e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e he [Music] Ryan Nick what the other guys name Ryan okay you're ready Nick everybody ready okay here we go good evening everyone thanks for coming um in accordance with the requirements of the open public public meetings act chapter 231 pl1 1975 announcement I wish to announce that the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the school district of the cadams board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place their of posted in the board administrative offices sent to the clerks of the chadam burough and chadam Township the library of the cadams The chadam Courier The Daily Record The Star Ledger and tap Peter here Mr delandro here M Kenny here Mr Ryan here Mr Smith M Weber here Dr Zang here and M Chelli here seven president and accounted for excellent um please join us if you can to uh for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance to the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice i m r do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and I will bear true faith and I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and this state and to the governments established in the United States and this state under the authority of the people under under the authority of the people so help me God so help me God and I I Mike Ryan do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of a member of board of education for the office of a member of the Board of Education am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to rs19 colon 4-1 and I am not disqualified as a voter pursuing to rs19 col D 4-1 and then I will faithfully and I will faithfully impartially impartially and justly perform the duties of that office and justly perform all the duties of that office to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me gu so help me God thank you congratulations Mike thank [Applause] you um next we have the open board position for the township two Township residents inquired about the open board position the committee consisting of Miss Kenny Miss Ross Dr Yang and Mr Smith met with the two residents that expressed interest in joining the board as a result of the meetings the committee recommends that miss Sally Allen be appointed to the board of education to complete the term vacated by Miss Clark appointment of Miss Sally Allen to fill the Board of Education position in the township vacated by Miss Clark you swear her in somebody's gonna make a motion we have to a motion I motion to appoint her I second to approve miss Sally Allen as board member for the township M Ross yes Mr delandro yes M Kenny yes M Mr Ryan Yes M Weber yes as long as she doesn't hold it against us I can't I can't help it with that one Dr Zang yes and M chiarelli yes uh the motion passes congratulations Miss Allen if you come up we'll swear you [Music] [Applause] in whenever you're ready raise your right hand I am ready I I Sally Allen do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and that the governments established in the United States and this state and to the governments established in the United States and this state under the authority of the people under theor authority of the people so help me God so help me God I I Sally Allen do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of a member of the board of education for the office of member of the Board of Education I am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to rs19 colon 4-1 am not disqualify as a voter pursuant to rs19 4-1 and that I will faithfully impartially and just justly perform all the duties of that office and that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of that office according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God congratulations and [Applause] welcome excellent well we just want to welcome Sally we know she's been involved in many facets of the district before and we thank you once again for stepping up and volunteering your time you'll be a great addition to the board we're looking forward to it um that's all I have for now on to the administrative reports Mike thank you Miss chiarelli um I'll start just by mentioning that it's the winter time and it's quiet but we do have a lot of exciting uh events taking place in the district uh I'm not going to leave anything out but we've got several a athletic teams that are performing really well right now and we've got County tournaments uh that they're competing in we had our Lafayette production here about a week ago sold out two nights a giant hit uh from what everyone said we did a Lunar New Year celebration our Chinese Teachers did on Friday night which Drew about 500 people into this Auditorium we've got our Middle School production happening this coming weekend uh we had catwalk yesterday that Dr danu attended so we have all kinds of uh exciting things happening and I hope that uh parents and others can make it out to school events as they're able also want to mention that uh you might remember on the first day of school with staff this year we had a holocaust Survivor come and visit us and had a really lovely uh presentation and day with her uh she resonated with many of our staff and we have uh this week one of our Middle School teachers is bringing her back to meet with classes of students we have several High School teachers who have engaged her and we're going to have a kind of like a mini um assembly program on Friday with her and then she'll be back in March and we'll have a parent evening with her in March that we will advertise in conjunction with the chatted Foundation uh as we get closer to the event uh so I'm excited about uh all of those things uh the other another item for me is that we are going to amend the CHS calendar so that