##VIDEO ID:xUJkjH11RR0## for e e e e you e for e e e are we ready down here you guys ready Chris you [Laughter] ready it's 7:32 Monday Night Football you know good point you're good okay okay good evening everyone thank you for coming in accordance with the requirements of the public of the open public meetings act chapter 231 PL 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 thereof posted in the board administrative offices sent to the clks of chadam bur and chadam Township the library The cadams chadam Courier The Daily Record The Star Ledger and the tap Mr dla M Ross M Allen present Mr delandro here M Kenny here Mr Ryan here Mr Smith M Weber here Dr Z here and M Chelli here seven president counter perfect if you're able please stand to join us for the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag to the United States of America the rep it stands Nation on it's like when the priest says come on that's correct right okay um I don't have any additional comments before the administrative reports so we'll move it over to Dr l for the superintendent report thank you Miss chiarelli uh the only item under my section of the agenda is just a brief presentation on enrollment so I'll ask you to go into the seats and I'll do my thing really quickly [Music] thank you Nick um so as we begin the year I frequently uh give a a brief update on enrollment in the newsletters that I send out right before the school year begins uh but there's never enough space in uh those documents to get into the weeds a little bit so I'll just do that tonight to give an overview of where we stand especially as it pertains to the reconfiguration that we're working on that will take place in about 11 months uh so to start let me just point out a couple of things and many of you know this but it's worth just noting um our enrollment is not static it changes all the time throughout the course of a year kids enter the district kids exit the district uh and so any day that you take uh the temperature of enrollment uh the enrollment can can be different uh all of our enrollment data is housed in Genesis Genesis is our student information system we've been using it for about 15 years and for prior years Genesis pulls the final day of enrollment or the enrollment of the final day of the school year for the current year in uh Genesis the current day so it's a real-time application uh for this report I tried to go back as far as I could basically 20 years back and then as far forward as I could look uh so when I went beyond 20089 I went to the doe but the doe pulls enrollment data for every District in New Jersey only on one day of the year and that's October 15th uh so I've tried to be as consistent as I can be Apples to Apples but there's always some variation just based on the source of data and when uh enrollment numbers are pulled and then finally that last bullet is just to say that this is for students attending district schools so the state of New Jersey for example uses the October 15th enrollment report in part to inform how it distribute state aid and the state of New Jersey calculates students enrolled on a halftime basis either through votek or kindergarten as only a0 five of a student whereas for my purposes I count them as a full being um and it's for all students attending district schools so uh this slide I I put into the uh newsletter that I sent back in August and it was just to point out that we had a demographic report conducted in 2018 we had the demographer back in 2022 to revisit the numbers because of course we didn't predict there'd be a global pandemic in 2018 um and we knew that there was new housing developments coming on in both uh the both both municipalities uh so the demographer had projected an enrollment Decline and what we've experienced at least the last couple of years is that the enrollment has not continued to decline as the demographer thought might happen and the demographer always bases uh his or her estimates on birth rates so to look a little more deeply than that one slide uh this is what our enrollment pattern has looked like over the past 24 uh 20 years since 2004 2005 we peaked at about 4,300 students in 20167 thereabouts and since then we've been on a decline and you can see at the um at at the end of the of the chart here that that decline has kind of plateaued and one thing that we keep an eye on all of the time is just the grade one enrollment so so what this shows is the cohort of first grade for each year listed so going back 20 years roughly 21 years this was the number of students that entered first grade that year uh so you can see that 375 number is about 201910 I think or 2010 111 that's how many students we had in first grade in 200 N or 10 and so then it's no surprise that if you fast forward fast forward excuse me 11 years for when those students are in 12th grade that you're probably going to have a larger High School population or even when they get to 9th 10th 11th but when those 337 375 numbers hit the high school is when you'll have the largest population high school when they hit the middle school is when you'll have the largest population in middle school so this is what first grade has looked like every year going back about 20 years um interestingly though once they get into first grade a cohort of students they then change over time right some students will begin first grade in chadam and then they'll leave some students will not begin first grade in chattam but they might move in from North Carolina or India or California or wherever it might be in fifth grade or sixth grade so this table just shows the number of students who entered first grade for each graduating class going back 10 years so if I took the class of 2020 right in the middle of the chart 300 kids started in first grade 312 kids graduated in 12th grade but those aren't all the same kids so it could be that the 312 was flat but 25 of those students might be ones who didn't begin first grade uh and the same goes for every class up there you could have had 50 kids exit the district after they began first grade but then another 70 come into the district at some point in time and the reason I showed this is just to show that uh number one our cohorts change over time and number two that last column tells you that we really haven't had any consistent pattern with how the cohorts change so some years we'll get a cohort in first grade and 11 years later when we look up when they're seniors they've increased by a dozen kids other times they've decreased by two dozen kids there really isn't a Rhyme or Reason uh in terms of trying to predict what's going to happen to the class of of first graders or the cohort of first graders this is just the same data but shown uh with lines instead uh sometimes they go up sometimes they go down so then taking that as a sort of a backdrop I've just going to show the prek through five the elementary enrollment over time over the past 20 years and then the Middle School enrollment and then the high school enrollment so you can see here uh this is the total number of students those blue uh numbers above the line total number of students we've had in uh prek through five for each of the years listed and you can see you know in line with when that class of 375 began the peak was just over 2,000 students in 2012 13 or so if I'm reading that right and you can see how we've fallen and then all the way to the right of the screen you can see that we've plateaued and we've stopped declining in the last uh three years and then I just included here rough a you know rough estimate of when the building expansions took place so there was a referendum in the district back in 2005 uh that referendum was the one that led to construction at chattam Middle School Washington Avenue School uh Lafayette I believe if I'm not mistaken in Milton uh so the district at the time before probably all of us in in this room were were here or paying attention at least uh was building in preparation of the rising enrollment back in 2005 uh we had another building expansion you can see in 2016 that was the referendum 2016 that redesigned or re uh furbished this Auditorium we're standing in added a few design and Technology classrooms at the Middle School uh and then you can see the the you know the rest here and the building expansion here for pre P PK through 5 was at Milton Avenue School four