good evening everyone uh the board has returned from executive session we're here for our regular session now and it's good to see a nice big crowd here uh video notice uh the meeting is being videotaped anyone not wishing to be seen on television may be excused you please rise for the flag salute our pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all oh boy here we go here we go um no presentations yeah you can just help and make sure that they're not hecking me yeah I will I will this is your presentation no that's yes this is me this is their stuff here we're not going Eric what did this okay that's from the NJ I have your attention please um just as a reminder and I noticed this last week if you could kind of you know keep your comments down in the audience and I I we I heard some some heckling of individuals and you know let's keep the personalities out of it and try and keep to the agenda on them so you know instead of hammering one individual and his or her family let's try and keep them to a minimum all right superintendent has a presentation now Dr hi everybody so we want to we want to take a second today or actually a few minutes and we going to talk about some of the comments that were brought up last session just to bring some clarity to some of them and I think it'll it may I I didn't have an opportunity to and Janine didn't have an opportunity to take a look at you know the concerns brought forth by the njaa um so we don't know what's in that packet really but we really took a good hard look at the comments and concerns that were brought up last week and we wanted to make sure that we just brought some clarity to that okay so I just want to make sure that everybody in the room knows the the timeline of communications uh of what we actually reached out to the uh to the nja so on Saturday uh Janine Mrs weter uh she sent the requested or most of the requested information uh to the njaa um and then offered to meet to discuss the concerns with anything that was there and uh there was a response that the njaa was available to meet at 5:30 full transparency we had board training uh at 5:30 that was already previously scheduled so that did not work and we responded back that we couldn't do 5:30 but we could do any time between 8 and 1 huge 5H hour window we both cleared our schedule so you can imagine how busy today was is I'm sure your day was very busy so we cleared our schedules and let everybody know uh then on Monday I follow back up again just to say listen I know there's rumors of hidden money and I know there's Concepts raised at by the njaa at the last board meeting and there's concerns and I offered time for a meaningful dialogue uh on Monday May 20th um we were emailed saying that there was no available time and that really they did not want to meet with just Administration and they wanted to meet with the full board which we were given legal advice by our attorney that that should not happen in that way uh I responded back and just said you know I would have loved to have had a meaningful dialogue so I just want everybody in the room to know that we did everything in our power to have that meeting to sit down to talk about concerns to talk about where the hidden money tree is which does not exist I won't bury the lead there is no hidden money tree um and we really tried our best to have that meeting so let's let's start here for a second this is I think a very telling chart so when you look at where we are right now and currently it it really comes down to three main things if you take a look at 2014 14 you have the year on the left then you have student enrollment then you have our number of staff and then you have our state funding so if you're questioning how did we get here where did we come from in addition to all the things that we've already talked about the the 3 million for this year's salary increases the 2 million for benefits the $ 1.7 million for out of District tuition the million dollars is for transportation this slot really tells you everything you you need to know so if you can see in 2014 we had approximately 7,626 now these numbers were pulled from the audit just so you know and then right now you know in 20 in 24 we're about 7066 decrease of about seven about 600 children our staff have gone from about 1355 all the way to 1520 and if you notice our state funding is dropped so we received less money we hired more staff and we lost children now we all know the funding formula is flawed uh they can't they can't we can't make sense of it but we do know that part of it is tied to our enrollment so it's it's really when you look at this this is the why of where we are we lost kids we gained staff we lost money so we had a great meeting today I want to thank uh president Ross uh we met with Senator Mori Ari uh and Janine and also Carissa Rose who was our assistant ba uh we met with Senator Mor arti and assemblyman Miller and we went into that meeting advocating for all of us because we don't like the situation that we're in this is a terrible situation that we're in that we're dealing with and the long and short is is that they are going to advocate for us for sure but they are very clear that there is no more money to be had for Washington Township there's we they are very clear that we are funded appropr I know that doesn't feel like we are funded appropriately right now um but we advocated very strongly they were they were good listeners but they had some they had some things to say and Senator Mori Ari was was very supportive but you know encouraged us to to use some of his thoughts so our budget has been a systemic problem for years we've relied on minor tweaks attrition and the hopes of more children and more state aid to sustain us and hope is not a plan and that's that's where we are we had discussions about our declining enrollment they were very knowledgeable about our budget they were very knowledgeable about our kids the number the staff that we were hired they asked for information before to be prepared for the meeting and they are definitely going to advocate for us but they are very clear that there's no money left in this fiscal budget to just carve out money and give to Township we tried very hard for that conversation that was a hard stop where we got to was that they are going to advocate for Capital things for us if they can do things like that um so they are they are 100% affirming that we are not underfunded and they they really conveyed that if we do not address our systemic you know gaps that we're going to be in the same same position next year so they were they were totally supportive you know they mentioned that they had received phone calls from the njaa they've mentioned they've they've received phone calls from from the community and I wasn't on the phone for any of those conversations but I would assume those conversations were were were probably the same there's no more money in the state to go around I'm going to talk at the end of this because since the last time we were together the governor passed a law about options for the board of education so we're going to talk a little bit a little bit about what that will look like for us and what we can possibly do but those conversations are going to have to be um developed and uh discussed by our the members of our Board of Education we also just just to let you know um we received a uh I received an email or actually a phone call from the executive County Superintendent Bob Bumpus and he mentioned that a legislator called to to basically question uh you know our the concept of our of our budget not being balanced so he called me directly yesterday and just so you know our budget is not our budget is not as balanced it is not unbalanced there's no way that our budget would have been approved by the county if it was an unbalanced budget in other words if we were spending more than we were receiving it never would have been passed so it goes through a full review right Janine can you take a second and talk about that yeah so um when we s when we uh approve our tentative budget in March it goes to the county office with a bunch of supporting documents they review it and come back ask and answer questions um they approve it prior to the public hearing that we had April 30th and then if we make any changes at the public hearing which we did if you remember we had a slide on that we actually have to resubmit it the next day so our budget was reviewed and approved by the county office and what happens is is that when there's an official Complaint it has to go through legislative affairs he calls us to to talk and then he formulates a response essentially on his own and he responded back letting letting the person know that there um that there was not an unbalanced budget and I I'm told very convincingly and I I believe it that that was not a a legislator from our district in any way shape or form so I don't know where it came from but just so you know it's it's definitely not true take a second and talk about Esra funds I didn't see much of what was in that packet um but you know I think it's really important to to to use words that are that are true I always say words matter right so when we look at Esser funds when we look at Esser funds you know last week it was stated that we had $22.44 million remaining in erer funds not true so we have approximately $400,000 remaining that money is allocated for expenditures so it's really easy to to to say that we have all this money and we should be using it differently this was all pandemic money now here's what you need to know pandemic money expires on 9:30 that means even if I wanted to right now use that $400,000 and put that into staff for next year I can't I'm not allowed to it expires as of 930 so to to to to bring Esser into this conversation and say that I could save some of our folks is just not true Janine accurate yes that's correct it has to be obligated by June 30th and then liquidated or spent you know spent so all the checks cut by September 30th either way it has to be spent by 9:30 jine we really shouldn't have the back and forth you're going to definitely have your time sir I'll just I'll just say right in the eye conversation I'm sorry Mr Ross no disrespect yeah I didn't do that and I I'll just talk about the how the process works because the essr funds does come through the form of a grant and anytime we get allocated money um the state has a a software platform that we actually have to um go in and develop an application and we take the the money that we're allocated and we put it in different buckets and we tell the state not only just the numbers but in words we're going to spend it if it was for and some of the SR funds were used for things like PPE some the SR funds were used for academic recovery for students just as examples so every year we have to redo that budget if we um like as you know over during the pandemic our needs changed at first it was heavy on PPE towards the end it was uh heavy on academic recovery but each year we have a plan for those funds and anything that isn't spent we carry over and we have to spend for the same purpose so for the 2324 a year this is the last year that we're allowed to um obligate it we're still spending it in accordance with the budget that we submitted we have about $400,000 remaining however it's allocated for things like um benefits for some of the people um that are doing academic recovery so by the end of of the year we will have all those funds spent and then liquidated so if we order something we have we should do it by June 30th but then we have till September 30th to pay all the bills and get everything squared away but every single year we got the funding There Was An approved budget by the state we had to allocate it in different line items that show how we were spending it and that's how we had to spend the dollars so let's talk about the loss of state aid um so when you look at um the last few years this is the only year that in the last several that we actually received money we received 1595 948 and it was stated that last week that really this is the only year that we had staff eliminations so it's just simply not accurate so what we did was and I I you know we went back and we looked at all of our past budget presentations so we definitely did lose money in 23 24 24 2223 2122 all the way down to 1819 the numbers that were presented were a little off so they're correct up there on the screen now but the fact that we didn't have staff eliminations or positions eliminated is just simply not accurate 23 24 eliminations 2223 eliminations 2122 it's still positions 2122 eliminations 2021 eliminations okay so to say that there was no staff eliminated or positions eliminated is just simply simply not true all right guys we can't we can't have the chatter you guys will have plenty of time to to come up respectfully so we to talk a little bit about the concept of hidden money we don't have any there is no hidden money so school districts can't hide money there's the rumor and I I heard as much as $20 million uh that that we're hiding you know it's interesting it seemed to seemed to go from 10 to 20 but that's the rumor is that we have that much money not only I guess in past budgets but also in in this budget here that is just categorically false so what we did after the last meeting we actually had our auditor listen to the board meeting and specifically to the numbers that were presented he listened to the YouTube video no less than 20 times had a separate auditor listen to it and they they couldn't make any sense out of the numbers that were presented so that means two Bas and two Auditors couldn't really understand where those numbers were pulled from and we couldn't understand it either because quite frankly we we couldn't get a sit down to have to have that conversation okay Janine uh you want to take the the two the two different ways the the categories of fund balance that we're going to we're going to explain sure yep um so we're going to talk a little bit about fund balance um because we do have um unspent funds at the end of the year that roll forward into different years um but I want to go through each category because a majority of our fund balance is allocated for a specific purpose um so the two major categories you have what's referred to as honest signed and that's the uh minimum amount that we're allowed to keep that we wouldn't be forced to budget in a future budget so um and basically that it's an a calculation that's done every year we do it ourselves and then our auditor comes in um it's monies that we're allowed to keep in fund balance and not budget in future budgets and it's approximately 2% of our operating expenses um so it's it's things it's it's not recommended to ever budget every single penny of your fund balance so you can keep it and you you would be able to access it in the event of an extreme emergency um it also helps with cash flow because when we get into June the state actually withholds our final state aid payment that we should get in June so in June and it happens to be uh roughly $4 million we don't get that money in June even though we have to still make our payroll and pay our bills and they don't give it to us until July so that's a a really good reason that you never want to budget all funds again this is a minimum amount that you're allowed to have that it's never recommended by any professional any accounting professional any auditor that you budget just the unassigned portion Janine pause for yes so the the part here that the question could be could we use that money the answer is yes we absolutely could so could could we take some money and put it towards saving staff we could but here's the problem it's if you debit from here you have to credit over here or you have to fill the hole so if we use $2 million right now and then next year we'd have to fill that $2 million gap or we have a hole that we have to we have to fill that's just how that works correct yes so so anything that we're budgeting and if you remember from the slides and if you if you look at our budget we actually budget this year in particular $10.5 million of our our projected revenues that come in is from fund balance and um that 10 A5 million is from other categories that we have to use in our budget but if we were to um budget the other portion and we don't make it up that Revenue that 10.5 million comes down because we won't have it anymore which would relate in that you know if it's $2 million and we don't make it up then that's $2 million that we have to cut so we try real hard and we go over this with our audit I'm going to I'm going to our Auditors I'm going to show you details of our most recently audited year so you can see that you try to keep it consistent so you don't have issue like that where you no longer have that to budget as a revenue um and then the other category that's on the right is designated or restricted so that would be money that's sitting there for a certain place for a certain reason like capital reserve like unemployment or the portion of our fund balance that's over and above the 2% that you'll see we do use to balance our budget and you're going to well good sorry Jean do you want me to do that next yeah and and just know that the the right hand side it's it's very consistent for us so we try to keep that very consistent okay I know this is small so I'm going to um try to go over some of the numbers so this this right here again it came directly from our Auditors this shows what happened with our fund balance so starting with the beginning balance that we started off with and this is the 2223 school year where using this is because it's our most recent closed year that was audited so we we really analyze this when we're looking at our operations and what we're going to budget so um the top number we started off the year with just uh 20 over 29 million in fund balance the category that's um right under that is decreasing that balance because we're utilizing it for a specific purpose some of the category you'll see there is reserve for incumbrances all that is is if we had obligations at the end of one year um so uh Goods that we purchased or um services that we had provided and you don't get it by June 30th it rolls into the next budget year the next line down is excess Surplus so as I was saying each year that's closed out we look at our fund balance we take the minimum we're allowed to keep and everything else gets designated to balance a future budget so the next category down it's being used or taken away from fund balance because we already committed to budgeting it for a future year um you and then you have capital reserve so if we set aside money for capital projects that can only be used for capital projects so it comes out of our overall balance I'll also have another slide about capital reserve because while we do set aside money you'll see that for a district R size and for the projects that we have up and coming we we have an alarmingly low amount in our capital reserve um so right there in the middle of the page as I said we started off with over 29 million what we used was about 12 million and then at the towards the bottom of the page is what is increas Ines our fund balance so what increases our fund balance and I think there was um some mention is if you have during the budget year excess Revenue so if you thought you were going to get a specific amount of money and you got more that goes into your fund balance if you have a certain amount of money to spend and you don't spend it all that also goes into your fund balance um so you can look at that and say hey they're getting more money than they thought they should be budgeting more but that's not necessarily the case because if you look at the amount that we increased during that year it was only 11 million so while we're remaining steady and we still have the money to budget we didn't make up what we used in this particular year and if you keep doing that that Revenue that I said that we budget is going to you're not going to have it and it's going to relate in cuts so we ended up the next slide I want to show like like I said we started off with 29 million we ended up with um 28 just under 29 million so we didn't we didn't replenish that's not necessarily a good thing I'm going to go to the next slide because that number that I just mentioned we ended up with 28,900 th000 in fund balance almost 20 million of that is restricted for a certain purpose so it can't be it can't be used for anything else it can't be used for operations then there's another 4.8 million that's assigned for other reasons and these are just you know School accounting terms that that that we use so under restricted you have things like capital reserve so that's money that the district set aside for capital projects as of June 30th 20123 it was just over $5 million again I'm going to show you a slide because based on the projects that we've done we're at a we're at a low amount the next number down is unemployment compensation so we're required to um as a school district the withholdings that we take from employees along with the employer share that we pay into unemployment we have to put that in a separate bank account and we have to hold on to it and the only thing we can spend it on is when we get our quarterly unemployment claims that's 1.5 million in the next four lines down is actually the excess Surplus that's already designated to balance a future budget we have um School Bus advertising Revenue which they basically make us budget half of that in each year um and then there's 6.2 million and 6.9 million the first number the 6.2 was utilized to balance our 2425 budget that's part of that 10 ,500,000 that I spoke about that you would see in our revenues and then the the last number there is 6.9 million which was a result of our 2022 budget that was designated for our 2324 budget which is what we're in now um if you go to the middle of the page that's the amount that's assigned so uh just under 210,000 is for year-end encumbrances and all that means is again and obligations from one year that haven't been paid yet roll into the next year and then the next line down there was um 4,500,000 that was from um the 20 to 23 year that we ended up with that we budgeted for fiscal year 2324 okay so as you can see if you're looking and you're saying hey 28 million in fund balance that sounds like a lot um all but $4 million is set aside for a specific purpose or again being used to balance the budget the bottom part the 4 million that I just spoke about is the unassigned where um that's the minimum that we're allowed to keep in fund balance that's not an amount that you would want to budget it's for you know C just to keep cash flow and if you ever had an emergency you could tap into it and bu budget it so I wanted to go over those cuz I know like I said the main reason was because we do have excess Revenue sometimes we do have unspent money it fluctuates from year to year but we try to keep it steady and we always put it into future budgets and Janine so the the 2% what would have been the ramification if we for the 4 million1 123 728 if we decided to do something different with that so I think again if if you decided to budget it you're running the risk of not being able to replenish it and then when we went to do so we just did 2425 we budgeted 10.5 million when we go to do 2526 if we budgeted that and couldn't make it up we would be short $4 million there so we would start out right out of the gate with a $4 million hole so when you see there's $28 million there's just really not and and that's that's exactly how it all it all breaks out thank you Jean great great great explanation let's talk about Enterprise funds this was brought up last week too so we have we have several enter Enterprise funds uh Food Services child care rbac driver's education so the definition of an Enterprise fund is uh it's an account that's used for operations that are financed and operated in a manner very similar to private business so all of these are supposed to be self- sustaining and they should all pay for itself so we're just not allowed to take money out of this and put that into different places and really we shouldn't so like for instance for for our driver's ed which is a great resource to our community we have a little bit of money in there but gosh forbid the uh the cars break down we have to have a way to fix those cars or to buy a new car eventually so Enterprise funds are not ever used to to transition to to sustain or pay for staff not their intention not what they're supposed to do and and we wouldn't be able to do that anyway it wouldn't sustain anywhere near that all right this is really super important because this this came up too and I want everyone to understand how how Capital works so when you look at uh capital projects let's let's understand capital reserve from 18a so basically when we put funds into capital reserve accounts they have to be used to pay for capital projects the main takeaway you should know about the capital reserve account is that once money gets deposited into there it can't go anywhere else once it's in we can't pull that out and pay for things that are not capital projects so we're just we're not allowed it's it's a law so what happens and this is how you would know if we had too much money if we had too much money we would be putting obscene amounts as allowable by law which I think there's a perent percentage of our long range facility plan right Janine of how much we can put in yes you would see us putting a ton of money into our capital reserve accounts if you saw that you could be like hey Hibbs you're hiding money right there you're not going to see that what you're going to see over the last four years on our huge budget is that we put aside $3 million twice and $2 million twice we're going to show you a slide in a second which shows that we only have about $1.2 million left left in our capital reserve accounts so um it was common here year after year to cut capital projects to not cut staff and what happens is we got to the point with I think the first or second slide I showed with the with the enrollment and the staff and the funding we reached the critical mass this year and it's it's not you know obviously we never want to eliminate staff but we also have to be very very mindful of the fact that we have to do capital projects because what happens is for a district our size to only have $1.2 million and you can research this it is not normal at all if something big would happen we would have a problem and then that's the other reason why you shouldn't use that 2% Surplus to fund staff in that moment because God forbid we did have an issue we don't have much in capital reserve and then if you depleted that you would not only have not have it but you would not have the money you'd have to make up that money the following year so you know and it's also important to note that recently we have mainly used our capital reserve to pay for our capital projects we are not using a lot of the local and I'm going to show you some examples and you know the local budget would be the local budget capital reserve is the once it's in it's in okay so I already I already kind of explained this once it's in capital it's always in capital you remain capital I think you skipped I skip ski um oh I'm sorry Janine go ahead thank you so this is our capital reserve history over a couple of years um you can see um all the way to the left is the balance that we started off um and then the second column is deposits so this is where at the end of the year we try to project what we're going to have at the end of the year and what what we want to do is um have enough money to to keep the the the level of fund balance that we're budgeting each year so we want to make sure we can maintain as of right now that 10 and a half million we also want to set aside money to put in capital reserve so we can pull it out when we do capital projects so we try to the deposit really depends on how much money we have left at the end of the year the box that's in yellow is because that's this current year so we we don't know what we're going to have at the end of the year um you also acrew interest so the interest on the account um we can use for capital projects um the next two columns is what we utilized in the budget and by that what I mean is when we had the budget during from one year to the next capital projects that really needed to be done we couldn't afford them locally so we had to bring in this money to support it so it's kind of like the 105 million that I was talking about from Surplus we had to do these capital projects again we couldn't support them so we had to bring in money from this um Reserve account um can pause for a sec and that's another reason you should know that we don't have extra money because if we had extra money in the local to use for Capital we probably would have considered it but we didn't at all um we also and then the final column was withdraw by res resolution so once um funds are set aside in capital reserve you can access it two ways once one way is in your budget which I just talked about so you would use it to support any capital projects um in your local budget or at any point in time you can withdraw it by resolution so we've done that over the years if you look at the first three years those were projects for one reason or another a roof needed to be replaced a parking lot needed to be done um for the 23 24 year the amount that you see there is um the local share of capital projects that we applied for grant funding so we recently um we actually got approval for a number of projects but we're we're only we can only afford to do a couple of them right now because we don't even have our local share so we're trying really hard to replenish this or else we're going to be giving up for uh 40% state aid to get capital projects done that are essential that are in our long- range facility plan and um areas that we're having issues like HVAC a failing boiler um you know windows and stuff like that if you look at what we're ending with after um using it to do all of our capital projects in our budget and to do only some of the rod Grant projects we got approved for we only have $1.2 million left and just so you know that that deposit happens at the end of the year typically around what date in June so um you have to do it by the end of June and we approve a resolution up to a certain amount so as I said when we're going through all these calculations and trying to make sure we have enough to keep supporting the budget so we don't have that shortfall we try to figure out what we can put in capital reserve um to deal with you know emergencies and and failing equipment and if you us right now what's going to be in the yellow box we're not going to know yet because we're we're finishing up and we're closing out correct corre but what we think is is that do you