we can administer the State graduation uh the high school graduation assessment that we have to administer that's in March that's at the end of the agenda under policy and then we are required to give also a semiannual HIV report just on number of Investigations and findings and I'm going to allow Dr sortino to do that and take any questions that you might have so this year so far there's been 27 harassment intimidation and bullying investigations seven of which were found to be Hib harassment intimidation bullying and there were 13 preliminary determinations or principles determinations that's essentially is when a situation is reported that if all the facts were to be true it still would not meet the threshold of Hib a principal is allowed to not do a full-blown Hib investigation but rather call it a preliminary determination there were 13 of those this year so so far 27 investigations and 13 preliminary determinations and of course we'll do our comprehensive report uh in June like we always do but if anyone has any questions you can fire away question yes ask away ask away answer said I could ask away the 27 the 13 is that in line with years past or are you seeing an uptick down tick I mean after covid we had mentioned okay the kidss made a little um adjustment you know getting back socially are you seeing it flat rise down and are there different types of incidents that you're seeing at one time it was you know it seems to vary in the subject matter so can you maybe elaborate a little bit on what you're seeing I would say the data is pretty similar to last year's data as well where there's been more than we've had in the past and we've continued to see some student behavior that you know hasn't been as uh potentially positive as we would like to see so we're continuing our student programs with educating children on the appropriate ways to act the harassment intimidation bullying law and then we also have uh if a student is found to complete an incident of uh you know a racially motivated incident or a bias incident they now have a mandated meeting with the Student Assistance counselor at CM CMS or CHS they have three meetings which is more of like a restorative practice so that we know that the children that perhaps are partaking in that behavior won't repeat it how often are the students exposed to you know what Hib is and and what the law is not the law but you know the policy how often do we I don't want to say train but I know we do it in the beginning of school years but do we do it periodically throughout the year the counselors are constantly talking with students about pro-social behaviors there's a major training at the beginning of the year for every single student across the district regardless of gred and then the counselors continue throughout the year talking about the behaviors that we hope to see how to be an upstander Etc it's not schoolwide it's with the coun it depends it could be in a counseling lesson it could be in a classroom lesson it could be in a grade level meeting an assembly Etc it's throughout the year and then all students get a heavy dose during the week of respect which is the first week of October Dr stino are you still seeing that um I know in the past we had seen it was kind of heavier at the middle school age versus some of the other schools is that kind of still the trend yes there have been 10 Hib investigations at CMS okay that's the most so 10 out of the 27 were at the middle school okay and do you have all the resources that you need yes very much so and they continue to work really closely with all the students on pro-social behaviors but typically Middle School you're sort of testing boundaries and understanding where you are in the universe and we we like to make sure that the kids you know learn as much as they can both in uh pro-social Behavior but also you know if they make a mistake we want to do it before high school age where it's really you know matters a little bit more right okay perfect they don't call them the awkward years for nothing exactly Middle School sort of educate the parents yes so at all the back to school nights the principles review what the harassment intimidation bullying law is and I just presented at the Library as well another Hib investigation where I had a small showing of parents that came as well to talk more in depth Emily could you repeat the question oh yes she had asked if uh the parents are trained on the harassment intimidation bullying law as well so that's reflected in the code of conduct the principal send out letters and that's also reviewed at back to school nights in all the schools okay good perect anybody have any other questions for Dr sortino No you hear Dr Lusa okay perfect uh moving on to Mr Dila you're very easy on the construction update uh I just wanted to report that we are in process of doing the planning for uh the security vestibules and the two summer roof Pro the three summer roof projects that will be completed over the uh ju June July and August the schedule is that every project will be done before school starts okay okay perfect excellent thank you so much um moving on to student liaison report ahana um oh okay Dr Lusa pretty much hit everything that's going on in the district right now like he said Winter's kind of a slow season but um just wanted to highlight one thing um we had a couple of a few physics students who we sent to the New Jersey physics Olympics competitions and they placed in several of the competitions at Bayon high and one team of chadam students were the overall winners and won the state winning cup so that is all for me awesome that's great thank you so much okay moving on to committee reports for personnel Miss lber yes great thanks Ann uh we met January 10th