e okay okay notice is hereby given of the regular meeting of the Board of Education of the town of Westfield in the county of Union New Jersey at 7 p.m. on the evening of Tuesday February 13th 20 wait February 20th 2024 in cafeteria B of Westfield High School 550 Dorian Road Westfield New Jersey the purpose of the meeting is to transact the regular business of the board and to transact any other business to come properly before the board this is to divide the General Public and to instruct that it be recorded in the minutes that in compliance with chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 entitled the open public meetings act the Westfield school board on Thursday February 8th I didn't put the new agenda so I have the old dates is that okay okay uh 2024 calls to be posted at the office of the Board of educa Education located at 302 Elm Street Westville New Jersey and delivered to the Westfield leader The Star Ledger the Westfield Library Town Clerk of Westfield tap into Westfield and patch.com a meeting notice setting forth the time date and location of this meeting and as uh for those of you who don't know the meeting was supposed to be last Tuesday but was rescheduled due to the snow day to tonight caralina can we have a roll call Sahar aiz Rob bacho here Kent Diamond here Brendan gallagan here Charles jelus here Lila morali sonel vatel here Chris Sonic meltz here and Mary wickens here you Casey can you lead us in the flag salute okay CJ do you want to start us off with announcements I think I have two here the American Scholastic press Association has awarded Westfield High School's optic Magazine first place with special Merit for its reporting during the 2022 2023 school year this category recognizes the top scoring high school and college student magazines nationally for the association's Scholastic newspaper award Awards the student run optic also was recognized in the category of most outstanding High School literary art magazine for 2023 congratulations to all of the student journalists and advisor sha McDonald and then secondarily um the New Jersey State Police cyber crimes unit will hold a parent presentation entitled protecting our youth on Monday February 26th from 7: to 8:00 p.m. in the Westfield High School cafeteria thanks thank you Casey not Casey CJ Mary I have two also members of the district faculty often are asked to present at local state and occasionally national conferences earlier this month Visual and Performing Arts supervisor Shaun Al Longo helped to organize and was a panelist on inclusive practices Arts education for all abilities during a day of professional learning co-sponsored by Arts Ed New Jersey and the New Jersey principles and supervisors Association additionally at texo in January Dr Gonzalez Chief technology officer Brian AER network manager Arvin Vidal and assistant network manager Joe Maro provided an overview of the district's visitor management system currently being piloted at McKinley next Westfield High School boys cross country and track and field coach Chris telski has received National recognition by the US track and field and cross country coaches association as a 2023 High School cross country State coach of the year one boy coach and one girls coach from all 50 states in the district of Colombia were selected based on their team's performances throughout the 2023 cross country season well done coach telki and thank you for your continued dedication to your Runners thank you Mary Kent thank you when the citizens of Bikini Bottom discover that have volcano will soon erupt and destroy their Humble Home SpongeBob and his friends must come together to save the fate of their undee world with lives hanging in the balance and all hope lost a most unexpected hero Rises up want to know who then join us on March 7th at 400 p.m. and March 8th and 9th at 700 p.m. for SpongeBob the musical at Roosevelt Intermediate School to see just how the power of optimism really can save the world tickets are available at rs. books.net additionally save the dates for the Westfield High School production of Heathers the musical on March 14th through 16th and the Edison Intermediate School production of Frozen Jr on March 21st to March 23rd with more information to come stay tuned thank you Kent uh Brendan yep the town's crossing guard company acms has openings for crossing guards in Westfield visit the community Flyers page under family and community on the district school websites to learn more thank you Brendan Kristen Westfield High School 11th grader Sophia Bassel Dua was recently featured in the emerging artists exhibit in the James how Gallery at Kane University this exhibit sponsored by the art administrators of New Jersey presents artwork produced by students who are studing studying art in high schools throughout the state the show included works from 35 different high schools that were judged by Cain University's fine arts department Sophia received recognition at the University's Awards reception thank you Kristen Rob the next regular meeting of the Board of Education will be on Tuesday March 5th in cafeteria B at Westfield High School beginning at 7 p.m. the meeting will be live streamed via the district YouTube channel which viewers can assess access sorry on the board tab on the district website the the complete agenda will be available on Friday March 1st also on the board tab okay thank you Rob at this time I'd like to turn it over to Dr grip for the 2023 24 demographic study yes all right great um so tonight's presentation is going to give you a say a 20 minute roughly summary of the uh demographic study that was performed for your school district about a month or two ago so what I'll do is I'll go through the slides that are behind you on the uh on the wall here and if we hold our questions to the end that would be great uh because I have a feeling I'll probably answer a few of them as we go so just a little bit about who we are I'll just give a brief presentation um our company has been doing this type of work since 1998 about 26 years um it's a real Niche field it's called School demography there's probably only about 100 School demographers in the country and there's there's only a couple in the state of New Jersey so I always tell students if if you're looking for a career well you have a job in the future you want to study something in mathematics statistics or demography to do something like this we've done probably about 200 plus in the districts in the state of New Jersey demographic work um we do all the enrollment Pro ctions for the New York City public schools which if you've been following the news is kind of interesting because of all the migrants that have been going into the city um so we've been working with them for since 2006 um with respect to myself my name is Richard grip I'm the executive executive director of the company um founded the company back in 1998 after I got my doctorate in educational statistics and measurement from Ruckers University U most of us wind up being something called psychometrician which is where we work for the uh college board dealing with reliability issues of testing and validity um I really wanted a practical approach I was a school teacher at the time for about 10 years down in bridgew Ren teaching um physics and statistics and my superintendent said look you know if you want to do something with your statistics degree this is what you should focus on your dissertation is this thing called School demography I never heard of it and so I uh developed a multiple regression technique to project enrollments and 26 L 26 years later here we are um so we also I I really L this field so much I still publish in peer-review journals and I testify um for an attorney and Law Firm over in Morris toown for districts who more or less get divorces from each other um usually in sending receiving agreements because in the state of New Jersey you just can't walk up uh from those types of Arrangements without looking at the different impacts for me it's the racial impact so if you take a look behind you um the purpose of tonight's study is really to project enrollments um but there's so much more to that so if you're going to be look talking about a demographic study for us tonight um we projected enrollments for a 5year period from the 2425 school year to 2829 well what else did we look at we looked at your community at a whole who you are through census data looked at things like demographic racial characteristics socio socio economic indicators birth counts fertility rates then we looked at your historical enrollments by grade configuration we grouped the Lincoln with the elementary schools to make it PK to five we looked at for that I always like to say middle schools you say intermediate schools I'll probably use an interchangeably tonight but for your intermediate schools it's 6 to 8 in high school of course 9 to 12 so we looked at the Historical enrollments for the last 10 years um for all those different gr configurations we looked at your historical birth counts birth counts are the greatest predictor of first graders for you because you have a half day K program and also kindergarten students as well but we are able to get birth data from the state of New Jersey at a very very small level called a census Block it's the smallest Geographic level that's exist in the census data and then through a program called arcgis which is what a lot of people do mapping with um we were able aggregate birs by a tendance Zone which is very interesting because then you can see which zones have the most birth over time we then collected new housing start data from contacting your planning and zoning department and then used that to modify what we call the Baseline projections we compared the projections to building capacities from your long range facility plan to see if you have surpluses of seating or inadequate seating finally we also took um your student address data from two particular time points the 2018 year and the current year to see where students live to see see if there's any changes over time so you're going to see all these dots up on a map very soon and the last thing that we did was we tried to estimate for you if you were to open up a full day K program what would that impact be how many students could you expect um in the full day K program so those are the really this the first slide just talks about everything that's in this 80 page or so report which we're really giving you excuse me the short version tonight so behind me is showing you the historical populations of the town of Westfield over time so everything to the left of that vertical line up there um from 2020 is just sensus data historically you can see that value way on the far right um that's a thirdparty organization called the north Jersey Transportation Planning Authority that's what they think Westfield's population will be in 2050 which would be north of 35,000 people right now there's about 31,000 people in the town you can see the greatest um population growth occurred in the 1950s so who are you as a community and then we'll move on to more of the interesting stuff was the school district so like many communities in the state you're you're changing demographically particularly racially and by about 2050 um the United States will probably no longer be a white majority country I think it's going to you know probably have a uh Hispanics will probably maybe it surpassed them at that point in time so that's exactly what's happening here you're seeing growth in the Hispanic and Asian populations and the declining white population about 77% of the population here is white um the median age is fairly close to that in New Jersey you can see um the foreign born population is not much compared to the state average only about 12% are foreign born compared to about 23% in the state China and Korea are the two largest sources of foreign born persons this is an incredibly Highly Educated Community more than 3/4 of the population has has a bachelor's degree or higher uh you can see the state average is about uh 42% roughly very high income median household income is about 185,000 which means that 50% of the population 50% of the households have a an income even greater than 185 and then 50% have lower than that about 11,000 housing units most of them are about 80% are single family homes so that tells me that's mostly a bedroom community about 19% a renter occupy which is much much less that of the state about half that and 810,000 is the median value of an owner occupied unit so keep the salary and the value of homes in mind as I talk about some things a little bit later on uh being of a high SCS as such as you are kind of changes who can come in to a community such as this so this is just showing a map my GIS analyst has plopped all the schools up there the next slide is sh showing all the uh the six Elementary attendance areas um I came down South Avenue so I can see that bisecting line there um so you have the two intermediate schools that's the attendance zone so you have three schools to the north three schools to the South so let's talk about your enrollments we always collect enrollments on the same day every year which is about October the 15th because that's the date that you as a collective group send your enrollment data to the state um through NJ and this current past October your enrollment is about 5,842 A5 the half is a shared time student but if we look over a 10-year period in 1415 your enrollment was 6253 so if you look at the end points you've lost more than 400 students in the district in the last 10 years which is pretty significant so you're going to see a chart in a moment that showing that decline the um but the increase you actually had increasing enroll mment up through 1617 and then enrollment started decline before stabilizing the last 2 years a lot of your decline was related to the pandemic um un just like how many of the other districts I work with very large declines you had a decline of 244 and a half students in 2020 an additional 115 students decline in 2021 um we'll talk more about that at the end of the presentation tonight and we use something called the cohort survival ratio method to project enrollments 5 years out just 5 years because if you want to project 10 then we have to start projecting kids who have not been born and that is a tricky thing particularly in a community as small as yours we do do that for New York City so there's what I'm talking about you can see it was going up a little bit for the first couple years declining through the pandemic years really those big declines and now stabilizing so