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[Music] he he [Music] [Music] with all those who are able please rise for the pledge I pledge allegiance to of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all thank you and our mission statement tonight will be read by Miss Vox the mission of the E eam Township School District is to promote excellence in an environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences in partnership with students dedicated staff families and Community the district provides a strong Educational Foundation that will Empower our students to achieve their unique potential Embrace self-directed lifelong learning develop the skills necessary for appropriate risk-taking and responsible decision-making respect themselves and others problem solve individually and collaboratively become contributing members of a diverse Global Society thank you Miss Fox I'll now hand the floor over to Dr Smith for our budget presentation thank you Mr canthan good evening everybody it's great to see so many people tuned out tonight for this uh tentative budget presentation which um is Far and Away the most difficult that at least in my time here um I've had to give it feels like um being an S2 District Springtime means uh flowers blooming and the superintendent talking to all stakeholders about budget cuts because that is all we've gotten to do for the last four years straight this year tougher than ever because what has been cut can't be cut again and as a district driven by its Mission which I won't read again so well read by Miss Fox um as a district begins its budget process and tries to pursue this Mission it focuses on non Staffing right every District does that by the time you get to the seventh year of seven straight in stated reductions as well as rising costs in so many ways there's not a lot of non- Staffing left and that's what makes it so difficult because the greatest resources of a district are the staff it's the human resources our budget goals remain the same every year as difficult as they are strive to maintain effectiveness of our Educational Services while costing less money money and that is in some ways an unachievable Paradox to maintain with less right maintain means same less is not the same adjust staff positions for enrollment and continue the focus on academic achievement just a couple contextual factors to mention as these are with us all the time and in this room as well locally and nationally these are times of great stress for people changes for students in growing up how they grow up changes for staff and the profession whatever metric you look at parents and parenting education Community country World some of that is covid related maybe Co was the Catalyst for some latent trends postco political polarization the effect of social media Rising distrust disruption in labor market which affects all school districts inflation Rising costs affecting us as well and again for us here locally state aid loss there are a lot of different data points to look at to try to illustrate um where a district is I'm choosing to go to one in order to streamline tonight um because I will just full disclosure it's this there are a lot of slides in this because this is there's a lot to share and we will first talk budget and then we will talk some preschool what I have outlined in red up there we'll come back to in a little bit but that's the budgetary cost per pupil all this information has been shared I've shared it going back to the fall of 2020 in in my updates right and it's publicly available on the doe website it's called the taxpayer guide to Ed education spending it's fantastic it's a window into how districts compare with other districts when it comes to how they how they choose to allocate their financial resources for their missions what you see when you look down these these rows is in every instance our spending has been decreasing relative to other districts we are compared with the other 71 K8 districts of 751 students or more around the state that gives you a little sense of scale so our population as of today was 4525 kids the largest group of districts is 751 students or more so we're way bigger than um where where that biggest group starts what that means that that one line I had uh outlined in red is budgetary cost per puple so and these these this data is from not from this year it's from 2223 so in 2223 we spent $16,692.34 it's hard to say that I get fired up I get angry about that because that means we have 150 teaching positions if we wanted to turn that 12.5 into teachers we would have aund more than 150 teaching positions in addition to the staff that we have if we had an average budget what would we do with those tonight would be about talking about that what we could do with 150 teachers eight schools 19 teachers per school every school could decide we want lower class size we got it want more reading support we got it math support yes and we still have teachers left over for all the other things counselors that's if we had an average budget so if it feels like we're lean it's because we absolutely are and what our staff pull off is miraculous with that right 150 I'm going to turn it over to Mr Yates for a bit all right good evening everyone thank you Dr Smith um so before we get into our revenues and expenditures tonight I thought I'd just give a a quick little once over on school budgeting 101 um at a minimum we have to produce a balanced budget so what that means for us is our revenues have to equal or must match our expenditures uh if our revenues or expenditures don't match then we're either in a a budget uh deficit or we've got extra money a surplus for me and many other business administrators across the state that begins with us um estimating our expenditures we're going to take that at a very liberal level we want to overestimate our expenditures from there we're going to project our revenues at a very conservative level this is going to help us identify our budgetary deficit this is the exact position that Eve sham is in and was in when I inherited them this year and has been in since the Advent of S2 I think probably years before that as well budget timeline just quickly on that the budget timeline is really 12 months for us we're never not evaluating our budget we're always constantly taking a look at our current expenses reviewing our quotes from our vendors and seeing where we can find efficiencies and cost-saving measures but preparing a new budget begins every year in the fall for us it's November budgets go out to our departments to our principles those budgets come back in December that's when we're really seeking quotes from our vendors we're evaluating our current budgetary costs in January when we come out of the break then we start projecting our revenues and our um salaries expenses for the next year in February is when we're going to get our state aid numbers and then in early late February and early March is when we're going to be finalizing the budget so our expenditures and our revenues are going to match that's where we are today the statutory uh timeline in the state of New Jersey is on or about March 20th just about every single year when we have to submit the tentative budget to the county department of education so that day for us is tomorrow we're going to push send on the budget the tentative budget I should say the final budget presentation will be in April or early May so let's talk about our revenues um as I said to you before four our budget must balance so our total general fund expenditures and revenues for next year is that number you see in the top right 86 m899 1966 um the majority of our revenues are from the tax uh tax levy that we collect from the residents of eam we don't actually collect directly from the residents we submit a bill to the municipality who collects from the residents but you can see that roughly 81 % of our Revenue source is tax levy uh we get about 8% of our funding from the state that includes our extraordinary Aid and uh we have some Reserve withdrawals I'll talk about that in a second and then other sources so our other sources is going to be all of our other miscellaneous revenues our semi- Medicaid Revenue that we get um the lease Revenue that we get from uh Evans School through Yale and through lrhsd and as well as our uh fund balance and or any excess Surplus that we are required to use in this year's budget that's going to be other sources it's kind of a catchall for US represents about 8% then Reserve withdrawal school districts are allowed to keep um certain savings accounts those savings accounts that we're talking about tonight specifically are maintenance and capital reserve so maintenance Reserve is to be used for required maintenance of school facil uh facilities only and that's the only use of it so we can't just put money in there that we won't use for required maintenance and then our capital reserve is going to be used for um Capital Improvements to school facilities so we the board members you will see a resolution with the the budget resolution that approves the withdrawal of Maintenance and capital reserve so talking about our expenditures um same thing you'll see 86 million 899,000 salaries so what we must pay our staff for payroll represents about 60% of our budget benefits so that's going to be health benefits prescription and dental for those employees who um are on our plan represent 16% of our budget we must protect our school facilities so we have to ensure them against risk and loss and our staff members as well that's our liability insurances which represent 1 and a half% our special education costs are pretty substantial here 6 . 2% of our budget the majority of which is for us to send students out of District to special services school districts or approved private schools for the disabled in New Jersey in other words students who we can't provide programs for here in District we then have to send out of district and we're legally obligated to provide that service for them which directly impacts our transportation costs you can see transportation is the next highest cost there we have to transport those same students we also have to transport all of our students to and from school so Transportation costs are pretty high we do Outsource many of our routes due to our lack of drivers and the driver the Nationwide driver shortage operations of our school facilities so that's for the maintenance custodial and general operation of our facilities none of those other costs are salaries there that's just to operate our school facilities quite honestly that's a very low number for a district of our size but our facilities department does excellent work so we've been able to manage and then of course we need to purchase curriculum and technology and all other costs is 7.4% you're going to ask what are all other costs all other costs for us is just the cost of doing business as a school district so that would be um providing for FICA reimbursement that we must pay for each of our employees and salaries that's going to be for waiver payments for anybody who Ops out of insurance coverages our registrations for all of our staff uh profession association fees legal fees judgments against the district um and our annual purs obligation which is a few million dollars they all fall under that other cost again just the general cost of us doing business as a district in New Jersey the biggest takeaway from this screen for anybody here would be that salaries and benefits make up about 76% of our budget what that means is before we've even begun talking about educating students directly 76 cents of every dollar is accounted for so let's talk State funding we're all familiar most of us in this room are going to be familiar with the S2 State funding reductions just to go back to the timeline that I had mentioned earlier school districts are going to submit their budgets in March that's for a July one implementation So today we're submitting our budget for July 1st school years run July 1 to June 30th of every year so what we're looking at back in 2018 was Eve sham Township balanced a budget with 13.9 million accounted for it from state aid the state said in March here's your state aid so the governor gives his BD budget address in February of every year and within 48 Hours school districts get their state aid notices and then we we're finalizing our budget because we know exactly what the state is going to give us we never know until after 40 or until 48 hours after that budget address so in March of 2018 Eve sham got their notice and said great we're getting $13.9 million fantastic and they balanced the budget closed the year they opened up in July and they started implementing their budget that year and this happened to many districts who were S2 losers across the state and then the state said in the same year that's fiscal year 19 because it was July 2018 through 19 the state said you know I know we told you you're going to get 13.9 million we're actually only going to give you 13.1 million we need that $800,000 back oh and by the way you have to hold an emergency meeting in July and you have to tell us what you're cutting and where you're taking it from and we're not just going to take it one year we're going to take it for the next seven years for eam that's $7.1 million in a total reduction down at the bottom or 68% of our original state funding number that is a massive massive impact so what does this mean this means that the state is Shifting the burden to the taxpayers the blue bar represents the tax levy the yellow or Red Line would represent the state funding you can see from the Box on the top right State funding used to represent almost 24% of our tax levy this year for July 1 or bisic year 25 it's less than 10% under ideal conditions that red line would follow the same trajectory is our blue Bars Under normal conditions prs2 that red line would have remained constant or flat today you can see that that Gap is widening and it's only going to get worse so I want to bring you back to this slide really quick before we move forward our total funding reduction if you just look at it in a vacuum you say year-over-year what did we lose last year we were given 6.7 million that's crossed out we then applied for a one-time stabilization Aid we received around $486,000 back from the state so our total state aid last year came in at 7.2 million this year the state said we're going to give you the 6,754 617 and they're saying it's an $18,000 difference year over it is from their original number but it doesn't account for the stabilization AG that was one time that we received last year how we what we're actually feeling this year is a $55,000 loss additionally $7.1 million keep that number in your head because it's farce in 201819 we lost $815,000 in 1920 we lost $925,000 but they never gave me back my $815,000 so my actual loss that year was $1,740 th000 every year they don't give me the money back or give us this District the money back we are absorbing those losses to the tune of $31 million that is what the state funding reduction has done to Eve sham and every year that they don't give it back to us we will