the meeting of the South Hunter and Regional Board of Education is 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 lamberville burrow of Stockton and Township of West well and advertising the Hun County Democrat the Trenton Times newspaper please stand for the flag salute uh roll call please Mr Harris Dennis here here Brian ke here kevki here here Warner here present um for those of you who are who don't have a seat um we are going to have two presentations first and after which I'm sure some of the folks that are here will be leaving so there will be seats available in a moment uh one of those is our International Day presentation by our LPS students the other is on the uh the South Hunter musical we're going to have a treated to a pre-performance um but before we do um one item of housekeeping uh we did receive this month a resignation letter from one of our board members Tracy Puli um so she is stepping down for personal reasons and um so with regret because Tracy was a committed and very dedicated board member and we appreciate it having her but with regret we will be voting this evening to accept her resignation uh so I'll need a motion to accept that resignation thank you Mr Todd Marino and a second a second by Martha thank you very much any discussion on the motion uh with that all in uh all in favor say I I I anyone opposed okay uh so that motion carries um so that brings us to uh internation that Mr yeah so we'll turn off my share there so everyone at home can see we're excited for international day we have students here from LPS and I'm going to introduce two of our staff members who are going to kind of give you some background and and you know share our students with you so I have Mrs Romanowski and Mrs Silverman they're all yours on Wednesday February 21st Lambertville public school's third grade class hosted International Day an exciting and culturally Rich event celebrating diversity it served as a joyful celebration of the world's culture fostering curiosity respect and open-mindedness leading up to our International Day event the students were part to research and create books all about country of study and created Lego people wearing traditional CL here are some examples we are created country research books we all cre reg people dressed in traditional clothes we created Mexican flowers as center pieces now a couple of our students are going to present information from their country research and our International Day celebration hello I am Jillian I study the country of Germany the capital of Germany is Berlin did you know that nor schoenstein is a castle in southern Germany and was the inspiration for Disney Sleeping Beauty Castle Germany is known for their soft pretzels parents and students tasted pretzels I made during International FY chian I am Jamie I study the country of Japan the capital of Japan is Tokyo did you know that Japan has the biggest city in the world it's Tokyo Japan is known for an art of paper folding known as origami here's an example I'm a I study the country of Brazil the capital of Brazil is Brazilia did you know the Amazon River carries more water than any other River on Earth Brazil is known for their passion of football soccer and has won the World Cup five times here's a picture of the famous Brazilian soccer team do I am Kylie I study the country of Ireland the capital of irland is Dublin did you know that Waterford Crystal is a famous Irish product Irish artists have been making this beautiful glass we by hand for more than 200 years here's a waterf crystal Ireland is known for the sport hurling in the sport they use a hurly stick to basketball here's an actual hurly stick Namaste I am f i studied the country of India the capital of India is New Deli did you know that India is the only country in in the world that has both lions and tigers in the wild India is known for hna which is an art form made out of plai here is an example of what hna looks like hello I am Ben I study the country of Switzerland the capital of Switzerland is burn did you know that Switzerland is known for chocolate an average person consumes about 22 pounds of chocolate year Switzerland is known for watches and shock hello I'm I stud the country of Dominica the CIT Dominica did you know that Dominica is definitely not Dominican Republic and has the second lar Bor lake in the world Dominic is for Dominic is known for the folk dance no as the bell I'm going to share a little dance with you sh I am Tessa I studied the country of Poland the capital of Poland is Warsaw did you know polish workers s salt out of deep underground caves salt mining has been around for 900 years PO is known for Polish Fiji Noy which means cut off here's an example I made it was internationally it was a great success and we hope to do it again next year so thank you to all thank you again Mrs ran aski Mr Sil and Mr MIRS awesome job students all student Le too which I love keep can start right here and gangers downage this downage I am down stage that's upstage here we go this is a little smaller than what we're working with uh in the auditorium thank you all so much so this is a preview performance of our annual musical The Drowsy chaperon we have students in grades 7 through 12 uh we will be performing this weekend one weekend only Thursday Friday and Saturday night at 7:30 pm right here in our High School auditorium this is our first night with costumes so we're getting really excited um so this will be a short preview at the end of act one and I just want to say as someone who was at International Day on Wednesday I am so Overjoyed that tonight's meeting is starting with a focus on what is most important in our district which is our students and the wonderful learning experiences that we're able to give them so thank you for being here to share that tonight and without further Ado um are we ready Miss Alum all set we give you Toledo surprise SCH now it's time you receive your just dessert you say partner shouldn't we whip up something special for Mr felig how about Toledo surprise an inspired Choice Toledo surprise I've never heard of that no you haven't because generally people who have heard of it are never heard from again we'll share the recipe with me first you chop the nuts then you found the dough and you bake it up nice and slow and then you got your too too surprise did you run that by me again it's a very simple recipe Mr to First you chop the nuts then you pound the dough and then bake it up nice and slow and then you got too too surprise say why don't we give him a little T all right hold it what style what Grace open your fists now shake them give me that recipe one more [Music] time your then got [Music] G you won't put [Music] wait wait wait a minute wait a minute oh thoughtful he has an announcement wedding is off what for the love of God why Ado has made love to the bride you idot the what the wedding is on the wedding is off what Robert kissed a French girl her name is me she's beautiful I didn't mean it Janet she was just like you only French Pearl yes madam what is all this commotion about it's about the wedding madam oh not anymore oh what a tragedy what a wonderful wonderful tragedy clear the floor show you how [Music] it a surprise wait until it's ready wait it's [Music] ready surprise surprise surprise surprise [Music] you got you got you got thank you so much we hope that we will see you Thursday Friday or Saturday uh to finish off the rest of that c take one more bow please awesome job students awesome job Mrs km and crew tickets are still on sale we sent out information today it was posted on social media make sure you buy your tickets thank you so much good luck all right but we have already I see that muli I did not see her in the audience earlier we sadly and with great regret accepted your resignation but uh you will be missed in your service nearly six years was greatly appreciated um I know for my part it was always a pleasure working with you so um that said uh for those of you are from West dwell we do have a vacancy on the board we are looking for someone from West dwell um we uh just need to submit a you know your resume or a letter stating your interest and um there is information about how to do that on the website Mr behind there go my eyes are shot um says qualifying applicants should send a resume with cover letter by March the 15 2024 to Mr Harris um who is the board secretary here and we will have interviews for that probably before our March meeting hopefully fill that seat uh with that we will move on to our updates of our uh associations we'll start with the uh laf is there anybody here who wants to give an laf update uh PTO okay perfect great