One Nation, under God, indivisible. Liberty and justice for all. Good time again. I'm going to read the public notice. Public notice of this meeting pursuant to the Open Public Meetings Act has been given by the Board Secretary on April second in the following manner. Clerk of Terry Hill Township. And Mrs. Sugars, can you please call the roll? Mrs. Tafane here. Mrs. Gallagher here. Mr. Greenbaum here. Mr. Mayor here Dr. Rood here. Mrs. Niez? Here, Mrs. Tong. Mrs. Winters? Yeah. Miss Stern. Yeah. That was really loud. Sorry about that. All right, so tonight we have board recognition. And we are going to be recognizing our student athletes from winter sports. So I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Morton. Thank you very much, Miss Stern. So I'm very excited tonight to be joined by some outstanding athletes who we will recognize this evening. I'm going to ask Miss Wilson and Mr. Barrow to come and join me at the microphone as we begin the recognition process. Good evening. Our first recognition this evening will be presented by head coach of West Boys Baseball, Mr. Fred Bati. This one here. All right, I'll be speaking on behalf of Quinn Gibson. Quinn Gibson passed the 1,000 point mark this year. He scored over his course chords close to 600 points. He had well over 200 rebounds. He also led us in steals. He had a great year. He was second team all group 3 which is throughout the whole state and he was also all South Jersey so they had a great year really proud of him looking forward to what he does next. So after each award category, we're going to send the teams and their coaches out. That way through the door, Dr. Mayhan will be out front. She'll take a group picture in Quinn's case, a single picture. And then you're welcome to come back to the meeting. You certainly don't have to. But at the finish of each announcement of each team, you'll go out, get your picture taken with your certificate. Thank you. Next up, we have Rosa Boys basketball and they'll be presented by Coach Farcas. I just another outstanding season by the Good evening. I'd like to present. Most of the, the team, the others are still out practicing in the other teams and all. Come on. And this year's team, besides their. Athletic achievements which is the first time Rosa has ever won this award. Just as importantly, I would like to note that. They're just nice kids. And it's it's important as a as a coach because I wrote on the bus to and from all the sites and they really are just stand out. Individuals. And And I think that they're going to do really, really well in high school and whatever high school they go to. The coaches will be very grateful for them. I thank you very much for wonderful you guys. Thank you. Good name. I the people of some of the people are not here present Nathan Dyer, Matthew Finn. Hey, Idris Harrison. Ron in Ireland. Gavin Manzano. Alex Morriska, Turan Moody. Nicholas Park. You can Max Pivotera. Jake Radicich. James and Young. Whalen Butler. Thank you very much. Guys this way. Next up, we have the Olympic Conference National Division Champions West Girls Bowling. And they're head coach, Mr. Jim Scurbo. Good evening. I just want to first congratulate all the athletes for their success this year. You know, athletics is a huge part of our culture. In positive way and it's great we can celebrate it. You to Dr. Morton or I'm gonna go ahead and say our superintendent and our athletic director Mike Brown. So I have, the girls, bowling team this year and they were able to go undefeated in the conference. They, first time since 2,016 at the girls bowling team has won the conference. And it was a great season. I have with me tonight senior Bella Williamson. Senior, Mel. Junior L Trinidad. Sophomore Jaila Cabrera. Thank you. Next up, we have Cherry Hill East Girl Swimming, the South Jersey. Let's take, you know, the. Okay. Oh, hello. They followed me. Thank you so much for this honor. Cherry Halis has always had a very successful swim program as you can see. So I appreciate thank you. Congratulations to all the people being honored tonight. Thank you for honoring us. We had a great season. We were undefeated the whole season, the regular season, and we were division Mediterranean division champions and we made it to sectional finals and unfortunately did not make it pass there but these goals are a wonderful group of ladies. Very compassionate, dedicated summers and, we tend to have a really good time. So I'm gonna call your names and then you guys can. So far away. Gina, Gina Howe. Shaina, Lizzy Jordan, we're missing a few. Faithcam. Alexa Jordan. Elizabeth Keating. We got one. There you go. Laila Lawson. Sarah Cohen. Natalie Driscoll. Thank you. Why not? Reagan Hancock Ryan Hancock. Sylvia Albuquerque. Olivia Barkley. Aaron Brennan. Maddie Marsh. Is he Mercado? Laura Merch. Sarah Boucher. Alexis Billy. Well. Lily Davis. Madeline Dole. It's probably the most exciting. Elizabeth, boys! Please. Let's give respect to the girls team. Thanks. And. Laura Sullivan. Julia Terry. Megan. Alright. Tori bomb. Hannah Wikowski. Sammy, CC. And that is everyone. Thank you guys very much. Thank you. That's for the world famous Cheryl East Instagram page. And finally, this evening. We have the Chereal East Boy Swim Team. The South Jersey Inniscolastic Division Champions. Also, 14 in a row. Be the group A South Champions. And this group is 1 3 state championships. So up to introduce them would be head coach Joe Cochinati. Yeah. Okay. Good evening everyone, hello. Boys, in team had a great swimming year. Finish 12 and 2. Finished as a South Jersey sectional champion made it all the way to the state finals lost by 10 to Westfield but the celebration in which we've really been having over the last month has really been something you don't really see from a team that doesn't really make it to the top of their mountain. But the real important thing about these group of guys over here. Is that every year we feel we're really representing a community. We come together. Every school season but after the school season we really separate. To the many pools that are within our school. So we really do feel that we get to represent a community and we appreciate the community recognizing us. So thank you guys for having us this evening. Allow me to call up the 2,024 South Jersey sectional champion Cherry Halis Cougars first up Peter Moon D. Moyer Ryan Moyer. Grant Muraturi. K or need. Evan Orrell! John Phipps Gabe Brodons! Gavin Haney. Shaun. I'm a president. Justin Jasco. Caleb Kim Michael Colchon. Joshkin. Teddy. Thank you. Michael Faceti. Kai Greene Michael Mc. Tyler Albrecht! Row in a Morrow. Dmitri Antonov. Braden Barclay! Gay Barrett! Jack Beam Adam Billet Naveen Boji. Andrew Langmuir. Adam Levowitz. Christian Leone. No, a lift stone. Alexei Markov. Connor Borelli! Jason Richie. Alex rounds. You got it. Ben Schlatter, Tom Scafedi, Jack Shulgin. Kian Sherlock. Ryan Stever. Right, Will Walsh! Noah Yang! Jacob Yahuda. Jacob Yorkeys! Jerry you Ladies and gentlemen, you're 2,024 Group A, South sectional champions. Okay. Okay, so we'll move on with our meetings. It won't be as exciting and And energetic but. We move on to our presentations and Mrs. Sugars if you would like to speak on this. Yes, we are expecting Dr. Grip here this evening to present our demographic report. Dr. Grip called me in a panic this afternoon. He was stuck in post eclipse traffic. He is coming from Vermont and he said he left an hour early. Gave himself an extra hour but does not think that he gave himself enough time so I told him not to worry, not to rush, to be safe, that we will continue with our meeting and when he arrives we will divert back to his demographic presentation, but I do expect him shortly. Okay, well thank you. We look forward to, in being here. So. We now will go to our chorus administrative reports and we don't Have any administrative reports? No. Okay, I do want to Take the moment to recognize autism acceptance month. And I'd like to thank the board for. Wearing blue thank you for the suggestion Mrs. Niaz and you know this is an important recognition from a large number of members of our community and also want to thank the. Mrs. Mallory and your department for the pins. So, Thank you very much and we will be. Recognizing it all year round, my PIN has lasted a year, so I'm happy to say that I do have only one. Back on the one, but that's okay. Alright, so now we will go to correspondence. Is there any board member correspondence? Dr. Rood. So the the theme of what I want to talk about in correspondence tonight is safety student safety And I want to talk about an email that I received from a community member. So in the I'm going to read an excerpt of their email. Let me see, this conversation started weird when he opened up giving me an overpowering handshake and then basically threatening me not to bring up his constituents, also calling them my students. Finally threatening me not to bring up, don't bring up his constituents that don't insult them. He was saying things. Cut 2, let me see, go to a little bit further, then at the end of the audio, I'm Dr. Martin can be heard breaking the crazy student away from me and I got the student to admit on tape that he started the entire incident after he belined toward me in the hallway. I'm filing a Cherry Hill police incident report for the record. If this student has enough guts to verbally attack me in a hallway who knows what he would do outside school to myself and family. This is an email from a community member who has stood at our podium. And screamed at us about safety for students. And who has routinely. Degraded denigrated student leaders, LGBTQ students. Students of color, different religious groups and to see this email. Calling the student crazy and threatening to file a police report. Against a student in the hallway after a board meeting in a public. This is a public location, lots of people around. He sends another email. I filed an incident report with Terry Hill Police against the student that threatened me. There were no threats. This was not a threatening situation. What this is. Is this is a community member who does not like being called out for the toxic things that they have said about students. This is coming after Facebook posts. Referring to students as puppets in the district, our student leaders. This attack on our students is is absolutely unacceptable. Now, I want to go into this a little bit deeper and I apologize for the length of this comment, It is, I want to go into a little bit deeper because this community member and many other community members have taken the opportunity at our microphone. To rail against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to rail against the LGBTQ community. To belittle those people to threaten to ask us to take away their voice, to shut down their ability to communicate. In my mind Those things are dangerous. Those are talking points of right wing extremists. White Nationists and modern-day Nazis. Those comments are threatening. They threatened to silence community members. They threatened to silence groups that have been. Historically discriminated against and it's absolutely unacceptable for a community member to attack our children. In that way in any way. They take to social media, they take to email, they take to the microphone and they denigrate our students over and over and over again. And one of the things that upsets me the most sitting in this chair is that There is no buzz. There is no outrage. There is no anger. There is no response. There is no push back. We need to speak up for our students. That's what I'm doing here. This is that's my job at this board, but it's our job as a community to look out for our students and when we see bad behavior when we see and I'm not I'm talking about the adults in the room when we see other adults in the room. Being horrible to parents. Are horrible to our children. It is essential for us to speak up. And to shut that down. Yes, those people have the the freedom to speak their mind. We have a freedom to speak in this country, but that doesn't mean that our speech should go unchecked and unanswered. It is important for us. To reply to respond to these things. It is important because These kind of damaging comments and damaging insinuations have real-world consequences. They have consequences for children's emotional well-being, for their mental health. And for the health of their peers. These are the type of comments that foment real aggression. These are the types of comments that lead people to. Do heinous acts when we speak divisively and divide each other and denigrate each other. That's the kind of speech that leads to domestic terrorism which our homeland security designates as one of the biggest problems in our nation. Domestic terrorism and the the perpetration of acts of violence against groups. Of specific individuals. That's. One of the most dangerous things in our country and that's what screaming, you know, down the DEI, and that's what's saying and Black Lives Matter and remove it all from the schools. That's what calling out transgender students or denigrating LGBTQs. Other LGBTQ students does. Creates a a environment of violence. Makes life more dangerous for all of us. And those types of things lead to increases in depression and anxiety and teenage suicide. Those types of behaviors are not acceptable in this district and we as a community have to stand up. And pull people out when they're at the microphone. Speaking against our students or when they're on Facebook posting horrific things about our students, we have to speak up. So I'm sorry, I know correspondence is usually a happy time. And that's why I wanted to go first and get this out of the way. I feel just really passionately that this is important. This is important enough to make us to to make a comment right now about this and and please think on it. Think about how your words and actions about students. On social media, in person, behind the scenes, wherever, how those things might affect students. How would you feel if people said those things about you? How would you feel if you were called a puppet or told that your group shouldn't be able to have any kind of thing in the schools. Think about it, act on it. And let's try to be a more supportive community of all. All of our students. Because no matter where the students are or what their group is or how they identify They're important to us and they're important to you. And I just want to. Thank you for the time and. That's it. That's all. Thank you, Dr. Rood. One to really acknowledge that. This was something that you felt very strongly about speaking about and I will say that the board has had multiple conversations in you know, amongst ourselves, small groups, individuals. And also with our leadership about our responsibility in doing everything we can to be here. On behalf of our students to make sure they're safe in our schools. And safe in our board meetings and in the halls of this building and outside in the parking lot and anywhere where they may be. And you know, I, I think it's really important that. People understand the community understands that this is a critical issue for us. Crossing a line. Into. Coming after a student. Is just it crosses the line. We're the adults. We behave like adults. We put ourselves through this position to be at this table. Our students are here representing their schools. Their students. Their their their peers. And they're doing it on their behalf. So we're grateful for you to be here as our student reps. And, we'll move on. Any other correspondence for tonight? This is your pain. Hard to follow. But I suppose somewhat relevant in the sense that I just like to take a few moments to respond to some correspondence also that we received. Via email. And as most of you, I think at this point everybody knows that individual board members are unable to respond to community member correspondents that's typically what the board president vice president handles which is usually not an issue until recently when accusations and assumptions were made about me and my intention. So I would just like to set the record straight about last meetings vote on some HR agenda items. I reviewed our ethics training that we received at the March. 19 meeting and. Would like to confirm that abstentions are perfectly acceptable votes in situations where individual board members do not feel that they have enough information to make an informed decision. Also in accordance to our acting NJSBA representative and according to the New Jersey state statutes board members are not required nor necessarily encouraged to state a reason for their votes. During the action agenda meeting. Portion of our meeting on 326. I discovered in addition to the personal matter, section of the HR agenda normally, this is not an issue. That individual members are added and it's not typically something that I would ask for additional information on But given the connection of the individual to one of our current members, our board members and the amount of her contract, I wanted to have some more time to ask questions. And to understand the pay scale for that. Additionally, in being in a flabbergasted state that I was, I was on able to articulate my thoughts in a matter that I would find appropriate to represent the district in my role as a board of Ed member. So I did not give an immediate explanation for my decision. So in my mind, this demonstrates my integrity and professionalism, not capriciousness or an ulterior motive that I've that some have suggested about me. I have requested just so the community understands my position. I have requested, to be a part of meetings that would allow me to better understand initiatives and processes. To which I have been denied in certain circumstances. I've spent countless hours at meetings in meetings with my fellow board of members to gather information. I've spent hours and trainings and consulting the NJSBA and state representatives to help inform me better. I feel as though I'm doing my part the best that I can. To acquire the information, but I can only do what I can with the information that I have. No one board of Ed member is privileged, more privileged than any other member to receive information. And I will continue to ask questions and strive for excellence in this district for these for the children and for the community. Through my moral and ethical behaviors and I expect the same from the rest of this board. I've said, there's certain things that have been said via email that I can't respond to that I believe were in poor taste and at the same time are representing this district in the board. So I just want to make sure that everybody understands that I'm a believer in transparency. I do not have a current conflict of interest. At this moment and just so everybody understands from here on out that I when I feel that I have an appropriate amount of information, I will be making decisions accordingly and if there's a circumstance where I don't feel like I have enough information to make an informed decision I will be abstaining from that vote. When I do not agree with the majority of this board, I will be voting according to how I deem fit, which is the actual expectation of the New Jersey School Board Ethics Commission for reference in the 1 h and 54 min mark of the ethics training that received in the last minute you can see there and just of note supporting the. Majority of the board's decision does not mean surrendering my own my own judgment. Thank you. Okay, other board members have correspondence. This is Winters. Sadly if everybody mind is not that exciting. I attended the early childhood advisory committee meeting which is the committee that was created when we received preschool expansion aid, but it actually covers more than just the police force goes all the way up to third grade. And I was really excited to hear from our new CPIS, which is community parent involvement specialist. About work that she's done surveys. Parents about how they feel the program is going and what their needs are going forward. And she's gonna take that information and use it to continue to improve the program. So it was a really nice and productive meeting. I really enjoyed being there. Dr. Mayhan was there as well. And she provided some great information to the committee members. So I'm really looking forward to more updates on how our preschool program is impacting our community. Mrs. Niez. So I was talking about fun stuff that I go to. I went to the multicultural day event at east it was very good all those students did a really good job joking, showcasing their cultures and I apologize. And it's my understanding that they had an event the next day as well for the students and it was very good. I, from my understanding, very well, so that's very good. I also would like to take this time to make a clarification. We have been receiving We received some emails questioning my recusal or my extension as well. I just wanted to clarify that anytime that I do recuse myself from a vote is due to a conflict of interest. I do have a family member that works in the district. So, I just wanted to clarify that. So everybody knows, my recuse is due to my conflict of interest. Okay, any other board member corresponds? Mrs. Gallagher. I was gonna wait to do this, but since it feels appropriate. Similarly to discussions of correspondence. There was some confusion after our last Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, March, the 20 sixth, 2,024. Regarding my vote for item number 15.4, we have received multiple emails. Regarding people's concerns for my abstention and unfortunately since I am not allowed to respond to emails I will take this opportunity to respond now. First and foremost, Miss. Stern stated in emails to community members that it's customary for board members to explain votes under no circumstances does a board member have to explain his or her vote? Secondly, at no point over the last 2 weeks, has any board member reached out to me to get my clarification on my vote? And Miss Stern has continued to disparage me to the community members unjustly and unfairly. Her claims that I'm acting unethically are actually a reflection of her own actions. When I looked at the agenda over the weekend prior to the Tuesday March, the 20 sixth meeting. The item of Miss Vigiletto was not on the agenda. She was later added as an addendum prior to the board meeting, which goes against policy 0 1 6 4, which states agenda needs to be set 2 days prior. I don't understand. It wasn't until I was here at the meeting that I was alerted to her appointment as the administrative assistant to the superintendent, not by board leadership or the superintendent, but by a community member. I felt completely uncomfortable voting as the item was one. I did not know about it. And 2, knowing her close professional or close personal relationship. With our board president. It is public information that Mrs. Vigiletta was Mrs. Stern's campaign manager for her 2,020 board of education campaign. In addition, Mr. Vijayleta was a financial donor to that campaign. In my opinion, this is an extreme conflict of interest and one that I feel if the board president should recuse herself on. Finally, the fact that this appointment was withheld from me prior to the meeting makes it feel questionable. In my opinion, this appointment should not happen and any other board members who vote yes on this is complicit and agrees this behavior is acceptable. What angers and frustrates me even more is the lack of communication and transparency for this appointment coming from our board president who ran on those 2 principles. I refuse to be the scapegoat. As a board member, I am trying to ask questions and clarify topics to vote responsibly at meetings. When I'm not provided necessary information from leadership, whether that be committee leadership or board leadership, I am unable to do my job. I'm always told I'm allowed to vote however I want, but when I go against the group, I am ostracized and made to feel the enemy. What I take offense to is the fact that when I abstained from a vote, due to lack of information, there was an orchestrated attempt to bully and punish me. I'm not the problem. The real problem is the lack of professionalism that this board inhibits. So this is an interesting meeting. There's some very. Interesting comments coming from board members. So it will continue on. Is any other board member have any correspondence or comments they'd like to make along? Out there. Along these lines. I guess it's a Open opportunity to speak freely. Mr. Mayer. Let me, let me start. Wasn't necessarily correspondence by. Responding to Dr. Rood. Towards the end of. Your comments you apologize for taking For going into those issues. The apology really, and