absorb 7.1 million dollar more in losses uh for our residents in the room if you want to know what this tax levy is going to do for you this year top right this is kind of hard to see do you have it here is it here yeah sorry guys I will uh make this clear if we um yeah thank you this one yeah so next year our tax Lev is 69 mil 963 484 that is an increase of 1,730 $2,413 for the average assessed home in Eve sham that's that yellow bar going across um in the middle there that's 272,000 roughly and you might say my home's not worth that amount of money my home's more or less so for every $100,000 of assessed value it's a sliding scale you can follow all the way to the right your increase is $345 so again for every $100,000 of assessed value your increase year over is $345 and that's it for me all of this information I pull from the uh Burlington County Abstract of ratables and those sources are listed at the bottom there and then also the average residential assessment report from the state of New Jersey thank you thank you Mr Yates and we will uh as he said we'll make that bigger when we uh I'll be sharing this out tomorrow and we'll post it on our website so that 12.5 million so that 12.5 million that we are missing if we had an average budget and you might wonder where is you know why where did that come from Mr Yates just explained we've lost over 7 Mill ion in state aid added to that is another 3 million roughly in tax slavy revenue that we uh you know basically let expire which at the time our district was being fully funded so it was not needed but over time now it means we can't go back and get that again you know the state doesn't have a mechanism for districts to go be be able to go back we can't go back in time and get that we didn't need it then we surely could use it now but that 3 million plus the 7.1 plus the compounded interest on the 3 million gets Us close to that 12.5 million so we're going to go to non- Staffing first um as we have been doing for the last three years we are looking at increasing walking uh we are we have budgeted for two bus routes to be eliminated and we do this really twofold one uh bus driver shortage second uh budget savings activity fee increase as we have done each year we are going to increase that as well um just incrementally uh new Walking Zone this slide was actually in last year's budget presentation um and just as an illustration of the difficulty not just for districts but everywhere it it took um a lot longer than anticipated to get the crosswalk installed for this you may have seen it uh recently uh finished from Washington nav across Tomlinson Mill to the sidewalk on the MMS side um so those the schools is going to be communicating um with the families in briwood this will start on April 8th when we get back from spring break the other walking Zone because we budgeted two is still under discussion um it could well be uh Mees briwood which would be 43 students one bus route and we'll continue to work on that each walking route takes time right so we we work with the township we work with the township engineer we work with the police department studies are done it's slow gradual careful work and and um that's why we you know each year our town but is not uh designed for walking those you know who live here know that um you may recall uh it was last year that I was sending out links to the Delaware Valley Regional planning commission's survey on pedestrian and biking accessibility for Marlton they had chosen Marlon to do their study on specifically because of our accessibility issues for walking and biking um and they they met with some of our PTA ptas as well this slide is the hardest slide of the whole presentation this is Staffing uh the uh we're going to talk about each one of these in more detail but I did want to give you an overview um total Savings of about 1.5 million and uh the biggest step is the top one which is uh grade seven and eight teachers teaching a sixth class instead of Team time and we'll talk about that the only consumer science that was almost eliminated last year this year it is um one of the steps seventh and eighth grade small music lessons that's one position tier three restructuring that's another position Elementary class size increasing uh that's two positions we've done that every year for the last four years Elementary Spanish increasing Elementary class size Elementary Spanish one position uh I'll talk about the next piece it doesn't save anything but it just keeps us from having to add a position back and then Elementary related arts positional reduction of three positions for 18 total the right hand column the our right hand column where it says retire and vacant what every District what we wish 100% is that maybe those numbers in the second to right column and the right column end up matching you know we we've seen um enough retirements and vacancies in the past few years to almost keep Pace with the positions that we had to eliminate this year uh it's a little bit of a it's a bit different story at this point um but nonetheless um it's it's still an in process which is why there's question marks at the bottom we'll see where that goes so why is our district cutting over 1.6 million in Staffing we're only losing quote unquote only losing about a half a million in state aid so and this is the this is situation for all districts right you can only increase the local tax levy by 2% but meanwhile operating a district the cost of operating go up by more than 2% per year so salaries and benefits go up by more than two hiring costs Transportation special education inflation outside providers and I ran out of room for bullets but basically everything else goes up more than 2% in the state's wisdom they set that ceiling at 2% means that basically every year if state aid stays flat so if if we had gotten Flat state a this year we'd still be talking about having to cut 1.1 million because that's the ever widening gap between that the cost of operating and the 2% tax levy and that's what we'll be looking at next year the state has not said what's happening with state aid next year but looking at how S2 has gone um it's not I'm I'm not encouraged a person isn't encouraged about what will happen for a town like eam that's perceived to be able to basically pay pay its own way you know um and even though the state hasn't released all the state aid formula so there's ingredients missing from that recipe that they won't share despite lawsuits even if we look at the product that's coming out of that recipe with the missing ingredients it's not consistent anyone can look and we have it we there's ample evidence if you if we look at around our state there are sending districts and receiving districts and the what's happening with the receiving districts should be the same as what's happening with their sending districts in total it's the same families it's the same ratables same property values and yet it varies vastly couple things to keep in mind about our grade progression so we're the only District in the county with two middle schools two grade six to eight middle schools only District where all students of a grade first combine in ninth grade so if you you know just to if you live in one of our neighboring towns all the kids combin in fifth grade if you live in another one they all combin in sixth grade and here in in in and they all combine in ninth grade currently what that looks like for us is six elementaries feeding into two midds with four halls and then feeding into one high school starting next year based on this budget six Elementary feeding into two midds four holes in grade six modified holes grade 78 one high school we remain the only District in the county with students in smaller ponds before high school it's a very nice feature there's a town that's not much smaller than us that has a 56 building and a 78 building this is great for us to be two identical middle schools two smaller ponds just a picture of the forest of class size in IAM so as mentioned earlier we've increased class size each year for the past four years for elementary that is incredibly painful to have the class sizes increasing for the smallest the the younger Learners right we have not been able to do the same in Middle because Middle with the house system has locked us into five core content teachers per house per grade the only way we can achieve efficiencies with middle school is by modifying the house system I highlighted G5 and G4 there because well for one from a class size standpoint they're edging a bit higher than some of the Middle School class sizes and here we are again having to increase increase class size in elementary again next year in those two grades this uh grade 78 step that we're talking about is $700,000 it's the largest single saving step in seven years and it basically comes from currently as I mentioned the 10 core content teachers per grade teach five classes which is 50 classes total next year it would be eight teachers per grade teaching six classes total which is 48 classes so essentially the same number of classes but eight fewer positions what that means in terms of change for the teacher day so The Quirk and I say this like you know I was a G7 core content teacher at one point my first Public School teaching experience language arts and social studies with a section of health and PE so four subjects um in a in a in a middle school that was grade six through eight with a house system it doesn't have that house system anymore I'm sad to say grade seven and eight core content teachers that's Reading Writing Math Science Social Studies will teach a six class in place of three team time periods one independent study period and one duty period per week and what that will generally look like is those teachers splitting the grades and teaching their six classes within both grades so some seven some eight that's a big lift that's a huge lift to go from teaching five to six and in the process losing time that while team time could also have been used for other things is a lot and you know just knowing that again just little data point but it's I've done that it's not it's not easy at all it's not easy and I under I would I totally understand the we wouldn't want to be taking this Step at all period it's just trying to go back to that mission of what's the least horrible path with our resources to achieve the mission the uh I would want to point out that most etsd teachers have been teaching six classes are the equivalent or more because for years so that's elementary teachers Middle School related arts teachers some middle school special education teachers as with all these changes they need to be unpacked and discussed granularly right within the buildings about how to do the best approaches how to come up with the best Alternatives inrs and IP just as an example of that you know could could well look like it does in elementary currently change for student day PE Health Tech 5 days a week instead a four so they will not have their period per week of independent study they'll walk out of their Hall a bit more for core content classes they they already leave their hall for related arts PE lunch special education and more they'll be in class with students from both holes and I this is important right sometimes there is a gain in in loss and parents who have you know had kids kids go through middle know this is a real Dynamic when you go into two houses you say goodbye to some of your friendships from fifth grade and you may never you may never have those again the way Road leads on to Road you may never have those again and when those kids combine from four ponds into High School versus a little less than four ponds you know with a few more friendships before they get to the one Lake that's a positive what's not changing is daily student schedule they'll still have the same periods same length same next year as this year we tried a different way so this year at Dei grade six we tried because again trying to turn over as many stones as we can to avoid a scenario like this we uh we we dropped Dei down one position in sixth grade and the teachers to their full credit have done a great job picking up a different subject so they're teaching still teaching sixth but if you're reading you might be picking up a writing class or you might I mean if you're reading might picking up Social Studies if you're math you might picking up science it depended on certifications and interest and we can't do it again at Dei next year because the uh the class size the the grade enrollment is going up to 255 but Marton middle which is highlighted is going to go down to 229 so Marton middle is going to do it next year to Macy will'll go back to 10 teachers in grade six budgetarily it's a wash um and that's going to be more change for grade six at MMS family consumer science just giving you an example of what it could look like we we have some firsthand experience with this um grade 78 small music lessons our music programs are amazing they are absolutely fantas fantastic and I get this churning feeling in my gut talking about these changes and this one like music is where kids find belonging right it's one of those ways kids find belonging and grade three and grade four we start a little earlier here than in other districts so if we have to peel back we're going to peel back from the end because as they do progress onto high school they're not going to have small group music lessons and every family on that Journey as their kids progress through and we start earlier on that Journey here than in other districts every family is faced with that process of trying to identify how to keep private lessons how to transition over to private lessons along the way and that again like the other changes will get discussed Within the Music Department because those are the people who understand understand best how to make it work tier three so we have two Standalone tier three teachers here in eam um It's a Wonderful it's a wonderful thing our district did not always have that and we've been fortunate to have it so we're going to go to one and it'll be in middle school because Middle School is facing more change for next year than Elementary and our Elementary classroom teachers will those who were here before we had that talone position no firsthand but it'll it'll be back to the classroom teachers to differentiate for tier three related arts teachers have very busy schedules but as able they will help and meet independently Elementary changes is continued we're looking at increasing class size in grades four and and five to 26 and 27 that's those are those are Maxes that we try to stay within right so when we look at our enrollment which we start to do very soon here for the coming year and decide on the number of sections and that always changes and you have to monitor that all along until the start of the year but as we look at that we basically like split the sections steering by these class sizes now if there's 100 kids in a Grade that's going to be four sections of 25 in grade four right you know we don't but so it may not always achieve a savings that depends a little bit on the enrollment per grade per