##VIDEO ID:nzqb_91r5fY## e e e e e e e e I should turn the microphone on um uh roll call Mary please miss cber yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss de Benedictus Miss yes Mr Mesmer yes Miss picala yes Miss W Mr Edwards New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure of the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act The Brick Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be posted on the administration office buling board the official District website and channel btv2 and sent to the Asbury Park Press the brick times The Star Ledger and Municipal clerk's office thank you um can we have a motion in a sec second motion Nicole second Ali whereas The Brick Township Board of Education has been formed pursuant to applicable New Jersey statutes and whereas the board is charged with the responsibility of Performing all acts and doing all things consistent with the law and the rules of the state board of education necessary for the lawful and proper conduct equipment and maintenance of the public schools and public school property of the Brick Township School District and whereas section seven of the open Public's meeting act permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting of the board in certain circumstances and whereas the board has determined that the circumstances exist for such an executive session and whereas the board has found the action described below to be necessary and proper now therefore for be resolved by the board on November 14 2024 that the public shall be excluded from the discussion of an action on the executive s here and set forth the session will be approximately 15 minutes and the general nature of the subject matter to be discussed is harassment intimidation and bullying reports is anticipated this time that the above stated subject matter will be made public if and when is deemed to be in the public interest to do so and the need for confidentiality is no longer required by the board Mary Miss Sebert yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss ay yes Mr Mesmer yes Miss picala [Music] yes e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e the oh dear Lord this so aome I got to move it over so I can make sure it's e okay we're going to get started um I need a motion and a second oh is everybody here is mine oh okay I didn't see her sorry um okay I need a motion in a second to return motion Ally second Nicole Mary Miss cert yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss Ayan Ron yes Mr Mesmer yes Miss picala yes Miss wreb yes will everyone please stand to salute the flag in a moment of silence I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands one nation under God indivisible for liberty and justice for all thank [Music] you often it may appear to members of our audience that the Board of Education acts with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote please understand that before a matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting the Administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the super intendent of schools discussed it in appropriate Boe committees and only then if the superintendent is satisfied that the batter is ready to be presented to the full Board of Education it is placed on the agenda for Action at a public meeting board of education members are given advanced notice to review the agenda and through the chair ask questions or voice concerns in rare instances when necessary some matters could be presented to the board of education for discussion and vote at the same meeting Miss mcnamer thank you Mrs W this evening we have our student Representatives we'll be starting with Brick Township High School's president of the student government Association Paula Kobe and Ramos Paula hi I'm Paula Kobi and Ramos sj's president and starting off with the lrms report please help support lrms interact club during the holiday season as part of parent teacher conferences interact interact will be selling Sweet Treats to support our lrms Giving Tree during the conference please take an ornament for a Giving Tree to support our local families as a part of the give tree we are accepting gift cards in a V variety of amounts we will accept donations until Friday December 13th a reminder that lrms parent teacher conferences will be on Wednesday Thursday and Friday November 20th 21st and 22nd evening conferences will be available on Thursday the 21st between 6:00 and 8: please support the lrms community Through interact food drive which will be begin during parent teacher conferences and continue through December 13 all non- perishable food items are accepted donation bins will be available outside the main office and can also be sent with your child voices from the lake is an after school club led by Miss padina we meet most Mondays after school to sing and learn about how to use and care for our voices students are preparing for a Winter concert on December 18th with some Community car laying planned as well if students are unable to commit choir they can sign up for caroling spots are limited sports report girls cross country went undefeated in the blue division crowning them blue division Champions there were 14 members of the girls team who participated in the Ocean County cross country Middle School meet of Champions girls had had five Place winners between JV and varsity races The Girls JV team plays third overall in the race earning a team a plaque and another medal all members of the team had a great season and I look forward to seeing the sixth and seventh graders back back out next year the 2024 lrs girls field hockey team has many things to celebrate the season not only did they win the blue division but they remained undefeated in doing so After experiencing one tie the girls dedicated themselves to getting better each and every game and practice by learning new skills and practicing their fundamentals the team does wish to give a special shout out to their eighth graders and Coach mallister who is retiring de in December while we are sad to see you all go on bigger and better things we are thankful and grateful for everything you have contributed to our program once a Laker always a Laker the lakeer Vera girls soccer team showed incredible resilience and growth this season despite being a young man the players competed with grit and determination in every game although victories were very few the effort and teamwork displayed laid a solid F foundation for future success the season was a promising step forward and the team is clearly headed in the right direction the boys cross country team team made great strides all season with each Runner improving on their own personal times although the boys record was not a seller the boys showed exceptional sportsmanship in every me and were consistently given praise from opposing team teams coaches parents the entire season lrms boys soccer team ended their season with a four game win streak their soccer skills and teamwork improved with every game played they were hardworking team with a lot of tough the team finished with a record with a 44 record winter winter sports which are cheerleading girls girls and boys basketball and wrestling are all underway now on to the bths report we are excited to share that our bths honors bths honors choir voices of fire performed at the njpsa FEA fall conference at Atlantic City this was a prestigious honor to be selected to perform at this event their performance was outstanding bths is proud to once again announce that we earned the bronze level sustainable sustainable Jersey for school certification this recognition highlights our school's dedication to sustainability Environmental Education and creating a healthier learning environment bths was awarded this recognition at the P at the past sustainable Jersey for schools 2024 annual awards ceremony at the school boards convention in Atlantic City where Dr kajan Mr Hen Miss godic Johnson Mr Paxton were presented the award along with Dr frell Mrs MCA miss Mr Edwards and several members of our school board the peer leadership program provide provided the first freshman Outreach Of The Year on October 30th the upper classman peer leaders engaged with fresh students during their Gym classes to help build connections and transition them into High School the student government association's annual Halloween costume contest was super fun with great participation the contest featured several categories and winners who earned gift cards and trophies Mrs best and Mr Capone's acting and choir classes presented a Beetle Juice inspired performance to kick off the contest SJ 's pumpkin decorating contest was also very fun the class of 2026 won first place with their pumpkin R rendition of Violet from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory second place went to Mr Ryan's class with their witch pumpkin third place was awarded to miss Robinson's teaching teachers to teach class with the Jersey comfort food pumpkins thank you to all Pumpkin submissions it was great display during the Halloween season on Tuesday November 12th both Brick Township and brick memorial parents were invited to attend financial aid present present presented by hesaa to learn about the financial aid process associated with postsecondary schooling now on to clubs NHS Key Club mayor student advis mayor student advisory and school leaders attended the leadership conference at OCC the conference provided Insight on the importance of accepting others for who they really are and learning about the speaker Stories the computer club and computer science Honor Society hosted an event on November 6th at The Brick at The Brick Senior Center during which students gave technology workshops to senior citizens the multi the Multicultural Club held a meeting for students to learn about the Festival of Lights dwali celebrated in India students created paper rang goalie crafts and learned about India's culture NHS member NHS member uh member of the month Jana Stango the VP of service a position that requires so much time and dedication Jana makes it look so easy she's always on top of things and communicating with the group and Miss skip to keep things running smoothly in addition Jana consistently steps up to sign for multiple events she doesn't know the meaning of just completing the bare minimum she's top tier said by NHS adviser Mrs skip pickle ball also held their last match of the season this past week and will start up during the Spring in the aux gym for a fall for our fall Sports all have come to to an end the volleyball team made it into States they fought hard to end in a closed match against cold neck their season ended in the third third set by just a few points The Brick Township High School band won best percussion at the Atlantic Coast championship as well as placing six at the championship on Sunday November 3rd with a score of 90.8 Junior Kira mchu had an outstanding performance on Saturday at the NS njsiaa group cross country championships she ran a personal best time of 20 minutes and 7 Seconds which placed her in 16th this earned her spa at the meet of Champions next Saturday Kira now holds the seventh fastest record at the Home Dell Park in burck Township High School cross country history winter sports are preparing to begin many have hosted their interest meetings and are ready for great seasons for future events at bths NHS induction will be hosted on November 19th to congratulate students who got admitted into our prestigious organization by valuing the traditional values of character scholarship service and leadership class of 2025 and 2024 are thrilled for this year's Powderpuff game both classes have been training for two weeks for the game on November 21st at 3 p.m. bths drama club will be presenting clue on stage for their fall performance the first showing will be Friday November 15th at 6:30 additional shows are include Saturday November 16th at 1:30 and 6 6:30 tickets can be purchased at the door we hope to see you there the guidance Department with the support of sgaa will be hosting bths annual alumni networking day on Wednesday November 27 during blogs 3 and 4 in the auditorium Juniors and seniors will have the opportunity to hear recent bths graduates discuss their transition to college career and the military our Winter Guard will be be having an open house at bths 5:00 p.m. through 9:00 p.m. on Friday November 22nd additionally as their annual winter craft fair on Saturday December 7th at bths from 9:00 a.m. to 300 p.m. Key Club has an upcoming fundraiser called candy cane my yard in which students Place candy canes on people supporting the fundraiser near Christmas time as well as an upcoming trip to Town Square Senior Care with the choir to make Christmas ornaments with the elderly as a reminder any student in need of extra help or assistance with their academic studies should consider utilizing our NHS peer tutoring Services as well as our academic Su success extra help support offered every day during block five in room 405 in closing Please be aware that the first marking period came to a close on Tuesday November November 12th report cards will be become available to parents on Friday November 22nd we will have an early dismissal next week on Wednesday November 20th Thursday November 21st and Friday November 22nd to hold our parent teacher conferences at this time all parents should have signed up for their desire conference slot through their parent portal please reach out to your child's counselor with any questions be sure to stay connected to bths events and inside information by accessing our school website SG Instagram bths sgaa and our school Twitter bths dragons you can always see all of our happenings monthly through Dr cajun's Dragon review thank you for this OPP opportunity and I will see you all next month thank you Paula now we have uh from brick memorial High School the president of the student government Association Kristen mcade Kristen good evening um tonight I'll begin with a report from BR Andora Middle School the yearbook Club is sponsoring a food drive for our holiday baskets to help families within the school Community sadly fall Sports has ended but the season resulted in some great stats cross country completed in the Ocean County Championship Ryan Terell and Quincy Clawson were 11th and 13th out of a 100 runners in the girls race Logan Zer 12th Place Broden Zer fif 15th Place Ryan Ry L ratell 22nd Place and Aiden Serrano 23rd Place out of a 100 runners in the boys race girls soccer boys soccer and field hockey made improvements throughout the Season Winter Sports have begun have begun practices and have their matches and games in the upcoming months boys and girls basketball cheer and wrestling are excited for their upcoming Seasons Halloween was was celebrated with costumes and a mummy rap there are several costume themes depicted by staff and students BMS honor Ed its veterans with a special Veterans Day celebration on November 12th Central Administration Board of Education members staff and students gathered to pay tribute to more than 30 veterans guest explored a Living Museum in in front of the bms's wall of honor where they had the opportunity to learn about our nation's history the ceremony featured heartfelt per performances by students who sang read thank you letters and listen to inspiring words from guest speakers additionally the band performed and Veterans retreated to dinner as they enjoyed the evening's events middle schoolers participated in a VFW essay writing contest essays were submitted and winners will be announced in December peer buddies and art class started and is and it is a rewarding experience for all some upcoming events parent teacher conference on November 208th 21st and 22nd now on to a report from brickmore high school it has been a busy month at brick memorial in late October our Administration met with all of our classes for round two of our class meetings in which they spoke about continuing to do the right things during the school year being in school being on time to school and to class was a main focus along with staying concentrated on all of the goals that are in front of us we also received some motivation to participate in our annual Halloween costume contest which was a success we had many students and staff members join in on the fun and awarded prizes to several different categories including best in pop culture and best group themes our National Honor Society was happy to host our second annual college application social which invited seniors to our lrc to seek assistance and completing their college applications thank you to our guidance department and staff for volunteering their time to assist we have had the pleasure of inducting students to several honor societies over the last month our International Theses Honor Society inducted 15 new members to the club also our Italian French and Spanish honor societies inducted over 30 students to their respective memberships we were happy to hold our very own mock election on Election Day combined efforts of our Key Club and podcast team helped to provide our students an opportunity to take part in allowing their voice to be heard and experience the thrill of democracy firsthand congratulations to our October students and staff of the month staff Mr robu and Miss and Mrs metf 12th graders William Higgins and Cassandra post 11th graders musera qu Morales and Anthony mullik 10th graders Juan Dela Cruz and ABY Arena ninth graders libney romz Torres and Remy Burger we were excited to announce that our art Club has been asked by leod's Old World Market to help bring in the holiday season by painting their front windows after doing such a great job several other local establishments have requested their services it is great to be able to help contribute to beautifying our community our hooked on fishing class at brick memorial has had a great fall our students have been been lucky enough to get tours at the US Coast Guard Station at Sandy Hook and the US Coast Guard Atlantic City Air Station and are able to learn about great careers and opportunities that the Coast Guard can offer also thank you to New Jersey fish and wildlife and The Gambler deep sea fishing boat for a great experience we were able to team up with Middletown North program that was tailored after hour program to get some fish on the boat