classrooms at Milton a at the middle school you can see the Steep increase up to just shy of 1100 students in about the 201718 school year or so um and then the gradual decline and then I've included here two uh lines at the end one's dotted one is not dotted but the solid line reflects what the enrollment will look like next year when we have four grade levels in the middle school instead of only three and the dotted line shows what the Middle School enrollment would have looked like had we not moved the fifth grade over to the middle school and then finally we have the high school and the high school you can see um had this you know precipitous increase uh for a long period of time and it was increasing even before that that the enrollment in the high school was below 800 when I started as a high school teacher uh so it climbed very swiftly right up through and into the pandemic basically and then uh as the cohorts were smaller in those incoming first grade classes eventually they made their way to the high school and you can see that the high school enrollment has dropped pretty considerably so we're down about 140 students off of our Highs at the high school and we're heading Southward to about a thousand students based on current first grade enrollment um so you can see in some of these charts the reasons why we've been looking at different you know potential uses of our schools right the reason we've been able to start full day kindergarten and we did it gradually was that the elementary enrollments had fallen down to a level where in addition to expanding our special education program we had space where we could use classrooms for full day kindergarten uh that's what this chart kind of shows at the middle school if we weren't going to move the fifth grade into the building you could see how much excess capacity we would have from a high of 1100 before the most recent uh building expansion down to only around 750 students uh in the next few years and at the high school we have a lot of space because uh we have the greatest window into the future since we have the greatest number of cohorts prior to High School uh in the district so another way just to think about about the high school and again this sort of folds into the thinking about whether or not there's space to accommodate uh a district like Harding Township who uh is at least exploring the potential idea of sending students here uh right now if you look at chadam high school who's at chadam high school it was these four it's these four cohorts of first graders so when they started uh as first graders they totaled 1231 kids now they total 1,4 because 27 of them or a net of 27 of them have left the district since they began in first grade uh but those cohorts are the ones that are uh at the high school now if we try to look ahead we can roll out to class of 2036 that's who's in our first grade right now um and if we looked at the four grade levels that would be in the high school in 8 years you can see see you know how much lower that total is compared to where we've been at 1340 and 1300 plus students at CHS uh so these first grade cohorts like I say changed so there were um 969 students in that group originally but now they're a,2 uh they'll continue to change but we know that we'll have a fair amount of space given how much uh of a decline we've seen off of the highs around 1300 there at the peak PE so that's kind of the the grand overview of numbers of enrollment um I also included this in in the back to school letter uh just it's obvious when you walk around our schools that uh we we're becoming a more diverse District we've been becoming a more diverse District but uh you see that play out um in the schools when you're in inside them we also see and I mentioned something about languages and home languages this uh chart just shows the total number of students that are uh multilingual students or English language learning students and they the way the state kind of tracks students who receive these Services is that they're the each bar includes students who are currently receiving program programming in ESL or students who have received programming in ESL and then exited so you can see just the cumulative effect of more and more students every year in the district who need uh instruction in English as a as a second language so some of the conclusions are that the enrollment has come down uh quite a bit off the highs 4,300 districtwide 1340 at the high school so we're quite a bit off of the highs but we've stopped declining uh at the moment and we know that there's still some Housing Development that is set to to come online so we do expect that the in the client is probably not going to return at least not in the in the near future student body has become more diverse prek 5 has stabilized first and will begin to rebound uh as we move forward most likely uh the fact that we're moving third grade out of the three elementary schools is going to help us preserve a full day kindergarten program if we hadn't done that or if we weren't going to do that uh it would be probably impossible to keep full day kindergarten running because we wouldn't have the space as the enrollment starts to tick back upward um and it also helps us Stave off uh the redistricting of neighborhood boundaries um because the less space that you have in the schools the greater need you have to reallocate according to the space that you do have uh we can tell by our first grade cohorts that CMS will continue to have space available uh at least until our current first graders make their way into the building and our current kindergarten is is fairly modest too in size so we're we have a pretty good window into uh the next six to 10 years based on the current first graders and the same holds true for the high school the high school we can tell will be in a good position for a longer period of time because we know who the first graders are roughly the cohorts are uh as of today so that's it happy for the board members to come back up and I'll answer any questions I can thank you sir anybody have any specific questions for Dr Lusa right off the bat yeah not surprising um I didn't I didn't have a question for Dr lus I just wanted to mention that the last board meeting I reported out based on the Burrow's information that the IV for example is 80% occupied and that was as of like a month ago um I forget the Enclave is you know fully occupied right across the street is pretty much done um the skate park Arbor Green I think is fully occupied so you know Dr Lusa said we may have bottomed out you know I think that's pretty accurate given that we don't know what's happening to River Road and the Charlie Browns hasn't come on online yet that might be the only unknown and I think there's 53 units there so I don't know that we're going to get a a ground swell of people um unless I'm thinking of selling my house to the Von traps but you know three or five years ago when we had this conversation the ivu wasn't completed the Christmas charm wasn't completed the skate park wasn't completed I apologize for not using the right names um so I think we're getting to a point where we have a lot more insight now than we did five years ago so you know I don't think it's going there's going to be a ground swell based on the housing that's already built based on the number of students that we've gotten that's correct based on the students that we've gotten from those um developments already right correct anybody else have any questions go ahead Mike Dr Luso do we know I I think we know the answer to this but how many students does Harding send to Madison today I think the number today is between 25 and 30 um so it's not 100 like people are saying right it's 100 for four grades 25 to 30 per grade 25 to 30 per grade yes but the current uh Harding enrollment is it ranges from let's say 25 to 40 students but historically some percentage of those students don't wind up going to public school they end up going to private high schools okay Dr Lusa Also regarding Harding do you know have we has the demographer looked at their population as well not that I'm not for our demographer has not done that for us I don't know what kind of demographic projections they've worked with they had demer didn't they disrupt the balance got it anybody else okay thank you that was very thorough appreciate the uh presentation