school why I call this especially painful is because the number one place where kids develop connections is in class with their teacher right and and the foundation of success is through that relationship building between teacher and student and there's a bit of math to that so the number of points in a day when a teacher is you know they have 23 Kids versus 26 in a class over time there's loss there I I mean that that is if if a bag of money fell right now from the sky because our elementary teachers have have had class size increase for the last four years should it be to let Elementary class size keep going up and do that something else with that money Elementary Spanish restructured going from four to three teachers and we have some experience with this as well from this year and again that means change for elementary teachers because um those potentially depending on the scenario we go with but they may be providing uh minutes and time of reinforcement of new material enrichment of new material for their uh students with support from our certificated Spanish teachers Elementary related arts that's been a perennial uh wish to be able to um have every school have its own related arts team budgetarily it's it's just not going to be possible to make it stick we tried um again this year but um we're looking at a reduction of three positions for elementary related arts non-certificated so uh two support positions one of those conversations has been had already one one is still pending um middle school so we had we've had four Middle School teaching assistants who have been funded by Esser money so that's the federal money that um every District in the country got which was not allocated equally some districts got way more based on smaller populations sounds like S2 doesn't it um and uh so what we we use some of ours to fund Middle School teaching assistance and every district is faced with the same Choice which is these positions that were funded through outside the regular budget you either bring them back in and you pay for them out of the regular budget or they elaps they Sunset and we're going to bring two back in and let two uh go essentially let two of those positions end at the end of the year budget arily to balance it we're trimming two Elementary teaching assistant positions so there's no budgetary impact um from that standpoint for a total of 120,000 there other steps we reduce departmental spending each year for the last four years we found this year that we had hit bottom with that grants always looking for Grants applying for any that are relevant and we're eligible for school resource officer shared services agreement with the township I want to thank the township for that we got that a few years ago it's still good through next year and it splits the cost of our SRO we have one per School building it's a fantastic um support and one that very few towns have um so always thankful for that transportation department so Mr eids mentioned earlier about Transportation costs our district has to Outsource about two-thirds of our bus routes so we have 27 drivers and that covers a third of our routes we're continually looking for efficiencies including we've even looked at start times and beer we move back 10 10 10 minutes uh last year as a way to try to accommodate some iron out some wrinkles with Transportation there were some sidebars on the agenda tonight all relating some way to Transportation but one specifically increases wages for our drivers because other districts are increasing wages all around us so we're all competing for the same limited pool um and one thing we started doing this year was we had all of our drivers start earning benefits which is something very important and we're hoping over time with those steps to be able to build up our transportation department every driver we can add lets us pull back routes that are outsourced and at this point since there there's really nothing left with non- Staffing to cut the cuts are coming out of Staffing so all any money we can save by pulling a route back can go towards um increasing Staffing ad to C with State elected officials do that every year there we've had meetings as well in between um but annually absolutely even if we're the only District uh in that you know virtual hearing um not sure how much good it does but it can't hurt um the I my updates my last two updates shared ways that uh anyone can help with that as well and I would urge anyone to go there and check out those ideas and uh if you have some time reach out to our legislatures uh you know going back to the $31 million cumulatively that we've lost through S2 that's 31 million reasons to be a little ticked off and it's a decision that's rolls down on us from way high leaving us 150 teaching positions short of an average District our size School Bus advertising that we we've tried that we've never actually gotten full capacity of advertising any any uh business owners out there there's there's room for your ads on our buses and it brings in about 4 ,000 and then facility use fee increases we've done that as well other steps um mention grants exploring property sale so we've tried for the past three years to sell our property I'll get into that a little bit more later solar panels and additional cell tower we explore that um we have a lot of solar it it we have a um guidance from uh like a solar broker and um at this point it's not recommended to expand that health benefits reimbursement we've tried uh we tried in the past um voluntarily serving staff it didn't result in savings um it would cost our district more to change if we increase the reimbursement because of course you know like when you do that then you need more people to opt out um subscription busing just another thing that mostly happens in North Jersey we tried it uh three years ago um and it definitely was like fell like ton of bricks um and uh was not well received so um not you know not to say that we couldn't always keep talking about any idea but um some follow-up ideas uh so appreciate you know ideas people have shared ideas it's fantastic um it's great to have people thinking about these problems so we wanted to give some responses to collectively to some of the buckets of ideas that were shared and the first bucket is busing so cutting courtesy busing or all courtesy busing we do work on that you saw in the presentation earlier trying to peel back uh routes each year it's gradual work thankful to the township as we work with that because the crossing guards are the responsibility of police and it does increase costs uh for the township as well as the improvements um to structurally to to roads and and sidewalks and so on cutting late buses that's one that came up appreciate that as well uh it would cost our district more to cut late buses so I mentioned earlier about our drivers earning benefits this year and that's how we keep them they would walk if they didn't have those um I know that because just from meeting with that drivers multiple times that is the number one uh concern and um so if we cut late buses we would they would drop below 30 hours a week and lose benefits and then we'd be Outsourcing more routes school lunch ideas that came in um increasing the cost of school lunch our our feeling on that is uh it would decrease the number of students who are purchasing and then potentially have fewer kids eating and eating well uh affecting our you know this the cut off for um qualifying for free reduce is not high and there are a lot of families who don't qualify but you know would struggle um with a higher cost of lunch cut the size of lunches uh lunch size is based on Federal and State requirements so we can't we can't do anything with that appreciate the ideas again um properties okay I wanted to talk about this so um yeah we've tried this goes back actually uh that subscription busting it goes back to really those days um in Spring of 2021 um the uh yeah I would just say it's it's an ongoing process um appraisals can vary um we're trying to find a a fair common ground and um we're currently seeking updated appraisals appreciate would welcome you know welcome all further discussion on that selling the admin building issues there uh moving brings costs uh and people may not know it but the uh that building has two stories the bottom story is completely full of our records storage and um it is the uh the depot for the district for um storage as well the um our other buildings uh don't have a lot of space for those those hallways um at the admin building and uh it wouldn't be used for um it wouldn't be rented it would definitely be a tear down uh from its age extracurriculars appreciate these as well eliminating after school activities um you know and and again like I just I think of a a district next door to us that um is uh does not have any Elementary activities it it has only middle school and high school activities um and it it is sad when you see the elementary school completely empty at the end of a school day um it would save 330,000 total uh our activity feed covers about 45% it's generally been a little higher than that but uh it dipped a little bit this year so we are looking at that and going to keep talking about if what we can do to reduce that Gap ideally uh there would be no Gap but um it's it's partly due to an increase in the amount of extracurriculars that we've been offering so that's a good thing and uh it's just something that takes a lot of care to do because um some to be to be frank there are kids who come to school just because of extracurriculars you know like it might just be because of baseball that's why I'm coming in and if they're not the key the first thing that has to happen is they have to come to school you know all the rest of this doesn't matter if they're not in with us so I I you know that's a that's there are huge benefits academically to a strong extracurricular program uh increased activity fee uh we could do that we have we have been increasing it each year the hard thing is um we you know we and we kind of uh gauge ourselves against um a local high school to make sure we're not you know because what a high school can offer is even more than what we can offer and so we can't really be charging what a high school's charging um and uh but we do we do look at at the activity fee and we increase each year so appreciate appreciate that um there's also that piece where if you raise it too much kind of like with school lunches then fewer kids are participating uh are engaging in that so that's a factor administrative reductions this one came up um cutting administrators uh I would say if we go back to this slide hold on I got to go all the way back here to the beginning so there's only two areas where we are absolutely the leanest of all districts out of the 71 districts in the state that are K8 with 751 kids or more and those two areas are both related to Administration so we have more students per administrator and if you look at that you can see that not only are we lean but as other districts over the past last five years their ratio of students to administr went down ours went up significantly and the other number one is total administrative costs so we spend Far and Away the least per student administratively and while that is understandably an area that people look to First the vital functioning of a barebones administrative team is important for the overall success of every wheel turning into a school district and lastly cut Dr Smith the superintendent I'd say just a couple data points there his salary is less than those of similarly or even smaller sized districts while quality might increase our our district would our district would pay more and the next person would be making the same recommendations firmly believe follow up to ideas suggested for academics pay Middle School teachers to teach a sixth class during their prep instead of replacing team time with a sixth class um couple wrinkles there one is it would cost a district money instead of saving money and also it would leave building to build a schedule is incredibly complex work that so thankful again who who's doing that work our administrators um to do it based on an Ever shifting voluntary basis of teachers uh with that sixth class would be impossible cutting technology classes from elementary school and again each of these suggestions is very welcome and it also helps to um kind of like illuminate some of the background reasons for things so our technology teachers help our students achieve required standards right so were required to meet computer science and design Thinking by the end of grades 2 and five and the technology classes achieve that as well as providing uh part of a teacher's contract classroom teacher contractual prep time the uh these two items I did want to follow up on from our last board meeting a claim that came up a bunch was a lack of transparency to that a district builds its budget timeline based on state timelines so and Mr Yates mentioned this when he was talking about the the late announcement of state aid for districts and how much it can change we saw a district multiple actually that we share borders with find out they were losing Millions more in state aid than they thought it's horrendous we can't share a budget until we have that information and then it takes even more planning one year we lost more than we thought this year we gained a little bit back but we still lost half a million we have to explore options internally that's sound process but it is human nature at the same time that that might increase rumors districts in New Jersey are requ required to give one Public Presentation on the budget and a lot of them only do that which means this presentation would not be happening this happens because we choose to share because it's important to do that as well as conducting eight budget meetings we did it last year and this year with staff individually and we started doing that last year because Staffing impact was growing um and once we do that as well that means information is out but not out right um and I'll just and many in this room were part of this story of our district going back to fall of 2020 a very difficult time when during covid we were talking about phasing out the benefits for some of our PA professionals that was a very public topic and if nothing else it underlined the very drastic and dire Circ cumstances of our district it's only gotten worse since then we've seen tonight the millions we lost since that point and that's where we were four years ago this is the opposite of surprising or should be where we are right now the other claim that came up was that we promised not to make certain changes if the fdk ballot question passed to that so nothing can be promised period right especially in S2 District we said what might happen in order to pay for full day kindergarten specifically to full day kindergarten that is a ballot question it's outside the regular budget additional money for something not in the regular budget at no point was anything said this will forever prevent these changes from happening nor would it have been any ideas steps and possibilities not addressed in this