now we're going to look at it from elementary middle and high over that same decade the Top Line the blue line is the elementary and these are really important to look at because if you if you think like I do you take a look at that graph and you say wow you know if things are happening such at the elementary level it's going to carry forward into the intermediate and high school level down the road so you can see up there that the elementary population declined through 2021 um before they reverse Trend so you can see the elementary population has increased in the last 2 years my opinion students returning back to the district after covid um so if you look at that 10-year period you've lost about 230 elementary students if you just look at the end points for the middle school Intermediate population uh that's going to be if my eyesight is okay I think it's the red line at the bottom and it actually increased um through the 1819 year before reversing Trend and finally the high school had very stable enrollment that's the one in Green in the middle before declining in the last two years so how do we project enrollments I want I just like to tell you what this is so you're not thinking it's just some Hocus Pocus behind the the curtain kind of thing um way we do this is we look at how many students you have from one grade level to next um over a 10-year period so I give you a really simple example up there if you have 100 first graders in the 2022 year they become 95 second graders in the 2023 year you've lost five students in the net so the ratio between grade 2 and 1 is 995 over 100 or .95 so we do these calculations for all the grade progressions and there's 13 of them by the way birth Decay is the first and it goes all the way up to 11 through 12 so if the values are above one that means you're gaining students due to inward migration now we don't know exactly what's causing them uh I'm going to tell you that I know what it is for your District I mean you're you're one of the highest highest rated school districts in the state so people know your District they want to move in here because of the quality of education but it could be for some reason proximity to jobs proximity to um transportation New York City there's a myriad of reasons that can call these inward or outward migration we just can't tease out in any of the um formulas so when we look at the 13 grade progressions seven of them in your District were above one six were below one on the average for a fiveyear average so it's not really saying you have a a clear pattern of either inward or outward migration but when I looked a little bit closer the values three of the values that were below one were at the high school level that happens sometimes in in in communities such as yours where people just want a private high school education don't take it personally that's just what they want they might have their kids here K to 8 and then go to private high school most of the inward migration was at the elementary and Intermediate School level which is what I would expect um what else can I tell you in 2020 of the surviv ratios in that one year seven of them of the 13 were the lowest value in the last decade due to the pandemic so we do our calculations we take an average of ratios from the last four five six years we excluded a lot of those ratios going forward because we don't want to under calculate enrollments going forward taking into the pandemic assuming that pandemic is done so I just want to let you know that we did isolate out those 2020 ratios so you have a phenomenon called first grade replacement everybody well you have a first grade replacement because you have half dayk but you have negative first grade replacement here happening five of the last nine years 2 and a half students to 66 students per year positive you can see is the other four years you can see the numbers up the air what is negative first grade replacement it's really just a comparison between the number of 12th graders graduating and the number of in your case first graders we want to look at because of the half dayk that are entering the district so in your case you're not getting enough um in some of the instances first graders to come in to balance out the seniors that are leaving so let me give you a simple example if you have a graduating class of 400 seniors you need 400 first graders to balance them out the next year some years you might be getting 385 so there a short fall of 15 students that's what that is it's just a comparison between the endpoints but the beautiful thing about your district is is that the numbers aren't that big some of the districts I work with have very very large um Replacements so there's not really much to be concerned with with this but I just wanted to mention what it is um you did have a change from positive to negative first grade replacement due to the smaller sizes of the first grade classes in the last couple years here's the picture that I was talking about this is just showing first grade replacement over time most of them were positive until the last couple years those negative ones um in 2020 2021 again pandemic related smaller first grade classes coming in in fact take a look at this we just mapped out the first grade replacement with respect to your enrollment change uh K to 12 from year over year and you can see there is a pretty strong correlation whatever happens in first grade replacement is typically what happens as far as your overall um enrollment change except for take a look at 2020 and 2021 there the um the enrollment change was incredibly negative as I mentioned the pandemic because you had a lot of outward migration that year so excuse me the negative kind first grade replacement was actually compounded by outward migration in those two particular years BS are key because that is going to help us forecast kindergarten students 5 years later and we looked at it for a 12-year period you actually had declining birs through the 2014 year before stabilizing key Point here is that you had a very very large birth bump in 2021 um yeah I don't think it's some people are going to joke I know it's pandemic you got nothing else to do but yeah um but you know that could be but most of the districts I work with the declining bir there was a lot of declining BS in 2020 and 2021 so they weren't getting the message but if you look at the end points and you'll see the data data in a moment there were 313 BS in 2021 if we go back to 2009 which is a period of time when you were having increasing enrollment still 23 BS um fewer or 29 fewer BS than in 2009 so you can see what I'm referring to up there basically declined through 2014 when you have 243 BS stabilized you have this big bump up in 2021 but still not bigger than what you had 12 years ago so as I mentioned um what we have to do for your particular district with the half dayk is We compare how many students come to your District 5 years later for kind kindergarten and compute what's called that survival ratio which is just the number of kindergarten students divided by the number of birds 5 years prior but we also do it with respect to first graders you can see that fourth column where it says birth to kindergarten survival ratio most of them are below one which means that a lot of parents here of the 342 birs say in 2009 a lot of those kids aren't showing up your doorstep for half dayk they're going to some private Day program somewhere else but good news they show up for kid for first grade the next year because if you take a look you get 406 the top row 460 first grade students um after you had 342 birs six years prior high- performing districts will have very very high birt to kindergarten or in your case birt to first grade ratios because you're just seeing a lot of inward migration of parents who had their children born somewhere else but they buy a house where their kids are just below school age so they get them to come in here and register that's how it works um for high performing districts I see it all the time um Scarsdale New York one of my clients one of the richest places probably in the US has a birth Decay ratio over three I've never seen anything like it but yours is still pretty high um we broke out the BS by attendance area just to give you over time who's the biggest um where the biggest birth areas are you can see the Jefferson area in blue down at the bottom and we're aggregating all the birs had the most number of birs while the Wilson Area had the fewest the unknown column means that the state says to us well we know that the mother resided in Westfield we just don't know exactly her address so we can't tell you exactly what census block she's from so for the purpose of our analysis we just disaggregate them to the other six ATT tendance areas by a proportion based upon um the total births so here's showing your birs by census block over time the darkest blue is where the greatest number of birs have occurred and um I'm going to use the same scale for 2021 so we can compare and you can see there it's pretty much uh just different it shifts around a little bit where the where the greatest number of birts are again dark blue is being the most and when we look in the aggregate again dark blue is where the greatest number of birts have occurred over time and then this is showing us what your age pyramid looks like um an age pyramid is just a plot of the percentage of males uh back to back with females in 5year intervals of Ages so you start from 0 to 4 for age all the way up to 85 Plus this is showing the age pyramid for 2010 in 202 2010 the largest groups for males was aged 5 to9 and for females was 45 to 49 now I'm going to show you the data for 2020 but before I do remember I said at the outset that you're kind of a high SCS community in high SCS communities you see something just like you're seeing there where you don't have enough people in the 20s and 30s because they can't afford to live here for the high home prices and high property taxes if I go to Lyndon which is one of my clients not too far away you would not see that because it's more of a heterogeneous type community and that inside po Pockets that sort of like somebody bit onto an apple that would all be filled in so in 2020 again if people age in place you would just see a shift upward in the uh population that's kind of what you're seeing here the highest uh the biggest group for males was 10 to 14 and for females was 50 to 54 and then we look at the change over time between males and females Blues being the biggest gainers and reds being the biggest decliners the biggest gainers was 20 to 24 and and you know I have another client in Somerset County will go nameless but they have the same thing and you know I know that people really can't afford to come in here too much in 20 to 24s I mean there's some apartments that are coming online things but I have a feeling it's a lot of Boomerang Kids coming back into their their parents' basements I've got a couple uh that I finally got rid of one or twoo so you know that kind of thing that does happen um you're laughing but it's true um so the the the biggest decliners were people in their 40s but if we look at the this between that 10-year period every a if we aggregate the males and the females you had gains in your population all the way through from 50 to 79 so that's an aging population those people aren't having kids the same time frame the you had very big declines in the 0 to 4 age group and the 5 to9 age group so you those are preschool age kids and and and elementary kids and remember we talked about that you've had declining enrollment up until the last couple couple years there you go right there it's your age sex diagram so we did contact the local planning and zoning department and they were very nice to us they gave us a list of all the new housing starts uh I saw some of the cool um vermella units as I drove through here it's really cool to look at something like that maybe you may feel differently um but there 562 non-age restricted units that have been approved to be built some of them are under construction and will be occupied this year when we looked at the who where would the most impact be uh the largest impact uh actually is the Jefferson Zone which has 37% of the units um the second largest was Wilson at 29% and the third largest was the Franklin Zone at 16% um for the intermediate zones Roosevelt had just slightly more than half of the housing units and you can see up there the parks side at Westfield and Westfield Crossing phase one are the two largest projects that are being proposed um there all there's a mix of market rate and affordable units I'm sure you're aware that Westfield in 2017 um the town signed a settlement agreement with the fair share housing center and that's more or less to address your your Town's affordable housing obligation so all these new projects that you see up here um well in the report I couldn't put them all up here because just wouldn't fit on the screen does have to have an affordable component uh it's usually about 15% of the total number of units in development have to be affordable so those two units are under construction like I said with expected completion this year and this is just showing you where they are um it's maybe hard to see where you are if you're especially out there but it's really centered on South a and North a right down the the center of of the town except for that one way up top which if I remember correctly I think that's the one I just mentioned uh let's see that was Park par yeah that's correct but all the all the rest are pretty much right in the central core which is kind of the way towns are going right now for growth more a smart growth uh walking distance to shore uh stores and and train stations and things like that this is just showing your historical construction residentially over time the only reason I show that is because even though there's been like 400 units residentially that have been built in the last 5 years 6 years across each of these attendance zones almost half of them 183 units were knockdowns um so people just raising the older home putting up newer homes in the um McKinley area 98 units of of the 98 units in the McKinley Zone 31 was the Parker in 2020 and another 30 was the Bentley in 2021 so we are looking at what was done here historically and that just show showing you um a location all those dots on the screen up there are just showing where a house or an apartment building was in the last five to six years so home sales kind of interesting um you know if you look at this from 2001 to 20123 home sales peaked around 2004 2005 then