helpful hopefully that's helpful to people um okay moving on to is that is that it for you that's it for me okay moving on to business administrator's report Mr have a uh two items um as you can see behind you there is uh start of construction so the November board meeting that's scheduled for Monday November 4th we will need to uh have the meeting at the mid in the Middle School auditorium uh starting again at 7:30 and I presume we will be back here for December uh just a very brief construction update the roofer has completed all of the work uh the architect will be on site on Thursday to do the uh review and punch list create the punch list if anything is uh needs to be tidied up and the current plan for the vestibules is still intact that the contractor should have the interior security doors installed by the end of October perfect okay good anybody have any questions from Mr Dila okay moving on to student Le ASM report ahana [Music] okay um so yeah at the high school we've been getting back into the swing of things um we had a great activity Fair last Thursday um so a couple of important dates back to school night is this Thursday at the high school and then next week cougar weekend starts so all of our um home athlete games so that starts Wednesday and then goes into Saturday with the senior tail game before the football game and then homecoming is also coming up so that's going to be October 5th and then um two kind of like student feedback things so one like minor in convenience for students lately has been a few of the bathrooms have been closed to students in a couple of hallways so students don't always have access to the closest bathrooms to their class just a minor thing and then um on the opposite end of things um athletes and students have both been really happy with the new paint in the AV gym saying that it feels much brighter from before so a little Improvement that's all perfect thank you Mr Dilla do we know why the bathrooms are closed yes uh first off agreed on the agreed on the gymnasium it looks amazing um the bathrooms are closed because of issues that we have with vape pens being flushed down the toilets and then uh backups and having to call the plumber and all of that so uh the high school administration is trying to be strategic about which restrooms remain open and how they can be supervised appropriately but that is the primary reason for any closures that we have so there's your report back tell them not to Bape in the bathroom the question right don't flush no vaping no flushing okay moving on um okay thank you so muchana and happy senior year um okay moving on to the committee reports Personnel Miss Weber yes thank you thanks very much we met on September 11th we covered obviously the new year and Staffing um items that came up that's an Ever evolving Quest that there we talked about the new uh training for the new substitute um app they switched from um front line over to a different company called Red Rover and I think that's being positively received at the administrative level we talked about uh the new supervisor that's coming on board it the I think the end of October um and that was also discussed in curriculum so I'll cover that then and we also talked about the Paris we're in pretty good shape Staffing um but if there's any pars out there that want to still apply and substitutes if you know of any body friends countries Romans if you could um you know just keep the word out we could still use some more Paras and we could always use more substitutes um so that was it for personnel any questions okay any questions on Personnel no okay moving on to curriculum Miss Weber me again um I'm covering for Susan Ross who was in attendance at the meeting but asked me to just cover the the the report out so um we talked about about the August professional development days and that there were several um presentations for teachers over the two days up before school started they covered trauma in forward practices instruction for multilanguage Learners and the power of play for Kindergartens on another topic we talked about the K to5 rollout how the um the the K to5 progress reports I'm sorry the revisions with um English language arts and the math supervisors are sharing the final versions with the teachers to get feedback um the English language supervisor should as I mentioned should start at the end of October um Heather Roco resigned and went to another District got a promotion so this is to replace that staff member we talked about the reconfiguration and and mapping out what the the dates for the spring of 2025 for the new building and Cheryl Cheryl Russo is working on it um Cheryl Russo mentioned that the integration of the third grades if you recall we moved three sections three sections of third graders over to Lafayette and that's off to a great start um just two more items if you bear with me we talked about field trips um currently the overnight field trips the Disney trips that the band members take every four years and we also discuss the eighth grade field trip um and how successful we can be in continuing to offer those given a myriad of of of factors um the parents at the middle school have received a survey to gauge interest in running a DC trip albeit at a fairly increased cost versus several local you know trips that would be significantly less expensive and the final item is the individualized um learning program at the high school this has to do with the waivers that we T we allow for students that are involved in sports to wave off of their gym requirement and there's always been if if you're in a chatam sport it's much easier to to to keep track of how much physical education you're doing these are for sports that are not affiliated with the school maybe a gymnastics team an outside wrestling team a swimming team so I believe that there'll be more discussion on that probably in more in policy um coming up to see you know how we can tighten that up and make sure we're not breaking any laws because the the state requires so many hours for physical education it's very difficult to monitor outside Affiliates um our next meeting will be October 9th okay perfect any questions from Miss Weber on curriculum okay finance and Facilities who's moving Finance in Bradley's absence have they met we met Finance did not meet you have not met we haven't met okay we meet again on August October 25th I think policy and planning have met September 25th same thing the same day as Finance okay cool awesome thank you anybody have any liaison reports oh yeah C CF Chad Education Foundation um the CF is thrill to announce the start of another fantastic year 25 dedicated trustees and 29 passionate volunteers they're always looking for more volunteers so get involved if you're able to um also thanks to the generosity of donors and the creativity of our teachers and administrators they're excited to kick off another year of grant funding and they're also pleased to share that we've already approved grants to support the new horiculture class at CHS and also stay tuned for trivia night which is a a hot ticket that'll happen on November 16th so keep keep your eyes out and sign up for that early because that does book up they do keep a waiting list but go as early as you can there you go anybody else Le reports will be there tomorrow yes perfect okay great um okay moving on to the minutes from the previous meeting for the 820 public and executive M Kenny and Miss chiarelli need to abstain for the 828 special meeting um Dr Zang and Miss chiarelli need to obain go ahead need a motion I'd like to motion to move the minutes from the August 26th meeting and the special meeting on the the 826 meeting Miss Allen yes Mr delandro yes Ms Kenny abstain Mr Ryan Yes M Weber yes Dr Zang yes and M chiarelli abstain pass 52 the 828 meeting M Allen yes yes Mr delandro yes M Kenny yes Mr Ryan Yes M Weber yes Dr Zang M Chell obain two three that was past 502 perfect thank you um okay this is our first opportunity for public commentary hearing of 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 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 and when you do go over if you could just sign in and state your name and where you are from that would be great uh my name is James hitchings I'm one of the vice presidents of the chadam education ass Association and I also teach Design Technology