're kind we're already in the hole to a certain extent over the 2% so we have to figure out how we're going to manage all that we've talked about the energy cost transportation and then add a district tuition so for students um with special needs who we can't meet their needs within the district sending them to schools that can meet their needs so when we talk about Esra funding these are all the different things that we had been paying for over the last couple years with Esra so not this year because we got the high impact tutoring Grant but last year we ran an after school tutoring program for the second half of the year that we used that for of funding Ed mum is a program we use in Apex learning for like Credit Recovery things along those lines online learning depending upon the situation for students Andrew mentioned before Hotpot hotspots so any students who don't have internet access in their home we provide them with a hot spot and we've been paying for that through the esa our instructional coaches if you remember we introduced them last year um they're finishing up year two they've been a great resource to us played a huge role in our high impact tutoring but we are paying for that through our esort funding mkss MKS Partners that's Marine sigar who we've been partnering with over the last several years on Blended and personalized learning she's a consultant that's been working with our teachers throughout the district some professional development opportunities we utilized Esra fund for the program reviews so last year if you remember we did our special education review this year we're doing our enrichment program review that was all paid forth through our exra funding Project Lead the Way which is our engineering program we paid for some of the licensing software and programming that we need for that program first children so if you remember two years ago we hired a mental health clinician whose only job and responsibility was to really work with with some of our most neediest case loads of students and to provide pretty intensive mental health therapy along with family therapy for those individuals so that's something we've been doing for the last two years that has worked very very well however we've been paying for that you know utilizing our Sr funding our summer academic program that we've run over the last couple Summers some of the different instructional technology software that we've been using we did updates for iPads for prek-1 using the s funding and then we paid for our textbooks if you remember we're in year two of reveal math so we we've been paying for our textbooks for reveal math and then we did a pilot with 10 teachers for our new EO program this year and we used Esra funding to pay for those textbooks and all those materials so that's a pretty comprehensive list um so let me go through and talk a little bit about this budget and what it includes so first of all and you'll see I've linked it to our strategic plan obviously we're going to be opening up a new elementary school and we know that we had a referendum to pay for all the things that will go into that but we also know when we get into the building and we're getting ready to rock and roll in August to open up the new building things are probably going to come up maybe that we missed or didn't think about and you know we need to make sure that we prepare for that as far as our budget goes maintain our class sizes so I'm stealing Jane Ellen Thunder a little bit in her slide but I'll share in this one as well you know when you look at our class sizes for next year with the reconfiguration you're obviously not going to find this in other places right our highest class is 16 students at the elementary school and then you look at what the middle school is going to look like uh you know in our you know in between plan for next year with 56 and then 78 what our class size is going to look like with our three sections High School's a little different with electives and there's no real home room it's different you know trying to figure out class size because of the way the schedule works but you know I will tell you as we've been interviewing candidates and many of them are on our agenda for approval tonight to be hired for next year they really like look at you like 15 14 I have 28 kids in my second grade class right now so we're extremely fortunate with our class sizes if you've been following along you know that there's some districts that are feeling real pain right now with their budget you know I think of one right up the road from us in flamington with you know over a $3 million cut and 4 staff members that are being laid off that's going to impact class size right there's no way around it there's many other districts that are in that same boat so I feel fortunate that right now we're not in that boat and our class sizes are going to be awesome for next year we need to maintain our professional development right so obviously you're going to hear about some of that tonight in our next presentation you're going to hear you've heard about our Ela program there's training professional development that needs to go along with it as we Implement that for our students continue to expansion the preschool program so we'll have 75 seats for next year um we'll see how it plays out for the following year but I do want to mention that I think it's important to understand if you saw that slide that Andrew talked about before where we have over a million dollars um in funding for preschool expansion Aid because of the fact that we have an existing counselor an existing principal and other folks that are interacting and working with that preschool program that means that some of that money can be used to pay for that those types of services and what happens is then that frees up additional money in our budget to pay for things that perhaps if we didn't have that the eser funds going away we would have to cut and lose so I just kind of want to make sure folks understand because that's an important component we are going to be continuing the mental health supports so what we decided was work first children's has been great but we talked about budget wise how's this going to work with our budget based on what they've been charging us we decided we were going to hire someone on our own so rather than kind of pay the person who's been working with us and then pay the fee for first children's on top of it you know as a contract we decided to H hire a mental health therapist who is actually on the agenda this evening who's being approved who will continue to be fulltime five days a week which I'm really excited about because we have as you know mental health needs even prior to co are at an all-time high that's a really important support for our students so that's in the budget our new new Ela program that we've talked about we've talked about this in the last couple meetings we are introducing a theater program here at the middle school in the high school and I know we have interest the kids are really excited we surveyed kids the teacher who's going to be teaching it's on the agenda for approval this evening as well we'll be starting to develop introductory courses at the middle and the high school level with the goal of eventually you know expanding that out and we will also be introducing a fall play a spring play that ALS go along with our spring musical so for some of our students who may not feel comfortable with the singing part of it but want to act they're now going to have different opportunities and the other piece of it is having conversations with our teacher who is coming from you know a um a strong program right now from another District giving our students the opportunity to compete you know at the theater level and various things throughout the state and Beyond so we have students who can do this in college so we want to provide them as many opportunities as we can to be able to do that at the next level we have over 65 extracurricular and co-curricular activities as we mentioned it's the most we've ever had this is a big one the late bosses right so you know it's been no doubt had an increase on student participation in our extracurricular activities whether it's Athletics or clubs so we will continue to run just as we've done at 5:15 every day for our students of late bostes home internet access so again we want our students all have equal footing at home right if they don't have internet access it's going to be an issue with some of the things that we ask them to do we want to make sure they have it and then dual enrollment so I mentioned before front and center so I want to click on this link this is right now what we're looking at so we have partnered with Rowan University TCNJ seatan Hall and rvcc and you'll notice these are the classes right now for next year that we're planning on having dual enrollment so what does that mean it means that the teacher who's teaching that course has been improved by the college or university with the syllabus that we have for that course and that if parents and students elect to enroll as a dual enrollment and they get a c or hire in the class they're going to get college credit for that course all right if you look at the list you'll notice that Rowan University the majority of the Dual enrollments are three credits TCNJ they're four credits so the price is a little bit higher but there are four credits instead of three credits and then we have RPC and seat Hall so we're really excited about this again the goal would be if we can to you know have students complete 30 credits something along those lines by the time they graduate U maybe even more depending upon how that plays out this is really a conversation that we need to have with students starting in middle school so as they start planning for ninth grade what is my pth what are my areas of Interest how could I tap into some of these dual enrollment courses and obviously get as many college credits as I can and we're also we've been working with colleges and and and universities to talk about students who may not be