declin due to the um banking crisis and mortgage crisis of 2008 then went straight back up again through the pandemic and you can see what's happened in the last two years particularly this past last year in 2023 not that many sales due to the higher mortgage interest rate so it's kind of interesting how that all plays out and that the reason I show you that is because what we see is that the more sales you get the more students that are going to be coming in usually the buyers are going to be families with children so we start to see more inward migration um in those hot sale years but this is just showing sales by block over time we took all the sales and we mapped them and you can see where they are dark blue being the greatest number of sales so tonight's biggest thing you want to probably talk about is your enrollment projection so again we projected by school over a 5year period we did two sets of projections one is called a baseline projection which is basically saying what are the numbers going to be in the next 5 years assuming none of the housing gets built something happens uh construction delays they just whatever the reason just to kind of strip it all out this is what you'd have and then the second project would be what if their worst case scenario everything is built in the next 5 years what does that look like so we did two projections the Baseline projection is a total of 5,948 students in 28 29 school year which would be a gain of about 106 students if we adjust for housing growth it would be a gain of almost 276 students so if full day kindergarten is implemented it would likely increase your current enrollments uh about 250 50 to 275 students in addition to what you currently have in kindergarten um this is just showing the enrollments by elementary middle and high big takeaway here is this um I just told you you're expected to have enrollment gains for the next five years for the Baseline the adjusted projections you're seeing them both Baseline and Elementary uh Baseline adjusted here but not every grade configuration is expected to increase you can see that the high school is actually projected decline because those smaller Elementary cohorts that I was showing you earlier tonight have to move through the system and So eventually they'll get to the high school and that's why there's a decline there however we are projecting uh enrollment gain at the elementary level and not too much of a change at the Intermediate School level because it's sort of a mix of growing Elementary uh coming in and of some of the smaller Elementary cohorts still moving up so this is showing a Capac analysis A Capacity Analysis is a relationship between a building's capacity and it's not the way you may think of a capacity it's not a a fire code capacity where you cannot have more than say 400 students in a building it's based upon how you're using the building currently so in your long range facility plan your architect did an analysis of each building in the district and said well you know your board policy has I'm just going to make up a number I say 21 students per General Le classroom you have 20 General Leed classrooms in a building 21 time 20 is 420 and that's your capacity um if you have more special ed classrooms or elll English language learner or gifted and talented you take those bigger rooms gened and you convert them to those small group instruction spaces you decrease capacity so it can change from year to year based upon how you're using the building so I'm showing you that up there capacities with respect to your current enrollment and then five years later so current anything in blue means that you have Surplus seating in a building so you can see at the elementary level uh most of the build four of the seven if you can count Lincoln have um surpluses in the current time um the only one that really has a shortage above the elementary level is Edison moving forward you can see that more things turned to Red at the elementary level in the next 5 years due to that increasing rollment enrollment that I was talking about so the last thing we did for you is we created some maps this is real quick um again we did two different years and we took the student addresses from both of those years and imported into a mapping program which you'll see now we did student counts by census block student density by census block and student yield by census block so here's here's all the points up there of all your students in 23 24 when we aggregate them at the census Block Level the darkest colors up there in magenta are where the greatest number number of students by census block live so we did that for 1819 year we're going to show you the 23 24 year with the same scale so you can compare it and you can see it really hasn't changed that much they're really pretty much the same um the locations of the dark magenta may have changed but the amount of magentas and reds are pretty much the same but because the census blocks are different sizes we have to kind of standardize them by dividing by the area of the block and that's called student density which is just the number of students per per square mile so the darkest colors up there are where the greatest number of students per square mile live and we advance this to 2324 and you can see it's actually getting Less in dark colors so the the number of students per square mile has declined and again a lot of it has to do with your declining enrollment and the last thing we did is we looked at yields by census block which is the number of children per housing unit so the greatest number of children children per housing unit are in the dark purples you can see it for 1819 here it is for 233 23 24 and again less purples less dark purples so the number of children per housing units declining why population age structure in this community is getting older just not having as many children a lot of these units so covid how did it affect schools around the country while you're an example of declining enrollment in 2020 and 2021 big big districts had big declines uh New York that I work with I think they declined 37 or 38,000 people children um question was where do they all go um some people that uh we knew um I now live in Vermont I used to I grew up in SE caucus don't live here anymore and a lot of people from the New York New Jersey metro area moved up to where I live in Vermont and the snow kind of told them you know I don't want to live here all the time and they might have moved back but the question with remote work is now people really can sort of live anywhere and the question is again will they continue to have remote work or is it going to be a hybrid nature where you have to be close to a uh an office and that's really something that is really going to play out in the future and I I really don't know I don't I don't think I don't I think we're hybrid workers here to stay but I don't think uh people are going to have to go back in the office like we we've had to do our whole lives I've got a 25-year-old who will not uh go 5 days a week she thinks that's just absurd to go to an office uh have to stay at home a couple days it's just unbelievable um but this is the population change in the US during the pandemic just over that first year the uh the dark greens are the biggest gainers the reds are the biggest decliners um so the the Rocky Mountain States gain the most uh the center of the country you know lost a lot the Rust Belt but take a look in New Jersey it's kind of hard to see so I'm going to blow it up for you um the the greatest declines are in Gray and dark blue the biggest gainers in yellow so what I call the the turnpike corridor uh straight up what I call the gut which is Hudson County where I grew up down through merer middle sex that whole area was the biggest decliners biggest gainer Ocean County where did they all go you tell me this is this is an easy one Long Beach Island summer homes yeah they a lot of them went down there and they wound up um staying there more permanently in those locations again we'd like to update this data to see if people turn Cumberland County out there in um the real southern part I'm not really sure what happened there so just as a summary tonight after a period of decline um enrollments did stabilize here in the school district looking ahead we are projecting enrollment in gains for the next 5 years but not expected to occur uniformly across the three grade configurations where we're expecting gains at the elementary level declines are projected at the high school as those existing smaller Upper Elementary and Intermediate School School cohorts move through and finally uh like I said the elementary cohorts are projected to gain due to the two things as I mentioned before all the inward migration here is happening at the elementary Intermediate School level strong strong inward migration so you're getting it there plus you had a big increase in the birth rate um in 2021 so that's the main reasons why we're projecting gains at the elementary level I know this was long I hope it wasn't too boring but I appreciate your time and I'll more than welcome to entertain some questions well thank you Dr grip it was not boring it was very informative and interesting I'm sure some board members have questions so if you could let me know then we can make sure we get to everyone's questions that you could answer go ahead Rob thanks very much this is very thorough so I have a couple of questions kind of came up so first thing we were talking about is gains in the elementary schools and I know there was some some data that showed how they would come about I assume that data does not reflect what might happened if we went from a half day to full day kindergarten is that correct that's a great question I meant to say that so all the values that you're seeing on the slides for the the projections the capacity grades by configuration is in your status quo scenario with a half dayk uh so if you really just want to change things for full dayk I would just add 250 students to 275 students here uh the K counts that are shown in the report that would be a good barometer uh going forward so yes I had one other if you don't just my just one other question so on the capacity slide that I think it was 34 or whatever it was you were you were talking about gauging the capacity of the buildings based on our policies right how many how many kids we would put in a particular classroom how did that take did it and if so how did it take into account the actual space we have in the buildings right because we may have a what I want to sus out is if we have a policy that says we can fit 20 kids in a classroom but we don't have enough either the classrooms aren't big enough to get 20 seats in them or we don't have enough classrooms to put those 20 kids in you know a policy saying we have this many is great but if we have no place to put them that to me informs a lot of what we'll be doing going forward like where do we want to put additions where what buildings might we need to make bigger or or replace true yeah I I wish I could give you a good answer with that since I'm not the architect that came up with that calculation because I gave you the real simple uh explanation how that calculation it's a little more complex than that um so they do have to take into account some in some cases the square footage of a room um what it's being used for like this is probably not a capacity generating space because the cafeteria it's just being used so there's a lot of different for eating so there's a lot of different factors they have to take into account but the architect would certainly be able to give you a more detailed breakout of the capacity for each particular School building by room uh so you can actually see how those numbers up there are derived and that might be helpful to you it's very easy to print doubts from your lrfp yep uh just building off Rob's first question about kindergarten do you for uh see any kind of downhill enrollment changes if we were to implement full day kindergarten do you think that would increase our later grade enrollments by families choosing to move in or and if so how you know obviously that's impossible to predict but it's what you've been doing for it's a tricky thing I mean personally uh look the reputation of a school district is in my opinion the number one reason people move in the fact that you have full dayk may pull in some more it's possible but you know when I did the calculations I was basically taking your first grade population that we project in the report taking about 95% of them backing them up one year to give you what the k would be full day that's more of a good barometer just as an estimate but until you do it and you get a couple years under your belt we really don't know it's really hard for me to gauge what that real impact true impact will be okay that's fair enough I mean yeah thank you hey very good report I like I like this kind of stuff I just have a couple questions um with the new housing units coming in and going back to the birst slide did you account for the new people coming in and having bursts as well or is the burst kind of static quo in your analysis so the B that we have for are all historical birs so and we only have data through 2021 if you're saying to me did we project how many BS from those new people that are moving into yeah that that would be really almost incredibly difficult to project in fact for something like your District we we only need two extra years uh we needed 22 birs year and 22 23 birt year to project kindergartens in 27 and 28 so I had to do more or less just simple rolling average of historical birs uh we couldn't do anything really complex I was bugging the state they thought they were going to get me 22 bir data for you for this report and they couldn't do it so they still don't come out with it but yeah no nothing that complex all right thanks and then um is did you assume that the out of District population kind of stayed constant through the analysis that's that's a good another good question so anything like that with people going private or parochial we we assume that what has happened historically will also happen in the future so I'm glad you mentioned that because a lot of people say to me well are you taking into account maybe you know a bounce up in the the home resale Market when mortgage interest rates go down so this is what's called a projection it's not a forecast a lot of people think it's the same thing uh a projection looks at historical Trends and more or less extrapolates them out into the future a forecast starts predicting things that