I'll just speak for myself. I'm the one that should apologize because those sentiments were sentiments that Obviously I have felt and I probably should have spoken up sooner and more forcefully. So for that, one that should apologize for not having set up to. Defend what we believe to be the important role of the board in protecting our students and pushing back against the kind of rhetoric that students have been that some of the students have been exposed to. You would no need. There was nothing for you to apologize for. So it's obviously, distressing to hear these, these kind of comments from board members about other board members. I just want to make sure that I'm not missing anything. If there's an allegation of a conflict of interest and voting. The relationship that You're alleging that miss stern had with mrs. Biglietta That's the conflict that Mrs. Durn should not have voted to. That's correct. And the relationship is what exactly? Treasurer and her husband was a financial donor. With that. So is so that I understand this, you're. Position is that acting as a campaign treasurer conflicted. Created that specific conflict. And that's not necessarily because the position. Is as the executive assistant to the district that would be for anyone who's an employee of the district. Can you explain? Can you restate that? Sure. Is it do you? Is it your understanding that? Acting as a campaign treasurer. For somebody who is on an HR agenda and seeking appointment with the district. Is a conflict of interest. I think I've said that, yes. Regardless of who the who the person is or what position. In the district that employee is on a HR agenda for. I would say yes, probably, yeah. Would that include? Employees who are long term substitutes in the Cherry Hill School District. I don't know what you're trying to infer. I'd like to, can I respond to that? Well, I, I can't say it's. I think, Mr. Mayor, I know exactly what you're trying to. Sister Mayor, I'm sorry. It is not your turn. It is not your turn. It is not your turn. Mr. Mayer has the floor. Mr. Mayer, please continue in what you are like to say. August 20 s of last year there was an HR boat there were a number of people that were on the HR agenda One of those is an individual whom you were the campaign treasurer for. And you voted yes for her appointment. I knew that. And again, I'm just gonna speak myself, must be for anyone else. I did not feel that was a conflict. Again, because I did not feel it was a conflict, I didn't raise it. And that's fine. And, and, you know, that's how I took it. Your your position today is that Mrs. Stern had a conflict because she acted in exactly the same role. I'm actually gonna clarify my statement. I think the position actually makes a massive difference. I do, quite honestly. So I think I think we've. Done something which I've never seen in a board before, which is that board members are attacking other board members in our own meeting and I'm not a fan of that but I'm also not going to you know. Stymie board members if they have something to say and they want to say it in public. It's not the way I was trained. In my own training, but I also allow. This in the meeting and we've had it. I think it's time to move on. I think I think board members, it's my I have a floor, board members have a right to vote the way the line of vote. And if board members choose to abstain. Or vote no. And they choose to state their reason why they're recusing themselves or if they're conflicted. Then that's their choice. That's that's what we are encouraged to do. And if they don't want to do that, that's okay too. You know, everyone serves the way they choose to serve by themselves by the individually. So I think that's where we're at. I'm just gonna say one less. I'm sorry. Missing Gallagher, be careful, then be careful how you email to community members, please. This is not the place. This is not the place. I think we're going to take a recess. Thank you. And we move on to our. Presentation by Dr. Grip who is coming from the path of totality is my understanding. And got stuck in the path of totalities traffic. So. I'll turn it over to you. Thank you so much for coming from so far. And we're excited to hear what you have to say. Can you hear me? There we go. Yes, so I've actually drove from southern Vermont today and I did not realize that everybody in the runco was driving down with me. And never seen things on the throughway, New York State Threeway that I've ever seen before. It's actually good. So thanks to your patience. A normal 4 and a half hour trip became 6 plus. So tonight's presentation. It might be a little bit more verbose than I normally would do and the reason it's going to be a little longer is just because the report itself is 110 pages. And I wanted to do do justice to what was done. For you and explain in some kind of at least general terms. What we did so with that no further ado let's start the presentation Next slide, please. We can go to slideshow mode. Okay, great. So I'm from Statistical Forecasting. We're a firm that's been doing demographic studies for school districts in New York, New Jersey metropolitan area since 1,998. We've done more than 200 of these types of districts. We are the demographic consultant for the New York City Public Schools. Since 2,006 largest school district nation so we see lots of different kinds of issues in this area of school demography. Next please. So again, my name Richard Grip. I'm the executive director. I have a doctor in educational statistics from Rutgers University. Graduate School of Ed. I was here 4 years ago to present. Maybe some of you were here. You were, you win the prize. You were the last district I presented to before the pandemic shut down the world. It was around March tenth. Of 2020 it was interesting that's I'll never forget you guys but as my career I was a former schoolteacher in physics and statistics. At Bridgewater rarity and up north in central New Jersey. Moved to Vermont about 20 some odd years ago. I've done numerous peer review journal articles in this topic. It's called school demography. There's less than a hundred. It's called school demography. There's less than 100 of us in the whole country. I was still kids if they're out there. Please get into this field. Talk to me. We do not have enough people. And there's just, it's just a niche field. I testify as an expert witness for an attorney law firm the state for school districts who wanted divorce from each other, which is usually in sending receiving relationships. So it's a fun career. I really enjoyed it and we'll move on to the next slide, please. Well that's me tough to see. Hopefully you guys can see that as well out there. So the purpose of the study was to project enrollments the next 5 years, which is typically what we do. Most people would say, can't project more than that, maybe 10, but the problem is then you have to start projecting kids who have not been born yet. So the DOE does not even look at anything beyond 5 years. So we're looking at the 2425 to 28 nines, 2829 school year as your projection period. We also look at certain things like demographic population trends in your community, which will race socioeconomic status, fertility rates, things like that. Then we drill down to the enrollments of the school district and look at it districtwide trends and also by elementary, middle and high school grade configuration. We also took birth data from the state and aggregated at the census block level. I'll talk more about that later. And then figured out how many birds were in each of your elementary attendance areas, which is kind of interesting because that will show different growth patterns going forward for kindergarten. We contacted the planning and zoning department to find out about new housing in Cherry Hill, which there's quite a lot. We also compared your building capacities to the current enrollments and projected enrollments to see if their surplus seating or shortages. We did something called geocoding of your student addresses for the 1819 year and 2324 school year to see where students live and show if there's shifts over time. And we did a whole nother completely independent analysis called a housing turnover analysis which projects enrollments not based on students. But based upon homes that are going to turn over into the future, which is very interesting. And so with that no further ado, let's get to the presentation. Thank you. Historical and projected populations of the township. From 1940 to 2050. I know that's probably impossible for you to see for anyone beyond me probably, but I can tell you that in 2,020 population is just south of 75,000 people here from the census. So everything to the right of that vertical line, which is like the fourth bar from the right is from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. That's what they think your population is going to be in the future. As you can see, not really expected to grow a lot, but again, that's based upon older data, not data from the 2,020 census. I believe they'll revise that upward as we speak. Next please. So as a community, what we do is just get a flavor who you are. So about 66%. White 14% Asian 9% Hispanic and about 7% black African American those are the 4 largest races in order in 2,020. And what we're seeing, and this is not unique to you, it's really common across the state. You have an increasing Asian Hispanic populations and a declining white population. The black population a very small amount. The median age here is a little bit higher than that of the state, 43 years roughly as opposed to states 40. Foreign born population about 15% is foreign born. Much lower than that of the state, which is around 1424%. China and India, the largest sources of foreign born population. This is a very educated community. You can see, bachelor's degree or higher is higher than that of the state. It's a fairly wealthy community, your median household income, 124,000 again compared to the state of 96,000. Almost 30,000 housing units here. And more than 3 quarters, 79% or one unit homes that we would call attached home such as a townhouse or detached single family home. 24% of the homes are renter occupied. That's less than that of the state, which is around 39%. And you can see the median value of an owner occupied union is about 360,000. And that's a much lower than that of the state. And I believe once we factor in the inflated home prices, that value is going to go up. But again, this data is slightly older. It's not exactly current from 2023 or 2024. Next, please. OK, this is just a map. Our GIS analysts put this together. It's just showing the township. It's showing where every school is in the township. Next, please. This is showing the elementary attendance areas, which is always interesting. Your district has some elementary attendant zones that are broken up. They're not always contiguous and that that's not uncommon in certain districts because over time maybe an apartment complex came on and you just didn't know where to, you know, it wasn't advantageous to put them in the most closest school because they didn't have enough room. Next, please. As you're aware, you have new middle school boundaries in 2023, 24 school year. So that's showing the boundaries as of this current year. Next, please. And that's the 2 high school boundaries. That little area in the center, which is grayed out, is if I remember correctly, it's, that little area in the center, which is grayed out, is, if I remember correctly, it's either industrial or commercial. Next, please. So with respect to your enrollment, we always look at enrollment the same time frame, which is the October, fifteenth counts, which is when you send the data to the state of New Jersey. And it was 10,678 back in October. And if we compare that 10 years prior, we looked at a ten-year period. And if we compare that 10 years prior, we looked at a ten-year period, and if we compare that 10 years prior, we looked at a ten-year period, your 14, fifteen-year enrollment was 11,234 so it's a decline of 556 students over the last 10 years. So what we saw is that you did have a decline in enrollment. Through the first year of the pandemic, which is 2021. Before reversing trend. A lot of school districts in the state had declining enrollment in 2020 because parents did not send their kids to district because maybe it was remote maybe it was hybrid they sent their kids to private school which had in person learning yours probably fell into that category. If you see what next bullet there, you see the decline was 380 students, but in 2122 and 2223 you saw this bounce back. Students returning back to the district. And we use something called the cohort survivor ratio method to project enrollments 5 years from the future. That's a methodology approved by the state. Next please. Yeah, that's just showing your enrollment over time if you can just kind of picture the top vertical bars. You can see it going down and then going up in 2122 and 2223 and then stabilized. In this current year. Next please. So this is a graph of elementary, middle, and high school, which is one of the more important graphs you're going to see tonight because what you see in this graph usually foretells what's going to happen in the future. So for the elementary enrollment, the elementary enrollment climbed through 2,021 there was a big drop in 2,020 again most decline in your district in the coronavirus pandemic is at the elementary grades, which is what we expected because parents really withheld lower elementary school kids. But take a look at the last 3 years. You see that big increase in enrollment. That is going to wind up pushing through the system into middle and eventually high school grades. But overall, there was 147 student decline in the last 10 years. For the middle school population, it was fairly stable before declining in 2020. And that's there's been a 233 student decline in the last 10 years for middle. And for the high school population up there. It's basically slowly declined over the last decade, 176 student decline. Next please. Okay, so when we project enrollments, this cohort survivor ratio method, I have to tell you what it is. Just so you don't think I have that little magic 8 ball in the office shaking it up and down to see what the results are going to be. But what we have is you're looking at the of students from one year to the next for each of the grade levels for the last 10 years. So the simple example here is that if you have 100 first graders in 2,022 and they become 95 s graders in 2023. You've lost 5 students in the net. The survival ratio is 95 over 100 or point 9 5. Values that are above one reflect students that are they're moving into the district inward migration below one as in this case. Would be outward migration. And there are 13 possible ratios. They start from birth to kindergarten. And they go all the way up to eleventh through twelfth. So of your 13 ratios, if we look at them in an average, because there's always anomalies. 10 of the 13 were above one. Which is telling me you have inward migration here in the net. Students are moving into here. They want to be, parents want their students, their kids to be educated in a great district. This place does have a great reputation. The other thing you see up there is that of the 3 ratios that were below one. 2 were at the high school level. That's common in districts where some students eventually wind up going to private high schools. It's not uncommon. 5 of the ratios in 2020, the first year of the pandemic where the lowest value in the whole decade. And we excluded a lot of those in our calculations because it would just drag down your enrollments in the future. It's just a 1-time event. 4 of those ratios were in the elementary grades. And we compute average ratios and usually for the last 5 years or so and we apply them to the most current enrollment and assume those ratios are going to hold constant through the projection period and voila, that's your enrollment projections going out year by year. That's the methodology in a really quick. Explanation. Next please. So you have a phenomenon here called negative kindergarten replacement. It's happened the last 4 years. You had negative first grade replacement happening in the last 5 years. The range is 131 to 261 students. What is negative kindergarten replacement simply it's when the number of graduating twelfth grade students is greater than the number of kindergarten students replacing them in the in the following year. So if you have 500 seniors leaving, And you only get 400 kindergartens coming in. You're down 100 students right out of the gate. And that's been the phenomenon here recently. And what's this negative first grade replacement? Well, 4 years ago you had a half day K program. So we always compare the twelfth grade population to first grade because of course you would gain a lot of students coming into the district from first grade because they had their children are being sent to private kindergarten students for the first year. Next, please. Such as showing the negative kindergarten first grade replacement over time. Next. This is just showing the gray is negative kindergarten first for grade replacement the blue. Is your enrollment Changes over time. Just look at the last 3 years, which is on the far right. So your enrollment changes. You have so much. That's either offsetting the negative kindergarten, first grade replacement. Partially or completely where you have an enrollment gain. That's what you can see there in 21, Do and 2223 the last 2 allowed And the big blue. Right below that. That's during the pandemic. You had a lot of outward migration there. And that's so interesting to see that because that's just showing that one year you had a lot of outward migration. Next, please. Berts, Berts are used to project kindergarten students 5 years later. We wish we could actually project it from the one-year-old. Two-year-old 3 4 so on so forth but that day We're really not very good from the census, so we actually use BERTS. And for your community, we looked at it for the last 12 years. Berts have been going up since 2,012. That's an important statement to remember. Because if that's going happening here, what's going to be happening in your kindergarten population eventually? That's going to be going up. And here you had 792 birds in 2,021. That's 148 more than in 2,009 when there were 644 and it was the greatest number of birds. Whole entire historical period just happened a couple of years ago. 22 and 23. We don't have data on that yet. Unfortunately, I'd like to see what those numbers will look like. Next, please. Not just showing the birth date over time. You can see there was like this Nader down in 2,011, but it's been going up for the most part ever since. Next, please. So this is How there's a relationship. The birth year and you can see the number of birds in Cherry Hill which is the second column. How many kindergarten students show up 5 years later and the ratio, which is the number of kindergarten students divided by the number in that final column. And you can see in red there the switch to full day kindergarten is the values in red. That's kind of unusual. Usually when I work with districts there's a big increase in the birth decay ratio. That did not happen here. I don't know why, but usually you have a lot more parents that will send for full day K for the kindergarten. You'll see these big increases. Next, please. This is just showing Bert's by attendance area. If you go back to 2,009, the greatest number of birds happened in the Barton attendance area. So we're going to show you what this is just a map of all the elementary attendant zones and where the greatest number of birds are next. 2021 you can see how there's more darker blues and blues at showing any because we use the same scale So again, an increase in the number of births in 2,021 the greatest number of birds happened in the killer attendance area. Next please. And this is just showing the greatest number of birds over the whole entire twelve-year period. Barton had the most. And the Cooper era had the fewest. Please. Next. So we also took a look at the BERTS by census block, so we drilled that a little deeper where the greatest number of birds happening over this time. Any place you see a dark blue is where the greatest number of birds occurred. Next, please. This is just showing an aged sex pyramid for Cherry Hill Township. This is from 2,010. Orange is, is males and green is females. So what it is showing is the percentage of males and females in five-year age increments all the way up to about 85 and up. And what we're seeing in 2,010 was that the largest age group was 50 to 54. Back for both males and females. If we advance the slide. We're gonna go to 2020. You can see that now the largest group is 60 to 64 for females. They've aged in place. And for males, it's 55 to 59. That's a pretty cool graph because some communities I work with, they have what's referred to as a chewed out middle section in the twentys and thirties because people can't afford to live there. So this is nice to see that means that this is a more affordable place compared to some places I work with where they just can't people can't move in. Next please. This is just showing the change in the male and and female population over and out last 10 years. It's kind of hard to see, but the 45 to 49 population was the biggest decliner and the 65 to 69 population was the biggest gainer over the past 10 years and there were big gains. From ages 55 to 79 if we added all the males and females together. So you have an aging population. But we also had big declines in the 5 to 9 and 10 to 14 group, which is really K to 8 roughly. So this kind of explains why you had that declining enrollment that I talked about earlier because this only goes up to 2,020, doesn't really talk about what's happening in the last couple of years. Next please. So I contacted the planning and zoning department. 1,700 plus new housing units are approved. In the township, the majority of them are multi-family units. They don't yield as many children as a single family unit. They're mostly apartments and townhouses. 