at the middle school um as in the past CA members will be coming to the board meetings throughout the year uh to highlight some of the great things that are happening in chadam schools and the benefits to the students that come from the hard work of our membership um this year and this evening I'd like to start with a massive thank you to our custodial and maintenance staff for all of the hard work that they've done over the summer to prepare our buildings to open there's been a lot of painting a lot of um construction and a lot of things happening and the custodial staff then had to go through and clean everything after that so they've done a fantastic job CMS looks incredible the painted lockers the new painted hallways uh while we were there in the first couple of Staff PD days the custodial staff was going around and cleaning out all of the lockers making sure they were all ready for the students to come in um so it's a huge amount of work that they've done um and they deserve a big round of applause on top of their regular summer cleaning the painting repairing the waxing um many teachers were moving buildings this year um we're looking to even more people moving next year so the custodial maintenance staff really make that happen and we are very thankful to them um this year many of our staff will be preparing for the upcoming restructuring of the district uh we would like to express our appreciation for the union members who have served on committees and who have provided feedback and provided ideas and to the administration for allowing us to have our voices heard during that process we hope that as we move forward the administration will remain receptive to hearing our feedback and ideas to make the restructuring as successful as possible and then on a personal note at the end um I just like to highlight the experience that I was lucky to have this summer along with three members of the ca uh so it was myself Jess lus from CMS Lisa kler and Kathy gomber from Washington Avenue attended the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education summer seminar which was led by mod dami um it's really there's no words to describe how amazing this experience was we traveled through uh multiple different uh countries in Europe Berlin Prague krackow lelin Warsaw Amsterdam uh we stood witness to mod story and the stories of millions of people who were murdered during the Holocaust uh while we were at one of the concentration camps uh terz andad mod bought a book that she signed for the chattam Middle School library which will be um put into the Library there um and just the the bonding to be able to meet with people from different buildings we don't often get those chances so it's a great opportunity for like Jess and I to meet with Lisa and Kathy and to experience that and to witness uh it was truly a life-changing experience and one that will surely benefit the students of chadam thank you I thank hi my name is Maria Alden um discussing the Harding exploration question one for you is Will chadam residents have a vote or a say in any of this if so when and number two um what is the benefit of taking on additional students and going back to Peak levels if that might happen hello Beth MCN I currently have a freshman and junior in chadam high school it is a fantastic school but I am also concerned with taking on the Harding students I'm sure they're lovely people I know some of them it's not about that but a potential 10 to 15% increase in a student population is concerning I don't know how many of you on the board have kids in the current School District especially in high school it's fantastic but there are limited opportunities there's volunteer hours that go within minutes if not hours there's there's weight list sometimes for AP classes there were Cuts this year on the swim and and track team which there hasn't been in the past teachers have only a limited amount of hours I know my son was in an honors Ela class and he he could not meet with the teacher sometimes the teacher only has a certain amount of hours so with the additional students and these are arguably you know um from a community with a a lot of means there's also a lot of competition to get into to colleges it's Fant fantastic to go to chadam but it definitely makes it more challenging to get into some of these um competitive colleges I you know implore the board to really not vote on this or do not accept taking on new students until we have a full um idea of what the impact will be with the 250 units from The Ivy the 18 units on Main Street the new post office housing the potential of another large building two apartment buildings on River Road it doesn't matter what the trends are I don't know if the our forecast really can take into account what this will be because we don't know who the families are moving into these different uh buildings it could potentially be you know six to 700 um you know new students and then finally you know we are the taxpayers our taxes pay for the school budget which is fantastic again we have a great school district and um but you know Harding they they do Play Pay Less taxes than us like I I went on today to compare I live on a in a four-bedroom house on a quarter of an acre and for instance I would pay the same taxes somebody living in Harding that has a six-bedroom house on a 7,000 square foot property so I just do not think it's it's right it's the taxpayers who are basically taking taking on um the burden of the the new students it's my understanding that they'll they will be paying some money but I I don't think that um makes up for the the increase in students and the potential impact on um opportunities for the taxpayers of this community and our kids thank you hello um my name is Cara f um I have two kids at Washington currently um and one that will be joining next year um just a a whole host of questions ranging all over the map but um first I understand what bringing the children from Harding into the high school would mean for them I guess I'm just looking if you could give a couple examples of positive things that would work for our students to bring them in like what benefit does chadam have to bringing those kids in um how much money is the school district getting for that and would it be earmarked towards any one area um well speaking of um paying um are you still planning to charge for kindergarten for next year I know originally the plan was it for it to be free and full day to everyone for the 2025 2026 school year so if you could speak to that um that would be appreciated also will the Stu the residents of chadam be able to vote on the Harding matter um I do know there's a wreck meeting tomorrow but that's obviously separate from um what you all do here um and then one other thing um if you could speak to start times um I know there was some discussion on moving the middle school back a little bit and having the elementary school start a little a little bit earlier and that especially with the full shift happening next year with fifth grade completely being in the Middle School um if you could just speak to that a little bit as well and that's it and thank you for volunteering your time I appreciate it thank you hi I'm Alex Briel um the Milton Avenue liaison between you guys and and the PTO there um most of the ladies have touched on some of the points so I'll just highlight a couple of of the concerns that I'd like to bring both from myself and from the Milton um parents the Harding issue as has been discussed more specifically as mentioned what do residents get um and what do our children and and high schoolers get in terms of the benefit of bringing in the Harding um cohort how will this impact our k through eight Rec programs and what does that look like then for our Sports programs for the high school um I'd also Echo the sentiment that residents and and um parents would love to better understand when we get to vote or when we get a say on the said proposal um secondarily the kindergarten tuition based program as uh Cara had previously mentioned um as a resident of multiple children in the elementary and preschool programs um I know the $5,000 full day kindergart program came at the expense of our free halfday program which means that if you have a child that is Kinder ready there's not a free public education available to them here in chadam as a taxpaying resident