everyone had a blast our marching Mustang band had a very successful season aside from providing entertainment for our community the band also undergos intense rehearsal schedules and dedicates their weekends to representing brick memorial at various competitions throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania this year the marching Mustang band achieved first place in five competitions and finished second place by a thread in the state championship at barnegate high school they also went on to perform very well in the ACC at Hershey we look forward to welcoming our parents next week for parent teacher conferences we also look forward to our Mustang players and our winter production of it a wonderful life that will take place on December 13th through the 15th with Veterans Day being this past Monday we would like to say thank you to all of our veterans and all of those who have served and sacrificed in any of our Armed Forces finally we have so many awesome episodes currently up and also in production on our own podcast straight from the Mustang's mouth please check us out on Spotify Google music or apple music or any podcast platform now on to the sports report our football team is still alive in the postseason and heads down to milville to take on the Thunderbolts on 11:15 the Mustangs have a record of 9- two and are in their first sectional final since 2015 Nas Matthews broke the record for most receiving touchdowns in a season with 10 breaking Garrick Graham and Michael Po's previous record of eight the brick memorial Mustang Boys CR cross country team showcased resilience and growth this season overcome overcoming the loss of last year's Talent with a fresh lineup of dedicated young Runners RJ mon Anthony Williams Miles Navin and Charlie Mullen stepped up filling the gaps left by the graduated seniors and helping the team stay competitive senior Charlie pado closed out his high school career on a high note placing seventh at State sectionals although an injury prevented one runner from competing in the postseason the season successes have built strong momentum for the team the Mustangs look forward to a promising season ahead with this talented core returning the girlss cross country team had a great season the biggest takeaway would be the growth of the team 20 girls coach O'Donnell's biggest team ever their best achievement was their third place finish in the Ocean County championships the girls were happy to walk away with a plaque they had some setbacks with an injury but overall executed well in most races some noteworthy Runners this season were Katie Rogers Junior Megan Albano itz senior McKenna Ellis sophomore Julie danero freshman Kimberly qu Junior Elena kasanova and newcomer Sydney Mahalo boys soccer had a great year winning the C South Division Championship senior Dean Smith held the defense down along with goalie Ryan Wheeler They are a young team and return key players Heep dig and the striker twins the boys played tough all year and earned a spot in the state tournament Unfortunately they came up short in their first round to Red Bank Regional they are a very young team with only four seniors and looked to pick up next season where they left off playing tough competitive soccer the girl soccer team finished up 10 8 and one on the year the girls had an awesome season and had a Buy in the first round of the state tournament they had a big win over steinard in the second round in the sectional semi-finals they hosted Jackson Memorial and after a hard fought game it was tied z0 after double overtime the game went into PKS and the girls lost 3 to one it was a tough loss but overall a fantastic season the seniors were the heartbeat of the team for them all year Jazelle lardi Brook de Al maida Jordan Mulla and Maggie Allen all were starters and had an enormous impact all year long they will be tough to replace on the gymnastics front it was an incredible year for the stangs with a 9 to1 with a 9 And1 regular season record and being a South Champions they qualified as a team to the shore Conference tournament and South sectionals Liberty Shay and Emily placed in multiple events at the shore Conference tournament and brick memorial finishing third as a team Liberty Kenny is a South sectional champion on bars beam and all around also third on floor qualifying her to State individual finals Emily catrell qualified in fifth on floor to State individual finals Shay Wagner qualified in fifth on vault to State individual finals All State at state finals Liberty placed second on bars and eighth on beam and Shay placed eighth on vault some other gymnastics highlights highest team score since 2019 1091 highest Shore Conference Team finished in approximately six seasons six girls qualified to postseason meets in total field hockey had a good season and went 500 at 9 N and one they made up the state tournament but lost a tough game to Lacy in the first round the girls are looking to keep improving as they have been and look to improve to above 500 next season Grace kig Maggie leech Izzy Mara Christen mcwade Jan o Conor Morgan sder pton hner Layla Jonah and Katherine wack will be missed next year the volleyball team finished with an overall record of 19 and n and had a great year Bella melie was only the second player in school history to reach 1,000 assists Addison Thompson Shan McDonald and Emily Fitzgerald are key returners for next season and look to help build on the great Foundation that coach tulac coach yoro and Coach shanus have laid down for them the girls tennis team finished up three and N after facing some tough teams it is a young Squad of girls and look to keep improving under coach Brennan and Coach Calabro next year Lisa clear water will be tough to replace as she was a great senior ior leader it is sad to see fall Sports come to a close but we are excited to see what the winter sports have to offer that all for tonight please stay connected to us on Instagram at BM stangs or Twitter at bamora high school thank you and have a good [Applause] night thank you Kristen at this time from The ROC Cadet major Rashad Dingle director of operations good evening ladies and gentlemen I am Cadet major Rashad Dingle the NJ a22 director of operations I will be briefing you on what our brick Cadets have been doing during the past month on October 25th and 30th our colard showed up in strength to support the bre Township dragons home football games moving into November on the 1st and 8th our Cadets moved to moved the colard for the brick memorial high school Mustangs postseason football games good luck to the Mustangs Friday in milville on on the 11th 23 Cadets took a trip to Tom's River to show our support for our veterans by Marching In The Ocean County Veterans Day Parade we represented Brick Township with a formation consisting of a color guard unarmed drill flight and a rifle dream a rifle drill team on the 12th our cadetes were proud to support the annual veterans recognition dinner at Veterans Memorial Middle School by performing the color guard this is a great Community event that that we enjoy being part of each year looking ahead into December we would like to announce that our fall blood drive will be at Brick Memorial High School on December 18th afj RTC is hosting the American Red Cross to collect blood donations from staff and students all Brick Township Public School staff and Board of Education members are invited to attend and donate join us and give the gift of Life on behalf of our Cadets and mass Sergeant futral we would like to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving as always we thank you for your support throughout the school year and look forward to seeing you again soon thank you ladies and gentlemen and go dragons thank you Cadet major Dingle Mrs W if I may at the New Jersey school boards Association this uh past month Dr Farrell was awarded the regional uh superintendent of the Year award and we have a small presentation as he received the award at New Jersey school boards and his acceptance can we play the that now please Aiden be brief because I'm told most of you are here to see Maria from Sesame Street right after this um congratulations Jack and Tammy I I'm truly honored and humbled by this recognition and I'm so proud for the Brick Township Public Schools district I'm so fortunate to work with such a collegial and collaborative group of educational professionals on the state with the njasa and on the county level and many are here today our supportive super supportive Board of Education which is here today as well our highly dedicated administrative team also here and of course our entire hardworking staff the recognition is a tribute to the entire brick schools Community for me so many people have guided mentored and supported me over the years but I especially want to thank my family and my number one fan my wife being a superintendent of schools as many of you know can take its toll on your family life and hours are long and stress immense so thank you Linda also a shout out to my secretary Sandy berer and my ba who's here today as well Jim Edwards but special shout out to my EXO and work partner Susan mnam who's also here uh this evening her energy and support is the reason for much of the success in Brick you know just to get out of soapbox about the education profession because it really is a true calling to Public Service a true vocation for the people in it I've often said that it's not invoke programs or large school budgets that make excellent school districts or Great Schools but it's people and relationships and more importantly in particular the student teacher relationship all of our students today need an adult advocate in our schools that genuinely care about them on a onetoone level and we as administrators and board members just need to create an environment where these healthy relationships Thrive and young people have a sense of belonging to a community a caring Community I believe we're doing this in Brick I know we're doing it elsewhere in the state and nationally you know I brick our Mantra is student centered teacher-led and community connected so we say if we can make all decisions at are Student Center implement those decisions with Fidelity through our teachers the practitioners and communicate our results The Good the Bad and the Ugly to the community on a regular basis will be successful thank you when has he been under 90 seconds a lot of play out of that but but I'm glad the community got to see that because I do mean that for the community because that is something for all of us and something we would take a lot of Pride out here I need a motion in a second for approval of minutes motion Victoria second alley any board comments seeing none Mary Miss Sebert yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss Benedictus yes Miss aanon yes Mr Mesmer yes Miss palala yes yes Miss W I have to abstain uh we'll go into reports now superintendent comments or was that it no October I didn't think so was presentation so I didn't have any superintendent comments and I know some of my comments especially the congratulatory notes um may be uh redundant because our fall seasons are over um but I'm going to say them anyway on because I think it's important uh first of all congratulations to Mrs picala and congratulations and welcome to Mr malgeri and Mr Henry our newly elected Board of Education members I've said many times that being a volunteer Board of Education member is a thankless job that takes a lot of time and energy as well as many hours I also want to thank Mr wrab and Mrs seabird for their many years of service as Board of Education members uh be proud of the work you've done and the difference you both have made uh I know that the both of you won't be strangers and I hope that you'll continue to make a difference by supporting our community's children um here in Brick and there will be a little more in December I going to say so we don't have to come in no no no no there'll be a little more in December um and yes congratulations both our marching bands congratulations to the marching Mustang band uh they achieved first place in five competitions and finished second place in the state championships and The Brick Township High School Dragon marching band was recognized for best percussion I think I said the right best percussion group at the Atlantic Coast championship so congratulations to our marching bands uh this fall congratulations to we had a couple division winners and people that are and some teams that are still playing on our brick memorial boys soccer team one SE South Division in the shore and our our brick we call it like brick United our Co-op gymnastics team like our hockey team our a South Champs and brick memorial Jr Liberty Kenny uh is the South sectional state champion in all around bars and beam as well as finishing second in bars and the overall state championships in bars and eighth in Bean you know it's amazing I have a few sister I have five sisters but a few sister sisters that are ex gymnasts and that's amazing and if you ever went to a gymnastics competition and just watch them do a backflip on a beam that's about this wide across uh truly an unbelievable skill also brick memorial sophomore Emily uh catrell finished fifth in the floor in the South sectional and brick memorial Frost freshman Shay Wagner finished fifth in the vault in the South section so our gymnastics team combined in the town is truly truly phenomenal um congratulations also to Brick Township High School junior Kira McHugh um for her outstanding performance at the njsiaa group cross country championships that's the overall Group which allows her she took 16th and broke some personal records but allows her now to compete in the overall state meet of Champions which I think is this Saturday right I think it's this Saturday oh I think that's I think it's this Saturday also um I know the brick Memorial High School football team is playing for a sectional Championship I'm going to try to get down there Friday evening way down uh in milville Veterans Day uh November 11th we celebrated Veterans Day our district and our schools really do so much to promote and thank our veterans especially our local veterans uh as a district we try to recognize and celebrate Veterans Day so that our children understand the service and sacrifice that our local veterans and families have made for our country young people need these real life Heroes and they need to look no further than at our local veterans and we've been doing a great program at Veterans Memorial Middle School um every year now and it's getting bigger and bigger so great job there uh next week we look forward to welcoming our parents to the schools for parent teacher conferences it's also American Education week uh conference days are Wednesday the 20th Thursday the 21st and Friday the 22nd please check with your child's teacher and or principal if you any questions regarding uh your parent teacher conferences and times for those meetings um I shared this at our recent cabinet meeting so I thought it would be apropo to share again leading into Thanksgiving um but believe it or not there is actual research a lot of research that shows that focusing on gratitude actually changes the brain to become more optimistic and you're talking to someone who's been called a negative Nelly many times by about my family and some of my colleagues uh up here and it's something I am trying to do as well but by shifting our Focus to what we're thankful for we create a space to reframe challenges and approach stressful situations with a more positive outlook for leaders teachers and parents fostering a culture of gratit a culture of gratitude can boost morale and engagement strengthen relationships and build resilience in the workplace classroom our own children and in the home home uh for a father or three we talked many times about you know the struggles we go through with our own children sometime we take more to heart as parents than our own struggles right and um I think this was a great message that I was reading a few weeks ago that I shared and I'd like to share with all of you and leading to that you know I I am truly truly thankful and grateful uh to be here and part of our brick schools Community uh so Happy Thanksgiving all um as many of you know Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite holiday I say it every year I know many have Christmas and other holidays but Thanksgiving we used to say like you know the the three or four FS it was like football food Family Faith a lot of different things going on but um I like it because we get to recognize and take notice of the things in our lives that we truly are grateful for and give thanks and a quote I've always used is that gratitude towards what we have into enough and then more it makes sense of our past brings peace for our today and creates a vision for tomorrow so again I'm thankful for Brick schools and our dedicated staff our fantastic students and parents and hard workor and Board of Ed and the entire Community Happy Thanksgiving Miss mcam policy and planning we didn't meet this this month um the uh policy and regulations are on the agenda for second read uh that we had gone over the month before thank you Dr Anderson um curriculum and instruction we are meeting on December 2nd nothing to add on what's on the agenda um oh I could talk and talk quickly always open open the door I I can't say enough about um all the great things that are going on in our classrooms um my team and I do monthly walkthroughs and we meet with the principles and we look at our goals that we set each month um based on our data on our state testing data and it's just amazing to see the kids are so engaged it really feels um pre- pandemic to me it Feels Like Everything is Shifting back and the kids are just so happy and November's a great month they just came off of a weekend with beautiful weather they got outside they got fresh air um but our teachers are so happy the kids seem so happy it's just been a great month and we're you know so happy to welcome our families into school next week for our conferences so it's all exciting great things happening thank you Miss gringer special ed uh the special Le uh committee did not meet this month we will be meeting next month uh but items on the agenda uh really focus on the expansion of the