had to leave um oh Jessica hardigan West Amwell um PTO I'm gonna start with LPS um the pta's next meeting is March 12th at 5:00 pm in the allpurpose room at um LPS On Location um they're going to start planning their annual wathon which is their biggest fundraiser which is something I really look forward to continuing when we move on with the um District Parent organization um their field day will take place on May 30th at Brierwood Day Camp um and they'd like to thank the hiberia fire company for their generous contribution to make the event possible um they also they gifted LPS and West Amal $4,000 each which was really huge they had um a bunch of income come in from the sale of their building and they've been very very generous to the community they've donated a lot of money to Ramblers to us so um a big thank you to them and their generosity um the sixth grade uh would like to thank everyone who supported their fundraiser at the Acme and arcade yesterday it was a apparently a great local event and they got a lot of donations from local businesses and that's all for that and then for us um our next kids night out is Friday March 8th from 6:30 to 900 p.m. in the multi-purpose room at West dwall um we took a little bit of a break last month because they had one here and my kids loved it they loved hanging out with with the high school kids they thought it was great um so ours is back so if anyone wants to do that the form will be up and running tomorrow um our book fair starts March 11th and ends March 14th with family night on the 14th if anyone would like to join the book fair committee please feel free to reach out to me directly or the PTO email um more information on ewallet and family night will be going out to families at the end of the week please be on the lookout for a signup genius um to volunteer at the book fair and then each year I don't know if anyone knows this but the PTO um uses Scholastic dollars to help fund the West emo Library um in recent years we've been banking our dollars since the referendum and um we plan to give them to the Middle School library so the Middle School librarian will be able to um purchase anything in the Scholastic catalog I think we have like almost $3,000 a little over that so they're gonna get a a great deal of money they'll have this year's and next year's from the book fair and then um during rack week the PTO along with Mrs Duran organized a breakfast snack day and lunch at West dwall for staff members so thank you to everyone who donated items for the breakfast and snack day um lunch was bought by the PTO from Chive for all staff members at West ell um the PTO and PTA also organized a rack week snack day for um Middle School and High School staff members um and of the items were donated by Middle School and High School parents and the PTO and PTA so I hope everyone at the high school enjoyed that and Middle School um our talent show is coming up March 21st um and we're also adding an art show this year which is really exciting we're very excited um each student's art will be represented so Mrs Johnson will be working hard with the students to create ice cream themed works of art um they'll all be on display so as people are taking a break they can walk through the hallways and see all the kids art um and then lastly is the PTL and PTA have been communicating a great deal about the new District Parent organization we're working hard to ensure all beloved events and traditions are carried on as we move forward and merge our schools traditions we have made the decision um not we the PTO board and the PTA board has made the decision to dissolve the um LPS PTA um we've spoken to a tax attorney the IRS and and um the state of New Jersey um and we're going to ensure that the transition is smooth for everyone and um the PTA has a little bit different restrictions than we do so our funding will go out to a member vote and members will vote at the end of this year to decide where our funds our funds will lie um and we're planning on forming a committee and having meeting in the beginning of March so look out for an email for that and I encourage anyone who wants to attend um to to do so it is it is important we do a lot of community work and we want to make sure that everyone feels represented so thank you thanks okay uh next um Stella Reid will give our report our student representative for the board cool so the high school boys and girls basketball teams are entering their second round of playoffs this season with both games taking place tomorrow um Festival of the Arts took place in January with performances by student musical groups such as the high school jazz band and multimedia displays of artwork from across the student body the drama class held a Valentine's Day fair this P this past month with activities such as card making giving students the opportunity to spread Valentine's joy in school the South hunon Performing Arts programs are preparing for the Tricky Tray auction that will be held mid-march as a fundra in event um the ping pong Club has started off for the second half of the year and night at The Nest will take place on Friday March 8th and Saturday March 9th and rehearsals are in full Spain thank you very much any questions Stella you need to go homewor or night at The Nest practice go go right ahead and thank you very much for being here um with that correspondence we had none last last month the what that other than the resignation no correspond um so with that we move to approval of minutes so I will need we're going to do this in two motions I'm going to uh ask for a motion to approve the minutes of our January meetings we had two um which is items a through e on the agenda Ronnie thank you very much uh second please second by Michael thank you any discussion on those minutes uh all right all in favor I anyone oppos okay the second is item F which is minutes from a executive session meeting from September the 18th during an audit of uh paperwork we realized that uh while the minutes have been created they had never actually been approved in a meeting so we do need to do that formally to make them official um so I will need and reason I do two the reason I do two motions is only because several people who are on the board now were not in that meeting and they may wish to abstain although they are not required to do so um with that I need a resolution to approve the executive minutes from September the 18th Ronnie thank you a second please second second by Brian any discussion on those minutes all in favor I anyone oppos okay uh with that I'm sorry oh abstentions yes okay we'll have two abstentions um with that uh we move to the superintendent thank you Jim so a few things I wanted to update everyone on this evening um the first I'm going to talk a little bit just to reinforce what I shared at our last meeting and also what I had shared with the community about our reconfiguration plan for next next year and then also um talk a little bit about the calendar for the end of the year obviously there's been some challenges with snow days and kind of where things land with graduation and uh six great promotions and then I want to give a constructional fee as well on our on our two projects so what I wanted to share first is just to remind everyone the plan that we had shared last month that as of September of 24 all K4 students who live in Lambertville Stockton or west anwell will attend the south hundon regional Elementary School all fifth and sixth grade students who live in Lambertville stock or west anwell will attend the West anwell School obviously for the first two bullets for bullet one our elementary school has been under construction since last June and is Right On Target if anything's a little bit ahead of schedule so we're making great progress and we expect that to be done in June of 24 and our Middle School is behind progress so obviously that will not be ready for September of 24th students in grade 7 through 12 we live in Lambertville stock West anwell will attend the middle high school so the same configuration that we've used in the past will continue for next year and then for preschool students there will be two classes one at the South Hunter Regional Elementary School and three classes at the West anwi school and I'll talk a little bit more in specifics about preschool and preschool expansion AE so just a little bit about back history on preschool expansion e so the state of New Jersey specifically and the Department of Education have had as a mission for several years to provide Universal preschool to all students in the state of New Jersey so that means for three and four year old students rather than to have to pay