have any indication that we're going to have any more than you've seen up there no we will not we're we're anticipating less so if if we would have come out and put an obscene amount of money into there which we're not going to do as per our forecasts you could say to me hibs you're hiding money right there you could have used some of that money we're not going to have it it's not going to be there everything costs more uh substitute cost alone or are astronomical okay 2324 this concept came up and I want to make sure that everybody understands it so when you look at hey guys so when you look at 23 24 capital projects everything up here okay um to the concept of bleachers keeps coming up every everything up here came out of the capital reserve account nothing came out of the local which means that even if we we canceled every one of these projects and said we're not doing them that money then would have returned right back to Capital it would not have been anywhere near accessible to save any staff moving forward so people have been saying don't do the bleachers the bleachers don't need to be done well they do they're they're failing they're old they're they're a hazard so they they need to be redone and and we did them as fiscally appropriate as could and we actually had and we used the remaining steel underneath and we had to reinforce some bolts but we we we got away on the more economical side than replacing all the bleachers which would have been Millions so everything up here only came out a capital reserve so people are saying don't do these things they're saving people they're not saving people in any way so and I I just explain this it's also come up last year last year when people got cut they they they tried to solve that problem by offering stabilization Aid our our legislators went to bat for Township and we got about $996,000 is these were only onetime infusions some of the things on this list were brought up specifically we talked about the gyms that we created and it was said that you know they're never going to get used claric our kids are using those gyms in fiz Ed classes as are our sports teams now look guys you may not like everything that's up here all right I'm not asking you to do that please be respectful you may not like everything on this list but the simple fact is this no leader would have ever blessed using this money for staff it was a onetime infusion nothing so you could argue you know hey I don't think you really needed to fix the RB Pac sound system that that that was totally broken and not working you you you might think you may think that that's totally your opinion but just clarifying we put these into projects that we thought would be onetime things that made a difference for kids and speaking with with you know our our assistant principal and athletic director Mr Mr Kevin Murphy you know he is very very pleased with where we are on these just to just to clarify okay yeah all of those were all of those were budgeted let's talk about other capital projects and we're really looking at the projects that we're moving forward these projects if you said don't do them don't do them and take the money out and save staff this money is already in capital it can't go anywhere else in addition we are receiving receiving 40% back from the state through a rod Grant so we have needs at Birches for the roof TJ for the roof grenlock for the windows and OV and you can see the the state uh 40% and you can see what's coming out of capital none of this could save staff in any way shape or form when you look because it was presented that we should put capital projects on hold this is the only money in 2425 that is in the Loc for capital projects so at the 910 and the 1112 we have asbest flooring that literally is coming up and it's unsafe to the point where we probably have to look at not using those rooms if we don't do something about it I'm sure you understand the ramifications of asbest tile in addition our uh Varsity Softball field has massive drainage issues so we didn't want to shut that down either so if if you wanted to say hey you know could you take this 125,000 and not do this the answer is yes you could but then you're right back to not doing any capital projects out of the local which is just not a place where we can be it's just it's just not or shouldn't be at all so when you look at that that piece you know that that 75,000 sorry the the 125 is 08 of our of our District budget I want to clarify this too because there's been a lot of you know we had a lot of of of very passionate awesome people speak last time our special education assistant we are going to meet the needs of our kids so we did not eliminate any assistant positions for special ed in the 2425 budget that includes special ed specialized in those positions and just so you understand item number 33 uh on on this agenda 31 sorry 31 thank you Janine is is seeking to re-employ our assistance I'm going to talk in a sec about the options board is going to have uh at a later date and the reason why these are going on the agenda is because we need to re-employ our assistant we honestly only did the non-renewal process because at the end of the day we needed we needed time to to put people into the right spots and we can always do things better so I understand that this happened during teacher appreciation week we'll do whatever we can next you know hopefully God forid there's never a time like this to hold on guys guys can't call me out for for for not doing my job and then not let me speak and and try and tell you what we probably could have done better so I think that I think that we could have done that piece better we were under massive time constraints you may not again might not like the opinion but we didn't know where this budget was going to land so we had from April 30 to deal with this and we had a May 15th deadline I don't I don't set teacher appreciation weeks I I don't I don't do that but I understand how that made some some people feel and was not Our intention let's talk about next steps so on May 14 2024 Governor Murphy signed into law two bills that impact the 2425 state aid tax levy cap and budget procedure calendar there is one part that does not apply to us and there is one part that does apply to us we were not cut state aid in 2425 we received the extra 1.5950 million that went to offset the Gap that we had if we did not receive that money we would have had to have cut and going back to the first slide where we talked about enrollment going down and staff going up and and funding going down we would have had to have cut more things from our budget so what does apply to us so we basically what they do is is that they looked at our state aid from 2425 and they compared that to 2021 and the difference is what the board has the option to utilize essentially through raising taxes and that number is 2,093 836 the board is not going to be there's nothing on the agenda tonight okay um I can't talk about conversations that would have happened in executive session but the board has received information at and is going to make a decision about how to use that money and access to that money in in the coming weeks SL Monon so there are there are time frames just so you know that are associated with this that are not our time frames they're given to us by the state of New Jersey so what happened was is that if if the board decides to utilize any of that no later than July 5th we have to submit a budget to the executive County Superintendent no later than July 19th is the last day to hold a public hearing on the revised budget we have to adopt by July 22nd and then we have um there's also language in here about non-tenured staff but I think we've already gone through that process so this this this is the new process that they that they put in allowing us to access that money and the board's going to have to have conversations I'm going to provide them information and then there's going to be a decision that is made Janine is there anything else you want to add no okay so just just for clarity sake and I I really want to go back to just a few things if you saw us putting an obscene amount of money into capital okay I got it if you see us you know you know if you see us changing and being inconsistent in the money that we use from one budget to the next that would also raise Flags but there is not hidden money in this budget we are going to struggle this year to put enough into maintenance or into Capital sorry not maintenance to sustain us to the point we're moving forward to be honest we are probably going to have to look at different ways of addressing our Capital needs we're going through an energy audit now we have no finality to that but at some point those things will go away if we do not replenish capital reserve school districts only have one option if they need to fix things and that's a referendum so those types of conversations don't happen where districts are flush with money okay thank you very much I don't know how to do that okay good job is uh okay where's Kevin hey uh Kev are you here okay could you turn the the show lights down for us how's that guys good thank you okay moving on school and community relations report yep I got it me two SE okay uh due to the juneth holiday the date of our June Food Bank distribution has changed our food bank will be held on Tuesday June 18th behind the 910 wing of Washington Township High School from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. I want to give a massive shout out to the last food drive um we went from Central and we we helped and it was really an amazing experience I think we had at least seven pallets worth of food that we gave to the community and it really made a difference it was truly amazing clients visiting the Washington Township Public Schools mobile food pantry are asked to enter the back of the Washington Township High School 509 heril Cross Keys Road Su off the ganttown road entrance and part near the basketball courts where the pantry will be staged clients will be asked to provide proof of residency at the time of reg ation sir thank you yeah correspondence have a motion to approve the correspondence as listed so move second second have a second yes all in favor post thank you approval of minutes I have a a motion to approve the minutes for March 2024 so moved second all in favor I opposed any old business anyone no okay I have a motion to uh open to the public on agenda items move second all in favor I okay let's roll uh Grace Bobby good evening Mr Hibbs Board of Education members staff students and parents my name is Grace Bobby I have worked at Washington Township High School for many years as a hall laboratory monitor my main goal is to provide a friendly safe clean environment for our students did you know that many students aren't sent off to school with a hug and haven't even been told to have a wonderful day well that's what I'm here for I have been an ear that would listen a shoulder that is leaned on and a hug for whoever needs one in fact one student even calls me Mama I was heartbroken when I received my notice of non-renewal without reason however after I sent an email to Mr Sweeney requesting a reason as well as showing me my files I was confronted with an employment opportunity I was offered to work 2 and 1 half hours per day as a playground Aid at T J Elementary School 2 and 1 half hours a day wouldn't even pay for my travel expenses I told Mr Anderson that I had a total right knee replacement it would not be able to chase little children do you know that aler insulted me you see this is the board's way of trying not to allow us to collect unemployment compensation I have been employed [Music] I have been employed for 59 years this is the first time I have been treated without dignity all of us were demoted to 2 and a half hours per day and offered jobs that would be physically difficult could this be a form of age discrimination I hope [Applause] [Music] not I ch alleng you Mr Hibbs as well as the Board of Education members to take a day out of your schedule and do the job of a whole laboratory monitor make sure you flush the toilets pick up the paper toils gum wrappers and other trash out of the urinals and off the floors make sure bail movement and blood isn't smeared all over the walls and lift the seat so that they don't pee all over them check to see that there is no damage or small fires in the toilet paper [Applause] dispensers also check that there is no vaping going on you would also need to monitor the hall so that there is no fight so that there are no fights or bullying can you do that well we can I hope that you will consider the lives of single mothers widows those that are dealing with catastrophic illnesses in their family and the husband and wife team that are also that have also received non-renewal of their contracts all of those hourly Cuts would create hardship and you never even mentioned whether we would still be on the same pay scale or is that changing too we expect answers thank you [Music] um I'm going to I'm going to try to address what I can so we're not not waiting to the end so Mr Sweeney the the offering of a different job was because of the bumping according to the contract correct so we didn't just arbitrarily offer people positions to to to do it any other way than to follow the negotiated agreement that exists so we had to follow that wherever people should should go to and bump so we didn't have any preconceived notions of that if anybody has any questions you can come in we can show you everything we'll be fully transparent with that but it had absolutely nothing to do with age discrimination and it's certainly did not have anything to do with preventing anyone from collecting unemployment if you if you're not familiar with that Clause um we can we can show you exactly the page but because of those bumps people had to go to different spots and we fully realized said maybe they don't want to go to those spots but I didn't have that option neither did Mr Sweeney to make that value judgment they had to go as per the language that is negotiated in that contract thank you Greg [Music] yui how many locals do you 2 24 right even when you're cover how many you have uh Greg yordi associate director of research for njaa uh just from the beginning I will start out yes your timeline was correct but to put a little 5H hour timeline on somebody that has 24 locals this isn't his only Rodeo right here and I've got 214 locals so so to accuse pretty much accuse and say that we weren't available in a 5H hour time frame is utter nonsense but we'll we'll get past that and just to be clear we have never said hidden money never hidden money has never come out of my mouth it's never come out of his mouth it's never come out of nj's mouth because we don't create these numbers and I've given each of you a packet up there and you can follow along to make it a lot easier for every body to see these are our not our numbers so you can hire two Auditors at more expense to the taxpayers of this town to review for 20 times you said they watched the video 20 times okay these are not our numbers these are the numbers that you this District submitted to the state not our numbers we didn't create these numbers so document a if you want to follow along in the packet that I gave you is Bank cap so a district can go to 2% of the tax levy plus additional things if they have you know uh let's say deferred pension contributions they need to make up uh increased Health Care you went to 2% this year plus an additional 800 [Applause] and $33,000 you you had the ability to go to $1,150,000 so as you can see there in the yellow highlight on a you were going to have Bank cap in the amount of 36,300 or I'm sorry $845 for next year so if there really was a fiscal cliff which you're claiming you would have gone to the additional money on top of that you would have gone to 2% plus every single penny because you had an issue you your numbers again not mine document B if you want to follow along is unanticipated Surplus and on this unanticipated Surplus you can see last year and we're not worried about last year with a lot of your your slides there we're worried about this year and next year this year you budgeted 3 million $741 not a number I'm making up but what you just committed to the state in the budget this school board approved you're expecting to have at the end of this term 7 million $254,400 [Applause] [Music] [Music] document C if you flip over is the budgeted fund balance been 10,500 in 2122 same in 2223 what you are expecting at the end of this year is $1,496 411 and I'm not going to sit here it's a million more than what you expected in this account and again let me just say [Applause] 214 locals from my smallest local with eight members all the way up to my largest Mo local Jersey City of over 4600 members this is not my first rodeo either okay so when a district is saying that they're losing money these numbers are going down by significant amounts all of these numbers in all of these budget line items which again you submitted not me not what I created so maybe have your two Auditors go back through what maybe you submitted to the state and they will come up with the same exact numbers if these numbers and you're bleeding money these numbers would be going down considerably document D is your unrestricted miscellaneous Revenue 2223 you budgeted 595,000 your two Auditors I'm sure will tell you you had $1.6 million 2324 and 2425 you budgeted a half a million but if this holds true in the 10 years you've been $400,000 more than this number Justin the last two years you've had $500,000 more and $1 million more everyone else will go get the next public session Esser funds if you want to go to letter F let's talk about the real instead of what was on the slide your Esser funds as of 426 letter F GRE Greg your time's [Applause] up letter G I'm going to tell you you you do not have $400,000 letter G pulled on 516 you have $2.1 million in this account from the State website and let me just tell you this money can be used for anything 20% of it has to be earmarked for learning loss and if it wasn't then the documents I talked about before what you submitted you submitted for salaries and health benefits hey Greg let me make a suggestion we talked about this if it's it's okay with the board uh our solicitors uh implicated that we cannot meet with you as a full board but I will offer you uh to come in and meet with a committee of the board lud you defer your time Lou's deferring his five minutes to me and you're going to walk out when I'm talking about your tax dollars your tax dollar I can't I can't stop I got to let you got to stop the audience from yeah yeah uh please please please hold it [Music] down I'd like to make a motion please I think he should be allow we uh we we uh take a look at the five minute rule here and uh allow Mr Yi to continue i' like to hey uh Mr President Mr pres Mr President Mr President I'd like to make a motion to suspend public policy 0167 that says that the members of the public cannot speak uh for more than 5 minutes that motion wait wait wait wait that Mo that motion has been repealed before parts of it have been repealed before for other individuals and members of the public and i' like to do the same thing here today to give Mr Yori his full time to speak I second it can do that right all right all right all right we have a motion we have a second discussion discussion discussion no yeah discussion this isn't the place to discuss it we're offering to have it discussed with committee the business committee so we can go through it rather than have it be a surprise there's a lot of people here that want to speak tonight if we give everybody more than 5 minutes we're not going to hear from everybody got plenty of people we want to hear all right we got a you got to tell the audience that they have to stop yeah hold hold on please please hold on let the let the people speak so we can hear him all right we got a motion there's a motion there's a discussion right now we got a motion we got a second and we're in discussion any discuss any more discussion all right can I have a can I have a roll call please Lor can have a roll call yep Ready Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Miss Chilla she's absent M Mayo yes Mr Li liberty [Applause] no please please Mr Lindsay no Mr Lindsay he said no no Mr Serrano yes Mr Tomac yes Mr Ross yes all right Greg go ahead all right so let me go back because I did Skip document e you're state aid and I'm not going to sit here and say you have not lost state aid in the last 6 years you absolutely have this year you're seeing an increase of $1.6 million but to say that there were no Rifts that contradicts slide two in which you said the staff has increased every year since 2013 so I don't know which way it is Dr Hibbs it can't increase or there are no riffs but I've been here a decade and I don't remember any riffs in Washington Township document F document f is the latest submission that Washington Township has put in for to use the ARP money and you can see the date right there in the middle right 426 and you can see the check number which you received from the doe and this is public you can look it up it's all public but if you flip over to the other side the next page of f it says the grant award in ARP funds 4,187 in change amount paid to date 1 million $852,000 so when you sat here at the last board meeting on tape cuz I have watched it not 20 times like the Auditors but I have watched it and you said that you have zero money you have received all the money from the IRP not according to the state if you flip over to letter G this was the payment summary on May 16th this is the latest document I didn't do it today but we did it on 516 and you can see in the bottom left remaining balance exactly what I said when I was here last week 2,886 18 have yet to be I don't know where you're coming up with 400,000 but according to the state you have not put in for $2 million and as I was saying before the Fiasco just now of this money of this total $ 4,187 733 20% of that has to be earmarked for learning loss due to covid the other 80% no restrictions and a matter of fact I was going to speak about it last week this is right from the State website cuz you said in your slide there you could not use it for salaries or health benefits that's funny because you put in for personal services salaries $1,376 1846 what has been expended by the state $583,000 on another line item you put in personal services under support 768 th000 and change and you expended or reive 5 162,000 employee benefits 468,000 expended $122,000 so to sit here and put up a slide that says that you cannot use those on salaries or benefits is totally opposite of what you put in to the Department of EDS so maybe you want to get your story straight here for what you actually put in [Applause] [Music] for so again there is not 400,000 there's over 2 million in this line item right now document H total grants and entitlements 5,826 678 was budgeted last year your audit by your two Auditors 10,988 352 or $ 5,161 th000 more than what you expected this year you raised that number to 7.4 million what the number is I don't know but I'm pretty confident it's going to be higher than that because the average the budget has found over the last 10 years is $1.6 million more than what you budget then next year you almost doubled it from 7.4 to $13.9 million amazing I looked at your PowerPoint letter I you talked about increases to tuition because you keep saying 7 million and 1.7 of that was tuition out of District increases the tuition what you're not talking about is the tuition you're receiving from people coming in here to Washington Township the premere community the last year you audited you budgeted nothing and you had $446,000 or $446,000 more than what you anticipated now this year you raised it to 400,000 don't know what the number is going to be next year 400,000 but if the 10e average is true you've had about another $650,000 more than whatever you've budgeted over the last 10 years and again not my numbers not my numbers what you submitted to the doe pulled from your audits pulled from the DOE and pulled from your 2425 budget which you finally gave us after last board meeting letter J shows the preschool lead jump from three point uh budgeting nothing and you had a million dollars more in the audit 2.3 3.2 now 8.6 I'm not going to get too deep into the weeds but we'll go to letter K actual revenues over under expenditure everything says zero because the budget has to balance a negative number on here is good a positive number is not good you're spending that much more than the revenue brought in 2223 you just said you made a transfer into Capital funds of $3 million I don't see that based upon what the audit shows because the audit shows 2,838 4 put into three categories Enterprise capital budget and preschool and I'm gonna sit here I'm gonna agree with you shockingly that you cannot use the money in the capital you said you've not put any money into the capital but you're anticipating what I just heard you when you walked up next to me there that you're anticipating is probably going to be about the same at the end of the books here that you put in there is no need to put that money in there you can use that $3 million which you're anticipating which you just said when you walked up to save these jobs and health benefits of these [Applause] people document inow because I hear you know blaming the salary and health benefits increases salary increases going up by $3 million health benefit increas is going up by 2 million I got the sign scattergrams and I thank Janine for sending them to me this week and the scattergram of the current wtea and the WT sspa as a 51524 if you look at letter L on the wtea when they signed their scattergram it was 61.5 Million right now at the end of this year you should on paper have paid 65 million 49454 an increase over two years of $3.9 million just in that group the fourth box shows what the actual increase is because you gave me what the total salaries are of everyone as of May 15th it's 63 m87 4885 nowhere near the 65.4 million the savings just from the wtea contract was $1.5 Million you have saved in salaries that you are not going to be paying not what you anticipate it's what is actual because when you settle a contract it's just like buying a car when you drive off the lot with that car you've lost the value of that car when you settle a contract over the last 15 years in this state the exact settlement percentage is exactly 4% and I'm sure Ari knows this because I've dealt with Ari in negotiations and other places what boards have paid out over that time is 1.96% half of whatever is anticipated to be paid is never paid because of breakage because when somebody retires at the top of the guide and you hire somebody at the beginning of the guide there is savings to the district for the same exact position if you combine the wtaa and the support group you are saving 1,322,000 in change of what you expected to pay and what was negotiated [Applause] one of the other things which is kind of throws up a red flag for me personally but is the health benefits I requested a health benefits scattergram as soon as this meeting was over last week I believe on Tuesday you said you were working on it of getting it to me the problem that I have with that is if you're standing here and telling me that you have an increase of $2 million you should have those numbers readily available to share with me so we can verify it when you don't share it I have never use the word hidden but it throws up a what I always use another red flag here's the salary analysis by object code again pulled from the Department of Ed letter m in 2324 total salaries of everybody Personnel teachers supervisors administrators 85 m576 in 2425 when you keep saying there's a $3 million increase it's actually $ 84 m912 or $664,000 less than what is being said less so when I go out and do this and like I said I've done this for a decade and I see something like this I don't ask two Auditors I ask my two partners so three of us who do this Statewide one who's been doing it for 15 years and one who's been doing it over 25 years all looked at your budget and all three of us came up with the same answer there is no budget issue here in Washington [Music] Township if there was a budget issue here in Washington Township you would be bleeding money out of these accounts these would be going down much like when a town was wiped out by Hurricane Sandy sure they went down their budget didn't get the money from the state to rebuild absolutely went down not the case here so it doesn't matter whether I'm in my local with eight people or I'm in Jersey City with 4600 again no budget issue here thank you Greg Drake hold on a [Music] second I I I personally and I'm sure most of the board we're not familiar with with the numbers and all you gave us but I I would like to offer that you meet I would like to offer that you meet with our people we can't meet as a full board and if you're right you know look we're not looking to cut jobs if we if we don't have to we're we're we're voting on item 31 tonight to bring back a a group of uh of our people and then after that we're even going to decide do we raise some taxes or do we have the money that you're indicating that we do so we can bring back and substantiate the rest of them so you know you're you're you're talking to you're talking to to novice people who get on the board and they're not familiar with this everyday process fully understood having been in the business a little bit I I I I think I am but but I think I I I think in in good faith that we need to we need to meet with you and who else so that we could straighten this out certainly if you're right you know we're not looking to at least I'm person personally not looking to stuff the money in in our pockets so that we can save it for a rainy day or something we want to spend it on the membership too so that we we we uh support them and and and believe me we do so so if we could if you could meet with a committee of us i' like for our budget person to meet be there and our Personnel person to be there so that that we can meet with four board members can meet with you at your convenience um we have another this doesn't have to be resolved until when July uh well it depends what you're asking about resolution for the new budget is juth absolutely yeah new budget by July July 19 no I I will say I am more than willing I am able okay but it needs to be with board members because board members need to see and exactly I did again did not create these numbers these are numbers that were pulled off of what was submitted to the state but I'm also going to be bring with myself my my colleague here Lou Randazzo along with Jerry and Angela the two presidents that's fine see you don't you don't have a number that you