uh on personnel and we discussed the U contract negotiations which if you recall had been ongoing for the supervisors and principles and there were still a few things that were being ironed out and I I think they're ironed out I know they are in fact we're about to vote on it on it's going to be A3 and that's again the contract for the supervisors and the building administrator groups and we also talked about the power professionals updates if you recall um the town supported a additional tax levy to offer power professionals health benefits that would help us retain our power professionals and also hopefully in with recruiting we are just about to finish the first tranch it'll be broken up into two or three tranches um the first group was the P professionals that were scheduled with the most number of hours so it made sense to to hit that group first they'll be able to enroll and because our school year ends June 30th there'll be another open enrollment and that would probably the be the second tranch and then a third to possibly do some cleanup after that um so that's good that we're able to get that underway as quickly as possible um and those are the the highlights those are the the big ticket items everything else uh you'll see on the agenda but I did want to point out that A6 is the power professional update and A3 is the the final contract negotiation that we're going to vote on perfect thank you so much um for curriculum Miss Ross um the curriculum committee also met on January 10th uh we discussed several topics the first one uh is highlighted in the agenda under C3 uh textbook purchases for AP classes at the high school just a little background there um new textbooks in AP classes need to be purchased uh or renewed every 10 years so this is a policy of the College Board and a requirement for us to maintain our AP status within a given course so two of the uh classes are are due and so it's AP biology and AP environmental sciences and the exact texts are listed in the curriculum um they were purchased and they're going to be used by students in the fall um an update on the reconfiguration plans so full steam ahead on several fronts go ahead sorry go ahead no you're good um there were several K uh and kat2 site visits in January um that are that's Personnel from our kat2 buildings go k to3 building excuse me visiting other districts where um they could see how k to2 two buildings uh operate Floren Park Morris Plains and Mountainside were visited and there was just a chance to do a tour and for a Q&A to occur um and then if you remember at the last meeting Dr Lusa talked about uh the letter that went out to current uh second grade students um to gauge interest on those that would be interested in having their third graders go to Lafayette next year um I think around the holidays we had mentioned that the number of interested parties was at 40 we're happy to report that as of last week that number is at 72 uh much closer to the original Target of 80 which we were hoping so that brings us a lot closer to the finish line of hoping to uh fulfill the reality of full day kindergarten for the upcoming 2024 school year um and then finally there are going to be some changes coming to the k25 K through five report cards um the changes are really driven by uh changes in standards for both math and Ela not as much for math but in ela there's going to be a bigger focus on um foundational skills um particularly phonics so as you um may recall we already have a a pretty comprehensive phonics program here called fundations um but our math and Ela supervisors are going to be working on the revisions um this spring and we will see a draft hopefully in May or June and then they'll information sessions for parents in the fall to explain the changes and that's it and our next meeting is this Wednesday um so any change any questions I'm happy to take them any questions for Miss Ross from anyone and 72 still accurate on the count yeah I was just going to mention so we sent a confirmation letter out to those 72 and uh told them to respond by Wednesday close of business uh if they are are confirming that their child will attend Lafayette and we have 56 confirmations so far okay so that's three sections three solid sections and we'll wait to see if any more trickle in over the next 48 hours or so great excellent okay thank you um Dr Zang are you able to report on uh Finance thank you so for finance uh we met on January 31st we talked about the uh sub subscription bus fees for 2024 2025 school year um and it will be an increase from the current rate of 730 to 800 for 2024 and 2025 we also talked about chadam baseball um chadam High School Field improvements um we also discuss the chadam high school sport funding for 2024 and 2025 2024 to 2025 um and this funding discussion will continue as we prepare the budget we also talked about the rock Grant uh funding and capital spending and uh we also discussed the tuition for 4 day uh kindergarten 2024 2025 um we also uh discussed the budget for 2024 2025 um that's it okay perfect thank you any questions for Dr Zang no okay moving on to policy and planning Mr Ryan um I was not sworn in when this meeting happened so I chose not to attend that meeting so I'm going to ask Chris if he can give the Le no what we uh met on January 31st last Wednesday we discussed an agreed facility use fees for coaches uh running clinics and such outside of their sport uh also uh I thought I was loud enough just you know you know you know you know I go um Dr Dr L uh policy conversions been updated as well uh you can go on a website for all the new policies New Jersey school boards Association we merged those with whatever we had from Strauss smme and smooth it all out and for all you hardcore policy