at a private facility or not be able to pay at all and they can't afford it so they don't attend preschool the goal was for all New Jersey school districts to have a preschool program that would be free for parents and obviously from the educational side the sooner we can get students in the district with a universal curriculum rather than different curriculums that maybe Private Preschool facilities the better off it's going to be educationally for our students and for the district so with that the state has a maximum of 15 students per preschool classroom and the state did a calculation for each individual District what's called a universe so looking at demographics the state predicted that you would basically have a certain number of sections that you would have to run to eventually meet the needs of all the students who live in your community so for South Hunter specifically that was six classes so several years ago we were running two preschool classes at LPS that parents had to pay for and now what the state is saying is in order to be able to service all the students that live within your three municipalities it looks as though you would need to run six preschool classrooms each with 15 students so we are currently in year three of the preschool expansion aid process we did jump on the grant pretty quickly for a lot of different reasons especially because of the educational value for our students and the financial burden for our parents in 2021-22 as I mentioned before we were running two preschool classes at LPS in which our parents had to pay we were notified in December of that year that we were awarded the expansion aid for 2122 and we received the money for the 2122 school year in February of 2022 and we were able to and our parents are very excited about this reimburse all of our parents all the money they had paid from September up until February for preschool and then for the remainder of the year it would be free but as part of the expansion process we had a build out capacity to say we're not going to be able to do all six classes in year One what we're going to have to do is build a plan out over the next several years and our goal was to expand by one class so we went from in 2122 two classes to 2223 three classes of 15 and then this year 23 24 we have four classes of 15 and then our goal for next year 2425 is to have five classes so for September of four we will have 75 preschool students in our district and the possibility of the following year 90 students depending upon how our universe plays out and we're still kind of working through those numbers some of you may have seen in the last couple months we put out a preschool interest survey just to get an idea from parents who are interested and then we'll have a better handle on our numbers so I put question marks next to the six classes just because we need to see how that kind of plays out in 20232 24 we will receive received $956,000 for preschool expansion from the New Jersey Department of Education and with that preschool expansion Aid we pay for all the teachers and Par professional salaries and health benefits related to the preschool program we are required to have what's called a preschool instructional coach or a pick as an acronym we are also required to have a preschool intervention referral specialist or a Pur we pay for both of those salaries and benefits out of the pre school expansion Aid and then we have curriculum and classroom materials training furniture and any playground that we may need so all of that is paid out through that preschool expansion Aid we anticipate for 2425 and we have not received these numbers yet that we will probably be getting close to a million dollars from the state of New Jersey as we expand to our fifth section of prechool next year as far as facility options in reference to the state we have the option to use existing facilities or you have the option to partner with local preschools in our communities for additional space we decided this year when we were running four sections of preschool that we were going to run three three sections at the St John school our alternate site this year and then for our fourth we are going to partner with happy time and rent space from them and in doing so by the end of the year we will pay them 42,00 ,750 in rent for using that space and again that comes from our preschool expansion aid funds now we're not alone in this this is happening across all school districts in the state of New Jersey I will say that we were one of the early ones that kind of jumped on and now other districts some have started in January have been really forced to start in January and then to figure out moving forward what their plans going to be and obviously there's some districts around us that are much bigger and are looking at you know 20 25 30 preschool classrooms based on the number of students uh in their in their District now with that there's options as I mentioned partner with three schools in the community and when you do that you have one of two options you can rent space and run the program meaning you hire the teacher you hire the par professional you oversee and control the program or you can just turn the program over to that facility and they run it and obviously you would have to provide them funding out of this expansion aid for them to be able to do it we made the choice for happy time that we would hire the staff that we would hire everyone who was involved with the program and we would oversee it and the reason we did that is we wanted to make sure the consistency of Education that our preschool students were getting at our other site was at the St John school after looking at that and kinding weighing our options we've decided for 2425 that we're going to have two preschool classes at our new Elementary School and we're going to run three classes at the West anwell school and the reason that we decided that is after going through the experience happy time was an excellent partner with us but there are some challenges that we experience when you're not inside the district right students and the teacher and the other individuals that kind of work in that program can sometimes feel isolated because they're not within the district for you know District activities they're offsite we also were concerned because we wanted to make sure that our students that are in the preschool program are all having the same experience and what I mean by that is we expose our students to the specials things like art and music and Spanish which a lot of other programs don't do and I think that's a huge Advantage for our students to be able to do that that can get more challenging when you're off site or if you're relying on another facility if you're simply turning over the program to them in order to be able to make sure that that happens and they have the staff for that to happen as far as the plan Beyond next year we don't know what that's going to be first we're going to have to see exactly where our universe lands and whether five classes is going to be it or we going to need to add a six class which we should have a better idea by the end of this year and then we're going to have to have discussions on what that looks like of whether we would try to partner with other folks for more additional space we did try to partner with the Lambertville Academy but unfortunately there are space requirements that you have to have per classroom size and unfortunately they didn't have those accommodations so they would not be able to be a partner for us in this process so they will continue to be discussions you know at the board level I think right now our major focus is next year because next year has a lot of moving Parts with the reconfiguration and then also you know 56 and three preschool classes at West anell and you know following the progress that we make with our 58 construction but I wanted to give a little bit of background for you to have an understanding of where the money's coming from and the fact that this preschool expansion over the last three years has been fully funded by the Department of Education and will continue to do so moving forward until we meet our universe all right just a few things with District calendar so you know that we've had three snow days um unfortunately which I'm sure no one's happy about but our last day of school is now bumped from Monday June 17th 20 24 so after you know a bunch of different discussions we intend on right now keeping High School graduation on Friday June 14th and we are moving it to 2 PM in the past we've been having it at 1 pm but we did get some feedback from parents who have students graduating that have siblings