preschool program which we're all super excited about to um you know begin an additional um set of classrooms and uh we are super excited in the special ed Department our pal Dan is tomorrow night um and our Unified sports will be playing a flag football game tomorrow um uh and it's going to be a Fant fantastic event thank you thank you Mr Edwards facilities Finance thank you Miss wreb uh facilities committee met on November 4th 3 o'cl and present was Miss picala Miss mcam myself Mr poro Jason duvic from VF I'm sorry I always mess up their name it's fvhd Architects sorry about that Miss gardi from speel Architects Miss Cashman from spel Architects Mr seagull from spel Architects and Mr y from n architects uh really the meeting focused on a lot of the updates Lake Rivier Middle School air conditioning Mr y the committee that the school is still Penning a few items delaying the closeout veterans moal Middle School boiler Replacements and air conditioning Mr yure informed the committee that there are no updates on the on this work um work will be continued in the summer of 25 Emma Havens Mr yor informed the committee that the school is nearing 100% And is awaited completion of testing and balancing same was true for veterans moral Elementary School School drump Point Elementary School as well uh Lan Mill Elementary School Miss Gary already informed the committee that speed was waiting on the completion of closeout documents mainly balancing reports midstreams Elementary School and osbornville Elementary School air conditioning Miss Cashman informed the committee that the preconstruction meeting was held on November 4th uh the district would to with the awarded contractor the and mechanical uh the permit sets been provided and the schedule of work is being developed War wolf and Herbertsville air conditioning Mr y informed the committee that the design meeting was held on October 23rd with Mr purio to review the design and prepare to go out to bid in January for review and award in the February time frame with work to begin in the summer of 2025 osbornville kitchen Edition Miss Cashman informed the committee that shorelands has received the permit package and preconstruction meeting is being scheduled midstreams Elementary School kitchen Mr yor informed the committee that Shor lands was awarded it was Alo the awarded contractor uh and that the kickoff meeting was actually today Brick Township High School long jump Mr pror informed the committee that this project has been completed facilities are now reviewing options for future concrete apron or a two- foot border of pathway stabilized Stone uh SDA emergent need Grant projects Mr peorian fmer committee that all projects in this grant are complete and then the M1 and comprehensive maintenance plan Mr Bor informed the committee that the M1 has been shared with the business office there were some uh budgetary numbers that were discussed and shared and that that is on this evening's agenda for approval uh next meeting is December 2nd at 3M uh next we moved into Finance uh Miss WRA Miss palala myself and Miss Roberts uh first item of discussion was the community solar and building performance I informed the committee that dco energy is still working on the projection for future HVAC projects and plan to have the RFP completed soon Brick Township facilities I informed the committee that the township appraiser has not completed the appraisals um and that a letter has been sent to a local to a third property owner uh that may have interest in selling electric School Bus Grant um myself and Miss Roberts reviewed the various options for proceeding with the electric School Bus Grant I noted that the lease purchase for the 25 buses and charging stations would amount to approximately $678,000 per year for 12 years also noted that there would be Savings in repairs and maintenance that would provide a break even to the purchase of the diesel buses in the future the committee concurred that the lease purchase should be placed on the next board agenda which is on this evening's agenda huddle contract I informed the committee that we are having an issue with huddle which is a uh program that the sports teams use for recording and game analysis uh there's an affirmative action issue that the board attorney is working on with the vendor we hope to have that resolved by the next board meeting new advertising accounts I informed the committee that Shore District advertising has brought forth Shore points driving school and again the next date for the meeting is December 2nd thank you Mr Edwards Mr CER is there anything you want to add or comment on on HR I don't believe at the moment but we are looking for substitute teachers substitute uh teacher aids through website thank you first public comment session this will be the first opportunity for public comment and will be for agenda items only the board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items each participant is asked to give his or her name prior to making a statement all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer comments shall be limited to five minutes and each speaker may only speak once the board will not during the public portion of this meeting discuss matters involving employment appointment termination of employment negotiations terms and conditions of employment evaluation of the performance of promotion or disciplining of any specific or perspective or current employee Andor students anyone for public comment on G yes 21 Mr Ed which touched on it um electric buses um what kind of background do we have to know that these buses will be reliable for the 12E span that you're looking at leasing them for and that we're not going to have issues and what was used to determine the repair cost the maintenance that would will be saved because I'm pretty sure there's no in-house mechanic that's qualified to work on electric buses um just because you don't have electric vehicles now so why would you have someone that could do that so anything that maintenance wise even preventive maintenance is going to have to be outsourced to a third party unless you plan on hiring an additional mechanic that's qualified to work on electric vehicles so okay no it's that's a majority of what I had to say I'm just curious to know you know the background where it came from and what type of information we have to know this is going to be you know worth the money and not cost more in the end okay Dr Perell sure um the first thing we've been talking about this for months we awarded a $5 million Grant uh which you hate to give up $5 million in anyway but obviously there's costs associated and risks Associated right you got to put money in to kind of get money as someone has said to me um recently uh Mr Edwards has really done a human's job in in working through this grant um and looking at the cost analysis not everything is you know as cut and dry as you would think it is there are some unforeseen costs so I'm going to let Mr Edwards uh add any to that the maintenance and mechanics we've talked about obviously there's a cost savings right from Electric to diesel to gas obviously we have to now we're aging out I want to say 20 buses over the next few 25 over the next few years and here's some found money though that money doesn't complete 100% of the bus it's like 2third of the bus but more than what the diesel will cost if we paid up front so Mr Edwards has been talking with the finance committee um with our committee for the last gosh how long we've been talking about this since the gr three four months since for the gr you know I don't know if there's an exact answer my feel on as superintendent is I hate to turn away $5 million um and that um there's going to be a learning curve here and we're going to have to pay the cost to buy diesel buses in the future very short future anyway and least finance that as well um but I'm I'm glad you asked those questions those are the same questions we've been asking in finance committee Jim if you wanted to add to anything about the mechanics maintenance savings sure I mean I think the you know one of the things that to talk about first is the electric buses that are out on Co-op uh have anywhere from an 8 to a 12E warranty on the batteries so uh if anything goes wrong with the batteries in the 8 to 12 year lifespan it depends on which bus you buy by the way so we're looking at a couple different options we haven't made the final decision on which bus we're going to buy uh because they both have their pros and cons um they both come with fiveyear warranties on the rest of the bus besides the uh 12E on the or eight or 12 year on the battery um and there's very minimal parts that need to be replaced within the battery and the motor that drives from the battery uh it's so there's savings there on the repairs as I discussed with the committee we'll be taking 25 of our our worst buses off the road the ones that our mechanics now spend the most time on trying to keep on the road uh there're you know some of them are well there's quite a few of them that are nearing 20 years old at this point you can imagine that a 20-year- old vehicle especially diesel bus uh doesn't stay on the road very long without needing some type of repair uh the electric buses the types of repairs that are needed are no different than what we have now switches brakes tires uh you know lights on the bus that might go out headlights uh the flashing lights things of that nature that our mechanics are already trained on uh there is training that is either one of the buses that we purchase there is training that comes along with it on the electrical components they're really it's more like safety training though like what to do if something goes wrong so that the uh mechanics know how to shut things down without working on the vehicle and harming themselves or others um because from what we understand on the electric buses there's not really much uh that they need to do from there is no fuel pumps or water pumps or carburetors or things of that nature that need to be worked on so the uh the the maintenance on the vehicles is really your wear and tear maintenance that you're doing on the diesel buses to begin with stuff that they're already trained with um of course there's fuel savings to be had because we're not buying uh diesel fuel at you know the if uh you think your own car gets uh bad gas mileage try driving a diesel School Bus you know we average about six to S miles per gallon uh gas is about $2.60 a gallon uh we do we run about 40 miles at minimum a day on those diesel buses electric school buses on a full charg both of them that we're looking at uh the one that has uh one with the lower warranty has 120 Mile full charge range the other one has 175 Mile full full charge range uh they both take anywhere from five to six hours for full charges on a level two charger um so I mean I I don't know if I left anything out there I know I spoke to Mike Mr Mesmer and and Stephanie wreb and and Miss maalla is there anything that we discussed in committee that you thought was important I mean I I spoke to miss aanon this evening you were not because of the $5 million Grant I look these buses are expensive but because of the $5 million Grant uh we're not talking about cost savings right where these aren't cost savings there's we're going to spend $600,000 a year over the next 12 years replacing diesel buses or we're going to at least purchase 25 brand new buses taking the 25 worst shape vehicles that we have off the road right now and put brand new ones on the road and spend $678,000 a year in at leas purchase payment so there's a $78,000 difference that is in my mind absolutely made up in wear and tear for repairs and maintenance on the vehicles right so you're it's really a break even is what I'm getting at in regards to electric buses versus diesel buses so then you got to look at you know what's better for the occupants of the vehicles I mean there's all kinds of research out there right now that's saying that the diesel bus and fumes that are on diesel buses are no good for the Riders of the vehicles so um if you happen to see bus 12 on the road which you could because it is actually out there riding around right now it's a uh 20-year-old diesel bus that looks like you wouldn't want to put your kids on it I mean I you know I hate to say it we're still able to ride it and it is deemed safe by the department by the Motor Vehicle Commission but it's uh a pretty bad looking bus right now when when the driver steps on the accelerator you get a big puff of black smoke that blows out the back of it that ain't pretty so did I answer everything that you needed right and you know in in addition this is the direction if you see across the country that we're heading in and to have $5 million to help us get started in that direction is there's no guarantee that this grant is going to come around again um so you know I believe it's a great opportunity for bricks to kind of get ahead of it and by the time we need to add additional buses you know I think we're going to be looking at so many other districts are going to be also going in this direction that you're going to see the costs of the buses going down yeah I I forgot to add that point Mr W is that you know with the purchase of 25 buses you're not going to need to buy any new buses for the next n years because all the buses that we have would be within that type c 20e time frame I have a question real quick I just thought of it um so we all know living here in Brick sometimes our grid is not that great um we get little brownouts we get a lot of power outages do we have the ability to actually supply enough electricity to charge these yeah uh so we've had JCP JCP pnl at onsite and they have confirmed that the electric from the grid is there uh it would require a Transformer upgrade which is no different than we've done our schools with the hbac projects uh the architect has included the cost of that upgrade in the project budget that's on this evening's agenda as well for approval so yes they did confirm that the power is there at site I have one other question as long as we're asking question mam I happen to know that some people in L riera who were planning on buying electric cars were told that there was not enough power on the grid for them to be able to supply electricity to their homes for the one they would have to go out there's a big difference between a school district approaching JCP and now to specifically add the additional energies um to the grid AG as you know home so um that conversation was had and they will make the necessary agree but our school buses will use way more than that house that's not going to be that's why like Jim just said they spoke with jcpnl and an additional Transformer an additional um energy will be put on the grid to satisfy what's being added by the district and also um correct Jim I just heard you say nothing against uh Jim but you were talking about a 20-year-old bus the warranty on these buses is five years for the bus itself after that we're on our own eight years for the battery but we're paying for 12 years so we would have to pay for the repairs on that bus after eight years for the battery we would have to purchase a new battery do we know how much a new battery would be on those buses because chances are we don't know how long those batteries are going to live and how they're going to be disposed and how much we're going to have to pay for disposal of them also the five years on the bus whatever happens for the bus the parts for the buses and all this is is all new exactly like you said it's not the greatest and best thing I owned a gas station for over 30 years this is not a great thing to venture into five million we still have to buy the buses and fuel is coming down just just to go back so you're right I think we all agree if we were putting all our own money up here we probably wouldn't take that risk reward I mean for finance people but to to take $5 million of someone else knowing that the cost savings were far out way to 78,000 difference per year it's kind of a a wash so even if it was a wash and we have the cost savings there do we want we're going to have to buy new buses do we not want to put our foot in the water here and collect five million doll for this town and we're going to because nobody else is getting five million around here so um we've been talking about this at nauseum because this 5 million is not going to be here for us uh I know Tom driver and Jackson and people that have submitted for this grant think get anywhere near that so that's that's really at the end of the day it's I agree with what everybody's saying if we were sitting up here and say we're going to invest in our own infrastructure we're going to do all this from the ground up with our own taxpayer money but this is $5 million coming into us to start that investment um so that that's all I mean obviously in the finance committee has talked about it and uh you know it's just it's just a start uh if anything else um but I I always share that from the financial side because outside of all the the green stuff and I and I'm with that and the pollution of just from an economic point of view if you were to get an Roi on just this getting five million up front for any stock for anybody looking at it from that way that your Roi is going to be in a few years that's greater than any stock you'd get right now so um when you look at it that way the cost you would pay for the buses that are going off offline in diesel and the cost you're going to pay for this the difference of say that's 78,000 per year you're going to more than make up in just the cost savings Energy savings and maintenance savings um it's just a start if we were putting that up front ourselves that return on investment won't be anywhere near that so um so I guess I'm kind of agreeing with everybody so just can I just wait second so so just to add to fuel for thought for some people because I don't think everyone realizes as that a type-c bus has a 20year life expectancy but you don't typically get 20 years out of any type-c vehicle diesel gas now electric uh you know we we in the TR we in the transportation yard or who happen to be in the transportation business know those Vehicles probably really only last you anywhere from 12 if you're lucky 15 years before you have an engine