roll call please Dr Moore here Mrs Adelis here Dr Aruna datass here Mr Cass here Mr Anderson here Mr Capello here Mr Kim here all right there is Need for executive session Mrs zelis could you take us into executive session please uh sure I move to conven an executive session in accordance with Section 8 of the open public act the purpose of this closed session will be discussed will be to discuss negotiations legal security and personal issues minutes of this session will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists into the mic please second oh thank you very much okay all in favor I hi hi any Nays any abstentions all right we are in executive at 7:01 p.m. okay we are now out of executive session and we will continue on the agenda it is now for the uh time for the Pledge of Allegiance if uh everyone will please stand okay so uh we do have a special presentation today it is time for the budget hearing so we'll give a minute to the administration to go ahead and get everything set up but it looks like the presentation is up online as well okay it's our annual budget presentation so Demar you help me out when you when you can and Sand's gon to do to Clicker right next slide so here's our strategic plan with our goals under students success caring culture operations family and Community connections these are recap of our goals for the year increase achievement for all students inclusive of all curricular areas continue to develop the tiered system of supports to service student and staff mental health mental health needs to promote success for all students continue investigate plan communicate options for expansion of the current building to accommodate possible increases in student population and develop a plan for consistent and streamlined Community Communications and Dr cullers and I will be um speaking more about our goals for this year and some possible goal topics for next year at the June 24th meeting which I'll discuss during my uh comments next slide please these next few slides are just a uh next Slide the next few slides are a um couple pictures of some projects that are being done these are the steps that are being done by the township at uh Todd Johnson Field so you could see they put new stairway they cut down all the trees the there's a lot of mulch they planted grass and they also put up a new uh retaining wall as you could see there and that project was completely done by the township next slide please this is just a picture of the new canopy roof at Riverview do this was one of the projects we we just were not 100% finished but it was just uh mostly completed over spring break next slide please here's a picture of some of the new HVAC at Lake View as you can see it's a pretty big machinery on the roof the good news is that comes out of a closet in the uh in the school to make room so you can imagine a big machine now out of the closet to give them more closet space which we does L needed and um this HVAC project was funded 75% with a grb and what's the status of the grant are we did we get any of that money yet we got some right we have received the initial uh down payment and ass soon as I send another letter of which is going to be tomorrow they will send another second payment and with an extension as well we need about three more weeks Extinction so we can finalize the punch list and to close out the project and I'll be submitting that tomorrow what are we like 95% done I think right we're about 90% done here's another picture of the HVAC at Lake View more HVAC it's it's a pretty large project as you could see here's the picture of the valy view bathroom that we finished towards the end of last year that's the one that's used for the uh field next slide please the parking lot also completed at the end of last year at Lake at Valley View here's our Nicole Drive property next slide please Nico Drive property with the board which the board bought in um January which includes three acres with Road Frontage adjacent to our existing 25 plus acres already owned by The Bard ofet and this can be for possible expansion someday down the road next slide please some good pictures from U our flooding incidents and uh these were some other projects we had to deal with because we actually had to do it twice so we had garage flooding and Remediation twice in 2324 once in December once in January and that's a picture of the uh parking lot the two pictures of the parking lot with the buses and um one is me standing in the bush garage looking at all the buses that I helped move up on that ramp on that hill and you could see the first one that's there is the one that hit the fence that was the one I moved um and by the way if you drive a bus like that and you turn it really hard the back really goes far out it's not like a regular car so I learned that it didn't do any damage but I did hit the fence a little bit the other guy that's in that picture did not hit the fence because he knew that rule and he's got to CDL but um so that's a picture of me standing like right by the baseball field looking toward the uh the bus garage so was two pretty flooded days next slide please these are our um comparative group scores from um our comp group so Dr CO's already presented on some of this stuff um we have uh other fields in here though so basically the district's overall Ela performance from 2223 out of this group of 12 we were in the third spot in ela and math we're in the ninth spot in out of the 12 spices um the next column is the percent special ed which I put on my major concerns document I shared with you that we have now have 24% of our students have have um some special needs and we are number two on that list we were number one and we went up a whole point but somebody else went up more than a whole point and took our space so we're um it's something that we're talking about all the time Dr Cullis myself Mrs Johnson and the principles and we're trying to put some things in place to see if we can help with that because it is a concern and um when it comes to budget the the big concern is you know the 24 students need more like for example right the Maris our our special ed per pupil cost rounded off is somewhere like 32,000 or something right 35,000 depending on the L depending on the situation but it's about 32 thou thousand a year and our and our regular Ed per pupil cost is somewhere around 19,000 you can see that that's why it's a concern because this smaller group of kids are using up more and more resources and the only way you can do it is take away from the other part so it is a consideration it's something we have to think about it's something we always have to deal with and uh just make sure that we're always looking at it um these numbers are all pretty small elll is ESL student English language Learners it stands for um it's students who get ESL and um our town has 3.3% of our students at elll in 2223 and we were like right in the middle but the numbers are pretty small so it's not like a glaring difference um economically disadvantaged we were eighth so we have the eighth highest amount and that's 2.9% of our students have uh um are