##VIDEO ID:AZwPQ62B0uI## good evening welcome to the B bro Board of Education meeting November 20th 2024 as board secretary I will be opening the meeting in the absence of the normal chair who was the board president Mr Januzzi and also the vice chair Mr B the vice president board we will be electing a temporary Bo temporary chair as soon as we get through the procedural items so at this time I will call the meeting to order and I'll read the uh procedural statement the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which time any business affecting their interest is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act Board of Education policy 0162 the Board of Education of the burrow of Bound Brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the board office and in the Bound Brook High School and mailed or fact to carrier news Bound Brook B clerk southbound Brook Board of Education and any person who has requested individual notice and pay the required fee please join me for pledge alance I pledge allegiance States this time we will take a roll call Mr B Mr Dawson here miss gazino here Miss Carlton Mr zco here miss here Mr menh house here miss H here Mr bulmer here and Mr Januzzi Let It Be noted that we have a quarum present this evening pursuant to board bylaws section 0164 in the event of the absence of both the President and Vice President another member can be designated to preside as approved by the board the board president has recommended that the most senior board member Mr Roger zco be designated to preside over this meeting as chair is there a motion to authorize designation of Mr Roger upo to preside over the meeting is as temporary board chair Mo motion by miss m second seconded by miss kazina all in favor any uh any knows any extensions any comments motion passes at this time the chair Position will be turned over to Mr zco and he will take the agenda beginning with number two from the AR thank you Mr appreciate it good evening everyone it's good to see everyone out tonight uh we're going to start with the superintendent good evening everyone and Welcome to our November board meeting it's great to see all of our parents students in the audience at this time we're going to go with our favorite part is the recognition of our wonderful students and staff and we will start with our students of the month Miss Larson please come forward good evening our first sent of the month is camela Mendes Marcano siblings Madison and Michael her favorite subject in school is math her favorite hobby is to play sports and her career plans is to become a police officer come on [Applause] our next creder of the month is Kieran for he has [Applause] one his favorite subject in school are his medical classes okay he said part of our bio um the biomedical science project leave the way classes his favorite hobbies are playing rugby football working out and working with fire department and his career plans is to become an ER [Applause] nurse get our next prador of the month is Valeria [Applause] Barbosa has one sister Angelica her favorite subject in school is history her favorite hobbies is running her small business and doing makeup she loves making others feel good about themselves and her future career plan is to further her education and business administration and running her own very successful [Applause] [Applause] business and finally Marken l [Applause] Mar has two siblings nson and Stephanie his favorite subject is algebra his favorite hobbies are playing video games and card games and his future career plan is you become a physicist or an engineer [Applause] [Music] round ofuse please forward CS hello everybody the Community Middle School is prow to recognize Jaden Arias as seventh grade student of the month [Applause] Jaden has five siblings favorite subject is math forgot to say was nominated by Mrs pratus His science teacher favorite subject is math favorite hobbies are reading playing with his dog and when he grows up wants to become a lawyer [Applause] thank [Applause] you next up is our eighth grade student of the month Lindsay Peralta Martinez [Applause] Lindsay has one sibling favorite subjects are math and science enjoys wrestling basketball and soccer and also wants to become a lawyer or something involving business Lindsey was nominated by our teacher SC social studies teacher Mr Bender congratulations [Applause] Lindsay another round of applause for our CMS [Applause] at this time with Mrs Wier please come forward to talk about our sus the month small so our first student of the month grade four Tiffany EMZ ventur Tiffany was nominated by Miss Christian and when I got the opportunity to talk with Tiffany she told me she has one little sister two years old that her favorite subject is Art she loves to draw her favorite hobbies are playing school she goes home and she practices being a teacher and she likes to teach math and her career plans are to be a teacher congrat [Applause] [Applause] our grade five student of the month is Jason air Bravo so Jason has five siblings two brothers and three sisters his favorite subject is social studies and he shared that is learning about Native Americans right now and he's really enjoying that his favorite hobbies are to play soccer with his friends and family and to draw and his career plans he would like to be a graphic designer [Applause] and our sixth grade student of the month is Blanca calron [Applause] Lopez so Blanca has three siblings all of them are younger when I asked her her favorite subject she told me her favorite subject is math specifically multiplication her hobbies are playing volleyball and soccer and her her career plans that she'd like to join the [Applause] [Music] [Applause] military thanks everyone next up our second grade student of the month is Ariana Dominguez Sano [Applause] is in this Valley ed class her favorite school subject is Art she likes to have fun with her friends and she wants to be a veterinarian [Applause] and our third grade student of the month we have a theme is Ariana [Applause] rapel Ariana is from miss duena and miss gilford's class she has one brother and one sister her favorite school subject is Art she likes playing with her dog and reading and she wants to do a lot of things when she grows gets older Right congratulations [Applause] [Applause] and last but not least we're going to call l l anx Dr s couldn't be with us this afternoon this evening so Mr Ross will present the students of the month hello