haven't happened such as decline in interest rates uh or people moving in from Panama or Columbia like you're seeing in New York City you know or pandemic you know we can factor in that but that's that's not what we're doing here so it's strictly historical data moving forward but followup to that thing just curious with all the new housing units coming on with the apartments and the cont you know would that do you think would that impact the high school greater than it does today because I mean they may not be able to afford send them out of District well that's a good question so let me talk about that for one quick second so I didn't tell you how I calculated how many children are projected out of each one of these developments um in the state of New Jersey Ruckers university has come out about five six years ago what called the multipliers or from the center of urban urban policy research it's more or less a phone book manual it says based upon all the data they studied here's how many children you can expect out of a apartment one bedroom two three bedrooms townhouse market rate affordable detached single family home so on so forth we use those average values to compute what the impact would be on your District the thing I can tell you it works in your favor is this you have a prevalence of one and two bedroom units which do not have many children coming into those type of units however I'm going to pre I'm going to say that in high performing districts it could be higher because again people might do anything they can to get their kid here so I can't tell you with great certainty but I'm just going with Statewide averages of what to expect out of a one-bedroom and a two-bedroom and for instance the greatest impact in any house uh any school would always be at the elementary level uh when you look and carve out the percentage of kids that come out of a new housing unit I think it's about it's usually about 58 to 60% is at the elementary level then the remaining 40 is at the intermediate or middle school level and the high school okay great thank you very much oh you're welcome okay any anybody else great thank you so much for your report do do you want to you're welcome thank you very much all right thank you thanks have a good night thank you okay you ready okay okay I'm going to turn it over to Dr Gonzalez uh for a budget development presentation part two yes we're just getting the slides uh ready to go um as mentioned this is the the second uh presentation that we will be um providing up to this point on the status of our budget development for next school year uh the first was done in January where we gave a preliminary overview of where we were at that time recognizing that there were a number of variables that we still had not um received certainty from the State Department of Education or even our insurance broker to be able to factor that into our calculation so what you saw in January and what you will see tonight are still proposed uh increases and proposed adjustments um based upon the data that we have thus uh far but what we have done is taken our conversation from last board meeting and factored into that conversation some enhancements um to the budget based upon the feedback of everyone around this uh table as well as the feedback um that we've received from our community and and we built that into presentation this evening that again just gives an overview of where we are today uh by uh the end of next week the governor will be releasing um the state aid figures for uh School District so that we will have that final piece of our Revenue puzzle in order to calculate um the necessary figures to finalize our budget so that at the March 5th board meeting uh the presentation will have much greater detail as it will uh represent the finalized figures so in the there we go thank you um so what we are going to do this evening is really just do a quick overview uh given that we we spent so much time with the uh demographic study um to show where we are today uh how we got to where we are what what priorities sort of set the guidelines for the decision making um we'll we'll jump right into what the potential increases based upon those assumptions and then provide some uh highlevel overviews of what we were looking to add and how that aligns with our strategic plan um I do want to give an overview again at this point because we just completed our thought exchange Community engagement uh experience last week uh I do want to give an overview of uh what those results showed but certainly plan to provide additional detail uh in the coming weeks as we delve into the data a little uh more deeply and then of course uh and the present presentation uh with additional details regarding um the budget vote and how to get more information as we finalize the budget and conduct our information sessions for members of the community so as I mentioned uh in the development of the 2425 uh budget we once again are Guided by uh priorities that I'm hoping are familiar uh for everyone around this dayas and in the community we we continue to priori prioritize student outcomes we want to make sure that the student experiences uh are remain consistent and are are not negatively impacted by any uh budgetary decision and in doing so we want to make sure that our class sizes and C course enrollments uh also uh are areas of focus and priority for us as we make decisions regarding what we um include in the budget and what may uh need to be adjusted as we move forward we also as I said consistent with the first two we want to make sure that all of our existing programs uh and offerings uh continue to be provided to our students so that their experience even if the world in the environment around them may change we want to make sure that their class experience their extracurricular experience their student support experience uh remains consistent to what they have received in the past but starting last year now that we have the opportunity to part with their partner with the community and asking for their approval to um build our budget back we are looking to also use um the 2425 budget to continue our expansion of programs and offerings if you recall last year we added uh to our budget for the current school year uh academic support teachers counselors as well as um English as a second language uh teachers for our multilingual Learners and then as we uh work to maintain our buildings and we work to explore how we can ensure that our facilities and our grounds uh are equipped with the necessary maintenance in order to allow for our students and our our uh our faculty to be able to provide educational and extracurricular experiences we also added a uh priority to improve and sustain our school buildings and grounds uh for the upcoming school year as I said I I wanted to jump right into the impact we we will break this down a little bit and and by the next board meet and go into greater detail but I I think it's important to just Orient people to what you see on the screen first and foremost this is as of today so once again this does not take into account any updated uh state aid figures we will get from the um from the governor's office next week so what this presumes is that our state aid will remain flat next year and as a result if we get any increase that will certainly uh prove favorable for us um likewise if there is any decrease then there are going to be some uh decisions that we as a a district will have to make um but with that in mind uh you also will note that the um the items in blue represent the maximum allowable tax levy increase that the Board of Education can approve from one year to the next and as we indicated last year or I'm sorry last month that is a slight difference from The Experience last year last year the taxpayers uh were required to vote on uh the base budget which was up to the tax levy increase and anything above the the tax levy increase the mandated tax levy increase cap well this year the uh the governor recently signed into legislation uh the ability for school boards to make the uh the decision to approve a base budget but once again limiting their approval only to that which is uh permissible under the the tax levy uh cap that tax levy cap is set at 2% with the exception of any adjustments that are made when there are increases to enrollment or increases um to health care as related to the State Health Care um program so when you see a tax levy incra uh increase of 2.5% that's because it takes into account the 2% tax levy increase plus the adjustment the slight adjustment this year that we received due to a health care uh Health Care increase so what that means is on March 26th the Board of Education will have the ability to vote on and approve um a base budget that will not uh exceed the current tax increase of 2 and a half% over last year and I I just want to continue to reiterate it underscore propose simply because we don't know what the tax ta Levy increase uh impact will be when we get the new state aid numbers and that that may adjust uh in One Direction or another now when you look over to the red uh portion of the of the graph what you'll notice is that that will represent a portion of our operating budget that will permit the school district to maintain educational continuity up to this point we use the phrase uh status quo we use the phrase status quo uh and in many ways suggestive that it's copy and paste from the prior Year we're not doing anything different we're just carrying over and and keeping our fingers crossed hoping everything stays the same but that that certainly is not the case what the the um the items in red represents are the staff necessary to maintain the continuity of educational experiences uh as it relates to existing programs and offerings and existing staff so when you look back at our priorities and one of our priorities is to main class size and enrollment well when you're looking at a 1.13% uh portion of that um bar graph that represents staff who unfortunately we are not able to fit into a 2.5% budget so in order for us to maintain the the current level of staffings across the district in our schools uh we would need to also exceed our tax levy increase um max of 2.5% by additional 1.13% so I'm hoping that makes sense to everyone great so again educational continuity is is indicative of a few things as well it it it not only refers to the Staffing that would be necessary to keep from one year to the next but it also is indicative of the items that we're able to include in the base budget that build upon the success of of this past year so all the curriculum work that's being done all the work that's being done to enhance our programs and offerings the ability to to to design programs that will allow students to stay in districts instead of being educated out of District all of those are represented as as improvements and enhancements from the current year and are built into that blue base budget and anything that couldn't fit is what's in the 1.13 in the in the red now the items in the red and the green are those items that will be part of any budget vote that takes place on April 16th so of course the 1.13 represents the additional St the Staffing that do not fit in the current base budget and then the0 88% represents enhancements to the 2425 budgets and what do I mean by enhancements enhancements refer to th those items that are not required they're not mandated but are part of that uh continuity of expansion of our programing programming and offerings as well as the maintenance of our buildings and grounds so looking at that green portion that 88% what we're looking to do is seek additional funding that will allow the district uh not only to maintain the programs across uh all schools but also begin to en uh Implement enrichment programming across kindergarten through five begin program planning and redesign of gifted enrichment courses at the intermediate level and expand elective courses in grades 9 through 12 if you recall last year we focused our attention on providing the academic support to students um who were in need we wanted to make sure in our elementary and our intermediate level any students who were experiencing challenges continued challenges as a result of um The Experience uh over the the pandemic uh had the appropriate supports available to them both in the general education classroom as well as uh in any smaller group in targeted um settings so when we continue to look at ways that we want to uh align our work both with the needs of our students as well as the Strategic plan that we adopted in the spring we also want to look at expanding offerings for all students so looking at the 2425 budget we see this as an opportunity to uh increase enrichment programming for all students available uh in all of our uh schools so in the additional proposal that 88% that that I referen in the GRE that would include uh additional funding that will allow us to do that we also look in that additional green to uh continue to seek ways to support special programs and student Support Services whether it be by designing programs and and supports to allow students to be educated uh in our district versus outside of District or being able to look at how we're we're currently uh supporting our staff to make sure that they are compensated and supported while they're working in our schools and will not seek uh employment elsewhere and that's certainly something that that uh we heard loud and clear both uh by our community uh as well as from uh members of the administration and the board that we need to make sure that we retain our highquality uh teachers administrators and and support staff and then last but not least the 2425 additional proposal would also look at ways to augment and add uh Staffing to our district buildings and grounds Department as well as security uh in our school district so when we look at the uh the proposed budget enhancements that I just referenced uh I I want to bring everyone back to our strategic plan because last year it often came up whether it be during the uh the presentations at a board meeting or even during the road show that we did last year uh what's the plan how are you making these decisions each year what what's guiding those decisions beyond the priorities and that's really where this strategic plan came in our five goal strategic plan outlined a path forward that provided a focus for this school district on everything from student learning to Wellness to diversity Equity inclusion as well as Community Partnerships and fiscal planning and Facilities planning so when we look at how we proposed our uh budget