qualified for free reduced lunch and 2223 and that's the entire District enrollment is 1708 and that put us fourth out of that group our cost per pupil is 19,886 in 2220 and this so here's a little difference because the the um the state reports on the spending a little differently so this is the 23 22 this is 2023 actual and that was ninth place so um you could see and some of the categories were performing up in the in the top third and then they uh cost per pew and the bottom third and then I I'd like to talk about some of these other ones is is uh our median income is the 10th highest in that group and our um percentage of adults 25 and older with a college degree we are number eight out of that group so these are a couple things where I just compared them just for a visual where you could see the ELA scores compared to the ca per pupil next slide budget breakdown so this we always talk about because um most of the budget is comes from from uh non-discretionary funds 93.3% of the items in the budget are non-discretionary meaning insurances benefits uh personel costs legal costs things like that right U that includes probably the Heat and util ilities and gas Sal salaries benefits um over overhead cost he utilities all those so the rest of the budget is the discretionary and that's only about approximately 7% next slide please so where does the money go 24.8 million goes to salaries 9.1 million goes to benefits so Personnel just alone in those two is about $24,000 24 $34 million next slide please so we used to be able to show this easily the reason why it's not as easy this year is because of that 3.7 coming out of Maintenance in C reserve it used to be if you recall we were getting less than 10% state aid we're around 9% that number's gone up to 10.1% so it's a little better but we're still you know still the the the majority of the money is coming from the local taxpayer including the maintenance Reserve that's all local taxpayers as well so we're still pretty close to a 9010 split between our local taxpayers and the rest of the other Revenue it's a little better than it was since S2 I don't know how much you follow S2 but there's a lot of talk about S2 now again because the districts are really um losing a lot of Aid and now they passed they're TR they're trying to pass a law I don't think it got passed yet but there did you notice if they passed that law that they that those districts that were losing Aid can now go above the 2% cap up to 9.9 did they pass it wow so that means they can go up to 99.9% tax levy increase in one year with without a vote so I mean it makes sense though because they were their their local taxpayers weren't paying their fair share when ours were paying more than what their fair share was so finally then like as of now the matters correct me if I'm wrong but I believe we're at our full funding through the state this year or is it one more year no this year 24 25 we are full funded so we so you mean next this next coming budget this com this budget that we are approving tonight the budget we're appr tonight is a full-f funded budget it's been a long time right and we've been talking about this since I got here about how we're we've been getting shorted right and and um forget about all the money we didn't get right we're just finally getting what we what we deserve now next and when I say deserve I mean what's in the law like it's the actual law they just weren't funding it um here's some other here's some items that are in the budget we have some uh math some math uh workbook books math projects I'm sorry math materials um reading materials the link it assessment system wood shop supplies by the way that's been a big hit right Dr CIS right that's a huge hit I love walking around seeing the kids with the wood wood shop um we do have in the budget a supervisor for support services and that's one of the things that Dr CIS and myself with along with the um administrative team is working on to was one of the things that we're hoping will help us with these with this extra um or reduce the number of classified students um the Leake the St Mary's lease renewals in there there's an increase in uh special education costs and the free lunch budget is still in there and that the budget's 100,000 as an increase of 35,000 so these things that are funded these are funded with reserves and grants we have uh a few projects on here we have the bathroom project that's that's where we're going to make two in-classroom bathrooms at Riverview the lake view project is just a remodel of the two it's it's a minor remodel of two bathrooms at Lake View in the uh kindergarten Wing new new sidewalk at Riverview new steps and Railing at rake at Riverview for those of you aren't 100% certain about those it's the set of stairs that takes you from the back playground down to field field six and then it's also the set of stairs that's right above that that goes into the school so don you know you know what I'm talking about in the back of Riverview you know those stairs that go down to field six you know you're you're the you're the maintenance guy you know those stairs you know the back of Riverview those two sets of stairs there's one set that goes down to the field six those are getting replaced I know you like to know about that stuff yeah right right right okay we still have you know we're always going to be doing parking lots and uh brick repointing and secur there's security upgrades in there of the large chunk and uh repairs maintenance contingencies all adds up to about $1.5 million next slide please Tamaris would you mind going over this slide about the reserves sure my screen is a little slow but I mean a little tiny but I'll try so we started the year in July 1 in 2023 with $5 million in last budget 2324 we allocated 2.9 budget tours projects that we are doing currently one of them is the hpac at Lake View uh which 75% of that Grant will be turned back to the district and it's also fair to knowe that that project it was it came out to be a lot less than what we uh projected it is about $1.5 million so about 1.4 automatically will go back to the reserves plus the 75% that the grant will be awarding back to the district and additionally in January we allocated $63,000 towards the Nicole Drive property as well and this current year 2425 will be allocating about $1.2 million to US project so at the end of the day it looks like we only have $742,000 in reality again um 1.4 from last year's private return back in addition to the 75% of the grant next slide please these are our budget categories this is what the state requires the way we report the budget right commis that is correct and those are all the categories the budget amount adds up to $ 41.9 million that's includes the capital projects as well next Slide the tax levy so our tax ta Levy increase on the average assessed home is going to be an increase of $179 which comes out to $14.92 per month and that is again on the tax levy next slide and this is our last slide actually uh budget facts this budget includes funds for facility and security repairs and upgrades the budget continues to fund a