##VIDEO ID:Dlwb4aisDbE## all right we gonna start the meeting with a salute to the flag flag this is a regular meeting of the Board of Education of Bernard's Township notice of the time and place of this meeting was provided and copies of that resolution were forwarded to the official newspapers as designated by the Board of Education and to the Township Clerk and a copy of the notice was posted on the bulletin board of the Board of Education offices in accordance with public law 1975 chapter 231a for those members of the public who cannot attend our meeting in person a live stream link a live stream link to the meeting is posted on the district website and you free to read the rest of the public notice on your own as it's on the agenda and we'll move to the uh reorganization of the board item four the statement of uh election results is informational only and that will bring us to the oath of office so for three um newly elected board members will stand in the Diaz there and we'll read our uh State our Oaths in unison we'll read them together G do it up for e e [Applause] okay now that we have a reconstituted board I'll take a roll call M white yes Miss mun yes Mr Molinari yes Mr Amin yes Miss chipo yes Miss curado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr talin yes and Mr om alanic yes okay um so I'd like to uh call for a motion for nominations for board president Mr Shaw I'd like to make a motion to nominate Jennifer white for president is there a second Mr amalan any other nominations okay motion to close nominations okay and a second on that motion okay all right I'll do a roll call for um Miss White for board president um Miss White yes Miss mun yes Mr Ari Iain Mr Amin yes Miss chipo obain Miss curado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr talit yes and Mr om alanic yes okay meeting's yours e all right happy New Year everybody and thank you very much I'm happy to step into this role um and Welcome to our new board members we are now up to item eight election of the Vice President are there any nominations Janice R I nominate Robin mcum okay and is there a second yes that's second it and are there any other nominations okay motion to close nominations and a roll call call second un close R close nominations now okay roll call Miss White yes M mun yes Mr Molinari abstain Mr Amin abstain Miss shach obstain Miss Cado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr Tabit yes and Mr omalo yes okay now we are up to the regular session um we are up to number uh 10 the approval of the 2025 board Education meeting schedules um may have a motion to approve Dave and Keith and a roll call Miss White yes M munes yes Mr Molinari yes Mr amine yes Miss chipo yes Miss curado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr talet obain and mralanc yes okay oops has your ethics act to be signed if you we just had those distributed if you can all sign them and return them to JY before you leave at the end of the evening and now we are up to our student representative Joseph good evening everyone I hope you all had a wonderful and restful winter break as we settle back in as a school I just have a few short updates that I'd like like to share with you all so most prominently over the last few weeks to No Surprise our sports teams have not taken any break at all they continue to put on a display of Excellence day in and day out across the board our teams are performing very well so first our Ridge Boys track had an impressive win in the 4x200 relay at the petrowitz Invitational in Manhattan last week resetting a 10-year-old School record both the boys and girls teams will compete in the Somerset County championships this upcoming Sunday in Staten Island and this would be the boys sixth straight County Championship win if they can keep their momentum going on the ice our hockey team is having a great season currently standing at 73 and then one tie they just pulled through with a huge 43 victory over 17th state ranked pingry last Thursday continuing the winning trend is our boys basketball team they started strong with seven consecutive wins although they faced a tough loss to Colonia over the week weekend they remain undefeated in conference play and they're eager to continue their success similar to our basketball team the wrestling team began the season with a 6-0 undefeated record and they now sit at s-2 after facing undefeated filisur and topped ring Cranford both the ridge girls and boys fencing teams are also undefeated at 3 and0 additionally girls swimming is off to a strong start at 2 and0 and they're very hopeful to make another run toward being state championships state champions as I said it's really been success across the board outside of sports our dance team will be presenting their winter showcase on Broadway uh on Friday January 17th here in the pack and as the new year begins our Administration and our guidance office will continue doing new events on January 23rd guidance will be hosting the sophomore year postsecondary planning presentation right here in the pack as well at 7 p.m. they're going to cover things College related along with outlining different path Pathways for post high school life and they'll be teaching underclassman parents how to navigate the navian portal plus standardized testing another big topic that you're all aware of by now is our restoring Focus initiative Administration continues to raise awareness about the impact of electronic devices and social media on academic performance and our overall students well-being so with the beginning of the second semester Ridge is going to Pilot a full day phonefree environment similar to how it is currently done at William Annon what we know so far is that phones will remain off and Away during the school day though students can keep them in their backpacks for emergency purposes over the coming weeks prior to the end of the second marking period we will learn more details about the implementation and rules from our Administration and faculty so that's all for tonight thank you all and it's an honor to be be able to speak up here I'll continue to update you on all of our progress as the year continues thanks Joseph does anybody have any questions or comments for Joseph just uh just a thought you're extremely modest I don't know if you mentioned it but uh when you talked about the new school track record you were one of the four in the 4 by 200 so congratulations well done and well done to your teammates thank you yes I was the lead off flag on that thank you okay we are to superintendent's report and there are three items can I have a motion Janice and Dave and a roll call Miss White yes Miss mun yes Mr Molinari