70% of those units, however, will be in the Barton. A tenants area and we're projecting roughly about 500 new public school children the breakdown is up there for K to 5 6 8 9 12 it's kind of hard to see with some other those little icons up there but that's what's projected in the next. 5 years. Next please. That's just the graph if you if this is ever posted on the website. You can see all the different developments. We have a location of where they are, how many units, the type of unit and the status. Whether they're under construction, where they're approved, so on, so forth. Next, please. This actually is a great map. It shows you every single new housing development in the township by elementary attendance area so you can see where the impact is. Next, please. This is showing historical construction over time. You've had a lot of housing units in the township being constructed in the last 5 years. It's not something new where you have all these new housing units coming on, but it has happened here historically. Next please. This is showing all these little yellow dots up there represent a new housing unit constructed in the last 5 years. We plug them in based upon the address of that new housing unit. Next, please. Home sales, this is showing home sales in Cherry Hill. You can see that big decline roughly around 2,000 12,011 that corresponds to the housing crash banking crisis between around 2,008 to 2,012. You could see the big increase in sales in the last 10 years or so. But you can see in 2,023 a big decline and that has to do with the mortgage interest rates increasing precipitously actually in last year where it's really frozen up the housing market. Next please. So we projected your enrollments, we projected for that five-year period, we do 2 sets of projections for you, a baseline set and an adjusted for housing set. Now a baseline set just is, let's factor out all this new housing. Because it's you really have to have a crystal ball to figure out when these things are going to come online, when are they going to be occupied? And 4 years ago, a lot of those same developments are still on this sheet. They didn't really happen what we thought 4 years ago. So it's really a wild card of how to incorporate them in. So we show you one set of projections without the housing, one with. In both cases, they're projected to increase per primarily due to the expansion of the existing pre-kindergarten program. So the baseline projections were showing, 12,431 students in 2,829 big game of about 1,700 plus students and the adjusted 12,891 students. And that's a gain of more than 2,200 students. Again, most of this. Is a lot of it or a lot of it's pre-K. Next, please. This is just showing the enrollment projections for the baseline and adjusted for elementary, middle, and high. If you can just look straight down the table and you can see values in blue. The biggest gainers are at the PK to 5 level, which is elementary. And is a smaller gain at the at the middle school. The high school is projected to decline, which is in red as those smaller upper elementary and middle school cohorts moved through the system. Next, please. This is showing an analysis that we did of all the buildings in the district. With respect to their current capacities and the current enrollment and projected enrollment, 2,008, 29 year. If you look down where it says difference, which is sort of in the middle of the page, if you see something in blue, it indicates that building has surplus seating according to the way you're using the building right now. From the long range facility plan capacities. And if it's in red, it's showing a shortage of seating. There there are some buildings up there that are showing 2 capacities. Melburg and I think the other one being Kilmer, if the buildings are expanded for the pre-K, that would be what the capacities are in the 2526 school year. Next, please. So we created some maps for you as I mentioned the outset showing students at 2 different time locations, 1819 year, 2324 year. We're going to aggregate them in different ways and I'll show you a moment next please. Okay, this is where all your students live this year, 2324 pre K to 12 every green.is where someone lives and is a student in this district. Next. So we aggregated them by census block because what if what does it really do? Do you see a point? So we grouped them according to the census block, which is a smallest geographical unit from the census. The darkest regions, which you can see down in the southern part of the township, would be the greatest number of students. And we're going to advance to the next slide and use the same scale and you can see really not that much of a difference. Okay. Next slide. This is showing student density by census block because certain blocks are obviously bigger than others. So how do you standardize the blocks because more students will be in the bigger blocks? We divided by the blocks area. Students per square mile. Darker colors, darker blues, greens would be the greatest student density. If this is 1819 year, we go to the next slide, same scale. Really again, not much of a difference. And the last slide that we, or less maps we did, please go to the next slide is the yield by sense block. Dark purple. Is showing the greatest number of children per housing unit. And that's in 1819 if we go to the next slide which is 2324 again using the same scale. There's more purples that are and more dark purples which is indicating there's more per housing unit in the last 5 years. If you if you toggle that back and forth you would see what I'm referring to. Then you can go back, you could see there's definitely more purple and dark purple. Thank you for toggling. Next, please. Last thing tonight we did something called a housing turnover analysis. It's we're projecting your enrollments by advancing houses one year more into their lifespan. And it's a completely independent analysis. You do not use this. For any kind of planning purposes, but what we're doing is we're isolating one variable, which is just turnovers, home sales. We're not taking into consideration anything else in the district, no new housing construction. We're just looking at home sales to see how that could possibly impact your enrollment going forward. There are 3 inputs and it all has to do something with called length of ownership because believe it or not folks if you have a home that's owned 2 years or 3 or 4 years it has a much different profile of the number of students in that than something own 12 years or 15 years which makes sense because those students would have graduated from the district. So we're looking at housing turnover rates for homes by length of ownership. We're looking at the current distribution of homes by length of ownership and we're looking at student yields by length of ownership. Next, please. So we use partial level data from the county. And we track the home each every single home there's 30,000 homes. We're tracked every single home through its lifecycle, looking at all the sale dates from 1,975 to 22. It was a very laborious project. Yeah. This is, I can't take credit for this process. It's from some colleagues out in Cal Berkeley. They came up with this and basically we're going to follow each cohort of homes beginning in 1,975 to see when they sell. Some of them will never sell. You can see in the in the data has never been sold. So I have a little simple example there if you have a home built in 1,970. And it was sold in 95 98 and 2,006 it becomes part of 3 cohorts the 95 cohort the 98 cohort and 2,006 cohort where the first length of ownership is 3 years the next length of ownership is between 98 and 2,006 which is 8 years and its current length of ownership, because we only had data to 2,022 is 16 years of ownership. Next please. This is just showing turnover rates by time. So this is really hard to see, but I'll just fill you in the data. Turnover rates are on the left on the y-axis and length of ownership is on the X. Access and what this is showing is that the greatest turnover rates in the township, which is around 4%, occurs with homes with one year of ownership. Don't know why people sell so quickly but it's not uncommon I see that in many communities but if you go way out to like 40 years of ownership there's very little selling going on. You know, people are holding on to their homes. Next, please. This is just showing the current number of homes at each length of ownership. Again, most of the homes Yeah, or lower lengths of ownership. Next, please. This is showing the student yields by length of ownership. The greatest student yields, I can't see that exactly. It's either around 10 or 11 years of ownership and it's over one child per home. So you can see that the number of children per housing unit increases up to a point and then it goes down rapidly as they graduate through the system. Next. So the methodology is fairly simple. We take your current home, length of home ownership. You saw that craft just a couple of slides ago. We're going to either advance those homes one more year. Or we're going to return them down to 0 years of of ownership by selling it and we're using your average turnover rates from the last 47 years to figure out how we are going to sell them. So the number of homes at each length of ownership once we get that is going to be then multiplied by the student yields at each length and ownership, which you saw in the prior graph in orange. So the results are. We did 2 scenarios. What you're seeing in the second row are the students that we projected one to 4 family homes. We add that to the number of students from apartments and homes that are our students who are maybe being educated. They live in other communities. Maybe they're faculty members who have children Cherry Hill. And we also edit to pre-K because we did not use. Students in this now is only just K to 12. So what we're showing here is that if we use your historical average turnover rates. And we take the very last length of ownership, which is around 47 years and we increase it to 5%. Turnover rate, which is very, very high to simulate people baby boomers leaving. You're going to have increasing enrollment. But the likelihood of that happening is not very strong. In my opinion, so we did another scenario, which is number 2 coming up. So if, again, hard to see this, but you see that the blue line is showing the maximum turnover rates over time. The red line is showing what we call a modified turnover rate and the green line is an average turnover rate which was used in the prior scenario press scenario one. We're going to use the red line in this one, which is kind of more aggressive, reflecting the current selling patterns in your community. Next, please. And this is going to show here. That if we use more current data, that way people sell, that enrollments would actually decline. I think this is more realistic because of the way you have so many homes at very, very, very long lengths of ownership. They don't have many kids. To get those homes, to prevent declining enrollment, you have to sell those homes and get them out because there's just not many kids in there. And right now you just don't have. Many people selling homes at those those longer lengths of ownership. A lot of people think that all the seniors are going to get up and move right away. It just doesn't happen that way. I've been doing this for 20 some odd years. To be near their grandkids. They are very involved in their community, maybe volunteering like some you might be doing. So they're definitely not packing up and going to Florida, North Carolina as in droves like many of us think. Next please. So in summary tonight, this is the last slide. After a period of decline, I'm enrollments have increased in the past few years. And the enrollments are projected to go up in the next 5 years really for 4 reasons. Number one, the expansion of the existing pre-kindergarten program and the values that are shown in the table and in the report reflect students that are educated. Pre-K in district and also those by private providers. So that's why it's so large. Also I mentioned earlier you have an inward migration of students here. That's another reason why enrollments are projected go up. You have more than 1,700 new housing units coming on line and you had an increase in the township birthrate. So when you put that all together. Those are 4 variables that really are joining and showing increase. But I am projecting a decline at the high school configuration. As those smaller upper elementary and middle school grades advance through the system. So with that, I'll cue the next slide. Questions from the board? Well, thank you, Dr. Group. There was a lot of information. Yes, sorry. No, it was great. It was really helpful information because I think it takes to guess work out of it as much as possible. I think I think it's 1 challenge is that it's 2020 data and we know so much change since 2020 but obviously you did everything you could with the data you had so Very helpful. Thank you. You're welcome. Alright, so we open it up to board member questions. Do any board members have questions? I know we're trying to we have the information ahead of time and we're trying to absorb it then and now but definitely good opportunity to have discussion and ask questions. Mrs. Might have covered this, but like Miss Stern said, that's a lot of information. So I tried to absorb. This might be a reason why you don't have a lot of people in your field by this question, but is there any per is there? Any idea of how things could change to better understand. Preschoolers need now that the state of New Jersey is moving in that direction. So a lot of school districts have received year grants, as you're probably preschool education, expanse and expansion aid. Governor Murphy's been really strong giving money for that. So the way that's a program as opposed to a kindergarten or first grade where we compute demographically. So the state actually does have a formula for us and they say you can take, if I recall, twice the first grade enrollment. And that's your universe of pre-k students. So that's kind of what you're using here as a ballpark of what your pre-K population will be in the future. It's our best guestament, I would say. Yes, sir. So I don't know if you're gonna have a good answer for this, but I, I'm interested in your insight. As you may be aware, we're in the middle of budget season. We got a significant cut. And. And all of the experts we talked to said our equalization aid probably dropped because of. Are much higher than average home values. And income levels. And I noticed in several spots on here. You mentioned some things that seem contrary to that. Check about average home value is significantly lower than the state average when you talked about the age demographics. You're talking about how this is a more affordable place to live for folks I think was 50 to 60 somewhere in there. Do you have any thoughts on? Kind of that contradictory nature of with the state's using versus what the data suggests. You bet I do. So the data that I presented is from the American Community Survey. Which is a branch of the census. And it used data from 2018 to 2,022. It does not represent a 1-year data point for those demographic characteristics you mentioned, it's really an average over five-year period. So you're taking data that's already 6 years old. And I don't think that's really a good reflection. I was surprised that your median value home values are much lower in the state. I didn't think that was right. But, you know, again, our data is kind of limited of what we have. And I think, unfortunately, the state's got some better data on assessments and things like that. So this is demographic data we're using. I don't know if I would say better, it is different. Thank you very much. I appreciate your insight. You're welcome. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry, Mrs. Winters and then we'll go to Mrs. Gallagher. Sorry, thanks. So looking at, I really appreciated the way that you showed everything visually on the maps. I just found that. Easy to digest. And my understanding is that we are going to see an increase in elementary school kids and most of that growth. Will see in the Barton and Pain areas, is that correct? Well, the Barton particularly because of the the new housing growth, yes, if that all comes online the way they're participating it rolling out. Yes. There's going to be significant impact in that area. Okay. So that's interesting because as we look at enrollments in all the different elementary schools and look at the capacities of those schools and those would be the ones that we should keep an eye on as we're producting forward to what our needs will be for elementary over the next 5 years? Yes. Now there was that one slide I did show that. And I have to warn you that I can't remember what year those long-range facility planning capacities are from from your LRP. But if, let's say it was 2,020 and they're already 4 years old, the way you use your building from year to year differs. So for instance, if a principal comes in says, you know what, I want to take that general ed classroom and I want to use that for. Gifted and talented or special ed, they can't have the same number of children in that room for those smaller group instruction. Changes your capacity. So capacity is a fluid number and the way you're using the building really changes the capacity. So that's a question, you know, I would really refer to your architect, you know, looking at those capacities to make sure they're accurate. Thank you. That's really helpful. You're welcome. Mrs. Gallagher. I have a few questions. One can we receive a copy of this condensed report? Okay, perfect. So this is just kind of a question that came to my mind. Was there anything that surprised you? When doing the research? Other than the demographic data that we saw, I mean, I think so here's another thing, is surprising at the BIRTH data. As a country, as a state, Most of the birth data is just plummeting. Women are not having So like my mom probably had me when she was like 25 and she says she was the oldest mother in the hospital when most were having at 19 or 20. So people are delaying childbirth. Or not even having childbirth at all. So when you have 800 births compared to where you were 6 50 or so 10 years ago, that was surprising. But so that's that that was one thing that kind of popped out. Yeah. And then. 2 questions are kind of related. So. From your point of view. How do you best recommend? How do you best recommend like how do we how do we use this information to the best of its ability and secondly how can we use these student population numbers to predict the future needs of special education students? So I'll take the second one first. So in the report there is a projection of special ed students. And it's basically over time, and those are ungraded students, by the way. It's not students for pull-outs and things like that. So they would be considered full-time special ed. We actually look at proportions of special ed with respect to your regular over time and we find that there's actually a relationship. So in the study you will see a projection of special ed based upon that type of With respect to how to use it, I mean, I really would say that a lot of times boards use, they have subcommittees and take a look at this in a greater detail. Might be using it with your architect. I mean, there's a litany of reasons why we're commissioned to do these things. A lot of times it's We don't have enough space or we want to contract and we want to take a school offline. But every school district has their motivations for why they do these kinds of things. Other questions? Mr. Mayer. Thank you, Dr. Griff. Just overall, great presentation. It's good to see someone who is. Can bring some excitement to math, even the way you present it is helpful. I'm sorry, Mrs. Mrs. Sugar. I'm talking math not numbers. If I put dollars, then you're at the top of the list. Quick question on you mentioned geocoding that that you you took a look at that was there anything with regard to the in district shifts that you identified. That was statistically significant and if so that. That could inform us that we need to look at with regard to. Capacities, for instance, in each of the elementary schools or middle schools. So when we talk about geocoding, that's the maps that you're referring to, correct? So we don't really take a look at, say, looking at Spice Census Block and say, oh, this one has a lot more students than 5 years ago. It's more of a visual that we say, oh, we can see that there is a lot more darker units in this area or versus lighter in this area. So we don't really get into that kind of level of detail to inform the district and that kind of thing. But it's it's more of an overarching general big picture of what's going on. I would look at the enrollment projections that we provided in the report by school if you really want to. Dig down to see how we think about each particular school. Any other board members have any other questions? I have one doctor. So one of the things that we talk about and struggle with is shifting populations and they're you know there are obviously some that follow cycles and some that don't and trying to address. Schools and it's interesting because what often feels one way to community members and even to us sometimes as bored in terms of. You know, overcrowding, so to speak, or, or, you know, or buildings that are, you know, under capacity. You know, how do you How do you? When you look at the numbers and you really see where it's going, especially we can see the schools that are going to grow significantly, right? How do you address that in a more fluid way? And I'm, and we talk about, we've talked about different ways to approach it, but I'm curious if you in all the time you've done this. Have any better practices that you've been aware of the districts have used to address that more fluid kind of the topic of let's say redistricting right because most districts don't want to do a redistricting very often. No. And we've had conversations about some of the things that we've heard from different districts, but they've done. But I'm really curious to see, you know, if you have any Yeah, better practices you recommend. Conversation with building principles because building principles always these are numbers. Those people, ladies and gentlemen, that are, you know, educating as the head people in the schools, they know. If their buildings tight or has a lot of surplus. So those are the first people I usually like to say turn the board to interview those folks see do we really have a problem in these particular schools? Because they'll they'll be the first to tell you. Then I was going to mention the second piece which no one ever wants to talk about is redistricting because it's a very, you know, no one wants to send their kid from one school that they're used to having to another school, but sometimes it has to happen to keep a school balanced. Not only, from a capacity standpoint, but from sometimes racially or socio-economically, that's an issue as well. Yeah, and that's actually, you know. Sometimes those decisions are out of our hands, you know, that there's. Pieces pieces about that going on at the state level, right? That we, right here, I'm sure you were aware of. So, so us trying to tackle it too, but in, you know, I think the question is how do we. Address it in a way that's a little more flexible, I guess is the question. And we have some policies and some practices that do that currently. We're not sure if they're the best way to go and I think You know, I think, you know, your point about, I mean, you know, I think there, we do get information about capacity from our educational leaders. And you know that's the information we ultimately go by. At the same time when we see these trends we want to be able to be somewhat responsive to them. And making, but not making decisions that are inflexible. Yeah. So now we're getting a little bit above my pay grade, but I think you know this is where architects really come into play because they can really look at program designs and see, you know, if something that you usually have in one school be better off over here, things like that. But that's, this is really out of my scope to be honest with you. All right, I tried. I really tried, but that was a fair answer. So thank you. Okay. Any other questions for, Dr. GRIP, Mr. Greenman. So I have. It's kind of the same as as Miss Stern's question. I'm gonna ask it a little bit differently. So we're looking at. Significant projected increased enrollment for pre-K and K through 5. That doesn't mean because high schools going down that we only need to worry about. K through 5 or pre K through 5 that means we don't have to worry about high school until the pre K through 5. Has gotten to high school. Do you have any thoughts on is this long term growth? Is this more of a bubble? When I look at new housing units that tells me that's probably not. A temporary thing. Correct. I think the train has kind of left the station. It's very hard to reverse enrollments. When we start to see trends occur, they usually happen from about 12 to 15 year period. So when I start seeing that elementary enrollment going up like it has been and with the new housing starts think you're in the beginning of something. Yes, thank you. Any other questions? It's great. Thank you very much. Great math. Mr. Sugars, you do make math exciting as well. But Dr. Grip, we really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thanks for your work. Okay, and now we move on to our first public comment. There will be 2 opportunities for public comment this evening. The public this first public comment session is for any board action items which are items 17 through 20 on our agenda. There will be another public comment section for any school related topic at the end of our meeting in our second public comment. If you are a student in the district, you may comment on any agenda item or non-agenda item. Correct that during this first public comment period and we always will. Offer for our students to speak first. So. If you'd like to speak now. Please, approach the podium or approach, raise your hand online. And identify the agenda item and clearly state your name and municipality. We will alternate between speakers who are here in the room and those who are online. Each speaker will be given a maximum of 3 min to speak. The timer on the screen will indicate the amount of time you have remaining. Public common is an opportunity for members of the community to comment on matters relevant to the operations of Terryhoe Public School District or within the authority of the Terry Hill Board of Education. The board welcomes diverse opinions on relevant matters. Under established federal law governing reasonable restrictions on speech and public forums, statements which demean individual community members or groups. Or which are irrelevant to the operations of the school district or our repetitive will not be permitted. Community members who would like to present information not relevant to the school district are always welcome to communicate directly to the district superintendent, board president, and all board members via email or other alternative means. So just make my screen bigger. At this time we will start in the room if you are a student and you would like to speak I would ask you and encourage you to approach the podium first if you would like to. And we will start in the room if you were a student. You were online. I would encourage you to, Put an S after your name. So that we know that you are students being calling you first. Okay. Actually, you don't really have a podium tonight. We have a microphone. So. There we go. Hello, I'm Ali Vernier. I'm a student in Terry Hill. I'm here tonight to ask you to vote no to item, 19.5, Dr. Birdie's promotion to director of Secondary education my time at cruci was pretty much a living how I was void all the time by students and even the teachers. The guidance counselor and hip specialist literally tried to victim blame me for my disability and being bullied. I never felt safe at school, not even being able to trust adults was pretty traumatic. And all that was ever really done was just putting it back on me. Making me have to move my schedule, tell me what I have to do differently, how I need to act differently. Making it so I pretty much just had to separate myself from everybody. I would have done nothing to go back into that building. You the board have even validated my experience by fighting hips against students and a teacher at my time accuracy. This was all under Dr. Birdie's leadership, a leader who allows this should not be given more responsibility. I am terrified that this man who allowed me to be abused will have responsibility over the schools, me and my siblings all go to. I am not alone in this experience at that currency, but unlike others, I am finally able to speak up about it. The kids. Like me, please vote not. Vote no for 19.5 for dr. Birdie thank you Okay, and now we go online and the number online is ends in 7 8 8. If you could please state your name and your municipality in the item you're speaking on. My name is Jeff Pottowitz. I live in Cherry Hall, New Jersey, 19.5 baby it resolved that the persons listed be reassigned for the 2024 2025 school year in accordance with the data presented. Middle school principal to Lewis administration, director of secondary education, effective day 2,000 and. 7 0 1 24 and salaries a hundred 84,300 312 same with mr. Guy George Rosa Middle School principal, to to loose administration building director of elementary education starting 7 0 1 24 to 6 30 2,000. 