able to afford it and how do we as a district support them with our budget to be able to provide those opportunities so again when we talk about equity and equal opportunity we're providing that for all of our students and make sure that any student who's interested in enrolling in a dual enrollment program will have the access to be able to do it so you're going to hear a lot more about this we're really going to be promoting this to our parents in the coming months and and especially the kickoff to next year and then parents will have decisions come September of whether or not they want their child to enroll you don't have to but obviously it's going to be there to be able to utilize which we're really excited about our student information system so this was only year one of encourse there's a whole another piece that we'll be launching next year um one of the pieces that we'll be launching is encourse classroom the goal of encourse classroom is to really streamline for parents and students so everything is in one place which will mean that for September as a parent you'll be able to log into your encourse account you'll be able to see all of your child's classes and you'll be able to see exactly what's due today what's due next week what's due maybe in a month and have all that information available to you in one place which I know right now we've been using Google classroom and that means you know parents don't always have access to that yes they can look at the grade book and see what the grade was on the assessment but obviously they don't know in advance sometimes when that assessment even is now they're going to have that information available to them as we roll that out in September and then we'll be using some other modules within en course internally for our own purposes findings of the g&t report so you'll see in May PCG will be presenting live in person at the meeting they're going to make some recommendations and we'll talk a little bit about what does that mean not just for 2425 but Beyond over the next two to three years and what does that look like districtwide where right now most of our enrichment program is geared towards our elementary we really want to spread that out k12 and spread it out in the different areas like art like music and different areas that our students are engaged in and then you're going to be hearing about this is something we've talked about at school and Community parent Square for a new communication system that we're going to be using for parents again hoping to streamline communication that's part of one of our strategic planning goals um it will replace School messenger which right now that's the system that you typically will get emails from us or text messages um there's a lot of other teacher sets we'll be rolling that out to start the next school year and there is a mobile piece to it where it really is like scrolling and being able to see the latest information all at your fingertips because we know that for the most part that's how folks are accessing information and then for capital reserve here are the things that right now we're looking to plan for so as we open up again our 58 building in September of 25 one of the things that we've been looking at is an outdoor Fitness course that we could have and utilize behind the building for recess or different activities for students to participate with um and we're looking at a field Turf area so it's easy to maintain it's universally accessible for all students um that is something that we're planning for as well um that was not included in the referendum funding and then our Courtyard so if you're familiar with our Courtyard right now um this is from the wintertime but this is the if you're over here you're near the library so it's the big Courtyard right outside the library our environmental Club came up with the idea thank you to the students and Miss Lamer what if we could develop that into an outdoor learning space so one of the things that we looked at was really designing it where this is on this end is where the library is now and this is closer to where we are but literally what you'll see here and this is a design one of our Engineers that's been working for the district on the referend referendum project volunteered their time to work with our environmental students meet with them get their ideas and then sketch it out but ideally in a perfect world we'd love to have a brand new Greenhouse in here that we could utilize for our FFA program our Greenhouse is at the point outside where we really need to do some upgrades to it a PA a paved area for an outdoor learning space and then there's all kinds of neat little things in here native plants there's a wetland pool um pollinator Meadow all kinds of different things that will play into you know environmental science our FFA program so we're looking at grant funding for that but then there may be a need for some District funding and kind of what that would look like as a space that all of our students could be able to utilize throughout the day um and then the other piece of it is we are looking at we talked about this at the last meeting Athletic Field expansion so as we open up our new 58 building the goal would be eventually hopefully to be able to have all of our programming for middle school and high school on site so one of the things that we've been looking at this is a little bit difficult to see um but I'll try to you know make it as as big as I possibly can right now this is kind of the corner of the new building this is kind of the new soccer field is over here and then there's a little practice area behind the soccer field we are looking at in the wooded area right now behind where the school would be there is the possibility to develop another field in the back it could be utilized definitely for softball um and also in this area to be able to be utilized in the fall for things like field hockey or boy soccer um so there's a lot of different um opportunities here that the finance committee's been kind of looking at and we'll develop a plan of what does this look like how much is it going to cost how do we plan for this down the road with the goal in mind again rather than busting students off site which we've been doing for several years for different Athletics the goal would be to be able to keep them all in house so that's something that we'll be sharing more information at we're just kind of beginning that obviously opening up the new 58 building and then um you know we've also had conversations about a renovation to the fitness center here of you developing it renovating it kind of giving a face facelift maybe even extending it making it a little bit bigger than it is now so these are all the different things we talk talked about is possible projects for capital reserve Andrew mentioned ratables so this is a slide where you always want to see the arrows going up that's a good thing so you can see for all three communities right now the rate of bols have increased because that um spreads out the uh the impact of of taxes go what you say Jim what did I the assessed value the assessed Valu correct um percentage share so again this is not established by us this is established by the county the equalization rate so it shows exactly what percentage of the budget is coming from each one of our communities and then we've been showing this the last couple years but this is the one list where you want to finish close to the bottom and not close to the top and that's the overall County tax rates and you can see you know that West Amo Lambertville and Stockton are towards the bottom and some of um our colleagues around hun County are much higher than we are so that's hopefully something that we can maintain so the board has decided um as Andrew mentioned before not to go above cap so a 2% increase on the budget um even though I think we had talked before with the health benefit waiver we probably probably would have been closer to 3% um we decided not to do that because obviously we know that our referendum debt is now hitting and we're trying to be as fiscally responsible as we possibly could so we are proposing a 2% raise in our budget from last year and then this just shows just so I want to you know bring everyone in the loop as far as how things are progressing with our debt service that the high school and West anual referendum debt will expire in February of 2026 and then that will roll off the books so we realize right now things are a little bit higher because we're carrying the old debt with the most recent debt but then by February of 26 the old debt will roll off and then we'll just be dealing from 26 on for the new debt so with that before we get the public comment any questions from the board or anything you like to say Jim um nothing I i' like to say but I'll open it up to the board first if you have any questions about the budget or if you have any that you'd like to say about the budget the board is satisfied then I we'll open it up to the community just like we do with our with our um uh our public comment periods uh if you have a question please come up to the microphone just me you know let us know your name in the community that you're from and uh we will do the best that we can to answer the question and right now this will only be on the budget and then we'll have another one for anything El yes everybody hear that sorry we're only taking questions right now about the budget but we'll have another opportunity and does anyone have any questions do we have our online Forum open oh yeah no respones okay we have no online questions any questions on the budget if there are no questions on the budget everybody seems to be satisfied um then I will uh I will ask for a resolution to approve the uh final 20242 budget and the using the language that is here in the agenda uh can I get a a motion to approve that move some move Ronnie thank you very much and we need a second a second by Kevin thank you any discussion on that resolution and in that case this will be a Voice vote Andrew or a roll call Vote Yes I meant to I