at our elementary schools and it's a little tight trying to get them over here by one o'clock with their dismissal 1250 so we bumped it back an hour to allow a little bit more time and then what we're going to do is we're going to to bring our seniors back in and all of our students on the last day of school it will be a half day we will have a senior breakfast a nice senior breakfast for them one last chance to kind of get together sign yearbooks and then we will give them their actual diploma um on that morning for them to go along their way we realize that a lot of parents have already planned with folks that may be flying in or coming in for graduation and obviously for us to disrupt that um that could cause a lot of angst for parents who have already made plans for our sixth grade promotions we're going to keep them on Thursday June 13 2024 for LPS and West andwell um obviously students still need to come to school on Friday and Monday but you know we will keep them as such now the only way that could change is we have more snow so if we have another snow day off before you know we get to the warmer season that could adjust where now we need to push you know into the following week for graduation the nice thing about keeping grad graduation on that Friday is if for some reason we have like a total wash out we do have a rain date possibility for Monday if we needed to do it um till Monday afternoon so just wanted to kind of put that out there uh I will be putting this out to the community tomorrow just so everyone knows they can make plans but again you know we're probably in a window about another six weeks with weather that hopefully we won't have any more snow all right construction update so south hunon regional elementary school so as I've mentioned and hopefully you've been following Along on social media you know we've made excellent progress um everything that we've needed as far as supplies have been in on time are there there's a lot happening if you've been by that school there's a lot of people working on that site so just a few things that kind of take into consideration if you've been by lately you see that our new entrance is here so basically you're looking at our new main entrance here which has a secured vestibule inside and then over here here you're actually looking at the entrance to our new library so the exciting part about that is and we've talked about that in the past where if there are community events and things are happening in the evenings folks can enter right into the library for those community events they don't need to enter into the rest of the building they could have those events and then exit right out of the library and as you can see the rest of the front we have our main office area here principal's office conference room um so we're making awesome progress if you look in this is actually our new library it's part of our new edition so you can kind of see the size of it there's a little you know kind of reading Nook area in the back as well that's open um that it will have you know all kinds of bookcases so you can see drywalls up we're getting to the point where we're ready to start painting putting ceiling grids in and all those different things some of our classrooms so again you can see wiring HVAC ceiling grids in in this room on the left have actually gone up um some painting has actually started and then eventually we'll get to the point where uh we'll be putting in flooring and other things and finishes along the way this is our new main office area you can see it's completely sheetrocked taped um ready to go hbac being finalized so we're really making excellent progress um and we're really excited about the progress that we're making so um right now like I said completion schedule is June of 24 we're in the process of finalizing our technology that we need to order and we're in the process of finalizing our furniture order for that building because we'll have all brand new furniture and we're really excited about that so we talk about um the new middle school so we did recently receive our construction permit which we're really excited about and with that our contractor is now given us a timeline for completion so what you'll see is the new estimated completion date is the end of March 2025 with punch list items the end of April 20 2025 so now that we have obviously a building permit and we're starting to work on the actual building we now actually have a completion schedule for the building so we can plan accordingly and just some of the biggest things that have happened in the last couple days since we got the permit you can see that they're starting to build along they're starting starting to dig out the foundation you can see it here as well so you're going to see a lot more folks on site in the coming weeks a lot of Masons a lot of concrete trucks as they pour a foundation for this building and start to build a block um for this building and a lot more action that's been happening in the last several months so just wanted to kind of bring everybody up the speed on that and then the last thing so we've been spending a lot of time talking about where do we go with the South Hunter Regional Elementary School and South Hunter Regional Middle School mascots we surveyed our students probably early January um got about 275 responses we surveyed all of our students so districtwide just to kind of get feedback we had some awesome suggestions but one thing that continued to rear its head um that we had a lot of discussions about as our administrative team we had discussions at some of my recent District Parent Council meetings and and then we had some discussions as a board and we came to the conclusion based on our students feedback that we were going to go in a direction to purely unify our district so moving forward we have made the decision that our South Hunter Regional Elementary School Eagles and our South Hunter Regional Middle School Eagles and the Eagles may be a little different right so what we're doing is we've reached out to some of our more talented art students and if you were here you know about a month ago at our teen Arts Festival it was amazing to see all the products that were there and we got some very talented students so I've given them the challenge to say takey a chance at designing an elementary school eagle and maybe it looks a little bit different than what we have for the High School Eagle and the same thing for the Middle School Eagle I think you know from you know an apparel side you know I know a lot of our younger students especially like to get some of the high school power or they get really pumped up when they get something from the high school and the fact that we'll all be the Eagles now could kind of be Universal throughout the district so we're really excited about that the goal would be in the coming months that we'll bring some designs back to the kids based on what our students came up with and then we'll do a final vote on the actual design for each building we'll go in the middle of the gyms as far as their logos um in each one of our buildings and we're really excited about that so thank you to all of our students who participated and came up I have to give them credit with some very very creative names along the way all right that's my update do we have any uh questions from the board so that Lambertville Academy um did did not meet the requirements for a preschool classroom I'm just wondering if you can kind of expound on what those requirements are versus a standard classroom yep so you need to have a minimum of 700 square feet correct and it can't be on the third floor because of fire code getting the little ones out of a building unfortunately the only space that lamberville Academy had that was 700 Square F feet was on the third floor so um that excluded them and that's not our rule that's state of New Jersey any other question I have a question about the calendar for the upcoming year um 2425 2425 just given you know what's going on right now with graduation and snow days that W built into the calendar maybe something we want to look into it is on our agenda for final approval tonight um we've been kind of Shifting some things around based on some input we've been getting from our teachers um my DPC group District parent counsel and the board so I'm keeping my you know we we've been lucky the last two years where we've had no snow which has been awesome where unfortunately this year it's been a little bit more challenging and who we were fortunate but many school districts and I never thought in my time you know when I was in school we never had a rain day well there's some districts that