have to put on it to meet we do we can only have four absolutely I only have four board members represent so you know we're willing and I know I am and I think I don't want to speak for the rest of the board but I think they are too if if you could prove us wrong you know we're willing to to look at it absolutely thank you okay thank you [Applause] [Music] I don't know if that answers any of your questions from the yellow cards but we'll uh we'll go through them and uh I just want you to know if you try and keep it like I said your comments down let's not make this personal and we'll we'll we'll hey look well we we understand saying that we're trying to work with you why am I not go ahead yeah we're not going to be able to address it all because it's a lot of information um just just a few things from me and then a couple things from Janine so I I want to be clear we do have some budget issues um that's a listen guys come on come on please be here 11:00 again so we definitely you definitely can add you definitely can eliminate positions but still add positions it is totally something you could do and I wasn't here when it happened but it it did happen um I I do really do not believe and I would love to see the time stamp where I said that we received all the money from Esser because I I watched I watched the video and I I don't think I ever said that and I think that was the only time that Esser was brought up um we also just mentioned that I said that we can't use user Esser for salary or benefits again that's not what I said and you can go back to tonight and listen to that what I said what guys guys please let him speak let us speak we let you speak and we hear you we hear what you're saying it wasn't it wasn't public and what I said was is that we should not at this point be using Esser funds for staff because when you use Esser funds for staff and you and you value those positions when the SRA money Runs Out you either have to find it in the local or it goes away and and that was my point um tuition in can you talk for a quick sec about how we what we do with that the tuition yeah the tuition that that comes in that was something that yes I can so um and this this kind of goes to um some of where we were talking about un uh Revenue where we budgeted a certain number and got more that's always going to happen and we're always going to have money that's budgeted to spend and we don't spend at all but if you remember from that recap all that rolls into fund balance and then is Reay appropriated in the last year where we did the audit we did not replenish as much as we took out so you can Target individual lines and say you're not budgeting for tuition but you're you're getting the money that's fine I get that but at the end of the year it all rolls into that pot that we're rebud getting and if we can't make it up so if we were to say well we got 400,000 in tuition last year so we're going to budget $400,000 and hire more people back and we don't get the $400,000 that's not good so again you can pick on certain years where we may have gotten more and even certain line items and say you should have budgeted more but at the end of each year it's being reappropriated and we aren't no longer making up what we're taking out that's a problem um I also just wanted to mention where we were budgeting and there was a mention that we had $996,000 more in the year before that was the additional supplemental stabilization Aid that was given to us from the state so we had to show at that way it came from one year of the state's budget it came into our budget in 2324 so it had to come through as Surplus so for that year our Surplus was higher by what they gave us and then the capital projects were added on the appropriation side of the budget that wasn't coming back and that's a perfect example of why you can't spend one-time infusions on staff in 20 324 we um 23 yes 2324 the Surplus we budgeted was $1 million and and 11,496 th000 again uh 996 th000 was a one-time infusion so if you look at the budget this year we're back down to 10.5 million if we didn't use that on one-time projects we would have been left with $996,000 worth of Staff or operating expenses or whatever else we wanted to use it on that would have to be cut and it's it's it's one of the it's one of the the posters in front of us and when you hold it up it looks like you know you had this extra million dollars that was a stabilization Aid that we talked about that we had to use on onetime projects that's not just extra money we had lying around that that we could have used for other things we could have put that I guess into staff there was rules that applied to it but again it would be a lot like Esser funds if you put them into staff you have to fund it locally it's not that you can't it's just not smart to do um and then just to just to touch on the Esser the difference between what the numbers that we're talking about here we have to most of our grants I should say all of our grants we have to spend first and then request it from the state later so the amount that we have left to spend is around 400,000 and we can draw down from the state at some point in time the remaining $2 million a a lot of this is timing too so if you're if if we're going to pick on benefits and say that we haven't spent any of the bed benefit money that's true and the reason why is because we budget for a certain dollar amount in benefits When you apply to the state and you put money in salaries it automatically calculates a number for you we wait until the end of the year we go back and we look at the Personnel that were in that budget line and we we look at their actual benefits and then we charge that off at the end of the year and request the money we do that because it's not just supposed to be an arbitrary budgeted number it's supposed to be be the actual that their benefits cost so we do that at the end of the year and then we draw it down from the state um and I just um again I I have a lot written down and I'm sure we can get into more detail um but with grants and entitlement um we're only allowed we're actually told by the state because we don't know some of our allocations we're only allowed to budget 85% of what we received the last year so some of our federal dollars like Ida and our ESA they do not they won't give us that number until sometimes June or July and then we have to apply um in August we don't even know what we're getting until August so we're only allowed the put 85% then as we're finding out what our real allocation is we submit a budget to the state and once that's approved we're allowed to increase those line items and that's all in a separate fund all of our grants are not in the operating fund they're in a separate fund so when we're given an allocation we have to spend it on specific things and that's what we do we track it in a different fund um I think I think you know just one other point about making deposits in capital reserve we have a district that has 14 buildings so to think that you know one of our Rod Grant projects for one boil is close to $2 million so we have one boiler go and it's going to cost us $2 million and it'll probably take us 18 months to get it so the fact that you know there's criticism of putting a couple million dollars at the end of the year and trying to keep that going when things are that expensive and we have this many buildings and to draft a budget where there's no capital projects it is it it's not smart it doesn't make sense at all um couple things too you know prek was mentioned but but but but really not explained so we definitely we receed grant money from the state for prek um and Janine like so that that main difference is is all grant money it's mostly not Mo it's mostly not local our preschool Grant so um over the years it's a preschool expansion Grant so they want to see US expand and add classrooms until we get to our full Universe of students we've tried um over the past couple of years to increase so the increase we're getting in preschool education Aid is because we're adding classrooms and we're adding students there's a specific budget for that it's again it's totally separate it's accounted for in our special Revenue fund with all of our grants it's not part of our operating fund and what we do is we have to draft the budget based on the number of students we get a certain dollar amount for each student and then we're allowed to place the allocations where we need for example a Class A teacher in each classroom assistance in each classrooms the supplies that are needed the professional development it's a very specific budget to say so to say that it's increasing yes that's true but it's increasing because we're servicing more students in our town yeah it was it was also stated that I said that we would put the same amount into capital reserve so that was the yellow slide I actually turned to Janine and I said are you expecting that we'll put the same amount into capital reserve this year and she answered no you can go back and watch that piece we do not think because that's where I explained uh over the last four years I think it was two years of three million and two years of 2 million so I said very clearly that we were not going to be replenishing what we what we had done in the past at least that's our initial thought right now and as as Janine mentioned and I get the emotions that are in this room absolutely I do listen I understand the emotions but I just can't work as your superintendent on emotions I have to we have to protect the district as well and listen I understand that I understand what we're going through but if we just took all that money and and consistently put nothing into Capital what would happen here it it we would it would literally we'd never be able to address anything so I think that's what we can address now is there anything else Janine no no I will be happy we'll be happy to take all these numbers and we'll run them through our auditor as well and have answers for the board before we have any meeting with the business committee so you have all the information at your disposal anything else ma'am okay okay uh Greg before you leave uh would you coordinate your time with Mrs Baker and she'll coordinate it with the administration that we can kind of get together and like I said you know you have your numbers we have our numbers and we're we're wrong we're willing to for you to show us where we're wrong thank you you got it okay moving right on L randazza good evening my name is l Randazzo I'm a field representative from the New Jersey Education Association I represent 1300 of our members here in your schools uh so yes the superintendent's introductory comment uh were accurate in terms of our response that in all honesty uh Greg and I were both not available this morning from 8: to 1 um I did send that follow-up email last night at 9: P p.m. I was still at the office not to bus chops I was sitting at my desk in my office at Mah Hill not at home and uh we Shar the sentiment that we wanted to meet with the board members because we believe they have the decision to what we're asking for which I've said uh April 30th and last week on uh the 13th that we were asking for them to override the superintendent's recommendation for the non-renewals because we believe that you have the money and I I shared that sentiment because I spoke with your solicitor uh Mr Schneider I checked my phone on the call history he telephoned me yesterday at 1216 in the afternoon hours before and shared the sentiment that not some board members a majority of the board members wanted to meet with us I know you had a training from school boards or whatever excellent right in closed session you weren't available tonight but that was the sentiment of why so there's no refusal to meet we want to meet with the board members the decision makers to do what we're asking for to overturn the superintendent so that is uh the Genesis of that but yes Mr Ross thank you well sorry um thank you for the motion and to all Greg the time I'm not going to take a lot of extra time but Mr Ross Yes for this and to meet with Board of Education members Greg and I will clear our calendars and meet with you whenever you're available absolutely um I will say that uh the question though for that is um a bigger picture of where the board stands in relationship to what we're hearing from the management team and five a majority of the board five or more I don't know the number want to meet with us and we we have no questions about the budget I believe Greg's numbers I don't think we have the need so I said to um Dr Hibbs the superintendent very candidly we didn't want to meet with just the administration to provide information for what we thought would be a rebuttal but rather to meet with the board members to compel them of the true nature of the budget and I would pose this rhetorical question you have to answer uh board members is the information you received this evening more than any other information you received during the budget cycle and if that's the case I imagine that's a problem and that's something that you should uh give consideration to we'll happily discuss when we meet in the future we're we're here again this evening still and I whether we meet or not to compel the board again to take a motion to override the superintendent's recommendation um and this is having an impact on your schools so we've been here three meetings now or I have along with your community and uh the numbers have gotten larger and larger and I'll say this um not that I don't love doing my job in representing our Public School employee members but it hasn't been the biggest lift or challenge to beat the drum and get people to attend because they are fired up about what's happening in your schools your District your community they want to be here because they're not in favor of these Cuts or decisions that are being made I would imagine we see that reflected on the agenda these meetings are uh public record and you present them online for people to view I imagine people are viewing them now and I'm taking a glance at the agenda M Human Resources someone resending their appointment to want to come here I'm not a betting person but I would imagine people are watching this and saying I don't want to work for this employer and that's sad I'm not that's not a Victory lap that's not a credit thing that's a sad State of Affairs I want your schools to succeed that's why I'm here I haven't been here for many years and I'm here to represent our folks and compel you to do the right thing and I believe that people are watching what's unfolding and seeing the nature of what's happening in your schools and they don't want to come here and that's that's not a positive thing that's not where you want to be and that's why we're here to ask you to overturn this motion I I feel that as a former Community member myself I used to live in the community right in Whitman Square 917 forb Street around the corner from Whitman Elementary my parents both lived before they passed at Cardinal Village so I understand that bond to the community and where your community folks are and we've he heard besides Greg's compelling evidence which I find uh to be factual a lot of heartwarming stories about your staff and the great work that they do from people that are not facing termination cuts and heartbreaking stories from people that are facing Cuts I imagine I I haven't prompted anyone I haven't coached anyone to say any of those things they felt compelled on their own to share those stories and I imagine you're going to hear many more hours of them again tonight without my encouragement because your community is asking for this not to happen uh we've seen and I've engaged them but we've seen members of your municipality leadership right um members of the council that are here as well and people that have spoken about this at Super Saturday and other events and we're asking you to find another way and that we believe from Greg's numbers and his colleagues in njaa research and economic services that they are accurate and like I said to Mr Ross we'll happily discuss those um we are a state affiliate of a National Organization the National Education Association 2 million members the largest Union in the country and I've done this work in a couple other states Greg has done this in all 50 states and I find him to be an unmatched expert in uh School Finance so I find the numbers compelling and I'm going to repeat what I've said at the other two meetings ask the board members very simply not not an amendment but when we get to Old business for someone to make the comment I'm not in agreement with the cuts I think that we might have the money I would like to make a motion not to hire people right as was disingenuously represented at the last meeting by someone who's not here but uh to reoffer employment to the existing people that work here now right for that motion to be on the floor the only thing that should follow a motion on the floor according to Robert's Rules of Order in your policy is silence if there's no second or a second and then discussion so we're asking for the motion to be made to reoffer employment to all folks that receive non-renewals their status quo the same number of hours for there to be a second a meaningful discussion or debate and then a roll call vote and if five board members vote on that then those folks are all brought back the alternative if you don't agree that that's in order we disagree and I'm not going to make any you know U hateful comments but if you don't agree that's an order as we've told our members they can pursue their Donaldson rights their due process to a hearing in front of the board individually one at a time to try to compel you to make that decision and if you agree on having it tonight it can absolutely happen later on a one-on-one individual basis and we will come back for that that's not a threat we will come back to exercise our rights I would rather that we for to be expeditious move past that now especially if there is a sentiment from a majority of the board to move in that direction so that is the end of my comments we're asking you to make the motion to reinstate everyone for a second and a roll call vote thank you very much l no you're you're you're asking us without having an opportunity to review the presentation that you made tonight to overturn and and disallow what the administration has has uh told us about the budget what what what I'm suggesting is like I did before that you get together with us if you're right we'll admit that you're right right and that's not but we can't but to just to just arbitrarily in my opinion I don't it's up to the board to just make a motion to bring everyone back without having an opportunity to review your numbers and our numbers I mean be fair about this I like I said we're we're not opposed to if we have the money I think every board member here wants to bring everyone back at their at whatever salary and with it with their benefits and that type of thing but I I I think it's I I think to ask us to do that right now is unfair I understand I I believe it's your statutory Authority and it's in order your solicor probably disagrees and that's fine I'm not giving you legal advice I'm give you my opinion but of course we are willing to meet with the board and like I said we'll clear our Calenders you tell um we'll talk to Miss Baker I assume but uh you tell us when you're available and I work in 20 other 24 other districts I'll clear the calendar we'll meet as soon as you you're available you show us where we're wrong and we'll admit that we're wrong I understand we still believe they have you have the authority to make the vote tonight but we'll we'll meet yes sir okay yeah we don't want to take a vote tonight okay thanks Angela [Applause] trusa I pulled my back out I'm sorry Angela tuso president of WT sspa and specialized instructional assistant so here we are again after one of the worst weeks in our district first let me say thank you for not having our assistants wait until June 30th to find out if they had jobs fortun unfortunately that's where the thank yous end on Friday 44 assistants were told they would no longer have jobs 15 were told they were losing their health care because of a 15minute reduction in hours that's nine special ed assistants five BSI assistants and one clerical assistant an additional 26 assistants were reduced in hours from 5.7 5 to 3.5 and 2.5 we had some of our hardest workking Health assistants who possess a specific skill set in working with our nurses and students not only reduced in hours but shifted into playground assistant positions along with our um Hall monitors so to be clear we panicked almost 300 assistants on Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. during teacher appreciation week I guess I'm still wondering what was behind that decision of why and how was done I sat through three budget presentations and was told that the cuts were across the board when the dust settled it was a much different story the support Cuts were made exclusively to assistance 44 non-renewed 15 lost benefits in healthare 26 reduced in hours again the lowest paid employees here there were also 36 teaching staff cut so now we have the names and saw the Fig PES of those that were cut except let me see the four Administration cuts it will take a long time for our district and yes Township to forget what took place over the course of the last few weeks the stress worry tears and yes Agony our assistance went through was disgraceful and unnecessary since we cleared have the money the almost 4 hours of public comments literally spoke volumes about how much we are valued to our parents students and our community it is interesting that since this happened many other s surrounding districts have reached out to let us know how terrible this is and how they support us I guess they value their assistance and all that they do for their students and teaching staff as a board I'm asking you once again to do the right thing I'd like to pride myself on the fact that when I served on this school board and sat on that Das I was never a rubber stamp I knew that at times it was not always easy to vote in ways that did not agree with Administration or other board members but it was always the right thing to do and I was Guided by what I believed was in the best interest of our students staff and Community please make your one vote matter please because it matters to us and we will remember thank [Applause] you Rob scardina Rob Scardino wtea Executive Vice President together with pride we are Township these are some of the phrases and Banners around campus that embody the spirit of the staff and the students of this District as a staff we are all invested in the success of our students and the betterment of our community today I'm dressed in jeans as we had a dress down day for dreams come true where staff donates to help families in need in our community our priority are the students and the community members we serve in a previous conversation someone said show me your budget and I'll tell you your priorities I found the statement to be enlightening and Incredibly truthful our priority as staff is the education and success of our students we celebrate those successes and lend to helping hand when we find them struggling as a staff we are about people Township used to be about people we used to maintain a family atmosphere within the district however while looking at this budget and the cuts that were made were no longer about people or family but about things improvements to the football field will not educate our students a new wait room will not teach console or celebrate our students new Chromebooks will not not educate our students as they are mere tools why is our priority shifted from people to things we were told early in budget talks the programs would not be affected by these Cuts yet we've lost a band teacher at the elementary schools have a traveling Orchestra teacher at the middle level all while starting a Visual and Performing Arts Academy with these program Cuts how will our students be motivated to join the music program to eventually join the academy how will students get the necessary lesson time in Orchestra with a traveling teacher with these Cuts we're setting this Academy up for failure not the jam it could truly be we find ourselves moving to a new technology platform to save the district money yet we cut computers as a class at the elementary level this places the burden on the classroom teacher to not only carry on their already rigorous curriculum but to Now teach a new technology within their already packed day as we take away the experts in technology we are asking the classroom teacher to instantly become technology experts and integrate it within their regular curriculum something is bound to suffer within this model World language in our schools has always been a strength and a point of Pride as we have many offerings for our students that many other districts do not have yet we find ourselves cutting sixth grade World Language which will ultimately have a negative effect in the years to follow but hey we have a new wait [Applause] room we are cutting Li Librarians at the middle school level how will our children access information successfully in our instructional media centers we are eliminating lunch assistant and extending lunch at the middle school level how will that contribute to the safety and well-being of our students we've claimed to cut four administrative positions yet created three pseudo administrative positions at the elementary level and disguise them as wtaa members these deans of students could be held off until those positions that directly impact the education of our students are restored as Educators and staff members our business is people we are the ones who provide the tools needed for the success of our students not things our priorities should be for the uh for to the well-rounded fully supported education for all students and that education comes from the dedicated teachers and assistance of our district not from things so I ask you what is your priority for our district is it the people that make it function on a daily basis or is it the shiny new things that cannot educate our students thank [Applause] you April rened one second Rob let me respond just briefly to a few things um so I I don't believe in shining new things over people just for clarity listen guys it's just rude it's Rudee so when we look at our onet toone initiative every year and guys if if you make a claim I have to be able to at least respond to something that I need to be able to say we have we have used the surfaces we've had technology built one to one so the Chromebooks are actually cheaper and are saving us money I'll be happy to include that in the conversation that we have with the njaa as well but that savings alone is saving us money year after year it'll be millions in in savings there um but I I don't believe in in putting things over people um Pam you want you want to take a sec and just talk about like the program Cuts you want to talk about please yeah just very very briefly and just talk about what the process will be for us essentially as we look at the budget and the choices that we have which were very limited the constraints are there we wanted to a have as much of our programming remain intact programming Works through the standards the department of of Education gives us the standards that are mandated to be taught it doesn't mandate how we Implement them so we look at where are ways that we can save as many people and as many programs and still deliver high quality in Washington Township uh it is so important that our schools remain high functioning having a balanced budget and having our programming because that makes your town successful that's really really important so when we look at any of these areas we look at how can we save as many jobs as possible look at all certifications across the board look at programming and how standards can be delivered in ways that still keep us functioning and still keep high quality offerings for our students thanks ma'am thank you April um April renetti uh high school vice president um I have like three pages and I don't even know where to begin with all the notes that I added because of the behavior that I witnessed up here tonight I I've never been embarrassed to work for this school dist District never never the last meeting I thought did it in tonight check in your watch what unacceptable Scott unacceptable unacceptable unacceptable unacceptable you I could do it too listen my theory in life is that I always respected Authority I didn't fear it the respect that I lost for the people that employ us I don't know how any of you you and I met at the beginning of negotiations and you were so Pro teacher and for you to exhibit the behaviors that you're exhibiting tonight appalling if that would happen in my classroom they'd be out they'd be out unbelievable unbelievable I'm going to get back to what I came here to say um if anybody that was cut feel so inclined so we could do a name to a face of the people they're cutting please stand if you're here [Music] [Music] thank you Joan Natali I'm not finished Ralph oh I'm sorry it's all right sorry we're here again tonight begging for your mercy my theme tonight is on educational priority fairness and appropriateness which clearly does not exist what do I mean by educational priority we are baffled that we have just learned in the last few days as if things weren't bad enough there is a piloted system that when teachers are absent those students are going to be placed in this 112 Auditorium to work on their laptops on their laps that's conducive to be looked over by a substitute you have any idea what the average age is for our substitutes at the high school anybody no 62 retired 65 some with some you know health conditions let me do the math my friends helped me because I'm not a great math person so I wanted to make sure I got it right let's say 10 teachers are out on an average at the high school we might have 20 inevitably the class sizes are going to go up because of your Cuts let's say there's 30 kids in a class that's 300 kids in this room expected to complete work do you think that's even a little bit possible and fair to Learners especially Learners with special needs or are we just forgetting that population that is not educationally appropriate or responsible it's not and let's not forget about all the events that are scheduled in here what's going to happen to all of that where's the overlap not to mention the additional custodial needs we keep hearing about Capital Improvements making things pretty I'm all for making things pretty I'm all about safety though too and that doesn't seem to be a theme at all for this board by the way I was one of the 10 teachers in the girl gang fight at the beginning of the year so I'm