584,312. Our aid was cut. I'm going to ask you to vote no for this. Our aid was kind of state aid with cut. By 6.9 million dollars we have A lot of shortages, in our district. The money could be used somewhere else. It would be nice to eventually to promote them to something else but right now spending close to $400,000 No, this is not the time to do it, especially with our great are great state leadership who's decided that actually the fault on for them cutting our rate 6.9 million is ours so they have an assembly bill 3 4 5 2 and a Senate bill 3 4 3 2 4 3 4 that will put the owners Dr. Patuis, I'm sorry, could you just stay on on track with the item on the agenda? If you could please keep it to that directly. Okay, it's it's a bottom line is bottom line it's a money issue and we and we are really hurting for money. What the state is doing to us. That's the bottom line. This is not the time to basically create 2 new positions for close to $400,000. Time to do us maybe in the future maybe some other time and then I think our I is just not the right time. Nor, given what is happening on the state level, given that our aid is consistently being cut in and it's the same topic, really. This is not, there are reasons why it's not the right time. So please vote no. Just please vote no. That's it. Thank you. Okay, and we have student, I believe you're a student in the room, so if you make, please do me if you were just like lift your microphone up so we can hear you. Thank you. And if you, state your name and your municipality and the item you're speaking on. Thank you. And we just hold on when the timer comes up and then you get. Hello, my name is Erin Camp and I am a student at Cherry Hill East. One of next year's VOE reps from East. I have come here today to express my thoughts on the upcoming integration of the alternative high school into Cherry Hill East. As it stands, I am in classes of 30 plus students for subjects like economics, French, and more. In the first few weeks of school, there weren't even enough desks first the students. This is clearly an issue, and E students have previously expressed their discontent and frustration with constantly overcrowded hallways, nowhere to eat at lunch, and just a lack of space in general. Instead of taking steps to remedy this issue, it has been ignored and even worse, the issue has been worsened by the choices of people in this very room. Choices that were made without a basis of student or teacher input. I love the community at East and would love to take in more students, especially those from the alternative high school, and allow them to integrate into the East community. And as far as I've heard, they will be placed in an entirely closed off wing of the school and have limited interactions with the students at East. If that is so, I ask, what is the point of this transition? Saving busing costs? There is a reason students at the alternative high school do not currently choose to attend Cherry Hill East. Many of them do not want this transition and being thrown into a school of 2,000 plus people could negatively impact their mental well-being. Going off of that were the parents and students from the alternative high school pulled on their perspectives. Were the parents and students at East pulled on their perspectives and were the teachers who are being directly impacted by this choice offered an opportunity to voice their thoughts. I currently take 3 social studies classes and practically live in viewing. It is devastating to see my teachers lose their rooms and their offices. And I feel their frustration and anger as they are yet again ignored. It has been suggested that we will start having classes start having to take some classes in theaters. And multi-purpose rooms throughout the school. This is unacceptable. Our learning will be further impaired. If your intention is to fix the disparity of the number of students between East and West, there are other options. If you are going to move forward with this transition, can you promise E students that the social studies department will not collapse? Can you promise us that our classes won't be overcrowded and our learning won't be hindered? Can you promise us that our teachers have to constantly move rooms and further impair our learning? Can you promise us that you will listen to our voices and the voices of the students at the alternative high school. Can you promise us that you will provide adequate mental and educational support for those from the alternative high school. If you cannot promise us these few things, this transition goes against what many students have advocated for and could harm the learning and social environments cultivated at East as well as the alternative high school. I appreciate this opportunity to speak and voice my concerns. Thank you. Thank you, Okay, we go back to the line and we have Beth Becker. If you could please state your name and your municipality and just give us 1 s while we restart the clock. Okay, go for it. Hi, I'm Beth Becker, Cherry Hill. I'm calling about, number 19. So a couple of things I'm just calling to support. The vote on Dr. Morton to please vote yes. Also, Mr. Guy in my 5 years. As a parent at Rosa, Mr. Guy has been. Absolutely. Stellar. So supporting parents standing up for what's right. Supporting students. He's just been wonderful and I, applaud that change. I also am calling to support the other employment. Votes You know, Terry Hill is a really small community. We all, our kids go all go to school together. A lot of the Teachers have. Kids who are friends with you know other you know kids in their in their classes My I was assistant director for the musical at Rosa my own approval would have been a last minute approval had my sub certificate come in from the state 15 min earlier. And should I have not not have been approved because someone on the board? Had a child who may or may not have auditioned and been cast or not in the show that I was directing or because I live in the same neighborhood as somebody or because maybe our kids go to school or are in Girl Scouts together. You know, to call something a conflict of interest when this whole community, everybody who's involved in the community knows each other and works together. It's when it's not a real conflict is kind of silly to me. So that was all I was just calling to say, please, but yes, these are all important positions that we need. Thank you. Thank you and we go to the student and if you I guessing your student Bye. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, would just hold on once again, please want to restart the clock and if you could please state your name and municipality. Soon as we restarted. Thank you. Hello, my name is Salon Barakatab and I'm currently a junior at Trahill High School East. I was also recently selected to be east next year of primary student board of representative. So nice to meet you all. I came to today's meeting to share some thoughts about the board's decision to relocate the students. Alternative high school from the Lewis building to East. And specifically to point out what I believe was a lack of necessary discussion with these students and staff. And lead up to the decisions announcement. There's no doubt that the loss of our schools be winged due to the alternative high schools relocation will have a huge impact on both our students and staff. East is a community of more than 2,000 students and as large as our school is we experience great congestion in our hallways every day. Especially in the sea wing. In fact, one article written last year for East online newspaper, East Side Online, is titled The Horrors of the Seaving Intersection. This is a problem that students complain about on a daily basis. Losing the B wing will undoubtedly exacerbate this problem. I truly believe that if students were consulted more about this decision, they would have brought up the lack of space we already experienced in our school during class hours. Not to mention, I believe, pushing students into larger classes or random locations as a result of this. Of the alternative high schools relocation will worsen the problems of students lack of focus during instruction time. In addition, multiple members of the staff at East have made it clear that this change was made without their input and they were not happy about losing their classrooms. And being forced to teach in a smaller landscape next year. Considering the fact that the chair hold district leadership profile report conducted this past September by hazard young Italian associates reported in regards to the staff of the Chairhill district. That the staff quote seemed to be exhausted and overburdened. The staff expressed that they do not feel supported or involved in decision making. End quote. Considering this, I would like to ask the board why is it more being done to include teachers in discussions about decisions that will inevitably affect them. If more is not done to include the students and staff of East in the conversation about this relocation, I'm sad to say that I do not believe that the plan transition will go as smoothly as hoped. When a decision is made that affects the lives of people on a daily basis, I believe that a certain level of caution must be implemented, a level of caution that I don't believe has been met thus far. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today and I hope more can be done to resolve the situation for everyone. Look forward to seeing both of you next year, hopefully. Okay, we go back to the line and it's Phyllis Markov if you could just. Unmute yourself, say your name, your municipality, and the item you're speaking on. Hi, my name is Phyllis Markov cherry Hill. I'm calling about item number 19. I would like to say that I would like for the board to say yes for the appointment of the board to say yes for the appointment of Dr. Kwame Morton. I have been living in Cherry Hill for over 25 years and my daughter had the privilege to go to the first elementary school that Dr. Morton was the principal of. Not only did Dr. Morton know the names of all of the children at the school, he knew the name of their parents and which children they went with, which is really not an easy thing to do. We, my husband and I always felt that Dr. Morton put the interests of the, of the students first, and they were truly who he worked for. Then my daughter actually Chancellor from East. High School to West High School where Dr. Morton again was the principal there. And he did an amazing job there as well. So I would like to ask the board to please vote yes for the appointment of Dr. As superintendent of our school district. Thank you. Okay, and we go to the next person. I don't know. Are you a student? Okay, great. Just wanna make sure we give all the students chance at the mic first. If you could, as soon as the name and municipality, please. Good evening. My name is Jessica Lzaroyu and I'm a current junior and junior class president at Cherry Hill East. I've come here today to discuss my stance on the upcoming integration of the alternative high school into Terry Hill East along with the stance of my peers and teachers. I like to provide some statistics about my high school. Currently, East has over 2,000 students and roughly 110 teachers leaving the student teacher ratio to be around 31. Per core classroom. Thought the school is already an overpopulated sorry environment with people struggling to move around the hallways during passing periods find a place to eat lunch and even a seating class. My English class of 31 students has struggled to allocate a desk for everyone since September. My class is one of many that experienced large sizes and minimal spaces. How can we take away 9 classrooms from our school when we can't even accommodate our own students in the classrooms we currently have? East F-wing, which currently contains physics, art, and technology classes, will also be under construction during the summer and will likely follow through. Through the school year. The allocation of a wing for HS students and staff along with the construction of another wing causes even more strain on the classroom allocation for upcoming classes and general spaces for teacher and staff. What will happen to not only the class size but the selection of these courses as well. Repride ourselves on the diverse elective selection that we have at east, yet the selection will greatly be affected by the decreasing amount of instruction space. Moreover, the lack of communication between the board and staff is quite frankly disrespectful. The week following the decision, I had spoken to a handful of teachers and administrators who either had no idea what the decision was what had been made or what it would entail. Why are East teachers and administrators not consulted about this proposal prior to the decision? What is the point of advocacy for student voice and input at these meetings if own adults aren't listening to teachers and staff? The taking away of teachers classrooms and offices only adds insult to injury to the already low morale of staff nationwide. These adults deserve to have an input on their workplace, especially because of decisions affect themselves and their students. What will happen to the teachers whose courses get cut because of fewer classrooms? What will happen to those who will receive extremely large class sizes and will be burning with 2 times additional educator tasks outside of contract hours. The integration not only affects the quality of student lives, but that of lives of teachers lives as well. I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you all and hope that you take these words into consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the line and it's Amanda Greenstein if you could please state your name and your municipality and the agenda item you're speaking on. You could please on mute. Yes. Can you hear me? Oh, it's Amanda Greenstein Cherry Hill. I'm speaking the item number 19. I just want to thank Miss Gallagher and Mr. Fain for going the extra mile and speaking out when something comes with their moral compass and abstaining from the vote of Miss Viglieta? The way the board members. And the callers are trying to do. Gymnastics to say that sub-s are equatable with a job that could last like Miss Cohen up to 27 years. It's just astounding to me, but does not surprise me with some of these board members as there have been many conflicts of interest I think Miss. Stern's bullying and shutting down of this Gallagher's comments tonight was absolutely appalling. And I sincerely applaud Miss Gallagher for her composure and for doing what is right for the people of this town. It seems to be that a lot of zone, PTA presidents are falling into some very cushy positions at high rates of salary. Think it is disgusting the starting salary especially after we are seeing an almost 7 million dollars slash in state funding. And I really wonder what Some of the board members really think. That this is all right and I hope I I should say I hope because I know it won't happen. But that you reconsider that item tonight we are facing a huge increase in taxes over the next 3 years with bank percentage points on top of a huge. Bond that we just passed that already increased our taxes. I think it is very frivolous spending and again the bullying tonight was just absolutely appalling but thank you Miss Gallagher and thank you Mr. Okay, we go back to the rim and I am going to guess you're a student. You have a lease sweatshirt on. Okay, so when you come to the mic, if you just say your, as soon as the timer goes up, your naming, oh, as soon as the timer goes up, your naming municipality, please. Thank you. My name is Minor Hadi. I'm a junior at Cherry Hill High School East and I'm currently a school wide vice president. I stand here to present not only my own stance on the upcoming integration of the alternative high school and to Cheryl East, but a shared stance of thousands of students and hundreds of staff. After speaking with around 15 staff members across different departments at East, I've come to a quick and simple conclusion. The integration is simply and not feasible, nor is it welcome. I'd like to start off with one question. Morale of our educational staff nationwide is at its lowest. So I begged the question, why are we as a district contributing to this? You want our students to thrive. Not just students at East, but all students. And that stems from our teachers and our own staff. The figures we see every day for nearly 12 years. Grow and learn together side by side. So how do you expect our school district to produce educated and responsible citizens when our teachers don't even have the physical rooms to do so. Come to East after the integration is implemented. I can't wait for you to see an English class, a business class, a calculus class in an art class, all crammed together in the annex, divided by some measly partitions. I cannot wait for you to see the havoc in the hallways in the cafeterias as study halls will no longer have the room to function because the classrooms are taken. Countless times before, our teachers have been forced to deal with decisions made by the BOE, which they have had no input on. You would think after multiple walkouts, numerous editorials, and a plethora of speeches, we would see changes within the comprehension of our voices. East should not be a place of division. Yeah, with events like this unfolding, you only contribute to the general malaise and polarization we try so hard to counter. I'm grateful for this opportunity to speak and I hope my words can get you to think differently. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks to your applause for our students. We go back to the line and as soon as we reset the clock and it is Rosen if you could please state your full name your municipality and the item you are speaking on. Hi, Mindy Rosen. Cherry Hill. I'm speaking on also the vote for the, Krisimba, that who was your campaign treasure. So I'd like to address an issue that strikes at the very hard of our community values and the rate to express differing opinions and the importance of standing up for what we believe in. Tonight, of them members demonstrated courage and integrity. Speaking of for what they believe is in the best interest of our community. They brought forward thoughtful perspectives and voice concerns that deserve to be heard and considered. However, what followed was not a respectful exchange of ideas, but rather a disheartening display. Of power dynamics. The board president entrusted with the responsibility to leave with fairness and openness instead chose to shut down these voices. With the banging of a gavel, she stopped the meeting. This not only undermines the principles of democracy, but also fails in her duties to hear all voices, especially other elected board of Ed members. When we suppressed Descent. We alienate those who have the courage to speak truth to power. I urge word of it. I urge the board in our community to reflect on the events of this meeting and reaffirm their commitment to fostering an environment where all voices are respected. For the betterment of our schools and our community. And I'd also like to say that I had a whole speech prepared for. The moving of the alternative school to Cherry Hill East, but. I'm so proud of the students who spoke. And they spoke. Who's risen? I'm sorry. That is not on our agenda. So if you could just speak to the agenda, please. Oh, okay. I'll call back, but I just. Thank you. You can call back its second public comment and speak on that if you would like. Okay, thanks so much. Okay, we go back to the room. And if I think you know the drill, just wait for the timer, please. Pat, and cargo, 9 9 1 Kingston Drive and I'd like to speak on item 19. So I have to tell you I'm really puzzled as to why we're back here because this was done in March. There was a vote on the superintendent in March. And I'm really curious as to why we're back here doing it again. I just want to tell you without going through all the full things speech that I went to before is that I support Dr. Morton. Appointment wholeheartedly and I urge you to vote yes on his appointment. Thank you. Thank you. And we go back to the line. It looks like, I think we might be having a double header here because the name on the screen is, Karen, Elmore Stratton. So if you could please state your full name, your municipality, and the item you're speaking on as soon as you see the timer go up. Yes, Corinne Elmore Stratton, Cherry Hill, and I'm speaking on item 19 as well for the appointment of Dr. Morton for superintendent and I would just like to, again, say that I commend you all for putting him up for appointment and I like Mrs. McCargo. I do know why we're here in terms of the county, but however it should not even be a question as to whether or not you should vote yes or no this evening. But however, it should not even be a question as to, whether or not you should vote yes or no this evening. Referenced and ready to go for this role and has been doing well in this role since he was put in place as interim and there's no doubt that we are in good hands and will be in good shape. Moving forward for the next 4 years that he is, in this role in his 10 years. So I'm very excited for for us to say yes, so I do encourage those board members to vote yes on that. Also encourage you to vote yes for, Mr. Guy and Mr. Bertie. Those are great selections and great choices and I love to see that we are finally moving to a space where we are offering support to our assistant superintendents by giving them more resources to help lighten the load of the work so that we can have more hands on deck in order to support our principals at all levels and our administrators at all levels. So and and Dr. God, Principal Guy is a wonderful choice for that. And so is Dr. Bertie, they are excellent choices. So I hope that you will vote yes for those as well. These are all very qualified, highly, highly, highly sought at sought after principals and they will definitely take our district to the next level where we need to be. And as I said before, After you say, let you say yes, I hope that the next thing you do is apply the resources to what they need to get the job done and remember that they did not get us to where we are in terms of the trials and the and and the the stats that where we are so they cannot be held accountable for those but they certainly can be held accountable for where we need to go in the future but they can only do that with your support and resources. So it's not just the yes vote tonight but it's what you what you can give them in terms of support. Resources and allocation after tonight. So. Kudos and congratulations to them. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you. And we go to the room and I, again, I think it's a double header from perhaps 2 family members. So they say your name municipality and and the item you're speaking on. Good evening, Chairman Stern and the rest of the board. My name is Danielle Moore, 25 Birchwood Park drive South Cherry Hill. And, the younger Elmore took a lot of my thunder way. But I would like to thank the board for a nine-month search. For superintendent. An exhaustive search. Which confirmed the fact. That Cherry Hill hires and retains. The most talented people. In the nation. And I don't know, I was astounded to hear that some of the board members might not have known of these credentials and and and the support that's been going on for 9 months. I know that Kwame was a visionary. Principal of the year, 20 and 21, national turnaround specialist principal, 2,000, national turnaround specialist principal, 2,007, 2,007, 2,007, 2,007, 2,007, educator of the year. 2,011 was a principle started at Kilmer. Joyce Kilmer School, was the principal at Cherry Hill West, a super assistant superintendent and now acting superintendent. And his accolades go on and on and on. But right now we can recognize and we should recognize that in this district We have hired and retained the best. Educators and we, we ought to affirm them by keeping them here. And understanding that they understand who we are. They've been here for a while. They understand who we are and they won't do anything less. Then require excellence of our edge of our other educators and our students. So I hope you do vote yes on on Dr. Kwame. Thank you. And we go to the line. There's a hand on the line and if you I don't I just you have to ask you to say your full name your municipality in the item you're speaking on and it's the name is S. Jack. Thank you, Jack. Hello, my name is Jack Neary. I'm sorry if I just wanna speak on behalf of my. County me my 3 siblings and what we saw my brother Oliver go through. I was in high school at the time when he had the horrible experience. At Keruthi Middle School. It was not the experience I had. But what I saw with terrible. As its siblings. I have blacked for words as. What we saw at home. He was miserable constantly. Always on alert. What he spoke and said tonight is something that I am so proud of him for doing. He has really come out of his way and come of out of his shell. I believe you should take what he has said into account and really listen to the words he spoke. After hearing about it experience, I cannot see how you could vote yes on Dr. Birdie's are on his approval. Seeing what all for went through. Seeing how It deeply affected him. I believe you should vote no. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the room. Thanks for calling in Jack. Go back to the room and if you please say your full name, your municipality as soon as the timeer goes up and the item you're speaking on. Carolyn Messias, 37 Lampost Lane, Jerry Hill. I am here for the item agenda, 19.9. And I'm here to express my enthusiastic support for the appointment of Dr. Morton as her new superintendent. As both a teacher in the district and a parent of 2 West graduates. I've had the privilege of witnessing Dr. Morton's dedication to our community and his commitment to fostering excellence and inclusivity. One of the things I admire most about Dr. Morton has been to support of the arts within our schools. As a theater teacher and advisor at West, this was very important to me when he was appointed principal. His vision for a well-rounded education that encompasses both academic rigor and artistic expression is truly inspiring. Dr. Morton has always been approachable for both students, staff, and parents. His willingness to listen to their concerns and ideas of students, teachers and parents has been instrumental in building a collaborative and supportive environment within our district and at West. He values the input of all stakeholders and actively seeks out different perspectives to make informed decision making. I have personally experienced his receptiveness to feedback and his genuine interest in addressing the needs of our school community as both a parent and as a member of our school's liaison team. Thank you so much for listening to me. I know that Dr. Morton will have an incredibly positive impact on both our school district and our community. And I urge you to vote yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. There's not a single hand up online, so we'll just go back to the room and if you could put your state, your name, your municipality, and the item you're speaking on. Good evening, Board of Education members and Dr. Morton. My name is Candy Cummings and I'm a resident of Cherry Hill. And a member of the Zone PTA Executive Board. And I am here to comment on agenda item, 19.9. 4 weeks ago my PTA colleagues and I stood before you and shared our support of the board's recommendation to appoint Dr. Morton as superintendent of our 19 schools. Last night we received notice that the county superintendent had approved his contract. In the short time that Zone PTA has been working with Dr. Morton. We have found our relationship to be extremely productive and collaborative. Since September with his support we have been able to partner with ESS to Stokes. Substitute Teacher Pipeline and Cherry Hill. Have 3 room parents at elementary school parties. Get the locked bathrooms reopened at our high schools, improving the mental wellbeing of all of our students. Facilitated a meeting between the Zone Technology Committee and the district bringing the topic of secondary level cell phone usage. For discussion with the district. Leveled homework expectations across our middle schools, including no homework on Thursday nights when school dances are occurring. And the implementation of the Junior National on our society at all 3 of our middle schools. Zone PTA is grateful for the relationship we have with the district. The board and Dr. Morton. Relationship we look forward to growing. So it is with great honor that I could once again say that all of our PTA executive awards, 12 elementary schools, middle schools and 2 high schools as well as the zone PTA executive board have all voted to congratulate and support Dr. Morton in his role as superintendent. Thank you so much. Thank you. Let me go back to the line and it's listed as Laura's iPhone so if you could kindly unmute yourself set your full name your municipal in the item you're speaking on. Hi, Laura Pndergas, Cherry Hill, and I'm speaking on The 19, the appointment. So first I wanted to call to voice my support again. For the appointment of Dr. Coleman, and also the support, to urge you to support him and letting him build his team. All leaders need a strong team and different leaders have different visions of how that team might look. And so I hope that the board can get behind Dr. Morton and help him build the strong team that he needs, to move Terry help forward. Thank you so much. Thank you. And we go back to the room. Thank you, know the drought. Yeah, yeah. Jim Near and Cherry Hill. Thank you. I'm going to speak to 19.5 as my children before me. The appointment not of. At both parties just of Dr. I would strongly urge you We had a beautiful speech by Mr. Rood this evening. I miss Stern. Emphatically echoing his sentiment that we can't. Let people hurt children. We can't let people ignore. When people are hurting children. As a board. To promote and reward a man whose failed watch. Hurt many children. And my children. I've been up in front of this microphone telling you about Oliver's experience many times. Under Dr. Birdie's watch. 2. Investigations have been opened. By the Federal Office of Civil Rights. To. They don't open them lightly. They don't open them based on allegations they have to have subjective evidence. That things are happening and discrimination. This is the man you were rewarding with a promotion. This is a man who turned a blind eye. This is a man who did not complete properly paperwork for a hip investigation that you have to overturn because the teacher Harassed my son. These are documented. You know this, most of you are here as a board. Dr. Rood, Miss Stern. You spoke up tonight. You visibly want to do right by children. Hang your heads in shame if you vote yes to a man who ignores when children are being hurt under his watch. Please vote no to his appointment. Dr. Morton, I appreciate you need to build your team like Miss Bendergrass said. And I think you need to look harder and as a board. Only approve the best of the best. Don't just approve what's put before you. Thank you. Thank you. And then we go to there's somebody else on the line so we can go right to the microphone again. Dr. Yo, I can go with the 19 just guys. I'm trying to just, yep, okay. All right, Dr. Ioniaris, Cherry Hill, going to go with the 19. That way I don't have to look down and try to remember which one's which. I'll start with just honoring I've gotten the tradition where I see one of my former teachers who's retiring. Miss Dibert is this winner for this one. I've known I was her first one of her first students at Rosa, 25 years ago when she started in district. I'm very sad because last next year my son would have had a chance to have her at Kuruzi. I'd not yet apologize. Very angry about that. But she was one of the best. She went from being an ELA to your I had her to switching over to humanities, which just shows you what lifelong learning looks like in Cherry Hill. It's a culture. And she's 1 of the people. She is also someone who's at every possible attempt. Be it on a Sunday, be a Saturday night. She just shows up. And that's where air quality is these days. We don't see as much as a culture that we're. This wasn't around and she's just one of the best. It'll be a missing seeing her. It was really fun getting to reconnect with her. Being part of Krzy this year. So surely missed. I am sad for the cruise community and really the cherry hooking issue is just one of the bright spots in education. And it's really sad to see that go. Going on to the other fun one, talking about Dr. Morton. I've said a lot. Now let's find the state in front of his kids and family. He is an incredibly special person to the district and for me personally. I have learned much of an often joke when I grew up I want to be him. And he is just one of those people that you know so much. I talked a lot about listening first hearing and I had a chance while I was waiting in line. I'm thinking about that because I think one of Dr. Moore's dress quality is he's a quality listener. He sits back, takes notes, asks qualifying questions, and Winston Churchill has this awesome quote, courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, purged also what it takes to sit down and listen. And I think Dr. Martin is one of the great listeners in our society these days. If you sit back and have a meeting with him, you feel like you are not only heard, but he took any comes back with you with action items. You couldn't ask for better qualities for a superintendent. I think he will go down as one of the greatest. I've been around for a while from the Phil Sphere era all the way through now so I can count number of superintendents and I believe he is unique. It is disappointing that it took till now to get someone who represents one of the biggest growth areas. I agree with the legendary leaders who have said and Miss Elmore. Stratton, Danny, Miss McCargo, who've sat in this room who are the leadership steps I follow in. And I think Dr. Morton is going to lead an incredible trailblazing path to the next years. And I look forward to hopefully sticking around so we can be there for all of my children. There's a lot of them. Thanks. Thank you. Don't see any hands online, so I guess it's family double header nights. So. Go for it. Aloni, Eris, Cherry Hill. I want to speak to agenda item, 19.5 last year on previous years when you've approved the principal for Kilmer Elementary School. I talked about how my now current sixth grader had had 6 principals in 6 years and he's a sixth-grader at and he will now have at least 2 principals while at Kersey. So please do your due diligence to find a principal who will stay at the elementary school, please do your due diligence to find a principal who will stay at the elementary school because he only gets 13 years of school and for him to already have 8 principals is really not okay in my opinion. So please one of the questions maybe you should add to your interview process is how long you plan to stay in the position you're currently serving. I know that people get moved around, but he's having a second principal and he's only in that school for 3 years. I want my kids to build a relationship with their teachers with their safe person and if that safe person isn't me and it is a leader in the school then I need it to be a leader who's going to stay in that school. I don't care who the principal is or who the assistant principal is. I just care that it's consistent and they do the best job that they can do. So please take that into consideration when finding a new principal. And Dr. Moore and congratulations, hopefully on your appointment tonight. Thank you. Okay. We go back to the line. There's nobody in the line on the line. So we go back to the room. It looks like there's a debate about, okay, there we go. As soon as the clock resets, please, have debate about AIDS before beauty, so I'm going to murder them after the meetings done, so. Okay. Andinehorn Cherryo, New Jersey. my first comment is on 19.8. And I brought this up several times. I don't know what you're doing at high school West. But you keep adding 7 teachers. Are getting extra. Special ed classes, 5 teachers in science, one teacher in art. When does it end for West? When do we find staff? That can fulfill the classes about doing a dish. I'm really worried about burnout. It's bad enough we can't find people now, but the more, and I always know the money is nice, but it doesn't, Does it reflect well? That we can't fulfill these positions in a proper way. I would like to talk about, 19.4 and 19.5. I think it's really ironic that I'm gonna look at 19.5 and a teacher, one teacher starting with the masters is coming in, one teacher starting with the masters is coming in at 56, one teacher starting with the masters is coming in at 56, point $91. But an administrative professional. Whose experience I know nothing about. That's not a slur in any way. It's coming at $80,000. So sometimes, you know, when we talk about teacher retention, maybe it's a lesson to be learned here that we seem to value an administrative assistant more than we do a teacher salary. Thank you. Okay, and we go, back to the line. There's no hands. We go back to the room. I thank you. Come in second on this debate for who went first. I won't need the all 3 min just so you know. It is not a clock already, so that just adds longer. So, 19.9 Steve Redfern, CGA president. I, I spoke before. Not going to speak again. You guys know as a board how I feel about the appointment of Dr. Morton. I think what you need to do is look behind me. And some of you will see familiar faces. Especially those who work on the LMC committee with us. They're here to support that as well. It's all I have to say. Thank you. No hands online. We go back to the room. I don't see anybody at the podium unless anybody would like to speak at the podium. I'm gonna, I wasn't sure. I'm gonna close public comment. And we will go on to. Our work, our work session. So. Mrs. Winters, we're gonna start with you and ask you to please give the Actually, I want to first offer Dr. Martin if you want to make any comments at this time or you want to wait till later. Wait to second public comment. Okay, great. Thank you. Alright, so we really are gonna go to our work session. Mrs. Windows, if you could please give the report out from the CNI committee. I would love to. So the CNI committee met on April second at 7 o'clock. I want to first very much thank the 2 board members who've subbed into CNI. We had 2 absences that night, Miss. And Mr. And could not join us for that meeting. Miss Stern had a family medical reason why she couldn't. So I made a few phone calls and I was thrilled that Ms. Trafin and Mr. Mayor were available, willing, and able to help round us out at CNI so that we had 4 committee members there. I hope it was fun. I always have fun at CNI. Joel's just jealous that my committee is more fun than his. So we had a really fun meeting. We started with a New Jersey Cap, child assault and prevention survey. Dr. Morton presented that information to us and it was really nice actually that Mr. Mayor got the sub in because he has expertise in the CAP program from his previous career. I was also cap trained several times during my previous life as a youth minister. The CAP training is to make sure students are safe strong and free, which is something that I think we can all get behind. And it's being implemented in several schools. So we had a good discussion about that. Next we move on to our summer reading books. Books were given to us for approval from the CNI office. I again want to thank all the board members who stepped up because it was a really hefty pile of books. We had summer. Reading books for both middle school and high school and also books that were going to be approved for use in the curriculum in general. So thank you to Miss Gallagher, Dr. Rood, Miss Stern, Mr. Mayor. I think I got everybody. Your famous telling me she read half which I think definitely counts for half credit and I'll greater on a curve. So I really want to thank everybody he stepped up and read for CNI. It's a really important role that we play. That we review the books that our kids are going to be using in class. Board members read the books, looking at them through the lens of a student of the age that will be used for, whether that's middle or high school. And then we discuss the content of the books, whether we think they're appropriate, and flag any content issues that we think families should be aware of before their students read the books. So I really wanna thank the board members who stepped up to do that. I know that we have a lot of reading in general as board members, but I like to think the books are fun. I got to read 4 of them. And my kids actually helped me read the books, which was super fun to my middle schooler read the middle school selection, which was neat to get her perspective. So all the books were approved the summer reading this summer is going to be mysteries and thrillers. Which I think is actually a super fun theme. So I'm hoping that the community will read along with us. I know that the CNI office will be putting up a presentation so that everybody can see the books. The books are available at the library. I'm going to say it again. The public library is the place in town where you and your friends can get books for free. You can borrow them and they actually do a really good job at helping and partnering with the school district to make sure that students have book accessibility. One other cool thing that the CNI office does a really, really good job of is making sure that we have different formats. Including graphic novels. Including nonfiction, including books that can be read in short chunks for all different kinds of readers. We also make sure we have access to audio book format. For students who prefer that. So I think it's a really nice diverse group of books for all different kinds of readers and for what readers prefer. And it caters to lots of different tastes. So I encourage all of our students to check them out. We have the SOAR app through the district. You can access the books, either an ebook or audio book version through there. Or like I said, if you prefer a hard copy, I know the district has limited copies and the public library always helps us out. And again, I do encourage the community members, parents, families, read along with your kids. I do it every year because I'm a nerd like that, but I actually really enjoy doing summer reading with my kids and being able to discuss the books with them. It's kind of a nice thing to talk about, a little bit different. So that's really cool. So hopefully all join me on mysteries and thrillers for your beach reads. And the last thing the committee discussed. Is cell phone usage in schools. So I'm gonna talk about it a little bit and then kind of kick it over to P and L where a parallel discussion took place because cell phone usage is one of those topics that crosses committees. So we've been doing a lot of cross committee collaboration which I think is really neat actually and productive. C and I is looking at it from an instructional aspect. And PNL from a policy lens. So as we were collaborating together, the decision was made that the CNI committee was going to start by discussing how cell phone use impacts instruction. And then we were gonna take those considerations and kick it over to PNL so that P and L can look at what policies need to be amended or written. To implement the things that we think might help ameliorate the negative impact of cell phone usage on student instruction. Lead principals who are here tonight for giving us valuable insight into how cell phone usage works at the middle level. Which is something that I kind of knew about anecdotally, but it's always good to hear from the experts. And of course, Dr. Morton can always provide information on how things work at the high school level and the differences. Just speaking for myself, from my perspective, I'm really interested in thinking about. You know, as students grow and they move through the system. They change, right? And different students at different levels have different needs and different responsibilities and how we can balance that with the negative impacts we see from cell phone usage. Instructional time, especially at the high school level. So I think it's a work in progress. We have a lot of things that we've been kicking around. I'm gonna leave it there that way, Mr. Mayor can discuss the finer points of cell phone policy, but to any CNI members or anybody who stepped into the committee have anything else to add that I missed. Or did I cover it? I know it's late. I hope I didn't speak too fast. I tried to run through it fairly quickly. All right, Mr, go ahead. So I have a question. So, for First of all, I learned a valuable lesson. I pushed myself out of my comp and I read a graphic novel. Which I've avoided for a long time. I'm not a fan. It was not for me. It's definitely for my kids like their graphic novels, not for me. It was a great book, but not. My format. But I did want to ask you if you could. Just verify which if you know and if you don't that's okay maybe we can ask one of the. This is staffing or one of the educators here, but which books are available on the SORA app in terms of accessibility. I want to make sure that, you know, we We know students who use audio books. And if also just I you didn't I know we talk about it a lot but like I think it's helpful to say Sora is available to all of our students for free and all of the books. So families don't feel that if their child wants an audio book that they have to purchase that in any way. And then, yeah So you can. Can everybody hear me? All the books are available on Sora. So Sara, you can log into using your CHCLC account and I know it's true because I actually logged into it using my CHC account and it worked. So the only book that we couldn't find an audio version for was the one that Mr. Mayoret. Which was a, it's not his fault. I blame him for most things. This is not his fault. It's a nonfiction book about conspiracies and that was the only one that doesn't have an audio version but it's based on a TV show and Miss Staffan informed the committee that the TV show follows some of the stuff in the book. So if a student is interested in You're but wants an audio format that's an option. Everything else is available through SORA in both ebook and audio book version. Actually, I was doing fire keeper's daughter, which is a longer book. I had read it. As an adult when it first came out a few years ago, it's a great book, diverse female author, deals with a lot of really cool issues, but it's a chunky book and I had 4 to get through. So I was actually switching back and forth in Sora between the e-book version and the audio book as I was driving around in my car running errands. So that's