presentation please keep sharing them you know you saw tonight we included followup on a bunch of different suggestions there's time between now and uh and our final budget presentation and and approval meeting to to look into and um follow up on any other ideas and as we talked about earlier like knowing that the cost of operating a district increases faster than the tax levy we could well be looking at Cuts next year and the year after that certainly this year's process and the years before that it always starts with the list of stuff that we didn't that was fortunately a bridge too far that we didn't need to look at but we may need to look at at the things again next year it feels like a waking nightmare most of all for our staff questions from the [Music] board thank you Dr Smith um questions from the board or comments Miss um yes what uh maybe Dr Smith or Mr Yates um could you explain what would happen if this budget didn't pass tonight procedurally where would we go from there given the county deadline tomorrow yeah so uh it's not uh entirely clear but I could tell you that we would have to notify the county you know that we did not meet our statutory deadline most likely the county would then say you need to hold an emergency meeting as soon as possible to get the budget passed and submitted um what happens beyond that I don't know I would we would consult our solicitor who would probably do some research yes and um you know realistically it would be up to the county and the state what kind of um disciplinary measures for the lack of a better word they would want to take uh there may be some qac finding some kind of fiscal intervention uh it just really depends it would be in their discretion but most likely they would just tell you they would originally say uh you know figure it out um but they could also step in and try to start making decisions every County's different so in every situation is different so they handle it differently but we are legally required to submit a budget by tomorrow de line thank you Boo um one more question I find it frustrating that we're up against this uh County deadline tomorrow and I understand there were scheduling conflicts last week and yesterday and that's the situation we're in now and we're here um my question Dr Smith is obviously we have a lot of passionate community members and teachers here tonight writing emails um online what is the plan after tonight to engage in a dialogue with the community before the final [Applause] budget it's a great question and it's it's an opportunity a fortunate opportunity to be able to answer it now that we're all working off of the same information that's the that's another purpose behind a presentation like this is to provide information publicly consistently for everyone so that we can use the time between now and whenever we have our final budget meeting to continue talking you know and I can't even imagine what it would be like for district to present something only on the final budget approval meeting so we will work out opportunities to meet with our stakeholders to discuss ideas share information and and I'll be sharing that out about what that looks like and reaching out to those groups to to be able to set that up but we want to use the time between now and that final budget meeting now that we're all having the same information to try to Foster common understanding thank you Mr dearcy I I've spoke before about how crucial the situation is we face with the state aid cut so I'm not going to elaborate on that any further uh most of the people in the crowd tonight are Educators I'm sure that they are very well aware um in facing that challenge The crucial step is looking at every stone turn turning over every stone looking at every possible option as far as the budget goes and where you're going to have to make up that money uh you know for our sake and for our understanding would you mind answering what the process for that looked like sure so we start um it's a 12 months it's actually when you're in S2 District I'd say it's a never-ending process of how to build a budget you know and and thoughts about this year started at the beginning of the budget cycle last year you know so it was the budget got approved in May last year and we as a Cabinet as a board we already knew what we were looking at for this coming year then come fall we meet administratively and gather ideas as sort of like a district leadership team involving input from all departments that's from a sort of a looking at what should we what cuts should we make in order to reach the number that's been developed by the business office you know and that number in the fall was at one point higher than it is now and through different efficiencies we were able to lower it um so this this the story of this evening was even worse at different points throughout the fall um the um we have uh liaison meetings with ETA and have had some talk about like we can't quite share what's going to happen with the budget because it's not public yet it's not the Forum to talk about the uh the U the the full budget but theoretical discussions about what might be cut and offering basically like please any suggestions you know share um and that then we talk about what's shared um and I I'll I I can you know Mr renti who is our business administrator who retired on January 1st isn't here to talk about the process through the fall but I wouldn't mind just giving Mr y a chance to talk about the business office process since he came on board at the end of January sure so uh in terms of finding um or turning over every stone we're constantly evalu Val ating our current expenses we're determining where we can find efficiencies and we're working in collaboration with the dep departments and Dr Smith um for context there right you don't really want your business office making decisions that are going to have educational impacts our job is to present the facts black and white here's where our gaps are help us identify how to close those gaps um we reevaluate our revenues too and our projections there see if there's anywhere where we might have some flexibility and then there's the the thank you Mr there's also the board process you know that the budget comes to tonight through our finance committee multiple meetings and since we started adding board Retreats a few years ago discussion through board retreat and discussion through any board member who wants to reach out and uh have conversations along the way which I know you did um shortly after you're uh swearing in yeah I have is my mic working no yep I have a few questions um speaking of the finance committee I I believe I saw in one of the slides about increasing fees um anyone from the finance committee want to explain uh did I see that right there was a slide about increasing activity Club activity fees yeah so we increased Club activity fees uh by $5 for elementary and $5 for middle which um you may remember from your time on the finance committee last year that um we we're following the same process we followed then um so there there we are um trying rather than sometimes the district will not make changes and then we'll drop a big change we prefer to go incremental wherever we can so I see okay I only bring that up because I had asked for um possibly looking at uh charging multiple fees in middle school and I'm just want to make sure that we look at that if that is something that's viable as we move forward rather than just raising that Middle School fee um possibly keeping the club fee at Middle School at a you know slightly lower rate and then also charging an addition to a sports fee where a student can play any sport they want throughout the year that's a suggestion that I had brought to the finance committee but perhaps it was too late and something if you could look at moving forward I'd appreciate that absolutely I'm just um I'm jumping to uh your suggestions anticipating um this slide you had it there we so no we we we do we want to look at that's it's really like a um coming up with a can we enhance longterm the way that we structure our extracurriculars in order to reduce the gap between what the activity fee covers and what our district is paying from the regular budget right okay fair enough and then also I I just I believe I asked this before this is a bit loud but as far as estimating a 35 or 34% increase for transportation for next year I think that's what's in the budget an estimate of a 34% increase in transportation I don't know what that is representing you know I was on the finance for many years and we discussed that quite often and we only saw numbers like that like for example when Hillman's came back and said we don't want to take the CPI we're going to increase by 25 27% is that what's going on here yeah so good to point that out so our transportation department this year has gone through a lot of change right so we we've actually we're actually on we so Barbara ol right was our transportation coordinator last year at this time and she served 53 years in the district fantastic right retired um after a long career and um then we had our assistant coordinator Patty Meer became coordinator um and um she retired on December 31st and now we have Rob Cedar who we're very glad to have back and Rob had previously been the coordinator in Vorhees before that he was assistant coordinator here so he kind of has an inside outside lens the issue though to that increase was during the process of that change is we had to Outsource more routes because we were losing some drivers due to among other things why we have the sidebar on the agenda tonight you know um other departments paying more and also trying to just strengthen the department overall right um which every coordinator brings positive elements and each did and now with uh Mr Cedar uh as coordinator I believe we're going to be able to strengthen the department um more and more and that'll result in being able to take back more routes but during that transition period we lost a few drivers okay so my question is then from and I'm sorry to ask a million questions but this year budget versus next year you're anticipating a a almost a million doll 34% increase in transportation am I reading that correct no um so if I can clarify that what your seeing is the difference between what was approved last year okay and what we're projecting to spend next year but what we're projecting to spend next year is closer to what we're actually spending this year gotcha it is not a 34% increase from our actual expenses so the expenses increased this year substantially and we did not anticipate that correct okay so that brings me to there are there is something on tonight's budget related to out sourcing a route to Helman I don't know if it's one or two routes that perhaps could give information on the increases I see a Helman yep so every time we have a we lose a driver or we pick up a route because we have to send a student out of District or whatever the nuances is are of Transportation if we don't have drivers to fill those um those roots we have to Outsource the Helman got or we Outsource Helman is our our primary source of Outsource I hope something changes $43,000 for two months there is the sidebar on tonight's agenda which we are hopeful will bring drivers back in District so we can then bring routes back in District I have another question for you Mr Yates I'm sure you have the answer but on the resolution it says capital projects this is on the actual resolution and you and I emailed a little bit about this but uh it says capital projects 1.8 48 but and you're moving money from the capital reserves but it's 1555 can you explain why that is different yeah not all of the expenses in fund 12 would qualify for a a withdrawal of capital reserve okay I don't know what fun 12 is our capital outlay okay so we are required to charge certain expenses there and the withdrawal of capital reserve is for those Capital Improv movements so those numbers almost never will match okay so our capital projects are exceeding the amount that we can withdraw from the reserves am my understand in correct the other way okay you're withdrawing less money from Capital the amount of money that we are required to budget in capital outlay exceeds the projects that would qualify for a withdrawal from capital reserve I see okay and what projects are within that part of the budget if you don't mind going over the because you and I emailed about it sure so we are going to be replacing our HVAC controls across the district um and that's going to give Mr Donahue and his team access to one touch on one screen control any building in the district additionally we are replacing fire alarm panels in two of our buildings Mr Don two of our buildings um the other buildings have already been replaced so we're now going to be upgrading fire alarm panels in the two buildings which have not been upgraded yet and there's a boiler replacement that we are going to be uh withdrawing for as well this is not boilers related to the capital emergent needs funding I did ask you that but and then also the control um you did you talk about the controls the psng that unite that is not the that is is not related to capital reserve withdrawal but those are also some of the projects that'll be going on and what about the there were bathroom projects projects on there as well yes I'm sorry so we're also withdrawing for a couple toilet room facilities at Jagger rice and deing okay and that's to be used from the capital reserves correct great okay I may have had another question let me check um nope I think that's everything thank you thanks Mrs no any other board members was to Mr visc uh Dr SMI Dr Smith um couple couple questions for you um one apologize here trying to find my wording um I want to talk about one of the things that irks me a little bit here um now first you know before I I say anything because I think it's really clear uh that we should all be on the same page about what tonight is uh tonight is a tentative budget approval all right to me personally that sometimes acts as a placeholder budget in case or for instances in situations like this where if the board has a lot of lot more questions or wants to see changes it has the time to make make doe until that final budget that final budget is what's really important to me tonight to me more like a placeholder and there's some things that I'm concerned about one of the things that that I'm I'm concerned about in particular um I I am concerned about the individual study aspect here that we'll be losing particularly in middle school 7eventh and eth if the board's wish is to go through with this plan and to be clear to be clear about this all right been doing these for seven years now um making these type of cuts and when I say the board's wish I don't think the board is really wished on any of this uh I I you know it's it's not like the board finds pleasure or Glee or or excitement uh it finds nothing but pain not the pain that you are feeling in the audience because you're living your life with this every single day um I I can relate to that uh being in in your shoes at another district and I I understand I