yes Mr Amin yes Miss chipo yes Miss gado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr tal yes Mr om alanic yes okay Mr Maran is there anything that you want want to address uh just thank you for support uh of our new board of ed members uh Welcome to our new board welcome everyone to 2025 um looking forward to another great year um so uh congratulations Miss White Miss mcum uh thank you all for being willing to serve as volunteers for your community uh Joseph um thank you for your time and all of your wonderful comments that you bring to us at every meeting um uh and I just wanted to ask you to uh let your replacement know at the last meeting he did an awesome job so uh you guys are on a rooll uh doing a great job with your report so thanks again and looking forward to 2025 okay we're up to public comment on agenda items please come up to the mic and uh sign in and state your name and your address if you would like to uh share any of your thoughts we welcome them okay looks like we can close public comment now uh we're up to item 15 which is the approval of minutes may I have a motion Keith and Robin and a roll call his wife yes M mun yes Mr Molinari yes Mr Amin yes M chiok yes Miss curado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr talit yes and mrad yes okay we are up to uh finance committee report we have six items can I have a motion Robin and Dave and we have a report from December 12th Dave can you share that sure yeah um so first item a grandparent of a current Rich student would like to donate reuse boats ruds sails and dollies for the ridge sailing team which is extremely generous the boats would be stored at the ran Yacht Club and Ed for practice currently the sailing team has 17 Sailors and they practice at barin club and use their Fleet of boats other schools practice there as well and the teams cue to use the boats during practice Hing our own boats would reduce the number of Rich Sailors that have to wait in the queue the committee had had questions about insurance upkeep storage potential repairs and certification that the boats are okay to be used Mr R will look into these issues Mr manino explained that this is the fourth year of the ridge sailing team pursuant to the board policy 6630 do1 the district will give consideration to funding allocated to the sailing team for the 2526 school year committee had questions related to the two sailing seasons and projected costs and enrollments Mr Mano will provide this information as well as talk to ads and other districts with programs the next item is the online ticketing so Mr manino would like to implement e ticketing for football basketball and wrestling events at the high school huddle which is the platform that they'd like to use provides an e ticketing platform the cost to use huddle would be $160 a ticket Mr manino also proposed raising ticket prices for sports events currently it's $3 for students $5 for adults these prices haven't been updated in several years and most schools charge $5 $7 the ridge booster club offers a season pass the committee supported triing the HUD huddle EET uh system over the winter and raising ticket prices to $57 cash will also be accepted for all winter events next item is preschool tuition rates so preschool tuition rates for general education students was $300 for a month from 18 through 23 and raised to 350 for the past year preschool is 4 days a week for 2.75 hours a day after accounting for the special needs students in the preschool classes there are only about 10 to 15 spots available for general education preschoolers Mr bra proposed increasing the preschool tuition to 375 a month this option is substantially cheaper than area private preschools the committee supports this proposal next is uh CH Chromebooks Mr Beaver is the it director presented a proposal for a Chromebook protection plan so the district could provide to families Mr beavers proposed a $40 annual fee for the plan which would cover all repairs not Replacements of Chromebooks this fee is in line with other districts implementing such plans our current Chromebook Fleet will reach end of support in June of 29 and the new Chromebooks that will be purchased will have more expensive replacement parts Mr beavers is going to prepare a letter to parents that will be sent over the summer offering the new protection plan as well as detailing the cost of repairs and Replacements the committee supports that proposal uh next is the Mount Prospect install eligibility update so the direct install program is a utility program incentive program offered by jcpnl we have three million worth of eligible projects at Mount Prospect which include boilers rooftops H rooftop hvacs lighting Etc however to qualify for the program the average electricity usage has to be less than 300 kilow per month for 12 consecutive months Mr R looked at previous utility bills for Mount Prospect and notice that the charges for peak hour usage were more than Ridge High School which cannot be correct given the disparity in size of the buildings Mr R informed jcpnl and they're coming to replace the electric meter amount Prospect he will continue to monitor the electric usage to determine eligibility for direct install any up on that JY uh the meter was replaced before winter break so do we know if that was issue I am eagerly anticipating our next uh bill so next is custodial and grounds as the district has moved to an in-house maintenance staff the bid for facilities and grounds will only include custodial services in the facilities portion which should increase competition and reduced costs because this bid is for fiveyear contract uh the bid must be reviewed by the state State Controller Mr R submitted the bid for to the state controller and upon completion of their review the bid will be advertised and the next item is the audit report so we went through the audit report with the partner from the audit firm and we reviewed a draft to that on page one second paragraph the independent audit report a clean opinion is provided there is one finding related to the timing of deposits in Student Activities this finding is not common because Student Activity monies are deposited a regular basis um the only other item of note I don't know if we want to go through all of these but the only other item I note was there's an increase in interest income over what we budget by um $2 million if that's correct um and an increase of a million dollars in Aid any other items on there you think we okay and that's it any questions for Mr sha just one with the uh e ticketing for the sports event uh Mr manino said uh cash is still be accepted in Winter does that mean in Spring and going forward we're