transmission chassis some kind of problem that is going what is the warranty on those buses I was going to cover that so a diesel a diesel vehicle uh you usually comes with 125,000 mile warrant one year 125,000 miile warranty so the warranty on diesel bus is nowhere near what they're offering on the electric the manufacturers are giving greater warranties on the electric because they're required to under there's an EPA requirement that the manufacturers have to have to produce at this point 11% of their sales going forward have to be electric vehicles so they have to offer greater warranties on these vehicles in order to promote them because they are more expensive to to build and to sell um the so now let's go 12 years out let's say we buy the we buy a bus with a 12year warranty on the battery and 12 years out that battery is now shot it's the board of Ed's responsibility currently currently if you have to replace that battery is a $40,000 battery that's currently 12 years from now will that cost 40 Grand I I don't know I mean that from everything you're reading that's out there in the literature is that the cost of these batteries is going to come down it's not going to go up it's going to go the other way the technology is going to get better uh there's you know the lithium factories being built in the America America now that are going to start producing these batteries so I I don't a crystal ball I can't tell you that's for sure going to happen it's going to be less money but my gut tells me that it will be um and so that's you know I know um Miss Iran own brought up to me before well what do you do with the battery when it's all done I don't have an answer for that I don't have an answer for that I don't know where these batteries go in the end um I'm hoping that there's a recycling program that they're going to develop that they can be reused um but I don't have an answer for that so I mean there there's certainly pros and cons of both um and so as as Dr frell indicated before if it wasn't for the $5 million Grant I don't know that we would proceed the way we're recommending to proceed but got $5 million on the table so it's not nothing to sneeze at wait can I ask a question too I'm sorry so not not even necessarily the buses themselves but let's talk about um personnel to repair the buses do we have someone that is even qualified and knows the the buses and the electronics inside of it and the mechanics to it because it's a very specific um mechanic that's going to work on an electric vehicle that's not the same type of mechanic that's working on our diesel buses do we have someone already within our transportation department to jump you hit two problems uh so one yes the training there is training involved and I believe our mechanics will have to get further trained it's going to be something I feel from a mechanic standpoint whether you're talking about schools or just mechanics in general that they're going to have to learn more about electric vehicles as we see more and more of them on the road this the bigger issue that we have currently it's a it's a real live problem right now is we can't get diesel mechanics we have diesel buses in our Fleet right now that we're sending out for repairs because we don't have anybody in house to repair them diesel mechanics are very hard to come by we we have two vacancies right now that we're not able to fill uh you know the posting has been up since July we haven't gotten anybody so it's not easy it's it's I guess for what I'm getting at is to answer your question are we going to be able to get mechanics to understand how to fix electric buses I hope so we can't get mechanics though right now to fix diesel buses so I don't know if that really complicated things for you or not Mr Kennedy Miss picala I was just going to say I don't live in Lake Riviera um but I've owned an electric vehicle for over a year and I got here tonight and I got to Florida last February and it was a wonderful experience the second thing I would like to say is for a long time uh I've sat here and we've had public comment and there are certain people that come up and they advocate for the health of our school students and I don't mean to call you out Mr saruca but we we have heard you um we couldn't do anything about the emissions from the parkway but this is a little thing um that's going to have a big impact on the health of our school children and I appreciate you bringing that up for all these years because when this conversation started the first thing I said was Mr saluka is going to like this so I don't know if you do I don't know if you don't but if we don't move forward on um the health of our school children we're moving backwards and um this is a great opportunity for our kids that's all thank you and community yes thank you Victoria one question but I want to com I didn't bring up the whole electrical grid portion of it because that's a separate discussion we're all fed off the same grid we have bigger Transformers and everyone's on jcpnl make it a lot better around here as it is and hopefully they do that um but the other issue you know was my concern is obviously not right now but in the future but also the safety of these buses and adverse weather conditions you know what's the way comparison compared to a diesel bus because the weight in an icy condition you know on early release or something like that when the kids are getting out cu it's snowing the heavier the bus it's going to ride better in snow on the ground and get better traction and stabilization like a truck over a small light car it's you know well known they're definitely heavier uh this the the battery operated buses are a heavier vehicle um and so the school districts that I've talked to because we were more concerned about cold there was a rumor out there that I had heard that these buses do not operate well in the cold uh so the one of the vendors put us in touch with with three different school districts in Massachusetts I spoke to all three of them they said they have zero issues with the cold and and these buses um and no Pro and that the one gentleman actually said they operate better in snow and ice because of the weight so that they're they're actually he considered them to be safer vehicle in adverse conditions um but you know so there is no issue with starting them when it's cold that was the one rumor that was out there that when the the battery's cold it's hard to start it's they said that no issues and I would think Massachusetts gets a little colder than New Jersey but at times anyway right any yes wait Mr s I'm GNA get to you in one second Mr one second go ahead It's s related to the same way such John sluger 950 silia Court uh the amount of buses that we have how many of diesel how many of gas and how many the small buses because there's three different typ buses right at least Jim do you know those numbers off the top of your head uh not off the top of my head but none of them are electric if that's what you're asking we don't have any electric well none of electric no but the small ones are are gas gas um most the small ones are diesel too we have we we so oh that that's my question in our total Fleet we're we're and this is I'm giving round numbers here from the Transportation we're 75% diesel right now and 25% gasoline and you have what about 120 buses we're 104 140 yeah 104 one4 so 25% are not diesel correct so you got 76 something in that range yeah most of the 54 passengers I would say there's only a few 54 passengers that's your big large buses the type C's there's only a few that are gasoline most of them are diesel most of those are diesel the large ones so these Replacements are all for the large buses none of the small buses actually no the grant the grant is for 2054 passengers and five special needs buses oh so it's five special that was my question what are two is you said 25 but it's 20 and N five right okay good thank you can I ask another quick question sure when you could come up though and be ready I'm sorry the 5 million that were concerned with that's on the table what's the expiration date of that acceptance of the five million November 29th yeah this month right there go go ahead oh that's okay it's good healthy debate right that's what we're here for my name's Charlie bacon good evening superintendent the board and administrators I do have a handful of questions about item 21 on the agenda and 22 and I was here last month and asked a whole host of questions about the buses didn't get a lot of answers understandably there's a lot of concern I have about all right so I want to talk a little bit about item went first on the lease purchase it's 6.2 million I believe you can't exceed that and then I want to talk about the section 22 the architect fees which buried inside the architect fees which is showing 47,3 is all the infrastructure cost which is a little over a million dollars another 15% of contingency on that that brings it about if you go through the contingency about 1.1 and this number is estimate and I work in the construction field I'm going to tell you right now what an estimate means there'll be change orders against it and another host of things the other thing it said it does not include uh a component about the JC p&l assessment Mr Edwards you said you've had that done now because in the in the notes in section 22 it said that hasn't been determined I have a copy of that here but I want to kind of crawl through my questions and then kind of do a refer back on some of my questions from last month as well has anyone in the administration talked to the township about what changes they might need to do to support uh EV buses as this weight comes on to these electrical Vehicles especially school buses that's going to be a bigger strain on our roads and infrastructure another thing that I did not include in my notes last month was about fires in electric vehicles this is a big issue I talked to somebody I know in the fire department and basically if a fire is ensued on an electric bus you're not putting it out until it burns out and what he was telling me you need special equipment that has to go underneath the vehicle and you D it with water to try to extinguish it all right I don't know if you've talked to the fire department in the town about this I think that's kind of important what is the cost of that equipment and and the need and things of that nature the other thing I brought up last month was about base load capacity of a grid and also Peak capacity and in my notes last month I talked about two Transformers that actually blew the night before the Board of Ed meeting and it brought probably about 40% of the town down Mr arwards you also talked about range I understand range I understand about electric vehicles and Nicole does have impact on that so does weight so a a loaded bus is going to have a different range than a bus that's completely empty I also asked this board last month what happens are we going to take these buses out of town into sports events that are outside of ocean of Mammoth County the infrastructure that's required for these buses that's somewhat noted in section 22 is pretty extensive and pretty expensive and I'm concerned about that as well the other thing I brought up and I think it's important to mention again is the technology I understand a $5 million Grant is on the table it's very alluring this is not a $5 million project this is going to be at least 6.2 and that's going to grow so really our cost out of pocket is going to be over 1.2 million on an experiment that we don't know electric buses have not been in the United States long enough you talked about the shelf life of these things 8 to 12 years okay that's all right and then there was a comment made in public tonight what happens to these batteries and the answer was we don't know excuse me we talked about the precious metals and how the United States might embark on that I also discussed this last month as well about all these precious Min minerals basically are coming from African countries that are being mined that has no consideration about what they're doing to the health and well-being of those those people and to bring them over on ships and things of that nature that's important and we talk about the potential of that happening in the United States I agree with you there's a thing called the EPA and the lawsuits that are going to run across that so the reality of that I think is many years away although I do agree and support that if we're going to go into this so there's another important issue in case everybody was sleeping last Tuesday we have a new Administration coming in in the United States and I have a feeling that making electric buses across the United States or to have our transportation system with tractor trailers oil electric is not going to going to happen the other concern I have I I had the privilege of riding an electric vehicle and I think they are pretty cool I got to be honest with you I love the acceleration there is however a big difference the driving one an electric vehicle you don't use your brakes so as was being a wise guy I'm in an Uber we're driving up to Long Branch and I asked him okay you own a gas powered car or an electric car what do you do he says to me buy another electric car well that was kind of funny except we got drivers are going to switch off between electric and Diesel so I don't know if that's a concern but I think it's worth noting so the other question I have and I've been up here in many of these people in this audience have been up here as well and we've talked about class size the explosion of immigration what is this going to do for that and the answer is zero and we also talked about Diesel and pollution and I respect that I believe the state of New Jersey is under the same mandate as the state of California so diesel engines now are pretty strict on how they got to burn cleanly so that's that so here's my recommendation and thank you for letting me go beyond five minutes I recommend that we vote no on items 21 and 22 and let's focus our time and effort in getting more federal and state funds increased or restored I've spent many times talking about this since 2018 when S2 was invoked and I think that's where we need to concentrate now do your point about EV buses I think it's a worthy Endeavor I think an analysis has to be done real analysis a cost comparison so you can come up here and talk to everybody in the town about it and we do a good study about what makes sense doesn't make sense in the early stages of this and then we can come up here and have a nice discussion it's an experiment that you want to put 25% of our Fleet electric and I don't see enough history about this and how successful it might be thank you for the extended time Ace evening Jim do you have any comments to that I sounded to me like the it was more his comments I I mean there is you know there's certainly stuff stated that is um subjective of that at best you know there's opinions in there that I don't know that to be true I mean um I feel like we've spent three and a half months doing a lot of research on these school buses at this point we've shared that with the finance committee um you know and I I shared with the finance committee at the last meeting that this is uh as Dr frell indicated before if it wasn't for the $5 million Grant I don't know that we'd be recommending to move forward with it um New Jersey definitely is one of the states when you look around the country that is lagging in regard to electric vehicles um I don't know why that is but you know they definitely are so when you when you want to do the research in New Jersey in regards to what what do electric vehicles look school buses particularly what do they look like you can't really do the research because they're not out there you have to go to Maryland Massachusetts the Northeast California Canada Canada's right I talked to uh three different school districts in Canada that are using you know one who's got an entire their whole Fleet is now electric um so it just I couldn't tell you why it's not taken off in New Jersey but so there isn't that research to be had in New Jersey okay thank you um any board questions before I go to the community again no yes Mr Finelli I only have a couple let me let me just comment on the school bus thing this this is kind of like wind turbines you can be for it or you can be against it but it's probably going to happen all right you have a chance to be in the Forefront or not but eventually we're going to be dealing with electric school buses you're going to take a risk I know I discussed this with Dr Farrell nobody has all the answers not even Mr Edwards and and I don't even think he can find them all right batteries are a big question yes we all know that my car battery crapped out after four years uh nobody's going to warranty a vehicle for 20 years Nobody Does it now 100,000 10 five there's a risk involved look and you know I don't like to spend money if you don't know that by now you've been sleeping during these meetings but you're talking about $1.2 million for the charging stations know by the way if you look inside the package save for the meeting Netta has the whole thing spelled out about the charging stations you can see all the information what's in there some of it I understood some I didn't but it's all in the package the charging stations I understand the risk about fires too lithium batteries have a history right if you if one bus catches fire you might lose all of them who knows but the at some point you got to move forward you got to take a risk and I'll say this is a risk but what are you risking a couple of million dollars against them $170 million budget spread out over as many years as you do this it's going to happen eventually I mean uh maybe the new Administration isn't going to do more with gas or oil or something but eventually I'm going to be dealing with electric buses electric trucks and you know I think somebody would really like to work on an electric bus rather than a dirty old diesel because if you ever got into a dirty old diesel yeah yeah and diesel mechanics make a lot of money you like a job with brick schools so that that's that that's that's my thing about electric buses it's a risk there's no guarantees but it's a risk I think is worth taking maybe five years from now I'll have to