behavioral service program with St Claire's and those costs have been going up this budget includes funds for lunches for economically disadvantaged students the district continues to part the partnership with the township for security officers and other services there's a new fiveyear lease for the riverv viiew annex for grades four and five and some of the major cross drivers that we already discussed would be labor crost increases special education tuition and Professional Services Transportation including special education transportation and Facilities improvements and the lease and that's our presentation and if the president is okay I'd be happy to answer questions if there are any yes let's open it up for questions from the board M uh don you want to kick it off I'll just make an observation uh it was very difficult budget we've said that many many times but there's nobody here to complain about the budget or ask questions so maybe they'll come and during the uh the public portion here but um that that's interesting because I've been here for budgets and the long long ago and there's a lot of people here and weren't happy about a lot of things so job well done thank you Mr Cass Mr Anderson thank you uh Mr Kim um thanks Dr Forte dearis Sandy for the work on the budget I um obviously was involved this year on the finance committee and um reme reminded me how much work goes into it and I really appreciate it it was as Don mentioned a very tight and difficult budget a lot of outside factors um I'll say the same thing I think I've said for I don't even how many years I've been on the board now that having a 2% cap with 85% of your budget that goes up greater than 2% is extremely difficult and Demaris uh Works her magic as best she can um and we find little places to get extra out of every dollar in the district so I am confident that every dollar in this budget is being used to the best of the ability for the citizens and residents of Denville so I appreciate all the work that went into it um Dr Forte just a quick question semi-related to the budget but probably a bigger picture I know in the in the group we've used uh for comparison I think it's been helpful for all of us to kind of see where we comp paare and I appreciate you continuing to you know to first of all for putting that group together years ago and continuing to use it um I guess my question is we've used DFG groups District Factor groups which hasn't been updated in 24 years so is there another and not not to answer the question now but just can we look and see if there's any other better metric to look at it still May hold true but I'm just thinking as I went through some of the DFG groups that some of these things may have changed over the last 24 years as far as socioeconomics of each 10 town and District so um just something to throut there that if there's another metric to look at that may be more current um I I know I I don't think the state has any desire to update those anymore right that was kind of a thing of the past is that right the one I noticed Warren uses they don't they they still use dfga but they look to they look at PE districts that are within 25% either way of their numbers so there is a way we could look at it we could start with this group and then and then take a look at some of the demographic metrics and um it might we might bring some new ones in and put some old ones out yeah I mean I I don't I don't think it's bad first of all I think the group is when I know those towns I actually think some of them actually are kind of socioeconomic maybe even higher than I'm surprised they're within the same group as Denville um but but there may be some like you said that we're missing that we don't know about that have kind of slid into that same socioeconomic group group so um I'd be open to kind of looking if there's other options um the the other question I guess just to throw it out there for future is I I know we've obviously resigned the lease at um at with St Mary's parish um one of the things I know we're always looking for kind of keeping that making sure we're working with the um the landlord and keeping that property up I was just thinking about those bathrooms over there least the main bathrooms on the first floor I know we did a little bit of work I think when we first took over but just something to think about for future not for this budget but as you were talking about different things in um and bathrooms we've done work on just something I was kind of thinking about yeah we we really only did a minor upgrade to that like we we added a fan we fixed some lighting we fixed some of the partitions we did replace the sinks though um we did a few things um I would I would say like if we're gonna really do 10 more years or something like that then we probably should look at doing some of that it's a I know it's a tight space too so it's not easy but anyway we could talk about it offline not related to this budget but just thank you for everybody who did all the work on the budget I truly appreciate it thanks Mike I appreciate that uh just for the Public's sake uh and I believe I'm going to get this right so please correct me if I'm wrong uh the comparative groups that you're referencing Mike was on slide 13 and when you say DFG those are like letters in the alphabet that classifies different towns based off of whether they're K through a or K through High School type of uh designation so we just want to compare apples to apples correct Mr Anderson yeah that's that's correct so it's a it's a terminology that the board of or the state uh um Department of Education used previously uh called District Factor groups and it's basically socioeconomic groups and then Dr Forte takes it a step further and only looks that those uh those districts that are within our district Factor Group which I believe if I'm correct it is I which is the second from the top as far as highest um and then he looks at ones that are K through 8 only doesn't look at ones that have high school districts and then ones that are like relatively within our uh enrollment so he kind of Nars it down even further to use that group to say these are probably districts that are the closest comparison to ours throughout the state and actually he only looks at what Somerset Somerset North right Dr Forte yeah Somerset in north and we uh we do 1,000 to 3,000 students so it's like similar and it's really hard it's really hard for the uh Finance to compare a K12 or a 912 to a Ka just it's not the same because there's all the high school stuff right so that's why we don't we take them out but I was happy to see that Warren Township in Somerset considers us a a comparative group too and their board voted on that we one of them so they did like something years ago they said in like 2015 they voted that wear one of them but they don't do the K8 thing I I think you have to do that they do they were comparing themselves like Glenn Rock which is K12 I think that's hard to compare to you could compare the scores but it's hard to compare if you want to compare scores to costs you know that's why thank you thank you for