a choice too. But yes, everything is available. E-books, audio books, and then hard copies through our wonderful, fabulous. I always love it. Cherry Hill Public Library. Did you know by the way that it's libraries week? It's Libraries Week. So if everybody should go there this week and just thank a librarian because they do a great job. That answer your question? Yes, very thoroughly. Thank you. Always. Anybody else for CNI? All right, thank you again to Mr. Fain and Mr. Mayer for, you know, pinch hitting for us in the ninth inning. We do appreciate. I appreciate personally appreciate. Having people who like to come and help us because there's a lot of heft in CNI. It's long meetings. And also to the community members who come out, we appreciate you too. So thank you for everybody who contributes to the discussion. Okay, thank you. And now we move on to Mr. Greenbaum. If you could please give the business and facilities committee report. Thank you. In just a moment, I'm going to go through the construction update. So I will ask if Mrs. Sugars can get some pictures ready because we've got some cool stuff to share. First, we'll talk about this month's B and F committee meeting. This month it was held in close session as sometimes it needs to be. I just want to clear something up that there's some confusion this month, whether it's open, closed, whether it changed. I want to encourage people to. Go to the district website under Board of Education committee agendas. All of our committee agendas are posted posted there. Typically the Friday before our board meetings, nothing changed on the agenda. Everything was as it was posted. But it's a good place to go for accurate information about our agendas. That being said, I'm happy to share a brief summary of what was discussed in this month's committee meeting. A board solicitor, Mr. Green provided some information concerning ADA accessibility, legal issues, and spoke about the district's approach in. Addressing these accessibility issues within the district. We also had representatives from ERI as part of our construction, construction companies we use. And I spoke about how the district strategizes site work project planning in conjunction with other bond referendum work. That's being conducted in the district and how oversight is provided by ERI during site and accessibility projects. Next. Try to cut this a little bit shorter because it's getting pretty late, but I want to go through. Some items with the construction update starting with the east stadium a stadium reached substantial completion the last week of March and the first game was on April, the fourth. I believe there's another game there last night. There's and huddle cameras installed. New lighting is ready to use, although you likely won't get to see it until the fall because it's staying light out a little bit later, but has manual controls, web-based programming for our building and ground screw, automatic shut off. So they're not left on late. Everything's fully accessible, including sidewalks, bleachers, meets all current code and recently passed final inspection in time for our first game. No change orders issued to date some allowance remaining so hopefully we see a credit back it's always nice when we get to get some money back on these projects and a few I don't a few punchless items still remaining like fencing and topsoil but, this is sugars. We can take a look at some of these photos. Those. Those watching online, hopefully you can see these, those in the room. I'm sorry the pictures are so small. But stadium looks fantastic. It's very exciting to see it done. And I believe these are going to end up posted on Cherry Hill tomorrow. Yes, Mrs. Sugars is nodding her head yes. These aren't as pretty looking, but it's showing the, the new sidewalks, accessibility features with the sidewalks and bleachers and the grass that will be green. In the near future. Okay. Next let's talk about APRs. If you're at one of the 6 schools that is getting a new API, you've most certainly seen lots of work being done. I'll go through these for each school. I'm gonna be very quick just because there's a lot to go through. Barton, the construction fence is up, some minor abatement in the connecting soffit was completed over spring break. At Johnson site demolition, 70% complete, sediment and erosion controls in place, pad constructed, foundation block installed, sanitary drainage plumbing. The next step is pouring the slab. Kingston is the furthest along. Demolition, 60% complete, pad constructed. The slabs been poured, structural steel delivered, steel columns being erected. Electrical conduits, sanitary drainage rough in. And Mrs. Sugars, if you can go to the. Second page, I think it is for. Kingston. One more. One more. Want the good one, the one that looks like APRs. So you can see it's getting to the point where we're starting to actually see what these are going to look like. A lot of really great work going on. And exciting to see it coming together. So this is the one that's furthest along. So this is the picture I was excited to share. At man, building pads constructed, foundation block underway. They're currently addressing an issue with the long construction entrance to the site behind the building. If you look IT on a satellite view, you'll see exactly what we're talking about. It's difficult getting construction vehicles in. So they're working on making improvements to the access roads. They can keep the work going. At Sharp, sediment and erosion controls in place, demolitions, 90% complete, building pad, 95% complete. Doesn't look like much, but ready to ready to forward the slab soon. And. Did I miss one? No, I think I got them all. Our contract for the APRs allows a $400,000 allowance. We have 338,000 left. There have been no change orders issued to date. Hopefully this is a good sign that we might be looking at getting some money back in the end here as well, but we'll check back as things progress. Hit a few more items here, at pain and heart, paving and punchless items, happened over the, are going to happen over the second spring break. Whether permitting and change order is expected on this contract as well. I'm getting about $17,000 back. Also at pain somebody had sent me a picture of some some parking bollards around a cement slab. Talking about why are we protecting this It's pretty interesting actually. It's a concrete pad to prepare for installation of a new generator at pain. That's expected to be installed after school lets out in June. You have to cut power to the building so has to wait till the school year ends, but this will complete all 5 generator projects as part of the bond work. So it's another significant milestone. Kurusi temporary classroom units that are needed to ensure the students have a place to learn while construction is going on starting next year. That goes out to bid Thursday of this week. And the board will be voting to unselected bid at our next meeting at the at an April thirtieth. We have 13 classrooms going in place. We've heard there's lots of competitions. We're expecting competitive bids. Hopefully that means we come in under budget, but again time will tell. And 2 more items to share here. One is early childhood additions. These are the preschool expansion at Melbourne and Kilmer. Completing surveys and reports on where to make connections to existing buildings and plans and proposals have been underway for some time. And lastly, the alternative high school moved to school within the school at East. Surveyed the space working on a new floorpant plan proposal. This will include reconfiguring doors, possibly bathrooms, corridor, design, and outside access. Discussions are ongoing with Ms. Giardo and Ms. Mallory to create a space that best suits the students and meets their needs. There's a lot more going on. These construction meetings are planned for an hour and lately they've been going significantly over. So I'm not going to, list everything, but as always, I'm happy to provide my fellow board members with any additional info that you're looking for. On the many constructions going on in our district. I will pause here to see if there's any questions on bond and capital project construction work. Ms. Gallagher? Are we able to get a copy of that presentation? That you were through? Yes, okay, perfect. And I feel like you, I feel like you might know the second question. Do you know what it is? When is the stadium open for community members to use? I don't know that new answer, but but it is completed and it is open for use whether that's open to community members, I don't have the answer to that. We'll check, Mrs. There are other people that use the track as well. So are you sure? Yes, quite a few. I see them in the summer. Mr. Mayor, just, curious as the rain last week, all that rain, were there any issues? And you significant delays, any problems with regard to that. Not that I'm aware of. You know, Garrison, New Road, ERI, are always very good at telling us what went wrong and also what they did to address it. In this case, there's some delays with anything regarding, So, a remediation, erosion, things like that. You know, that's why a lot of the things we do are weather permitting, but nothing significant. The only real concern is the access road at man. With such a narrow road going behind and things getting washed out. That's why they're working on that. But other than that, no significant delays. Other than the the first game at Stadium East being on the fourth instead of the second. But it was ready for the second. Any other questions or really move on? All right, so one last thing I wanted to start doing is I always read quickly through the agenda items and I don't like just skipping over the acceptance of donations because that's important. We always want to say thank you. So this month we wanted to say thank you to sharp PTA for a donation to be used for kindergarten field trips, our PTA for donation use for third grade field trips. Sure PTA for donation use for fifth grade field trips and U Penn for a donation to be used for CPR research. Thank you very much. And I think that does it for BNF. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Greenbaum and for reminding us. It's always helpful to have our experience of gratitude. So. And Mrs. Gallagher, if you would, I know you're probably going to, before any of us, if you'll know if you can report back on the lighting situation, if you do start to use the track. I'd love to hear because that was a community use grant. It'd be really nice to hear what your experience is. I'm hoping it's going to be possible. So love to hear that. Thank you. Good point. So thank you and thanks. It's very excited to hear all the, all the improvements. So. Okay, we move on to human resources and as I think people usually know we there is a lot we cannot talk about because personnel matters are Confidential. But there are some things we can talk about. We met. Last week we had to find a data work because of the. The break that we had and it was Mrs. Winters and Mrs. Sterfain. Who were present along with myself. And we did discuss that it is the we're in the teacher transfer period right now which ends on I guess it. This is the fifteenth or the fifth. I wanna make sure I get this right, Mrs. It ended Friday, so it was the fifth. Okay, just making sure I didn't leave off a 1 in my notes. So we just went through that and what I can share is that This year we actually had a smaller number of teacher transfers. That we were not positions open that we then last year. So I take that as an improvement that we have. Fewer open positions that indicates to me a good trend. We also talked a little bit about actually more than a little bit about different processes in human resources. You know, this is this is something that is you know a lot of us you know, it's a mystery, right? We have a huge district with a lot of staff and and the hiring process and So we talked about some hiring and retention processes. And, Mrs. Lieber shared a little bit about her role and all that. And I think we, you know, clarified, got some more understanding of, of that. So again. No details to share except to say that I think it was a productive and helpful meeting. Where we had a nice opportunity to have some real dialogue about how that works in this district. So, yeah, that's really all I can share about that at this point. I'm just checking my notes, making sure there's nothing else. That's it. Any further, anything to add from the committee members? Okay, any questions about things that I possibly can talk about, which is very limited? Shut that one down right because it's confidential. Alright, we move along to policy and legislation. Mr. Mayer, can you please give the committee report? Sure I'll try and keep it. Relatively brief we were. And again, thank you to Mrs. Winters for teeing off the beginning of the discussion on cell phones and cell phone usage. The middle and secondary schools we had a presentation by Dr. Morton who presented us a summary of the cell phone survey which was Very enlightening. I don't know that there was any real surprises. I was fortunate to sit through it. Twice because it was also presented at CNI. Was a great example of the way that we want to try and generate good data before making decisions. When the discussion of potentially. Looking at cell phones in the schools and how they're used. First came up, it was critically important that we talk with the staff first, right? We wanted to know what, you know, how is it? How is it affecting the classrooms, what do the teachers think of it? You know, how can we How can we adjust what's happening and possibly the revise? Policies or draft new policies to support what the teachers are doing the school because at the end of the day that's what matters most. And thankfully we got some really good data. The the number of student or the number of teachers and community members. That responded the survey was, quite high. And the bottom line is, you know, they want something done that, yes, cell phones are for the majority. They're more of a distraction than they are. Which isn't to say there aren't some teachers that are using them. That want to be able to use them for students productively for for educational purposes and we'll work through that. But there is consensus. That we should seriously look to enacting either enforcing existing policies, revising existing policies. In order to make the classroom experience. To allow that to focus on instruction. And one of the one of the key elements of doing that was show and tell. And show and tell was Dr. Morton was able to present. For us at committee, a couple of examples of ways to keep students off of their phones during class. So in order to a model of the kind of behavior that we want our students to model in the classroom. The board The word is actually thank you. Modeling that behavior now by sort of piloting the program as it is. So these do not open, by the way. So they are locked. They are similar to. You know theft prevention units that we see it at too many stores these days in the mall. We don't know whether we're gonna get our own phones back when these are unlocked or they've possibly been shuffled, but. Bottom line is we want, we're asking at some point and we're looking to enact something. For the start of school year next year. So I thought it was important and thank you to board members for green. That we model that, that, you know, we're here to do the, the district's work. It's important for us to focus on. On that and focused on the presentations, focus on speakers. So that we can be as effective as we can be as board members while we're at the meetings and if we're, you know, playing on our phones. Checking we should say there aren't things that happen. We have families, you know, that, you know, we need to occasionally be in touch with. But we wanted to model the behavior that we expect our students ultimately to to model. So we're not going to go into any more detail on what we're looking to do. Passy was because that's still an ongoing process. As Mrs. Winter says, C and I is going to take it up first in a little more detail. And then once CNI has a good handle on on what what they would really like and and and we get we get that from CNI they're gonna pass it over to us. P and L and we are going to see how we can enact that. What can we do? Existing policy, what can we do, whether that means enforcing policies that are already there. Revising policies are there or maybe enacting something very new. Whether or not we're gonna do that with regard to differences between the middle and the high school. Remains to be seen, but we do recognize at the maturity level. Of students at those levels is different. And their expectations and needs are different. So, you know, that's a factor that we're going to consider as well. It's not gonna be one size fits all, but you know, it's time. You know, the community spoken, the teachers have spoken, the students have spoken. So for those. Students of mine with my same last name that are probably texting me now asking me to proofread. Something for them. I'm sorry, I can't do that for you now. And I can't see your text because we're focusing on what we're supposed to do. I'll get to that. So that was the, that was the majority of really what we did at PNL. Thank you again, Doctor, Dr. Morton for the presentation. Again, some really good information. Not super surprising, but. But very, very helpful. And we also had an opportunity. To finalize approval of the 2425 school calendar and we, we work thank you mrs. Gallagher for pointing out. Some issues in that and, and some suggestions with regard to the 20. 6 27 calendar. So we worked through that. In committee, we agreed on one of those 2 versions. We brought that back. To an LMC meeting, which was. Which we did yesterday. And I can report that in the LMC meeting. We, we were able to move forward in, getting the 2627 calendar. Updated and ready to move as well but that's not on that's not on our agenda for this evening. But I also want to thank Dr. Morton for moving the LMC meeting up to. Before eclipse time and before the clouds rolled in. So. Some of us could get outside and see some of it. That was really the the majority of what we did at P and L. We had second reading policies again. These were these were all. A non-controversial, very straightforward. Policies that we had first reading on. In the meeting prior. And, you know, that's a wrap for P and O. And he did I miss anything anyone else that was in the meeting? Yes, Mrs. Winters. I just want to give a shout out to the LMC one more time. So when we were discussing these calendars in the meetings at 1 point, Miss Gallagher was like, Why are we discussing this if it's going back to LMC and like trying to figure out the different roles? Because P and L used to really do the calendars by ourselves, but now we've got this process where there's us and there's LMC. And when we went to the LMC meeting yesterday, they took a look at it with fresh eyes and immediately came up with a solution that solved a lot of the concerns the committee had but none of us had thought of in the committee meeting. So I just think like it's nice when we have more people collaborating together. Because the committee pointed out a concern about the way that the days off were falling and then. Live and see was able to look at it with fresh eyes and objectively find good good ways to solve the problem. That I think accommodated everybody's question. So I just really want to give a shout out again to that. Collaboration. I think it's a good mechanism. It took an extra step, right? Having to, we started it. P. Anal that we went to LMC, but I think the final product is great so yeah, just to give a shout out to that. And it's also one more thing I wanted to say about the cell phone policy as we're moving forward. I had a very anxious high schooler in my house this morning. Who was like, you're gonna take away all our phones, right? And I said, yep, going to throw him in the river. And then he said, He was really concerned about, you know, cell phone use during lunch periods and all these kinds of things. Things that are outside the instructional time and the way that C and I conceptualized it. In our committees. We decided we're going to really discuss instructional time first. So we're kind of separating the question that way. So really, it felt like the feedback we got from the cell phone technology survey was the impact of it on instructional time. So that's what we're focusing our attention first. That's not to say that we're not going to think about how cell phone use impacts other aspects of the student experience. But we're really going to try to be thoughtful about it and take as much time and input as we can. So I just kind of wanted to throw that out there that I think. The consensus from CNI is that we're going to try to come around to. How we think about the use of cell phones and during class time and then a secondary piece will be how do we think about cell phones in general. So I hope that's helpful to P and L and as. Since Joel was subbing out, it was nice because we were both there. And as he pointed out, there are lots of ways to think about cell phone use other than just narrowly focusing on the cell phone policy. There's all kinds of other things that impact it. So I think, you know, we'll do a good job. Dr. Morgan, I asked him, you know, what a timeline looks like. And he said June, so that's our goal. So now I have a goal which makes me very focused, which is good for me. So my feeling of it is that I am going to. Discuss with CNI members that we're not president CNI with board members as a whole. Take as much input as I can. So board members, if you have deep thoughts about cell phones. Please let me know because I'm collecting information. That collaboration will then go to PNL and we'll start working on how to turn those ideas into something. Okay. This is why we're neighbors. So that's all board members again, please if you have any thoughts on cell phone policies I think most of us We're either in PNL or CNI. Mr. Greenbaum, I'm looking at you. I need your input. So call me. He can't, his phone blocked up. Thank you. There we go. I just have a I'm a type I question. I'm looking at the 2425 calendar. Just to make a note, there is a misplaced comma in the. Inclement weather, makeup days, and the only reason why I'm presenting that is because I first glance I thought you were talking about 2 different dates but it's 1 date. And then my other question, sorry, it's the first thing I noticed when I looked at the calendar. The other thing is I just had a question about how we assigned the inclement weather makeup days and it looks like. If we are to take away. Let's say we have crazy weather next year. If we were to take away President's Day, the next one we look at is April. Seventeenth, which is a Thursday and then April. Sixteenth which is a Wednesday and as somebody that has small children and needs to request off all of this time from work. When we don't have school days, because I'm usually the person that has to assume that responsibility. I'm just curious why in the middle of the week and not either like not like Friday and Thursday. Oh, that's good Friday. Okay. How about that Monday? Passover. Okay, just asking that makes complete sense. Alright, thank you. And, and as a grammar nerd myself, I appreciate that you picked that up. And we will we will make that adjustment as necessary. So. Just want to say I'm excited that this is happening about the cell phone discussion. I've had this conversation with a number of teachers, teachers I know I had a teacher who said I knew who I also know. As. You know, lives near me and said I really want to sit down and talk to you about the cell phone policy or cell phone usage in our schools. They the teacher just said I literally spend so much time competing with the cell phones to teach. And I'm constantly repeating things because the kids are on their phones. And I mean, that's just one small example of the kind of feedback. That I get from you know different educators in our school district and others too and is a parent of children who also use cell phones. I know that experience, it's rough. And it's, it's, you know. Our kids are in our schools to learn. So, you know, I appreciate so much the survey. I appreciate that that was something, you know, one of many things this year that has taken that have taken place. That is moving forward and I think I'm excited that there's a timeline and there's a plan. And then it's a, you know, it's a multi-step plan so that we're not trying to complete everything. You know. You know, cause sometimes we don't get anything done when we do that. So I like that this is