starting with our newest member Jennifer B and you may absolutely Mar yes Pete yes Brian ke yes K kovaleski yes Mich yes yes yes okay a plan for next year uh next item on the agenda will be a report uh on the new schedule for the elementary school for the 20242 school year so uh Miss Lennon Mrs Lennon good evening all I will invite my colleagues Mr Miller and Miss kis to join me at any time if you would like to you don't have to but you're welcome to and Jump On In because it is the your building so so we really designed this budget we've actually been working on these schedules excuse me not budget schedules um for many months uh probably all the way back till November is when we really started to talk about what this was going to look like with the opportunity for the configuration but also the opportunity and the implications it has for our curriculum and instruction plan so when you have a perfect storm like this with a new building that has the opportunity to create a new schedule 56 has the opportunity to create a schedule for next year and then we'll revisit what it will look like in 5'8 so with this this opportunity we can look at our programs like Ela um with Wht and wisdom and say oh Wht and wisdom is recommending 90 minutes well if you already have a set schedule um and you already have a set building it's very hard to change the schedule within a building um with a schedule that's been well established for no other reason there's many many pieces that go into it so there's some things you'll see tonight um it there are generalized um schedules that are drafted form and then the one thing um I'll go into a little bit more on is the acceleration block which you'll see tonight and the proposal that we have to and our plan to make it successful for our students so Tony stole the class sizes so but we do want to make sure that um you all know that to have instruction that meets the needs of all students you can imagine that it's much easier when you have a class of 15 or well or even 21 than 28 or we had a consultant last week that talked about having a class of 42 so nothing that we would ever want to see here but it does make what our goals are much easier to achieve for differentiated instructions it's much easier to plan small groups when you might only have five groups of three and or three groups of five for our classes of 15 so that is something that we are going to continue you um to shout about because we can really as we say move mountains with these numbers this is the schedule that we're proposing right now for prek4 that is a recent picture and so we have a brand new building so we have a brand new schedule to look forward to and one of the things that in education we look at when you look at a school schedule you should be able to tell what's very what's important to the school by what where is your time spent and you'll see that there's a common theme throughout this that is a balance of both the social emotional learning piece that we know needs to be balanced with an academic piece and so what we've done with these schedules is really create that perfect marriage of the two so the most important thing is for everyone to realize teachers included as well as families this is a familiar nine period schedule that's the most important thing is the sense that we teachers will be moving through a day that is familiar students will be familiar with that you'll see that there's a focus on our core subjects English language arts and math and that directly rate relates to the time for instruction and student achievement and then also hopefully to raise our test scores uh there is now a new daily 40 minute acceleration period in grades K through fourth and I'll go into a little bit more about that um um there's built-in passing time which we've never had before and what that allows teachers to do is for everyone to move on the same schedule as opposed to a teacher saying oh but they were just so engaged and I didn't want to stop them and then that class may be three minutes late to PE which is then the PE teacher says oh well but I didn't get to all of this and so then that there's a spill over so when you have a built-in passing time it maximizes instruction time because you know as the teacher you're going to have this 47 minutes or 37 minutes or whatever the period block is it also gives everybody a little bit of a sense of you know I can take a deep breath because I know I have three minutes to move from one place to another and there's not a lot of rushing going on um so we're really excited about doing that as well um also give special Area Teachers the opportunity if they're moving into classrooms the opportunity to move from one room to another as well as um put away an art project and get set up for the next art project the special classes will remain the same um as they have in the past and again this all aligns with our mission our vision and our core values so there's a lot of words on a page but I did want to just show you um what it all looks like in a period nine period day um as I've realized from presenting this to the curriculum committee as well as the District Parent Council you may never have seen what a master schedule looks like um and I just wanted to show this to you so you can see the different parts of it um we did post it online so you can revisit it again but more importantly and a little bit easier to comprehend is the next slide which is truly what a second grade schedule would look like and so from this slide you see that we have a heavy emphasis on language arts that's 120 Minutes of language arts which gives us all the time we need for our knowledge building curriculum wit and wisdom as well of the new programs that we're introducing for our phonics and our foundational reading which are foundations and the hegerty program we have the same amount of math the 80 minutes which is what the reveal program suggests and so that is the same and then we will be moving to a consistent science or social studies we will have four and a half weeks of so science and four and a half weeks of social study so that we'll have both of those content areas consistent in a marking period whether we start with social studies or we start with science different grade levels may start with different subjects depending on what the science curriculum is it's much easier to study plants and go outside in the fall and the spring but that will be the consistent um amongst all of the prek4 excuse me the K4 here we're going to talk I'm going to talk a little bit more there's a lot of words on these pages so again I invite you to or on this slide to go back and read it but the purpose the goals the data informed decision-making and the focus on Ela and math skills are really the foundation of the acceleration block it is dedicated time during the day for students to get that individualized or small group so the idea is that if students um receive interventions or support or enrichment they can receive it during that acceleration block they're not going to miss a language arts they're not going to miss a reading or a writing class they're not going to miss a science or a social studies class if a student receives intervention or support with ESL and they're going to need to meet with a small in a small group with the ESL teacher that happens during that acceleration block so it's really designed so that students aren't missing core instruction if they need something more same thing with g&t and enrichment classes students can meet with Miss kuc during that acceleration block to receive specific Enrichment Services as opposed to missing one day a week of social studies or one day a week of math um it's really what many school districts are doing to be able to meet the needs of all the students so I'm going to shift a little bit right now to the 56 schedule is there anything NOP okay um pre the preschool schedule is coming soon right now we're just focusing on what the 56 schedule would look like again many words on the page but you will see there's a little bit of a shift we move to 80 minute blocks for Ela and we skip stick with our 80 minute block for math here you'll see that students have both science and social studies following a very similar Middle School um schedule recess and lunch the accelerate block we're also implementing at the Middle High School will follow lunch so that gives the students in fifth and sixth grade a nice break in their day um they and this may it would might vary they could have specials instead of social studies period three um but I wanted you to see that there are three dedicated periods to something that's not the core content areas as well as then we've got the core content areas um maintaining their place in the overall day as well again consistency we're looking at consistency K8 um and in k6 we will have the same um per familiar nine period day so that makes those students moving to West Amwell comfortable with the daily schedule um our fifth and sixth graders right now shift switch classes so that will be something else that they will be familiar with again another focus on Ela and math um the acceleration Block in our fifth and sixth grade will be 60 minutes we designed that because we know that we need to focus on providing support for our fifth and sixth graders that gives us the opportunity for varied support they one Stu student could have 20 minutes of support with Ela could have 20 minutes of enrichment with math and then could have 20 minutes in their classroom in another support or intervention or collaborative so it gives us the opportunity to be able to service many subjects within that um time frame built-in passing time once again um and the special areas where it's going to be different than the prek4 is there will be Wellness every other day and whether that's PE or health um but that will be part of the schedule as well um acceleration block again I just wanted to I know this is a repeat of the slide but the goals the purpose and the data informed decision- making are um and the ELA and math skills are really again the foundation