clarifying that Mike so any other uh board members with questions or comments uh yeah I'd just like to um thank every everyone particularly everyone on the finance committee for managing to um stay within our budget and still seemingly keep um everything that we needed um it every every year that I've been part of this it always looks like so dire in the beginning we're gonna we're going to lose it all and and somehow uh you keep pulling Rapids out of a hat um and I guess along along those lines I'm not quite sure how to word this but as we're talking about like the special education um costs um I do think that it's important for us to really take a a look at that assess um maybe even what's working what's not working what's essential what's not essential but there's um I've been uh I I've sort of had uh interactions with a lot of different uh school systems over the years through my profession and other other areas and one of the things that surprised me about uh Denville was this attitude of really wanting to see the kids succeed and really caring about um each individual child and I really I didn't expect it um I I was expecting it to be like most of the other schools where you know uh I've seen a lot of struggle for for kids to get the help that they need and there's a culture in in every organization and so there's a culture here you can you can feel it and I want to caution that we you know when you start sort of because most schools that I've encountered sort of asked the question how little can we give a child um so that we can we can hold on to our finances I don't feel that here but it could easily move that way you know once you start thinking through a certain lens and I would just caution us to really try and hold on to that spirit because it will trickle down to uh you know every level of the school because people start thinking about that because they're aware that the people above them are thinking about that and then it begins to change the way they assess things and do things and so that's just my word of caution there you know I'm so glad you brought that up because that's exactly what Dr colls and I spoke about if there's a valid very strong reason like you just pointed I I can't say that for sure right because I don't have data I have one person's opinion right but I'd love to have more data like that and compare us to those other groups that only have 15% and maybe that is the reason maybe we're just providing a more quality Pro product which is okay that's a good that's a valid reason and let's face it I'm we're not getting any pressure from the board on on special Edge SP spending like I never heard a single word out of it all I ever hear from you guys is do the right thing do the right thing but you know when it starts to get 25ish percent now you're talking about one out of every four students like maybe maybe there's something we could do before you get the special ed this is what I'm thinking about and that's why we really wanted to push for that um that new position the person that person's going to oversee all mental health by the way that's totally taken off believe it or not like just like 2018 there we didn't have any of that we did it wasn't part of the school it was parents' problem to deal with mental health now it's completely ours we have four people whose day is totally packed with this now right we went from none to four so you think about all those costs and not I haven't had any push back from any board members from the board as a whole everybody keeps saying do the right thing and that's what we want to do but I do wanna the fact that you brought that up is exactly what Dr Cs and I spoke about and that's that's great um like we also talk about sometimes yeah part of our culture is some of the great things we do in the schools that maybe don't help test test scores right maybe some of the things we do that are that are uh really great activities that we would never want to get rid of like the Veterans Day thing where maybe you are taking away a little bit of academic time for that but these are things that make us who we are right and um every time I talk to other people like oh we gave that up years ago we gave up that years ago I don't think we want to give that stuff up but I like the fact that you brought that up because it it reminded me of the conversations we had and uh I I'm happy that that the board has been so so supportive of all the functions and the quality that you're seeing in the special ed program even though it is a fairly large cost but I appreciate it Dr CIS did you want to add something to it as well I just wanted to comment this is the the one time where we put it all together and I just really want to note for the public that although we are at the lower end of our spending we are at the highest end of academics and especially in ela we're still working in math but we've grown a lot in a year uh but you can notice that we have more students with needs both socioeconomically um and academically and yet we are at the highest of um the the comparison group so here we're placing in the top three in most of the cases and yet we spend the least and we have students with the most needs so I I commend our staff they're working really really hard and I think it it builds off of what um you were saying Mr or Dr M that our staff really cares and they're working very hard to meet the needs of each kid and I think that that shows here and you don't always see it because this is the one time you put everything together money and performance thank you uh thank you Dr CIS thank you uh Dr Forte uh Dr Forte you were mentioning that the additional staff member I believe it's the supervisor of Support Services is that the the position that uh is going to tackle some of these uh challenges with regards to uh special needs we so a while back we approved a job description for this job it's uh going to be a lot of things we've been trying to put it in the budget for a couple years this year we finally were able to do it um it's going to oversee all mental health so it's that's part of it because these things all kind of fall together it's going to oversee all of our non-sp special education interventions so not special ed but like our reading Specialists our basis skills teachers all that and um and it's the TSS program which is the tiered assistance of supports when a student is struggling before they get classified they go through this tiered systems of supports to try to give them some support prior to getting classified and uh this person is going to oversee all of that stuff it's not that we don't have people overseeing it now but remember what I just said we didn't even have those mental health people before some of these positions we didn't they didn't exist so now we'll have somebody at Soul focuses on on just on this stuff thank you yeah just to follow up on those comments um I do agree that the 24% which was two years ago is trending definitely uh in direction that seems um um I I don't have an adjective to quite describe it but I do also think that a lot of families are moving to dendel because of the uh the the