enhancements for this coming school year we see that the implementation and enhanc of enrichment programming and enhancement of our special ed programs and student support uh programs are all related to deepening the learning experiences for all of our students and Brading those academic opportunities and supports for all Learners so for all Learners we recognize that some Learners may be in need of remedial supports as we recognized last year and we also recognize that all Learners may be in the need in Need for enrichment opportunities and that of course is not isolated to just the element El intermediate or high school so the proposal seeks to touch all of those grade levels we also uh noted that the augmentation of our District's buildings and grounds and security Staffing uh aligns with Goal number five which is our finance and Facilities goal but also highlights the objectives that we want to support a safe healthy and districtwide a safe healthy districtwide strategy to support School Safety and Security so when we're looking at Health we're looking at safety and we're looking at security making sure that our facilities are well maintained making sure that our our grounds are well maintained and making sure that we have appropriate personnel and staff to ensure that our schools are secure all directly align with our goals and and objectives our of our strategic plan moving on I did mention that the um the thought exchange uh engagement that we introduced last year or I'm sorry last week was an interactive experience that allowed individuals from this Community to be able to providing the thoughts each participant had the ability to then rate other thoughts so that it allowed us to uh somewhat weight the the um the importance of each of those thoughts and then use the system to start aggregating those into themes so when you look at the the most recent thought exchange we had a number of participants um that took place totaling 1,500 participants who uh expressed 967 thoughts and that simply means is of the participants not everyone uh offered a thought some just said I want to rate other people's thoughts and then in some cases a participant may have offered more than one thought so it's not necessarily going to be a one: one um uh ratio but you do see that there were substantial number of participants and thoughts but really where the power comes in are the number of ratings The 52,000 uh ratings provide additional feedback Beyond just the 967 qualitative thoughts but it also provides additional quantitative data for us to uh look into when you look at the individuals who participated you could see the breakdown uh listed here with about 62% of our uh individuals who participated were parents 9% were students so we did uh invite our high school students in grades 9 through 12 to participate uh and we had about 135 who participated we also invited our school staff so all members of the school staff uh were invited we had about 365 or 25% and then individuals who we uh were able to reach out to who had reached out to us in the past or subscribe to our our um synopsis or newsletter we were able to reach out to our Community Partners our Municipal partners and and afford them the same opportunity to provide their feedback and you could see uh we had about 3% who participated and then an additional 3% um who participated who chose not to identify uh with one particular role uh in the district now this this is just an an um a highlevel uh overview of what the thoughts look like and what you'll notice is that the um the words in this word cloud that are larger represents those words and thoughts that were rated um the highest and when you look at the smaller um they uh represent thoughts that were offered but weren't as highly rated and and certainly as you look um just at the highest level at this uh visual representation uh I think it it was not designed to necessarily follow Dr grip's presentation but I think it it it certainly speaks to the importance of looking at our enrollment looking at our future uh enrollment projections and seeing what we need to do to be able to properly prepare uh to receive and accommodate the these students as they enter our buildings and I think the community Comm recognized that as well with facilities sizes uh and updated uh buildings being at the the top of mind uh for those who participated you'll also notice things such as uh kindergarten as you could imagine full day kindergarten uh was an additional area of interest uh sometimes overlapping with facilities but but certainly uh being a separate uh priority and and of itself and then you also note that power professionals uh and staff other areas of interest um that were expressed in the um in the thought exchange so as I mentioned earlier we will provide additional uh details and data as we continue to dive into uh the results but I did want to provide an overview of uh what the data revealed uh up to this point so moving into the next steps um as mentioned the March 6th board meeting will be the next presentation where we will have the ability to present a uh finalized proposed budget that the board will have the ability to review and vote on in order for us to then complete the step necessary to submit the budget the preliminary budget to the county uh the County Office of Education reviews our budget for compliance uh and and doesn't necessarily determine whether or not they like our budget they just make sure that it it complies with the necessary standards um and in doing so once we receive that uh approval we then return on March 26th and at that time there are going to be two decisions that the board will have to make they will have to uh cast a vote to finalize the base budget so they will uh cast a vote that will determine that that blue portion of the graph and make that decision and that decision will be the approved base budget for next year but then the board will also have to make the decision as to what the additional spending proposal will be um to be placed on the April 16th ballot and that represents the red and the green the red additional Staffing for educational continuity and then the green which is uh includes those enhancements that I I just referenced so on April 16th the um the budget will then be voted on uh by the community but only the red and the green items only the additional uh spending proposal will be voted on on April 16th along with um the Board of Education election and keeping in mind that on uh April 6 16th if the uh budget additional spending proposal is passed that will then be added to the base budget approved by the board at the March 26th meeting and that will repres represent our operating budget for the next school year that will then represent our new base budget for the next school year if the voters do not approve and this is important to note as well because last year when the voters voted on the base budget and the additional spending proposal or at that time the second question if the first question went down it went to the Town Council and the Town Council would have to make decisions about uh what to do about the budget however the second question if that went down last year then unfortunately anything that was included in that second question would not be permitted to be implemented or funded any other way the coming school year so that same thinking goes into this budget vote so the additional spending proposal think of it in the same way that you would think about that second question the additional spending proposal if it passes is added to the budget if it does not pass then those those additional uh um enhancements that I mentioned in the green and those staff members who are necessary for that educational continuity those would not be part of the budget and we would not be permitted to reallocate funds or try and add them later on it would not go to the Town Council it would not uh be in able to be introduced until the following school year when we would rebuild the budget for the 25 26 school year so I just wanted to make sure that that I reiterate at that so a lot of details a lot of uh important information that we want to make sure continues to be in the available to all members of the community so uh I do want to highlight that on our website we do have a direct link to our budget um portal which can be found in the um on the front screen as well as a community engagement um schedule that allows individ uals once the board approves the budget um and approves their their spending as well as the additional funding proposal we will actively engage in an information campaign both in person and in Virtual to allow as many individuals to ask questions and find out more in the event that they were not able to tune in to any of the board meetings so to review next steps February 29th we expect the release of state aid that will be fact into our budget so that on March 5th we will present that budget um preliminary budget to the board for their review and approval so that we could submit it to the County Office of the doe and then on March 26th the board will hold their public hearing and vote on the final base budget as well as that additional spending proposal for the April ballot which will then be voted on on April 16th at the same time as the Board of Education election polls will open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 8:00 P.M on that day so that concludes part two of our presentation uh if I will open it up for any questions that the board has at this time sure okay okay if anybody has any questions just let me know so I can keep track Mary you want to start us off thanks um I just want to make sure I'm interpreting this right so the r in the green part Dr Gonzalez is does that mean if it's not approved would we lose current staff so the red the red represents current staff and the green represents new any if there is any uh additional staff introduced in the green they would represent new the red including like the new the counselors that we just got and we we haven't identified we haven't identified who would be included at this time because as I said we don't want to deter predetermine who's in there until we know for sure what our state aid figures will be because if our state aid figures come in favorably and there's an increase then we're going to have fewer uh existing staff in that red portion okay so we haven't made those get the difference between the red and green now thank you okay but it will be the positions will be notated on the but on the ballot question for for the public like we did last year oh for the public the public what the public votes for new staff or for both for both okay um and then um for the green going by the colors um one of the enhancements was to special programs and support services do we know how or any ideas we we going to we do we do and again I without going into to great detail what this represents is our ability to um as I think I alluded to uh look at bringing uh creating in-house opportunities to educate uh members commun who are currently served out of district and the supports necessary to to do that uh require both administrative uh supervision as well as uh you know uh support staff in order to make that happen so so part of that enhancement uh is is recognized um uh in th those uh in that green portion and that would be I mean maybe people don't know this but that's favorable to us because add a district tuition is far more expensive it it certainly from a fiscal standpoint um the the cost to educate students outside of our district uh is is great because of tuition costs that aren't limited to 2% uh increases as well as Transportation as we all know which is certainly hard to come by and by no means uh limited to 2% increases but I think equally if not more important I I I'll I'll take it a step further more important uh is the fact that we would be seeking opportunities to keep our students in Westfield and in the community and in their Community Learning with their their peers their neighbors and their friends that's that's great thank you anybody else any other board members thank you Dr Gonzalez thank you um I'll turn it over right now to Casey for the student representative report entering the second half of the Academic Year Westfield High School is full of excitement this month's activity period will be run by no place for hate and is called a seat at the table game Edition building off of the success of the after school seat at the table event in November this activity period will bring the whhs community together forever and to share stories about their ancestry and identity using dice specially created by the whhs maker space classes students will play a fun game with questions aimed towards getting students to talk about their family traditions and learn more about one another looking ahead student government and the community service Club are planning for next month's activity period during community service week a large part of that activity period revolves around students packaging toiletry kits for St Joseph's a group that helps those in need over 1,000 kits will be assembled each containing everyday Necessities like toothpaste deodorant and baby wipes to gather these supplies an Amazon wish list is currently open you can find the link on Instagram at what whs sga1 those donating should make sure that they Select whhs sgaa care of Jamie Glickman when checking out to ensure that supplies are delivered to the school also as part of community service day whs students will face off against the teachers in a basketball game as the entire School cheers them on after multiple years of ties both sides are eager to take home a win signups for both students and staff are currently open with the second semester underway students continue to to thrive in and out of the classroom and we can't wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for whs thank you thank you Casey we'll turn it over for um our committee reports uh first up is the zp committee by uh Kristen or Rob Rob sorry Rob sure I get I get I get two in a row I got lucky um so sitm on January 29th 2024 uh discussed the number of items Rel Rel ated to the curriculum some new textbooks that are on the agenda for today progress on the Strategic plan and budget goals as well as responses to questions that fall within our role uh we had two presentations uh from one from the compai department and one from the technology education department and those you'll notice very significant similarities between both what's going on with those departments and the needs and the the future plans for those departments as we talk so