readers you can go out and get some right there on the website it's there for you to read uh lastly we discussed uh Varsity letters and how they are uh awarded uh by coaches basically and your attendance for certain how much you participate in this in the sport basically so is that on the website as well Mike not yet not until we finalize any changes y so you'll see how your son or daughter can uh attain a varsity letter or how not to attain a varsity letter when they're playing a sport or not to attain what you think they might be allowed it or or awarded or whatnot so it'll be there eventually when it's updated so and that was that perect perfect thank you so much um any any liaison reports Miss Weber for the burrow yes for the burrow thank you an um just to give you all heads up um Justin Strickland is the burough liaison to the board of education and he has requested and certainly were amable to he would like like a a monthly Cadence so we met with him um already uh Dr L also met with him last week and just to talk about any issues that where there might be crossover and while there's not a tremendous lot of crossover because everybody needs to stay in their own lane where there are crossovers certainly the safety of of our students traffic you know traffic patterns around the school and also any Housing Development you know that might arise I think everybody knows the Housing Development that's in flux but anything that might be coming down the pike we all know they have a third round of um affordable housing coming up there's nothing definitive on the paper yet I know there's a lot of grumblings about River Road in the burrow um but a lot of that's more overlays than it is specific plans um but if again if if land is privately owned they can privately sell it to a private developer what the burrow can do to help the residents is maybe shape how that gets developed by means of the master plan so we're just going to keep up this Cadence uh maybe the township would want to do the same oh Mr Smith is not not here but you know maybe we can get into a routine as well with this Township just to keep open dialogues of conversation going where it impacts um both of the school district and the municipality that sounds like a good idea for sure question anyone since the ivy is open has anyone dropped into school yet again anyone has anyone dropped into school yet not yet not yet okay just wondering the I Ivy's open they're putting people in that place over there on oh The Ivy the IV is I don't know what their capacity is the I as of right now as far as how many December 1 they were at 10% when I toured it right but that's a couple months old yeah you go beautiful I can try and get an update on that too to find out what their capacity is just to get give us an idea of you know what we think might be coming down the pike too well there's 252 units 37 are affordable housing right um sum are studi Su are two bedrooms yeah you okay sounds good um any other liaison reports is Ross for CF for CF um CF recently joined the um somewhat newly formed chadam Area Chamber of Commerce uh as a nonprofit partner so they're going to explore some partnership opportunities with local business that'll also um help support the schools and then I mentioned last time but as a reminder CF is going to hold its 30th um anniversary celebration April 27th is the date from 7: to 10: p.m. at the Park Avenue club with a silent auction dancing in a reception so more info is going to be coming out on that after winter break thanks awesome yeah that sounds like it's going to be a great event it's going to be fun um okay I think that's it for the liaison reports um moving on to minutes you're moving minutes for the December 11th meeting and January 8th meeting correct yes and if we could do them separately since uh the list of ab absentees changes so December 11th who is this December 11th uh just Dr Zang has to abstain okay oh I was waiting for a second second oh thank you I didn't hear it I'm sorry the these uh December 11th regular and executive session minutes Ms Ross yes Miss Allen abstain Mr dandro yes M Kenny yes Mr Ryan Yes M Weber yes Dr Zang AB stain and Miss Chelli yes pass 502 no one two 503 sorry 63 602 sorry you sure yep you want to calculate can't read my own yeah I using fingers okay so I'd like to motion for the January 8th 2024 public and executive session uh minutes second and the ab the ab the abstentions will be Mr delandro Miss Kenny and Mr Ryan okay M Ross Yes M Allen abstain Mr Mr delandro abstain M Kenny abstain Mr Ryan State M Weber yes Dr Zang yes and M jelli yes passes 44 okay perfect okay um moving on we have our first public commentary session uh notice of public comment hearings of the citizens during the public commentary section of the agenda is an opportunity for any member of the public to be heard about issues which are or are not topics scheduled for the current meeting to help fa facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers will be asked to limit their comments to a reasonable length of time if you could when you come up just sign in and uh just state your name please hi good evening uh my name is James hitchings I'm a design and Technology teacher at the middle school and a representative of chadam Education Association uh and I'm marann meski I'm also a teacher at chattam middle school I teach 8th grade civics and a member of the association uh thank you for your time this evening uh we're here to represent the chadam Education Association and chadam Middle School the association continues to use New Jersey Education Association pride and fast grants to provide meaningful and fun events to the community the association received a fast Grant to support the world language teachers