special services programs that we have developed here in Denville and I remember having a conversation with either it was Steve or Mike or Dena where uh the town used to I I think it was used to the town used to send the kids out of districts and now we're we're bringing keeping them here in the district so um if we continue this path I do agree that the need for additional uh resources to um organize and and coordinate I coordinate I think is a better word um uh so that we can better classify I also think that what Dr Moore touched upon is very important we want to continue this culture but I do think uh and and I think the one thing that uh Miss Kowski mentioned is that a lot of it is subsidized by the state uh so our special needs population um the state does assess that number of students that we have in the district and then we'll uh adjust our funding to support that would that be correct uh Mr kski part of the uh state aid is a big portion of that is for special education cost yes excellent so I I do think that um you know I'd love to pursue this further because uh Dr Forte I think you mentioned something that said you know do we um take steps to see if we're classifying classifying them correctly and I also think that the conversation I had with Mr Anderson was do could they eventually graduate out of special need so you know during I committee I wonder if we can continue this conversation you know where we can take those factors of the classification as well as the um do they eventually outgrow the special needs classification as well uh so that you know we can sort of develop a a more rigorous program that continues with the culture of addressing and making sure that these children are attended to but also making sure that they grow out of it hopefully because in high school it is a different environment right I mean Mr Anderson mentioned that you know some some students may not be prepared once they get to high school because it's such a different environment so I'd love to see uh if that can uh conversation could be continued uh in the committee level so um any other board members that want to add to that as well I would just quickly add that you know I my experience with special services and special education in the Denville school district has been that the staff were always looking for additional supports to the point that I was trying to pull them back from my kids because I wanted to challenge them and I wanted to see if they could succeed with less and less right um so and it's not that I think the staff or the teachers weren't trying to do that too but I think that you know um we were pretty aggressive meeting my wife and I on hey let's let's see how they do without this or without that and if they can still be successful and I think that's what I would challenge to kind of find a way to to push towards and if they're if they're falling and the staff was awesome with how they did that and I can certainly talk to Dr Cullis and Dr Forte in more detail about it but I would say if they're faltering then you you catch them right and you make sure they've got the support they need but um I age with you uh Mr Kim when you get to the high school to me my experience with my kids was it's drastically different right and the expectations are much different um so I think that um the more we can get them to build those skills early and be in the least restrictive environment um I think would benefit them um once again to Dr to Cliff to your point we do not want to just push less and less um but I think striking that balance is going to be really key and it's it's very tight line I think we have to walk um but um I've never found any push back on in fact I can tell you right now when I first got on the board there were a lot of questions about Special Ed I get no questions about like why didn't my kid get classified why aren't you doing this and that I need more I need more there's always going to be the one-off situations we have that we talk about individually um but I think that we are appropriately aggressive with making sure that we're giving the right services and I think that maybe appropriately aggressive hopefully we could be a little more appropriately aggressive with saying lease restrictive when appropriate right and I think that's the it's it's hard it's a hard balance hard like spot to strike uh perfectly on but hopefully I think I know we can do it I know we can for sure yeah you're you're you're touching on some uh um interesting ground for me because uh uh I I I'd say that I certainly would want um those determinations made by professionals not parents because when I used to work in that sector I had a lot of parents who were wanting to to get their kids to move to places that it wasn't possible for them to move to and um you know that's sort of what we want right every parent kind of wants their child at a certain place and um you know that gets complicated so uh I just put that out there okay um I guess the um the one reference I'll make um that uh Mike you uh sort of triggered was um like in track we tell the kids if you fall you get back up and you just keep running so right I do think that uh some of those lessons is is is valuable as well but uh just to finalize this budget I do want to Echo everyone's um uh thoughts uh first the finance committee I think uh thank you for all the work that you've put into this so really appreciate it as well as the administration Miss Kowski you're uh always um wonderful in doing this and getting the budget to balance as well as you Dr fory and you Dr cus for uh all your support and your work as well um I will mention to the board that uh one of the key points I heard was that we're maxed out at S2 and we're at a four % tax increase of uh tax levy so uh understand why we need this but if we are going to continue to see more and more student enrollments it'll be interesting how we uh manage the Budget moving forward as well so uh more D continued diligence I think is uh what we as board members will continue to need to do so uh thank you for your presentation and we'll uh if there's no no other questions or comments we'll continue on with the agenda uh with superintending comments Dr Forte did you want to proceed with your comments or did you need some time a couple quick comments um pocy 9541 allows us to um allow visitors and observers from colleges and high schools to come without board approval we've been putting them on the agenda but I just want to let you know it's already in the policy so we really didn't need to put them on the agenda it sometimes it causes problems for us because like this one because the board meeting was so late somebody needed to do something they couldn't do it we're trying to help the colleges and stuff we're trying to become we really want to be accommodating to it as much as possible because we want these kids to come work for us too and it's already in the policy so I just want to let you know if you don't see these you know oneoff visitors that are coming it's not student teachers it's not anybody doing a practicum anything like that it's just the the occasional