the technology education departments is supervised by Mr Tom Patterson computer science is supervised by Miss Elizabeth dandro uh Tom Patterson also supervises science and Miss delandro also supervises math and the reason that these departments that weren't necessarily under under either of these uh under either of these areas were in the past were merged under there is because there is a significant amount of similarity both in Staffing uh and in the type of work that's being done so for example we found out that the computer science courses especially as they get to higher levels in the high School uh really work in tandem with many of the higher level math courses so it was a perfect and logical fit to move these departments under those particular supervisors um and they provided us the same overviews that we've seen in the other curriculum um the other curriculum presentations that the committee's had those presentations are available on the district's website just go to District communication Spotlight on education and information series and you'll find those so a few highlights uh both departments are focusing on growth at the High School level fuel by increased consistency in existing curriculum an expansion of offerings at the elementary and intermediate level and redesign of space to accommodate program growth and advances in technology I want to focus on the additions to Elementary and intermediate level because a lot of the courses that we're utilizing in these particular areas in the high school may start at if you compare it to other districts somewhat of a more basic level than you might see right uh and that's because we haven't had either the space or the alloc of curriculum to start some of these more basic level studies at the elementary level or at the intermediate level so one of the larger expansions and this goes right in with with Dr Gonzalez's presentation for what we're hoping for enhancements for the budget would be to improve those offerings at the elementary and intermediate level such that we're doing a lot of that Baseline work already before the students get to the high school and they're now coming to the high school prepare to do some of that higher level work whether that's in programming whether that's coding you know and also sorts of different languages so for example the the comsite curriculum at the elementary level is focusing on using basic play to teach algorithm algorithms and there is a a social component to it for digital security accessibility safe and positive online habits which is perfectly appropriate at that level right students are getting used to what you're doing online and having that accessibility that they hadn't had before uh but then we get to the intermediate curriculum right that's that's got some level of work but for coms sites being completely Rewritten uh great six for example is in a Pilot Course where students are creating a game from start to finish so they're handling everything from graphic design to debugging code grade Seven's new coursework is going to build on this which will add an introduction to programming languages again things that we were only starting to see in the high school level uh spreadsheets data management analysis so all stuff that Kent and our presenter would love um and teaching things like Online safety and the effect of social media on the person right so as you get more advanced in your use you need to be taught this stuff and how it's going to operate uh grade aid courses um are going to teach now next levels of program languages a lot of them will be more more optional if you if you have students in the eth grade you know they they can choose certain certain electives um but that'll be again next levels of program languages good versus bad data AI emerging Technologies and then professionalism and communication and copyrights um these courses again all being revised to support an expansion of offerings at the high school where it used to be there were the students first intr uction to a lot of these languages uh the high school is then having multiple courses redesigned um again to build on this stronger intermediate and Elementary curriculum so there's a basic comsite course that will that will start introductions but but at a higher level comsite 2 right now is an honors AP course it's taught all in Java um and we're now going to be able to and what we're looking at now is expansion of comsite courses even beyond that um most of the courses are instructor develop programs except for the honors and AP courses those use obviously college board approved materials and texts so a quick note on AP for compai we had 59 students take the AP exam they had an average score of 4.4 uh this year we're seeing fewer students taking the AP exam because we were only able to run two sections of the honors comp size opposed to last year's three and that goes to the second part of what we're talking about which is the main needs and goals of the program yes we want expansion of opportunities across grade levels that requires additional space and additional Staffing because we can't continue to trade off faculty members in math to do comsi when we have growing enrollments so again part of our program enhancements and part of what we're looking to do is level that out right we need to develop the curriculum for them to teach but the next step now is bringing on the people to teach it you can't bring on people if you don't have anything for them to teach and also you can't bring on people if you don't have any place to put them so um all more reason that the the budget and the space increases are are important um so next for the technology education it's going to be a similar you're going to hear similar news right this follows a similar path uh with similar plans for increased Staffing why is technology education important in in just at the high school where most of these are elective courses uh the uh the students taking these courses have grown from 100 students in 2020 to 300 in 2024 that's a big jump in in a in a short span of time uh again a small program at the elementary level these are the maker space courses that you see your Elementary SCH uh School uh kids taking teacher initiated additions uh which you know have some levels of in consistency quite frankly across the elementary levels if you have one student with a friend in one school says my teacher's doing this and another student a friend that says well my teacher's doing this in this course we want to eliminate starting one that level of inconsistency so if there's a great program going on at Franklin that program also should be expanded to Jefferson um intermediate curriculum in these areas is also being revamped uh that's expansion of of what are largely Project based courses and materials Tech engineering design and Robotics design and Engineering uh and all all of this will go to improve elective offerings at the high school again I didn't you know I mean I read the budget presentation before but I wrote this app so this is this is right in line with what we're talking about here um so coursework is being redesigned at the high school to be taught very important by multiple certified staff uh one of the things that came out in the curriculum meeting is that there are there is a shortage of certified teachers in most technology education Fields across the state and how are we going to deal with that right one is to try to find new teachers but it's hard to find new teachers in pool that's shallow and doesn't you know ex exist unless we want to start stealing them from other districts but you know I'm not beneath that um or above that rather um what we're doing internally however um to make sure that the other districts are not upset with me um is spend sending a lot of our teachers who have interest and experience in these areas for greater professional development right so the state has a certain level of certifications that are required for people to teach these courses we can talk about whether that makes a lot of sense or not when there's a shortage of teachers but be that as it may um those are the rules we have to play by so what we are doing as part of professional development is sending teachers who might have taught these courses before maybe had to give up another course or maybe were uh were not officially certified to teach it but certainly had the expertise to do it to get those certifications to expand our teaching pool again expand the teaching pool you're able to expand the the offerings um so there's a lot of energy and excitement going on on these programs it made a ton of sense to move them to the supervisors they're working under uh because there's so much continuity and cross-pollination especially between the teachers who are looking to do these courses and their level of expertise but again it all comes down a lot to space which is the final part of what we discussed um so the department both departments have been working closely with our architectural teams to revamp and expand the current Tech spaces we have so an example of this this summer we're renovating the Roosevelt School wood shop we're going to divide it into a dedicated woodworking section a digital computing area that'll have things like 3D printers uh and a separate connection to the existing computer room with the idea being to create a seamless teaching environment right you design something on the computer you move down the assembly line so to speak to see it printed or built and that's all able because of the connectivity to be supervised by a single teacher or two to ensure obviously continuity assignment and safety uh also upgrades to equipment for that reason as well uh we want to make sure that all of our equipment continues to exceed the quality and safety standards that are set on us not not meet them um so that was a lot the other thing we discussed was chemistry textbooks which are on for approval today and just a quick summary of how this is done um the uh the process for vetting text is pretty extensive uh it starts with a committee from uh from within the department so here it was a committee of science teachers at Westfield High School they review several books for multiple Publishers they then get the opportunity to consult with outside colleagues and analysts regarding each text especially colleagues who are using them in other schools it's great to have them but it's great even better to see how they function and how well they have worked or have not in other districts where they can speak to folks uh then they select the recommended text largely for their thorus but also for capacity to be used across multiple courses um this is a long and arduous process um it's but but a very thorough one uh so offer approval tonight uh the chemistry textbooks uh we also have an intern and student teaching candidate and six field trips uh these are four grade level trips to the Evelyn dun Gallery Westfield Memorial Library New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the YMCA educa Environmental Education Center in Stillwater uh the other two are trips for the seventh grade band at RIS and the high school Youth and government Club next meeting is March 11th 2024 hopefully we'll just do one Department thank you thank you rob does anybody have any questions go ahead Kristen I just have two clarification questions so for the AP compai our enrollment is down due to lack of resour is not lack of Interest correct yeah it's the enrollment went down because the third from and feel free to correct but from based on the report from the committee we had three courses but that in order to have those three courses involved moving a math teacher to teach that course we needed the Math teachers for math so we had to move that back which meant one less AP course to to to work with so we actually um turn kids away for compai possibly that part I don't I mean I I I'm sure there were probably some interest but there wasn't within the meeting there wasn't that didn't come out whether or not there was actually turn away or whether it just I actually know because my daughter wants to take that I apologize by the way my the Roosevelt school nurse called and that's why I missed that little piece of the curriculum meeting so that's why I'm asking these questions go ahead so my daughter wants to take that next year as a senior and what I was told Junior conference is um there's only going to be one section of AP comai and if they're taking something else like my daughter takes um chamber orchestra and will be in portfolio which is the last year of the art track those are also only one period a day so it might not fit in so I could see that being an issue with other kids that want to take certain APS or certain other classes that are more that are that they're interested in okay makes sense and then my other uh clarification for the continuity of teaching and the new Roosevelt classroom that's because there's going to be glass right yes okay that one was easy yeah yes so so the the the dividers are going to be glassed between the woodworking area the the um and the Computing area so that a teacher can be in both spaces and see what's going on in both spots yeah go ahead CJ uh can I just ask one follow up to that about the compai cuz uh I know in some districts you know there's a possibility for self-guided study you know like at home for AP courses in particular where there's a topic that's just so small say that you know there's no class to be able to be had would compai be something that you know could be self-directed at home with like the you know the oversight of a teacher just kind of monitoring the work or does it really have to be in a kind of a class focused setting I think so that has come up with not just compsa but with other courses like there is that possibility for self-guided curriculum I think you know I don't I still have the level of expertise to say how that would fit in I think a self-guided course just knowing what the standards are that apply to these would probably have to be vetted for that uh and it's probably something that I mean certainly something that we will bring back to the next committee meeting and say should be thought about um as far as whether it can happen and how that might work so I think I think that and a few other courses could lend itself to that yeah Rob just building off of that in the past and I believe currently with our Latin program we have multiple levels in the same classroom at the same time uh so students that are at that honors level uh that wouldn't have the opportunity might do additional readings or additional work in a