at the annual Lunar New Year celebration that happened in February and we also have a pride grant for the upcoming spring musical senior citizens dinner coming up in March we'd like to say a big thank you to CHS teacher Candi Hull for all of her hard work leading the pride and fast committee for that um we wanted to congratulate Lafayette students on their successful production of The Little Mermaid um and thank all the Educators who assisted and coached the students as Dr Lusa mentioned this was a sold out show both nights which is incredibly impressive coming up this week CMS will be featuring roll dolls M Matilda Jr opening night is this Thursday February 8th at 6 p.m. and then there's also going to be shows Friday and Saturday at 700 p.m. um this production is especially near and dear to James and I's heart as we are both teachers who work on this um I'm the production manager and co- choreographer and he is the uh set builder and sound director we also wanted to give a shout out and thank you to our tireless director Jason styles um music director Christy sprigs and the lighting and costume designer Gina priano Kaiser for all of their hard work and dedication to this um and really thank you so much to all the CMS teachers and admin who are volunteering as chaperon we're excited for an amazing show and hope that many of the board are and uh the community is able to join us in the lunchrooms at CMS students have been giving back to their Community with a donation box for unopened and unused snacks that they're going to the chadam United Methodist Church food pantry so they have a collection area that's set up and the students are having that donation taken to the food pantry we'd also like to have a shout out to the CMS junior model un they have their conference at Drew University coming up in this Friday and they've been working very hard under the supervis supervision of teacher Renee Marshall so we say good luck to those students uh and just a last few couple of things um at CMS we had a math math counts meet this past weekend and also as Dr Lusa mentioned Lisa Kari is having ma Dom come back to speak with several sixth grade students which is a really exciting opportunity um CA members have been hard at work on the transition planning team collecting ideas and coming up with some scheduling transition plans things of that nature um both between CMS and Lafayette so it's been really exciting to get to work together already and we're looking forward to continuing an inclusive and productive transition process and last but not least we would like to thank the maintainers and custodians for all their hard work especially in this winter season as temperatures drop um they are hard at work clearing snow salting parking lots and Pathways and making sure that our HVAC systems are working properly along with many other tasks our buildings would not be able to work without them so we are forever grateful thank you so much thank you amazing thank you so much best of luck to you guys with the production this weekend I'm sure it's going to be amazing M uh Libby Hills and rra Chad and burrow um an I would first like to thank than you uh for at the last meeting allowing um Mr Tequila and Dr lza to answer my questions from the podium um during the first public comment when I asked my questions as opposed to waiting till the end um I I just just found it much more constructive um and as I brought up to the board before I think it's a it's a better format and the time can be limited I think that it's within the Pres the board president an a discretion to decide the format like whether it's a back and forth at the podium or whether we ask questions and sit down typically I would say it's just usually me and Mr Heap over here um and teachers so um I would just like for you to consider that and I would kind of like to know if you would consider that before I go on with my comments because I don't I don't think that we'll do it back and forth but I will certainly you know we'll do our best to answer any of the questions at the end of the public session um you know like you said we we don't seem to have a ton of people that are going to be up here asking you know giving public comments but certainly I will jot them down and we will try to get any answers that we can to you this evening okay all right because I cut my comments down because I I wasn't sure if I could have a a back and forth um commentary so um [Music] um uh Miss Ross at last month meeting I asked about getting a copy of the curriculum presentation uh from Dr mayor I emailed twice via the buau uh the um School District website and uh once two days after the meeting and then two weeks later I don't know if you got it I I don't know if you can answer that again and this goes back to my question can I can I ask the question and expect an answer or do I have just sit down again well it may take her a few minutes so if you want it I can't hear you I'm sorry is your mic on I did not get it in my inbox but maybe it went to spam hold on I'll let you know okay keep going okay so you did it may take her a couple minutes to find it so if you want to continue then that's fine okay um so if if you didn't get it then there's might be something wrong with the website link and just wanted to let you know thank you um uh then my second my couple other questions really are following up on last month's meeting Mr dula uh I asked where you advertised the um open board position and you had said that you couldn't recall because it was last year so I'm wondering if you have an answer for that tonight Dr lissus at last month's meeting I asked about how the district would keep track of the increased taxes for security costs and and the Ingress and ESS uh to the building