eat my words but whatever um just a couple things and I've talked about this before just my comments on um field trips with the uh 26 field trips that you're going to prove tonight that brings the number up to 141 field trips 105 of those those are for two schools the high schools now I really admit I don't know the cost of these I don't know what value you get out of them I don't know whether they're during school hours or after school hours but at the end of the meeting I'm going to talk about test scores and I've been in meetings where people complained about there's not enough classroom time somebody needs to look at this and see if you're getting a value out of it or time to put the brakes on on the field uh field trips last thing uh just has to do with with pre prek U I read I read the whole report that you people fill out first of all private providers do do we use private providers for anything no you're shaking it no so I guess you filled out the report item 22 you put down yes okay correct corrected it okay because I talked to him about it all right so I guess my question is right now we have about 630 uh students enrolled with about another 200 waiting let me finish my question all right then you can answer I I I know I would not like to be one of the 200 that's waiting if I had kids from saying your kids are getting free and I got to pay so what are we doing to move forward to Encompass the other 200 yeah we'll keep going and we'll she's writing down your questions and she'll answer at the end would you believe that's all I have for now oh my god oh my god well I had a lot about the school buses but we answered them thank you so what what are we doing to get that 200 in the and how long you think it take I want to recap because the school buses which is good this was a great discussion and we've have been having it for 4 months and I don't know either or I just know we have a deadline obviously and we got a did he just say he liked one of my questions did he just I did and and we've been talk it's a great discussion because I don't know an answer and quite honestly we wouldn't have the discussion if we didn't have $5 million and a deadline that we were lucky if you remember months ago everybody was applauding Mr we got $5 million everybody's clapping you know like every Grant you go through there's work involved with it uh the cost just so everybody knows it's about 680,000 annually for the next few years we would be spending just under that 75 grand less or roughly 78 grand less just redoing our new our regular buses the way it is so the differential so everybody knows because I just look at it right now economically um besides all the other stuff I I call every time I talk Jim with it I say there's a flux capacitor like I I don't know I'm not a handy guy but economically and fiscally the differential 78,000 is more than it can be made up just in cost Savings of fuel and energy just that alone easily um even if it's a wash then you look at what's the risk right involved risk rewards so it's not an easy one um not that we ever agree Mr Finelli but I kind of agree and we've been going through it that sometimes you know you're pushed to make a decision and make tough decisions a little bit and and you're not sure and and that's where it stands and that's why it's been talked about at nauseum in finance and because of the deadline it's got to be voted on so I wanted to just kind of recap that for everybody and I I think everybody knows there's no right or wrong answer here I want everybody to know that with that it's just we got some money on the table that we got to look hard at because we're always the Optics if we turn down money as everybody knows in this state um when the Optics looks at sometimes we won't get it back unless things change um then things could change and get it back but you know things don't W change the way the funding formula has been um we don't get things and they recount how that how you turned away certain money so um field trips I I you know me I I think field trips you know the classroom is not brick and mortar anymore Mr Finelli I think 120 is not enough field trips me too you learn way more in a field trip uh application and most kids do the cost is very very low because it's during the school day with our buses and our drivers if we go out of district and if it's in District it's even uh easier meaning in town which we do with a lot of our work career um classes that we have uh for that we've been trying to get them all top loaded into board agendas like we've been saying every year because we try to plan them out through the whole year so you'll see less and less and I know you see uh more and more and every single field trip and I'll give kudos to Dr and a curriculum instruction Department every single Fe field chip has to come up through teachers and departments and get approved by curriculum and instruction so that there is a curriculum content associated with it for a reason standards based so that it meets standards uh for that and then lastly I'm proud to say with the prek um you know we've done an amazing job with prek um and we're every year as part of that P Grant which is millions of dollars we get 83 cents on the dollar for every prek um we have been expanding which is a requirement of that P Grant and we'll expand even more and we have about 200 on a waiting list I think it was this year and the expansion next year may take close to half of that waiting list off the expansion right now will be utilizing this building this side of this building uh for I think six uh classrooms um so uh it's that's a no-brainer financially again to me but of course when you look at prek and you look at the expansion and we talked about this years ago with our strategic planning the prek enrollment increases and the more we dip into what's called our prek universe three and four year olds living in the town the higher the percentage a it's it helps our enrollment right it increases um maybe some students that were going to daycare three or four private dayc carees may go to a private school for kindergarten that retention percentage is very very high also it helps remediate what we as Educators say the the cost of remediation to educate a child who's not reading on grade level in third grade and Beyond is exponential financially and takes a long time and sometimes we don't remediate that uh learning differential for reading wise prek has been proven to expedite that learning curve um and help remediate that so that helps us in so many other ways the last thing I'll say is an 83 cents of the dollar I will never give up if if we have to find as much space as we can while doing a great job is selling the program that that wasn't my question I know I know yeah but that's I think I heard you is gonna answer that question I'm GNA give Miss grer your question but I wanted to add all that but but I think you said and it's w saying again you're actually going to open up classrooms in this building that well so what we're voting on in the pre expansion tonight is to approve from the board which we send in to get approved still from the doe so the doe has to approve our expansion of six classrooms utilizing this space they'll come out I believe and Jen's ready to jump in but they'll come out they'll take measurements um and if we need waivers on certain things whether it's restrooms or square footage once we get the approval from them yes it'll be this space and when we do the lottery at that time we'll have so many extra places Mr grer and may maybe you want to share with them that you're giving up your office as one of the classrooms yeah you can have my office he's sharing with Jim yes yeah know I am giving up we're all give it up for well maybe you ought to rethink that one Mrs gringer I'm sorry go you can add I'm sure all right you ready Mr finale talk to the audience you asked the question honey I want to talk to you okay all right so in 20242 this current school year we enrolled 52 six preschoolers and had 199 students on the waiting list as of today we have entered 99 students off the wait waiting list and we have a 100 waiting next school year we will increase our total enrollment to 630 adding 90 Lottery spots so hopefully there will be a very minimal waiting list the anticipation of having all six classrooms being all lottery students will pull 90 Lottery students off of any list okay any additional questions sir and and the rest of them is there looking out forward is there any other projection when you have waiting L I hope that Brick Township continues to expand into this building one to two classes per year and Beyond isn't that part of the grant requirement it is part of the grant requirement you are responsible to add one to two classes every year right that's it listen if you build a rooftop deck I'll be more than happy to go up there sh don't say that to him um Dr Anderson the he's talking about the two high schools having a number of um field trips yeah um isn't that partly because we have in our lld and MD classes and our Rise program and such we put the kids in the community on a regular basis every week so that's why we're showing such a high number there we do we have a lot of reasons why the high schools are um over represented first of all the elementary level we only really send out our fifth grade students for a field trip each year uh at the middle school level it's one field trip per year um and then we'll have our Excel program uh which is our g&t program they do a few field trips a year but predominantly you've got competitions they're on that list you've got our arts classes so we have a very strong arts program uh they go out to museums and things like that right we have um our uh World languages uh World language classes they go out to restaurants and speak in the target language in those restaurants the entire time that they're there uh Roc so there is a lot of specializ our STEM Academy um they're involved in a Project based learning with our community in which they're looking at the recycling issues in Brick and trying to come up with Solutions that's embedded within the curriculum for our sophomores so there's um it's not just and we also on on block scheduling so we have twice as many because the kids are not in the traditional um schedule where they're the same students in eight uh courses during the year it's four sections you know a semester course and then a a spring semester course so it's double the uh field trips that way too what I have a question and I sure I never realized on that um when we have our kids in the MD program go out for their jobs is that considered a field trip or is that listed under there I just I don't ever remember it's embeded with within their IEPs and it's on an individual basis but if there's groups of students like our Rise program students will go somewhere that as a class as an incentive then they'll be listed on there okay so the when we pull out the kids of those special classrooms that are over 16 since they have some kids that are younger that's not considered a field trip that's something that's within a different budget yes so the community based um and structure Y Community Based and structure learning experien is not considered a field trip that is part of their school day and part of the curriculum so it's part of a class and being that they're not going outside of Brick Township it doesn't need any additional approval um for any funds to be spent okay great but another program like hooked on fishing like we have a course at the high school they go and they own fishing trips so Charter uh boats ships so that's that's something that would be on the agenda thank you for clarifying that and it all goes through me Dr Farrell said many levels of approval um and it's always aligned to curriculum goals and objectives thank you any other public comment yes so I just want to a question about the buses again I hate to beat a dead horse but um I just your name oh Tyler Michigan um so the department of energy came out with a study that said that um obviously I agree you know if you're saying you've talked to districts in Canada and Massachusetts you know mechanically they're running fine in Colder Weather um my concern would be the um the range that they have in Colder Weather that was never um discussed so I just wanted to hear what um if there was anything on that um you know the 140 miles I believe is what you said um is the average range for the electric vehicles how much is that you know going to be affected say in the colder months of the year you know November it's starting to get colder and it's probably not going to get warmer until around April it's majority of our school year you never know what this weather um but what is you know has that been considered and additionally um with the fire um risks that I don't think we ever heard an answer on that um has there been any coordination with the Fire Commission or the fire department on you know if they can take on this responsibility um because like we were saying before you know these things don't get put out they get burnt down until it's done so is there any sort of planning in place um for those issues and I respect the fact that we have a limited you know time for this to be passed but these are pretty important issues I feel like should be brought up thank you mred um Dr frell should I just kick it to Mr Edwards bassadors and range uh yeah so the jeez I feel like got loud um there is less capacity on the bus when the bus when the batteries are cold I'm told um so the 120 they say take 80% of that um so let's say it goes 100 our routes we we put about 40 miles a day on our routes so it's still well within the range uh we we wouldn't use the 100 that the full charge would give us anyway so we feel comfortable there um in regards to the uh fires on the buses so that I thought I mentioned this earlier forgive me if I didn't but the training that when you purchase the buses the training that comes with it is for the mechanics fire department U ambulatory police it the trainings all included all Personnel on how to handle any emergency situations on the school buses I understand the training and I get that but what about the apparatus that we're going to need to buy at a Township level to extinguish these Electric vehic fires you know that's is that included or is that something no that's something that would have to be on the township I would I would think that's on the township now there's electric vehicles running through the township already no I understand thank you yeah um and I just had one more question that's um that $5 million Grant um does that cover the charging stations we're going to have to install and the upgrades um like Mr bacon was saying before you know no that's there were additional costs yes so we're going to be uring those additional cost costs um I guess my question to the board is is it worth it at this point with the current budget situation that we're in and you know the constant you know battle to get more funding to Brick Township is the gamble worth the possible reward is it worth it in your opinion um to take a risk like this right now given our budget situation thank you I was clarify the differential is 78,000 a year we're going to have to buy new diesel buses anyway if we don't use the five million you're right it is not worth the risk financially not even we didn't have the $5 million so it's 78,000 and that differential cost of an additional $78,000 roughly would be covered in the maintenance and Energy savings the question is like we all said do you want to take that risk so I I don't think to me and I'm a finance guy more to me there's not a question financially it's more about the unknown things that everybody's talking about and I get that so that's what we're trying to weigh and that's been the conversation so so just just to make sure that everyone's clear because I heard um this comment before about 1.2 million out the 6.2 million I don't want to be confused by that Allin 25 school buses charging stations infrastructure professional fees jcpnl fees it's an $1.2 million project of which $5 million is being paid for by the Grant and $6.2 million is being least purchased over 12 years that payment annually will be $678,000 so all in we're going to pay $678,000 a year for 12 years as Dr frell said if we don't do this we're going to spend $600,000 a year buying diesel buses for 12 years so it's $78,000 a year is a net thank you um I just I have a friend that does this and he just sent back to me uh when I asked him what happens to Electric bus batteries when they are done how are they disposed of he said typically they are now recycled however many companies including including my former one are repurposing them for micro grids stationary energy storage so 10 to 12 years as a bus and 15 years additional as a micro grid so hopefully that oh please don't ask me to explain that any further I'm reading yeah if you want to come up and talkad yeah I didn't say I was the expert good evening everyone it's been a little while even though I've been watching you online so thank you for doing that because most other plac say your name please mark Vasquez sorry but um so a couple things I think number one I would have to disagree with Mr finale I think the the risk of children's life is always outweighs especially when you you're telling us that you don't know the risks involved so that to me is number one number two uh the sun reported in Massachusetts that there is issues um with electric school buses and not only that but the transit uh the Foothill Transit in California reported 34 34% failure rate in the electric Fleet um and so there are there is some signals that there are issues and so again I think Tyler brings up a good point you're going to take a risk by investing this money or taking the money right and then we don't know in the next 5 10 years what this looks like because there's not enough studies out there right what we're getting reports that there is a percentage of it that has problems uh structural problems with the build outs right the infrastructure problem this causes more problems on roads and bridges which we have no studies of and and for Mr Edwards didn't answer whether we talked to the township or not and what those impacts will be so there'd be good for some clarification there but I think and