I'll speak a little bit since I didn't do it on the last slide to the data informed decision Mak um through regular progress monitoring we're going to be able to know where students are and exactly what they need and then provide supports and interventions um and when I speak about supports or interventions it may be a 20 minutes extra with their math teacher to review whatever the skills are that are on the upcoming quiz or it may just be the opportunity to spend a little bit more time working collaboratively on a performance task which is a multi- it has multi-steps to it it's a collaborative problem solving um and so it gives teachers the flexibility to really build what students need during that time period it differs from Flex 712 in the sense that um Flex is really driven by the students and the teachers requesting we will be the administ the not the administration but the teachers and I guess the administration as well will be making most of those decisions for the student that's not to say that a sixth grader couldn't say oh can I go um you know meet with Miss hardt about math and we will certainly have that flexibility as well we want to provide flexibility but we also want to provide the structure because this is very new and we want to make sure that we set the expectations um and sort of as I talk about those guard rails are in place and then you can move down the road any way you need to within the speed limit but you understand the point that with the structure and um the program that we're planning it makes it much easier for students to know what the expectations are as well as teachers so I just want to shift now I know that when I um met with the District Parent Council and then with the curriculum K Committee of the board there was a lot of questions about what does learning acceleration first of all what does acceleration mean and what is learning acceleration in terms of what the state of New Jersey is saying New Jersey is saying that we realize that there's a lot of Unfinished learning so I know for a while the word was um achievement Gap or learning loss well the as I worked with a colleague in my previous District he said there was no learning loss students are exactly where they supposed to be where they are based on having spent two years in a pandemic so we have shifted a little bit of our thinking to say this is unfinished learning so where are students now and what is that unfinished learning and that can be anything and it also shifts to an asset-based thinking as opposed to a deficit-based thinking so the state of New Jersey has put together a learning acceleration plan an expectation for every District so even though this is new to South hund in um and new to many districts there are guidelines that are put into place and principles and practices so I just wanted to share that this is um this is a recommendation from the state so most of the principles in action that the state has put in place are things that we are already doing we put them down on paper just to make it sound good but these are things we're building trusting relationships we're establishing positive and stable environments we're explicitly teaching critical academic skills using integrated approach and we're designing learning experiences that activate student knowledge and build EXC student interest and prior knowledge so all of those words together are things that we're already doing we now want to make sure that we now have the time and the place to do that um explicitly and systematically and that's really where the high impact approach and the accelerate block come in so I'm gonna it's a little um you might not know why I'm shifting or I'm going to tell you why I'm shifting to talk a little bit about the high impact tutoring program and that is because that is the model we're going to use for the acceleration block we found it so successful with the program we used called I ready um which some of you that have um family members or been exposed to other districts know that I is a program um that has been around for a while but they have really um stepped up their game to meet these needs of students in school districts with unfinished learning so it is um partly a personalized learning plan in the sense that the students will take an I ready diagnos tic test so we'll know exactly what unfinished learning a child may have and then it also provides the lessons to support the diagnostic that are grade level skills so really this was the foundation of our high impact tutoring after school um so I'm going to give you a little bit of a background and some of the data from our high impact tutoring because I want you to put it into the context of what this would look like during a school day New Jersey recommends the most successful high impact tutoring are those programs that happened during the school year so I know that's a little bit of hard for some of us to wrap our heads around because the word tutoring we think about Huntington Learning Center we think about after school tutoring um but it really just means one-on-one or differentiated small group instruction so these are just some of the things that it looked like during our high impact tutoring um and again I just want to highlight that it was 13 weeks and two hours a week so that was Wednesdays and Thursdays after school so some of the data you're going to see in the results um think about that think about how students or children come home or after school and they are tired um they are I can't believe I have to do more of this but I'm going to be here and we're going to make it fun and we're going to highlight and we're going to really show you what you know so I will go ahead and go into a little bit more so this is really just a little bit about so because of those principles action that we put into place we established a trusting and stable environment 90% of the students came to um or had 90 we had 90% attendance rate we had 100% attendance rate for the teachers minus one that had a previous engagement and I know in the past that was not the case so 100% of the teachers came 100% of the time and we had 90% of the students come you will see a little bit I have three student stories and you'll see that the typical growth is for an annual goal so when you look at what the annual goal or excuse me typical the growth was of these students think about this is something when we met with I ready on Friday they were like you did this in 13 weeks not 180 days so students met their typical growth 78% in math and 88% in Reading lessons passed again you might not have a perspective but 261 is a big number for the number of lessons in 13 weeks and 77 in reading and again we only um propose we only used the reading program for our third graders because it was their first exposure with the student at jsla and then we had some anecdotal data from families that they math confidence I know that um at the PTO meeting last week I know that it was shared that one of the members child was so excited they'd always gotten C's they're now getting B B's and A's and they feel confident her mathematical ability students asked if they could do it at home um unheard of but because we developed that relationship and that environment and that positivity students felt like they could continue on with that so I just have three stories I have an a a b and a c the first student was um success story is I'll just go ahead and give you some of the highlights this was was a special education student in fourth grade we invited all students in third fourth and fifth because we were so small and the funds allowed it when the student came in and took the Diagnostic in um January the student was scoring at a grade one level um you can see that by mid April this was given um about two weeks ago the student was at a grade three level um the student was predicted to score a level two and testing not efficient the student is now projected um to score a level three um some of the conclusions thinking about if You' given the student another three to four months in this program that would be putting them at grade level so thinking about how we moved a student who in January was grade one according to the I diagnostic giving them additional time with the program and the structure we set up they would be on grade level that's pretty amazing student B was a new third grader that just entered the district in September these are true stories just so you know um we identified the student as a cusp student um they were close to grade level but as of January not projected to obtain Prof proficiency on the state test they came in and they were early grade three which made sense because they were a third grader but they were just predicted based on the I ready diagnostic to score level three remember level four is meeting expect expectations where we want our kids to be and level five is exceeding um this student and jumping down is now predicted to score a level four on the state test meeting proficiency um this student made significant gross um typical growth increasing 29 points in the second diagnostic again what we did in 13 weeks is remarkable and lastly this was a sixth grade student who was approaching expectations um last year with a three um so again mid grade five predicted to score level three took the test um the det Diagnostic and then went up from 491 to a 512 and is predicted to score a level four on the state Mastery um we dove in a little bit deeper to understand exactly where and what domain so it goes specific to understand what specifically um so as of April the student is now projected to be proficient level four on the state test next month um so really I know this was a lot of information about the tutoring program but I want you to know that this is the model we're going to put forward as we look at our acceleration blocks so I know I talked a lot about students going out and receiving maybe ESL services or Enrichment Services but the question that's always come up is well what are they going to do in the classroom what is is the teacher just having a study hall