and although I understand the legality of that as well as the complexity of that in terms of our um space Etc I certainly feel that it's not quite in line with the mission and vision for our town here in chadam not to have a free public offering for some of our youngest students I would even argue that that's not even right and we should have planned for that in a way so I'd like to better understand how kinderart residents that pay taxes like every other resident here in town who also have some of the highest child care costs of any demographic in our town are then also asked to pay an additional $5,000 per child or $10,000 for twin parents like myself without any sibling discount that the private educations offer in order for our children to receive a public education so um I'd reiterate that previous comments that I've made at board meetings here that kindergarten parents are not really meant to be a means to subsidize the board's budget and I'd love transparency on a road map for the kindergarten students in the future so I'm hoping there's Clarity and support from the board there to ensure that every child in chadam can receive the free education especially as we're considering bringing in another town um to also take some education from our children uh thank you very much okay I'm going to go ahead and close the first public comment section for the time being um Dr Lusa do you want to speak to any all I'll give you your choice of what you want to speak to but I see Miss Weber Chomp do you want me to go first or do you want to I could start okay I'll start then um first and foremost I want to thank James and the three teachers who took advantage of the opportunity last year uh to go on the Holocaust trip uh that's an 88-year-old woman who's leading that trip through however many countries however many Holocaust sites it's a very very emotional and um difficult trip to to make even though it's wonderful um but I think I sent the email uh from ma uh in December or so of last year inviting chatam Educators in particular because she had been here with us on this stage in August and four of our teachers Kathy and Lisa and James and Jess went and I just want to thank them for doing that because it's important work and they deserve kudos for it uh in terms of Harding I'll I'll you know kind of Bounce Around um 90% of our budget comes from the tax the local tax levy uh and the local tax levy is permitted to increase by 2% a year that's about a million and a half dollars or so uh when you get to the get to the bottom of it our salary increases are north of 3% our health insurance and health benefits costs are uh higher than that or have been at least in the last five or six years um so what the Harding relationship would offer us and the taxpayers in chatam is another source of Revenue that at least if the terms were similar to what paring is paying to Madison uh would be roughly the equivalent of our entire tax levy increase on a year-to-year basis so if there are concerns about opportunities at the high school whether that's related to class sizes or number of extracurricular offerings that's directly tied to revenue uh if we want to ensure that class sizes remain low uh relative to other high schools which they are right now we need more revenue and the tax levy isn't producing enough Revenue given what our expenses are like at the current time we booked I believe $800,000 in kindergarden tuition for this current year budget so you can do the math $800,000 is roughly half of the tax levy increase so if we were going to try to move to free full day kindergarten which we all want to do we have to eliminate $800,000 of expenses the primary place we would do that is in Staffing at the upper grades so class sizes would go up if we were going to try to save $800,000 in order to bring on uh the or eliminate I should say the tuition for kindergarten which is why we didn't go down to zero to kindergarten this current year but we went as far as we could to try to reduce the expense on families uh but any further than that would have led to more cutting at other grade levels so what the potential relationship with Harding offers and I should point out that roughly half of the districts in New Jersey right now are either k6 or K8 districts that then are part of a Regional High School District or have a send receive relationship with another District uh Harding has been sending its students to Madison before that it sent its students to Morristown uh the mechanism for determining a send reive relationship is a board vote it's not a public vote it does not require a a referendum or majority of the public it's rather a board of ed votes so that that's the mechanics of it um but obviously the the primary benefit to the Board of Education the school district in chadam would be an additional Revenue source that has never existed to this point in terms of space we're nowhere near I I just showed that we were at, 1300 students for several years and we're heading to down to a thousand and the new housing developments are not going to make up a difference of 3 40 students which is what our current enrollment shows is going to happen even if we assume that we're going to uh take on an increased number of students from either housing turnover uh because the you know interest rates come down and everyone wants to sell or because there's new development there isn't any chance that we're getting back up toward 1300 in the next 10 to 12 years so the fact that Harding would would wind up likely sending us 120 students let's say uh is just a differential we can manage fairly easily because we had 300 we will have had 300 more students then um uh then we then we will by by the time the enrollment goes down to a thousand or so um start times that's still something that we're discussing we needed to get this school year up and running first transportation is most uh hectic and challenging in August and then in September as we're sorting out the routes and the drivers are learning all of the stops and we're trying to take on students to pay subscription fees which is on a case-by casee sort of weightless basis um now that that is beginning to calm down we are looking at uh whether or not first student can accommodate uh a change in start times and what they can accommodate and what they can't so our Target uh internally is that by the middle of the year January or so we would make determinations if we were going to change any of the start and end times of the of the schools um but that's a little bit of a ways off as a result of the transportation uh issues that we always have at the beginning of the year um and I guess I'll stop there and turn it over to to you all you jumping in oh yeah I didn't know if anybody else wants to jump in no go ahead Mike you want to go go ahead okay um Mike cover Dr Lusa covered most of it but the overarching theme I'm hearing is what's in it for us what are the benefit benefits to the chadam taxpayers and it's interesting you say that the the chattam taxpayers benefit the most not just K to 5 not 9 to 12 all of them the kids the folks that just moved in town that have infants that are going to be in our district and folks like myself that just the kids are out you said do you have any kids in the school I just want to mention my kids went through during that entire peak time it was you know it was exactly I don't know if you're here for the enrollment but it was 200 more kids in in in each of the classes but many residents come to the board of edge meeting and say you're killing us in taxes you have to find an alternative Revenue Source that's not easy to do we you know we don't can't do a GoFundMe page but this is one opportunity for sign significant Revenue now imagine if if you will because I know you've been around at least for a couple years imagine the last year's referendum $850,000 for security if we had this addition Revenue we wouldn't need to do that previous years when we needed to redo turf fields and tracks to redo each turf field just to resurface it it's 500,000 each that has to come from the taxpayers if we had additional Revenue we wouldn't have to go out to the taxpayers and ask for that money same thing with um hxs and um Roofing we can now budget that and not have to go out to the taxpayers for re um for additional funds and revenue so all of the taxpayers benefit the most I wish