the other question I have is whether or not this is part of the inflation reduction act and we're getting $5 million that are coming there and if there's any possibility that if the new Administration does come in and starts repealing the inflation reduction act will we lose that money and will that be repealed back and somehow now we're in a hole with all these new buses that I don't know but but again my big it's a state Grant but is that Grant though coming from the the inflation reduction act that that and I don't know how that pulls back and if if there's any stipulations on whether the state could pull back because the federal government now has pulled back I don't know just asking the question but I think the risks that have been seen there yes there are risks with if it is in extreme weathers there are risk that the uh buses don't perform as well especially if you're at full capacity which I anticipate we will always be in full capacity with these school buses so there are a lot of risks and I think at the end of the day if we don't have Clarity and now be mindful that well not for you guys to be mindful but I worked in technology I owned a cell phone repair company and in 10 years of owning that business the the stuff got better got sleeker got faster but never got cheaper and if you touch I'm talking about poke a small tiny hole in a lithium battery boom it's over there's no stopping it except putting something over it until it's over and so there is a big risk and again I get the whole curve of wanting to be part of the future and all that right but right now again we do not have the resources to even barely pay our teachers and we were almost going to fire a bunch of people so why take a risk because if something does happen we're going to be in a bigger hole and so that's just my thing I would say tonight please don't vote for this there's too much risk we can have it one day if it's really great I'm sure federal government the federal government or the state will give you guys funds in the future so thank you yeah um Mark just I want to reiterate when I talk about risks here we're talking about the risks on what you said at the end which is is this future in technology worth that I want to I want to be clear because the risks as Mr sluka has been talking for years about gas and insight is worse for our kids with the plumes of diesel buses so I don't want to I don't want to be starting those kind of uh narratives here but the risk in the future of technology is spoton that's who you weighing I also want to be clear with the financial there is no issue I we keep saying what we're investing we're investing It Anyway the money we're spending we have to spend to put 25 new buses on the next few years this is not this would actually if it works out that the risk is reward and we're buying a great stock and the return works out it's actually going to help us fun jobs because of our tight budget because we're getting $5 million to kick it off so the fin anybody could tell you if you look just black and white financially it really is a no-brainer the discussion here which is great discussion which you know I I really don't have is you know is the future risk of this technology uh the warranties and the things that are going on the infrastructure in the grid worth this not our now again if this was entirely our investment I said absolutely not we're not even going next step so the question is that small investment which is like we said 78,000 it comes out to the differential that we're going to spend anyway is that return for that are we banking on this kind of being in the future or not you know that's that's a warranted that's a warranted question and that's why I'm trying to frame it for everybody and that's what we've been talking about you know we we really have in the finance committee I know we've been talking mostly about the numbers because I talked to to Mike about that because I kind of stay away from the green stuff a little bit and just say look financially first votes make sense um but I just want to frame that for everybody because everybody's saying kind of the right thing but I want to just frame it for everybody uh so we understand that and again there's not a a right or wrong here I don't want anybody to think that we're just trying to help the taxpayer by take advantage of $5 million because we have to buy 25 buses over the next two years and we're not getting $5 million for that so okay I sorry any more public oh I'm I apologize Mr Edwards was the question no we did not do no the Township's not been involved in this project no I did want to say by the way we don't start any projects on grants until we actually receive the money so if they take it away before that we're not going to start it so you know it's like have the money in hand before we start it so I I don't know I haven't heard at the state so I don't know Jim is there a possibility I mean it's it's an EPA Grant I I I don't know I don't think so I mean there it's due November 29th we got to submit our we have to show our local share by November 29th which is why we have it on the Gen this evening I I would think that once those funds are committed I can't see how even I know there's a new Administration and I know anything's possible but I would find it really depressing if that's the way way this went that after school districts Across the Nation committed their local share and start moving these projects forward that the rug got pulled out from underneath them that would be you know really depressing but anything can happen right I mean so we're going to move ahead if if approved as if the money's still going to be there Mr Edwards what if um since the board has more questions and obviously the community does um would we be able to get the company that we're looking at doing this with in here and possibly do a special meeting just for this issue to answer some of these questions that we could ask them directly and table it for tonight I know you I know it's due by the 29th we pick a day next week and bring them in before Thanksgiving I'm not saying that's not possible the difficulty I have with that is we're we've got multiple vendors that we're dealing with and well I think if any of the any of them that are kind of in the we could bring all of them and let them let them battle without I mean that might be interesting uh you know hear all of their points of view so I'm not no I'm not opposed I think that's something you can certainly can I put that to the board um I would need a motion in a second in order to do that instead of going through motion second Ally um so the motion in place is to table this until a day next week this is the only issue that we're going to be bringing up and Mr Edwards once you have the conversation with them tomorrow you can tell us what day works for them and we'll the board will show up and we'll open it to the community I think that's a fair you know so we could address some of our concerns or yeah we're Monday Tuesday I think the important thing is is I think the important thing is is Mr Edwards finds out when we can do this as quickly as possible I'm sure we can get them to come in so we'll be back you know in touch with everybody so yeah we don't need everybody else Mary you want to do the vote so we Mr monegro help me here I don't think we could do Monday night because we need 48 hour notice correct 4 so and that we'd have to give so we could do Tuesday night right Mr monegro Tuesday night work if we if we know no it tomorrow so but are and I'm sure the vendors will make themselves available to get here because they're interested in selling millions of dollars of buses yeah and I think we'll get a lot of our questions answered and we'll all feel more comfortable does Tuesday night work for the board members is really because getting getting Quorum will be more important than getting the you know as important as getting the vendors huh Barry do you want to do the vote so we're going to shoot for the 19th can I just say one thing I'm going to be away at a conference next week is it am I able to call in um I I am comfortable with that well as long as the rest of the board is everybody good okay Ben we can yes okay Mary is gonna we're gonna vote on the motion the motion is to table number 21 and 22 right and we're going to come back after we get the group in and we'll vote on whether it's the 19th or whatever Jim puts forward Miss Sebert yes Miss Kennedy yes Missy Benedictus yes Miss Ayan yes Mr Mesmer yes Miss picala absolutely Miss W yes thank you Mary okay any more yes Mr Campbell all right I have uh obviously some notes for the board I have a couple of Articles here that I think you will be appreciative what all right the first article I have that get from the K12 education uh thing breakdowns recalls fuel huh are you we're on agenda items yeah I know okay what I'm sorry I I missed what what I'm coming I'm just giving you the title of it breakdowns recalls Fu fuel skep of electric school buses that's the first article I'm she going to run it you guys can digest it second article School boards weigh Pro cons of electric buses you read that over too and thank I want to thank the gentlemen that came in here before and uh they really did a nice job and uh that's what I was hoping you would do was table it but there's one thing you go to the one on the charging stations I want to go over that a little bit because I don't have any use for the Architects that do our projects that one Mr Campell do you have anything other than the school buses right now because I I don't want you to run out of time you know you can end with that since we're coming back on the 19th yeah I got to get the uh what what it deals with the charging station I had a few questions do you want to hold them until the 19th so we have the professionals here to answer those questions for you no no I just well I can remember them first off on the charging station would they survive if the grid was down is there enough power from the panels in adjacent areas there again I'm I'm I'm we're going to bring in the professionals to answer these questions so I think it's better that you wait for the 19th to ask these questions so you're hearing it directly from people who do this and are very experienced on this because right now we would be guessing right Mr Edwards yeah all right the next which is why we tabled it so that we could get these direct questions answer let's go to uh midstream's uh HVAC project okay I dug up some of what item is that I think it's midstreams HVAC yep it's number four all right I'm sorry it's number 12 12 sorry about that right bottom line is went back got the old August proposal now in there the air conditioning of the corridors in midstreams right how they're going to do it they don't mention it in The Proposal bottom line is there's two hot water boilers on the roof one in the per allpurpose room the other in the library now I don't know what their plans are if they're planning on taking them down out of there and putting a third boiler downstairs and putting ventilators in the cafeteria it will not work I went through that with the brick cafeterias they have to replace both of the hot water boilers on the roof with an air handler that has heating ventilation and air conditioning in order to be able to completely heat that library and that multi-purpose room they don't mention that any place but it's got to be in there you getting this Jim I would say if you could submit all this to me in an email I'll forward it to them I because I'm on this stuff I'm like Dr farell with the flux capacitator I really am not following you I'm listening I'm listening but I'm not following I'm going God I hope other thing is my thought was I hope that you have that all written down at the end of it you're going to hand it to me because that's what you usually do so well I got the proposals but it's all sketched out with notes and whatnot so if you want to bring it in scan it copy it and I'll provide it to the architect because otherwise I'm this is not my area of expertise this debit this is not debits and credits so I I'm you're you're speaking another language to me right now the other thing is they made a mistake spel hooking up the boilers to the existing hot water heaters there were supposed to be condensing boilers separate gas fired all right I'll give I'll get you the list and you give it to him because it's going to come back to haunt you all right Osborne same thing there they're air conditioning the quds you're going to have to put another air handler in there they don't specify that's that's the problem that's the problem I had with their proposal initially can you just finish your thought um my thoughts I'm interested in a lease purchase but not on school buses because I'm I'll be honest with you I'm sick and tired of giving notes Here we don't get the windows we don't get the main electrical systems repaired or replaced I I'll do it the next thing okay thank you Mr Campbell any other yes can you please come to the podium and just state your name thank you I wonder if the board would consider when you name please oh uh Stan one name okay uh when you bring in the the pros next week uh asking them uh about a concern of mine which is out aside from the financial cost as but the health and safety aspect if you compare the um slow poisoning of our kids over a couple years in the buses versus a potential explosion that would kill a bunch of kids in one you know I'd like to have that balance as well as the financial balances okay any other questions okay okay we'll we'll hear all about that um any other public comments seeing none I'm going to close that um Dr Anderson thank you Mrs W under curriculum instruction the superintendent recommends that the board approve the following items one through five I need a motion on a second motion Fran second Victoria Fran Victoria any board comments yes i' just like to say you know I feel a little weird that we comment on these things before we vote for them but that's just me um field trips are invaluable I I think this district and the people who care about it owe an incredible debt to our supervisor Chad cuts that $1,000 in number four the $1,000 Grant will educate both high schools and both middle schools about the experience of the Holocaust and what went on in our history and I think that also is invaluable to ratify a Grant application submission for for sustainable Jersey uh it's for $2,000 Gary Paxton who is submitting it just received an award with our uh bths um uh principal and other uh faculty members because their focus is um environmental efforts for a new generation and um you know that's why I'm on this board I'm looking forward so I just really hope we can approve these uh these uh sections thank you um Mary Miss Sebert yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss Sten addictus yes Miss aan room yes Mr Mesmer yes Miss picala yes Miss W yes Mr Edwards [Music] operations it's like one through well 21 and 22 are gone so one through 20 so the superintendent recommends one through 20 right I have that right so we tabled 21 and 22 y we Ted this and 23 there's no 23 23 that's it that's it one through 20 thank you can I get a motion in a second motion Nicole second alley um any board comments seeing none Mary I have one oh sorry I just want to say thank you for tabling the bottom twoo because that's amazing obviously we all have a lot of questions still so I think it was the best thing to do absolutely I'm sorry we were bringing you all back in but no it's all good the only way it's going to work for all of us to get our questions absolutely thanks friend Mary Miss Sebert yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss D Benedictus yes Miss Aon um yes on except I abstain on operations number four vendor ID 11457 and the rest yes Mr Mesmer yes Miss picala yes Miss W um I abstain from operations number four vendor ID 8927 and 12667 and also number 22 yes to the oh well that's all yes to the rest okay Mr kler human resources thank you m WRA tonight under Human Resources the superintendent recommends items 1 through 33 for approval I need a motion in a second motion Fran um any board comments and we'll save the retirements to the end um I would like to say number four number two and number three uh in number four line two and line three uh make me very sad that's all I wanted to say yeah I'm not voting for those um me too number 27 um we are a recognizing uh a district educator for um we're going to ratify her Advanced degree uh Dr Katherine Powell from Drum Point Elementary School is a Shining Light and beacon in our district and I like the fact that she exists because I know her and I know she inspires other people teachers to be like her thank you thank you um no one else Mary Miss seber why I'd like to say no to number three yes to all well I miss yeah if you say no she has to stay right then it's no to number three yes to everything else you could Mark that for everybody else as well Miss Kennedy yes Miss D Benedictus yes Miss R yes Mr Mesmer I guess so miss picala um let's not make the meeting any longer all right I'm I'm going to say yes because you know we have contracts and things like that Miss W yes Sue yeah yes we'd like to uh welcome Melanie Wright She's our new occupational therapist Melanie I I now have to say a few words um you know um if you didn't notice uh Mrs grer uh submitted her resignation um to move on she will be um seems like her career is getting closer and closer to her house and commutes getting a little lesser and less I said when we first hired Miss gringer and this was something I took pride on her people skills are phenomenal second to one actually when she came in for one of the interviews someone said that she was kneeling down talking to a student in a family and rolling out by our front door by the register I think you were speaking Spanish and and talking to the family and uh really getting on the level of the young child who was a little scared and nervous to start and from the get-go and our interviews outside of the normal stuff about either running a prek or running a special services department her humanistic values came through um and if you're a parent in the district of a classified student and you've dealt with Mrs grener most time you dealt with her directly and it's a huge department and her