no the teacher will be using I ready and the students who are not being pulled will be on I ready a student will not be pulled five days a week 40 minutes a day so there will always be time and for this for all students to be on I ready and to be working on both the my path which is a personalized plan and they're working at their own pace and then they'll also be part of small group instruction and um Tony if you could go back a couple slides to the accelerate block I just want to show you these were taken from tutoring that's um this was our sixth grade tutoring session and this was an example some there's two students right there another three students are actually on the computer working in my path and the teacher is then working with those two students based on a skill or strategy they need um and then the other one was uh a teacher working with three students a small group in third grade so I know that was a lot of information and there are a lot of words on those slides but I um invite you to spend some time reading them over and then um as always feel free to email me um I'd be happy to explain them further I'd be happy to meet and talk more about them um we will be doing more information um in the beginning of the year and then I will be providing um information for teachers to share again back to school night when you're in the classrooms meeting with your children's teachers at that time um I first I do I do want to say this slide show oh we're not are you guys not done do want say no thank you again this is many many layers and a lot of time and work so still a work in progress but I appreciate having all the support that we do I was just gonna say that I know Jan Al did a wonderful job talking about I ready and the acceleration period that's been the most common question from adults uh 56 the most common question from children as you may predict is yes we still have recess built into that schedule lots of recess yes I just want to mention that the the slideshow is going to be posted online on a website the budget slideshow will also be posted online on the website and I if if if Tony is uh following his typical practice he'll probably be emailing those things out to people as well so um but um before we let you go I'm going to ask the board if you guys have any questions there's a lot covered there on either the schedule the high impact learning or or the uh the I ready program um are there any board members that have questions J so what what could you talk a little bit more specifically what the accelerated acceleration block would look like for students like higher achieving students who you know are meeting or exceeding and what are we what are we gonna like what does that look like absolutely so there'll be lots of opportunities for so the students to do projects so if they're working in reveal math and there is every one of our math programs is wonderful now because it has so many different extensions to it so you can have enrichment projects you can have project bade learning you could have um the support there's many different layers to it so there may be three students who um are excelling in the fraction unit and they may be working on one of the projects and one of the performance tasks or a project that's built into reveal that's using all of the information they've learned in unit 11 and work that way um I know a great extension for ELA is also book clubs in Wht and wisdom they're core text but they're also additional reading texts so we will have those in the classrooms and the library so if there is a group of fifth graders who um you know are set with their vocabulary and comprehension and all the things that they feel comfortable with and the teacher feels like a book club would be a great opportunity for them to extend their thinking have some opportunities with critical thinking and collaboration we certainly will build those in so it's got a lot of different it's a it's a huge menu allak cart um but I know that for parents and teachers there's always like well but what is it really going to look like so there will be lots of different it'll be the place where if we dream it we can make it happen um so it's really that um there may be you know if we have an environmental Club um you know there may be students that come together that might want to do that and then they could meet once um during that time we want the focus to be both academic but also is is the opportunity for social and emotional learning yeah I think that would be good if we so when we move to 258 that will then be acceleration block we're thinking in the Middle School the new building we doing that right yes and so for current Middle School and High School How We Do Flex now do we also see flexes being data driven and and and things like that too is like currently or is that are we moving towards that or is that what we is that how we have Plex set up now that we're like right now the kids they have Plex it's using how they're doing in various classes and things like that yes absolutely so it is academically driven and I will if you want to add anything come on up it is it is certainly academically driven so it's both support it's both enrichment it's um but we also know that the looking at K8 we may be making some revisions to flex and what it looks like and how we can support the students needs um and moving to 58 the following year we we know there'll be an accelerate block but accelerate but it may look a little different then too um right now that 56 is really straddling what we're doing in elementary continuing with the academic programs we have in place but also making sure that we have the support we know fifth and sixth graders we need to their student achievement scores are something that we me need to dive into so that when they do move on to 78 they have all of the foundational skills they need as they move to Middle School and then to high school and is that when when do the kids for the fifth and sixth schedule when do they do like band and music lessons is that is that during that period as well well we haven't ironed all of that out yet um you can see usually a special period yep specials is like art music music but I'm talking like band like your instrument lesson yep that usually right like sometimes kids end up getting pulled out of four inst yep instrument lessons I will say are very challenging to schedule all instrument lessons within the accelerate block but that's not to say that band may be scheduled during the accelerate block whereas you can bring many students together but if you've got flute for three people or trumpet for two it's difficult to do so that that is something that um is always a trade-off and for this tutoring um do we have an idea of what per like how many students it was offered and the percentage that took took us up on that offer well it changed um so our initial offering um didn't we had the opportunity to expand it so as we extended that initial opportunity we realized that with more talking to the state with more teachers that we could get with the money that we were given we sort of made that decision before we had all of the responses back um and so initially it was going to be students that were just on what we call the cusp because we really wanted to move those level threes to four and five and then we realized you know what let's open this up to as many people as students as we can because we have those resources um and so I don't have those percentages of the initial invitation because what happened was then it became oh well I'm in coding until the end of February can I come to tutoring after that and we said yes we really didn't turn anyone away because we were really excited about trying this program um so in that sense we don't have that data we've got a lot of achievement data and we have a lot of attendance data but I don't have I invited you know 50 people and 30 said yes yeah I'm just because in my thing I'm just wondering if we look at were there any barriers to people who for kids who maybe could have or should have participated but they didn't for any reason there's a lot of conflicts after school um it was it yes we absolutely if somebody said we're gonna we're done um or that we want to come in later absolutely um we really tried to you know throw the net and get as many students as we could there was really no point in turning anyone away at any given time um and I you know I really have to commend the teachers because when you get a student after working with a group five weeks into the program um and they're like sure absolutely join us you take the diagnostic and here's what we're we're doing um you know that's a lot of flexibility and that's a lot of you know really being committed and dedicated to our students here in South um and doing whatever they need the question of barriers really you know also informs why our future commitments during school day right exactly exactly gave some estimates for the three student scenarios gave just enter think will be able to compare back to the estimated performance yes absolutely oh that's all part of the data yep absolutely absolutely one accommodation we did make just to you know thinking about um some of those barriers we walked students from uh Lambertville LOL to lamberville Academy we e so even students that were already in after school programs that couldn't um parents couldn't pick them up um one of the instructional coaches uh I did it for the first two days but then she took over and she would walk the students from um the elementary school to the academy so you know we really tried to do everything we possibly could I talked to the Lambertville Library um librarian to say here's what we're doing um you know if there was any support that they could give um at the library we did that U we really were sort of all hands in see what we could do Michael so I really think one of the things that I keep hearing from you was the data informed decision making and how we have all of these great technology resources that are happening right now I love that but I also in talking in