have had rain days which is just mindboggling to me we were fortunate not to have to worry about that but there are many area districts who did have to deal with rain days which is something that's foreign to all of us when we were in school any other questions with that um we come to the first of few periods of public comment um this is uh open to the public anybody member of the public is welcome to come up U let us know your name what community you're from and um we' like you to try to keep your remarks to about 3 minutes you can make a statement to the board or ask a question if we can answer it in brief time we will otherwise uh we may get back to you with an answer um so with that I see M Miss pcel is ready to speak hey guys di pel West anal Township so I wanted to take this time to officially publicly thank Tracy Puli for her years of service to this board of education school district and Community I had the pleasure of serving with her for most of my time on the board and I can say without hesitation that she was an invaluable resource who led with objectivity great insight and respect she always sought to hear all perspectives and experiences and only after that participated in making important decisions for this District she face adversity with Grace when it was frankly very hard to do trust me I know and was personally a great sounding board and friend during our tenure together she's also one of the most organized people that I know which served her very well in this capacity she's probably sliding down in her seat right now because she had no idea I was doing this but I think she absolutely deserves the recognition because not everyone has the courage or dedication to sit in those seats Tracy enjoy your time just being a Community member and parent and be proud of the important accomplishments you me to our district and while I still have two minutes thought I was going to run out um I just wanted to give kudos the school program my daughter started when she was just three barely speaking came out a completely different child and was so ready for kindergarten so doing great things thank you thank you Ben hi Jen Bachelor from West Samwell um first I just wanted to make a quick um request that if you're doing anything at all different with that West Ham wall School building uh that you owe this community an awful lot of transparency Y into um what that would look like um considering the time and effort that was spent in educating the West Amile folks about the end of useful life for that building um and not to mention the use of the funds for the sale of that building to go against the cost of the referendum um uh I appreciate the transparency about the prek program um I look at the timelines and I do have to wonder why we would jump in full boore on expanding into a new program given all that we are going through already with the upheaval of the grade reconfiguration and the referendum and I'm gonna say it our test scores it just feels like we are biting off a little more than we can chew while we're choking on what we've already got um I really feel again I'm going to say that we should be expending as much time and resources as we possibly have available to us and helping our current students that we have now show a little bit more progress there um with regards to what you talked about with the pr where did these demographics these are questions that I would like to have answered um where did the demographics come from and why are they so far different than what we were told during the referendum when our student population was meant to take a nose dive um and then two other questions I have real quick if if we can fit them in um with construction I keep seeing a lot of bills lists and things that are coming in as extras there was like re-rooting a water line to avoid as vestus in the Lambertville School and it just was wondering what's the process there because it doesn't seem like it's like bids does the construction manager just kind of accept whatever costs that go along with that um and then lastly uh not related to these topics but I didn't want to come back up um I've follow several other school districts on social media and I noticed one thing in common that a lot of them do is that they often share job postings that are available for the district and I've noticed that we've had some positions filled um sometimes even by local people but I never see them shared on social media or with our local community um so I was just wondering if there any reason why we don't share our job postings and maybe if we could start doing that as well thank you I'll take the job posting I'm I'm pretty sure we use a system called Frontline it is tied into our social media pages and gets posted on Facebook and we post the job but I'll research that and get back to you want to talk hold instruction sure um so in regards the question regarding construction and additional costs it kind of depends on the it's um there's an allowance for different sections of the of the construction so if it gets within that allowance have to go out to bid um but if it is uh something that's going to extend the contract then it's the change that has to be and the demographics piece I'll follow up with the as far as how the state used their calculation for the preschool anybody else who something like I just answered two of them yeah I said I would get back for the demographics on how they use about schools what about what schools yeah you can come up to the P if you like so why don't you come up to the podium and articulate foral question I'm not sure I I get what you're saying I kind of made that statement that you know I don't think any decision have been made yet so I don't think there's an explanation to be had but when we get to that point that's something obviously I would also say I mean we have been very transparent so this uh plan that we've been talking about the preschool at these meetings for several years we have been talking about um you know this plan to have a couple of preschool classes in West dwell for this upcoming year for the last few months these it was publicly put out there last month you understand the point of making right to that are popul was declining the building was unusable and you know you guys plan for prepay go and now all of a sudden 63k class it just doesn't it doesn't make sense you have to understand we feel like we're being like I understand that I don't think that I will I want to say that and then we're gonna go back to if you have a question and will respond to your demographic questions in writing so that we can put all the information out there in clearance play way and we can share that with the public if you'd like um but I would say I don't think that anybody ever said that the West D school was not usable we did excuse me allow me to finish no we said we had two choices when we went into there right we could spend a lot of money to renov the West D school or we could go out for a referendum which might be better well but it would have been the life time of that building okay so okay is there anybody hi I'm Andrea little West dwell Township um first off it's hard to hear from just so you all know so if you could talk up that'd be great um just wanted to state so we have been talking about preschool or you've been talking about preschool for several years I've heard you talk about it I know about the happy T time program um but when we were planning this referend um Lambertville school was small you know it's it's a tight School Renovations are going to be a lot better um two School classrooms were done for preschool but we always knew it was going to be a growing program and we also know that happy time was not going to be sustainable because you were going to want to bring it in um and now we're talking about more schools U more classrooms uh for these preschoolers with the demographics when you find out from the state are they actually from our Township or our district townships the 90 students because that was then should have been within our what we paid to have that study done we were talking like 5060 kids a grade so there's a big substantial difference there and I think we really need to understand that because who we paid to be doing those demographics then didn't do it according to what the state was doing so we really need to understand that because that service was paid for if they are within our district there then changes a lot of different situation because then you're talking about these kids are going to stay through kindergarten first second grade so what I'd like to hear from everyone as you're figuring it out to be creative and know that you're going