Human Side about dealing dealing with our students is something that's going to be sorely missed I've watched her go cheer in pep rallies I've watched her dance in department meetings right here um I've watched her run parent nights and communicate to a level that you can only say is just the most passionate thing I could see and truly truly loves her job and that's one of the the hardest jobs to fill quite honestly um in the district as a director of special services um and with her enthusiasm passion and her love of it she always came in uh with the smile um I've talked to her numerous times she's making cry she's close to home and um can I I don't know if I could say but you're be a grandma like I'm a newly a grandfather and and family is so important to her and that quality of life so I'm going to wish you best of luck I am so sorry to see you leave us but I know quality of life and family is the utmost important I know you're not going to be a stranger uh with you forgot I'm I'm going to be Grandma to twins a grandma to twins I didn't know it was a so she's going to be a grandma to Twins and uh that's just so best of luck we wish you luck um we're going to miss you and uh are I know we will our courses uh our our paths will cross again thank you so much J [Applause] miss m mmer that was all you wanted to introduce okay we're good okay uh miss m policy and planning thank you Mrs wreb under policy and planning the superintendent recommends the board approve the following items one I need a motion in a second motion Fran second Al any board comments seeing none Mary Miss Sebert yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss Benedictus yes Miss aanon yes Mr Mesmer yes Miss picala yes Miss W yes this is the second opportunity for public comment each participant is asked to give his or her name prior to making a statement all statement shall be directed to the presiding officer comments shall be limited to five minutes and each speaker may only speak once the board will not during the public portion of this meeting discuss matters involving employment appointment termination of employment negotiations terms and conditions of employment evaluation of the performance of promotion or disciplining of any specific or perspective or current employee Andor students do we have anyone for public comment yes thank you for tbling the other thing we appreciate it um I know this is and I want to preface this by saying this is nothing personal but when something comes up whether when it's unethical and there's questions um I question it and so um I'm not sure if you remember sending this out um but it was signed as the vice president of the brick Board of Education and so due to that without any disclaimers I filed ethic chart ethic complaints uh against Victoria Paka and yourself um and so I would like to read the following Dear members of The Brick Township Board of Education I'm writing to express serious concerns regarding recent actions taken by Stephanie wreb and the current School uh the current School Board president of Victoria Paka the current School Board vice president which compromised the ethical standards expected of our District's leadership due to the severity of these actions I have filed a formal complaint with the New Jersey school ethics commission New Jersey Department of education citing violations of njsa 18a 12- 241d 18a 12-24 1e 18a 12-21 241f and uh 18a 12-12 12- 24b given these alleged violations I respectfully urge the board to take immediate actions to step uh immediate steps to address conduct that has been perceived as unethical and mislead leading to our community on November 1st it was brought to my attention that the house that a household in our community affiliated with with the Democrat Party had received a campaign letter from the believe in Brick campaign the letter which promoted the campaign slate was signed by Victoria Paka in her official capacity as vice president brick Board of Education the absence of a disclaimer stating that the school board was not endorsing this letter created a misleading impression that the board itself supported or endorsed this Letter's cont content this situation raised a serious ethical issue as the use of an official title in campaign materials has the potential to confuse or mislead voters regarding the school board stance while it might be argued that this was an oversight it is important to consider the role of Stephanie wrap the school board president who also served on as the campaign's treasurer as Treasurer Stephanie would have been responsible for approving the funds necessary to design print mail uh and mail the letter given her dual role as board president she should have recognized the ethical implications and potential conflicts of using an official title in a campaign document without any clarification the lack of oversight reflected a failure to uphold nonpartisan nature and integrity expected of a school of school board members in njsa 8 and I'm not going to read each one but misuse of position for personal gain by using her title vice president brick Board of Education uh in campaign materials Victoria p may have leveraged her official role to lend credibility and authority to her candidacy implying board endorsement and using her position for personal gain misinforming the public the campaign letter contained statements suggesting that the opponents were anti-science and supported book Banning without any substantiating uh without substantiating these claims potentially misleading the public and compromising trust in the board's role as the source of accurate information conflict of interest with Stephanie wrab as the school board president and and and the campaign treasure for the believe in Brick campaign created a significant conflict of interest this dual rule potentially allowed her to influence her uh decisions and access resources that benefited specific candidates including Victoria Paka which may not have served the Public's best interest in the light of these issues I'm requesting that the board take the following a actions issue a public statement clarifying that the board did not endorse or authorize the use of official titles and campaign materials and affirmed that such actions are inconsistent with the ethical standards upheld by The Brick Township Board of Education I also would like a uh uh for us for you guys to conduct a formal investigation into both the president and the vice president of the board for the use of elected position title for campaign purposes a potential misuse of her position for personal gain and to consider removal as vice president if these actions are found breach of ethical guidelines this situation has understandably led to community distrust and it and it is imperative for the board to take action to uphold transparency and integrity the other part of this too is that believe in Brick has failed to file your elect reports in 21 and you fail to do so again now this year as well so we don't know whether the funds came any way shape form from this board or not which I doubt they did because it would be a big issue but I think the the township deserves some clarity so I just wanted to put that out there and uh it was filed and I will send you guys an email with the entire report so that you guys have that for yourselves okay thank you and thank you and and I'll just comment that as it relates to the request for board action as you've indicated you filed the item with the school ethics commission that is the body that has jurisdiction to address those issues uh and that's the body that that will address it uh so it'll go from there in addition filing requirements aren't required unless you unless you expend over a certain amount so it's not that they weren't wild it's that the certain amount wasn't reached um so that's it on that any other public comment OE first off before I get into the me of my thing uh tonight we did something here that we normally don't do we had dialogue I think tonight is an example of what all future meetings should be like we had dialogue everybody came up and presented their point of view I think it was done professionally we don't we don't all agree on it and that's okay but having the dialogue is the important part of that so watch the video and then do that the other thing just just before we get off the bus issue I I I me I I talked about some of what happens if the grid goes down and you can't charge the buses well if the grid goes down the lights are out in here too so you don't need to school buses because until until the power comes up there is no school so one of the questions I would ask somebody to ask if I don't make the next meeting which I think is you're targeting for Tuesday but if I'm not here somebody asked this question how long does it take to recharge the buses once you have the power like if the battery is only 25% done is it is it done in two hours or if it's 100% down is it done ask the representative how long it takes to charge a battery that's all now uh the fun part last uh meeting it presented the njsla results which are the test scores which I like to call your report card and maybe you don't like it but it is okay just just just remember this is a public meeting and anything you say is public record so if somebody leans over and says something somebody can say excuse me what' you just say uh so let's go over it and I'm not going to get into a lot of detail but I am going to cover the things that I think you didn't cover last last meeting all right your commitment last year was to improve everything by five percentage points that being science math and English language arts let's do math first because that one you actually made the Improvement was 5.2% unfortunately grades three five and eight missed the five 5% but that number was really helped really pushed by grade four which came in at 13.4% which makes everybody else look bad because that's what whatever they did they they could do it 13.4% Improvement in me in one year somebody ought to be going over there and saying what did you do I remember grade four but they going to come up again Ela uhuh you didn't make it in fact you weren't even close you came in at 1.8% Improvement in fact grades five went down went down 4.3 points and grade seven went down 5.1 points they went in the wrong direction oh by the way who was the only one that made the target at 5.4% Improvement wasn't grade three wasn't grade five it wasn't grade six seven eight and nine they all missed grade four again made the target I would move your office from school to school and see what's going on in grade four because it's doable people some somebody did it whatever problems you think you have they have them and and you did it they did it so don't reinvent the wheel go find out what they're doing let's look at science disaster time all right science grade five improved by one1 of 1% grade eight improved by 810 of 1% and grade 11 improved by 1.4% I guess positive you could look at it and say they all improved but the target was 5% and and they weren't even close if you get inside of the science and and I I don't know a damn thing about it all right but if you look at the overall results some of the things on that report are broken down into five categories and some are broken down into four the four that they on this are emerging approaching Target at Target and then advance so the bottom three is bottom two you're not a Target the third one is you just got there when you look inside the schools I I just added up in each one of the high schools and the middle schools what percentage was at C in category one or two they're not making Target in Brick Township High School that number is 79.9% not making Target in brick memorial high school it's 79% in Lake River Middle School it's 82.6% not making Target and in Pet Memorial Middle School it's 85% not making the Tet I guess a lot of students had a bad day that day when they were tested uh if you look at the elementary schools they pretty much mirror the other ones 76% 82% 79% 81 75 76 your science program in this district is a disaster I don't know why but it's something you got to look at and that's one of the reasons I brought up field trips because if they're not helping improve these scores you got a problem with kids in school to start with with the abson problem and now you're taking it out and I only said look at it I didn't say it was bad I didn't say eliminate all of them I did say that now I looked over what Mr Finelli could you wrap it up I'm wrapping it up I looked over what at some of the things that you put in your action plan for this year disaggregate data by subf Flames don't have an idea what that means lesson Frameworks that embed differentation have no idea what that means monitor lesson plans for pacing no idea what that means so my question is is committed to last meeting 5% Improvement again this year you didn't make two out of three what are you going to do different this year to make what you're committed to making what what what's going to be somebody's laughing over there I'm not laughing at all no I'm so glad you asked thank you Mr fale okay what that's my question what in this portion we're going to get it after anybody else for public comments yes go ahead John sloka 950 civia Court uh Dr far always talks about how many students change in January now and September the buses are packed how many students up or down do we anticipate in January okay we'll we'll get back to that anybody else for public comment seeing none um Dr farell I'll try we've been doing a pretty good job at the second public comment session the last six months just to reiterate let everybody talk sometimes I have an answer I'll share it with you if I don't we'll get back to you or have a Cabinet member talk to you um I do want to say Mr Finelli I know you said the dialogue and I agree with you is great but I will I'm G to tell you because I've been here five years and I've been at other districts of superintendent we've always in the agenda items portion of public comment always had Q&A and try to answer every question because they're being voted on in those um in that time period it's only the second public comment session where if I got the answer I'll try to tell you wait to the end or point you in the right direction but I think the open dialogue just because there's better dialogue tonight and a lot more people but we've always had at least you and I anyway have had pretty good dialogue in the session one what I call the open public the public session one uh first the SE the second session is about your thoughts and reactions to agenda items it's more information so I thought dialog I think I'm a pretty good communicator I think I'm dialoguing even though I'm answering questions and giving taking your feedback but anyway uh I before we get into the test scores and stuff I want to also said the January enrollments hard to even guesstimate I think last January we had 65 uh new new 65 I thought it was or some 65 the ml students it was a January last year 50 60 I don't know what this January would bring to be honest I we are having a meeting next week next week with Mary Kane our supervisor of elll and we look at that data regularly so I I don't know that answer I also tell you on the buses the high school buses I always say to Jim you have to have everybody has to have a seat but watch the high school buses leave the high school nobody's on the bus and you have to have them so that's um I see that every afternoon when they're they're leaving and and the older you get the less people that are taking the transportation and we still have to be accounted for that se so um I'm gonna get into test scores a little bit and then kick it to Dr Anderson for you because I think that is important and then of course I want anybody if you have any emails on test scores on the presentation if you want more Det detail like exactly what you know embedded standards or whatever some of the things you didn't understand we'll get a actual uh written description of all those that are in your action plan from the presentation that'll be easy to do I want to this Segways into next month we're going to be reporting out on our qack scores which we just got this is the second time I've been through qack here uh in the county uh and we've done phenomenal here right our quality assurance through the state uh doe and the county superintendent and what happens in qac for many districts in the state you can't get higher than usually like an 80 in what's called imp instruction program because of your test scores when you have average test scores you can't get there uh this past I guess gyration of qac had a third of the county in it only two districts passed imp uh Point Pleasant Beach I think was the one and we were the other one and what happens is we get recognized by the county and the DI on a growth model um so our this is probably the best we've done on a growth model looking for improvement in test scores here in brick in a while now our Targets in the strategic planning as you said were to Five Points we actually laid it out over a three-year period by subject matter and grade levels Elementary and high school and they're pretty ambitious targets um as Dr Anderson says even as you get growth right like you said in fourth grade you may be doing High here and low here it's harder to reach that growth when you get to a certain point the reason why I say this is again look at statistics from an introspective point of view we always say we're more concerned to Brick we don't concern about this District or that District that we're concerned with us and I've always said I agree with that because statistics if you look at them from the outside just on their face cannot tell the whole story I've said if I said to you you know brick football lost last night most you say okay they lost, L I said they lost 217 you'd say well they still lost I said they lost 217 to the New York Giants I'm a Giants fan and you're right that would probably be a score but uh so statistics are relative in that point so we really try internally to look at growth internally and where we can improve and we laid that out very specifically in strategic plan I'm going to kick it to Dr Anderson because I think she could better explain not only the action plans where we've done well where we have to improve again we