everybody I get to introduce our youngest Scholars to us and we'll start off with our prek 3 student of the month who is Benjamin picado [Applause] so Benjamin you have one sibling yes yeah come on down Benjamin not only cool cut how you doing so Benjamin has one sibling favorite school work is block Center and art center also the favorite hobbies is play with cars yes and build with blocks and play with his friends and his future plans and career plans to be a police officer well done [Applause] smile congrats good job and Our Kind Garden student of the month is Jason Del come on [Applause] see you all right so you have sisters um wow Four Sisters you like reading and you like learning site words thank you I'm love of English too and your favorite hobbies are to play with your sisters baseball and flag football also the future careers are to be a football player or a baseball player well done [Applause] all right [Applause] congrats and our final scholar of the night Melissa marado Santos [Applause] not here okay so Lia makado Santos has one sibling favorite subject is Art and music and favorite hobbies are if you draw and paint and current career plans at this first grade stage is to be a teacher yes congratulations another round of applause for all of us students of the world we're going to take a picture of everybody all the students of the month we're going to take a picture of all the students of the month right after we announce our employee okay at this time I want to call Dr s we're going to take the picture little bit Dr s ser couple minutes come for present District of the month hello again the Community Middle School is proud to honor Mrs Kelly barrows as the November [Applause] teacher thank you in just her second year as a language arts teacher in the Bound Brook School District Mrs barrows has fostered a warm and dynamic classroom where students actively participate take risks and support each other's growth her Innovative flashlight Fridays where students read by flashlight become a weekly favorite while interacting uh while Her Interactive teaching methods such as Gallery walks and small group activities keep her students engaged and motivated she also maintains an ISL leaderboard with weekly prizes to encourage academic achievement beyond the classroom Mrs barrows has been instrumental in establishing and leading impactful programs at CMS she helped launch the school's first scripts spelling dat and continues to collaborate with her colleagues to enhance this prestigious competition last year Mrs Barrow proposed the creation of a drama club at CMS she is currently the co-advisor and has just completed auditions for a May 2025 production of Shrek Jr addition Mrs Barrow organizes class trips to professional theater performances including last year's Edgar Allen po play and this year's hero the boy from Troy and look both ways at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center Mrs Barrow's dedication creativity and enthusiasm have significantly enriched The Learning Experience for our students inspiring them to explore new interests and develop confidence on behalf of the entire School Community we thank her for her remarkable contribution and congratulate her on this welld deserved recognition as teacher of the [Applause] M Wonder can I ready one two smile all right [Applause] aw absolutely at this time like to get all the students and the parents to come up nice big so our parents and students way down that's on [Music] hey how come you're not up [Laughter] here right everybody a half step in half step there you go yeah everybody smile one two three one more one two smile [Applause] awesome I you thank you buny congratulations what I haven't seen him smile like that okay everyone we're going to do a five minute break just so moms and dads can get the kids home if they need to if you want to stay you can e e e e e okay everyone we're back in session uh next we have a presentation Miss Dolan in relation to Dolan you should all be able to hear me just fine I don't usually have a problem with my would you like microphone no I need a microphone I'm good thank you um once again I'd like to say it was a pleasure to complete the audit um I'm actually here a month earlier because we actually got everything done actually earlier this year so I wanted to come in and do a little earlier this year which is wonderful news um as a result you'll be able to take action tonight to accept the audit corrective action plan and all of the information and actually put an audit to bed probably a month to two months earli than we have in the past um just to give a little bit of a quick refresher you actually have two audit documents that come from our firm there's a large Blue Book or the big actur which is a very large document it's actually broken into four main sections there's a small introductory section which sort of talks about the pl a little information about the district there is a very large Financial section which details all of the information on the finances there's actually a statistical section which is the J section in the report that's actually a very informative section it's 10 years comparative so it gives you 10 years comparative information not only about the burrow about the school district but it also gives you information about about the burrow and the county of Somerset so there's a lot of great information in that book section and then lastly there's a single audit section which is all of compliance on grants additionally I give you a Management's report which is actually my report to the board for all of the work that we have done and all the procedures that we've gone through as we all know these are very large documents and I would tell you probably there are 14 of the most important pages in the book there are of those documents if you want to follow along but we feel let's audit schedule C1 which is the most important schedule that is the budget that starts and that schedule walks you through all of the revenues and where all the revenue ended each each of those Appropriations and any transfers that might have been made and any additional lapsing unexpended Appropriations everything about the budget seen in that 14-page document you look at the end of the year you ended up with what we call the fund balance picture it's not it's it's called fund balance you have a little bit over $1 13.8 million total in fund balances that being said it is all some is almost mostly earmarked you have a