and you said you weren't going to comment I'm wondering if you have any comments tonight and at the last meeting I also about asked about the policy committee had having members of the public attend their meetings Mr Ryan wasn't here he's here tonight do you have any response to my question I can ask the question again if you haven't watched the video um and the last question is um at least for this section were actual interviews of each of the two candidates for the open board position performed by the committee uh and if so can you tell us what those dates were and and who the other candidate was thank you I'm trying to limit my comments to 3 minutes okay thank you Miss henra good evening to all Bill Heap uh a slow winter night well not really we have a new board member congratulations Miss Allen I wish you the best of luck and we have a new uh student rep nothing like getting some on the ground Intel from uh a student reporter uh I heard you mention that the um chadam Education Foundation is celebrating their 30th anniversary I'm going to put on my JC hat and congratulate them and for those of you with some institutional memory you might recall a fellow by the name of Rich Ford who was uh not only a JC but a member of the school board uh he requested a grant from us 9495 uh and that went to the uh legal expenses for starting the Education Foundation so uh the JC's were I guess you might say a founding a a founding sponsor and I congratulate them on 30 years and here's to 30 more thanks thank you Mr he um okay no more public comments so for Miss Hills and W's questions um the curriculum presentation so I did not get it and it is not in my spam but I'm going to read you my email address just to make sure that you have it correctly or I'm sure it's listed up there correctly but it's Susan Ross chadam DNE jersey. org so if you'd like to send it to me I happily forward you that presentation liby thanks sure it's Susan uncore not dashore Ross chatam DNE jersey. org chadam nj. okay perfect um Mr Taquila on the you want to answer the questions on the open board position and the uh interviews the open board position was advertised on the district website as per the POC the district policy there were two candidates interviewed and they were interviewed on Tuesday uh the Tuesday that the district was closed for the snow day I'll get you the date in one second January 16th and In fairness to the candidate was not selected I will not release her name okay yeah it was advertised on the district website Cor only advertised on the district website is that the question I can't hear you correct I think Peter said that last time correct as per the district policy it needs to be posted it was posted on the website it was announced at the December meeting when M Clark resigned and the district followed its procedure and policy as per the njsba we are not required as stated the district followed the its approved policy and procedure we followed the procedures is not stated in the njsa how it has to be advertised we advertised it on the website uh Mr Ryan did you happen to hear the policy question that Miss I didn't hear the question um I know there I looked at I watch the video the night of the last meeting I don't remember exactly what it was something about a member of the public um um participating in a in a committee meeting but if Miss Hills and wrath if you could ask me that question at the second public commentary period the actual question that you had in in this commentary you summarized what you asked before so if you could just ask that question I can answer it at the end of the perfect if that's appropriate absolutely okay great thank you um all right well we're going to close this public comment section and move on to our regular agenda um if it appears that we go through the agenda quite quickly we receive it on Friday and it is also posted to the district website on Friday so we have some time to look it over so um we're all pretty in tune with it so as far as Personnel M Weber thanks Nick I'd like to move items Personnel items A1 through a17 on the regular AG agenda and there are some amendments and some additions so four five 6 and 10 have some slight updates and 18 and 19 are additions I'll second that and again A3 is the collective bargaining agreement and A6 is the power professional item that we spoke about earlier any other questions from Miss Weber go ahead on regular agenda coach Patrick identified as assistant coach they should be head coach I can't hear a good day I know oh that's okay uh just one correction on the regular agenda A14 coach Patrick Clark is identified as assistant coach it should be head coach Patrick Clark okay perfect Bo track correct yes okay and a congratulations to the two teachers who are retiring uh Brian K's long standing teacher here touched thousands of kids in this room we're sitting in and Lucienne Horton's been one of our German teachers at both the middle school and the high school for the past number of years so congratulations to them yes congratulations both we wish them well and thank you for their time in our district any other questions comments Mr taquilla Sure agenda items A1 through 17 addendum items four five 6 10 18 and 19 and A14 as corrected Ms Ross Yes M Allen abstain Mr delandro yes M Kenny yes Mr Ryan Yes Ms Weber yes yes Dr Zang yes and M chiarelli yes agenda items pass 602 excellent thank 702 thank you so much uh finance and Facilities Dr Zang I would like to move item B1 to 10 B10 second [Applause] second perf any questions or comments for Dr Zang okay great Mr Dilla sure agenda items B1 through B10 M Ross yes Miss Allen abstain Mr delandro yes M Kenny yes Mr Ryan Yes M Weber yes Dr Zang yes yes and Mr chalii yes agenda item is pass 701 okay