course alongside uh regular Latin for students uh and there's obviously opportunities if there's a similar course where something like that could work in the future but it would obviously be course by course dependent and teacher by teacher dependent all it's all Latin it's it's Latin 4 and Latin AP that are together but according that's I remember them saying that Latin for and Latin a really unique situation and it takes a very unique teacher too for about eight years right quite successfully so I would say that one of the things I've learned from being on the committee is that well we may have some shortage of space and other things we are not short on Creative folks in the district so I I think that's definitely a way for for us to to bring into the committee and and cuz I don't think some of our F Matt doesn't have anywhere near enough challenges so I thought let's just put that out there for him and and see what he can come up with so definitely thanks for the feedback I do appreciate that it's it's it'll add a lot to the committee CJ I just added it to our curriculum list too so we'll we'll revisit it she's got the last okay uh thank you everyone and I'll turn it over for finance and Facilities um yep all right Brendan thank you sonnel uh the finance and Facilities committee met on February 9th uh had a nice three-hour conversation about uh the budget which I'll skip because we've already covered it the demographic study which we've already heard a presentation on and a thought exchange uh but moving on to things that I will discuss um architect Mike be from FKA Architects attended the finance and Facilities meeting to go over a draft facilities condition assessment and analys or support to discuss timelines and to discuss timelines for a referendum both the projected timeline and the draft report are located in the finance and Facilities folder for all board members to review uh we are tentatively targeting an April 2025 referendum date which would coincide with the budget vote at the same time uh we discussed the pros and cons of linking the two together and really the cost to the district for each election that we hold is over $100,000 and we didn't feel that was worthy of public expenditure uh so we can do the the two votes together for the same cost um working back from that April 2025 date uh the state has a strict timeline where we have to submit six months before that referendum date so that they can give all their final approvals to a project which puts us at October uh mid- October of 2024 uh the architect needs a couple months to get that final package together for State submission so we are looking uh to possibly or hopefully to have our plans together by by a the end of August for so that the Architects can prepare and we can submit to the state in October for The Architects to do that we have to have our priorities together by the end of March they need about six months to pull to put blueprints together um for board approval uh so that is roughly where we are we're at now uh this facility's report and this months of leg work that uh the business office as well as our Architects have been doing uh is hugely instrumental in allowing that timeline to happen uh more will follow there but it's it's going to be a substantial project or really many many projects put together into a single uh referendum package uh we we know that not everything that we need to do will be possible or feasible in one referendum we just don't have the bonding capacity to build all new schools uh not that we're looking to but if you make a laundry list of everything that needs to happen we just won't get there with one budget V or with one referendum vote even if we had the money we it's not feasible to do that all in five or even probably 10 years so we'll we'll prioritize and move forward from there um and this is really just the beginning of the discussion and the next over the next month in a combination with budget discussions we'll be having a lot of this convers as a board as to what we need from a facility's needs um a maintenance perspective and what we can what we need to expand our curricular offerings including special ed uh moving on to the Roosevelt facade uh we had a couple of the decorative panels that were broken uh in in transit or on site uh The Replacements have been made and we expect those to be installed by the end of March uh this is really weather dependent work it's masonary work it can't happen when it's snowing we had a pretty good winter up until the last couple weeks um pH and then so that should be done by the end of March beginning of April and phase two will begin uh as soon as the uh the weather breaks for the spring uh our roofs uh we've been talking about them for a while now uh we are going to be replacing the roofs over part of Edison and the whole second floor section of tamacas uh that means solar panels have to come off caralin have we received quotes on that yet or no okay uh as of the ninth we hadn't yet received those quotes um but all the solar has to come off those sections we'll replace the roof uh that's warranty work um if you see on the agenda tonight we're also approving $5,000 out of Maintenance Reserve to investigate and assess the remainder of our roofs particularly around solar uh we seem to be having a lot of small roof leaks uh and on the rest of the agenda tonight um we are approving the subscription busing fee it's going to remain the same $1,100 that it's been for the last couple years um we are approving submission of a project to the doe for air conditioning projects in the MDF IDF rooms those are Tech closets in all 10 schools uh the cost for those will more than offset the tech uh or the reduction in lifespan from the tech projects computers need to be cooled we all know that um and those rooms are currently you know there might be box fans there might be nothing they're quite they're quite warm um so that includes updating our long range facility plan with the state uh same thing with some small Renovations at Roosevelt uh turning what were classrooms that were turned into storage rooms back into classrooms or small group instruction rooms and yeah then just lastly want to thank the following groups for donations the McKinley PTO for $750 to cover the cost for substitute nurses for the third grade field trip to the Liberty Science Center the fourth grade field trip to uh Edison's MLK exhibit the fifth grade field trip to the ber Challenge and Science Center um $100 from kenth Kenneth MCR uh to fund the annual Walton burus music award the in MCR Information Technology award which are awarded to whhs seniors at awards night $480 from the Westfield Coalition of the Arts to support classroom supports for uh three Orchestra teachers Craig Stanton Margaret fattis and Amanda Grant $161.2 from the Washington PTO to uh for supplies for the physical education classes and 7 $4,790 from the Franklin PTO for the installation and upgrade of an AV system thank thank you everybody for your donations we always appreciate it and that's it thank you Brendan yep any questions for Brendan Ken okay uh next is the policies personnel and governance committee report uh Mary yes I miss Leela because she's a better speaker than I am okay um the policy personnel and governance we met on February 1st and um first we were able to meet with Dr Greer again the Director of Human Resources and um he went over um non-tenured employees with us and also went through the evaluation process um and um first of all um being a teacher myself it's number one in Westfield we draw very highly qualified teachers and the valuation process that Dr Greer went over with me is is very substantial so they are vetted very appropriately so I appreciate uh we all appreciated you coming in and going over that with us um there's no action on that yet that'll be later on um governance we went over um the board resolution we discussed including uh board resolutions to acknowledge the board support of Dei and using the wording of the revolution to clearly Define what Dei is and is not and um we left it as Administration was going to draft a sample resolution so that we can continue that discussion in in future meetings we also went over um school calendars uh 2024 2025 there were a couple of errors in the school calendar um that we had to fix one was uh parent teacher conferences um we wanted to change there was a change in the dates uh they were add originally scheduled for November 25th and 26th and we're moving them to November 18th and 19 19th so that it avoids having the conferences during Thanksgiving week um also the June early dismissal in 2024 2025 um was on the wrong date so we had that um fixed from June 19th to 20th to June 23 24 and then also we're continuing our discussion um for the 2025 2026 and 2026 2027 school years um that we're still going to be continuing to review and also share with uh principal supervisors and the Education Association before we bring that up to you guys and finally we had a couple policies one um on the agenda tonight is a second reading of sexual harassment of students and two uh we re Revisited the tabled policy 5520 um we had three quarters of the committee recommend returning the policy from the table to to the agenda for the second reading with no changes tonight any questions or discussions uh yeah Mary I just wanted to make sure the changes for the 23 sorry 2425 calendar are just technical changes we're not changing anything other than an error that was on the last day of indicating what were the half days they're typographical errors yes and we're not voting on any of the calendars tonight no votes anybody else okay okay then at this time I'd like to recognize the public on agenda action items only during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the Board of Ed on agenda action items only as a courtesy um we'd like to allow current students and staff of Westville public schools to speak first and the board requests that individuals sign in and state their name and Municipality of residents and group affiliation if applicable for the record the specific action items they are commenting on and ask that all remarks be directed to the board president the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individual ual when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public if a matter concerning a District staff member is of Interest or concern to a resident the matter should be referred to the responsible building principal superintendent of schools or the Board of Education by telephone letter or email although the board may not respond to items it raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered please not that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from the meeting or adjournment of the meeting each speaker statements will be limited to 3 minutes in duration so as we've done in the past or just last last board meeting which we started is um a Chromebook is set up on the table inside at the podium with a Google form pre-loaded it's um self-explanatory marann can help if need be as she's currently doing so you'll be choose you'll be prompted to choose um first or second public comment and what agenda action item you are speaking on okay then at this time I'd like to close public comment um I ask that the board approve uh the minutes from January 23rd 2024 regular board meeting can I have a second second thank you Kent all in favor say I okay moving on to board action agenda items uh governance Rob sure I'd like to move item a under the governance section of tonight's agenda do I have a second second second is Brendan any uh discussion okay no discussion okay Carolina can we have a vote Sahar aiz Rob bajio yes Ken Diamond yes Brendan gallagan yes Charles jinus yes Leila Morelli son Vel yes Chris Sonic schmeltz yes and Mary wickins yes okay next is Personnel items uh Mary okay yes I'd like to move items a through M under the Personnel section of tonight's agenda is there a second thank you son all any questions is this where you speak yeah oh you have go ahead sorry uh this evening I'd like to share uh some comments regarding three of our employees who are retiring this uh by way of this agenda Mercedes points began her career in Westfield public schools in September 2006 as a teacher of Spanish at Edison Intermediate School Mercedes exemplified compassion and education fostering positive relationships with students and colleagues through the teaching and learning of the Spanish language she continually sought ways to enhance her teaching methods and share that knowledge with her colleagues and students notably through a discovering language through culture course Beyond her primary role Mercedes contributed to the community by working with English Learners in our summer program and was instrumental in supporting cultural initiatives like the Day of the Dead hallway Exposition annually at Edison Intermediate School filamina CH christofaro de christofaro has been a dedicated value member of the Franklin School Community for 18 years each evening she ensures that the classrooms are clean safe and ready for students to return to school the next day she has always been friendly and ready to help especially with the many many evening events at Franklin whether it's a chorus concert or a math night she ensures that everything is just right for the event and is on hand to help with any last minute needs her positive Presence at Franklin will truly be missed but we are happy that she will now have more time to spend with their family Carmine Capa began his career in Westfield in August 1997 and has spent the last 16 years at Lincoln School known for his exceptional organization and efficiency Carmine has diligently maintained the cleanliness of the building to the highest standards his commitment to Excellence is evident in his reliable follow-through on feedback and Carmen's responsiveness to staff members concerns always coupled with a pleasant de meter has been a signature aspect of his career additionally his warmth and approachability have significantly enhanced his interactions with students leaving an indelible positive mark on our school Community We wish all three of these IND individuals a happy and healthy retirement okay caralina can we have a vote Sahar aiz Rob bacho I'm a yes to all items but abstaining from item G Kent Diamond yes Brendan gallagan yes Charles jinus yes Lea morali sonel Patel yes Chris Kristen Sonic schmelz yes Mary Wiggins yes okay finance and Facilities Kent or Brendan I'd like to move items a through Q under the finance section of tonight's agenda may I have a second please thank you Kristen