visitor who's coming to our schools it's already they they what they do is they get treated like a visitor they have to get their license scanned and all that anyway so I just wanted to let you know um Matt from njsba will be here on June 24th for the board meeting to set new goals and review the board self-evaluation Charlene wasn't available so I asked her if she could have her uh partner come and Matt said he was available um I I'm not sure James has the uh the board self AOW info that is going to go out to the board and remember qac we have to have my evaluation done before June 30th is important that's signed and done because that's eight points on qac so we want to make sure okay any questions or anything about that um I think uh governance committee will um you know once we get that scheduled I'll I'll I'll uh have that on our agenda so that we can Hammer that home as well because I wanted to talk about that so well I'll bring it up at during good of the cause as well so uh thank you Dr Forte and uh Dr CIS super uh assistant superintendent College just a reminder that kindergarten registration is still open we currently have 171 students registered we that's a few less than our last meeting a few decided that they would wait one more year there's 93 at Lake View 11 in our Flex Zone that have not been placed and 67 at Riverview we also have the Denville accelerated Learning Academy this summer and those invitations have been sent out but on May 6th I will be opening it up for any available spots to our general population and anyone who might want to attend that program it runs for five weeks and at a cost of $60 per week this concludes assistant superintendent report thank you Dr CIS Miss groski uh business administrator comments I am very happy to report that for the fifth consecutive year the district has been nominated for the international certificate of excellence in financial reporting thank you is it just a nomination or does that mean you actually won we got the award you got the congratulations Miss Koski so thank you okay and let's proceed with the agenda to public discussion we'll open it up for public comments at 8:19 p.m. seeing that there's no one online and no one in the chambers we'll go ahead and close public comments at 819 p.m. moving on with the agenda old business action to be taken uh Mr Capello could you take us through that please uh yes I'd be happy to uh if there are no objections I move to approve items a b and c under old Bill oh sorry old business action to be taken a are uh the reports from March 2024 Treasure of school monies and board secretary B are education reports report of student enrollment and report of the health office from March 2024 and one two three four Hib cases and finally uh C are the work session and executive session meeting minutes from March 11th 2024 and our regular session and executive session meeting minutes from March 25th 2024 I'll second thank you very much questions or comments roll call please Dr Moore yes Mrs Adelis yes Dr abassin yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello uh yes on all except C2 I need to abstain on the minutes from March 25th as I was not here Mr Kim yes moving on with the agenda new business action to be taken Dr r and if you could take us through Personnel please yes um if there's no objection um I'd like to move the following items uh the personal one through eight eight is in the addendum and in one I'd like to move it as a block uh there is uh several um hiring mainly for esy and enrichment and uh there are CLE a couple of items that are related to uh Su days and resignations toward the end that is item number one a through SS and um item number two is uh withholding of salary incre increment um item number three is a board to approve the termination of an employee effective May 15th and item number 456 and and uh eight involve uh approval of uh leave and item number seven are new hires uh bus drivers Cy bus Aid nurse and a teacher I'll second thank you very much questions or comments roll call please D deore yes Mrs Adelis yes yes Dr Aruna datass yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes moving on to instruction and program Dr Moore if you mind if you wouldn't mind either way um sure I'd like to move the following resolutions under instruction and program uh under number one we have uh a through G various uh workshops to be attended under item number two Dr Forte to attend the njaa spring Leadership Conference item number three is the staff resiliency coaching and keynote speech and item number four is the adoption of the TCI science alive text for grades K through five and item number five is uh to approve marot for the um professional development of the Morris Catholic High School I'll second thank you very much questions or comments roll call please dck deore yes Mrs Adelis yes Dr Aruna tassen yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes uh Mr Capello if you wouldn't mind taking us through policy and revisions uh I would be happy to uh if there are no objections I move uh under policy and revisions we have it looks like 23 items for first reading tonight uh they include uh policies on equity and education which we're abolishing revision of sportsmanship policy um re uh continuation of e Equitable education opportunity revised bilingual education policies curriculum content equity in school and classrooms guidance counseling reporting student progress which are being revised as well uh educational Equity policies uh Equal Employment and opportunity policies also being revised and code of ethics secret society policies being revised prevention of treatment of sports related concussions both policies and regulations being revised uh vandalism policy and regulations being revised and finally a school district security uh regulation uh being revised I'll second thank you very much questions or comments roll call please D deore yes Mr delis yes Dr Aruna datass yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes Mr Anderson if you can take us through Finance please be happy to if there are no objections I like to move under D Finance items number one through 13 as a block they include uh our checks list under number one um the donation of labor to install a donated maple tree at Lake View by Cashman Landscaping uh the donation of 20 softball jerseys from an anonymous donor for Valley View uh the uh 2024 safety Grant through New Jersey school Insurance Group Eric West in the amount of $2,500 um board approve a local artist and riverv viiew parent Caitlyn lado to conduct artist in artist in residency with riverv viiew fourth and fifth grade to complete a mural from May 23rd to May 20 oh sorry May 21st through May 23rd funded by Davenport PTA uh the board approved local author and parent Michelle Salomon to conduct an author's Day presentation for the fourth and fifth grade about the writing process uh the board approved the express yourself program for Valley View students funded by a $950 donation from the Denville Municipal Alliance on May 3rd uh the board approved the joint Transportation agreement with the Education