to have to reassort how the class the schools are there is no reason for seventh and eighth grade to leave South hund if you have all these kids going in because what Stell school is going to have to close that was in the plan that is what was promised unless you're going to not build this middle school and you're going to renovate West Stanwell then something has to be done but we're too small of a district to be running for buildings so I mean I just want to see creativity on figuring it out like I don't know why fourth grade can't I'm not I'm on the board I'm not Administration you're going to figure that out but I just really think think that we need to be looking at that and I think that that's a big concern for a lot of citizens here um because we're we want the value of these dollars for taxes going to education and our teachers and going right to our students and not facilities thank you Tony would you be willing to clarify the ages of the preschool program yeah preschools ages three and four and yep I am Joseph Wright from West anal Township 56 years of living in West anel Township I was born and raised here my my grandfather was mayor of West Amal Township for 17 years it sickens me to hear somebody said that the school that I went to is going to be closed and then when you hear the reasons of why the school is being closed substandard doorways um Plumbing asbest okay every building has issues but we were specifically told and you all sold it to everybody that voted for this new school system all right all of you sold it to everybody else in this whole District all right that the school was no longer a viable place for children to go to school all right that's what was sold to this community and it's now not true in my eyes because you're willing to put preschool children in a building that is substandard and not healthy that's all I got to say y hi Aaron bog West Amwell um had question of about curriculum so a lot of talk about the new buildings the renovations all great right uh as a parent of a student former board member and a taxpayer want to see quality education continually improved over the years right so new buildings are fine they aren't going to improve the quality of the Education Without curriculum advancing our test scores State SATs um AP test scores I don't know all of those I'm familiar with the Sciences because I'm a scientist are disappointing the P so I haven't come to every board meeting but I haven't heard a lot of talk about curriculum what are we doing to improve it how are we going to improve the kids education beyond the buildings and the other programs we have I want to see continuous Improvement in the curriculum now I don't know that that comes to board meetings all the time or some of the community events you have but I would like more transparency there because I think our students deserve better our taxes are going up because the new buildings want to see their education improved the buildings by themselves aren't going to do so that's all just would like to see more transparency on the curriculum side Mr bog I would if if you're interested I would recommend Janel and lenon who's our director of KCK instruction you know set up a meeting with her and she can kind of share all the different things we've shared some different things when we did our achievement report back in the fall but I think she's more than welcome to sit down and answer all those questions you just ask awesome that'd be great thank anyone else okay we do have one person who there commenting online it is Shannon Burkhead um who the South Hunter Regional Education Association would would like families to save the date of April 11 for annual family literacy night we will be giving away over a thousand books and families will have the chance to participate in lots of fun literacy activities please be on the lookout for more information that will be sent home soon we look forward to seeing you there uh seeing nobody else anyone comment there will be another period public comment later in the meeting so without close this per of public comment we'll move on to buildings grounds Transportation finance and safety uh with Megan not being sure since Megan's not here um we discussed U we presented the preliminary budget will go up for approval in March we discussed that the maral increase would be 7% we don't have numbers yet Delta Mr sh provided updates on construction for the elementary school and middle school Mr hon provideed updates on upgrades to the high school well room toar same the boilers um we also review the poten the laate that came in um in terms of other highlights five contracts areal just to highlight two of them one is for Matrix engineering for additional site work at the Middle School site and then for the um we're also accepting five LEF grants this month $7,000 Plus for mpal high school students attend Pon musical around $700 for Middle Spanish trip 360 for the Youth Finance Summit a little over 2,000 for the elementary school phot zoo trip now for students in both elementaries and 2500 for the Alice Island production couple more highlights um and and arm withdrawal is being requested to cover the school construction payments there are four for approval one for the elementary school construction project two for the Middle School construction project and fin cafeteria development for proposals on the way we year five of our food service medicine company contract by New Jersey Code we have to go out RSP after the fifth year um so we are in the process of developing that that we complete that by by the end of the year as a dictates then we go okay um motion to a thank you second discuss yes yes yes yes mik yes to Marino yes yes personel Personnel committee met on February 21st we discussed a few items um first there are two collective bargaining agreements that will be expiring on June 30th 2024 those are the bus drivers and administrators the board's negotiations team has started negotiations with administrators and uh we'll be starting negotiations with the best drivers this week we discussed a new job description for the human resource manager position which will be on the agenda for approval tonight and the board will be accepting the retirement of Susan Duma this evening who is a special education teacher at uh LPS we will honor Susan as well as all of our other retirees at the May meeting just one other thing I wanted to mention just wanted to give a shout out to Steph zor um you'll see on the agenda Steph has been in with the district since 2010 um worked in the main office here at the high school but most recently over the last several years worked supporting me uh in my office so she got a great opportunity in a bigger district and and has moved on but we also have on the agenda um Shannon Regan who will be taking her place um she will be starting with us in the beginning of April after spring break and she comes to us with experience from another school district as a human resource manager um was that do that second any discussion on the appointment yes yeski yes yes yes yes curriculum and Technology pet so the curriculum and Technology committee met on February 14th in the library Vince provided technology updates including his evaluation of parents Square which will be the new Communication System between school and families which should be replacing School messenger um class link we plan to roll that out throughout the year possibly into the summer act as an interface between the teachers and students um regards to the buildings the prek four building is wired and now we're working on a power distribution plans for the 5A building we discussed looked over the special education manual which was worked on by Dr msmouth that walks through special education process step by step including levels of intervention referral services and a glosser of terms we discussed a theater program potentially what we do to move that forward so currently there we have the one Musical and we saw part of that this evening um some kids have approached staff saying they want to be in a play they don't or they they don't want to sing or caning but they want to still be involved with with theater um so we're discussing how we would build out the program at some point potentially have a fall and spring play and build a curriculum from introductory level through courses we discussed OnCourse um teacher recommendations and student course selections so teachers have been trained in how to make recommendations for upcoming school year for students and enqu um students have been trained or being trained how to select courses and then in between get the parents and the students to review the