telling you safety is an issue here but we're good this is going to be a mess and just one more thing we are not being proactive about but certainly we'll need to be reactive to correct it's the township way if only you would start listening to the teachers the support staff the hall monitors and anybody else who's actually in the buildings living the everyday craziness we'd be all right but we don't but I guess we are not educated enough or have enough Doctorate Degrees to know what we're talking about Lord knows we don't have the six figure salaries that weren't touched it's yet another decision being made by people who haven't been in the classroom in years to think that they still know what's best you have a job to do we understand that we do what we think is best is to educate the students and keep them safe not a priority here are any of you aware of exactly how many people are in the high school and what it's going to look like with all these cuts no you don't I'm assuming this must be another area where you're trying to save and cut money by getting rid of the subservice if we're as broke as you're claiming but clearly nja our friends said we are not I don't understand why not every single Department across this entire District was touched I think Dr hibs you would have gained a hell of a lot more respect if every single solitary Department was touched and it wasn't it wasn't you took one Department how many administrators do we have there was four I mean we could do that math too it is truly disheartening and unacceptable that English teachers are being cut to the budget constraints the role of English teachers is irreplaceable shaping the minds and the futures of students these educators are Not Mere individuals just giving out information they're the ones who instill critical thinking communication skills and a lifelong love for literature and language cutting English teachers is not just about losing jobs it's about depriving our students of quality education English classes are where students learn to express themselves effectively think critically about the world around them and develop empathy through literature yet this department was cut education is the foundation of our societ progress and compromising the quality of English education sends a dangerous message about our priorities we cannot afford to undermine the importance of English teachers in shaping the next generation of leaders thinkers and innovators yet this department was cut I urge each one of you to reconsider the cuts targeting the teachers specifically from The English Department in addition to the critical role English teachers play in students over uh students overall education development English is a key subject for State Testing and assessment ments all of a sudden we don't care about those okay these standardized tests not only evaluate students understanding of English language arts but also impact school funding teacher evaluations and overall school performance ratings by cutting English teachers we not only jeopardize students ability to excel in English classes but also put their performance on these standardized tests at risk without skilled and dedicated English teachers who can effectively prepare students for these assessments we are essentially setting students up for failure investing in education particularly in subjects like English is an investment in our future yet this department was cut furthermore these standardized tests often influence educational policies curricular and resources allocated to schools if students are not adequately prepared in English language arts due to the absence of qualified and experienced teachers it could have far-reaching consequences Beyond individual student performance schools May face penalties or funding Cuts based on their overall test score yet this department was cut English is not just a subject on a standardized test it's a fundamental skill that students need to succeed in higher education careers and life in general cutting English teachers not only undermines the quality of education but also has a ripple effect that can harm students schools and the community yet this department was cut it is imperative that we prioritize the retention and the support of English teachers to ensure that students receive the education and preparation they need to thrive academically and Beyond our students successes should not be compromised due to short-sighted budgetary decisions that's evalue the importance of quality English education yet this department was cut two of the English teachers cut at the high school specifically have over 18 years experience each one is dual certified in English and would be a perfect candidate for your Academy and the other has his Masters yet they were both cut you didn't make cuts across the areas across every area in the district no matter how much you say you did not additionally I know this procedure of the no back and forth and the no response has been in effect I want to thank you for actually responding tonight um because that was a big complaint that people were getting so that paragraph I guess I can delete however some of the things that you said Dr hibs is I'm not answering that right now I'm not doing that right now can you imagine if my supervisor administrator a parent or a student needed to speak to me about anything from grades discipline issues to my teaching responsibilities and I simply responded in a meeting on a phone call or through an email yeah I'm not going to talk about that how do you think that would go over it wouldn't can you imagine Miss renetti can I get a redo or a retake nah we're not going to talk about that Miss renetti I'd like to talk to you about why you wrote my child up yeah I'm not talking about that you're the superintendent please set a better example and do what's right and respond to the many questions and the comments finally to the board members Ari this isn't for you this is for your counterpart from the last meeting we would appreciate a few things when we come to these meetings and speak to you eye contact not whispering to each other when someone's at the podium speaking giggling when someone is speaking are you making fun of the speakers of their topic I would never allow my students to mock others in any way when their classmates are speaking we would like you to act the same it's just common [Applause] [Music] [Music] courtesy okay um couple things I'm going to turn over to both Sean and Pam to talk about this for a second um so first off safety is always a theme here um we we've discussed safety a tremendous amount this year I don't want you to think that we haven't our goal is always to educate our kids and keep them safe we are absolutely not cutting our substitute service um Ela is very important one of the things that we looked at this year to be very honest with you and some of you may not know this we had some tiered Support classes that had two gened teachers in a classroom and those class sizes were actually lower for our gened kids than were in some of our special education rooms that's that's actually not it's not okay to do that we're not we're not really allowed to do that it's there our special ed kids were getting less support than our gened kids so we did have to make some hard decisions across the board for for all of our staff and Sean and Pam can you talk for a sec about you know what this might look like wait before you go I'm so sorry you know a April I'd love for you to talk after about when I said I'm not going to talk about that because I in my brain and last last last meeting was was very hard but I I'm pretty I try to answer what I can and if I don't it's because it's it's Personnel related which we're not allowed to do so there's certain things when people speak opinions that I'm not going to respond back to but if it's Personnel no one should ever respond and Ari will say that we shouldn't ever respond so if if I'd love to know what that specifically was April I'd love for you to come and tell me and if it was something that that I that I was callous towards I'll own that PID about speaking about it response the last so I'll have to go back and look pay pay pay to play was discussed was discussed with the board and I I think I said last week and it was a very long meeting I think I said that it was decided not to to utilize pay to play so from from the board that was the conversation so you know that was it was it was it was decided that for pay to play we would not proceed with that in the budget so there's the response to that Pam and and Sean um I can speak to the co- talk classrooms and the English teachers um as I mentioned before we looked at certification um it would be amazing to have Co talk classrooms in every single Department every Department English social studies math they're all valuable um but it's just not financially feasible it's not fair to our our taxpayers it doesn't balance a budget and it's providing Intervention which is amazing but we can also provide intervention in other ways um so that's the the task of every district is to be able to provide tier support systems and intervention for all of our students and certainly our identified students and that's what we will do next school year we have interventionists we have teachers who can intervene we have uh the support of our supervisors of instruction our administrators our staff across the board to support our Learners who are striving so that will absolutely happen um as far as substitutes yeah as Dr hibs alluded to we will definitely have have substitute staff um at the high school continuing into next year uh what we did find in examining the budget there are hundreds of thousands of dollars annually put into substitute Staffing at the high school Alone um so we're trying to find creative ways to reduce that cost while still um supervising students in a safe manner okay I guess move on next person Joan natal [Applause] hi my name is Joan Natoli I am your Orchard Valley Middle School German teacher nice to meet you thank you for employing me I really enjoyed being the German teacher here for these past three years I am here because of my individual fate I love teaching German I've learned so much during my time here and I feel like I'm a great asset to the program I don't want to talk too much about myself though I really want to pitch to you um the disservice that would be done if we cut World languages in our school system I'm not the one to speak to the program as much as other people who've been here for decades who have taken the time and built a really incredible program here at in Washington Township um I've been able to be integrated into it and be a part of it I think what the problem is is that we think that World languages is all about well are they going to become fluent in the language and what I want to appeal to you about is that it's not just about becoming fluent in a language it's about one thing is the opening of the mind it's it's um scientifically proven that the neurons in the mind are open more when you learn a foreign language boy I'm not I'm not I'm not bringing this out very well um so you're quite literally becoming more open-minded when you learn a foreign language but it's also about tolerance I lived in Germany for roughly 30 years I raised my children there I know the culture very well the things that go on within a World Language classroom it's not just about the academic achievement of learning the language I would say to you that even more importantly it's about developing a global view it's about developing tolerance for people who are different than ourselves for understanding that there's a much bigger world and we have a very narrow View [Applause] so you might think what are we really losing when we're cutting down our foreign language program um well I would argue that you're learning you're losing a lot more than you think you are and if you're judging it only on based on whether or not people become fluent um that's the wrong that's the wrong perspective to take on it the our our our character as human beings um is built on so much more than that and the academic achievement and the information that we're able to process and all those good things are very very important but we also need to have tolerance we need to be able to understand people's who have other people other cultures other worldviews and this program was built up on so much sweat and labor that I benefit from and I'm very grateful for I'd love to be able to stay I'd love it to to be able to continue to work here it's been wonderful but I would plead with you to please when you're making your decisions about world languages in the future um take a second look at it it's more important than you [Music] think Mark Lopez [Applause] good evening my name is Mark Lopez and I am a middle school Spanish teacher at Orchard Valley I come before you all today to express my sincerest concern about the future that our school district seems to be creating for its children my concerns are that being an American who is a believer in government transparency to its constituency and that of an educator who is a believer in advocacy for children at the April 30th board of education budget meeting the presentation included that 36 teachers and 55 support staff would be cut without any mention of how the children's programs would be negatively impacted our District's Administration has not yet shared with the teachers how the children's programs will be negatively impacted but amongst us staff members we have been able to piece together that the children's programs will be negatively impacted in the following areas Elementary counseling Elementary music Elementary computers Elementary French Elementary German Middle School library sixth grade French sixth grade German sixth grade Spanish but this is all that we can figure out thus far amongst ourselves the staff is also very concerned about the possibility of increased class sizes which is not conducive to teaching and learning there is a Spanish saying that says which translates as tell me with whom you walk and I will tell you with who you are I walk with the people that are behind me the people who support kids will you join us please strongly consider restoring these children's programs and our confidence in the Board of Education thank you Liz ald my name is Liz Aldrich and I'm the orchestra director at Orchard Valley Middle School in 2016 I was successfully self-employed and one of the only reasons I even considered switching to public education was because there was an opening to teach Orchestra in Washington Township our district has always had an excellent reputation for music in fact we have been honored with the best communities for music education designation by the N Foundation multiple times students from Washington Township have been accepted into all state Orchestra all Eastern Orchestra all national Orchestra one of them even placed first chair Township alumni have gone on to study at the Curtis Institute of Music the juliard school Boston Conservatory Manhattan School of Music Yale and NYU they have given recital at Carnegie Hall played with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra performed in Broadway pits and for movie soundtracks one has recently written and debuted a musical and several have won Grammys the one thing that all of these individuals have in common is that their musical upbringing began in Washington Township Public Schools many teachers myself included have not been given any information about our teaching assignments for next year we've been left to deduce and speculate about the future of our programs while we have been assured that no programs have been cut Staffing is a significant worry it is impossible to consider the 36 teaching positions being eliminated plus resignations and retirements in the music department without fearing that these positions are going to go unfilled I worry that if the remaining music teachers are asked to cover multiple buildings we will become spread too thin in an already tremendously understaffed District it will be nearly impossible to continue to deliver the High Caliber experiences that our students are accustomed to and that they deserve for example in the last two years our string students hosted world-renowned composer sun he newold and Grammy winning basist ran Meyer a Washington Township Alum the elementary middle and high school string staff spent countless hours planning the Lo Logistics of both events opportunities like these will be unfeasible without enough string staff but tonight my colleague mentioned that there will be a traveling Orchestra teacher at the middle level is that me why why did I have to hear about this in a room full of hundreds of people I guess I will continue to speculate the uncertainty fills me with Dread understand that I speaking tonight proactively because I am extremely concerned about what could happen to the fourth through 12th grade instrumental music program if we are not careful I truly hope that my speaking this evening turns out to be unnecessary and that all vacancies will be filled we are on the cusp of so many great things we are finally getting past the damage that online learning did to the instrumental music programs and we're seeing a return of pre pre pandemic student involvement numbers Washington Township High School is set to launch the Visual and Performing Arts Academy this fall which will be another enormous point of Pride for our school Community if we continue to build the foundation for it Dr Hibbs and members of the school board I implore you to find a way because there's always a way to preserve the joy that playing an instrument gives students and ensure that Washington Township upholds its exemplary music program please fill all vacancies thank you for your time thank thank you Liz um Pam you want to take a sec and talk about just part of it's it's not it's it's actually would be unusual for us to put out all the details of what next year looks like right now it is that that would not happen in any school district that I've ever been a part of or anyone that I know you don't have to like that answer but that's that's the honest truth Pam you want to take a second and just talk guys sure guys come on please sure I I would just start with it saddens me that a rumor would be listen to before you're able to get a communication um I know that our supervisors of instruction have been working with their departments and have been sharing that they are planning and we are planning and there's lots and lots of steps to make sure that when there's a communication that that communication doesn't change and that it's accurate because it is a highly emotional time and we realize that implementation may look different next year but our programs are intact and to do that takes a tremendous amount of planning behind the scenes so that an communication can be accurate and I know that departments and and team members that reach out and say what is going to happen for next year receive the answer of what can be shared at the time that is known to be accurate and unchanging so when a communication comes out from me or your department supervisor a principal any member of our district it's going to be accurate so that you know where you're going going to be planning for for next year so that is coming and I just appreciate the opportunity to have questions I have my email I have conversations if I walk through the hallway and see you and I know I visited uh the classroom um I'm proud of our programs I'm proud of our Visual and Performing Arts Academy that's that's emerging next school year and we're doing everything we can to preserve those programs and put people where their passions are I know from um just being able to see those performances some of our teachers are highly skilled and passionate in Orchestra others prefer band others prefer uh music across the board and being able to place you where you're most passionate and skilled is going to help everybody continue to learn and grow so that is our goal and that's when that communication will come out Donna pil [Applause] good evening um my name is Donna pelli I'm one of the health assistants at the high school on the 910 side um I work 5 and 3/4 hours a day and uh on the 11 12 side there's 's two assistants who work three and a half hours each day uh both myself and one of the assistants have been reassigned uh the 1112 p.m uh assistant has been terminated or cut um our nurse's office needs coverage uh if there's only one Health student health assistant there for three and a half hours a day our nurses are going to be lost we are busy our nurses cannot man offices alone it's a dangerous proposition cumulatively between the am uh health assistant and the 1112 and myself s we have 15 hour 15 hours years of experience uh and now they want to replace us with people who have zero experience these are people who have been uh excuse me sorry who have been hallway monitors they don't have the experience to help run these offices um so I've been assigned and I'm going to be a lunch playground assistant at Birches uh my background in education includes that I have an associates degree I've been a patient care technician at virtual hospital I'm a certified medical assistant and I've had experience as an e executive secretary at a pharmaceutical firm the uh health assistant jobs are very fast-paced detail oriented and very diverse and you must be able to multitask because your head's on a swivel they're so many kids have come into these offices now I want to know how two totally inexperienced individuals can fill the shoes of experienced qualified Health assistants Health assistants are specialized staff who with the nurses help r run the nurses offices smoothly we care for our students we put them first and were concerned and help them with illnesses injuries mental health issues just to name a few the nurses Health assistance the nurse and the health assistant are a team we work efficiently and in and in an organized manner together we keep students healthy comforted and in school all nurses offices in the district must have experienced Health assistance to cover the hours were open this is essential for all of our students thank you Kelly Lyn hi Donna I I my you know my my wife is a nurse so I I absolutely recognize how important nurses are and anyone that works in the medical profession the the only reason why the the bumping occurred is strictly because of the language we had to adhere to in the contract there was no outward conversation trying to replace anyone that had um experience anywhere we we had to by the contract file the bumping right so I want to make sure I answered your question hello my name is Kelly Lind I'm a travel art teacher at obms in Chestnut Ridge Middle School who is unfortunately one of the 36 teachers facing the non-renewal of our contracts honestly it was a punch in the gut it is generally disheartening as art class is an outlet and a highlight of many students days yesterday students discussed how much they love and look forward to art class daily one of the students said it is the material that I teach and how I teach it I have enjoyed working with diverse students in this district for the past two years my observations have shown that I'm an asset to this district and I quote from one of my administrators Miss Lind is a highly valued member of ovms I've been forced to pay thousands of dollars out of my pocket for my classroom to keep it a float for the students my co-workers and I realized our budget is slightly over $4 per student per year I have used what I have to create impactful projects I've collaborated with elll um teacher last year to do a word art portrait the other art teacher at ovms and Chestnut Ridge Middle School we did a paint with light photography lesson among other things and I taught with Mr Libby to make apple mummies last semester I worked with the seventh and eighth grade students for my Master's thesis to make a recipe book and a culture quilt students researched their ancestry and cultural background resulting in a recipe book and a culture quilt I gained a grant for Chestnut Ridge students to research their backgrounds on Ancestry classroom.com witnessing the students Joy during the cultural Feast we organized for this project was heartwarming the students expressed that this project was their best project and favorite project in art class the quilt was showcased at the district art night receiving positive feedback from parents of students and parents of students I don't even have two students came up to me that night that I had last year to tell me I was the reason they were taking art classes in high school I earned my Master's two weekends ago with a 3.96 GPA the same week the same week I learned I was losing my job it dampened my ability to celebrate my achievement despite the challenges of limited resources especially for the behavioral program I teach I always found teaching these students to be the highlight of my day I teach these students twice a week without a lunch period these students work has continue to bring light to my life the students have become my children the minute they walk through my door door as I witness their development and skills and appreciate the knowledge I impart in them the impact of these experiences on the students has been en enriching my colleagues are not just my co-workers they've become my family and in October I was told I was going to be able to stay at one school next year and now I'm facing losing my job please reassess the situation as the students will be adversely affected by the overc crowding class sizes which will happen if you cut my position the questions I'm going to leave with you tonight is why am I losing my job when all the evidence points to this is not what's best for the students and I have really good observation reports and why are we negatively affecting the students ability to learn thank you Adriana [Applause] chono I pronounce that right [Applause] hi everyone my name is Adrianne cha I've been an Ela teacher in the district for 18 years and I am the wta's middle school vice president I'm asking the board for transparency parents and teachers deserve to know how the programs will be affected by the positions that were cut the middle schools are losing their Librarians the secondary level Ela department is down eight positions including an Ela interventionist who worked with our most struggling Learners in 2015 we cut Ela daily instruction time from the middle schools from 84 minutes each day down to 55 minutes and then again it was cut a few years ago to 49 minutes of ela instruction every day 84 minutes to 49 minutes with all of these staff cuts and transfers I am assuming that tiered support and basic skills services are being decimated I'm assuming that class sizes will continue to grow I am assuming that there will be presentations to persuade the board members to vote for grade inflation to replace quality education we will tweak the grading scale and curve zeros up to 50% and when the standardized test scores show the discrepancy between District issued grades and standardized test scores I'm sure this will be explained away with claims that test scores are not valid and they do not represent real learning as if turning every zero into 50% represents real learning there's nothing more Equitable than holding all students to high standards grades should reflect learning if we prioritize grades students will do what it takes to learn and that is the end goal if we inflate grades we disincentivize learning if we remove the interventions and support that help students learn we are setting them up for valure no matter what number we put in the grade book a kid who has 30 missing assignments is a kid who did not do the learning and we have a responsibility to intervene not just turn all those zeros into 50% teachers should have discre to have conversation with students time to work oneon-one with students and the support to modify assignments as necessary this is what our tiered Support classes off for students right now but teachers should also have the support needed to uphold high expectations so students learn what they're supposed to learn a grade represents effort work and the knowledge that results from that effort and work many students need support in addition to what is provided in a regular one teacher classroom to acquire that knowledge how will these Cuts affect these students how will interventions and tiered support be impacted are we still offering extra support to struggling students if my assumptions are wrong please correct them I'm still waiting to see how these Cuts will impact my teaching and my students and apparently I might not find out until September I'm still waiting to see how tiered support and BSI will look different or if it will exist at all because none of this information is being shared with the teachers teachers are not involved in any of these decisions I hope I do not see gr inflation replace scaffolded instruction but I am still in the dark thank you thanks thanks Adrien um I think Dr Nathan hit a lot of that in that she will be communicating to the staff and to the community for sure uh we do not believe in great inflation but we are doing some work through the wow we are we are doing work through the grading committee um so to answer most of your questions uh stay tuned and Dr Nathan will communicate it's actually quite normal for for school districts to takee time to plan most school districts will actually do a lot of this planning in in the late in the late spring into the summer and then we'll communicate out to staff it is it would be completely abnormal again this is the last time I'll say this for to have that plan done right now as we need time to plan and teachers will be involved in that work as well dely Evans [Applause] uh Mrs choma thank you so much because everything she said I'll save myself some time my name is Kelly Evans this is my 18th year as a teacher in this District I spent 10 years as a reading teacher and basic skills teacher when we merged reading in English and we went from those 84 minutes a week down to well a bunch less let me see down to 55 minutes a day pardon me I became a supplemental Ela teacher didn't have a description didn't have a curriculum I figured it out I found out that I loved it I did that for three years sixth seventh and eighth grade then I moved back into English been there for five years I teach BSI and I have always done one section of BSI and this year I teach Elevate I have nine kids every single one of them have grown their Lexile assessment and I don't know if you know what a lexile is it's your reading level some of my kids came in with a lexile of 200 first grade when those kids walk in my classroom I have a plan but I can adapt it four kids are out we're not moving on last week they got interested in some beable article about butterflies