understand um that gives you no Solace it gives you no comfort and I I'm and that's that's that's reasonable uh but I the individual study aspect if if let's say that this plan goes through all right I'm not comfortable with losing individual study I I think it needs to be charged that we need to find another way to incorporate individual study inside this curriculum inside for seventh and eth grade that we find a way that these seventh and eighth graders have the ability to still meet with their home room teachers in some capacity that's outside of because this gets thrown around and as an educator myself I get a little I get a little ticked by this the expectation sometimes from people is that well they can meet with them before school or after school uh or they can meet with them during their their their uh their contract at lunchtime and to be fair it that that makes the charge that that those teachers have nothing better to do which we we can't it's which I know is factually incorrect all right so where where I'm trying to say is I I think there's a couple things are important obviously teacher team times really important but we're looking specifically at the kids and and uh and and what their parents have been asking for and when we read these emails they're really worried about that individual study if we move to this system my charge here my charge is before we get to the final budget I should say is that we find a solution for that individual study within the realm of the time frame of the school day not before not after not at lunch for a time look does that am I saying that teachers shouldn't meet with with kids during lunch that's their prerogative if they want to do so but it also doesn't have to be the prerogative either if they want to look there are days that yeah I'll meet with a student at lunch and there's days that I'll tell a kid hey Home Room starts at 7:30 can you meet me over at 7:15 yeah okay that's fine but that's my prerogative to do so but I don't want I don't want to be as an educator pigeon held in into that idea so what I'm what I'm asking for what I'm asking for between now and then is to find the charge in order to find some kind of grounded time to create an individual studies uh it doesn't have to be in its form that it is now but in a form that is comparable all right that helps those kids because not every kid is utilizing individual studies but there are some kids who seriously they they need that they Absol they absolutely utterly need that um it's what gets them it's what gets them through some of their courses and I'm I am worried um about about the students educational well-being their mental well-being their emotional well-being because when you're a student and you don't get something something something that that accent came from when you don't get something all right it starts to fester in their brain I said my daughter I I I love my daughter I think she does great in school but man when she doesn't get a math problem my gosh the house falls down and I'm married to a math teacher all right so I am concerned about that and I want to make sure that that is um that is a charge that I I want to see taken care of uh before we get to that final budget because again whatever ever we do here tonight is a little moot comparatively to what that final budget is and I believe there are more discussions that need to be made I think there is more dialogue that needs to be made and I think that is a primary concern for people um so I just I want to throw that in I it wasn't a question I apologize I said it was a question but I didn't throw a question mark in the back of that I think it was more of a charge and I now you know and very appreciated and we can talk with our middle school administrative teams to to figure out what some options might be in that regard and then bring that back I just want to I want to make sure these kids are protected um now the question do you have about that I and I apologize and I I don't mean to take up people's time if I'm going over my time here just please let me know I talk too damn much sometimes um the Middle School aspect all right because sometimes this gets confused and even I was confused for a little bit here all right so the concept that you you brought up for the middle schools all right you called it a modification correct that was that was correct you referred to that all right so let's say for example let's pretend all right let's pretend that I'm in seventh grade green I'm in seventh grade green which I was back in 1994 when I had far thank you thank you I don't know who that was but Greenhouse love you guys um and I you know I had social studies with Mr mcol and math and Miss Ryback love them all right but the question was I was there now I stayed I stayed relatively in that pod and I crossed over that green the greenhouse pod I I crossed over for electives and I crossed over for lunch your charge here is that I may say I have social studies with my Greenhouse teacher I may have math with my Greenhouse teacher but I may have science and Redhouse yes am I getting that correct yes okay so go continue I'm sorry no no no yes so you would walk from green to Red so just green all right for are we looking at one or two classes here are we like what are we looking at here yeah so we both schools ran the schedule like basically vetted it out kick the tires on it to make sure that it works with the staff that we have it would look a little different depending on like which which subject are you walking for and so on that's that's all in in schedules that will still need to be built based on the current circumstances so we tried it we know it works which subjects kids are ultimately walking for will depend on how they how they are scheduled it won't be the same for every kid because just like you know when you're walking between classes you might have you know there are multiple science teachers multiple Math teachers Etc so so so like you could have you could be a Green Hall student and have the have math and Green Hall and Science and red hall or vice versa depending on which teacher is available that period okay but your primary base is still seventh grade green so you will when you're in sixth grade you're in your house you're in your hall right yeah and then you move to seventh GR grade and again what as the middle schools talk it out but you're as you're moving around you are in that you know you're basically grouped by house and then you're going to move and walk so by Home Room no I hold on I I I apologize I just I need I just need Clarity on this this is really important me for understand just because again it's been it's been a while since I've been in middle school and I Know M I know and I I know this from Walking The Halls just you know I I got lost in Marl to midle it's been since sixth grade since I've been here um there's still is there still a there's still a Home Room my daughter's in fifth grade so my daughter's going to middle school so I don't have the Middle School thing memorized like I used to have it memorized um is there still a Home Room Factor there there is still a home room that's all right because that's what the individual studies aspect had had that right yes okay so would that be their home base like for example where their lockers are located yeah where they where they know the teachers from the year before that's you know whether it's how much movement back and forth remains to be seen based on the schedule if that makes sense the the the here's here's the thing I I and and again you know we have talked about this for the next month and a half or so we we have a lot of a lot of moving Parts here right we have a lot of moving parts and I'm not just talking about this I mean it's like it's it's literally everything all the time and what I'm trying to find here and what I'm I'm trying to search for here is for allowing allowing for these students to have familiarity all right I change can be good but change needs to be incremental change too quickly can cause some some havoc and what I'm looking for here what I'm looking for here is if you're going to create this system to try to keep as much normaly in it as possible so that we eliminate some of the havoc and I'm what I'm looking for here is and again like we said this is tentative all right we're we're looking now into the month and a half all right I'm I'm looking for more consistency for those those those kids we want the same thing so when it comes to movement with the [Applause] students if there's availability in their pod in their Hall then that's where they're being scheduled but if we if they have to walk to Red then they walk to Red for that class and then they walk back you know and it's pod still takes precedent yeah yeah that's what I want I want the Pod to be precedent we what I would say is this until we build the schedule it's it's it's hard to say how those things will fall out but what I would say ultimately is the familiarity the foundation of familiarity they built in six and having their lockers and their kind of their main area still in the Pod that they came through in six means that when they're walking and they're identifying they're identifying with those house that house that they started in okay all right let me change the subject one more thing for you go any further here um and this is this is this is important um you talking about adding you know what actually let me I got to I got to rephase this that can you can you go another question someone else has another question I have to rethink what I'm going to say here sure I think I lost my my thought on that Mr that um yeah I basically I want to get some commitment down if we can lock that down I mean not you know the nuts and bolts of it but I really want to have you know representative public reach out um after this we have time after this since this is a since and I really want to get that like you know so we have like for example there's like you know I know there's one group you know parents United it's a you know well organized group get like representative leadership you know from there like for instance you know Cindy Rogers Jen pman Aaron sa invite them into like a finance meeting so we can actually have like dialogue with that and it wouldn't be like you know a whole room thing so like you know people just get into yelling and everything like that constructive dialogue every you know people pull together small group and then you know information can you know disseminate out from there you know um Jamie had a great idea about having you know another you know board retreat or anything like that you if we want to use time for that um or you know inviting him to like a finance meeting and dedicating time to that and extending that meeting you know a little bit um we you know might even need you know in the month and a half we have you know here we might even be able to do that a couple times if we need to can we get commitment you know for that and figure out like you know who we need to reach out you know who to reach out to and make sure we get that yeah absolutely and and I and I'm glad for your ideas about what that could look like you know we we we met um with a the the the phonics group recently uh at our administration building and I could see it looking a little like that where it's representatives from um different stakeholder groups that we all have a common interest in in trying to be able to try to walk together on on this budget yeah I I just want to make sure we have everything you know exhausted by the time the final vote comes out you know I know this is a preliminary um you know vote for the you know the tenative budget um but I really think that it behooves us you know to make sure that we have that reach out to make sure we are you know knowing everybody that every stone has been you know turned and figure out like you know if something else you know can come up and especially in the meantime you know parents please keep flooding the state you know as well um you know there's there's activity happening in that area you know please keep reaching out to them to see if you know maybe some something will happen in between now and then that you know they release some extra funds um you know keep that organization going as well um but and we'll make sure that we get you know a representative group together and you know thank you for you know being up for that if you're up for that yeah absolutely thank you can I add something here to I'm sorry but to Joe this is um I get a feeling that there was a little bit of politics here trying to add back the independent study because that was a a a a stickler for somebody but I'm glad you're asking questions this is about the entire team you you're saying you know make sure the independ independent study is not taken away uh it's not just about the independent study I'm a little confused by the phrase politics here are you accusing me of something there or I just got the Feeling with the you know a little bit of the conversations and um you know yeah I just don't know what happened in in the back room there and if it's trying to you know give an olive branch to somebody about independent study I think that you should look at the entire team model and not just focus on the independent study time well and and also I just want to say and I'm happy that you're you're asking questions thank you can I jump in before yeah okay yeah you may I wanted to say um in terms of Jamie and Dave meeting with certain stakeholders I also think a select view from the board doesn't have to be the whole board um I I think it should not just be administration at that meeting because I think everyone has some ideas and may comment things differently um sort of in in defense of Joe for me independent study like I I get the whole team time um one of the notes I took down I know my child had severe anxiety when she was younger in middle school she was not a kid that would raise her hand if she didn't understand things or go to a teacher in class and for kids like that it may not be feasible to come early or or stay late and it may not be feasible for those teachers so for kids like that independent study may be the only time that they can I know I couldn't help her with math I went to every Jagger math school night I still don't understand how bar models so for someone that a kid that needs help that may not be a kid to speak up I think for me like yes that independent study is the most important part of the team model to me I understand that everyone has their priorities but that's appreciate it and we're going to look into that and see what we can come up with in terms of uh alternatives to keep independent study in some fashion the way you've described it so Mr Marcy thank you um first of all just as a disclaimer I don't think politics is a motive of anybody on this board putting that out there um either way either way I'm concerned my biggest concern with all of this uh Remains the mental health support that a student might be able to receive as a result of the planning and the initiatives created during extra time out at that is my [Applause] biggest I mean speaking on behalf of an