Services Commission of mors County for the 2024 2025 school year the uh board approved the 2024 Mars County Utilities Authority Grant in the amount of $600 for participating in a program to keep Mars County Litter free number 10 is for the board to approve the attached Master Services agreement from loadstone security uh engaged by McDonald Hopkins Council on behalf of Denville Board of Education in the amount of $28,000 number 11 is the board approved the attached agreement with McDonald Hopkins PCL to act as legal council for Denville Board of Education to provide legal services in conjunction with a specific matter at the hourly rate of $395 an hour number 12 is for the board to approve the township of Denville create an ad hoc I'm sorry the board of education of the township of Denville create an ad hack governance committee number 13 is our budget which includes a total budget of 41 million $982,500 that's it we have addend them my apologies one other item item number 14 is that the board approved the attached statement of work from corve Cove wve to assist providing legal advice and conjunction with a spe specific security matter in the amount of $10,000 Mr Cass as the person who seconded are you uh okay with the addendum as well yep I will second a second time thank you very much questions or comments I want to publicly thank uh all the donations that are listed here and I'm uh eager to see the uh new mural I guess do we know where the mural will be at Riverview they did on the second flooor I don't know where this one's going but it's nice they even have so they have a parent that's that's into this so it was it was pretty good roll call please Dr Moore yes Mrs Adelis yes Dr Aruna tassen yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes okay and moving on through the agenda Mr Cass operations e if you would please starting with Transportation under operations committee uh draw your attention to a very important item here 1.1 is to uh you go down to the center there recognizing Bill 82180 proposes to PR a school bus driver to operate a type a school bus to transport children to and from school without obtaining a commercial driver license passenger endorsement or School Bus endorsement so I'm not going to read the whole thing but I want to again thank Mr Kim for uh pushing this forward and getting it the resolution done and this is one of those little things that we can do to improve our recruitment of bus drivers item 1.2 I'm asking the board to approve the use of the district school buses to transport students from learner Limited at an hourly rate of $70 per hour on the following dates here June 18th June 18 the first one is Denville land make from Denville to the Land of Make Believe in Hope New Jersey uh June 18th is from their morrist toown location to the Land of Make Believe Hope New Jersey and same day June 18th again from Little learner Jefferson to the Land of Make Believe Hope New Jersey uh item 1.3 I'm asking the board to to approve the purchase of a 2025 Thomas 051 Ms minius 24 passengers from the deart company at a cost of $110,000 30797 under building and grounds I'm asking the board to approve the attached memorandum agreement with County College of Morris for reunification in 2024 2025 item 2.2 I'm asking the board to approve retroactively to publish and advertis and for bid solicitations for the river River Elementary School toilet project 2.3 I'm asking the board to approve the attached agreement between the township of Denville and the denille Board of Education in connection with the sidewalk project across St Mary's Place item 2.4 asking for approval of the attached agreement between New Jersey s SP construction and the demo Board of Education Connection with the sidewalk project consisting of installation of a new sidewalk in the amount of $ 29,8 185 item 2.5 I'm asking for approval of the attached G between ATC and the demal Board of Education in connection with the building temperature controls maintenance service for the school year 2024 2025 in the amount of $1,573 item 2.6 asking for approval of the attached design change notice number 001 from EI Associates in connection with the sidewalk project and the amount of $5,100 item 2.7 I'm asking for approval of the attached design change notice number 001 from EI Associates connection with the riverv viiew new toilet room facilities project and the amount to $14,900 item 2.8 I'm asking the board to approve the attached agreement between njsb construction and denal Board of Education in connection with the removal installation of of concrete steps and sidewall project and the amount of 54,9 $995 item 2.9 asking for approval to approve the use of the facility to Morris Christian Association Incorporated nonprofit organization on July 28 2024 at the hourly rate of $85 per hour item 2.10 be resolved that the demo Board of Ed approve the attached agreement between DNL Paving Contractors and the educational data contract number 10980 and the devil Board of Education in connection with the riview element school parking lot Paving project and the amount of $ 56,3 for the school year 2024 2025 item 2.11 asking for approval of the attached design change notice from the associates connection with the Riverview canopy roof repair project in the amount of $4,300 item 2.12 asking for approval of the use of the facility to HSS Hindu swam CC sang n profit organization on June 8th 2024 at the hourly rate of $85 this an addendum and on the addendum under building is and grounds we have item 2.13 I'm asking for approval of two girls media organization to use the Riverview Elementary parking lot on May 19th 2024 for the Garlic Festival second just want you to know sorry about this one the last one it's just for parking it's not they're not using the facility it's just the parking though they're not opening the building or anything either great thank you very much for that clarification and thank you Mr Anderson for seconding and thank you Mr Cass for uh going ahead and moving this um these resolutions uh if I may um I there was a bit of an oversight on my part for one one the transportation resolution uh the bill was actually passed uh assembly Bill a 2180 was passed and now it's up for Senate approval uh and there is Senate bill s3000 that is up for um approval so do uh Mr Cass and Mr Anderson do you mind if we include s3000 into the agenda uh the resolution after a218 both times or three time I count three times that it's that it appear years that's fine by me yes great thank you very much for that uh the questions I have for buildings and grounds these all dollar values that are listed here will be paid uh by reserves and for this budget cycle is that correct all these projects are part of the 24 25 school year budget and they will be coming out of reserves uh either capital or maintenance Reserves we do like to get um obtain this quote early so we can address them as soon as school Schools is closed thank you for that explanation that's why it's on here so we can start getting the bidding process okay thank you any other questions or comments roll call please Jack deore yes Mrs Adelis