happening. I do want to ask, are we going to continue to pilot these every meeting? If so, I will put in a word to work and home that I am not available from. 5 32 and and I'm perfectly fine with that. I think it's I like that idea, but I want to check with you on that Mr. Mayor. There are certain benefits to being unavailable for long periods of time, right? Listen, that remains to be seen. You know, it's important work. I think the bottom line is we're modeling that behavior. We want our students to model in school and recognize that. They have to get to a point where they where they know themselves how to behave with their phones, when to pay attention, when not to pay attention. You know, we're, a little more advanced than. Students that were, you know, that we're talking about. So we should be able to do that without necessarily putting our phones in these. Theft proof sleeves, but it remains to be seen if the will of the board is that this is what we should do every time. Then absolutely I'm happy to continue to pile this. Although it's definitely, I will say Mr. Mayor, though it's definitely. Something different. I like it. I think it's really helpful. And I think you're right. It just, you know, forces us to remain focused. And I think all of whatever challenges those experience, the good and the bad of that experience, I think is good for us to. Gain empathy into our students and obviously also the classroom environment. Thank you. And we move on to Dr. Rood if you could please give your committee report for strategic planning. We had 3 agenda items for strategic planning. The first was, updates on a demographic study, a surprise that we had the demographics report tonight, so check. That'll be off the list. The next item. Is the communication audit update. And the update is the same as the last time I reported out the the the outreach work is done for the communications audit. The the audit company is currently working on collating data and putting together the report and we're expecting to hear a report out on the. On that audit potentially in May. So that's it for the, for that. We also, majority of the meeting. We heard from Dr. Albert Morales who's an assistant principal over at Rosa. He talked to us. A little bit about. The progress of the. Climate action and sustainability team or cast. As it's been, we love acronyms in this district. So the cast. Committee team. And He, Reminded us of the vision statement and mission statement and guiding principles that the committee had worked on last year and presented to the full board in July. And then he shared. Some of the ideas and work that is going on right now. To put together the plan. So, since that meeting last. This was last Tuesday. No, last Wednesday we had the committee meeting and then the very next day we had the next. Climate action sustainability meeting and we started kind of. Whiteboarding and I coming up with ideas for putting together the actual flow of the plan and working on some of the action items. We're pretty excited about how that's starting to come together and we hope to hear more. As things move forward. One of the big things for each of the schools, each school have a a green team that is I think different schools may call them slightly different things but the idea is basically a group. That is sort of tasked with. Coordinating the sustainability initiatives. For that particular building. That happens to be one of the i think i've said this a bunch of times and we will be partnering or we plan to partner with Sustainable Jersey. In the near future to partner with Sustainable Jersey. They require 2 things, a board resolution that'll that'll be coming. I expect probably over the summer or early fall I'm not really sure when we're gonna do that. And then the other the other requirement to partner with sustainable jersey is the green teams. Each school has to have one. But this is also an opportunity for, schools to each school to kind of come up with their own. Kind of goals and workflow to. Work on different initiatives. One one that we've talked about a few times that's really exciting is what, Dr. Morales has been doing over at Rosa, right? And is currently working on right now, which is the. Pollinator gardens which are. And pollinator, pollinator kits. So. How kids putting together plant kits to give out to. To community members and parents and different things. They'll be having a I believe they're showing off some of their sustainability initiatives on the sixteenth over at Rosa. So there's a lot of exciting stuff going on. With that committee. Let me see, we didn't have any. Older new business. Public comment was largely appreciative of the different initiatives that the committees that the sustainability committee is working on. Suggesting that we look forward to seeing some of that. Some of the new things on social media at some point. District posts Any questions? Comments. Thank you. It's very exciting to see all here about the action that's happening, Dr. Rood. I know that was something that You gave input on making sure we keep moving things forward. And sounds like that's happening, so it's great. Okay. It is now time for our special action agenda. So we will move to Mrs. Winters. Could you please move the curriculum and instruction agenda? Certainly the superintendent recommends and I move the following 17.1 approval of attendance at conference and workshops with a 2324 school year. Do I have a second? Mr. Fain, are there any questions? No questions. Miss Sugars, can you please open the voting? Would members you may ask your votes. Mr. Sugars, I'll be abstaining from 17 or accusing from 17.1. Due to conflict of interest. Other than the, Mrs. Neaz, we have. Yes, but it's from the other. Board members and the motion carries. Okay, you move on to business and facilities, Mr. Green Bam, can you please move the BNF agenda? Thank you. The superintendent recommends and I move the following, 18.1 financial reports, 18.2 resolutions, 18.3 resolutions approving the cancellation of outstanding checks. Do I have a second? Mr. Mayor, any questions? Seeing none, Ms. Sugars, please open the voting. Members you may cast your votes. Mr. Stickers, I'll be abstaining. I'm sorry, this is Niaz, could you say that again, please? I said I'll be abstaining from 18 3 1. Recusing I'm sorry I keep using the wrong word. Okay, other than, Mrs. Nia's recusal, we have. Unanimous yes vote. Okay. And. We move on to the HR agenda. So the superintendent recommends and I'm move the following. 19.1. Termination of employment certificate. 19.2, a termination of employment non-certificated. 19.3. Appointments certificated 19.4 appointments non certificated 19.5. Assignment salary change certificated, 19.6 assignment salary change non-certificated, 19.7 affiliation agreement. 19.8 other compensation certificated and 19.9 a resolution that I will read out loud. Whereas the Cherry Hill Board of Education currently has an opening for the position of superintendent of schools and whereas after an extensive search was completed, which included interviews of various candidates for the position. The Board of Education conferred and determined that Dr. Kwame Morton was the best qualified candidate to serve in the position of the superintendent of the Terryho Public School District. And whereas Dr. Morton has agreed to fulfill the duties and responsibilities required of the position. And whereas the executive county superintendent has reviewed the terms of Dr. Morton's proposed employment contract. And has issued her approval of same via letter dated April eighth. 24 now therefore be it resolved that the Cherry Hill Board of Education hereby appoints Dr. Kwame Morton to the position of the superintendent of schools for the initial period of April, the first, 2,024 through June the thirtieth, 2,028. Subject to the terms and conditions of an employment contract as agreed upon between the Board of Education and Dr. Morton and approved by the executive county superintendent and be it further resolved that the Board of Education approves the employment contract. With Dr. Morton effective April first, 2,024 and authorizes its president and secretary to execute Dr. Morton's employment contract on behalf of the board. That was a lot to say. Do I have a second? Mr. Greenbaum, are there any questions? Seeing none, Mrs. Sugars, could you please call a roll call vote? This is your fame. What do we what exactly what item are we voting on right now? Just the whole thing. This is the thing that I just read. So just that item or the entire the whole thing? Say no to 19.4 strictly just the Lewis administration administrative assistant to the superintendent replacing J. Cohen, but yes to everything else in that column. I'd like to abstain from 15.5 just section B the 2 director positions and I'd like to say no to 19.9. Mrs. Sheriffan, I'm sorry, I think you said 15.5. Did you mean? 19.5. You're just going That's okay, just wanted to make sure we heard properly on the record what you were saying and the wrong thing. And then yes to all others. Mr. Sugars, I will be recusing myself from 19 point. Mrs. Gallagher. So, 19.4, no to Chris and Vanilla, 19.5 section B. I need to abstain from this item as I refuse to make a quick, a knowledgeable decision on something that impacts our district so greatly. I know intuitively that there are selective members of this board that have had more information and more time to process than the rest have. I need, I just wanna make it clear that I need more than 24 h to make a decision. That's great. And then I am gonna vote no on 19.9 and I just want to say Dr. Morton we had a conversation and It's, I just. I just want you to know that that conversation meant a lot to me. So. It's not that. This isn't against you. I just. Everybody needs to know how I vote, so I just want to make it clear. I'm reading for you. Mr. Greenbound. Yes. Mr. Mayor. Yes to all items, 19.1 through 19.9. Dr. Rood. I've I vote yes on 19.1 at through 19.8 and I give a very emphatic Yes, on 19.9 as well. Mrs. I will be accusing myself from 19.4, 19.5 and 19.9. And I'm yes on everything else. Mrs. Winters. Yeah. Best to all. Miss. Yes, to all. In support of art new. Dr. Morton, our new superintendent, I fully support your vision for our district. And I'm so excited. To say that I'm fully in support of all of your. All of these appointments. Okay, so we have 2 no votes on 19.4 and one abstention. We have 3 abstentions on 19.5. I, those new abstentions aren't just on item B. And we have. 2 no votes on 19.9 with one recuse. 19.9. So Mrs. Sugars. We have 5 votes. On 19.1 through 19.9 so all of those motions carry is that correct? Correct. Congratulations, Dr. Morton. And to the other appointees. I like to. Offer the microphone to you if you like to say anything. Yes, absolutely. I'd like to say. Thank you very much to the Board of Education. You know, it's with great honor and appreciation. That I assume this role, the role that I do not take for granted. And one that I respect greatly and deeply. I have a great sense of reverence, love and affection for this community and the members of this community. I know that it was a long and arduous process. It was long for me and I know you took part in every interview. So, you know, I thank you for, you know, giving you full and maximum effort. And approaching this with sincerity. Definitely happy that I'm the person that has been chosen. Through this process though. I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize a few very important people. To me who are here today. My brother Omar and his wife Mikita, this is my older brother here. My brother's great role model for me growing up in New York City in Brooklyn, New York. This is a gentleman who took care of me and guided me and showed me the way. On becoming you know the person that I am today. Also, I would not be in Cherry Hill if it weren't for my beautiful wife, April, who is here. April. It was the person who saw the vision for me being successful here in Cherry Hill and actually encouraged me to apply here and and she's been a you know just a tremendous partner thought partner as well. And one who was highly intelligent and who helps me. Each and every day. She's also the mother of our 10 beautiful children. 8 of which are here today. I think a couple may have stepped out, but I see I start with the oldest that I see here. Sandra is here. I appreciate to step out for a second. Then I have Caleb. Here, my son. Kamal, Glory. Kamal. Abraham. You wave it. Cory who's next his brother Abraham and our baby who's not as much of a baby but Colin as well, and I mentioned them because our children provided such a tremendous framework for us on how to proceed with life and especially as educators, my wife is an educator for a good portion of our life as well. But it, you know, it frames our perspective and philosophy on how we interact with. The people that were charged with serving. So, you know. I've given my all to my family and they have my all they have my heart and everything else. And you know, that's what I hope. And wish for for everybody's child within this district. And that's what we strive and that's what we fight for. You know, I believe that our schools need to be places that are kind and compassionate and empathetic and even if we don't get it right we strive to get it right. For. For our children in this community because our children deserve that just like, you know, April and I believe that our children deserve that. We've heard a heck of a lot today about this concept of collaboration and I've had an opportunity to collaborate with some phenomenal educators. There are some who are here today and I've had an opportunity to work with many of them. You heard comments from them and I've interacted with many of them. I thank you all for hanging in here tonight. I know it's a late night. You know, the future is bright for us. It's about unity. It's about us uniting. It's about a unified vision for us and moving forward. Move forward with our LMC framework and its ideas of collaboration. I've worked with these people. I know the brilliance that's represented within this room and I know we can accomplish anything. And just have my daughter Cassandra come in along with my granddaughter June who I love dearly as well. That is the, that's the heart of our family right now. A junny bear. But seriously, it's about collaboration, inclusivity, ensuring that every one of our children have a place within this district, and driving for excellence as we, continue to be innovative and push the envelope. So thank you for me. I would also like to recognize a few other people who approve this evening as well. Congratulations and kudos to Kristen Biglyeta. Kristen was the candidate that emerged from. Rigorous process that we follow interview process. We had 3 rounds of interviews, you know, the questions that we asked. I attempt to grill people and give them an opportunity to demonstrate and prove. They are the proper person for the for the position and as we've gone through that process. Person demonstrated herself to be the person for this job for this time, for this role. And I look forward to working with you, Kristen. So kudos and congratulations to you. Also, we approved 2 individuals who are well-known in our district this evening, first and foremost, Mr. George Guy as director of elementary education. Mr. Guy has spent 18 years in this district as a building, well, he's been 18 years is a building administrator. He's had 8 years as an elementary administrator. One is a system principal, one is a principal in Laurel, and 6 as a principal of Russell Knight Elementary School. The last 10 years, he has been the principal of Rosa International Middle School. To Mr. Guy's, you know, the distinction, Mr. Guy's students perform. This man knows academic achievement and he knows how to get his children to perform. So I'm excited to see him as he transitions into this role. He served this year as a as a lead principal for us and has done a great job in that, Mr. Guy is a thought leader throughout the state and nationally as well. You know, Mr. Guy has bachelors of science degree in biology from Prairie View, A and M University. The Masses and Educational Administration. From Royal University. Mr. Guy, could you just share a few words with us? Thank you so much. I want to thank you to the board for the appointment for Dr. Morton and your faith in me for colleagues. Around for the Russell Knight and Rose International Middle School communities who have supported me and have brought me to this point. I have spent a good amount of time here in Cherry Hill Public Schools at the secondary level, but now I go back to elementary. So that I can learn and grow and do all of the wonderful things that we want our elementary students to be able to do. So thank you once again. I want to thank my family who is watching at home, my wife, maybe one of my sons, son is working, not quite sure, but we cannot do this with those without those who love us at home. So thank you once again, Board of Education, Dr. Morton, all of our colleagues and all of our families from Rosa and from Russell Knight, and then the larger community families that push us to make us excellent as Dr. Borton said. Thank you once again. Excellent. Thank you so much, Mr. Mr. Guy, thank you. You saved me as well. My parents are online as well. They're watching tonight. Our Virginia is online. My little brothers online as well. So, you know, I love you all. Thank you for turning in tonight. You save me. Thank you. Good job. Good hire, right? I also brings me great joy and great pleasure as well to introduce Dr. Neil Birdie as the new director of secondary education as well. Dr. Birdie, he's been an administrator for 17 years building the administrator in district for 17 years. He comes with a tremendously diverse background and experience. He spent time as a high school principal. He spent time as an elementary principal. He spent time currently as a middle school principal as well. This man loves children. I can tell you that from intimate conversations with this man, I know him to have a heart and a passion. For children and he's a man after my own heart as it relates to you know some of the things that I mentioned about kindness, compassion, empathy and working with children. On a positive note for him, Dr. Birdie this year was chosen as. Representative for the entire state of New Jersey as does the NJPSA visionary principal of the year and the National Association of Secondary Principles. Principal of the of the year representative for the state of New Jersey. And as I met. As I met with the selection community committee, they they go through a thorough vetting process and the team had an opportunity to go and to do some inspection of Karusei, talk with kids, talk with faculty, talk with the community. They walked away and said, wow, this is one of one of the best places that we've been to in the state this year. And these are individuals who travel throughout the entire state. We're exceptionally proud that that's the community. I know that Dr. Ready has created at Kurusi. We look forward to him helping to bring that about across the board at our secondary schools. Dr. Birdie has a bachelor of science degree in movement studies and exercise science from East Stroudsburg University. A master's of education degree in educational administration from Temple University. And he has a couple of Temple students here with the last name Morton. And a doctor of education degree in innovation and leadership from Wilmington University, Dr. Bernie. Please share a few words. I appreciate the Terry in the white over here with a shout out. And I know what happened to the last visionary. State Principal the Year. So I'm gonna keep my comments brief, Dr. Borton. I do want to thank you and I'd like to extend my gratitude to the Board of Ed for your confidence in my continued leadership. I have been blessed. I've been honored and privileged to serve this district for 22 years in many capacities and work with thousands of families. In the Beck community at the Brent Hart community at the alternative high school at Carusi. I feel uniquely qualified to continue on in this role because of that diverse experience. I'll tell you, Mrs. Birdie thinks I can't hold the job, but I, but I am, proud of my body of work and looking forward to continuing that. So thank you. Thank you, mister. Thank you. I just want to extend first of all my gratitude to everyone's patients. You know this is a really big celebratory night it didn't get off to a celebratory start but it really is exciting and I hope that you will all enjoy the celebration of tonight because it's a big deal. And I want to thank the entire Morton family who outnumber us, clearly, for hanging in there is a long night from 2 all the way up to I'm not even sure how old all your children are but I know they're all the way up to I'm not even sure how old all your children are but I know they're all age ranges it's a long night to sit through so thank you all and congratulations to our other appointees. It's exciting to, Dr. Morton's vision come through. So. Okay. And we move on to. Not nearly as exciting, but we do need to move the P and L agenda. So Mr. Mayor. I doesn't mean I won't make it exciting somehow. Well, before I do that, I do want to also just, Congratulate. All of the new appointments and I also want to thank Mr. Guy specifically, I might not be in this seat. If it were not for a letter that I wrote that message back probably doesn't remember when he was principal of decision that It's, And so. Right Yeah. Willing to listen, to re-evaluate a decision. Showed me 2 things, one that he truly, you know, he was a great principal. I could see why my kids loved him there. But also gave me, sort of that first work to get even more involved in the school district. I don't know if I can, you know, there are others in my family that might not. Be so happy that you have helped me get here. But, but thank you and congratulations. Congratulations to all of you. So moving on to policy and legislation. Officially for the first time I can say. The new superintendent recommends and I move the following. Item 20.1 approval of harassment intimidation bullying investigation to. And item 20.2 approval of waiver of regulation 2340 field trips. Do I have a second? Mrs. Sheriffane, are there any questions? Seeing none, Mrs. Sugars, would you please open the voting? What members you may cast your votes. Mr. Sugars, I voted yes but I have to actually abstain from 20.1. Cause I was not here at the last. We have one abstention and the motion carries. Thank you. And still no items to vote on for strategic planning, but one day, Dr. Rood, one day we will vote on items. Okay, we now move on to new business. Is there any more new business tonight? That we would like to discuss. Anybody have anything for new business? Okay, seeing none, is there any old business? Would like to discuss. Anybody have any old business they like to raise? Okay. If not, then, we will move to at 1016 PM. Our second public comment. Here we go. This is the second public comment period. During which our community members may speak on any item related to our school district. If you would like to speak now, please clearly state your name and your municipality. Will alternate between speakers who are here in the room and those who are online. Each speaker will be given a maximum of 3 min to speak. The timer on the screen will indicate the amount of time you have remaining. Public common is an opportunity for members of the community to comment on matters relevant to the operations of Charihil Public School District. Within the authority of the Charihil Board of Education. The board welcomes diverse opinions on relevant matters. Under established federal law governing reasonable restrictions on speech and public forums. Statements which demean individual community members or groups or which are irrelevant to the operations of the school district or our repetitive will not be permitted. Community members who would like to present information not relevant to the school district are always welcome to communicate directly to the district superintendent. Board president and all board members via email or other alternative means. We will start in the room. And. And alternate online as I said earlier. And you could please state once the timer goes up, your name and municipality. I. Eileen Door in Sherry Hill, New Jersey. And I just wanted to say, you know, I saw a lot of positive examples tonight and you may not recognize them as pause. They may not all recognize them as positive, but I do. First was I love that you were using the phone. The phone locks, I think that's such a great example for our students, especially if we're moving towards some kind of a cell