keep moving the needle um and where we're moving forward and I'm so glad you provided that comparative analogy to the to the Giants um it is about comparative data right and so when you consider our district um in similar districts in size and demographics we like lead the league that's a mixed metaphor isn't it that's baseball right but can we say can you say league in football okay so we um we really have a strong um we have strong growth percentages um I am very pleased with our progress and yet I am always in pursuit of improvement so let's take the math scores we did do well in math year-over-year progress was a fivepoint increase overall right it was it was a cumulative uh across all grade levels and yes we really perform well in grade four and we also had a grant for $614,000 that allowed individual and small group tutoring at that grade level so that's where you saw the greatest growth because we invested the most in that grade level so that's one explanation we also got a new m math program um three years ago and so that math program has produced fivepoint growth last year and a fivepoint growth this year our um Ela materials are 14 years old they need to be replaced because now we know more about the science of reading and our new materials are very outdated typically your um revision cycle for culum materials is 5 years it's we've known since prior to the pandemic that we needed to revise our materials um at that time we did uh a partnership uh with uh New Jersey in looking at and evaluating our reading program and we added a layer of phonics through something called f foundations that was one of our phonic programs but the materials can be better and I know that we will see greater growth when the teachers have the tools that they need to really meet students needs so um I am hopeful that we'll be able to uh uh move forward with a new reading adoption because we have been piloting for two years and so our teacher leaders are ready to make a recommendation and we're hoping to move forward with that but with S2 and those significant funding um constraints we haven't been able to and that's not something we didn't want to do we just couldn't do um as far as science is concerned um the state science test and you gave some uh really dismal numbers but the state isn't much better you know 73% of fifth graders didn't pass it at the state level uh 81% of eighth graders didn't pass it at the state level and 72% of 11th graders didn't pass it at the state level so there that suggests to me there's something wrong with a test right when you give a test and so many students fail it that's something wrong with the test there's a disconnect there and it's not just here but it's uh across the state so much so that they decided to uh change the qac evaluation to that the science portion of it to weight it differently because it had a disproportionate impact on our scores um when you and years ago they used to report out in District Factor groups and when you look at our district Factor Group which Compares our special our percentage of special ed students our percentage of multilingual Learners our spe percentage of economically dis disadvantaged students when you compare th those special groups across the state we were we are high performing for our district Factor group and so I know that um New Jersey is among the top in the nation for for our educational system and brick in our district Factor group we we are performing strongly um I am always pursuing Improvement I wanted to improve programming for our students because our students deserve it our children deserve it our teachers deserve the tools and my husband will always say because he can fix anything he'll say I just need the right tool and so we need to give our teachers the right tools because they're working very hard our leaders are working hard our students are working hard our families are working hard we have a hardworking community and we are making growth and we are making progress and when we don't then we look at those sub claims that you mentioned and those sub claims are let's break down the test let's look at the questions that the students um had trouble with and let's embed uh let's integrate into our lesson plans some test prep let's do more professional development in that area let's um look and respond to that data by each building so my team meets with every building principal and we talk about what we're doing about the data and we look at it through our programs through our I ready program we collect that data um on students every month and we do it with our Lexia program we look at the reading data to see how the students are progressing uh I can walk into any classroom and I'll say to them um how many got your minutes this week they raised their hands I have my minutes so they are motivated because they're setting goals and they're they're proud of their progress uh I bring my intervention coordinators in and we they are leaders in their buildings um uh for our intervention Referral Services our BAS basic skills program and what they do is they sponsor uh programs uh you know contests for the students to get usage up they uh support small group instruction they provide targeted interventions on the weaknesses that the students have um and that happens systemwide uh sometimes we have staffing issues right and so when new teachers Come Aboard or when uh we have leaves of absences we provide support for those uh teachers to um continue the program but it's nuanced to know what's involved in the testing so sometimes um that becomes a challenge but at all times our leaders are oriented toward it our teachers are oriented toward progress and towards growth and meeting those achievement scores um but really it's about about tools and resources it's about the hit Grant having extra resources devoted to a grade level um and if we and and it is about class sizes too so I I we had several class sizes last year that were in our 30s and the board was wonderful and amended this budget to make sure that didn't happen this year so I'm really optimistic um and hopeful that we will continue to grow at a five point because whether we're doing fiveo from year to year or not um I still see room for growth and I see room for improvement in all of our programs because it's what our kids deserve and I thank you for your question no no okay we're gonna we're gonna move on now we're not supposed to be talking from the okay any other any other board comment I mean any other uh public comment no any board comments Mike to congratulate all the newly elected board members look forward to working with you and Nicole and Stephanie it's been a pleasure for my first year you guys are great to work with very helpful thank you um so best of luck with everything thank you um and then the other thing I wanted to point out the expansion of the preschool program that's a big deal um excited about it I have a lot of friends who have kids that are on the wait list so anything we can do to kind of increase their odds uh would be absolutely awesome so and then Happy Thanksgiving to everyone that's it I'll be short and sweet um Welcome to our newcomers and welcome back Victoria and we're going to miss you guys cool and Stephanie but we understand it's your time and I get it um you guys have been awesome thank you putting up with me um but um yeah so very excited about everything and again thank you guys for tabling because I think that is really great and yes we did have a good back and forth where everybody was respectful and if we can continue to be respectful I think we can continue to have more of the input um and I am super stoked as um as um Mr farell said about our marching bands congratulations to both of them you guys know they're near and dear to my heart and our football teams also did amazing and all of our Sports and moving on to the next round of of sports and Happy Thanksgiving to everybody enjoy thank you meline do you have anything first uh congratulations Victoria for winning once again um I would like to welcome George and John Henry we look forward to working with that um also I want to say something about Kira the little Bas uh the little Runner who's doing so well I coached softball for 13 years started off at tble and she was my catcher she was the most phenomenal Catcher And when she decided to go into the last year into uh running I said to her are you kidding I mean you're fabulous at this but she excels at everything so she's very blessed and I say good luck to your Kira she was fabulous catcher um also I I'm going to call in whenever you have the meeting like I said I'm going to be at the convention but I do want to say one thing am I allowed to say something about it being that we tabled it I mean it's not a big deal it it it's my problem is is that we work so hard to keep our teachers and our staff and the most important thing I know buses are important to some of us but the most important thing to me is our teachers and our staff um when we have to think of a bus that's that we're getting the Grant I get it so I guess what has my hair standing up is that the bus has a fiveyear warranty eight years on the batteries five on the bus but we're paying for 12 years and we're paying 12 years $678,000 do you know how many teachers and staff we could put in our classrooms and we can pay that's our taxpayers money that's not the board's money that's the taxpayers money that money should go to things that are needed for the town so that we don't have to look to raise money we don't have to buy as many buses as we're saying we have some buses that are running 20 years still listen I took those buses I might be coughing a lot lately but I've had Co a couple of times but I think we've all made it on those buses and I think we have to look into the fact that yeah we might miss a chance but we also might be saving the Town Money by not taking that chance and it not working it's very important that we're very careful with the township money and I didn't bring up with my son-in-law being the fire chief and my son being a fireman um the buses and the explosions on the buses and that was a very big factor with me batteries do explode and if we have kids on a disabled bus and you have them buckled in and you have to get them off that bus because there's no way to put that fire out until it's it burns out I worry about that I also worry about a bunch of kids on a bus I in my head would not feel comfortable saying yes to something that's a danger to our children and one bus on fire is more than enough for me so I you know again I will put it that the teachers and the staff are very very important we're working on um you know contracts are going to be coming up they're going to be looking for raises but yet we don't have a problem putting out $678,000 for buses I we were begging for money to keep our teachers I I I I have a problem with that that's my only problem thank you and again welcome and yes I will miss you guys for especially you well no you have another month all right all right thank you whatever thank you have a great night okay um quickly I definitely got my fill of fall Sports this season um I my kids are Mustangs we go to brick memorial um my daughter was a freshman on the varsity soccer team my son's girlfriend plays field hockey with Kristen McQuade our um brick memorial representative she is a beast in the back like she's defense she was incredible on the field hockey team she's amazing and my daughter's boyfriend plays on the boys soccer team and they were sectional champs this year so congratulations to all of them one thing that I do um want to mention that we did not mention was on October 22nd um the girls soccer coach Billy Caruso celebrated his 400th win um this man is an absolute Legend in our town and I am so blessed that my kid gets to play for him um he creates such a sense of family amongst a group of teenage girls which any of you that have teenage girlss knows that it's really not easy to have 18 of them in a house for a weekend together um but he does it and he's amazing and he makes these girls family and they really are the most amazing group of kids ever um so BC congratulations on your 400th win on October 22nd he did get a couple more wins we unfortunately lost in the semi-finals um but um he's incredible and um I was not here last month I apologize um but I just wanted to say thank you to the ptas that put on the virtual meet the candidates night it's such a super great night where the town really gets to meet the people that are running for the um Board of Education so I hope that they do keep that up I do love that congratulations John and George I hope you guys got my emails I emailed you both to say hello and congratulations um so we're thrilled to have you look forward to working with you um and of course congratulations and um not saying anything to YouTube because I'll see you next month thanks didto ditto ditto ditto ditto but seriously um congratulations to all of you actually congratulations to everybody who actually ran a campaign I watched a lot of the school board campaigns across the state and many went unopposed showing a lot of no interest that nobody's willing to step up to the plate so I can appreciate apprciate in Brick especially that we do have the buyin we do have people that want to spend their time and do this as we have all done so congrats to all on even running a successful campaign and congrats to everybody that's going to stay I'm not saying goodbye because I'm not going anywhere but um few things we did get to spend some time at school boards this past month so we got to spend time as a team bonding a little bit taking some classes um that was me yelling loudly during Dr frell's speech about um Sonia Manzano who is Maria on Sesame Street growing up a Sesame Street child um super excited along with Dr Farrell's wife um to be able to experience her he knows we were supporting him some of the loudness was for him but most of it was for Maria because I am a big fan of her so I spent a lot of time in Steam lab I spent a lot of time watching the kids I I bought a memory game because the kids sold me on a memory game that they've created in Steam lab um listening to the kids this time around I spent a lot of time watching them because these are the programs that we all vote on these are the programs that we're getting grants we're passing so being able to see what they actually do the group that I bought from literally while we were sitting there I I they speak better than most adults do so it it's great to watch that involvement it's great to see the program grow the buyin and everything so I definitely enjoyed some time there and we did support Dr farell a little bit we were a little quiet maybe next time [Music] um while I am stepping off the board um I I did appreciate tonight's meeting this has been probably over the past six years like one of top three in a dialogue and I'm going to make you all keep coming back if we can promise the dialogue and I'm sure these guys will uphold that we'd like to see you guys return because I think that is of course Mr Finelli he already knows we have the Buy in on that but um honestly I I don't have much you guys all want to go home and it's way past my bedtime so um we appreciate you coming out Happy Thanksgiving and see you next month thank you Victoria hi I just want to say um congratulations to John Henry and George um I hope you will join um the spirit of the board always putting our students well-being and their future ahead of anything else doesn't mean I don't love my teachers doesn't mean I don't love our parents what it means is our Focus as board members should always be a priority is our students first all right that was one number two um yesterday I went to uh Vets Memorial Middle School and I learned so many things in one night first of all I learned about every Fallen Hero from brick but mostly what I learned was that um the principal um Miss TR Fus and the btea are completely focused on teaching our middle schoolers how important it is to be a citizen and to dedicate yourself to the Constitution of the United States I was I I walked around the tables where the sandwiches were and I I just assumed it was the PTA and I started to recognize the the people back there but so who organized this and one of the teachers said well I did it and she did it and we did it and we volunteer our time for this every year and there's so many teachers that go above and beyond because they put what our children need to learn first and that goes for everybody um I also want to uh comment Kristen said that um the rooc was fabulous and uh the the Veterans Memorial band was also great the people that were sitting around us at our table kept saying is that the high school is that the high school and it was it was vet's um middle um tomorrow's November 15th uh last month Dr Farrell noted that I have been a been appointed a delegate to the board of directors for the New Jersey school B Board Association and in that capacity tomorrow night I'm going to drive to Trenton I'm going to represent brick and hope to influence the educational policies and funding issues in New Jersey it's a um great opportunity for Brick to have a seat at the table and I I appreciate that privilege the last thing I want to say is that our superintendent talked about Thanksgiving thankfulness and gratitude and even though I'm so much more thankful for my own children and grandchildren and my own mentors I want to say I have come in nine years to really appreciate how hard people work and how much support they need and I want to thank Dr Anderson and Jen Granger and Sue Mack Jim Edwards Dr Farrell Mrs wreb for being the wind beneath the wings of so many of our staff members and teachers I think they um I think a lot of times all people need is a little encouragement and and I know we systematically do that in this school district so thank you for that I'm grateful for that thank you Victoria um November 20 2122 parent teachers conferences November 27th is early dismissal November 28th and 29th is Thanksgiving schools are closed December 12th is our next regularly scheduled meeting I need a motion in a second for adjournment motion FR second all Mary second alley Miss cver yes Miss Kennedy yes happy thanks Benedictus yes Miss yes Mr Mesmer yes Miss picala yes Miss wreb yes Happy Thanksgiving e e