yes Dr Aruna datass yes Mr Cass yes Mr Anderson yes yes Mr Capello yes Mr Kim yes all right uh for the good of the cause committee reports correspondence uh discussion items and any other items uh Dr for he did you want to go through board meeting highlights real quick yeah I have H the budget approval I have uh the asbo finance award and I have the safety grant for $2,500 great I have no objections with that you might want to throw on the the local local artist and local author oh that's a great idea too excellent I have something yes please Mr Cass one of my favorite groups the rivue PTA I attended their meeting um I just went over to with them the uh our continuing quest with the uh space committee talked about the topographical study with them um some of the key items they talked about was the Tricky Tray was very successful they raised $28,000 um they talked about Teacher Appreciation Week some of the things they were doing including a Mr Softy truck coming in um June 5th they having a volunteer reception and they also mention that next year there are positions open for VAR variety of the uh chairman U positions on these various committees I was uh just talked to my wife about I said you when you sit there and look at their um the number of committees they have and all the things that they do um it's just absolutely phenomenal and like uh many Civic organizations in town um you know volunteers are are difficult to get so that's um they did mention that um they also mentioned too um something we don't have too much control over is that they're uh looking at other fundraising opportun unities because of the uh new lunch program they lost uh they're not receiving the $110,000 they used to do so they're looking in you know brainstorming right now trying to figure out ways to recoup that uh missing money de marish would you update everybody on the lunch situation absolutely we have decided to submit a an application for the national school lunch program only for the Lake View School dist um school elementary school and that application was already approved the two schools would stay as is with the PTA lunches and we will re-evaluate next school year but as of right now only Lake View has been approved by the Department of National School launch program have uh Valley View and riverv viiew been informed so they know that they can continue with their program the administrators um the principles will um they had a task to inform in the PTA yes great thank you for those updates Mr Cass did you have anything else or Mr Kim if you don't mind real quick just dearis could you just explain for the for the uh public exactly why only one of the schools is uh going under the federal school lunch program absolutely one of our school has surpassed that 5% threshold that is required to be part of the national school launch program the other two schools one of them is right in the cuff but it's not yet 5% and the other Elementary School is very low percentage so yes uh because we have passed a 5% threshold we need to be part of this National School launch program it will be sooner rather than later it's going to be a matter of time thank you very much any other uh uh things that want to be shared okay um upcoming uh is a Morris County school board's uh hybrid meeting which will be on May 2nd or this Thursday at Roxberry High School uh so they'll be presenting Awards to and scholarships to the unsung heroes along with the Nancy hellborg Memorial recognition I think board members will also be recognized for different um uh different things um I wanted to talk a little bit about the governance committee I wanted to uh so we approved the ad hoc governance committee which I would like to have um in May first or second week of May so Steve whenever you uh can send out uh the governance committee our first meeting do you know when um you'd like to schedule that can we try to get it in in the same day as the other committees sure I'm willing to work with that so if you want to send out emails I'll be happy to um can I um yes interrup to we also need to schedule something for the uh Transportation adad committee as well so maybe we can combine them both so there'll be potentially a lot of committee meetings that day so um Steve I we can talk over the phone if you'd like um no I I'll uh we'll schedule it with everybody internally it's challenging for the transportation committee because the um Stacy has to drive a lot we could meet without her but doesn't really make much sense so um dears will have to talk to her about a good time and try to work on that and then I'll I'll set up the governance one hopefully piggyback with um you know the other days the other meetings excellent yeah during that meeting we'll discuss uh sort of Steve's of CSA evaluation a superintendent evaluation so if the board members can um if you haven't I haven't checked on it uh if you haven't worked on it yet if you could go ahead and uh complete that please um and one of the things I'd like to propose to this board is instead of having the review of his evaluation after one of our board meetings I'd like to proport was a retreat which uh from my understanding is maybe an hour or two hour long meeting before our board meeting uh so we can maybe have an executive session before our board meeting I don't I don't know how that would work out so I'd work out the details with deeris but uh you know maybe that could be uh subsidized with some pizza or uh some other Foods uh from yeah you're treading on Dangerous Ground here ice cream so pizza and ice cream from somewhere in local area so um and yes um if if that's all right with board members I don't know if we if we could start around 5:30 or 6 o' does you know be before our next uh meeting which happens to be when May 13 yeah so if we if we wanted to maybe try to schedule a retreat before our May 13th meeting for two hours or something I'm not sure uh how that looks yeah so great we'll work out the details in governance committee before that but uh if we can and I don't know what kind of uh notices we have to put out for that as well I need 48 hours notice uh for the public would we open our session um at that time like if we were to start at 5:30 we will advertise for 5:30 we'll open the session and then we can go into executive great thank you so um so we'll work out the details and I'll send that information out to the board members uh so that uh we can go home at a reasonable time uh instead of staying way late so great um any other questions or comments if not then I will go ahead and proceed to the next section of uh public discussion uh so we'll go ahead and up open it up to the public great yep no one's in the chamber oh that was at 8:44 so no one's in the chambers and no one's online so we'll go ahead and close open comments at 8:44 and I believe there's no need for a second executive session so great motion motion to adjourn any seconds second oh okay great I have uh Miss Adelis as second and Mr Capello as as the original motion so any uh all in favor I hi any Nays or extensions okay we're closing at the meeting at 8:45 p.m. thank you very much everyone