Mr Heap was here because he pretty much admonishes us each and every meeting to find additional Revenue sources and stop increasing taxes um Mr Smith is not here last year we did not go to the full taxing authority to be sensitive to that we're trying to come up with additional Revenue sources this is one way adding 25 kids 30 kids in each grade in the high school with the excess capacity is not going to diminish the experience I say it my increase it because you're dealing with kids that new kids not the same kids that you've been playing sports with for the last eight years so I think that's a benefit to always have additional kids to talk to different experiences um so I just want to mention that that the the benefits are strictly to all the taxpayers and if I can extrapolate having done budgets for the last 14 years on the board of ed if we if we don't get additional revenue and and again it's still proposal let's say we don't get this additional Revenue what I can guarantee you is we will absolutely have to increase sizes at the high school because if our expenses exceed 10 12% and our revenue is from the tax base only 2% well there's a gap we need to make up how do we make that up everybody that runs any kind of business or been to taken our financial literacy course the only way to come up with that kind of Revenue is headcount so if we have to reduce headcount which we've always said we'll start at the high school you can have 25 27 28 30 kids in high school you can't have 30 kids in a second grade class that are learning to read so the we would start reducing at the high school so without additional Revenue I can guarantee you we will increase class sizes with additional Revenue we can absolutely keep it level down flat so again the benefit is to 100% of the taxpayers and the benefit is to ensure that we can continue to keep class sizes small without additional Revenue we will have to increase class sizes okay anybody else and just to the um the recck question you'd have to come to the wreck meeting tomorrow to get the answer to that we will be there and sorry again just a point of reference the wreck is an advisory um committee really the rec the decision is the municipalities so the burrow the school district is one District Two municipalities the burough Council has to agree to it and the um Township committee has to agree to it so we could say yeah yeah yeah do it and if that becomes a deal breaker for a sending District well then that's Revenue that we don't even have an opportunity get because the two municipalities for whatever reason you know decided it was not in our best interest so while the school board can enter into a send receive the the just on that very narrow subject of recreation for the K to8 kids that really has to be decided by the M municipalities plus the fact that that's that only happens if they decide if we give them the okay that they could play W Sports and if they even decide to come here to begin with you know bring the high school kids over then those kids could then play Rec Sports if it was all approved otherwise it doesn't matter they're not playing Rec Sports here it only depends on if the high school kids come here right and it's not that big an issue it's they just want to play with their friends they want to play with the same kids that they're going to go to high school with later on um and and then the wreck Chris if I you and I have talked about it even if it's 25 kids in each in first grade second grade third grade in Harding that want to play wreck let's say 80% of them want to play sports okay now we're down to 20 now we splitting that by gender that's 10 and 10 you know you're talking about def Sports yeah and how many 20 how many programs like 27 programs I don't know the whole whole big pile so you're talking one or two maybe two two or three kids in each program maybe more I mean maybe there's 20 but I think they can swallow all of that right and they bring in Revenue right they bring in Revenue what's interesting is the wreck folks their enrollment is decreasing but their expenses are increasing they're in the same boat that we are so they're going to have to charge residents more to pay for the coaches what do you got it for sure right for sure they got they got stuff going on their enrollment is directly tied to our enrollment without doubt so they should be looking for additional sources of revenue as well but more more tomorrow to Ann's point right yeah we'll see what they say anybody else have any questions comments concerns okay um okay we're going to move on to the uh regular action items for personnel Miss Weber yes great thank you an um so I would like to move action items 1 through 18 on the regular agenda there's no 19 Peter if you could just take a note of that there's no 19 but there's an addition of 20 so you can either keep it as 20 or rename it as 19 dealer's Choice it will be 19 okay so it's now 19 and there's an addendum or addition on items number one three and four they're just changes additional names a a salary correction and another name on the on number three so there's some corrections in addition of 20 now soon to be from here on forth to be called 19 great so 1 to 18 2019 and the uh 134 I'll second it and second I know I was I was waiting to see there's any questions agenda items 1 to 18 addendums items 1 3 4 and 19 Miss Allen approved Mr delandro yes M Kenny yes Mr Ryan Yes M Weber yes Dr Zang yes and M Chelli yes agenda item is pass 70 perfect thank you so much um moving on to finance and Facilities actually I have a question Peter I think one of the numbers is not right the total should have been 2 million of 5 million hold on on item one yes thank you I will correct the I will correct the the addition when I publish the minutes good catch there who's moving um I don't know the answer to that who's moving Finance oh I can do it okay um I would like to move Item B with the correction of 2 million5 2.59 um and item B1 to B8 second I'm sorry I second it agenda items B1 as corrected and 2 through 18 M Allen yes Mr delandro yes M Kenny yes Mr Ryan yes Miss Weber yes Dr Zang yes M Chelli yes agenda item is pass 70 okay perfect curriculum move okay I would like to move item C sorry C1 through C five on the agenda second Mr Ryan seconded it I got it agenda items C1 to5 Miss Allen yes Mr delandro y m Kenny yes Mr Ryan Yes M Weber yes Dr Zang yes M chiarelli yes agenda items pass 70 perfect and policy I'd like to move agenda items D1 D2 I second it agenda items D1 and oh sorry Peter just a quick question um Mr Ryan or Dr Lusa the we're doing a second reading on policy 6146 the graduation requirement is that related to the FASA form or is it additional tweaks no that's the form that they FASA FASA okay great thanks the jet items D1 and D2 M Allen yes Mr delandro yes M Kenny yes Mr Ryan Yes M Weber yes Dr Zang yes and M jelli yes agenda items pass 70 perfect thank you so much um anybody have any additional board business they want to discuss okay um we will have our second opportunity for public commentary same rules apply and if you will please just sign in and um introduce yourself that'd be great thank you switch hi Maria Alden again and I forgot to say before um I'm a mom of a senior a freshman and a sixth grader and I'm also one of the uh PTO presidents at the high school this year so to be clear this isn't about revenue or physical space as parents it's about the opportunities at the high school also many would like to know what is the cost to Harding parents to come to chadam High School third we know how many Harding kids attend um Madison High School right now but is that how many will attend if given the opportunity to come to chadam so I guess what we'd like to know is how many high school age students Harding has hello Cara F again um and I also am here asking questions on behalf of Washington parents as well um two things um I don't think we actually spoke to how much money per child Harding would be paying and also do we have an estimate of how much it costs per child I think it's like 1885 a kid per year um if you can speak to those numbers a little bit and then if Harding does come in is that are you saying that kindergarten would definitely be free because that's another question for elementary school parents so if we can get answers on both of those that would be awesome thank you sorry a little shorter