entire generation I don't even think I'm qualified to do that you have in the aftermath of covid-19 it's a crisis it it is it is a huge crisis and and it's one of the very reasons that that that I'm here um I was glad to see that we passed the ballot initiative last year uh in regards to the mental health issue uh because that's where these issues are going to be solved in the schools what is going to be done to remedy the ability of intervention and identifying kids who are now going to be flowing throughout the school and are going to have less time within the pods uh what is going to be done to remedy the intervention that is going to be needed to help those kids and get them the services they need in school MH so wholeheartedly agree about the importance of mental health right and we go back to the mission statement at the beginning of the presentation what we're trying to do with all these steps is to keep all the students in mind right so that's what led us to the 700,000 step for grade seven and 8 is because if it wasn't that where is that 700,000 coming from and and and what affects in terms of academic support mental health support would that have on other students right um so this you know again just just and and some of this would need to be talked out school by school because these are big changes right but our elementary schools their inrs so basically their their intervention and referral service teams meet without a team time you know they meet and IEP meetings take place also outside of uh Team time because there is no team time it could look like that in middle school there are existing examples of how to do that also if you don't if you don't mind I don't mean to interrupt could you just kind of detail what some of those examples look like in terms of how you know meeting face to face with with parents um and the stakeholders of of you know a child who who may have an IP or is you know being considered for one yeah yeah and I'm going to uh actually let um our director who supervises those inrs meetings to talk a little bit about that to give you the greatest detail possible thank you which one all right I'll do and then she'll do special ed um but if you're asking specifically at elementary school what he's referring to um the team meets a certain day there's Subs that are covering and then the team has different Representatives um on there who have meet with the teacher the teacher will come down talk about whatever the students needs are specifically uh the biggest difference obviously is at middle school they do it during team time um so that they can talk to all the members of the team in that regard so that would be that's the shift there that you wouldn't you need sub coverage basically um like we do at elementary and for IEP meetings I will pass it over similarly for uh for IEP meetings the we need a general education teacher and a special education teacher uh along with related service providers and once those meetings are scheduled we arrange substitute coverage at at the buildings to cover cover those meetings so all those meetings would still continue and they're legally required by code to have all those Representatives present and if the parent provides consent those those teachers or providers can be dismissed from from the meeting if if you don't mind um the it is my understanding that we currently have a shortage of substitutes across just about every District in the country in the most constructive way possible what is the plan for making sure that the face-to-face meetings occur between parents and teachers and that that time is ready and available outside if if we engage with this model outside of you know uh substitutes because I I you know I I don't know if I agree that that is going to always be a ready and available option to make sure that you know it meets with not only do you know teachers have schedules But but so do parents so uh you know what's what what's the plan to to to make sure that these meetings aren't going to not happen or they become a subsequent consequence of the fact that you know we don't have enough Subs to cover classrooms as is [Applause] so these inrs meetings and IP meetings happening in elementary are happening in our current substitute conditions right so they are happening in exactly this overarching sub shortage which I would say is you know we we pay a little bit more than some districts for substitutes and we started that during the pandemic because during the pandemic we we operated school for full days whereas other districts were operating for partial days and we had to pay more to get people to want to come in and we kept that going so we could look at that as a possibility and I also think I'd like to see what the schools again it's when when it comes to changes like this it feels I I I feel a bit presumptuous speaking for how something would happen in a building when there are experts in that building who could who haven't had a chance to talk about it yet that's fair it's just you know the the concern again relates to the fact that this is probably one of my biggest issues when it comes to education um is is those is those intervention services and and you know having a plan developed uh if if this does get passed having a plan developed to I mean because again you know you mentioned we have the overlapping substitute situation in elementary school but we're talking about adding a thousand kids uh you know to to to a model that would require IEP meetings uh outside of of of a team time um developing a plan to to make sure you know I'm well familiar at Cherokee right the substitute shorts got so bad they had to do a cafeteria right where you didn't receive any instruction at all you went to the the cafeteria and you sat in the cafeteria with with with a bunch of your other peers who's you know who who didn't have a teacher pres that that day um you know and I'd hate to see a model like that happen because teachers are required elsewhere you know to address these crucial issues and we and we would as well you know that's that's why we haven't we haven't done that here that that what you're talking about they are still do doing cafeteria classes because at least once a week my daughter sits in a cafeteria and doesn't learn anything yeah just just to to go even further with that their proposed budget for lenp regional is to eliminate all substitutes and everything will be Cafe class starting next year that's that was in their proposal today so if I can add one more comment to that before we get into other things I mean this is all coming from the state and as many emails as as I have seen and tried to answer please direct that same energy to the state government because they are the ones sending the cuts down this way and I think they should get some of the ey as well thanks Miss Fox any other questions or comments from the board seeing none we'll move on um this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions or comments litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these oh sorry mron uh yeah yeah all right go ahead good we good yeah yeah just make sure y um where are we good however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to 3 minutes per person please state your name and address at at the beginning and please one public comment per portion hello my name is Brian whtz vice president of ETA I've been an eighth grade teacher at DMS for 21 years and I'd like to speak to our association's concerns with some of the budget cuts proposed tonight first the tier three gifted and talented program over the last 10 plus years our district has made an invaluable investment in our tier three program which is underscore by best practices and a curriculum that stands as a beacon of Excellence a big part of what has made the tier 3 program successful in middle school is a dedicated period of week spent as a group these students get to collaborate with each other and discuss the curriculum we believe the restructuring will undermine the program the students will not be able to work together as easily we also believe that eliminating the tier three position in elementary school is against best practice and hinders the growth of our gifted and talented students in elementary by offering challenging and stimulating coursework pull out programs not only cater to the intellectual needs of gifted and talent Stu and talented students but also Foster a culture of Excellence that benefits the entire School Community maintaining a pullout program in elementary school aligns with the principles of equity and inclusivity just as we provide additional support for students who require remediation it is equally imperative to offer enrichment opportunities for those who demonstrate exceptional abilities by doing so we ensure that all students receive an education that is is commensurate with their individual aptitude and potential simply put there will be great activities such as Mo mock trials for instance that tier three students in elementary school will no longer be able to do additionally I'd like to address the increase in class sizes to grades four and five we have classrooms in some of our schools that are already bursting at the seams having that large of a class makes for Less individual attention to students are the numbers we saw an average or truly a cap classes will have too many guided reading word study and math Flex groups and the result will be less frequent small group instruction in addition students will receive less teacher feedback during Writers Workshop conferences these are formative grade levels for preparing our students for middle school and we believe the increase in class size will hinder their development and their education the larger class sizes are already a big struggle in our primary grades as well they're just too many needs and not enough hands to help out finally cutting two Middle School teaching assistant positions is is very detrimental to our students especially our struggling Learners as it stands now we don't even have that many Tas in Middle School our Tas are extremely helpful for our students providing extra guidance and individualized help this budget cut hurts some of our most vulnerable students and makes it harder for them to be successful I urge you to consider all this when discussing Dr Smith's budget cuts and restructuring proposals tonight thank you for your time my name is Tracy Brown I'm a teacher at Marlton middle and also the second vice president for ETA your proposal to restructure the middle schools to a junior high model is a horrible idea in fact have you noticed when you drive throughout New Jersey it's rare to find a junior high anymore they're dinosaurs of the past because about 50 years ago research found that adolescence are not just tall elementary students or many high schoolers they have unique academic emotional and social needs that are best met within the Middle School model dismantling our house and team system represents a huge step backwards for the students of etsd with cuts to state aid over the past seven years we are already doing more with less while students needs have continued to increase post pandemic with academic gaps social struggles and additional pressures in today's age of social media our current Middle School model allows for a team of teachers and staff to know the students more than just a number to develop relationships and Foster community of support here's a glimpse into a typical team 123 students 19 have IEPs 14 have 504s eight in tier three seven inrs and two home instruction so in in addition to the normal trials and tribulations of adolescence approximately 40% of our students have specialized programming or interventions in place team time is crucial for addressing these student needs making and revising plans discussion of Strat iies and meeting with counselors Vice principles and parents students would also lose independent study it's a time for all students to get extra help tier three meets special education students have time extra support extra time from their lead teachers students also organize binders Locker cleanouts this is just a very small glimpse when will all of these things occur if you dismantle our teams you know what it won't it can't the proposed schedule doesn't lie there won't be any common time to accomplish these things don't let him tell you otherwise the kids are going to lose out on so much Dr Smith you've repeatedly stated that ETA has offered no suggestions for saving the Middle School model we beg you to stop spreading fake news what has happened is this we asked to be included for months we were told to wait we offered a few ideas then sat across the room from you while you pointed a finger at us literally and said you've only offered two solutions despite this ETA still offered additional ideas and emailed the Board of Ed what we've experienced is everything but a collaborative effort you immediately shoot down any ideas that don't fit your agenda Board of Ed members dismantling our house and team model does not put children in their needs first and will destroy our middle schools forever that is what you're going to be remembered for we implore you to leave the current Middle School model intact hi uh Delina Jolene I'm the ETA uh treasur and at Marlton middle school but I'm actually reading this statement on behalf of Russ BS ETA president Russ wanted to be here this evening but he had to attend an njaa meeting regarding pension and benefits I'd first like to thank all the ETA members and parents who are here this evening to support our students and encourage the Board of Education to make informed decisions we've heard from Brian and Tracy about some of the devastating effects of program Cuts I want to take a moment to discuss a few more on The Chopping Block once again is family and consumer science in an era where life skills are often overshadowed by academic rigor family and consumer science plays a crucial role in preparing students for the realities of life this curriculum teaches fundamental skills such as cooking budgeting sewing and career planning which are essential for gaining independence moreover family and consumer science Fosters important values like responsibility resourcefulness and teamwork these are skills that students will carry with them long after they leave the classroom empowering them to lead fulfilling and productive lives we also oppose the loss of string lessons in grades seven and eight Dr Smith believes that students who are interested will receive private lessons this places a financial burden on District families and could deprive some of our students from pursuing music over the past few years our special education programs have been dismantled this continues to be evident by the decision to cut two of the four teaching assistants at the middle school level I really don't even know what to say here these two individuals teach six classes a day to approximately 150 to 200 of our neediest students the people in these positions are not even eligible for benefits how is this cost effective how is this what's best for students who is going to fill this role let's take a moment to discuss transparency