we have now Googled youtubed bees wasps Hornets today they saw a video a butterfly did this and a kid goes oh they're beating their wings so the blood can flow through the veins my kids are connecting they are pulling in social studies and science they are talking about and I'm so blessed that I teach these kids in English also they're pulling in things from those classes I want to respect my principle I'm not going to discuss my assignment next year I worry that elevate I can't get an answer she certainly could have provided me with one nobody can if elate doesn't exist these kids and I charted it you're all welcome to come see it I have a spreadsheet my friends know I'm nuts with this stuff every single month I assess their Lexile in the beable program which is a blessing and this District should hold on to you should fight tooth and nail to hold on the bable the difference it is making in these kids lives is insane we need to hold on to this program and if I can't drive this program forward which I would love to do somebody else has to I track them in beable I track them inl the growth is tremendous the correlation between the amount of activities completed and the higher level Lexile growth is so evident I have one kid mov schools um I already said I don't think he should be in beable next year he's ready to go got another kid who's now reading on like the 11th grade level 10th grade level he's doing phenomenally we need these programs and Dr Hibbs you had talked about the teered sport classrooms having two teachers and not many kids 24 25 kids 10 11 of those kids are tiered support these are kids that need the most support and we have less Ela time and we have more writing I mean I don't know if any of you you're all welcome to come jump in my go formative and grade sem mess for me even short response we don't do just multiple choice we do short response so for every kid that does one activity there's like five or six we have to read paragraphs I'm here to advocate for no ELA Cuts because how do I get a class size of 24 even bigger my darlings my sweet children who need the most intervention cannot lose their Elevate their beable the ISL program when taught correctly is a blessing and any teacher this teaching I Exel and hates it come see me I will give you a one-on-one cuz my kids love it it's individualized instruction you can do group jams you can bring them out these are programs we need because in a department that doesn't have a textbook and hasn't had a textbook aligned curriculum since I was a reading teacher there's everything I do I have to create so when I find a program I love like bble or I Exel I'm holding on to it we need these programs in the English Department we we need some program that is aligned to a curriculum so we have a launching point cuz everything we do we create from scratch how can you be a master when you're Reinventing the wheel and I'm 18 years at this I'm closer to retirement than I am like starting and I will tell you guys you can support us I have a colleague in the audience I work EMS with this job is more stressful than that job and if you think about what an EMT on the street sees yeah this job carries more with me than that job and that job carries I love my job I want to help my kids please Empower me to do the best thing I can give me a program keep the programs that are super important come to my Elevate class period one it's fun but listen they're casual they're like siblings they travel all day together you just got to got to understand that if you come see us for my kids sake please give them the tiered support that they need through the teered support classroom next year please give them the elevates please give them the bables the iels and listen I'm super outspoken if you couldn't tell so you're all welcome to reach out to me I'll tell you how I feel I will fight for my kids I'm not going to say oh you know everybody they love the kids we all do yes but like what's best for them and when somebody's hurting my children that's when I get really loud and I fear for what is going to happen to these kids and one more thing and I'm going to be super quick we want to celebrate the process of learning right the majority of their grades should come from the learning process the minority should come from the demonstration of Mastery we cannot expect kids that haven't developed a wor work ethic yet to do a majority of the work for 30% of the credit so if we're moving towards that grading you got to understand we motivate kids through like incentives regular what if I said to a kid you can pass this class if you work and you try hard you can then demonstrate Mastery you know what I mean on the majors but I wrote that in the grading coalation survey I wrote paragraphs and I heard from no one I know what motivates 12 and 13s I know what motivates these kids and doing all the work for a little bit of the credit isn't the way to go they haven't developed their work e the yet guys they're not adults and we got to treat them like their age I still go to my yard sticks book about developmentally appropriate tasks for kids thank you so much Elevate tier support BSI thank you yeah Alicia Dr Nathan you want to respond got got it can you hear me okay gotcha um so Kelly I I appreciate you sharing I think we share a common vision for Blended Learning Classroom environments um all this school year we've been running a vetting committee so that we can look at all of the tools because again across all of our departments teachers have uh resources that they believe help them Elevate our students um being able to vet and work with the teams of teachers throughout this entire school year allows us to make those important choices and tradeoffs because there are some programs that can duplicate each other so we want to make sure that we're making the best decisions and providing those tools so we're we're in agreement um a grading Coalition has also been taking place all this school year so that conversation around the purpose of grades and alignment for the district around consistent processes has been happening as well so all of that will be part of um Communications that come out before the end of this school year so again thank you for sharing I I believe we believe in the same things so I appreciate it Alicia Alicia compani [Applause] good evening my name is Alyssa campanini and I am a music educator and parent within the district I have taught sixth through e8th grade chorus at Orchard Valley Middle School for the past 11 years I hold a master's degree in music education and I'm currently a doctoral candidate in the dma program through Boston University I have come forward as so many others to speak on several issues clearly forthcoming should this board stick with the proposed budget and the Staffing Cuts districtwide I would first like to address the lack of information our Educators have been given in regards to the teaching assignments for the 2024 2025 school year for the teachers who will be reassigned to different buildings subjects and grade levels do we really believe that 16 school days is enough time to prepare what about the time needed to pack up if necessary or are you assuming like with everything else we'll just do that over the unpaid summer months in the same regard will the district be providing professional development to assist its Educators in preparing for new roles or did you not budget for that while yes some of us may hold K to2 certifications this does not imply that we won't need support to learn new roles and curriculum or in the case of our Ela Department creating curriculum I am just trying to understand the thought process going into next school year year as a district you can barely staff your buildings as it is you have staff covering for colleagues because there aren't enough substitutes how then with even less staff will you be able to function day to-day and still claim programming won't be affected with less staff I can only deduce that class sizes will rise the district already struggles with compliance when it comes to our students with IEPs and 504s and the availability of our 1 to one8 how will larger class sizes and less Staff address that issue what you are insisting upon is spreading staff so thin that inevitably some will break [Applause] I can only imagine that you are playing a game of survival of the fittest and when truly talented and passionate Educators cannot handle the undue stress you'll be able to hire others at the lower step on the salary guide is that the aim is that your solution to the soall budgetary deficits you cannot claim programming will not be affected when the very teachers who provide the programming cannot manage to keep up with traveling between buildings learning to teach new subjects grade levels and curriculum how can you claim to be for the students when you are cutting the very people directly in contact with them daily the same teachers and support staff who consistently go above and beyond for the student successes and well-being you cannot be against us and for the students it's a fundamental impossibility I urge you we urge you to overturn this proposed solution to the budgetary deficits because this current proposal isn't a solution it is the downfall of our district thank you Maring hi hi Alysa um certainly we will definitely have professional development we will definitely support um listen we there have been zero discussions about anyone leaving and hiring lower down the guide and if you go back and look at some recommendations that have made I have made recommendations to bring people in higher on the guide so there is absolutely no truth to that whatsoever ever um it's just the truth and and secondly or lastly um we may disagree on some things you you obviously do not you you are obviously unhappy with where we are I am unhappy with where we are I am no one is against you and no one is you know for students we you know we will sit down and we will dispel what we believe are inaccurate facts that are presented today and we'll be happy to give them to the board and then communicate out and as far as everything else goes for next year again we will we will communicate what that looks like maranne CL Mar we can't read the she left we can't read the last name okay sorry about that uh Patty jalis must be popular for a cheer before I speak all right so as we all know I'm the numbers girl so last week I talked um so again I'm Patty sucis I worked at the high school this is my 24th year I've completed here um I am currently a math interventionist not really sure what's going to happen with that next year but that's a future talk anyway so I talked last week about my concerns about safety monitoring the students at the high school so I wasn't planning on speaking last week so I didn't have all my numbers intact so I've spent the last week kind of gathering numbers to share with all of you um I'm going to go based off of enrollment similar to what we had this year was it approximately 2100 students at the high school so currently as part of our contract teachers have a supervision Duty as part of their day we do things such as study halls cafeteria duty office duty Hall Duty class coverage um and we're having trouble you know keeping up with that and monitoring the students this year that our administration had to get very creative they've even pulled in are counselors and CST for cafeteria Duty in order to cover it properly so if a kid has a crisis in the middle of lunch it's a little tough sometimes to find a counselor um so we also have paid assistants who all cover Hall Duty lab Duty cafeteria Duty on a daily basis with all of this support that we have in place with all of the things Administration did they're making supervisors come in and um monitor lunch and do all we are like all hands on deck in our building we still currently have shortage of 53 areas during the day that are not covered and that's you know mainly it's Hall duties and things like that but when I looked at the numbers we where we would be ideal is we're still short 53 class periods um lab and Hall monitors were hired a few years ago when we had a big massive staff cut that I had talked about prior Mr bandorf at the time was the principal and he hired them because we didn't have the staff to cover the needs and safely monitor our students um if we just cut the lab monitors I want you to understand the numbers we're going to need an additional 56 periods of teachers in order to cover just the lavatory and just so you're all aware in the high school there's only one operating lavatory in the entire upstairs and that's only covered currently in the morning so if your child has a class upstairs they have to travel downstairs um in order to use a lab which is more time outside of the classroom so how is this going to happen next year with all of the lav monitors all of the hall assistants all of the library AIDS everything we need to supervise the students being cut when we also in addition to it lost several teachers to this is just to my knowledge what I have been informed of we have lost two math positions one of them was transferred to a middle school the other position was eliminated we lost three English teachers one of them is due to retirement two people were not rehired um we have one science teacher who has resigned from the district and from what I understand they're not reposing that position we lost one art teacher who lost her position um one language teacher was reduced a part-time and one counselor who resigned they are not rehiring that position so with losing the lab monitors the hall monitors the library AIDS and now all of those staff how are we going to cover and safely monitor our students we can't currently do it now um this year teachers were also assigned to assist in the core and the 1112 offices because of the secretarial cuts that were made last year the offices are struggling and yet we lost another four secretary positions this year we lost a bookkeeper a counseling secretary an IMC secretary and the 1112 attendance secretary from again from what I've been told will not be renewed um I also asked about increase in class sizes so once again I'm going to give you a sample example I'm just going based off of numbers because we don't have all of the exact sections yet and that's why we're waiting for assignments from our supervisors so I'm going to go with English and I know other people talk about English while I'm a math teacher every student needs to take four years of English so that's where it makes the numbers quite simple to use so next year with the staff Cuts The English Department we're going to have 15 full-time English teachers plus one interventionist and we don't know what that's going to look like for her next year um then we're going to have one English teacher who's going to teach from again my understanding one section and the rest will be in the drama department and then we'll have one teacher who's going to teach one English section and then he's going to be monitoring on budsman which that's another thing that's coming to the high school next year that we're also going to have to cover um safely so if you do the math 15 teachers times 5 Section gives you 75 sections of English plus the two additional sections gives us a total of 77 sections if we take an approximation student of 2100 students divide that by the 77 sections you're getting an average class size of 27 students that's an average um and that's an attested subject area and as an interventionist that was kind of thrown into testing you know this this school year and having to test almost 1100 students this week it's a little disheartening to hear that an average class size is going to be about 20 s um so these are the real raw numbers and then I have to say this was not part of my speech but I'm just kind of curious I saw that in the budget there was $221,000 for renovating a bathroom can I ask where was it only done at Central because in the 1112 I implore all board members to go down see the 1112 a-hall bathroom because this building is well over 50 years old and those bathrooms need to be gutted and to be honest I didn't think the ones at Central were all that bad compared to what the these students I'm not talking the teacher ones the student bathrooms um should be done and then you know $150,000 on painting again Belle's bathroom is over 50 years old you know the wedgew I think they're the still the same bathrooms that I used when I was there from kindergarten through sixth grade so just thought I'd throw those numbers out there um anyway so there's a lot of things going on next year you know you talk about you have to make these budget cuts but again I feel like I said this last week and I stand by my statement that I feel like out of all the options this was not our best option because the majority of the cuts are affecting the classrooms class sizes of 26 in a tested area when we're worried about test scores and improving that is not the way to go so I implore you to rethink that look back at where we can do it and again we need all of the support staff that we have the high school we're not going to be able to safely function next year thank [Applause] you Nicole [Applause] new where'd he go okay um so you guys have heard from a lot of Staff um on why they need their jobs I am not staff I a parent of two one day three in this district and everything I've heard from from staff is alarming for my kids' future here alarming um when you were looking at the budget I wanted to touch on one of the contracts we have um for ABA services and why we can't utilize These funds for actual District employees as opposed to Outsourcing and also of often this piece of the budget is looked and how often this piece of the budget is actually looked at instead of just renewed and paid over 2.5 million dollar goes to donovian Associates when we could have Washington Township hired staff for bcbas and trained rbts getting a Washington Township paycheck what we pay to this third party company is almost 30% of the 7 million that we just lost that is insane these Services I understand are crucial to our special ed population I'm not saying they're not important I am a special ed parent of one of the lowest functioning students we have I understand how important it is this company does consults only they do not even provide services to our children I have asked several times and I have gotten confirmation that they do not provide ABA the therapy service hours to our kids and our consult only we award a contract of that kind of money to a company that does not provide services is absurd not to mention on a side note that they have a track record of Fraud and pending sexual assault cases I know single-handedly for appr proven fact that it is that that company has committed insurance fraud because my own insurance company will not allow us to work with them quite a few other families in this District were also pulled from them privately because of fraud does somebody in this District comb through our billing with them with a fine tooth comb to know that we are actually being built correctly how can $2.5 million almost 30% of our cut be justified to a third party company have there been any other companies in recent years that have bid on this job or do we just keep renewing this company without revisiting any other options why can we not as a Township employ OnStaff ABA services and hire your own rbts and ab bcbas why is $2.5 million spent on consultations when we are cutting $7 million of personal staff the ones that are actually working with the children we can't even pay our own staff to keep the buildings running and we are paying them $112.50 an hour to consult and the clinical associates are paid $54 an hour why is this necessary what is stopping us from hiring in-house ABA services that can directly deal with our children I can't imagine that that road would cost over two $2 million I understand that the company they come from they are highly trained and they are mostly needed in BD classrooms do the rest of our special ed programs can the rest of our special ed programs operate without them if we had in inhouse trained ABA staff I strongly encourage you to look into this further and speak with your special ed staff regarding this that work with them in the buildings every day I feel you will find that you can save 2.5 million a year and allocate it to other staff and still be able to hire and satisfy the need of ABA services in other ways Cuts were made from the bottom people that quite literally make sure our kids make it through the day I am not for anybody losing their job anyone but it is clear that it's going to happen but where it's happening is not only heartbreaking to the people that it's happening to but it's terrifying as a parent to see especially with Elementary school children that I have and a baby that will be here before I know it these changes that are happening are going to affect my kids for years to come when it comes from top level jobs and this is in no way a dig at this specific position it is an example because again I'm not for anybody losing a job but we have a building supervisor at an elementary school we have a principal and we also have teachers in charge why do we need a building supervisor that building can run without that position but the building and my kids academic careers will crumble without cafeteria AIDS computers as a special assistance AIDS Librarians not all kids play sports music art and other departments are crucial to kids in their academic lives as an MD parent what is my kid going to do without the programs that she can take part in I graduated grad school with a 4.0 at the top of my class however making My Success my life successful came from doing art the positions that cut that are cut that apparently must happen should not be those that are directly impacting the core of these kids days my last concern during the last meeting there was a line that Dr hibs said referring to hiring only the most qualified staff so now with all these Cuts I'm afraid that qualified is going going to go out the window when you have to replace them we had an issue last summer with ESS doing esy we all know that that's a problem is ESS going to replace all of these people on a whim when you need them they are not the most qualified in these positions we are putting them specifically speaking of special ed in places of assistance that may not be here that are qualified just as an FYI we had a very qualified app applicant for a job as a specialized assistant three positions actually she was overqualified overeducated and had all the certifications that were she they were um recommended she already had them she was overlooked for a job this year that job remained posted for months she was never given a call back and she was not hired I know you cannot speak about Personnel but this situation again is alarming who are you H hiring if you're not hiring those qualified people I urge you to re-evaluate where the cuts are being made I'm sorry to anyone that has been affected by this or will be affected by this and I don't mean to come after anyone's job but the bottom tier jobs are essential and it's scary from a parent that they're not being recognized you say anything yeah um hi Nicole so I I just want to reiterate I I I missed the first part I'm so sorry but I will go back and I'll listen to it and I'll have Mrs Miller give you a call on anything that's pertinent um as far as programs go we are definitely not cutting programs and there is absolutely zero talk about having ESS replace our staff that is not what we want and to talk for a little bit about about the concept of denovi the minute I got here I had conversations about initially immediately about why don't we have our own bcbas on staff and why don't we have the concept of rbts and I think denovi has just been has been here for a very long time so our goal is to well it's been here for a time okay um it predated may so we could not come in and undo that all in the moment and I think that I think that denovi does provide a service to us right now but the goal is to re-evaluate that so that we can have Township folks lead those positions because that's that's where I I believe we need to be it just was not as simple as just turn off the faucet and then move because it we're too big to do that so we had to we had to do it incrementally and that's that's definitely our plan s Rob cardina again why is he CU he put two [Applause] [Music] cards Rob Scardino on behalf of the nurses of the district dear Dr hibs in the Washington Township Board of Education we write this letter on behalf of all the health assistants whose hours have been decreased or cut and the nurses who will be affected by this change the health health assistant is a tremendous help to the school nurse who would otherwise work alone in an isolated office caring for both ill and injured students and staff in emergency situations the health assistant is our second set of hands to grab emergency medication and our voice to call for more help while tending to a student or staff member in a crisis it is our health assistants who though not medically trained have learned so much by watching us practice they know what we're thinking they know what we will do next and they know what we will ask for and they know where to get it imagine an emergency occurring in a classroom upstairs or out on the soccer field while the nurse is tending to patients in the health office this happens more often than you think who will answer the emergency phone call for help while the nurse may be helping an asthmatic breathe Who Remain with the students in the health office while the nurse runs to an emergency who will grab what we need from the health office and bring it to the emergency in a timely manner if the emergency is in the health health office who will hear us yelling for help who will answer our plea to call 911 children are coming to our school sicker than they used to with complex medical and emotional needs how does the nurse take time to do a thorough assessment of a sick student when she's being interrupted every 3 to 5 minutes with other students walking through the door the health assistant is that second set of eyes ears and hands to triage students coming in to take temperatures to hand out Band-Aids and cough drops while we remain uninterrupted with the student who needs more acute medical attention the health assistant is the one who interrupts us when we need to be interrupted for an incoming student who needs immediate attention regarding preventative care how does a nurse screen 500 700 1100 students each year to make sure they're growing and thriving the health assistant simple task of measuring Heights and weights while the nurse screens for vision hearing blood pressure and scoliosis is a tremendous help and ensures that 100% of our students can be screened each school year for many students this is the only Health Care they will get how does the nurse take time to educate parents and students or participate in parent meetings 504 and IEP meetings in a hospital or doctor's office we are surrounded by fellow nurses and Physicians who can help us in an emergency we understand that we are not in an acute care setting however School nursing is not just boo boos and Band-Aids as School nurses we are responsible for the health and safety of 500 700 1100 students plus hundreds of faculty and staff members by ourselves the students and staff that we care for have uncontrolled diabetes uncontrolled asthma uncontrolled seizure disorders clotting disorders potential for fatal cardiac D dymas implemented defibrillators fainting spells severe anxiety manifesting in physical symptoms self-harming behaviors with or without suicidal ideation are under the influence of alcohol or drugs and many more medical concerns we're not ask for a second Medical Professional we simply need someone present who knows what to do and to call for help when there's an emergency a nursing license is not easy to obtain and takes much work and continuing education to maintain we're not certain how many nurses are willing to take the risk of their nursing license to work under such unsafe conditions please consider saving the hours of our health assistant isn't the safety of our students worth a small amount of money the district district will save by cutting their hours with our sincerest concern the Washington Township Public School District nurses thank you Nancy Nancy Meyer good evening my name is Nancy Meyer I am from Marlton New Jersey I've been an educator for 33 years I am a current L chair and a grievance chair in my district I am here on behalf of my fellow Educators who need people to share their frustrations and who have their back I am you I don't work for this District so therefore I can have no repercussions for what I say this evening that means I'm talking for you this disheartens me to have to say this there are many people here who are afraid to speak that's sad there are people who are frustrated and I hear your frustration I understand those those of you you're passionate about your children and the district that radiates very well I am sad that this district is losing the amount of people that you are that's unheard of these people are your neighbors grandparents friends family members and many others who live and work in the district as well how can this board be so complacent in not understanding the power of such a horrific vote our support staff is our children's lifeline let me say that again our children everywhere is our children's our support staff is our children's lifeline we as parents depend on our children not only being taught in the schools but being cared for and loved by the adults they see each and every day I asked the board do you have a child hopefully you do have they ever needed a Band-Aid have they ever needed help opening their milk carton at lunch have they ever needed a shoulder to cry on have they ever needed a hug have they ever needed a person to to give them encouraging word have they ever needed someone to hold their head as they're barfing in the garbage can of course they have and you as parents are working and you're not with your children but there is someone there and that's a support staff member they were comforted by that support staff you as parents are comforted knowing that you're sending your children to school with people who are certified and people who care for their children and their students why it's amazing to me we grow up as little kids and become adults and many of us become teachers I'm one of you some of these people up here also were teachers you are all a teacher from the very beginning when you have a child don't ever forget that that is in your heart and it is part of you let me explain I am so appalled by what I'm hearing here tonight everyone has spoken very eloquently but it saddens me to know there is another District in New Jersey who is