phone policy, not to use them during academic times, would love to see continue to use them to continue to set back. We're doing it, we'd like you to do it too, we know how you feel, we're feeling it too. So I think that's great. We had people that spoke early in the meeting that felt that, you know, they were being discouraged from what I heard, they felt like they were being discouraged or in some way prevented from doing the job that they've been elected to do. And they spoke about that. Share their feelings, they advocated for themselves. We certainly want to model advocating to our students that they advocate for themselves. They stand up for what they believe in. So I think that was positive as well. And I hope that, you know, I know that they'll continue to do that. For the students and you know to do the job that we've called them to do. I wish the conversation had been allowed to continue till everybody felt like they said, you know, whatever they needed to say, but I also think it was a it was a wonderful example when it was decided to take a break because I think that's something we're teaching our kids in the SEO and things that when there's a lot of big feelings going on, it's a good idea to take a break. And whether people stayed in the room. And just, you know, breathed a little while or they went and walked in the hall. Stepped outside the fresh air, got a cool drink. You know, taking that time to process, regroup and come back and work together again. Do think you mounted something very wonderful for our students that we can disagree, we can take a break deal with our feelings. And come back and work together to continue the work that we have to do. So I really think that that was great. And I want you to recognize that because I think. You might not at first glance, being in the middle of it, see from the outside that it was a good example. And congratulations to those who had the courage to to vote differently from everybody else. Because I think that's what we have to do. We have to all look at the information before us. And vote the way that we. Believe that we should zoo. And then. Come and work together. And I trust that that's what's going to happen. I believe in all of you. I don't always agree with all of you, but I believe in all of you. Believe that you can disagree. And come back and work together again. Thank you for your time and thank you for being here till 10 something at night. Now we go to the line and Mr. Harvey Vasquez, if you could please state your full name and your municipality as soon as the clock starts. Yes, Shall we hill? Can you hear me? It's a little fuzzy. Can you hear me now? I'm sorry. It's hard. You know what, Mr. Vasquez, If you could please call back. I'm sorry. If you call back, I'll come right back to you as the next name on the line. Okay. Thank you. While we're waiting for that, I'm going to go in the room. And we have a student, so you always get priority, although I think that you're probably going to stay here to the end of the meeting anyway, but stop. Name it, you name it. So go ahead. Matt Wentzel is Cherry Hill. I got a few things to talk about tonight, so I'll try to get through all them. First of all, thank you, Dr. Bud for what you said earlier, when I signed up when I applied for this position. I didn't expect to be called a pub. Pitched up a video of my voice to sound like a shipmunk and then posted that I did not expect that either but I guess that was their way of really making me feel like a member of the board. I'm sure you've had a lot of those experiences as well. I won't say their name because that'd be inappropriate and it could cause a Beatlejuice situation where they appear behind me. Congratulations, Dr. Morton. Students met with Dr. Martin today during his school. We discussed cell phone policy. I think the general gist was that soon for not in favor of the type of lockboxes that we have in front of you. And I concur with that. Idea I remember I went to a stand-up comedy show and I had to put them in there and within the few hours that I was there a few people managed to get into them and I can only imagine what students would devise to get into these lockbox boxes throughout the, spend of entire school year, whether they be completely destroying those, creating like some sort of device to open them and then selling them to other students. There's just a whole range of things that you can only imagine comes from our students of bright imaginations. And then we also spoke about the alternative high school. We had 4 students come today. I'd like to thank them for waiting a few hours before being able to speak during public comment. Seeing students take time other day to devoice their concerns. Let's see. I attended Ifstar Night hosted by the Muslim Student Association last night, which was very, very good event. Amazing food, a good opportunity to share those cultural. Events and ideas even outside of our multicultural day. And also I hope that everyone celebrating has a nice eat tomorrow. And that's pretty much it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the line. Mr. Vasquez, let's give that a try again. See if we can as soon as the clock resets please state your name and municipality. There you go. Yes, S. Can you hear me now? I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. It's still extremely garbled. It's very hard to hear you. Oh, I'm sorry. Hold on 1 s, please, Mr. Vasquez. We're gonna see if we can fix them. So if you were to share with us. Yes, can you hear me now? Okay. It's still really fuzzy and garbled. Mr. Vasquez, Hold on 1 s, please. Okay, Mr. Vasquez, you've been very patient. I am so sorry if you would just kindly hold on. And we're gonna, I think, go to, we're gonna try to, Mr. Good to the next, I apologize. Please don't lose patience with us. We're doing our best. The room. You could think you know what to do. One of these times I was just going to use someone else's need. Steve Redfern, Cherry Hill. I'm, I'm. Couple months ago I stood up here, right decision back then, right decision now. Sat on the committee. Estatic. I'm very happy for you. Just, and the slippers and there. See Let it count. Discussion. Typically it has been here's the calendar. And then we give our thoughts and then it's like. Thank you. So I do appreciate the work that was done. I appreciate hearing us out. You guys sharing your input, administration sharing it. It was a nice process to see. And we hope that as we go through this we can continue to do that. So thank you. That's all I have to say. Mr. Pavinsky where we at we're good okay we're gonna try again mr. Vasquez third times a charm let's give it a give it a go Yes, hello, can you hear me? Oh yes, we can and it's clear. Okay, thank you so much. Harvey Basket. Cherry Hill Township. The board of education has propagated much about improving communications. And here we witness. The president of the board centering one of her board members with the strike of the gavel. On elaborating on her point for the benefit of all of us to stakeholders. As I had mentioned previously. This is the culture that has been established in this administration. It only works if it benefits those who have the power to implement change. I want to commend Ms. Gallagher and Ms. Sheriff Thane for speaking on topics that many of us present to this board. Week after week. Many of the stakeholders who may agree with this current environment probably have not had to deal with the obstacles the special education community has to deal with. They in and day out. We talked about funding. Shortages but yet the first to feel the wrap of those cuts is the special education community. I look forward to these 2 board members continuing their stride for excellence and equality for all. I only hope the remainder of the board has the fortitude to follow suit. Of those who seek change and a better education for all of our students. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the room and when the timer restarts, if you could please state your name and your municipality. Jack Warrington. Willardale section. Congratulations, Dr. Morton. I got here at the board meeting just slightly late, but when I walked in Dr. Rood, I heard him talking about diversity, equity, inclusion. And transgenderism and I understand there was some sort of incident with a student that I don't know anything about. I don't want to comment on that. But I found those comments to be, sort of insulting. He said quite clearly. That anybody that speaks out against diversity, equity and inclusion. Must be a white nationalist and by implication. A racist and also must be anti-child and anti-student. If you're against or you don't line up with Dr. Rood on transgenderism, You must be. A right wing radical I think was the term. What I'm, what I feel like is that. If you get behind Dr. Rood with the transgenderism, you must also embrace the idea. That boys can play on the girls. Across teams or they can play or they can swim. Against or on the girls swim team. I've got a problem with that and I think a lot of people I have a problem with that. Also part of your policy, 57, 56. And if you embrace his version of transgenderism. It also allows for boys to be wandering around in the girl's locker room. I've got a problem with that and I think many people have a problem with that. So. I think he is expressing showing a level of. Intolerance for alternative or different opinions that's unbecoming a board member. And quite frankly, I think it disqualifies him as a board member. So what I would like to hear next week from Dr. Rood. Is either he comes in and apologizes because this is insulting. To the citizens here of Cherry Hill, especially when you want diverse opinions. He either apologizes. Or he hands over his resignation. And take a choice. Will be here next week to accept either one. Okay, we go back to the line and we have Jill Roth Gutman. If you could please state your full name and your municipality. Hi, Jill, Rob Gutman, Cherry Hill. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay, great. So first I just wanna thank everyone for their time and hearing me this evening and I have 3 main issues I'd like to go through so hopefully I'll get to all of them. The first is regarding cell phone usage. I'm concerned that the students that are financially disadvantaged and for those students with stricter parents, right? Because those students right now are put at a disadvantage. Because sometimes there's teachers that use cell phones during instruction time. I know we're talking about teachers who don't want the use, but there are teachers on the flip side that have used the phones and reliance should be Selia on Chromebooks and computers if they need to be looking up information. The second issue is I would like the district to provide a timeline for the construction projects. For all schools. I did not hear an update tonight for Rosa and East and those schools have numerous serious safety and health needs that need to be addressed. I know the bond is addressing those needs but we don't have a timeline. And lastly, I would like to bring up again the idea of refocusing on and considering permanently pushing back the school start time for middle and high school students. I actually came across an old email I had sent to the board and Dr. Morgan and 2021. The EPA and CDC both recommend later start times occur for middle and high school students. They recommend time start no earlier than 8 30 a. M. The reason is to better align what bio rhythms of that age group allowing for a more sufficient amount of sleep, reducing health risks. Reducing accidents, reducing substance abuse, reducing mental health issues, and most importantly, increasing the ability to focus in the classroom. Many districts around the country have made that change. Our district seems to be wanting to wait until the state makes a change and I believe we can be a leader in this area. We are one of the largest districts which puts us in a unique position and being the role model in the state and the rest of the state following suit. Schools in Philly changed in 2,022 to 9 o'clock start time they're a much larger district than we are. And many of you were voted into your roles onto the board of Ed due to your stances. I'm pushing back the later school start time. I certainly know for myself and most others that this was our number one topic. I'm hoping that since there's been a change in some of the board, we now have Dr. Warren, as our official superintendent, as of this evening, congratulations that this can now be accomplished. So thank you for your time. Okay, we go back to the room. And on her. We'll wait 2, I have a couple things, Dr. Rude. Well, I appreciated what you spoke about at the table tonight. But I would really appreciate it if we're going to back up our students is that you as well as the rest of the Board of Education. Discuss what happened in the hall that night. I was here and I wasn't privy to it. And put out a letter. We've done it before to support staff and students. We did it after Columbine many years ago. Okay, so if we're really going to support the students, let's get the full board behind it. Trying a letter, get it out on Facebook or whatever social media site this board uses. I also take exception, Mr. Mayor, with the fact that you wanted to play tip for tap with your information regarding. An employee in the district that someone else voted for. Okay. I think there's a world of difference between, I'm really sorry, I'm echoing myself here. Of an $80,000 job with benefits. And in a day job. Okay, when a person is used as needed. So I didn't appreciate that. And you, with your given profession, I was a little surprised that your response. I am going to finally say this because it's really been driving me nuts. You present everyone board members. Okay? But this constant reference of III, my children, my children, my children, is insulting. There's more than one school that your kids that the kids here are turned and some of you just incessantly at every meeting is III or my children. Okay, but you represent 11,000 children. Okay, and quite frankly, previous board members have gotten into trouble because it also kind of leads to the idea that you only care about those students in the schools that your children attend. So I would caution you that you watch how you use the word I and my children because it's almost repetitive anymore and I would appreciate as a community member knowing that you represent all of our kids. Not just the III and my school. So hopefully Dr. Rudy and the board can work at a letter. To support the student, particularly the student rep, okay? Because I think that would also go a long way to. Backing up what you emphatically said tonight, which. I do support. But you're the Board of Education and if you're going to really make a statement, then make a statement. Thank you. Okay, and we go to the line and the phone number that ends in 7 8 8. Please state your name and municipality. My name is Jeff Potter, which I live in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. This is from an article. This is about construction. October, 19, 2,022. Voris Township opens Crescent Elementary School, early childhood center October ninth, 2,022. The 4.5 million dollar project was designed to embrace modern learning and includes 10 new and 5 newly renovated classrooms. That is 15 classrooms to support their full day kindergarten and full day preschool curriculum. The new 14,000 forwarded square foot addition broke around July, 2,021 and was open to start 2,000. 22 land associates Jeff Potter served as the architect project matter and construction manager. We paid a lot more for less classrooms. Construction of are these people telling the truth what's going on here because with the amount of classrooms and the renovations you may end up doing At the Lewis school, I don't know what you're gonna do with the open class. You gotta hire more administrators there. Is that going to eventually be used for preschool expansion, what is going to happen there? Yeah. Really, that's something that the public really should know because what's going on in that in that space all administrators something else one of the auditions but this was a heck of a lot cheaper than we pay I think we paid 7 we paid 11 million for less So, now, you know, if I have, forward and 4 was a grant, but it's still more than 4.5. Can someone look into that? Because with the amount of renovation you will be doing for preschool expansion or the amount of additions to other schools and buildings and for a new elementary school. I think you need to be a little bit more cost-effective. So are these people telling the truth? Is that Really? And again, the article Boris Township opens question schools and seeking early childhood center October, nineteenth, 2,022 and this is LA and associates architect. Please look into it, cause someone needs to, especially with the 100 million plus that you may be spending on. New preschool, preschool renovations. Construction moving forward just construction alone thank you very much for listening and please look into it Okay. Okay, we come back to the room. You could please take your name and municipality when the clock restarts. Alania is Cherry Hill. Every year, the state of New Jersey State Board of Education puts together a resolution with a list of religious . SPEAKER. One This list of holidays can be added to by the district depending on Bonafita religious holiday to list for its own schools. I also understand that the state requires the budget hearing to occur, I believe, between the dates of April, the 20 sixth. May, the fourth of every year the budget hearing public hearing for this year is scheduled for the eighth day of Passover so Passover will end at 8 36 PM. And I request that even though you can't move it and it's been asked several times that the meeting be moved, that you not start the public hearing, the public budget hearing for everyone in the public to be able to speak until 8 30 PM. That 6 min allows time for people to finish their holiday and however celebration they are they can log in online 6 min late for the public hearing so that they can participate especially with a of state aid of 6.9 million dollars and with a raise and taxes being approved. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the line and the next hand online is Jay, if you could please state your full name, your new municipality. Yes, Laurie Neary, Cherry Hill. I'm speaking regarding the conversation on cell phones. I will follow up on the other items from this evening separately. I'm still frankly processing it. Regarding the cell phone conversation, the board has policies and the district has procedures. They need to be followed and implemented. And the staff needs to be supported by the building administration when they follow it. And the parents and families have a responsibility to support the schools? When they are following the policies. So before we look into new ways, new gadgets and frankly when we have a 7 million dollar deficit, I don't want one dime spent on plastic cases for phones. We need to follow the policies we have in place, which we're not doing consistently across the board. And we need to support the staff that does follow it. Also regarding the cell phones. We're speaking about cell phones, but it is a broader bigger conversation around technology and the use of technology, what I'm finding and seeing at least for my own children and others. The heavy use of teaching to the Chromebooks, teaching to the screens instead of the students and the heavy usage even at the elementary level. So it's great we're talking about children distracted by cell phones. But I know my children would love a break from the Chromebook. So I think we need to look at some of this holistically and not in a silo. And when speaking on the cell phones, frankly, my children follow the rules and they will not be giving it up. My child, it saved his life. So absolutely at no time will he be putting his phone in a plastic case. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the room. And if you say your name and municipality when the clock. Restart. So you're in the Aristotle Cherry Hill. I'll be brief cut it late and I think we all like to go home. Hope you guys don't have a close session after this. I just want to put in clarity. It was frustrating to see earlier that students had to wait for people on the line. So if we could figure out a way to hold it that we've got students in the room that we don't go to line. For adults and then go back to students in the room so we can always keep that president going. I know it is challenging and that we do I do appreciate the every other for the adults but when we've got soon as the room make sure they are prioritized that they are why we're all here at this late hour. Also just want to knowledge with the guy, with Colin and Matt have done. I was at the, town hall last night and the first thing that, Was was acknowledging the incredible effort our 6 students did at the assembly budgetary that she was contacted by numerous legislators about how incredible the Terry Hill students are and that was said to a packed room in the Terryhill Library in front of across most of our county. Commissioners. So just to raise your credit, you guys did an awesome job. That was your leadership and what you've done in building a capacity at both high schools. The comprehensive high schools to bring that together and that's not easy to do. A apathy is really easy these days and I'm really proud of our students are not apathetic when it comes to this and they've stepped up. This is a gateway to a lot of other things. And finally, congratulations, Dr. Morton. I am thrilled that acting is no longer in front of your title. And now you have to do it for real. Thank you. Okay, we go back to the line and it's Alia Gutman. Please take your full name and your municipality when the timer restarts. Hi, my name is Alia. I live in Cherry Hill and I'm a student. I wanted to say that, I wanted to say that, imagine, dealing with this. So, every morning, I wake up and I look at the clock and sometimes I oversleave and I saw that it was and once I saw that it was 8 a. M. I thought to myself, oh my god I missed the bus and I was rushing out of bed and it was not good and then I realized that it was literally Saturday. I deal with this almost every weekend and I and I want to say that I think that we should change the school start times and that they should be put punched to be later, especially for middle school and definitely for high school. Next year I will be going. Into high school and I'll be having to get up another 30 min earlier because my boss will be coming at 6 45. Which is a very early time. And there are so many studies that show that, most teenagers aren't even able to go to bed until around like 11 o'clock. So I think that it's not, it's biologically not even our fault so we can't follow that fall to bed, until this time. I also want to say that there are also students on the line and not just, in the room, so. Also, if they could also have us talk before, some of the adults that are on the line in the room, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you. And Alia, if you're still listening, I neglected to ask for students to put an S after their name at the second public comment I did at the first, but I apologize. When you came on the line I was sorry to hear you were a student and you were waiting this whole time. So my apologies. Okay. But the last few minutes, people in the room, if anyone has not spoken and would like to speak, this is your chance. Okay, all right, looks like. There are no non repeat hands up on the line, so we are going to move to Acting, no. Not acting. Pose public comment and move to superintendent's comments. No longer acting. Excellent. All right. I'll be very brief. Congratulations to all our student honorees from earlier today, our student honorees from earlier today, our students who participated and did so well with our winter athletic sports. It's always a pleasure. To all our student honorees from earlier today, our students who participated and did so well with our winter athletic sports. It's always a pleasure to have children here to be able to recognize them for their exploits. I like to wish happy holidays to all those celebrating. So district is closed tomorrow for the observance of Eid. Eat holiday. Also we are closed from the 20 s to the 20 fourth for spring break but it's also pass over. So I'd like to wish, you know, a peaceful and happy pass over to all those celebrating. Thank you for all your comments tonight for everyone coming out. Thank you, Dr. Morton. I guess more to come. We had some questions about AHS, but we'll hold off and we'll address the next time.