here uh Hi Megan RoR I have a current sophomore and a eighth grader in chadam and uh just listening to all different things I have a few different topics you mentioned about how Harding this is going to benefit the taxpayers and you're not going to come back and ask us to do different things but the difference is when you do come to the taxpayer for the different projects we have an option to vote we're voting yes we want to do this we're going to give you the money or not with this Harding we do not have an option to vote it's all up to the board so that's one thing that I think is a little difficult for us to swallow also you projected the numbers of Harding you mentioned about 20 or 30 children per year uh but is the contract go does this contract going to have a limit saying what happens if Harding turns around and wants to send 50 or 70 a year and how long are we locked into this contract so currently how many Harding students are going to Madison and let's say it's 25 and you know you have another 30 going to private school well well all of a sudden they said oh we're now going to chat them okay those 30 kids say you know what I don't have to send my kids to private school anymore I like chat them better so are is that number going to increase so we don't know exactly how many and if they do go to 50 or 70 a year can we say we don't want to do this anymore and how quickly can we end this contract if you decide to do it um so that's that's one thing you know as you can tell I'm not a big proponent of this but I don't think we have enough information either we have a lot of uh information but on a different side note as I mentioned I am a parent of an eighth grade uh student and they've been looking forward to the DC trip the eighth grade has their last they did a one field trip last year and their last field trip before that was turtleback zoo in um kindergarten so they've been looking forward to this trip we did get the survey out uh we haven't heard results I hear that you're discussing I guess on October 9th but this is one uh thing that the parents really do want some are concerned about the cost and the different choices they made about providing lunch where the parents used to pay for it so uh I'm not sure of the breakdown of all the uh numbers but the DC trip the parents really want it the kids really want it and this is a right of passage for them so I please hope that they do not eliminate it either thank you hi I just wanted to add one more point to the Harding conversation um sorry Alex fril thank you chat him back up um so I wanted to add a point on the Harding conversation um as previously noted there was questions about the length of the contract so how many years are we talking about um including our hard or giving the option for Harding to come into the chadam high school based on that it would also be helpful to understand what are the incoming demographics so it's 20 to 25 to 40 per grade um this coming you know 2025 2026 or whatever the the year is does that number then increase over the years are we looking at 40 to 50 or 50 to 60 or and what are the dollars along with that as you talked about our budget increasing a roughly 2% or only allowed to increase 2% what does it look like in terms of tuition for them versus the first year second year third year as our costs go up um so that's the point on the Harding piece the second piece is I think there's still a lot of misconception and and lack of clarity on the kindergarten piece I don't think it's been addressed what does that road map look like will it continue to be paid if so for how long by how much um all of those pieces of information would be important not just for parents to understand um that have coming incoming um uh kindergarten kindergarteners but also in planning for people that have preschoolers that are looking to come in they need to start planning now if it's going to be five or seven or six or three in the coming Years thank you hello Beth mcnt again and thank you all for your time first of all um I understand that it's a board vote but as elected public officials it would be wonderful if you could engage with the community and allow the community to have a formal say because I don't think everybody's fully aware has all the information and and that would be fantastic so that's my request to you and then the other thing is um timing if you were to move forward this what when would be what would be the timing would it be after all the apartment buildings are built and you have a full sense of the incoming student population thank you good evening um my name is Amy Wagner I live in chadam I have a nth grader and 11th grader um last year the high school swim team as mentioned earlier had cuts um there were a substantial number of girls not so many boys so on the girls team it there had to be a lot of cuts I understand this fall there's already been cuts on some of the sports teams I don't recall if you all addressed that in your response to the earlier comments about that but that is definitely a concern when you increase the population that's going to be more difficult for our students in chatam to be able to participate I also have heard comments earlier about um the teachers availability to meet with students before school or during lunch or after school and that's already been a problem this year and school year just started so how is that going to be impacted by an increase in number of students thank you okay I'm going to go ahead and close the second opportunity for public comment anybody want to react answer anything drusa I I can I can do my best again um well first off nothing has been committed to at this point right Harding may decide that they want to continue their relationship with Madison and not have anything to do with chadam uh so the first next step is that Harding has to determine whether uh it wants to change where it send its students to high school and again that's the board's Authority and Harding to make that determination so I can't speak to specifics about contract you know the exact terms that ultimately would be agreed to I can say that right now and what Harding has been doing is sending um its students to Madison at a cost of about $115,000 per pupil so it's a per pupil not one lump sum but a per pupil uh on a per pupil basis I just pulled up the enrollment reports I referenced in my brief presentation Harding uh as of last year's October 15th enrollment had 298 students total grades K through 8 298 so the entire District of Harding is about the same size as uh Milton Avenue School almost exactly distributed across nine grade levels uh that works out to about 33 per grade so we I can't you know I can't hypothesize about how many students would come every year and how many will choose to go to private school versus go to either Madison High School or chadam high school or another high school um but we know the number of students essentially that attend the Harding schools and that number has remained constant for a long time they've had about 300 students enrolled in their entire district for as long as I can remember so we have a feel for that um what we're talking about with the revenue is that we can hire additional teachers if we need to um because obviously they're paying for something and they're paying for uh our ability to meet the needs of all of the students that would be in our charge whether they come from chadam Township chattam burrow or Harding Township um there there in terms of teachers not being able to meet with students that's the first time hearing about that uh but that has nothing to do with the number of teachers per student currently in the high school because it's about the same it's actually we have a better uh student to teacher ratio now than we did when I was teaching in chattam high SCH School 23 years ago um in terms of kindergarten uh road map the bottom line with kindergarten is we have to either make commensurate Cuts in the budget when we get to the budget uh season and we're figuring out we're we're finding out what our state is we're finding state aid is we're finding out what the appetite is to increase the tax levy from the Board of Education there we can't have a clear window or road map with kindergarten because we don't have the revenue we don't have the luxury of having all the revenue we want if we did Kindergarten would be free already