I stand before you today to emphasize the crucial importance of transparency in our district transparency is something that our leader lacks transparency serves as a Cornerstone of accountability fostering trust integrity and Effectiveness within our schools and communities first and foremost transparency ensures that all stakeholders including students parents teachers and administrators have access to vital information regarding educational policies decisions and outcomes when information is readily available it enables informed decision-making and empowers individuals to actively engage in the educational process if we had transparency if we were included in the decision making process if Dr Smith valued our input you wouldn't have a room filled with concerned parents and employees and finally Dr Smith please stop saying that we offer no suggestions on how to save money we offer suggestions but you are quick to dismiss them you say they are a temporary solution well at least I think you're wrapping up I just want to let you know you're at 3 minutes I am wrapping up well at least our suggestions would buy another year to figure things out you say suggestions won't fix the problem because of the time frame well if you would have started working on them last year or the year before when we brought them to the table maybe they'd be ready to implement now Implement now nonetheless you have said over and over that the budget is your problem and no one else's if that's the case then the destruction of the school district rests solely upon your [Applause] shoulders hi my name is Vanda siski and I am an inclusion teacher at Marlton middle school so I just want to take a moment to speak actually in response to the conversation that was occurring about meetings IEPs inrs um specifically the comparison to how Elementary does it I'm going to start with inrs um remember that generally speaking right it's one teacher in an Elementary classroom possibly two if it's an inclusion classroom when we meet for and R Us during our team Mee team meetings we're talking about a minimum of four academic teachers to start if the student has a split language arts class we're up to five if they're in an inclusion setting six and whether or not they're in inclusion class having those inclusion teachers sitting on the meeting and other special education teachers to talk about the interventions what we could do if they were progressed to the classification process is valuable so it's many many more people and that's not to devalue anything that the elementary school teachers are doing because they work extremely hard and it's not fair that they have to have a sub in their room either so I just want to make sure that that's clear um I'm going to move on to IEP meetings I just finished my eth grade transition meetings um actually no I have one more that was rescheduled so far approximately for approximately 50% of my meetings a general education teacher who's required to be there by law has had to be pulled out and we've had to have parents come in and sign waivers on the spot before the meeting starts because we are ready don't have the sub coverage in our buildings so I just want to make sure that that's very very clear and let's talk about the time these students and parents deserve we've had meetings generally scheduled for an hour an hour and a half if necessary two hours the longest one that I know that occurred was recently three hours to make sure that the student was appropriately set up for their High School transition this is also the first time that eighth graders are brought into their meetings sitting in a room besides their special education teacher and their General Ed teacher they don't know most of the faces right so we are the people in the room besides their parents that they know and trust all important things when we're talking about transition but that's just eighth grade right we still have sixth and seventh graders and teams of teachers all sitting before you who are trying to do everything in their power to get those students set up for the best transition impossible as they move from grade to grade if we lose teams we lose all of this thank [Applause] you hi I'm Linda mman and I'm the reading specialist at Marlon Middle School and I do work with intervention so I would like to talk about that but before I do I wanted to address the um question you brought up about teams um and this modified team term that's come up tonight and um teams will happen in sixth grade but my understanding is after that the only part of the team that will exist for students is they will have the same guidance counselor and the same vice principal outside of that there will be no sense of Team those students will be placed with any teacher where the schedule fits it'll be made up of blue and yellow house students CU I'm at Marl to middle and there won't be a blue house class or Yellow House class they will be traveling all over the building there will be um travel time built into the schedule because students will be traveling throughout the entire building so I don't know where this term modified team is coming from sixth graders will have a team concept but then it'll be totally dismantled in seventh and eth grade so I hope that clarifies that a little bit CU I felt like that was very um unclear that's the way it was explained to the teachers so I think you know we need to explain it the same way to all of you um then I want to read what I had prepared to talk about in regards to intervention I have taught at Marlon Middle School since 1994 yes I'm that old and I've seen many changes over this time but no changes concern me as much as these most recent proposed ones my first concern is the loss of Team meetings and dependent study tea meanings are the time when teachers discuss students who are struggling academically socially and emotionally when teachers discuss students together they can see that there are patterns of behaviors and try to problem solve or the teachers can see that a student is prospering in one environment while floundering in another and work together to determine why team meetings are also the time where staff meet for intervention and referral services and plans are established to help students who are struggling these team meetings are invaluable in a time where students are having more academic and mental health issues than ever before independent study is a time for students to receive intervention in small groups and individually and to seek help when needed it is also a time for gifted and talented project based learning as well as a time to make a work from absences without missing more class instruction losing this time will also be a huge detriment to students I personally do an independent study group I actually meet with a small group every single independent study those students three minutes okay please um can I still speak or am I over okay um my next concern is the loss of the teaching assistant position in the middle school at present Marl to middle school I just meant like a final sentence well this is no you cannot do that I am sorry let me just say the final thing about the teaching assistant because um I'm sorry guys I have to everyone has the same opportunity to speak so I'll just say this last thing about a teaching assistant at present at Marlon Middle School we cannot meet the needs of the students we presently have an intervention I've actually had to tell parents we do not have services for them and you're cutting a teaching assistance which will cut our staffing by 30% we presently can't do it if you cut more staff I you know impossible thank you hi I'm Laura Davis I am a teacher here when I began teaching imoral to Middle School in 1999 close I was taken under the wing of my seven blue teammates I benefited greatly from such a close workking relationship with the same teachers that taught all of my same students I felt like I belonged even as I was settling into a new home and life outside of work but it wasn't long before I realized that even more importantly this team concept is essential for the success of our middle school students seventh grade is challenging if you've had a child go through these Middle School years you have to know that they aren't Elementary anymore but they aren't ready for high school yet they are friends with someone one day enemies the next their bodies are changing their workload and social relationships are changing but when they walk into Marlton Middle School they belong they have a core group of teachers that all work together to help them through these weird years they have an identity even when they may be questioning their own they have a place here even when it might feel like they don't know where that is outside of these walls the power that holds can be the anchor these kids need in a time in their life that is filled with changes and uncertainty at MMS they aren't just one of a thousand Mustangs they are seven blue they are eight yellow they don't get lost in the shuffle because their team of teachers know them and collectively work together to give each student what they need to mature and Thrive Middle School is a transition time an our Middle School setting with teams and cohesiveness and consistency Bridges the gap between Elementary and high school which is exactly where these kids are they are in the Gap people can fall through the cracks when they are in a sea of many our students don't hear at MMS because they are part of a smaller family too over the 25 years I have taught seventh grade here we've had students experience many life-changing situations and events we've had students struggle academically socially and personally my team uses our common meeting time to share our concerns meet with our counselor and vice principal and work together to help these students through these tough times we use our common independent study period to meet with those kids who need the extra time or instruction beyond the class period I know our students benefit from the team concept they have a core group of teachers as a United Force giving them the guidance and encouragement they need let me tell you how amazing it is to see a smile spread across the face of a student when they realize they are being cared for and cared about by their team of teachers it shows they know they feel here what they need children need support they need guidance they need to belong when we are loved we can thrive in a team concept this happens for many students our Middle School is their safe place please do not take this away from the hundreds of middle school students in Eve sham do not dismantle the team concept do not let the middle schoolers fall through the [Applause] cracks good evening Dr Smith and members of the board my name is Marne Benjamin and I am a vice president on the Marlton Elementary uh School PTA where my son is in fourth grade in Mrs scarpati's class I'm also vice president at Marlton Middle School where my son is in seventh grade and taught by some of the incredible teachers here tonight I am here to speak on behalf of our incredible Middle School um our incredible middle school and our tier three program um and getting and uh eliminating the tier three program is not in the best practice of the gifted and talented students of our school district I would like to begin by presenting some concerns regarding the cuts being made to ishim Township's tier three program what many people don't understand but parents and educator educators of gifted students know is that providing appropriate specialized instruction and curriculum enrichment opportunities and social and emotional support for gifted children is just as important as providing IEP services to children with special needs I can say this as the parent of both a child with an IEP and the parent of a child in the tier three program their needs are both equally critical to their growth and their development there are many reasons the proposed Cuts would be a major disservice to not just tier three students but all students in our district specifically it will reflect poorly on our District's reputation as a whole since the state of New Jersey is requiring more not less time to tier three programs I am hoping you'll strongly consider the following information when deciding if dismantling this program is in the best interests of our students the pullout sessions currently used for Elementry students are critical for gifted kids not only are these students working on projects the challenge them in a variety of ways they are working collaboratively with like-minded peers and guided by a specialized teacher specialized teacher not just any teacher who can support them in communicating with each other and with their social emotional development as I said earlier my gifted fourth grader needs pullout services in the same way as my seventh grader needed pullout services in sixth grade for language arts last last year to me there's no differentiation without the appropriate levels of Challenge and social emotional support that the district currently provides gifted children will be more likely to suffer from lack of motivation problems with engaging and focusing on schoolwork and mental health and behavioral problems waiting until middle school does not fall in line with the recommended practices which is why the law requires identification and services starting in kindergarten even though IAM Township doesn't actually do that until third grade in their position statements the National Association of gifted children states that differentiation is an approach that is necessary but not sufficient to comprehensive Service delivery for gifted Learners differentiation within classrooms should not replace more in ma'am you minutes services for gifted Learners thank you and I would just like to summarize by saying I also had some things to say about the teams program in the middle school and as was said previously the teams program is essential to the development of the students in middle school thank you so much hi my name is sheel pson and I'm a parent of a student who's in the tier 3 Program I'm bringing about some points for you to consider not cutting the the tier 3 Program in reality differentiation is not going to happen what exactly is the district's differentiation plan what will differentiate look like in the classroom who will be tracking progress ensuring Effectiveness in reporting to the state what specific training if any have classroom teachers had in gifted education considering that teachers will have more responsibilities than ever before how will they possibly be able to be handled this too and this won't affect just gifted children all of our kids will get less attention as increased demands are put on teachers specifically kids that have fallen behind when Co hid and need the additional support differentiation even if it if done effectively is not enough even if teachers receive the substantial training that would be necessary to enable them to level work for gifted students differentiation alone is not enough to sufficiently support gifted Learners according to the NJ strengthening gifted and talented Education Act which the state