recommendations from the staff and the teachers um and have that happen before they talk to the counselors so we want the parents to see all options before meeting with the counselors the goal to get all electronic get away from the paper base system our next meeting will be March 13th okay nothing to move in technology committee sure that's fine no no I yeah I'm good for that um so we looked at uh two policies as a first read a policy and the regulation actually so um just to remind everyone the way this process works we have two reads on each one of our uh policies we do use a policy service called tral Esme that make makes recommendations based on CH is in the law so specifically for this first one it was a first read for the policy and regulation for education of homeless children and youth so the different guidelines we need to follow if unfortunately a student is found to be in a homeless situation depending upon where they are and how we um have to still service them as far as an education provide transportation the different things that kind of go along with that so that was the first policy we looked at we also did discuss and I don't have it on the agenda because there wasn't any formal change but we did just review our um harassment intimidation and boing policy and took a look at just terminology within the policy and how it matches up with our student code of conduct and where our code of conduct is found on our website we just made a change for that recently to make it more accessible um but no changes to that um and then for our second read for policy um we looked at Food Services so you'll see on the agenda Above This second read there's two policies to be abolished and the reason why they're being abolished because both of those policies were put together in the one which is now called policy 8500 Food Services and the major components of that are one um how do we deal with free and reduced lunch applications for our students and families that are in need how do we deal with students as far as allowing them to charge lunches and if they're in rear with their lunch balances and how do we approach those different types of situations um um and how do we communicate to parents what these processes are especially when it comes to freeing reduced lunch applications which can be a timec consuming and difficult process so supporting parents especially in the beginning of the year if they qualify to make sure their students are getting those services so this is coming before the board this evening as a second read okay that need to approve thank you second thank you discuss the Poli go back to curriculum my apolog in terms of there was a coms I finish this we're talking policies right any discussion on not yes yes Micha yes Dennis yes y I just wanted to go back to the special education man manual because so much work went into that and I really wanted to you know um encourage folks to read it but I know that there was a lot of work from the administrators and also from the special education parent advis group so I wanted to thank um all the hours that were put and just also I think it's worth noting that that was a recommendation of our special education program review that was done two years ago for us to put together a manual so um parents are well versed because it can be again a challenging and confusing process parents are well versed on what that looks like from A to Z as far as our special education program and services okay so school committee met um February 20th we primarily discussed um parents Square which we've already talked about a couple times here but one of the things our committee has um observed or um wanted to make sure that we were keeping in mind when we're adding apps or programs that parents are are um using to access information about their kids or interact with with teachers we want to streamline that as much as possible and parent Square um has a lot of different functions that would not only take the place of things like um School messenger but also it has the options for direct um direct text and virtual phone that would streamline communication with parents with two two-way translation um and then it also has um calendar and appointment um message that could take the place of things like Sign Up Genius when people are using that for different events so it really is something that that makes it's easy of use for teachers also um students and parents so it's something um that um we were grateful to learn more about um about that program we also discussed the high high impact tutoring press release that press release will be coming out relatively soon this week um we we've been um for a while been talking about having regular press releas has come out to educate the community regarding um certain things that that the district has been doing high impact tutoring being one and then we will have future press releases on the dual enrollment and the prek expansion and then we talked about the the school mascots and colors and the benefits of having a unified um Eagle mascot and um how the kids were the ones that that made that suggestion and we always um want to prioritize the kids um in terms of their building so and looks like I have one item for approval which is the um revised school calendar draft for next year yeah just 2425 distri calar motion I I will make a motion to approve the school calendar for next year second right thank you and there can be a voice sorry I just want so I had a comment earlier about the school calendar I I think that it would be a good idea to put build some Sting into the calendar we could look at it I mean we you can re-approve it every month doesn't matter so if we want to put it on our next school and Community agenda or and look at it again and we typically have at least we do yeah I we have the Friday you know before Memorial Day we have the Friday before President weekend but their vacation they're like not FL days right they're like sat in advance as as long weekend or vacation associate holidays I guess what I mean is just have days devoted to snow days and then if we don't use them we'll know that by you know whenever we can look at different op says tells us and adjust so have V to prove the calar we is there there any concern with holding off on um I've been having parents ask for it um one in particular who emails me quite often so we would just delay that a month but I know in the past you've distributed that with a big draft written across yeah so got something okay you know tenative where it is and then we can look at it again we need to change anything we can do March so I will make a motion to table the vote on table a second for that motion second thank you so all in favor of that motion I any very good okay um routine information items um we do need to accept the harassment intimidation BL report last month I a motion second for that Martha thank you second second Michael thank you any discussion on that all in favor oppose um I will report out that we did conduct safety and fire drills at 9 high school in accordance with State B month of February and January um and with that we are at the second period of public comments so same uh same rules and conditions apply please uh come up to the podium SP your name the municipality and can I get up again sure uh well I don't know how many people are speaking but I think it's fine I'll make it I want to make sure get opportun so the first one was about curriculum more important than this one but still near and dear to my heart is the softball program and would like some guess you can't give me reassurance but timelines for having the new softball field put in at the High school if we can get that graded and seated this fall they might be able to play on it next spring otherwise you're talking about spring of 26 before they can play so any comment on that uh the only thing I'll say it's a little early to tell once we get really moving out there you know we have construction meetings every other week with I meet with the contractor we'll probably have a better idea by late in the spring you know may how things are going and what that kind of looks like Okay can follow up I get it yeah I you got bigger fish to fry with the construction project but I also I mean know it's important for kids to play at home and yeah it it would be nice um related to that is the busing issue around uh getting the girls down to elely and then getting the girls to their away games last year um there were a lot of headaches there the girls got to games 15 minutes before game time started my daughter um kind of got pushed into pitching last year 15 minutes isn't enough to warm up she already has some