going through what they're going through it's appalling there is money they need to find it and they need to support you and your children so let me go back I know that this superintendent says many things I have a superintendent as well and they talk like this and they talk like this and it's all lip service most of it is lip service and I say that with due respect because my superintendent and I we go round and round and that's okay but at the end of the day we're there for the kids and I hope your superintendent is the same so I encourage all of you board members to remember you are parents you are grandparents you are neighbors to these people out here vote no on this massive reduction in staff vote no tell your superintendent this is your District these are your people these are your children these are your neighbors do the right thing cuz this is not right you are here because you are employees the people of Washington Township have employed these board members to do the right thing [Applause] give them the confidence that they gave in you when they voted for you to be part of their board they asked you to do the right thing and I know tonight many of you did by allowing people to talk and go beyond the five minutes I applaud those board members take up Greg Gordy's offer listen to what he has to say because those numbers were in fact given by this board they were not made up I am an njaa member many of these people in this room are and I can attest to Greg Gordy I know him I have had him in my district he is a good man and he is doing the right thing now board members vote no thank you Molly hour hour hi I am Molly hour I am a resident taxpayer voter and most importantly a mother to a student at burches Dr Gibbs earlier tonight you said words matter and they do I would like to walk you through the words you use tonight for instance you said we had to spend money by a certain date but then that was corrected to actually be earmarked to the to the money by a certain date there is a difference and it's an important difference and it's a difference that should be communicated to this board however more importantly I want to address the words you Ed tonight in regards to the non-renewal emails you said that you could have done things differently I hope you meant that you should have done things differently what the administration did in sending out non-renewal emails in the middle of a school day to the people we trust our kids with was a terribly irresponsible decision who knows how people could have reacted to that news furthermore doing it during teacher appreciation week was cruel claiming you did not schedule Teacher Appreciation Week Tonight was a sad excuse I am not in an educational role I work with casinos and I make it my business to know and teacher appreciation week is as the superintendent of this District I expect you to know this Administration is supposed to represent our community and this representation is not one we as a community are okay with what changes do you plan to make internally when it comes to communication to our educational staff and community and also what changes do you plan to make to your internal operations to ensure this HR nightmare never happens again if words matter please also clarify the difference between Workforce reductions and non-renewals to me the intention is the same is this just a tactic to get around negotiating with our unions and to the board I appreciate all of your sacrifices in serving our community however it is troubling to know that you passed a budget in which using your own words tonight you were not completely familiar with we as a community expect you to be familiar with it you should not hold this position if you do not have the time to fully examine and understand our budgets before passing them and the president of this board stated earlier tonight that the board could not hold a motion to overturn these decisions that have been already made because it seemed arbitrarily but it seems to me from the conversations tonight and the information that has been shared that the only decision that was made arbitrarily was to pass this budget in the first place so as a resident a taxpayer a voter and a mother I ask you once again to call for a motion to undo what has been done until there is more time like you have asked for to clarify all of this miscommunication thank you ter Shaker Sher sorry about that she comes hello good evening I'm Terry sheer I'm a parent of three girls and I've lived in Township for 15 years my daughters attend Burg's Elementary and I'm so very sorry to anyone who has worked for our school district and received that email in their inbox earlier this month it is unacceptable for anyone to receive notice of termination via email this is not only incredibly sensitive it is a huge safety risk not only to teachers and other staff but are certainly our children what was the contingency plan if these employees had simply decided to walk off their jobs you assume that would not be an issue which underscores how valuable and absolutely Priceless these employees are you must not have been that worried that they would and that they would remain available and dedicated to our students for the rest of the school year and we owe them better how is this personnel communic unication vetted prior to release and what steps have since been taken to establish a safer and more professional process moving forward I would like an explanation why it was advised to move forward with non-renewal versus a reduction in Force if these positions remain this underscores my more Global concern that despite stating this is part of a long-term strategy this is merely a reactionary measure that will negatively impact our community for years to come why can't parents and the community and teachers have more transparency around what plans are in place left by the gaps of these non-renewals some concerning proposed changes include no more computer classes at the elementary level and the state curriculum requirements taught will have to be picked up by a librarian which after last year there isn't even one librarian for each school or the primary classroom teachers these program losses are absolutely unacceptable how in 2024 are we eliminating computers while at the same time requiring more and more technology dependent assignment ments I wonder what our test scores will look like at the elementary level when every assessment is on a computer last meeting the board said that this was not a reduction in force what is the board's plan for the positions that were not renewed for next year if all IEPs will be satisfied and programs won't be affected how is this actually going to result in any savings these projected short-term fixed savings won't last long once we start to experience the very real costs of the bad publicity and negative impact on employee engagement I'm certain it's happening as we speak it's not just the cost associated with the loss of knowledge and expertise of the experienced employees but you've sent a clear message to our best and most talented Educators that will be felt for years to come even if we can change course now I'm sure resumés have been updated jobs postings have been checked and networks engaged what steps to counteract this bad publicity will you take in order to attain your stated goals of hiring the best and the Dream Team what is your plan to not just retain this talent but attract them when a quick search will lead candidates to the headline parents and staff bar with Washington Township School Board officials over board Cuts what will your response be next year to a top candidate when asked how you plan to handle these budget issues in the future a candidate with multiple offers will now think twice before joining Township community even the best and most dedicated employees are going to be totally burnt out by this plan to do even more with less we're making headlines for the wrong reasons this is negatively impacting our students right now and to claim otherwise is putting our community in opposition rather than uniting us to focus on Solutions it's important we come together at this time to find a solution moving forward that actually makes sense and doesn't rely on formulas in a spreadsheet to dictate a bad plan going forward cutting people will cost us you must vote tonight to reinstate these employees thank you Raymond was why why you're hi hi Terry how are you um so I mean the first thing is that we will absolutely never send out an email during the school day ever again um we absolutely will never do that let me address that I think we've addressed some of these points and you had a a lot of questions um so plans will be disseminated in due time we definitely have no plans to assess everything on a computer um we will definitely not cut programs and we believe we can find a way to roll the the computer standards into a different area s Ron was not um well married but um I'm Candace morz I have lived in this town my whole life my ma name was Abbott it's a lot easier to say than morz um you might know my mom her name is on a building that's here and she'd be rolling in her grave right now if she was seeing all this um sorry I wasn't planning on getting up here but when tiered support was mentioned I got very heated and hot um I've been an interventionist for the last five years and being an intervention for four of those years I've been in the classroom I've taught tiered support 12 I've taught tiered support 11 and I've taught tiered support 9 in addition to that I've also taught our English enrichment class if you don't know that's the class for the students that have not met the state requirement and they need a test of record for the ngj GPA speaking of the ngj GPA myself and the other interventionists were put into the position of shadowing um our counseling team in the ngpa to give that test we've just been taken out of a away from our students in order to run the njsla for the past couple weeks when we were pulled we were very concerned about our students meeting their needs as interventionists we push in we pull these kids out and not only to mention our intervention kids but now I pulled out of my classroom as well because I'm not just an interventionist I'm also a teacher so when you talk about having four teachers and we're losing those teachers being in a classroom you're not because we have two interventionists that are teaching it we have one teacher that has a sixth class so it's really only one teacher that's impact it by that um when we asked about that of being taking away for our students we were worried about the impact on our students we were told that we they value our work but State Testing is mandatory and they don't give us more staff so we do the best with what we have and unfortunately that's a trade-off so I guess our kids and their needs are just a tradeoff we're pushing these acmy I want to know what the class size will be so as Miss suala said we'll have about 27 kids in an English class they have to take it for four years we're a tested subject right now our enrichment numbers we would have 112 students currently don't meet the test of record in English I want to know how many sections of enrichment we're going to have what those class sizes are going to look like and are you going to look at and see what ourmes that we're pushing because English doesn't matter what those Academy sizes are going to be compared to our English classes some of our tiered Support classes if you break them up into two classes they will be smaller or larger than some of our smaller classes that our kids have in elected so that's just my concern what our class lives are going to be what's important pushing these business electives or all these ACM or teaching our kids how to love literature and how to read and write Lissa MCN hi cace um all right so we're g to definitely get all the program details out to you um and we do believe in you know I I think you mentioned the love of literature and we're not pushing business courses over the love of literature so I understand your passion so just stay tuned for the details so well we will we will will disseminate all the details to you for sure um Melissa MCN um teacher of 25 years and wtea uh Elementary vice president I didn't really plan on speaking tonight um I've done a lot of speaking and I think I'm just all speaked out um I feel like it doesn't have an impact and so I didn't feel really enthusiastic about doing it tonight but I'm still going to because I can't not try um I think it's ironic tonight that when we had several hundred people waiting to view the board meeting via YouTube we weren't broadcasting live for over 45 minutes during the presentation of the budget numbers um I'm hearing it was Tech problems but I just think it's quite a coincidence and I think a lot of people turned off because they didn't think they'd be able to get on and that's a shame because we had a lot of support um in terms of the budget I may be a Fed teacher but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the math tonight just wasn't mathing um it wasn't adding up a slide was shown earlier in the presentation that showed an increase in staff each year over the past four to five years and this was used as part of the reason for our financial shortfall two slides later we showed a slide indicating numbers that staff were cut each year over the last four to five years to rationalize that this year is not unique which is it did we cut staff or did we have an increase in staff you can't have it both ways tonight I heard student numbers are decreasing and 30 minutes later heard that they were increasing which picture do you want to paint pick one please much of this is indicative of the lack of respect for what we those of us working in the trenches all do here you're insulting our intelligence and it's a smack in the face to those of us who know the truth we know money was allocated to improve the appearance of many areas that were not budgeted for if they were not budgeted for the money had to come from somewhere Improvement to bathrooms at Central replacement of flooring at Central that was cosmetic this is not even a student centered area districtwide painting Etc what cuts were made at Central where there is no District where there's no direct student contact why does Dr Hibbs have not one but two secretaries one paid through ESS all year when many of our own secretaries were cut where are the four administrative Cuts I asked this last week week and it was not answered I'm not asking for specific human resource info like names just positions like ours that were cut and talked about and actual positions please not administrators that are being transferred from areas that are being dissolved like Elementary computers why weren't the administrative salaries listed on the agenda last week as the teacher salaries were I asked this also last week and it was never answered the fact is that we are not we are not in a financial crisis to be clear because words matter we are a prior we are in a priority crisis we are in a transparency crisis we have classes at the elementary level with 28 and 29 students we've undertaken bringing back many many students into the district with very specific needs but the districts keeps the district keeps pulling away more and more support from these programs but we prioritize bleachers we are hurting children and going down a path that we cannot reverse we are developing a reputation of a district that is not supporting and appreciating our staff in a time when we can barely hire this is going to come back to haunt us we have to get ahead of this problem an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure invest in us so we can invest in the children of this community overturn this vote tonight why wait regardless of the conflicting budget numbers there has got to be a better way than cutting the legs off the table show your willingness to stand behind those who stand behind your children our children thank you Randy Ford good evening uh my name is Randy Ford I'm an an 8-year resident of the town I live in hertage Valley section of um sorry my phone just turned off anyway uh I have three boys in the district uh all at herfi elementary I should also note that I'm a corporate attorney but I'm not here representing anyone except myself and my family I received a districtwide letter from Dr hibs about the budget on May 9th and so I decided to watch the first meeting of the board since I moved to town and that was last last week's meeting so 4 hours in a motion and a second was made to approve items L1 through L48 on the agenda during the discussion section of that meeting Mrs Baker made a motion to amend item l14 and even after I know Mr Weiss isn't here but when he caution the board members about possible ethics complaints associated with seconding that motion at least two other board members audibly seconded the motion despite there being a motion to amend and second on the floor Mr White went on to counsel this board that the original motion approving L1 through L48 needed to be quote dealt with now because it's on the table and that quote Mrs Baker's timing was off finally when a member of the public not saying this is the right thing to do but yet yelled out about a motion to amend Mr Weiss stated quote under Robert's Rules of Order well actually no that's not the way we have done it here I don't really know what Mr White meant by that comment but I'd like to remind Mr Snider who is here and the board of District policy 0164 that expressly States Robert's Rules of Order newly revised shall govern the Board of Education in its deliberations and acts in all cases I'd also like to point out I have a copy if anybody wants it Robert's Rules of Order specifically states that a motion to amend takes precedent over a main motion that it proposes to amend and when a main motion is on the floor there are a handful of other options that could have been available to this board if Mr White or Mr Weiss made you aware of them instead of reiterating that you could only vote no yes abstain On All or some of the items I say all of this because you were the board members with the authority to make decisions not the solicitor Mr Ross you're the board president you have the authority to provide over the body not the solicitor not the superintendent I'll be the first to tell you that just because an attorney says something doesn't make it true I implore everyone up here to ask more questions ask for backup data ask for details and finally before voting on this budget explore all available options before taking a particular course of action that was all I was going to say except the only other thing I'd like to say is I'd like to commend Mr Sano who's probably on a bathroom break but that took a lot of courage to uh make a motion to relieve the five minute Rule and I think it made me feel a lot better about this board after watching the 5 and a half hour marathon meeting last week so thank you again for your time I just want to say too I do think everyone up here cares I know that said a lot but um I truly do believe that or else you wouldn't be up there and uh again thank you very much Kevin mcare hi sorry um so just to let you know um I know the crowd is kind of thinning out here but I did just check YouTube and there are um still five 00 people watching at home so act like this is still a full house um so I don't I I I don't envy um your job up there and I I wouldn't want to be in any of your positions I would like to receive some of your paychecks but um I don't want any of your positions now um I love being a teacher love it my mom actually showed me spoke about my mom mom last week oh remember I'm the guy that's uh going to be like the pain in the neck now from now on and just FYI um April Ren zetti is training me so um but my my mom found this journal and it was from uh Mrs deg's second grade class in B at bir's school and um said it said um I want to I want to be a teacher when I grow up and she she showed that to me and you know it just kind of cute so um Teresa coko that was my 12th grade English teacher and to this day she is the reason that I stand up here a firm believer that a good teacher can change the world can make you see things from an entirely different point of view she was very blunt with us and told us that yes she had to teach us what was in the curriculum however the curriculum wasn't her goal for the year her goal for the year was to make us more interesting people she wore black every day and lived on South Street in Philly she gave off a really strong um like Diane Keaton vibe to me and it was the '90s and like Father the bride came out and First Wives Club so I I mean I I was really into it so um she took our class to see the fan of the Opera and to the Museum of art because as she said if you just learn what's in these four walls then I have not done my job teaching you she wrote wildly incursive on the board in chalk and if we didn't get the notes written down quick enough it's because we weren't in the moment with her you see passion breeds passion she had us read everything from baywolf to Sir GA in the Green Knight to The Mist Of Avalon to The Once and Future King we learned so much about Camelot that we left 12th grade experts on the topic one day while I was in a room between classes or after school the topic of my future came up I was unsure of what the next step was for me even though I knew that I wanted to be a teacher she gave me advice that I still pass on to my students don't ever pass up an opportunity to make yourself a more interesting person there's a much larger World waiting for you outside of w uths I agreed there was and I'll never be able to thank that teacher for the most valuable lesson I've ever received and now here we are cutting teachers we're cutting staff that can and do enrich the lives of your children last week I spoke of three teachers in my hallway alone that were cut these teachers hold master's degrees and are dual certified with 20 years experience of pce in fact according to the most recent school performance report from the state 42% of our teachers in this building alone hold their master's degree these teachers have a rapport with their students your children that Rapport and passion for their subject builds confidence in their students as Rita Pearson and we all know who Rita pearon is um says every child deserves a champion an adult who will never give up on them who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be I believe that our very own Dr Nathan would agree with the late Rita Pearson um did a little bit of Googling as I tend to do um and I found a New York Times article from February 14th 2001 titled education helping new teachers survive the hardest years in this article Miss Nathan is described as a fresh out of college science teacher who is struggling quote there have been plenty of days when Miss Nathan thought of quitting that she has not that she has not is in no small measure thanks to Mrs M sorry Mrs mertina her Mentor a fellow teacher and Dr Nathan's own former science teacher talk about the power of a good teacher and now here we are cutting teachers and then there's M Miss Bloom our newest board member who actually garnered the most votes in our last election ahead of the election the Sun newspaper asked Mrs Bloom why she was running for a seat on the board her response was quote because education has been important to me for well over 40 years she also said that I will be listening researching learning sharing ideas and trying to represent our students staff members parents and citizens of Washington Township also two of my four children are teachers and yet Mrs Bloom voted to approve a budget that cut 36 teachers and AIDS exactly how important are teachers to education never mind your vote kind of answered that question for us and then in that same son article uh Mr Mr Li Liberty was asked the same question why are you running for an elected seat and this one I didn't even have this one written down but something happened earlier that I felt the need to say it um quote I began attending Board of Education meetings and saw a lack of trust from the community scandals with board members and quite a bit of dysfunction I've always been a person who believes that rather than complain about a problem get involved and try to fix it I believe I bring a practical approach to the board of ed trying to understand the issues and looking for reasonable Solutions sir I don't know you but getting up and walking away is not a reasonable solution um mocking a speaker is not a reasonable solution and I think that you owe that speaker an apology Dr HS I love to hold for pause uh Dr Hibbs also a passionate Pioneer for personal learning in your March 2017 blog titled my journey to personalize learning superpower stardom you talked about your desire for education to meet the needs of each student quote I have worked with my district to create not just an overall vision for PL personal learning but also to create subv Visions for data SG GI digital tools and student set learning goals we have actual processes for data we analyze achievement data and local data mining essential opportunities for improvement on both the district and school level for instance as a superintendent I can tell you that on the last mathematics Common Assessment 40% of my fifth grade students did not understand that 6 is equivalent to 0 60 end quote um a lot of that was like technical Ed education jargon gobble DG um but um you know it goes It goes goes back to um you're you do love data and I I I get it and you know in the bio that you wrote it even you even referenced you're that you're a constant advocate for educational technology so it's no wonder we have now become a Google school the but it's important point six you want to know who is not meeting what is being asked of them you want to know it makes sense a teacher should know that you know what your children's teachers do know that I know that a student in my first period class has not yet been able to master the anchor standard njs LSA W1 which is to write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence it's the standard uh how do I know that I talk to him when he answers a question I ask him why do you think that what proof do you have my students just finished writing research papers so I've had this conversation a lot they know that the only way to win an argument is with facts to back it up so I challenge them and I insist that they leave my classroom better than when they entered and now now here we are wanting to cut teachers on the data side as Mr Hibbs uh sorry Dr hibs uh likes to observe our ELA test scores on the njsla increased and met the state Target so thank you teachers for your dedication to our students the ninth grade scores jumped nearly 20 points from 21 the 2122 year to the 2223 school year thank you teachers based on the njpa which is a graduation proficiency assessment over 90% of our 11th grade class is graduation ready while only 80% of the state is graduation ready and yet we are wanting to cut teachers cutting teachers leads to increased class sizes according to um a study on chalkbeat.org the most famous and rigorous study of class size reduction took place in Tennessee in 198 85 when some kindergarten students were randomly assigned to unusually small classes through third grade test scores in the classes of 13 to 17 students quickly surpassed scores in the larger classes of 22 to 25 those gains persisted for years how are how are scores going to be impacted now that the English Department a tested subject has eight cuts the math you took my line the math simply ain't Ma on the other side of that your children are not data they are not numbers they are not percentages at least not to us we know your children they sit with us and they cry when things are not going well in their lives they come rushing toward us excited to tell tell us what they did over the weekend show us what they're wearing under the prom that's on Thursday or what college they finally have decided on Dr Hibbs at the August 22nd board meeting you told the community to trust the administrators because they were educated and had their doctorates to the community and the board I believe that it is time that you trust the educated teachers who work side by side with your children every single day because it is our belief that every child deserves a champion I just want to make one clarification um Mr YY I was not mocking you it was not my intent to mock you when I got up where to mock any speaker I got up and walked out because what I perceived as a blatant disregard for our board policy on the time commitment as well as the speaking order um and the lack of willing us to enforce that policy that's why I got up I appreciate that Mr Serrano followed the policy and made a motion for the full board to amend that policy for the night um and I didn't agree with it but I follow that and support it but in no way that I mean to mock you in any [Music] way oh I I don't wear a watch that just telling you don't wear a watch all right uh Jennifer wait one sec hi Mr MC I want to address just a few things um I'd love to have a sit down conversation with you as well um so going going backwards in in you know in poking fun at at personalized learning you know the use of data and small group instruction and digital tools and students at learning goals I'm really sure you weren't putting down um because honestly I would hope no teacher in our district would ever make fun at those four things um do I believe that kids are percentages or numbers absolutely not but you know and in relationships are so essential for you know there's a great expression you must reach them to teach them and that there's there's there's no measure on how important that is it is so important to reach our kids but it is also important to have the other piece of it as well because quantifiable or qualitative measures they're not quantifiable so you know when you're looking at 5. mta1 which I think that standard is the one that you're referring to you know what we learned in that moment was that 40% of our kids didn't understand that equivalency and I'll I'll explain why so that you understand it we we realized that enVision Math in fourth grade taught taught students a a certain way that they got that that problem wrong the year before and that when what they were doing was they were actually adding a zero onto a decimal and they were thinking it got exponentially bigger and because we had that data point we went back and we not only revised our our our curriculum we revised our units of study we taught our teachers and our math facilitators how to teach that better and then we actually put PD in across the entire District so the whole point of that was that never is just one data point one thing but the whole system is really important to having the the Deming plan du check act