of course so it is not a definite that kindergarten would be free next year even if this comes to fruition the likely date start date for this would be the 26 27 school year because Harding's current contract with Madison expires June 30th of uh 206 uh so it's the year after next school year that this would be something that we're looking at um we've had cuts on athletic teams as long as I can remember when I was high school principal we had cuts on our athletic teams we have Cuts depending on the number of participants that come out for um a team we've expanded the number of teams and athletic offerings that we have at the high school over the years pretty consistently uh we'll continue to try to meet the the demands and the needs for all of the students but we always evaluate whether it's safe to have the level of participation that we had with track and swimming there were uh concerns about supervision and how well we could Monitor and give access to the facilities we only have one track for example and if we have 140 students running Spring Track they can't all be on the track at the same time uh otherwise you have uh concerns over safety so that's a a separate issue um so that's uh that's it in a nutshell for me I guess I'll hand it off to you okay Jill do you want to add anything to the I just didn't conversation I know you said you didn't couldn't mention contracts um specifics but I don't know if you mentioned there's obviously limits whether it's a foure fiveyear and that's in place where the sending District can pull out or the receiving District you know any any sending District might say you know what we're done with you we're going to New Providence for the next 10 years so the contract would have a limit likely four or 5 years um it wouldn't be indefinite so you know if 150 years from now Harding has 50 eighth graders you know you could end the contract you can renegotiate every 5 years and any contract would increase um a percentage each year just like our tax base increases a percentage each year7 or 375 kids per class and now we're down to about we're under 300 now correct there's a mix at the high school right now by the time we we hear you sorry can you speak into your mic instead of turning towards him we can we can't hear you and we're right here no one usually has a problem hearing me um the question is where will those teachers go when we're down to 240 kids per class if we do not take outside an outside Source like somebody like Harding if they if they even want to come well what we've done over time is we've adjusted our staffing levels according to the students that we have so some years in some grade levels we've increased staff other years we've reduced staff um and then of course we have programmatic types of decisions like special ed programming that can drive Staffing apart from enrollment but yes as the class sizes shrink we need fewer teachers cohort sizes which a lot of times you get through attrition it's not that you retirement you sure it's usually attrition some of that's natural fortunate people retiring some of that would be natural great right not forced exactly if we're 100 less kids there's per grade there's going to be something going on eventually someday but we always adjust yeah right that's what keeps Beth in business that's right um and just a note on the kindergarten I've been on the board for 14 years we've been trying to get kindergarten just in the district full day kindergarten in the district for the last 14 years we've made great strides we're not there we're not there but we've got to figure out where to come you know up with the money we've reduced it each year and the goal is to obviously to free nobody on this board wants it to be free residents want it to be free there's other residents that say you know hey pay to play totally get free education public education part of the social contract nobody here at this table would disagree with that it's just a matter of how do we get there and we've not just BL blindly doing nothing we've been reducing it each year we've been increasing the number this is the first year in 125 years of the district that we've been able to have full day kindergarten for every single student so that's not nothing but it's not perfect yet so we're going to keep moving toward as best we can toward perfect can you turn on you lose or not can you hear me okay here we go uh do you agree there's another way to look at it is because the enrollment has been declining so keeping the same number of teachers and everything the same we do have extra capacity to take in the number of Harding Harding students let's say 25 per grade our existing capacity is enough to take that our existing uh physical capacity is enough to take that I don't know that our existing St we may need one additional staff member let's say in a given department or one in two or three different departments but that's what some of the the you know the tuition would go to yeah that was my second question if the number of students were to increase we will be able to use the the money they paid a higher additional yes yes forget Harding for a moment and looking at I'd like to better understand the process you go through with we're assuming that enrollment in the high school for the next 10 years will continue to to decline based off right based off of what you've said so what do you put in place I is it because you have to eliminate staff headcount eliminating classes doesn't get you to a budget number eliminating staff headcount gets you to a budget number so how do you go through that process to make eliminations without eliminating selection of AP classes without eliminating different levels of math and history and different electives can that happen or no yes of course and that's what we've we've never um we've never called individual classes or programs unless just there's less there's the interest runs out um we just scaled back German beginning in middle school this this year right the reason for that is we couldn't find teachers who were certified in German and we have a a smaller enrollment there than we've had you know historically but in terms of AP classes or the breadth of electives that we offer there're two different you know variables the one is student interest if we we were're running a horiculture course this year it was well subscribed if it hadn't been well subscribed and only eight students showed up we wouldn't have run it but there is enough um um scale and economy in whatever uh Department we're talking about that it's relatively easy to reduce staff based on without interfering with the classes that you're offering so like in other words if if one of these the smallest cohorts that I showed up on the screen were about 250 kids right in our first grades and second grade third grade 250 kids they all need to take freshman English right so you've got 250 kids spread across however many sections of freshman English you have to eliminate if if there had been 300 kids in freshman English and now there are 250 that's 50 fewer students that might take you down two or three sections right there and when that happens in multiple grade levels it's fairly easy to reduce five sections without changing any course offerings five sections equals one teacher at the at the high school or middle school level so it isn't um that isn't a a sign ific challenge the challenge is more when we get to 1,000 students and we're offering five languages at the high school those languages are not going to be as well subscribed and the language or two and whether it's German or it's American Sign Language or it's Chinese which are the three least subscribed languages right now at some point you could reach a a a a moment where you can't continue to run all five of those languages because there's just not enough interest in them um but I I'd say we're you know we're we're fairly far away from that at the high school level because kids like to take multiple electives they like to take multiple languages and because all of our staff pretty much is oriented around um mathematics science social studies Ela we have the ability to reduce without having to alter course selection we do anybody else all good okay we do have an executive session action will not be taken to discuss personnel and legal matters okay thank you thank you everybody for coming get home safely for