perfect um curriculum yep sure i' like to move agenda items C1 through C4 on the regular agenda second Mike um or Dr stino item number four the that's is that the efficiency exam for graduating students four more days of testing yes and this is for high school graduation right is it just the Juniors that are taking it m okay and is this test going to be around for more than a year or hard to tell unknown you know this is the third year we've had to give it first year Contin bringing this up in Trenton and with your cohorts that you know how much time do students lose testing and you know they're concerned about you know learning loss but yet they have no trouble throwing on tests whether they're effective or useful or not um and again this if the students don't particularly do well on this particular test then they have some other opportunities to then meet a graduation requirement they have an alternative pathway okay just four more days of lost time [Music] correct any other questions Mr Dilla sure agenda items C1 through C4 Ms Ross Yes Ms Allen abstain Mr delandro yes M Kenny yes Mr Ryan Yes M Weber yes Dr Zang yes and M Chelli yes agenda items pass 701 okay perfect looks like nothing for policy so moving on to do board business anybody have anything for board business is there any way to turn heat on during these meetings yes can we look into that heat for the meeting freezing I my apparently it came Onan right above I know it's free free anybody else any other board business the only potential board business I have and I thank thank Mr Von Hegel for reminding me but depending on the CHS play and the budget and if there's a conflict with the um budget calendar since the state hasn't released it one of the March meetings may need to be moved to the Middle School okay but we'll make sure the appropriate announcement goes out okay perfect thank you anything else Dr Lusa no okay great um we now have our second opportunity for public commentary yes excuse me Libby Hills Andra Chad bur um Miss Hills and WTH did you just mind moving the mic down a little bit if you can sure yeah or just or just take it hold it sorry it's difficult to hear yeah is that better yes that's better thank you okay thank you appreciate that sure um [Music] so I'll ask Mr Ryan's question second but um Dr lza I I don't think I heard an answer to my I know I ran through them quickly but at the last month's meeting um how we're going to keep track of security costs and um the entryway to the auditorium that was open at the time last time last meeting you said I'm not going to comment so I wonder if you have any comments I'll answer you when you're done with your public comment okay um so um Mr Ryan um the Pol my committee question was I think for for our committees the public is not allowed to attend they're they're closed but um a member of the public attended um mael fill and attended the policy committee meeting about the costs I think of um using Fields you had spoken about it a couple of months ago and I'm wondering if um typically from what I understand it's an the policy committee or any committee can invite someone to attend if they're going to add to the the substance of the meeting but I from what I understand what you said was he came to ask about the cost um if the costs could be changed for use of fields so um I just want to clarify if a member of the public can request to come to a committee meeting or if they need to be invited as far as I understand it the committee has to invite them but from what happened at two meetings ago I think in December um he attended and asked his questions which typically should be done in this format um so that that was my question I can answer that when you when you're done are you finished with all your questions I I think so oh no I do have one other item on the agenda we're we're spending I think it's around $4,300 for a behaviorist um training for nonviolent critical intervention I don't have the whole well no I do it's um 8 oh here it is [Music] um uh a behaviorist attending the CPI uh nonviolent Crisis Intervention training for $4,375 that's a I've looked at these agendas as you guys know and that's a rather large amount uh for training and I'm kind of wondering um and and other parents might be who have kids in the schools what kind of nonviolent crisis interventions are we dealing with where we have to send um a behaviorist to to a training that's this large of an amount what like what what sort of Crisis Intervention is going on in schools that we have to um send a behaviorist to for that amount of money I mean if I had kids in the school still I would wonder what sort of crises were going on thank you Dr lusu you want to answer the first question yeah sure the first question when I responded last meeting that I wasn't going to comment on the insecurity posture of the district was in relation to the comment that Miss Hills and wrath made about surveilling the entrances of our schools and watching children enter school and I think I believe she said she was taking photographs of kids coming in and out of school so I'm not going to comment just like when she requested our district Safety and Security plan that's a confidential document I'm not going to comment on the Safety and Security of the school district and its schools with respect to to tracking expenses that's obviously a business office function but we've had this question or a similar one at least many times in the past about typically during budget season if we're going to um include something in our budget and let's say it takes the tax let's say it falls within a 2.3% tax lby increase where is that in the you know where is the line for that in the operating budget moving forward and the reality is that we don't