committee i' I'd love to kind of bring out how that enables the human to human contact so how this is the right time for the district to be doing this because all of our teaching partners are going to be coming together so if if you could just sure talk a little bit more about that absolutely and that was something um and I'm also very hesitant about computers I would you know I would rather have a teacher sit and talk to a child um to know them as a learner and understand whatever may be um inhibiting them from reaching their Highest Potential um but then also making sure that we understand our gifted students um and how we can stretch them and um allow them to Grapple so what we did that was very important with the tutoring program um that I felt very strongly was we weren't going to adopt an I you know computerized program um and say okay here just go on this for 40 minutes so we were very thoughtful we had a 10-minute snack and then we moved into 15 to 17 minutes um half the students and there was five or six in a group would do the individualized and the other um three or four would meet with the teacher and the meetings with the teacher were small group as you saw Mr KCK he was doing teaching a lesson on something that the child needed based on their diagnostic so we balanced it with closing gaps and finishing some learning with the my path which is the personalized learning and then um we we made sure that they met with the teachers and it was small group instruction and we actually we really don't have that many um edtech programs that the students are on during the day um wit and wisdom won't have any Tech component to it unless the students are typing a document and they're writing the math the reveal math um the skills review or some of the other problems online are Again part of small group instruction so we Andel we're using right now because we have it and we wanted to see how we could close some guas gaps on our state test so there is a very there's a balance because I don't want kids on computers they're going to be on their devices like we are for the rest of their lives um and so especially in elementary school and 56 they need to have that interaction I just thought it was really so one you mentioned Mr Canon him coming down to with this six graders actually just gave them access to just another human who might be able to connect with them in another way and I think now that our our district has come together as great levels they can also connect with those teaching Partners so so if there's a third grade teacher who maybe can take a small group and it's not the primary teacher yes this program enables that yes yes right so I could see maybe a second grade team one classroom maybe the teacher decides that she's going to run um foundations group another teacher decides she's going to run the extension math group um one teacher may have individualized book clubs or the students are on their personalized learning path or doing something you know we're so it does give that flexibility so again we will give the teachers those guard rails the the three grade level the three grade level teachers you are welcome to figure this out but here's what we need here's your data you can make it work any way you want you might do that for a marking period you might do it for five weeks so there's really a lot of possibilities um to think about and you know the first year may be okay here's the way we're going to do it just because we got to wrap our heads around this and then it'll evolve just like Flex did you know we pivot and we make changes based on the feedback um it seems like the tutor in program went went really well and we had really great results from it I guess what my question I have a couple questions but my first one is um how will the program offered in the school and the acceleration program differ from how it was executed the in the after school C seems like maybe the groups were quite small I don't know how many teachers participated in working with the students in the after school tutoring program it's my sense there was a number of them um I'm wondering if the groups the small group instruction will be as small and whether there will be less of the oneon-one kind of exaction in the class because actually no because as we go back to class size and we look at 15 students um so if you have a class of 15 and two go maybe two are leaving for some ESL support maybe two are leaving for enrichment support um one's going to band you may be left with seven students so those seven students three could be working on my path three could be working with the teacher um I don't again even with 21 I can see that there could be um some different schedules set up as we said the 56 60 minutes so it could be 20 20 20 it could be 30 and 30 it could be any type of configuration that works to support learning and that's data driven so again all of these decisions need to be made based on students and the progress they're making um and then it can look very differently we'll also have all the intervention teachers so our standards with support teachers are now part of the equation as well and so they may be pulling a small group or they may going in um to a classroom to be another another teacher in the room and so now you have two teachers in one class well special education teachers to special education teachers as well exactly so you already in many one classroom in um of the three in prek4 we'll have two teachers anyway so and then you have another special ed teacher who might be servicing some resource room CH children that's either going to push in or pull out um so I don't I don't foresee the groups being bigger kind of Le me to a second question I had which is um will the students this is for the acceleration period again will they have the opportunity to do different things throughout the week or if you have a kid for example who you know needs we have help a m let's say right and that's the best use and that's the data set is that kid going to be in the math at five days a week or you know day after day or would there still be an attempt to kind of you know expose that student to different absolutely because whatever if the student needs extra support in math they may be they may um they may be classify or qualify for enrichment activities so they may be doing math work on Monday and Wednesday and they may be doing enrichment on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then maybe they're working on a project um on Friday so I don't see it being you're going to you're going to have five days a week of solid math for 40 minutes or 60 Minutes it I mean we know we know the students of math dur the day right yes absolutely so again we're designing based on the needs and you know we know there'll be a new Ela program which will take some getting used to for all of the students and teachers so that will be different we've got new buildings we've got new and there's just a lot going on so we want to be able to provide the flexibility um you know and teachers may be doing um you know community building one day a week where they may spend 20 minutes doing a morning meeting Circle um or a circle after lunch um or yoga or breathing I mean I don't want to I don't want us to to lose sight of why it's in place but we also are still working with the same kids we're working with this year and we know that for anyone to be successful they have to have that social emotional Foundation great it sounds really exciting it also sounds like genda it is it is it is it is but we're used to that I mean that's something we do with do all the time and and I have another one which is so we had the schedu up for the five six it kind of seems like they have a full period of lunch and a full period of recess maybe I was reading it wrong I think it's six and 6A and again those are just samples without times yeah so they have 60 Minutes currently they have 60 minutes I think it's it's proposed right now 50 next minute Lun and combin correct 25 um and uh think my other question was just whether or not the acceleration period was going to extend to 78 once school yes yes yes yes yes absolutely any other questions great thank you very much um folks if you have questions in the audience that now is the time uh we'll open our first period of public comment um you may comment on any item on the agenda if you have questions about the prese present ation um we will try Miss Lennon is here we will try to answer those um we would ask that you again um come up to the podium tell us your name the community that you're from and uh try to keep your question or your statement to the board at three minutes or less um and we will we will leave it open until everyone's had a chance to ask their questions uh that said the uh public comment period is open does anyone have something that like to bring before the board I don't usually do this but Taylor laau um teacher at West Samwell and one of the presidents of the Sha earlier this month the South Hunter Regional Education Education Association hosted our annual family literacy night the event was attended by over 100 District families children had the chance to participate in many different activities that promoted literacy in fun ways such as storytelling improv and karaoke a Philadelphia based graphic novelist Jamar Nicholas presented an interactive workshop and signed copies of one of his novels for all students who participated Additionally the children had the opportunity to take home as many as 4,500 books um and they could take as many books as they wanted uh the sh would like to thank the Amal lodge number 12 three and accepted masons for their generous co-sponsorship we're also very grateful for the support provided by the district fla bed and the administration um please be on the lookout for our elementary summer reading initiative that's coming out next month thank you thank you uh are there any hello Denise Baya West anell um I have a question about the um AP courses and everything um it's great to see so many like offerings for the students so the school pays