little bit over $5.5 million in your capital reserve that capital reserve is money that is set aside for future capita projects and or to be used as funding like you're going through all of your r grants right now for all your Renovations it can be your matching funds for any of those grants as needed you have a little over a million dollars in a maintenance Reserve that maintenance Reserve helps you utilize that funding within your budget for the maintenance of your own facilities you have a $260,000 in what we call an emergency Reserve that's just what it is it's an emergency it's set aside for any emergency that might come up we have um a little over 400,000 in an unemployment compensation Reserve that money is set aside for unemployment claims um you have unassigned fund balance which is what we like to call that's the money that's your free True Value that's a little over a million one the state only allows you to hold 2% of your budget expenses in that and then that leaves you with those two the two pieces you used a little over $2.5 million to support the budget that you're currently in right now as I'm a June 30th audit and then that gives you a little over $2.8 million left that's the number that's the big most important number number that's what's going to roll into your budget going as you're building your budget for 25 26 so what that means is you're really starting starting pretty much at the same level obviously we all know 25 26 will'll be difficult budgeting for with all the increases that we've seen some that we've heard about and possibly Aid changing so that money will be there to set to help you balance to start that budget in addition you had about $3.6 million in grant funding that came through the district in the special Revenue fund that number has started to be a steady decline because this the district has finally expended all of the federal Esser funds that came through under the Pandemic those grants finally ended and are ending at the end of this summer you're returning more towards what you've normally had in grant funding your cafeteria program actually operated at a profit this year you had a profit of about a little over aund um $6,000 from the previous year as um your business administrator knows the their requirements to spend down those balances he's already established a corrective action to spend those funds down additionally in the management report I do have to say you did a fantastic job and we have no formal recommendations it is a clean audit with no [Applause] formal the district works very hard to keep those comments and recommendations to a minimum they do happen but this year it have there are none which means there's no official formal corrective action needed to be taken tonight tonight um we do like to give districts warning or areas that we feel are future problems um so we refer to those as our suggestions they're nothing that you have to do we're just giving you some ideas things that we've seen other districts get tripped up on Andor things that are potentially in the future of a district the biggest one as I said is you have a lot of federal funding that has come through the district in the last couple of years where there's Federal funding there are Auditors so it's always possible that an additional audit could come in from the Department of Ed or the feds the federal government on any of the grant monies that they got we've seen them do desk reviews we've seen them do um individual programs lately we've seen them come in sometimes they can come in and once they're here they can look at anything and anything they want so we always advise everyone be careful when they come however our our no findings in your report means that you're in good shape if they were to come you would be have an easy job through them the other one is in that same area Federal Grant receivables you get award a lot of federal funding um what happens is this department of Ed does not allow you to draw that money down until you spend it so what ends up happening is use your own cash to pay those Grant funds and then you reimburse yourself from the grant monies we always recommend down on those funds the state the department of Ed will tell you you should be drawing down monthly we'll tell you that's an awful lot of work so we try to tend to go with quarterly or if you have large expenses always draw down your money because you much rather earn the interest on your funds than the state having the interest on their on the money that they had sent to you that being said it is like I said it was a great audit it was the business office was spectacular to help us to get through everything and I'm here if anyone has any questions M Doan I I think I can speak for everybody sitting at this table we want to thank you very very much but I also want to extend of the board gratitude to our business business office and our business manager and the superintendent the administrative Team without you this would not be a good great not good great and uh we are very much appreciative of everything that's been students more importantly our community out in relation to our financial success so thank you very much both of you [Applause] thank you Mr zco if I may just have a few minutes certainly I would like to thank Miss Valerie Dolan and her firm their partnership throughout the year and always being available to patiently answer questions on all the new developments that are coming out of the state uh is immensely helpful and that that keeps us on the right track I'd like to thank Dr Freeman and the Board of Education all of the hours that we spent at the committee meetings deliberating on these issues various purchasing consortiums that save this District money are are all um painting out in this report um on a personal note this is my 25th consecutive clean audit which it was never a goal in the beginning but now to look back Mr peny was an important part of that in my previous district and we we continue to perform here we increase excess Surplus which is a revenue source in the 2526 budget by half a million dollars above last year so all things being the same we have a half a million dollars more to spend for next year's budget because of savings that we created through the 2425 budget we also increased the transfer to capital reserve which is a savings account for all of the projects in the district's longrange facility plan by an additional $3 million transfer this year so that that will help keep the