philosophy so um I I just want to make sure that it's definitely it's definitely not I think you said Ed educational gobl go it's it's actually total best practice I no I think I don't think so but we can go back and listen but thank you sir Ral hey Ralph I just W to U make a motion to extend the meeting past 11:00 I was going to Second all those favor discussion any discussion any discussion on that discuss is there is there a way this is I guess question for solicitor we have items that need to be voted upon there's probably about another two hours worth of cards there is there a way we can make a motion to at least a vot vote on the items that need to be passed tonight and then continue public comment uh I wouldn't recommend doing that because these public comments are tailored towards the agenda items that you're going to vote on so if the goal is to continue with both then the answer for me would be no the recommendation for me would be no we have a a motion to extend the time and a second discussion discussion just a roll call ex Mrs bloom sorry oh I thought I was starting yes Mrs Bloom yes Miss Chella yes Miss Deo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Tomac yes M Baker yes Mr Ross Yes okay Jennifer Wells I'm short good evening everyone um bear with me I was not intending to to speak tonight and it is way past my bedtime um however as we started talking about the cuts to The English Department I feel like I need to put it into perspective for people who haven't been here as long as I have um this is my 21st year in Washington Township I have been an English teacher that entire time um at the high school I started when the school had oh Patty had the numbers yeah 3,200 students whenever I started my class sizes that year we're around 27 28 right um when I tell you that it's hard to be a good English teacher with 27 or 28 students I'm not saying that as as a guess I can tell you it is very hard it is it is almost impossible um I have been doing this for a long time because I love it there are times when I wish that I'd been really interested in something else right there are times when I I wished that I had chosen a different path that would allow me more time for my family for my husband for my other interests in my life and I choose to give that time to my students to give them all of me while I in this building to help them to learn not standards yes standards inform what I do they are not the core of who I am as a teacher and they are not the only thing that that I am responsible for in my classroom I know the standards inside out I don't need to look at the document anymore I've been doing this for a long time and the English standards quite frankly while they've changed slightly over that time they haven't changed significantly because what we do is fundamental to all areas of Education all areas of Education I 100% agree that all these other subject areas are extremely important it was a science teacher who kept my middle school child on track when her friends decided not to be her friends anymore it was a math it was actually an accounting teacher that helped my oldest child graduate from high school but all of those subject areas cannot be supported if kids can't read and write we cannot have success in even math without that Foundation of reading my youngest child while she was learning to read struggled immensely I'm pretty sure she's dyslexic she has always understood numbers but she couldn't do math until she figured out how to read Because in in younger grades we know how many words you need to have to be able to express that concept and we need to be understanding that we as a department are not just teaching them English we are teaching them the foundations that they need for anything they choose to do this is the conversation I have with my students when you're learning how to look at a document analyze the rhetorical choices that writers are making that isn't just about some score I'm going to give you want an assessment that's about you becoming an active participant in the community in the world around you it's about understanding when people are using rhetorical tactics maybe a little logical fallacy in order to convince us that something that's fundamentally not true is true we are important and I can tell you that there is no way way that I can be as effective as I have been and I have been extremely effective if you continue to pack my classes with more kids than I can talk to because my job isn't just grading their papers you can force me to do that outside of class time I'll have to find creative ways to be able to live a life but that's not what's best for kids the most most effective thing that happens in my classroom and you can ask Eddie about this most effective thing that happens in my classroom is conferences with kids how am I supposed to conference with 27 or 28 kids in a high school classroom when I see them three days out of four I can tell you right now my AP classes this year are already larger than they should be one of them started out at 23 it takes me an entire cycle to conference on one essay one essay but I won't give that up because that is how kids learn best I know that from 21 years of experience writing comments on a paper that's not how kids learn the more kids you give English teachers the lower those state test scores are going to be and the lower their achievement is going to be across the board please reconsider especially at the secondary level this is goes this goes back so long when we cut the time of instruction at the middle level for ELA that had a humongous impact on the way that kids are prepared at the high school level we don't have the same fundamental understanding of how to craft and structure writing as many other districts because we're the only District I know of that has that Little Instruction at the middle school level but we're supposed to make miracles happen and quite frankly we're all tired already and I don't know what this is going to look like if those numbers hold true four positions at the high school level 15 teachers for four grade levels think about what that means think about what it means for your kids thank you Christian hail Isle do you mind I think we have a student that put in a card if you don't mind just putting the student looks like this at at the Forefront no I don't I don't know if he's a student we also have another student I know name Emily westenberger I believe she put in a card I'm sure it would be good if we could move any student up to the front of the line please sorry to call you out Emily but I see you sitting there hi uh my name is Christian uh I actually just graduated so I'm an adult now um I didn't plan to speak tonight at all um actually i' first like to start to mention Miss Wells she was my junior year English teacher everything she's saying word for word is true she made me a better person from the time I walked out that class so I I did graduate last year um I'm now at a student at Ohio State and uh you have managed to cut everything I ever participated in somehow so this is why I'm speaking tonight um but the fences and the banners outside look really really nice um so I'm going to with music real quick so um I'm actually an engineering student so you're like why on Earth is he talking about music um music is probably the biggest role anything has ever played in my life ever um just for reference here at Washington Township I was a member of the Wind Ensemble jazz band marching band Symphony Orchestra and I was the vice president of trium um I also had all state honors and bands and I actually didn't teach myself the saxophone believe it or not um Mr Spencer back there uh Miss Maxwell was my first ever music teacher they're all here um they're all incredible people and just along that list Dr buang in Elementary School uh and Mr TC in Middle School uh they all helped me along the way and if I had one of them running around constantly trying to manage all these students I don't think I would have ever stayed in music and I don't think my life would ever been the same now the reason I come back to speak at the post-secondary level about music is that it influences you in every part of your life I still continue with music to this day I am involved with the Ohio State marching and athletic bands formerly known as the best am band in the land um that would never have happened with such a low level of um Staffing to the music department and I don't see like Mr Spencer back there I worry he's going to have a heart attack like every day this man does like five people's jobs already and I don't understand how it's going to work um anyways I rest my case on music um the last time I was in front of the Board of Ed I was actually speaking fluent German um uh I was recognized for achieving my state seal of Biol literacy so I'm recognized by the government for being um literate in German um now what this education department has provided me in World Language um I was actually recognized on a national level for speaking German I was in the top 10% of German speakers nationally um and I can only credit to that to the three people that have four people that have actually influenced me in this department um I started speaking German in fifth grade um not only just as like a requirement but because my family stems from Germany so I wanted to learn more about myself um I I learned so much from her mosy fra Graham FR brocker and even your principal at the high school har Anderson have helped me along this way and to speak on how this has impacted My Life um the last time I was in front of the border of Ed I said this sentence in German is which means I learn more than a language here I learned a culture and I learned a different life and I have become a better person become of this language department and I can't stand to see it get cut the way going to be um I'm going to keep going because so much stuff is getting cut um technology um so I study aerospace engineering so I happen to be at the Forefront of technology and education that's kind of just what I do now um I have never used Google ever uh all I use is Microsoft to be honest with you um that's the only thing we use at a lot of the big institutions um if I had been educated on a Chromebook I would probably be so lost right now um not to mention if I had never had computer class when I was in school uh I I mean could you imagine like I had to develop an entire video game last semester if I had no idea how to send an email I think I'd be so lost um anyways that's all I have to say about technology um I'm going to talk about support staff and you're like oh my God how can this kid talk about support staff um I'm sure you've heard the name Sherry H in the past few weeks um that's my mom she is a fantastic teacher um what this has done is devastating to support staff my mom loves her job so much and I'm sure you're going to hear that all the time like oh my God all the teachers love their jobs I worry sometimes that she loves her kids at school more than me and so here her panic and to hear her nearly break down in tears every day after school cuz she doesn't know if she's going to be with her special needs kids the next year is absolutely heartbreaking coming back from college to see that um and I just need you to understand the role that she plays in these kids' lives and that the other people she works with playing these kids' lives she goes to their sports games on Saturdays who the hell does that um so to kind of wrap things up um I was only going to speak after I heard a comment that this is supposed to like somehow maintain a high quality of achievement um I don't see how that's going to happen if you cut the roots of everything that's making this high quality thank you Emily westenberger all right hi my name is Emily westenberger I mean as we are now all aware of I'm I'm a student here I'm a senior um you may or may not know me but I am one of the top five students in the class of 2024 but I say that not as a brag for myself but as an acknowledgement that I am in the this position in very large part because of my teachers it is it's very easy for me to just say oh whatever what's here is here I'm going to be gone next year but I care about the future of the students and teachers here beyond my involvement like I I'm a student I have projects to do I have quizzes to study for but I stayed and I wouldn't have stayed if I didn't care now I do want to begin with this I don't envy your position I would not want to be there and none of what I say is meant to be in any disrespect towards any of you however I really hope that you do value the words of the staff and Stu sorry students speaking because we are the ones living it uh sure you celebrate our successes but do you understand the day-to-day what really affects us on our journey to where we are it's necessary to see the struggle to fully and authentically appreciate the rewards I'd like to briefly speak from the musicians perspective and on behalf of the staff within the music program I am in six different music programs in this school six of them this year I'm enrolled in the band The Orchestra and the chorus as academic classes we we as a district provide ourselves in being one of the best music education schools in the state it is stated in almost every single program from the at least 16 concerts I've performed here this program has produced magnificent musicians who have received countless awards for their work we have a wonderful plan for Performing Arts Academy if we pride ourselves in our music program how do you expect to continue these accolades when the students foundations are being removed this music program and the staff within it have very literally saved my life but I'll spare you the S story because it's very late uh my love of music and the support these teachers have given me are the reason I'm standing here today I would hate to see a new generation of students who do not have this Foundation uh struggle to find an outlet for the struggles in their lives I'm not sure if you've noticed but your music teachers and quite frankly every one of your teachers serve roles far beyond their job description almost every single teacher I have had wants nothing more than their students to succeed and will bend over backwards to support every student they have the proposed solution to the issue of Staff Cuts will very quickly spread teachers extremely thin most of the teachers are already working past what they're paid for on paper for the students they are already spread thin if the priority is our education the education of the students bending the staff until they break is the opposite of what we need I I unfortunately cannot say I'm proud to be a product of this District but I sure am proud to be a product of the teachers and staff who helped me to get where I am today I implore you to think about what happens behind the scenes behind the statistics I'd like you to remember I speak as a student one of the people that should be supported by this District you absolutely cannot put a price tag on a valuable education thank you Carolyn Avis Carolyn Avis no okay James Joe good evening I was not prepared to speak tonight until uh about halfway through this presentation and quite frankly I'm a little bit puzzled or appalled we heard our board say I don't understand I don't know the numbers your own numbers I heard heard the board say you have your numbers we have our numbers last I checked numbers are numbers two is two right they're not different anywhere else and I think most importantly we're missing a fundamental Point here and that is it's not about the jobs it's about the people in those jobs we have have many of our support staff brothers and sisters here tonight and I can tell you I can't do their job I could tell you right now that you can't take somebody who is in the nurse's office and put them on the playground and expect the same result I have been in fact next month will be the end of my 20th year in this District I've been a teacher I've been asked to be a part-time guidance counselor part-time custodian part-time nurse part-time Tech Guy soon to be part-time computer teacher apparently part-time Hall Monitor and during covid we were Health Care Professionals well now my question is whose responsibility is it going to be to manage the shortfall from when these support staff members are cut is it going to be my responsibility so we can add part-time support staff member to the list of Duties that us teachers have already and I will tell you right now in my building I get often made fun of in the most loving way by the way because I'm the yes guy right I never say no people ask me to Jim why don't you give up your summer to write curriculum for two grade levels by the way sure I'll do it for $2 an hour I did a calculation I'm the yes guy right but I will tell you right now if you ask me to be parttime support staff member I'm going to say no it is too the burden on the on the staff members here in this town ship is too great as it is you can't expect us to do more and sure most of us will probably still do more but that is an expectation that is unrealistic and quite frankly disheartening to ask one of my colleagues stood up here and said that we are once again here begging for your mercy I'm not begging I don't think we should have to beg I don't think any of them should have to beg I think we are all here for a singular purpose it is not fair to us we deserve better and quite frankly our children deserve better I I was going to say implore but that implies begging I ask you all to think about your vote tonight thank you Jackie Williams hi I'm Jackie Tiger Williams I teach fourth grade at heril um the first thing I wanted to speak about was uh just a response to like teachers um passing on rumors for regarding programming Cuts job cuts um and I think that we are in a position where we might be as a district creating that on our own um and specifically what I mean by that is I was in the faculty room a week ago and I heard like oh there's three new Elementary Health positions posted and I said wait what we're we're in the middle of cuts what do you what do you mean and it was someone saying oh it's it's something about specials all right and then later maybe the next day oh the the computer teachers heard that they're not computer teachers anymore and I said wait what um and my next logical question was oh no who's teaching the computer stuff because I know the likely answer is it's me um and you know I'm like 140 days into trying to teach the kids to just hit the tab button once to indent a paragraph and it is a journey and since the pandemic of taking on so much Tech issue stuff and now knowing we are sliding into Google Classroom I am one of the people very excited for my kids to get Chromebooks um my own personal children have never had to put in a tech ticket for their Chromebook in the many years they've had one um but that does bring on teaching them new things let alone teach you know potentially teaching all of the old things that the computer teacher was teaching them so I'm worried that you know when we're saying like oh no rumors are we perpetuating that ourselves when we are posting job positions without explanation or then telling someone else like hey your job is cut but we don't tell the other people that are being impacted by that cut um that is difficult and I think it's creating its own cycle um I actually came up to speak about something else though and that was uh first a question how many support staff are being cut from or had their hours reduced or are being transferred from ele buildings um and the reason I'm asking is because last month I I had just one of those eye openening moments I had a small window of time my classroom was being used by another teacher so I was doing some of my preparing in the hallway um and in that moment another teacher was about 15 ft down and she was working with a small group providing supports in the hallway and she was doing a great job you know I E drop she was crushing it and then I a behavior started coming up one of the kids started getting disregulated and she was pulling out all her moves I was like man she's really good at this and it just it that day it wasn't working um and so I'm watching and at the same time that she is trying to give the modifications to the multiple kids who need it she's also trying to manage the child who she's pulled out all her go-to moves and that child is still getting more and more disregulated and what she needed in that moment was another human and luckily in that moment I was available and was able to go like hey I can I can get one like here and we were able to just tag team it take care of it um but for me it was a moment I was like how do we get here like cuz 10 years ago I didn't feel like that was such a normal part of our day where we're like why are like why is it such a normal part of our day now that kids are getting really disregulated um that same day about 10 minutes later I snuck into the art room I needed to use the giant paper cutter she was teaching and this is 10 minutes later there's another student pretty disregulated they're disrupting instruction and she you know handled it in like a positive neutral way and it popped right back up and she couldn't get her instruction done you know to get the kids started on their right project and unfortunately what I thought in that moment is she needs another human and I couldn't be the other human because I had to get back to my class at that point um so I think the thing I keep thinking about it was another like how did we get here and I think people might be going well maybe this is just a hurtful problem right we we house our ER programs but it's not because the students I'm referring to they're not students that are receiving program for emotional disregulation and a lot of them aren't even receiving special services at all and Dr Hibbs uh two meetings ago I was at you had noted that we have more Behavior struggles than ever especially since the pandemic um for me that day really stood out like how did we get here like what is going on with behaviors um and often when all of the teachers go-to moves aren't working with the behavior challenge what's most needed is another human um and so what's really standing out to me is why are we cutting humans when right now what we need is More Humans James Joe thank you okay Lori beur BST Lori it was a a duplicate from James J she before I begin I wanted to say that Washington Township teachers are aware of monumental changes coming in the new school year such as moving from Power school to Genesis and for Microsoft to Google which will result in a new email system a new word processing system a new virtual meeting system and new digal digital presentations additionally we are moving from the Marzano teacher evaluation system to the Danielson evaluation system thus far we have had one Google day training as far as staff is currently aware there is no summer PD planned in these programs at least is what we currently are aware of based on conversations with leaders in buildings and leaders of departments when we experienced catastrophic budget cuts for the 2010-11 school year there was specific communication shared with staff that spring when we implemented the achiev NJ teacher evaluation plans there was communication and training was implemented so staff was prepared my name is Lorie BS and I'm honored to be a member of the Chestnut Ridge Middle School staff I am a proud Razorback some of you are parents or grandparents of proud Razorbacks this is my 18th year teaching in Washington Township and my 25th year as a teacher I am fortunate to have served as a Chestnut Ridge Middle School teacher of the year a Washington Township teacher of the year and as a Gloucester County teacher of the year I could not have received that honor if it wasn't for the colleagues I work with in my building the students I teach the Ames that raise those kids and the programs that we offer in this District the past few months have been a difficult time for the Washington Township community it seems like a crisis has been created in our district that is hard to explain because our district hasn't actually lost State funding this school year I hear about contract costs health care costs Transportation costs and out of District tuition being the cause of a cut of 100 staff members that is hard to believe because I live in a district that actually has lost State funding and they aren't trying to implement these types of cuts the district is fully aware of contract costs for several years in the future because of negotiations and should be planning ahead for increased Health costs out of District tuition and transportation if these four issues were creating the quote unquote budget constraints reported in our district I would think that districts across the state would be experiencing this type of budget crisis because these four issues are routine issues that districts experience during tonight's meeting and in previous Board of Education meetings we have heard about how our student numbers are decreasing and our student numbers are increasing I'm sorry our student numbers are decreasing and our staff numbers are increasing I'm not sure where those additional staff are being hired because when I compare the staff numbers in the 20062 2007 Chestnut Ridge Middle School yearbook for the year I arrived at Chestnut Ridge and those same numbers for the 2223 school year book I saw staff decreases of more than 20 teaching and Aid positions and I saw less support staff positions and less administrators meeting the needs of our students your staff is working harder every single year to take care of our children short examples we went from two Vice principls to one vice principal we went to five Bane office support people to three we used to have seven cafeteria workers we have five we have less maintenance crew at night and yet all of the work is still being done anyone can view these yearbooks to see the changes fors to many community members this budgetary crisis presents as a false flag scenario the quote unquote crisis is being blamed on staff salary and health benefits but these are negotiated by the Board of Education a comment was made during a previous budget presentation to the board and again tonight regarding increased costs involving substitute coverage because staff is using their negotiated sick or personal days the state of New Jersey recognized this year that health and wellness involves more than just days when a staff member is struggling with the stomach virus or a chest infection the state of New Jersey now recognizes that health and wellness also includes preventative care along with Medical Care responding to an illness for both a staff member and possibly members of their family please refrain from citing staff's use of their negotiated benefit as a correlation to an attempt to cut 100 staff positions in recent years many citizens across our country have worried that their leaders aren't making decisions that best meet the needs of their Community this reminds me of the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls the curtain back revealing The Wizard of Oz is simply a man standing behind a curtain operating a machine my observation is that there has been a lack of transparency in this process in fact fact the process has been opaque the original budget presentation didn't mention any specific numbers of Staff Cuts or program Cuts as far as I can tell there has been no announcement of what cuts have been made instead staff have had to share planed Cuts with each other after letters were received and some conversations with administrators took place can you please publicly share a list of the positions that you have planned to cut so the Washington Township community can be made fully aware this shouldn't be a mystery to Residents and staff the information should be accessible on the wtps website for everyone to review I have specific questions regarding council's advice I have noticed the pattern at the meeting previous and this evening regarding council's advice it seems to be the reason to cover the action of the district for example we have been told Council advised non-renewal letters being distributed instead of reduction of force letters the council has advised the Boe not to meet with the representatives of the njaa as a whole group at the last meeting the council advised Boe members that motions some members made could result in ethics violations or ethics investigations can you please explain these three pieces of advice from Council it is it is a concern that quote unquote on the advice of council seems like a shield to deflect questions in closing I thank all of tonight's attendees for being here I thank the members of our Washington Township Board of Education for volunteering their time in the service of our community I invite members of the staff at the Eileen Abbott Central administration building and members of the Washington Township Board of Education to come out to our schools during the day interact with students interact with teachers interact with support staff Board of Education members please visit the schools especially the ones you may not have been able to previously visit or that you maybe didn't have a prior personal connection to additionally I invite the administrative staff to collaborate with our teaching and support staff so that we can leverage our combined skill set and experience as Educators to strategize and make decisions that are in the best interest of our [Applause] students Tina [Music] Hau good evening we have a couple people left and I just want to say I would really like the board I'd respectfully request that you table item 40 and the other thing I wanted to say because it's way past my bedtime uh the Chinese word for crisis it starts with CR I that means danger if you take the d off it has anger I hear a lot of emotions tonight and that saddens me but I have great hope and confidence in everybody and the other side is sis and it means opportunity and that's let's make this right tonight thank you Cy Maxwell uh my name is Candy maxw the band director over at Bunker Hill Middle School I have been working as a music educator for 30 years and 23 and a half of those years have been spent here in Washington Township um I wasn't going to speak tonight because you know the support staff it's it's a much bigger entity but my job and what I do is just as important so I made the decision that I needed to come up tonight and be heard um when I made the decision to become a music teacher I did that because it's the one thing in my life that saved me and I felt if I become a music educator maybe I can be that person that can save kids through music um I have been a wreck for about two weeks now wondering waiting to find out what's going to happen to the instrumental programs when we found out that our instrumental band teacher