anticipating just moving to e tickets or are we still G to accept cash at EV I think we're we're gonna always continue to accept cash even even going forward it's just more of a convenience to have this this e ticketing thing okay okay we are up to personnel and oh do I need okay okay we have a roll call first Miss White yes M mun yes Mr Molinari no on number six yes on the rest Mr me saying no one number six yes and the rest Miss chipo same no one six yeah Miss Cado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr talet yes and Mr alanic yes okay now we're up to personnel and we have 15 items can I have a motion Robin Janice and a roll call uh Miss White yes Miss mun yes Mr molari yes Mr amim yes M chipo yes M curado yes Mr Shaw yes Mr talit yes Mr om alanic yes and Mr markon is going to give us the Personnel update so uh of what we can share from the Personnel committee that met on December 13th uh Mr manino our athletic director uh came to the committee to explain uh the flag football team request uh that has since been uh tentatively uh approved or approved by the board uh last month so we look forward to seeing that team uh begin their work in a practice season and then hopefully a formal season in 26 um we also discussed uh some plans related to leaves that teachers were on and how those would be covered uh and Mr s reviewed uh open positions um and at that we are doing very well in getting them covered and he talked about the Personnel items for December 16th it okay thank you uh we're up to curriculum uh curriculum just met and will be reped out on our next meeting um and that takes us to Wellness M gr is there an update we will update on the 27th okay uh next is leison committee reports do any of the leison have any items that they need to Mr um not a report but uh facil offic was left off the agenda but uh there's no report we just let everybody now our next meeting date will be next Thursday January 17th okay okay uh that takes us to public comment on non-agenda items uh if you have anything in mind please step up to the mic sign in and state your name and address okay now closing public comment uh that brings us to board Forum um do you want to address this first sure um we were taking a look at the recent uh forecast and uh prompted us to look at our backup snow dates that are planned on the current 2425 calendar um currently we had the first day to use as makeups uh as the uh 27th of May and the second day in February uh it occurred to me that was a typo so I went back and looked at um some committee minutes uh from a few years ago when we planned the calendar and it was a little unclear I think we had initially had um just the one day in May and then we had some discussion to at a second day in February but when we added the second day we didn't recognize that it really should have been the first day with May being the second day meaning that um if we have a snow day between now and our February winter recess um we would use the uh the 19th of February as a school day and then if we had a second date uh we would use the May Day so I wanted to draw that to everyone's attention um you agree that that makes the most sense then I would revise the calendar to show the order of the makeup snow days and get it out to everybody this week so parents would have it does anybody have any thoughts everyone's okay with it okay great um then for board Forum I just wanted to talk a little bit about committees um I will send out tomorrow to everybody uh I'll email you um so that if you have a preference uh in terms of the Committees that we have options you can respond with the priority from 1 to six um obviously I'll do my best to try to get you as many of the Committees that you would like to be on doesn't always work out that way um so just understand that you will all you know be placed ultimately where you're needed um you know if everybody all wants to be on finance we can have six people on finance so I will definitely try to um give you one of your top three um and do my best to to make that happen um if you could just respond by Thursday um I'm going to assume if I don't get a response that you don't have any preferences and that I can just place you wherever there is a need um and then I will try to get that back to you sometime next week and let you know um the different committees that you'll be sitting on for this year give me as much detail as possible because it's really helpful so if you have a day that you know you never can meet or a morning you know that you never can meet include all that information um because that might factor into you we know certain committees meet on a certain day so if you know that you never can do that day um that might not be a committee for you but at the first meeting um of the new committees we'll discuss in each one the time so the time that we're meeting now might not be the time that the committee will meet for the remainder of the year um and we've always done it that way so sometimes a committee has met in the morning and sometimes a committee has made met in the afternoon based on when people are available so the more information you can provide me um the better it will be does anybody have any questions about that Dave um just about January meeting so if like policy is coming up it's just going to be the same policy people right because it's the same there are no holes right so we'll fill in the different holes and then starting February the new committees will will begin okay any other items for board Forum Robin I I don't have a voice so I don't know how much I can talk about starting to cough um I just wanted to bring up that last year in January we talked about board goals and we decided I guess as a board that it makes more sense to do them this time of year when there's a you know when the new board is starting as opposed to when we used to do them in the summer um so last year we adopted board goals I think in February and um we didn't do a board self- evaluation this year which I I would like I would I'm hoping we can do but I think that also makes sense to wait until we've been working as a board you know until the fall and maybe do it then instead of trying to shove it in you know before the end of the school year um like we've used to do so maybe people can think about board goals and we can send out in Nick put in weekly notes what this year's goals were and then we could discuss it maybe next time yeah I think it's a good idea and then um we can talk at the January 27th is our next meeting and then use a meeting in February to finalize them anybody else have any anything for for board Forum okay motion to adjourn gella Robin thanks everybody e e