have 80,000 Lines within our budget Mr Dilla can can correct me here but if we if we identify expenditures that we think are important and we raise the funds through the operating budget in this case we had separate budget proposals that increased the operating budget then there's no there's not one specific line for everything that we uh identify as an expenditure so it would be up to the business office to track the expenses for example if we're talking big picture one of the separate proposals had to do with health insurance uh and and health plans for par professional staff we have a monthly bill that is sent out to Etna right that we have to pay uh we track our health insur health insurance costs we get a notification from our broker on an annual basis about what the percentage increase will be on the health insurance costs and then we continue to to pay that bill so any of the expenditures that we have in the budget whether it has to do with construction costs around security vestibules whether it has to do with uh what we're paying for behaviorists uh who are interceding when or intervening when kids are displaying violent or nonviolent Behavior Uh all of that is wrapped into the operating budget and the business office tracks those expenses on an ongoing basis I I'll turn it to Dr sortino to talk specifically about CPI I and restraint and why it's important that we have our professionals appropriately trained in Restraint when students exhibit behaviors that are concerning so we have two District behaviorists both of whom we would like to have training with the Crisis Prevention Institute uh that is an organization that ensures that when we are intervening with students that are demonstrating violent and or nonviolent crisis type behavior that they are safe at all times both the students that are in crisis the other students around them and the staff members that are in the classroom ultimately that's our first and foremost priority for all children The Crisis Prevention Institute teaches our behaviorists how to make sure that everyone's safe and how to maintain a safe and stable environment for all children as we are required to educate them all um we've talked in the past about why our mental health staff and behaviorist staffing has increased students are continuing to demonstrate some challenging behaviors that we're working through as a district uh it's our responsibility to educate all children in their least restrictive environment and The Crisis Prevention Institute Training helps us maintain children in their least restrictive environment it's you know very expensive training but it's very comprehensive and in Turn It prepares staff to create safe and stable environments for our children thank you Dr stino Mr Ryan okay so generally speaking policy committee meetings are not open to the public however the the chair of the those committees has discretion on certain things so the sequence of events here was that Mr Taquila was getting information and requests from members of the public including Matt gilen uh about different ways we might want to think about approaching facilities feed for smaller type of sporting events Mr Dilla contacted me about the issue uh and I asked to put it on the um agenda for the committee meeting he informed me that Mr gilon uh offered to uh come to the meeting if if it was appropriate and I thought it was appropriate so we extended the invitation to him to do that to come to the meeting and talk about and the reason why I thought it was appropriate was because as you know Mr Dilla was the finance committee chairman of the board of education for a long time and his expertise in the way those types of fees were handled in the past was relevant to an agenda item at the committee meeting so that's why he was invited to attend the meeting thank you Mr Ryan that make sense okay Miss Leber Nick could you turn her on that's on now oh very good um I just wanted to comment or add to Dr lusa's on the um budgeting and how we keep track of line items uh Mrs hilden WTH i i i while I appreciate your watch doggedness over behavioral things and security things I find it very disingenuous that you never ask about how much you're spending on the lawsuit which is is north of $100,000 taken straight out of everybody's pocket and the insurance companies north of a million closer to 2 million which will also come back so every time you nitpick on therapists and behavioral and uh mental health and security you never bring up how much you're spending on the lawsuit so every time you bring this up and how are we going to keep an eye on that and and I get asked all the time from residents can you tell us again every meeting how much you're spending on the lawsuit you know she she's constantly asking about therapist but we're not talking about the lawsuit I don't want to talk about it every day because we're already in our fourth round of litigation that only you you are the only person on this planet that can stop that litigation so every time you bring up that we're spending a dollar on therapists we're going to have to keep reminding you well if gee Here's a thought if you'd like to save resident money and it just came to me drop the lawsuit so again I find it disingenuous or at the very least extremely insincere and I do trust Dr stino and professionals to and I and I implore them please continue to get the resources you need because the alternative to have a kid in the hospital commit suicide or worse is is not acceptable so if you need additional resources please bring them up okay thank you any other comments questions okay that will close our public comments section we do have an executive session action will not be taken thank you everyone for coming I do have a e e e e e