was non-renewed not for any fault of her own just non-renewed because of budget cuts I knew immediately that meant something's going on with our elementary band and string programs we're being told by Dr nethan and Dr Hibbs programs aren't being cut how are we going to sustain an elementary band and instrumental program in six elementary schools with four band directors and four string teachers I don't know how we're physically going to be able to do it and we also have rumors going around that the Chestnut Ridge string teacher position is not going to be filled next year now we're down to two Middle School String Teachers we don't know what's going on at Orchard Valley yet because we have one of our colleagues a very dear colleague who's out on medical leave right now we're all hoping that he's going to be well and be able to come back in September but we don't know yet how do you expect us to run around like we're complete crazy nuts keep our Middle School band programs going and go down to the elementary schools and recruit kids to keep an entire band program going it's not feasible it's not possible how do I know this because I was running back and forth between Bunker Hill and Orchard Valley from January until February until we were able to find a qualified sub to fill in for the Orchard Valley band director and finish the year out because we had someone when that person first went out on his medical leave who was qualified but we weren't willing to pay the person enough money to keep them so that person made the decision not to come back as a sub so then we were without someone again so Mr Spencer our high school band director was running down to Orchard Valley when he could get down and to run some classes I was running over to Orchard Valley every day 7eventh period running seventh period band and running back to Bunker Hill to get back there in time to teach music appreciation class 8th period now I know that there's ways that you can finagle the schedule to make it work so that we could possibly make it work where I teach at Bunker Hill and then run down to Whitman and Birches and do that but I don't know how I'm physically am going to be able to do that my kids at Bunker Hill need me up there if I'm EET in lunch they come down during their study H times to practice because they want help and they need assistance for me because they're struggling with their music and I give my lunch up for these kids because they care about the program when I was hired to become a teacher in Washington Township this band program string program entire music program was huge when I graduated from college some of my colleagues that I work with now I graduated with them from Rowan when they got the job in Washington Township everybody was like well you must be a really good music teacher because Washington Township only hires top-notch music teachers because it's the premier district and it's the best music program in South Jersey when I got the job here I was so proud that I was a music teacher in Washington Township and then in 2012 you loed us off at the knees you cut our program and we lost we had used to have two band directors two string teachers in the elementary school and a part-time band director because there's six elementary schools that we' that we have with kids and then you cut it and then you had one band director one string teacher and a part Time band and string teacher who was also running to the kindergarten building at the time when grenlock was just kindergarten running around trying to keep the programs going that's when the numbers started going down they started going down because people were exhausted they were only in one building at a time when I first got here the band director was in only went to three buildings so she was able to form a relationship with those kids if you make if these rumors are true and I know Dr Nathan you've said you you guys have plans I understand my supervisor is probably involved in these plans but if you if one of those decisions is the rumor that I'm hearing is true and you're going to make us travel I will not be able to form a bond with the kids at Bunker Hill to keep them in the program to make sure that they join in the high school and we will ultimately lose numbers even more than we already have you need to walk in my shoes for a day for a week and see how much I put into that program at Bunker Hill I've only been there 5 years when I got there there were 35 kids total in that program I'm up to 70 next year I'm going to have 80 in that program how am I going to run an 80 piece ban program half a day and then run down to an elementary school or maybe a middle school school I don't know where you're planning on putting me I don't know this music program used to have 200 kids on the marching band field 200 kids marching on that field it was huge and where are we today and you still have music teachers that are extremely passionate about this program and I'm 54 years old I went through a very long battle with cancer I still have it I came to work every single day those kids at Bunker Hill saved me they helped me get through all my treatments I will always have this cancer that I have it will never go away it it's just I have to live with it and I've learned to live with it my kids know it I just don't know how I'm going to be able to have the kind of relationship that I have with these kids now to keep them motivated to keep them in the program so that that Mr Spencer can have quality musicians up at the high school you would never put a brand new kid playing football on the football field playing starting quarterback if he's never played football before you just can't do it the kids need the skills down in the elementary schools and by the way the parents they do pay to play an instrument because they rent those instruments they buy those instruments those parents support those kids to play the instruments and who do the in who do the administrators come to them when they want something nice for Veterans Day programs or other things that may happen in the schools they come to the music teachers they come to us when 911 hit I was down at Whitman because I taught down there for about 13 uh I taught down there for a while until 2019 when I was moved up to bucker Hill in my dream job by the way cu band is all I've ever wanted to do I talked down at Whitman and the principal came to me and he said we need to put together a veteran St program for our vets because after what happened with 9/11 we need to show people that we appreciate them for their sacrifices I was one of the people that spearheaded that program and it continued all the way until covid hit you come to us when you want something nice and special how are you going to I don't understand how you're going to expect us to be able to keep this program going if you keep cutting us I don't know how you're going to do it and by the way our ml band teacher that you did not renew she's a product of the school district she spoke last week I gave her private lessons in high school she is an incredibly talented musician and band director and she deserves to keep that job um I really hope that you listen to what I've said today I I hope you understand we help make kids well rounded you heard Christian H speak the kid was involved in everything and he's now at Ohio State marching in their athletic band hoping to one day dot the eye on that field and if any kid is going to dot that eye it's going to be Christian H from Washington Township Public Schools and his mother will have that all over Facebook we have five high school students that are graduating from the high school that are all majoring in music in some form five now I know you may not think that's a lot but I got to tell you I think that's enormous five seniors graduating and they're going to major in music all because of their music teachers from the bottom up not just Mr Spencer not just miss sebastiani and not our Coral director at the high school it's because we all influence them in some way so I beg you to please stop cutting music you do it at I was hoping I thought for sure we were safe you cut us all ready we're down to the Bare Bones boom found out we're losing staff um so hopefully if anybody would like to talk to me more maybe later I'd be more than willing to talk to a board member talk to you Dr hibs talk to you Dr Nathan whatever you'd like to do I don't want to be in your seat I know what you the decisions that you're making are difficult I you hear what everybody is saying but I am so passionate about music music and so passionate about music education I would not be the person that I am today if it weren't for me being in a band room when I was in high school I would have been a lost soul I don't know where I would be and I'm so proud that I am here in this Township teaching these children I'm safe I don't have to worry I've been here a long time but I'm very very worried about this music program I'm very worried about the band program I'm very worried about the string program and I was hoping that before I retire I don't know when that's going to be I don't know if my cancer is going to wreak its ugly head back up again and I'm going to have to make a decision to retire earlier than I want to but I was hoping that I would be able to finally make a change in the Band program and now I feel like you just you just made it so I can't you just made it so I can't so I really really hope that you'll reconsider at least the instrumental program down in the elementary school and remember these parents pay for their kids instruments the parents want them involved you're not paying for their instruments the parents are you just need to let us teach them thank you okay can I have a motion to close to the public there's another call up he he a card he got lost he he no he called him he never came up well he gave another card to he's right there so just call that name say Raymond Ross she said it was you called him before but W yeah Raymond w Raymond w all right well I'll make this short and sweet so we can move on with the rest of our night so good evening so my name is Raymond was I'm a proud alumni of Washington Township class of 2016 but I am also known as Mr was at Bunker Hill Middle School through the students the staff The Faculty um during my time as a building sub I'm still doing it until the end of the year um what I've done is I was a bathroom monitor um where I make sure that we have proper passes going through it our systems to securely pass um making sure they're going back to their classrooms um checking if there was any damage done within the bathrooms luckily there's not been tremendous damage or anything and stuff like that thank god um being a cafeteria assistant uh making sure that students don't steal their food making sure they're paying for everything um safe when they're outside for seventh grade lunch um making sure that we're listening ear for them when they need help and everything that needs to be done for them to be successful and need a listening ear wherever it needs to be being a librarian making sure that we check out books make sure they're continuing continuing without struggle to make sure they're able to get the books they need but also continue to read new books as well that come in um being a one-on-one Aid as well and helping individuals have success in their classrooms and so much more and providing a different instruction for them to make sure they're successful to understand the material um be able to advocate for them but also teach them how to self- advocate for themselves um but also being a numerous amount of teachers throughout the different days when they have IEP meetings or whatever it may be so like I practically as a building sub go and do everything and anything throughout the school at Washington Township in bir's um middle um buger Hill Middle School and like M with the list I have mention has shown that we are cutting astronomical roles that are really vital to not just Bunker Hill but all the middle schools and we're going to need them to be hired and still be existing for the upcoming school year if we don't we are cutting our legs off we are cutting our legs off it's really bad looking at it through the insights out it is really bad our diverse amount of teachers and students and so much more are going to be highly affected and we're going to have teachers do take on more responsibilities than they have to when we have these people for a reason in these roles and stuff and I am very very scared to see of how we would are going to manage that but I also I'm Appling and wanting to see every single board member to go to a middle school or a high school or somewhere to see the product of why we have these positions in place and why we're not we shouldn't get rid of them they're really vital and actually serving in those roles during my time as a building sub have showed me that they play a valuable asset of how the schools should function and run and if we get rid of them it's not going to be on the fault of these people here is going to be the fault of all of you voting for something awful to make these changes but besides my point um I'm a proud Alum of the school district I'm a long life resident of this town I am have no confidence now in your ability to run our school district but also our board of education but also seeing within the last several board meetings and everything else and how we're running our meetings is really awful and I am just really saddened by that um unfortunately and and as I said prior to our meeting we are a democracy within our town and so much more and how we vote and everything and we're a community and a family here and if we have to and I said this before if we have to we will be voting you guys off one by one if we have to but I know you guys do really excellent work and try your very best but at this point in time in the seeing everything that's happening it will come down to a point where we remember your votes we remember everything you do and the your actions and your votes that you do will cost so much more and not just the votes of us but getting rid of you even quicker than you think thank [Applause] you who's this I don't know yes Jerry you have a card although I did not submit a card I feel totally um obligated and I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge first and foremost our appreciation for the board and their willingness to meet with nja and try to work things out but more importantly if I sound a little bit emotional tonight or this morning uh we recently lost two very very good friends two family members to this district and I would like to acknowledge them Mr Jim Jorgenson as well as Mr Jerry huckle both fine Great Men who did so much for this district and I think it's um important that we acknowledge them perhaps with a moment of silence if you don't mind everybody and I thank you for indulging me a you had a you want to speak sure we got we got time thanks I just have a quick question before you take a vote um if what and and I'm not a teacher I'm not educator I don't know anything about any of this if what this gentleman presented and this is true that these numbers are different than your numbers what happens next um that's a pretty big like oops that something was overlooked so technically if that comes out to be proven true what happens next money to spend that that's it that's all that happened well then the minut the administration would get together and decide where that money is going to be allocated and what about all the people over well I'm sure that would that would be taken into consideration I mean you have to have faith in our administrators that they're going to do the right thing okay thank okay have a motion to close to the public so move second all those in favor opposed okay let's see report of the superintendent ask for a motion for items number one and two moved second roll call or discussion roll call Mr Chella yes Mr de Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serano yes Mr Tomac yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Mr Ross Yes instructural Affairs a motion to approve instructional Affairs items number one and two so moved second discussion roll call Miss to Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Tomac yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes M chill yes yes it's okay all right no problem policy uh nothing at this time student activities communication items number motion for items number one and two so moved second discussion roll call Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Tomac yes M speaker yes M bloom yes Miss Chilla yes Mr de Mayo yes Mr Ross Yes Human Resources a motion to approve items number 1 to 31 so moved second discussion have one of retirement to recognize uh Emily piskin elementary teacher 27 years of service so thank you for your service [Applause] Emily roll call yeah Ral Ralph I have I'd like to say something yeah go ahead okay um going back to when we had the budget I voted no for the budget the budget comes to us with a recommendation and um I'm really struggling with number 31 and the reason why I'm struggling is I kind of did a little exercise prior to coming here I went back last year and I looked at the um the list of people that were um being renewed for the F for this year and I looked at this year's list and I saw a lot of changes okay where people's hours were cut where people were in different categories and I am really struggling struggling from the beginning knowing that uh we have assistants that have worked here and they actually are vested in the pension and they lost hours and they lost their their benefit and these are people who have been very dedicated and working very hard uh also during the course of this week I've received information about the concern about the health assistance the clerical assistance with the guidance and I'm really struggling with this number 31 I almost feel like going back and trying again to do an amendment where I I wasn't able to last last week and yet it was definitely appropriate what I did in terms of of of Robert's rules um there's a this number 31 is a recommendation and you can't change the recommendation you can only vote on the recommendation yet there are people on that recommendation that are concerned about their jobs and they want know that they have a job the struggle I have is there that that within that group there's concerns about people whose jobs were changed benefits lost and um hours cut so the struggle is how do you vote and the only hope I have and I'm glad it worked out that we're going to get together with the with your representatives from NJ a and we're going to look and see if there's any money that we could use to restore some of these things of course the other alternative is that the legislature has provided us the one Avenue where we could get some money is through raising taxes so I'm going to I'm going to my vote is because I want the people to know that are being recommended that to put their worries aside and they have a job and my hope is that when we meet with the representatives your representatives from nja and we sit down and talk and if there's some money that we're going to we're going to make the adjustments we need to make so I just felt it was important to share with you my feelings about this uh you know if I could run out and not vote I would love to do that um I would love to make a motion uh to restore everybody and I don't know if that support's going to be there or if that even is a good thing to do I think we have a little door open right now and we're going to have to sit down and really look at the numbers and see what we can do unless one one of my other fellow board members want to make a motion but other than that I just needed to explain to you where I'm coming from thank you any other discuss question I'm uh just so CL I'm on the same page as Connie I know um a major sticking point for us was the the idea of um cutting people's time so that they don't qualify for benefits and all that's that's something that doesn't sit well with any of us up here and um with the new options that we have between what the njaa has presented with us now we're going to have to sit down with them um and then you know nobody likes the idea of raising taxes um so hopefully we can flush out something from um what the NGA brought forth and I we can find the money in that but I know I can't speak for the board but for me personally um that's a priority for me is to make sure we get everybody there so yeah and I I think I think too just to make another comment you need to understand that there's only one person that can change your recommendation and that's the superintendent I can't make him change the his recommendation I can only vote on the recommendation and it's really really something that we've been struggling with for a long time and I want I want to thank everybody for coming out for the last three meetings and people talking to us it it for me it has been very very helpful I mean I I did that I I was in the schools I know but to just hear the people come out and speak from the heart and really really try to express to us that and the numbers of people that have come out it's very concerning very very concerning to me as you're representative the morale of this district is very important I remember back when my daughter had a babysitter I used to give her good money top money because I felt I wanted her to be happy I wanted her to do do the extra mile because she feels appreciated I'm really really concerned and I I like I like the person who said you know we need a human I think the more our kids could be in contact with positive adults adults that care about them and are going to going to reach them in a lot of different ways is so very important we cannot cut off the relationships that people have with our kids that are helping them grow so anyway I wanted to say that thanks any other discussion I just want to say that I agree with them and I know I took a hit tonight but when I ran for the board board first of all I'm 70 years old I'm not here thinking about being reelected in 3 years I could be dead in 3 years or unhealthy I think I'm here for the right reasons I don't think I deserved your little cut tonight this has been one of the hardest things I've ever been and when you talk about so-called secret meetings this was what we were talking about was the support staff and the other cuts and I voted for the budget I somewhat regret it but I'm going to tell you why I voted for it at that point if you even listen to your union Representatives it was a done deal so if I had voted no you would have had false hope for maybe a few more weeks until the budget came back from the county it was either going to be the same budget or it was going to be for less money so unfortunately all that we're going through now was the next step once we got to that point and I can't go into I'm only a board member what went on behind the scenes but a lot of the things that you're talking about were things that we talked about this isn't an easy thing and I I don't know how we're going to do it but we're going to have to try and I think most of us are committed to seeing what we can do to change what we can change but as I said I I I disagree with you I think I am here for the right reasons I think I'm the kind of person that should be on this board and let me tell you I am heart sick about this I'm on double blood pressure medicine double other medicines and I haven't slept a night through can ask my family since March my family is worried about my health but I'm not giving up because I think I love our district and that is why I'm here okay roll call Mr Sano yes Mr Tomac yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom um yes but on number two I have to abstain on KH put yes to everything else Mrs Chilla yes Miss Deo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Ross Yes finance and and Facilities items number 1 to 46 a motion second discussion I have I have a question um numbers 14 through 20 those resolutions uh I have a question for Dr Hibbs uh where does that what account does that money come out of through 20 for those resolutions so that's the um professionals that are used um for special education students so um the services are budget within the different special education program budget account numbers um and they are different professionals we'll use as needed for the students okay so that's through special education correct okay thank you any other discussion um I got a a few things I'll be abstaining on and they're all related to uh conflict cause my wife to teacher okay roll call Mr Tomac uh yes to everything except for n6 initials eh and GP GP Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Mrs Chilla yes Mr de Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Ross Yes special education uh motion to approve items number one to four so moved second discussion roll call Miss Baker yes Miss Bloom yes Miss Chilla yes Miss Deo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Tomac yes Mr Ross Yes negotiations nothing at this time new business any new business Ralph just something really quickly um I just noticed probably the past few meetings that under correspondence we don't have all the correspondents listed we just don't I don't know why we're selective maybe it's a process but maybe if we could just um it doesn't have to be now I know it's late but it is important that we capture all correspondents from the public and it's on the agenda um I'm just looking at it and I know there are items missing and it may be because as board members maybe we're not forwarding it to Lori to make sure that she captures it as correspondence that's where I think maybe it is so just if every board member if we get correspondence sometimes I get correspondence unfortunately to my personal email and then you guys get it to your board email I I can't necessarily say that's correspondence but you guys have to report it so I'm just saying it as like a global comment to make sure I think it's important for the public to make sure that they see the correspondence that we received and then the subject so again if I could just you know we should all probably be really responsible I know we've gotten a lot of correspondents in the past month but just maybe we should go back and audit our email our board email and just make sure that Lori has it and report it because it's something that we vote on every meeting and I do there's just a lot of correspondents that's not here so I just wanted to make that point that it has to go to Lori where she can't capture it do we want to if Dr hibs or her copy do we all need to be foring I just don't want to overload her you know usually it's like to all of us so T typically in the correspondence usually if if Ralph is copied it would be Ralph that would say Lori please uh document this as correspondence that's typically the way it's been done so Scott I would say if raph's on the email then Raph should probably be the one that does it and then if it's one of us then obviously then we have to report it but I don't think it's going to be necessarily to your point we don't want 10 people emailing Lori but I'd rather have 10 people than zero because we have to capture it and I just feel like it's not being captured accurately yeah send it to me and I'll make sure Lori gets it thanks okay motion I got I got some stuff for new business yeah sure real quick all right so um so I went to a couple events at Bell's since our our lastest meeting here I got to go to the uh the talent show which was pretty cool um B Sport's on great great events over there so the talent show they even had a DJ there there's a young man who's a DJ it's awesome I hit the ice cream social and art show and then I want to thank coach hanlin and his staff for inviting the uh youth lacrosse team the boys team to the game the bit to uh watch the the high school team play from the sidelines it was awesome I know all of our kids really enjoyed it so uh thanks coach Anan and his staff for that that's all I got thanks D anything else motion to open to the public second I got Nicole Nicole gave me a card for her and then she left I think she asked her question she left well she said hold up public session yeah well go ahead just go to the microphone and we'll get it so sorry uh just two quick questions because this is my first inperson meeting second video meeting uh last meeting there were two I executive sessions where Council asked that the board go into close session uh my questions are our executive sessions and Clos sessions recorded I saw video notices in the agenda so I wasn't sure if that meant that those are recorded um and then at what point in time is the board's policy to review and when something's no longer necessarily need to be privileged that's then made available in those discussions are are made available to the public so that's my question two questions I guess I think you captured this state of the law as you said it once the confidentiality of the matter that the board went into executive session no longer exists the minutes from that executive session can be released but it's not videotaped I think that was your first question yeah so so I guess just and this is the last question I won't no need for back and forth um if the executive session like where um Mr Weiss asked last week that the board recommend the board go um I know there's minutes but then are there like separate minutes because my guess is that some of the minutes can be released because it's public portion but then you have the closed session so like how would a member like myself of the public know like if something from last year or if uh the statute of limitations runs out on any of these non-renewed teachers who have their right and I forget what the name is but they can like ask to be go in front of the board like when that runs out when is that advice or when is those meeting minutes released because it's like a portion of the meeting not a whole meeting if that makes sense executive session minutes are kept separate and apart from the public minutes or the audio or the video recording which I I believe these are video recorded right these I said the executive session minutes are kept separate and apart from the public minutes I mean there's no definitive answer as to when the confidentiality or the confidential nature of why the board went into executive is no longer going to exist it's a case-by case basis okay thank you I know it's it's not traditional but I want to speak real quick I just got an email that uh coach stockle got her 300th career win as our uh head coach of the minute made lacrosse program she's been the only lacrosse coach at at Town ship since its Inception in 1994 31 years of Excellence so big hand big hand okay motion to close to the public second all in favor opposed a motion to adjourn all in all in favor I oppos