the universities like for the college credits if they pass is that how that works no so the for the dual enrollment students or parents would pay what I had said is that if we had students who obviously had a financial hardship we have looked to build some money into our budget to be able to assist with that oh okay so it's the same is it the same rate as you were like would be paying for tuition so right now the uh no it's a lot cheaper so for Rowan I think it's $300 for a dual enrollment course and for TCNJ it's 550 oh so like a normal course would probably be around $3,000 if you were attending like in college okay well that's that's great um but a note on the TCNJ so they don't go by credits they go by units and um one credit doesn't like equal one unit like they have a really weird way of f like you know so what my obviously I have a student at TCNJ and uh he tried to take classes elsewhere and it was going to be really difficult to transfer um it was almost like he had to take two classes elsewhere to transfer into one so it's something to just kind of look at um also in going down to the softball fields um I'm realizing there may be a problem in the fall with the Lambertville Bridge being closed um like the One Direction traffic has been like atrocious so when the school opens like there may be a very large bottleneck every morning like drop offs or um pickups so I don't know if you need to work with the police department on like traffic patterns because it's I think if you're probably going to come into some problems um and then lastly on behalf of the softball team the coaches the parents thank you very much for fixing the uh Transportation issue so it's very much appreciated we'd love that we have our own bus driver getting the girls to the field on time so it's helping tremendously so thank you you're welcome there any other questions for the board Jessica hardigan West amall I I have just a question am I allowed to ask J um just knock a harp on the Accel ation thing and I know you said it's data driven but is it at the students discretion or the teacher's discretion for and how do they manage that with having like 15 to 20 kids because I know given the option my current fifth grade boy is not gonna pick math but okay and are they in that alone because that seems like a lot of extra work to do or is it that does the program do it formal the I ready that you follow yes do they are they in it they would be so it would be like they would they might spend 15 to 17 minutes on their own doing math skill read whatever that I read based on their Diagnostic and then based on their diagnostic the teacher say Okay so we're going to review adding and subtracting number so I'm going to take the three of you going to so it's not one on one per se it would be just like they teach a math lesson they teach the math lesson and the teacher say okay I'm G keep the three of you right here with me let me explain this again because it looks like you all go do independent work and you all come you start and I check that what you say yeah I just was wondering because it I just wanted to make sure that typically when we see a class they're so we look for Trends not everybody's coming the exact same data point but we can say oh well this group of kids needs this so we can look at that Trend this group of kids need this and this group of kids can do that it's been sometimes you an outlier it's not the b or between and you meet those needs but typically we look at Trend so we can develop that way and then just to kind of piggy back off of what Denise said so um I know with like sporting events and stuff downtown at elely the Bridge Commission has been very responsive to helping with traffic patterns and putting signs up and having like the bridge monitors do certain things so I'm sure yeah my father-in-law would definitely help with that good thank you um I just want to piggy back on that real quick Mrs mcnight at the high school the flex program is largely teacher driven also is that not correct well it there's a combination of it actually there there's a lot that goes into it um we actually have a program up here um it's called efficiency that um that helps um with this algorithm of teacher student movement um Etc so we have student requests we have teacher requests and we have actually Administration uh push into the classes so on a on a daily basis Middle School um and high school because it um it has been work in progress I mean we started out I I could probably take a lot more time but we started out in the beginning of the year with the entire School District in one huge set in efficiency and probably about a month in we realized that we needed to split that out for the fact that we were getting some kids that were bubbling into either the high school Andor the Middle School flex but I would say off the top of my head just even looking at Flex this morning um uh teachers are required um on a daily basis to um choose six students um for various reasons whether it is makeup work whether it's acceleration whether they are on the D's and Fs list that we have Etc um and as well as kids that are extracurricular or need to make up work or were absent you know there's that algorithm that they set their seats for six in a day they might pull three three might requests now we do have also we the flow overs right where there might be a kid right that just does not want to that day right they're caught up on their work they're not on the D's left and F's list the teachers not pulling them Etc they could possibly be in our yoga or in our gym or in the silent study halls Etc so so there's a lot of play that go goes into it thanks for explaining that again when we get the extra uh Encore stuff will parents have a little more visibility what kids are doing with their F time is that one of the things you or uh not within on course as far as specifically yeah because it does kind of change every day and the way that fency is set up the teacher piece overrules a student piece so if a teacher really needs a student for let's say additional math report but the student wants to go to yoga they're GNA go to yeah so that's going to overrule and they're going to go to get an extra mass afford it would probably be good for parent information they can go like uh you took yoga three times this week but we do have the ability to run that out it to see basically each students requests and kind of where they're landing on a weekly basis absolutely and it's also since we are the first year into this brand new schedule as well as flex and efficiency and all of the above they are points that we will be looking at you know in marrying hopefully those systems the parents get notified with a kid is being you know being requested by different Health in a particular subject um not through the the efficiency system for the fact that it doesn't speak to on course at this um at this moment in time but um if in all honesty if a parent was to call or email and say Hey you know I kind of want to know what my my student is up to or who's being who's pulling my student and for what reasons our guidance counselors are more than happy to to go through that come through that data students we get an email every morning that lets them know what it'll be attending for flx so rather something the parents could look at as well to their District email y thank you um any other questions from the public let's see do we have any online questions uh in that case uh if there are no other questions right now there will be a second public comment period later in the meeting but I'm going to close this period of public comment and we'll move on to our committee reports um and we will start with the buildings grounds Transportation finance and safety uh Mr Warner is not here tonight okay all right Andre so we met on April 18th we started with discussion about health benefits medical and dental we are going to continue with Amer health and Delta Dental um at a 7% increase and a 3.9% increase respectively we did a final budget review which tonight we also had an update for construction we discussed at the elementary school just ongoing progress change orders same thing with the Middle School ongoing progress change order we discussed the potential for some delay cost cost due to the delay of construction start date um more to come for that in May uh we also discussed the upgrades to the well room where we're at why it's slightly delayed and expected completion dates and also as Mr suo wased earlier talking about the athletic field expansion uh we reviewed the contracts that were up for approval we discussed the 2024 nj6 safety Grant award for $5,900 which will be put towards putting um bus cameras on the newest bus bus 25 and then we also discussed the resolution approved change orders uh construction payment authorization transfers and the njr investing FJ interest ear as of April 18th was $1,993 th000 um the RFP for the Food Service management company has been posted with a bid opening date of May 8th and we also discussed Bus drop off at South American Regional element SCH for next year and the Safety Committee that we have okay U with that I'll need someone to make a motion to approve items a group Q on the agenda moved moved Ronnie thank you is have a second from Kevin thank you um any discussion on items a through Q if there is no discussion let's vote Mark events yes sir yeses yes kesy yes stra yes Bachelor yes Marino yes go yes uh Personnel committee okay the Personnel committee that virtually on April 17 at that committee meeting we reviewed the personal AC an agenda for next meeting including the superintendent recommendation for appointments resignations requirements and requests for extended and absence recommendations for non- Renewal recommendations for the DM rates for the 2024 2025 school year and also 20 recommendations for a new position of District data manager and special projects also at that meeting the reviewed recommendations for extra cour faer stien appointments for the 2023 for school year which is also an action item on this agenda um we went