issues with their arm never got to warm up properly got thrown in the pitch right away really can't have that and it didn't happen to the boys baseball team but it did happen to the softball team so hopefully this year we can remedy that get the girls to their games at least half hour 45 minutes before they start they have proper time to warm up and they can hopefully perform better and and have less injury potential thank you um I know Jim we've talked about that but I know if you guys can manage that better than we did last year that would be fast thanks Jessica hardigan West amall I had a question about the high impact tutoring I know that um from past meetings when it was discussed um maybe it's more of a question for you I don't know but um it was geared towards certain grades maybe next year in the future um just personally I have a son who has a great deal of learning disabilities and um hiring tutors is incredibly expensive and all of the testing that we've had to do is crazy crazy expensive if um the district would consider potentially doing an audit of special education students that maybe aren't in those grades that could benefit from from the high impact tutoring just to extend it to them because it it is important and those are the students who need it the most I mean I'm not saying other kids don't but we need to gear it towards and offer it to all of the kids who need it so that's just something to take into consideration thank you does anybody else have anything you'd like to bring hi it's Denise bog West an Township and I just wanted to say that I do share the same sentiments with my West an friends and colleagues about the concerns about West Dall school and the fate of it and what's going on I mean I was attending all of the board meetings a few years years back when we talked about our society um in lamberville like shrinking as a whole we you know we're that of the Japanese Society I think the median age 20 years ago was in their 30s and now we're in our 50s so I'm curious where all these numbers are coming from as well like expanding you know the preschool and and where that data does come from um and I must admit I did not look at the school calendar for next year but there's concerns about the snow days a number of years ago our inservice day was in January and I don't know someone had this brilliant idea let's give off the day after Halloween I know I know Halloween I love Halloween myself but we we moved that in service day to November 1st so you could kind of push it back to January again and not frontload it the kids already don't go to school enough days in November I mean they're barely in school so that's something you can consider and then the busing situation with the spring Sports um and you know just the concerns it's not enough time and you know softball was really at a disadvantage and the M Middle School sports were definitely at a disadvantage and you know the team was riding the bus on the entire bus route past our house and they would get dropped off 15 minutes before the game started so that's just unacceptable so if you can work something out maybe it's pushing all the games back I know Jim suggested well maybe we can start the games at 4:30 and that would be a big help so if you could consider that just to make sure that we have adequate buessing and I think we have a huge team now I mean I know the softball team has like a roster slated for 27 they're not all going to fit and and for sharing you know so just make sure that you have enough bus bus drivers thank you anybody else have anything like to bring um one of my questions I had that I was remissed to ask was when students are in preschool are they considered in the district within our numbers meaning how we calculate typically K through 12 and how many kids are schooled like 900 kids that is that they're considered part of our enrollment because they are registered in the district so probably a couple years ago the motivation was to build our enrollment and be part of prek and get the kids in school and we didn't obviously set up classrooms for them then and now we're looking to do so but does that also then mean that our choice number goes up because we're allowed to have 10% of our population based on our total student count no we're CH students can't be involved in the preschool program no but I mean if we have 90 extra kids between third and fourth grade not based on population they're allocated by the state uh when we originally 10 years ago or so when the school schol were in the choice program the state said you can have X number of seats and then at some point you could you could ask for more or you could ask for left but at some point the state capped it and said we cannot you know you cannot add to what you have right it's not a maximum at 10% doesn't matter if our population in this District goes up to 1500 we still get the same number of right okay it's it's so it's not based on the percentage of total 10% okay that was my question thank you anybody else have anything hi my name is Julia Caldwell I'm new to West bwell Township I do not have any children in the school district I have been reading a lot about the homeless act and and educating the homeless students have you appointed a liaison to to handle that yeah and with the funding do you have funding who's paying for it who's paying for the children to go to the school if they're homeless we are so the taxpayers correct okay and there's no funding set aside from any Title One or anything else there's title one that comes that specifically goes towards and by the determination of the homeless um from my understanding it's where the child resided prior to becoming homeless correct if it's a two week three- week month thing where they get enrolled here they're homeless for a month three months six months where do they then go do they stay in the district do they go back to the district that or they do they go transfer to a different district and are other homeless students in other districts allowed to be is the determin who makes the determination that they can come to this District even if they're not around resident or prior resident so that it doesn't really work that way so the process the way it works is let's say we had a student who resided in our district became homeless and now is living in Flemington um but it's not a permanent thile let's say for example they live they're living at a hotel we would still be responsible to educate that child and transport that child until they be eventually declare a permanent residency um if a child was from flamington and all of a sudden wanted to come here and they were homeless and they were living within our community it would be the opposite sington would have to transport the child and educate the child until and that is that way until eventually we have a permanent domicile that's declared for that parent we dealt with that as well quite honestly when we had H hurricane ID where um folks were displaced from our community and were in places like Flemington and Milford and during that time we worked with them and transport them they stayed on our role we still educated them until eventually they declared a permanent domicile either back within our community or if it was in another Community then they would enroll in that school district okay and also with dcpn p uh kids in dcpm there dcpm can make the determination to whatever District they want to place them and if they feel it's in the child's best interest correct uh typically they would be making that decision based on where they're placing the child as far as like a foster care Arrangement so not just the child living I mean they would have to be living with some type of Guardian who lives within our school community if they're homeless if they were you said DCP andp I'm thinking more like a child custody issue where a child's taken away or a child's in the care due to lack of care from the parent correct um we would if the child again you know was part of dcpn and was not permanently domiciled somewhere else we would be responsible for educating that child if we were to last school to day attended okay and in in concluding this um you said you had aaz on we do Dr n Smith who's our director of people Services okay thank you for your time thank you uh does anybody else have anything they'd like to bring we have any no just the one that we already had with that close comment for this evening um we do have a need to go into an executive session um to discuss the negotiations other items that will probably take about a half an hour there will be no action taken when they return you are welcome to wait here we are going to room um so