any comments questions thoughts do you want to just highlight the total donations yes no no Brendon walked through the donations before but to your point total 2023 24 donations to date $ 53,723 well done and thank you all wait till next month when we do the tote board again uh caralina can we have a vote Sahar aiz Rob bacho yes Kent Diamond yes Brendan gallagan yes Charles jinz yes lla Mor sonel Patel yes Kristen Sonic schmeltz yes Mary wickens yes okay next is uh policies Mary yes before we do that I would like to make a motion to move uh to add policy 5520 disorder and demonstration to the agenda under policy item a to be approved for a second reading can I have a second second Krist Kristen thank you Kristen any discussion so we need to vote we need to vote on this okay yes uh Sahar aiz Rob bacho yes Ken Diamond yes Brendan gallagan yes Charles jinus no Leila Morelli sonel Patel yes Kristen Sonic schmeltz yes Mary Wick yes okay so now I'd like to move item a which now includes both um from tonight's policies agenda is there a second second Kent thank you another vote another vote another vote Sahar aiz Robin AO yes Kent Diamond yes Brendan gallagan yep Charles jinus yes to 5751 no to 5520 Lila melli sonel Patel yes Kristen Sonic schmeltz yes Mary wickens yes okay uh next is curriculum uh Rob sure I'd like to move items a through C on the curriculum instruction assessment agenda do I have a second Mary any discussion okay Robin nacho yes Kent Diamond yes Brendan gallagan yes Charles jinus yes Lila Morelli sonel Patel yes Kristen Sonic schmeltz yes Mary wickens yes okay at this time I'd like to acknowledge the notes for the record um any unfinished business new business liaison reports sure have uh just two reports so on um I attended first is the uh the rec commission uh I attended the the rec commission's most recent meeting February 5th uh a couple of announcements from that the uh the tour to Westfield bike race will be on September 8th if you are so inclined to join um check the recreation department's website for other events and other programming that the department is putting together uh also there was an extremely strong response to pool renewals uh most of the renewals were sent out by email uh the rec department got some notice that some of them made it into spam folder some didn't make it there so I I just want to if you were looking to renew your pool membership just make sure you check the folders because there's like I said there's a pretty strong response coming in make sure you get those uh get those in uh you should also look for some multiple improvements to different parks in the area as well recom commission has a a group together working on a number of different improvements there so certainly check their website for what's coming up um second uh leaz report comes from the high school ptso um one of the things that uh one of the highlights of that meeting was a presentation from our counseling department um and that actually ties in well with where our budget was in the uh and the additional staff and uh and programming that's that's come out of that um so the counseling department has increased significantly its programming for our parents and students uh there was a course selection uh virtual online program done that had 300 students attend it for the high school just you know how the course selection process works Etc uh clearly in need based on that number of students who were attending uh that was followed right after by the 8th grade parents night to talk about course selection for parents who may be experiencing that for the first time with students moving up um the councilors are currently doing oneto ones with Juniors to get them ready for the college process uh and that's going to be followed immediately with onetoone meetings with e8th grade students to get their course recommendations prepared so a very very busy group of people um the counseling department also received a mental health Grant from Ruckers uh there are folks from Ruckers going through and doing on-site visits uh with our counseling department now to help improve Services make areas of recommendations there um you should definitely keep an eye out for future parent presentations by the Student Assistance counselors uh there's one coming from the police department but another sack uh presentation I think it's April 11th I want to say for to address potential student drug use and the rest uh finally um there is a uh the counseling department established a Blue Devil Community Network uh this is a network it's a simple Google form uh open to Westfield residents to uh provide an opportunity for students to engage with Westville residents uh almost in an internship and and a career communication perspective so if you are someone who is involved in the practice of law he signed up for the for the Blue Devil Community Network and the uh the counseling department May match you with students if you're interested in speaking with them who may be interested in those careers uh or if you own a business in town or whatever you whatever you may think so to uh to get to that you can actually just type in Blue Devil Community Network Westfield on any search engine uh I did the form of takes all of about five minutes to sign up you can also access that through the counseling uh page on the Westfield School website uh strongly encourage everyone in town to sign up and uh and have a chance to do some basic mentoring and uh and provide an opportunity for us students to talk to folks in professional Fields thanks very much uh thank you rob uh CJ and I virtually attended the Union County School boards Association County meeting on February 7th which was presented by local Bas within the county um they provided uh or presented included legislative updates and a panel discussion on budget development for board members which was uh very uh timely for us to attend and they provided a very thorough and inative uh overview of the process I don't know CJ if you have anything you want to add no yeah it was a very informative uh meeting uh and there were there's a large amount of uh legislative items that they had discussed um so we got a very full update on uh all the uh laws that the governor has passed as of late uh and uh what what uh smaller number that he that he's vetoed um and we did have a very thorough I thought presentation it was an excellent presentation on on uh you know budgets um and uh interestingly enough you know it it prompted I think a further set of thoughts uh amongst uh some of the attendees which was uh the title was you know budgets in inflationary times it was more of a a kind of a by the books uh budget uh analysis calendaring it but it does bring to mind the idea that you know we should think about you know how budgeting works when there is high inflation when there are uh other economic issues I think it's a worthwhile thing to kind of put our heads together about and discuss further that's it okay thank you CJ at this time I'd like to recognize the with there any other liaison reports okay I'd like to recognize the public for comments during this portion of the meeting members of the public are invited to address the board of education on any topic as a courtesy we'd like to um allow current student staff of Westville public schools to speak first the board request that individuals sign in and state their name Municipality of residents and group affiliation if applicable for the record and ask that all remarks be directed to the board president the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public if a matter concerning a District staff memb is of Interest or concern to a resident the matter should be referred to the responsible building principal superintendent ATT of schools or the Board of Education either by a telephone letter or email although the board may not respond to items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in re removal from the meeting or adjournment of the meeting each speaker statement will be limited to 3 minutes in duration long okay first thing I wanted to say is just a uh I'm gonna it's a hope for next time please state your name sorry I thought I just had to write it down I'm JJ I live in Westfield hey everybody um I feel like you guys are getting used to this at this point um I was interested in what you guys were saying before I didn't understand when we were determining what goes in the green and the red um and if you guys can address that at the next meeting I would appreciate that I didn't know if it was after we got the state aid or before um and I didn't know if there was a way essentially of gerrymandering teachers we really want to keep to keep that and get the budget that we want to have and if that's kind of the plan and that's how it works I just didn't understand the machinations um so I wanted to ask for next time then separately I have to do this again um so so you know one of my favorite sayings of all time is that actions speak louder than words um and unfortunately in our district the actions of students and the actions or inactions of the board and the superintendent really are pretty loud um acts of hate in our school seem to happen often uh or more often than I hear about everywhere else um in general most recent one was a swastika but as I've been looking into it more and more I'm realizing that there's more acts of hates and just acts against marginalized communities in Westfield that aren't really addressed or brought up to the public and informed in the public in general not just something that happened but everything that happens um in December the newsletter was circulated acknowledging that despite the uh thoughtful and strategic increase in education and procedural measures it's still not been enough time to fully eliminate this ugly expression of hate so I guess my question is have you started the process to find a different course of action what are you doing differently now to ensure that these acts aren't happening the next time I heard about the school bathroom time signin sheet but you know hate to say it the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome so if we're going to keep doing the same thing I don't I don't know what to expect um or I guess I do uh also you ask the district to do three things um over the break unite reflect and challenge um but I want to make sure that you guys are holding yourselves to the same standard um you know we should hold open and honest conversations with children have have you guys addressed and spoken to the actual children that are impacted um you as a board I don't know if it's something of like Hipp or how that works but for that but that's where I'm going uh I get I realize that I'm getting too late in the the thing um so I wanted to know if anybody talked to people that were directly impacted by what happened in schools did you hear their side this has to do for what I heard from The Wall Street Journal or from the swastick stuffff um and if you have please communicate it we we really want to know um everywhere I go in New York City I see you see something say something but in Westfield I hear nothing and I listen to a Wall Street Journal podcast to hear about what's going on in my own school if a seventh grader is hearing it my fourth grader is hearing it or my second grader is hearing it like everybody's hearing it please tell us about everything thank you thank you okay at this time if anyone else is planning to speak feel free to come up and sign up ahead at a time hi good evening Kathy oera Westfield um quick question about uh an agenda item that came up um it was I I didn't see it on it was an actionable agenda item but I didn't see it on the agenda it was um a a policy that had a second reading and it was voted on it was 5521 I believe um public demonstration am I correct I I didn't see it on the agend agenda um but it sounds like it was put forth for a second reading am I confused or did that cannot be answered um there was something that was read second reading of public demonstration but I don't I don't see it on the agenda and I I do look over the agenda before I come to the meetings they're very difficult to understand though I have to admit and I it is hard to tell what's actionable what's not actionable um I would love if going forward that could be clear because I really sometimes don't know when I can speak but um I would have spoken about that public demonstration item had I known it was an actionable item tonight so that's it thank you oh and um I would love to um possibly share prepared statements um but since it was kind of quiet this evening I decided not to too thank you my time has already started Scott Kesler no I'll walk up faster next time sorry hi Scott Kesler from Westfield um on December 19th of last year the New Jersey school ethics commission rendered a decision and in that decision it found that certain statements um made by a member of this board were controversial and likely perceived as offensive and hurtful to members of The District's Jew Jewish Community being Westfield and as well to the Jewish Community as a whole it's been two months and the board has said nothing in response to that decision now in the last two months there's also been a Senate Judiciary Committee uh investigation there's also been a federal civil rights discrimination investigation at ruter concerning the harassment of students because of Jewish ancestry or Israeli citizenship um the Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating the financial support underpinning the ruter University Center for security race and rights which it and the these are their words the Senate's Words which sponsors events featuring anti-semitic speakers individuals who justify violence against the state of Israel terrorist sympathizers and Advocates of domestic radicalis radicalism again the board has been silent about these events which impact our community which impact our district which impact the students in this District there's been silence I want to remind everyone of the words of Albert Einstein if I were to remain silent I'd be guilty of complicity I really hope I really hope that the board meets its obligations to this community and says something about what's going on because if not we believe and we will continue to believe that those offensive and hurtful comments were directed to us and they have not been corrected or rectified by you so please please speak up thank you okay at this time I'd like to close public session and I'd like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting can I have a second thank you thank you Brendan all in favor say I e