over the current openings in the district um many of which are filled and are the appointments that are fixed tonight um there are two open positions currently for a chemistry teacher at the high school and teacher of Agriculture at the middle school high school we excuse me we reviewed and discuss salary increases but the non-representative employees in the district for 2024 2025 and finally we were updated on the status of the bubly excellent um so would you like to make a motion to approve item yes I would like to make a motion that has for the superintendent recommendation the board approve personel AC action okay I motion second please second by Martha thank you any discussion uh let's vote Yes yeses M stra yes Bachelor yes Mar Dennis yes Mar yes yes uh curriculum and Technology Che curriculum and Technology met April 10th um a lot of this is going to be un repetitive to everything that's been discussed this evening I apologize like every meeting it's repetive um so progress is continuing to be made um data migration is continuing the parents Grand class link um 3K through four looking at dates when they can move out of St John's into the new elementary school and progress is ramping up quickly up here the Middle School spring Ela training um was April 20th and again May 7th included the first Whit wisom training NJ SLA test prep activities and parent information session discussed April 23rd our first staff was M with staff make sure that all resources were given so that make sure the students are set up for Success um the parent information slide deck and the zoom meeting The Zo meeting recording posted on the what's new p on the regional um web page so you go to the top of the South Regional School District website there a news and then under that there's what's new and that information be SE there we discussed the summer curriculum rating including the elementary school stem classes Middle High School theater program what those classes are going to look like um and using potentially using other districts as a guide high school art classes um allowing more entry points for students to get involved in art and High School egg and food science web design and anatomy and physiology and as we discussed previously um these are being Rewritten for enrollment and the parent roll out of Elementary schedule um Again The District Parent Council was the beginning of April was discussed this evening um and I did have a note on here that there be a zoom meeting sou may have questions that's all I have nothing to move okay thank you um SCH oh no I'm sorry policy policy met virtually on April 16 the first read of Regulation 2200 on curriculum content this is a mandated change requires course of study and that section requires course of study and instruction materials and programs to be designed to eliminate discrimination on the basis of any protective categories this was just a change to to the reference of where protected categories are now listed in the New Jersey statutes we also did a review of 75 policy 7523 School District provided technology devices for students the committee members reviewed recent data on Chromebook usage and discussed including a guiding statement for the use of Technology while acknowledging the importance flexibility in using those tools and there is some suggested language that the superintendent has put forward and we will address prior second grade we do have two items that um work for the second read the first is both the policy and the regulation 5111 eligibility of non-resident or resident non-resident students these were both mandated as a reminder there were revisions to New Jersey statute 18a 38-3 which requires amendments to the relevant policy and regulation it does continue to allow the Board of Education to approve admission of students into the school district who do not reside in the school district and to address certain rment scenarios that may arise such as charging tuition for a student moving into the district after the first day of the school year the recommendation of the uh superintendent is that South hunon Regional School District will not charge tuition in the following circumstances where a non-resident student whose parent or Guardian anticipates School District residency and has entered into a contract to buy build or rent of residence in the school district may be en rolled for a period of time not greater than eight weeks prior to the anticipated date of res as long as transportation is provided by the parent or guardian and also students whose parent or Guardian have moved away from the school district honor after of March 1st and 12th grade students who parent parent Authority and have moved away from the school district onor after September 1st will be permitted to finish the school year as long as Transportation exam is provided by the parent recuring and then the uh second read is some uh minor changes to policy section 2411 on guidance counseling um so I would like to with the changes to policy 5111 uh I would like to move both of those second readings to for approve okay so we have a motion a motion to move both the first readings and the second readings correct great can we have a second on that action please second by Michael thank you um any discussion on the first reading and the second so obviously the policies that are here for first reading if you have the opportunity to look over them before the next board meeting and uh if you have any questions you can email your questions to Martin who the chair of the policy committee um and copy Mr souo um I will note on the policy for second reading about the the students we that actually was a situation that we had here a few years ago where we had a student whose family moved out of the district and we allowed him to spend the last two or three months in school it would have been it was a senior and um you know so he lived with a he lived with another family in the community until he could graduate and then rejoin his own family so it is not something that never happens um so I think it's good to have a you know a policy that allows for that um something that we've done historically um any other comments on the policies if not then let's vote Bri Keys yes couple yes yes Dennis yes yes yes uh and school Community all right so school and community community met on April 16th virtually we talked about the um PTO reorganization meeting um which Aran um gave us more detailed information about that um at that time we were talking about resending the information to make sure that we had uh as much participation as we could get and the administrator U role in working with um the PTO to provide feedback on student and classroom needs uh we also reviewed a draft of the press release regarding the prek expansion and um had some suggested revisions but we will be putting that off um for finalization after the main meeting um since there have been additional questions that have come to light from the community and we want to make sure that we're highlighting and talking about the program as a press release but also figuring out when what what questions are best addressed in a press release versus in the information sessions that we will be hosting um later on in the year we talked about school mascots um and we were able to look at some of the mockups of the new school logos that were designed by students um and um talked a little bit about colors and final designs that will be coming up in the next few months and we um looked at screen time so we talked about the acceptable use of computers iPads and other screens in the classroom as the policy um committee is also looking at um and really um trying to decide where the line is between you know not wanting to be too prescriptive but also to support uh teachers in the purposeful application of um screens in classrooms so that's something that we'll be continued to discuss in policy and there's nothing to move that okay um item we come to our routine information items um I will report that we did have fire drills as required by law at the middle school high school elementary school both of the elementary schools so uh those dates are in the agenda um there is the we we do have a harassment uh intimidation and bullying report um which we'll be voting on right now I just want to mention um so each meeting we typically have a a harassment intimidation bullying report that is voted on um we also go into an executive session which we will be doing shortly um and that will be this is this covers the incidents from February or March uh March okay this covers incidents from March we will be going into executive session at the end of this meeting and we will be discussing incidents that occurred in April when we come out of that meeting there will be no voting we will vote on those in the next meeting so that is kind of how the proc for that works so every time we vote we're actually voting we're actually voting on something that we discussed at the previous month's meeting in the executive session so uh with that I do need a motion to accept the harassment intimidation and bullying report um this month so moved by Michael thank you can I have a second please a second by Martha thank you uh any discussion on the HIV report um and that is a Voice vote so all in favor can say I anyone oppos say n and anyone who abstains can obain with that we come to our second period of public comment for this meeting again same rules apply you're welcome to come and and address the board on anything that you have a concern about um so are there any questions for the board for the second period of public com do we have any online questions no no uh if there are no questions for the board then I will close move that we close the period of public comment um as I just noted we do have a need to go into a brief executive session that will be no longer than 30 minutes hopefully less there will be no action taken after that meeting um so with that uh can I have a motion to go on Executive session at 9:05 and move by Ronnie second by Jen all in favor I I good so we are welcome to