investment that this community has had in its schools going we created $400,000 of interest income from a ladate CD portfolio taking advantage of the interest rates and that money in the capital reserve and I especially want to thank russan Nasser and Christine Lee for all their work with the grants and all the administrative requirements of the business office so thank you very much and and of course all the principles and teachers you know uh directors the budget process here is is the one of the Lar largest group processes that we have in in the whole school district we started a zerob based budget a couple years ago where the teachers actually started the pro working with the principles uh projecting new staff and new curriculum needs and um you know a couple years ago when Dr Freeman introduced this C we had one of the best budgets that we've ever had okay okay guys so now we need to uh approve and accept this incredible audit so I'm looking for a motion second Jo okay and uh can I get a roll call yes sir Mr Dawson yes m yes Mr zco yes Miss M yes Mr minhas yes Miss H yes Mr Homer yes Mr chair motion passes excellent very very good thank you [Applause] again now we're going to move to uh section three student board member report everybody uh okay so today is my largest report yet and from the time I've done this I can see from November and then you have May and June and typically have everything all coming together obviously November September and October are the years where like everybody's disorganized most like November comes around everybody gets everything together and you get to see this in the support basically so starting with sports teams uh our High School boys soccer team finish our season at 149 going to be sectional semi-finals against mle six last Tuesday uh girls soccer finished their season at 7-Eleven with their final match being against sh on Fourth girl volleyball finishing their season at 912 with their final match being against Beach on sorry Beach on the fourth girls tennis finished their season at 516 with their final match being against immaculada on the 24th football finished their season at 18 with their final match being against North Playfield the 30th in the constellation match and boys basketball are starting their season on the 25th with their first match being away on the 10th against Great Charter girls basketball had their interest meeting today with their first match meeting on the 14th at Lawrence and both the wrestling and the track team have started their Seasons early with wrestling's first meet on the 11th against magel and tracks and the track team's first meet on the n9th at the r winter inational at s island and both the CMS Bo and girl soccer teams won their division championship for the second year in a row on the 25th and 29th respectively side I [Applause] that phenomenal report I cut him off [Laughter] early so for uh School news today uh the triangual blood drive was hosted in the gymnasium by the New York blood center and our own blood donation committee led by Miss bman and Mrs Bell which was very successful on the 4th and the 5th the the school had a schoolwide election for the presidential Senate and House of Representative candidates allowing students to get an idea of public voting like you would polling areas around the town with the PO workers being our VAR own students for various history classes Alo and Sean to seat in Hall alumni who witnessed the ballen hall fire in 2000 at their University came in and present their story and hard documentary to seniors to support on I believe 25th the schoolwide tutoring network from last year we'll be starting again this week hopefully with the earlier release the school will see larger turnout to support our education commitment within the student body announced yesterday the fast foot or the free application for federal student aid was released earlier to students nationally allowing seniors to apply for financial year early and getting ahead of planning for Life After GR graduation the B PTO hosted a designer bag Bingo this past Saturday November 16th on ra the class 2025 and their graduation to um great support B High School partnered with the high school track team our local police rbcc eof and the day byday foundation will be hosting a Thanksgiving food giveaway this Saturday November 23rd in the high school parking lot they will be giving away Thanksgiving starter B for those in need and allowing everyone to celebrate Thanksgiving as the holiday comes around the and uh Isabella marak a junior at bber high school has verbally committed to the IR University like D1 softball so congratulations to her and lastly elections for the next student representative to the Board of Education are currently in the process of being finalized the next Representatives hopefully going to be pres the next board me which will be my last [Music] [Applause] now say you know just hearing everything that you're talking about I I'm honored honored that you have been part board and that we have such spirit in the school because I'll tell you it's it it means a lot to all of us here and I know to the community members as well so thank you very much [Applause] appreciate we have committee meeting reports education committee with Mr Dawson thank you Mr zco uh we met uh last week uh we looked at our first uh Benchmark testing results of the year so our kids take tests a few times a year that let us know how they're doing um State Standards trying to get a predictive value of how they might do on state assessments so as uh Educators uh we use that data to try to figure out where to go next what supports they might need where they might need a challenge um and while it's the beginning of the year we don't put U too much value in the initial numbers for the first Benchmark of the year um we were all very excited as a committee to talk about the work that our teachers are doing and our administrators are leading to have really meaningful conversations about those those standards how our kids are performing and what the next steps we just wanted to celebrate the work of our teachers and our administrators for rolling up their sleeves and trying to figure out what to do with that information that we get from those tests and how that's going to drive our achievement in the future that was our meeting phenomenal thank you sir any questions comments none for governance we have Mr B would normally be doing the notes but we're going to have have Miss h