law passed in 2020 school districts need to among many other things consider the gifted programming standards position statements and white papers of the national Associated for gifted children in identifying and serving gifted and talented students differentiation with heterogenous classrooms should not replace more intensive services for gifted Learners gifted children have unique social and emotional needs and need to be with like-minded peers the NJ NC strongly recommends that curriculum geared to helping gifted children with social emotional and career development be part of gifted education programming both inside and outside the regular classroom the P sessions in elementary school are so important for gifted kids not only are they working on projects that challenge them all in variety of ways they are working collaboratively with like-minded peers and guided by a specialized teacher who can support them in communicating with each other in their social emotional development etsd is not keeping up with the state and federal trends and goals for gifted education if these cuts are made cutting gifted and talented Services is not the direction that the state of New Jersey and the county in general is headed New Jersey just passed the string gifted and talented education in 2020 it is a goal of the state to grow and enhance these programs and many districts are working on expanding them despite facing the same budget cuts that etsd is we are going to the opposite way for this proposal this population has so much potential in what they can achieve in our district gifted students are often overlooked because they can get by but they are also quite a sensitive group that can swing in the opposite direction of achievement if their needs are not met I completely understand that cuts need to be made but please consider not making those cuts to a program that serves this population which has such huge potential and so much to lose if neglected we need to think about the areas where the money is most impactful and our district tr3 program arguably the most impact ma'am you've reached three minutes so I'm wrapping of ensuring our students with exceptional abilities can reach the full potential thank you one second one second um to everyone who's speaking and especially to all those who don't get it in with the three minutes I say this every month please do email us what you're saying especially if it's already prepared um we would like the opport to to read them separately as well thank you hello my name is Jessica I'm also going to speak on the tier three program with the other ladies um my personal experience I'm going to share a little more anecdotal not a lot of research um but an experience in this District that I think is valuable for you to hear about my child's first grade year was remote due to obviously covid and not the board or anyone else um but just working first grade remotely we could see my husband and I at home home that my first grader was bored with the math that he was being presented with um his teacher didn't recognize that again at no fault of her own because she had a bunch of six-year-olds that she's just trying to Wrangle and stay their face on screen not even get to evaluate them for giftedness um so he missed out on that opportunity in first grade in second grade he took the sages which was probably his first experience with uh standardized testing and scored just shy of reaching the tier three criteria um so he was put on a like flagged list but he was not identified as tier three uh due to I think some budgeting reconfiguration after his second grade year he was rezoned to Mees from Rice um so brand new Educators a bunch of unfamiliar faces he was on a list but I think that his third grade teacher who was excellent had 27 students in her class which is more than the average or whatever was shared today um so she did not really seem to have the time to evaluate him for any propensity for math or science that I saw at home um again not at any faults of her own he went through third grade without being identified and finally this year in fourth grade I've pushed and his teacher has worked with me and we've finally after six months been able to identify him and he'll start tier three pull out soon um the reason I'm sharing that is because if you ECT differentiation in elementary school for tier three students there's not even enough time to identify them let alone educate them give them these challenges and then meet with parents I think four times a year or report to parents four times a year that's just not likely to happen and I feel like that's really a Miss for our tier three students like the other ladies have shared it's my son's legal right just like any child with an iep's legal right to have these services and I'd like to see them continue and elementary school thank you my name is Kimberly Henson and I have a student at beer good evening as you've been hearing we all have some serious concerns about the proposed budget of the many concerns one of the biggest is the Staffing cutet Middle School which will ultimately lead to the elimination of our team model approach the district that I taught at eliminated their team model approach several years ago since then the teachers there have not been able to provide the same level of instruction and care to their students their Team Planning time has been eliminated which is giving them fewer opportunities to work together and create individualized student- centered lessons based on their Collective experiences with those same students it has also created less time for social and emotional learning opportunities just because something can be done and has been done by others does not mean that it should I do understand that there is not enough money and that cuts have to happen however I also understand that in a time of such a budget crisis that our Administration has accepted salary increases and bonuses I also understand that opportunities to find the funds to cover at least some of the deficit even if just for this year to buy us time have not been explored we have been asked repeatedly by Dr Smith to trust him but that trust has been broken and it is your job to earn it back from us I cannot and will not support this budget until it has been proven that absolutely every other Avenue has been explored and I am imploring you as the board to do the same as our elected officials it is time that you act not in your own best interest not in what Dr Smith is telling you is best but in what is actually best for our students this plan is not a plan at all we keep hearing we don't know what it will look like yet we can't know what it will look like yet then you cannot accept this I am also officially requesting an additional collaborative meeting before April 25th to discuss this further I am not confident that if you accept this tonight that enough changes will happen before may we have been invited into the conversation too late and that is not our fault that is not our children 's fault do not accept this demand that Dr Smith go back to the drawing board demand that he include the teachers union parents and town representatives to go over every opportunity including Administration salary freezes and do not take away from our [Applause] children good evening my name is Colleen Ellis I have two sons in the district one is at um VanZant and the other is at Marlton Elementary um back in January I stood in front of this board after the switch was made from eam Child Care to just kids and my son lost his ability to attend the after Care Program because of his disabilities and I asked that you please consider in any future budget cuts the impact that it have on special education students and I can promise you that this proposed elimination of our team system in Middle School while affecting all students will disproportionately negatively impact those special education students you heard from several staff members that work with those kids and are standing here telling you that they do not have the time to meet the requirement of these students IEPs to have inrs meetings that are thorough and thoughtful and help kids that are on the cusp of being referred to the child study team and maybe don't have to if those interventions work and Mr pharo and Mr demarcy you asked thoughtful questions about what it's going to look like when that teams time is eliminated where is that going to come from and there's no answer because they don't have one one Dr Smith put that off to the experts that are standing here telling you they don't have an answer they were not included in the conversations that led to this plan and therefore they shouldn't be the ones that have to clean up this [Applause] mess I have two sons both have ADHD one is autistic and dyslexic and they are both thriving in their Elementary School environments because of the individualized attention that is given to them by their teachers by the child study team by their building administrators and part of the reason that my husband and I chose to move to this town was because we were assured by looking at the education system that that support was going to continue throughout their time in this District for it to be taken away now is devastating not only to my children but to many other children 25% I think you said of your budget of your student body is special education 25% of your students are going to be extremely hurt by this not only that but you're not going to be able to meet the needs of these students IEPs and then you're going to find yourself on the end of lawsuits that are going to be a lot more expensive than trying to to find the money to keep the house system intact ma'am you've reached three minutes if you could wrap it up you the board tonight have a small but distinct window of opportunity to do the right thing this plan is not even acceptable as a placeholder vote no thank [Music] you hello um just want to thank everyone in the board um even Dr Smith for continuing to give us your attention I know you're hearing a lot from a lot of different people both parents and staff alike I sent Dr Smith an email on March 7th I have yet to receive a reply but I do thank and appreciate the board members who took the time to acknowledge and thoughtfully respond to me Dr Smith's most recent email to parents and staff was sent on the 13th the day before the etsd parents United meeting in this email Dr Smith used the phrase the mission of a school district several times where does the Middle School fall in term in terms of our District's mission is the mission of a school district to neglect and push aside middle school children children with IEPs and 504s who will not be receiving the time accommodations and attention they are entitled to according to their individualized educational plan is the mission of a school district to neglect and push aside children who are at an extremely challenging time in their social and emotional development when you eliminate the middle school team model you eliminate the time children and teachers have together teachers join together to collaborate to discuss the needs of all the children we have the privilege and the joy to to work with when you eliminate our teams you also eliminate independent study this is an invaluable opportunity for children to meet with any or all of their academic teachers to get the support and time that they need to catch up to review skills and Concepts to make up assignments tests and quizzes and have their questions answered this time for children will no longer exist when teachers asked when in our day there would be time to give children what they need beyond their regular classroom period when teachers could discuss and collaborate about children Dr Smith suggested we meet before and after school and in the few minutes about eight minutes between dismissal and the end of our day teachers programs and time are being eliminated that have been there for children the focus now is on preschool and kindergarten both positive additions to our schools in the current plan as outlined in Dr Smith's March 13th email middle school children were lost we cannot push aside and minimize the needs of our middle school children thank you hi good evening my name is Jinger deetman 11 Lexington Circle I have a few topics I want to touch on as PTA president of deac Elementary and as a parent of a current fourth grader first I was relieved that the current fourth graders will be staying in their home schools for the 24 25 school year this was a good decision that will continue to give this particular group of students more consistency and stability in an environment familiar to them to be supported for learning and growing second while I understand that cuts must be made with the number as large as it is can we not also have conversations and brainstorming on fundraising and raising money as a community for our children putting aside our personal agendas and coming together as a collective group can there not also be conversations and meetings between the Board of Ed and the community before the next scheduled April meeting third being the PTA president I have the privilege of constantly being in our school at all all different times during the day and due to this I have gotten to know the teachers and the staff that I didn't know as well and have come to know the new teachers staff and principal and to be clear Dees started the school year with well over 10 related arts teachers this year plus eight new staff members and a new principal lots have changed we now have a staff since January for art music and PE all of which I've been able to get to know and form a relationship with in three short months Dees is always a school with the traveling related arts these teachers want to get to know our kids they want to be involved in events and activities our PE teacher reached out to me immediately after starting asking how can she get involved so that she can get to know our kids we have three 345 kids in our elementary we are not the smallest anymore I am asking you to consider Dees as The Homeschool for the related Arch that will be traveling next year lastly as a parent I am expressing my concern for the cutting and restructuring of the tier 3 Program being incorporated into the classroom how will this be executed differentiation is not enough excuse me our teachers are stretched thin already the kids of the gifted and talented program look forward to this pull out instruction where they have a voice that can be heard on topics and discussions that do not happen in the general classroom they participate and they work collaboratively with like-minded peers Guided by specialized teacher these children need pullout services and the same way that children with IEPs do my son has both an IEP as well as tier three ma'am you ma'am you reached three minutes I have okay I'm just wrapping up I can see the growth in the progress with the pullout instruction so I'm urging the Board of Ed to be sure that they are following the state law passed in 2020 regarding strengthening the gifted and talented Education Act as they make these decisions thank [Applause] you hello my name is Ain sapio I live at fairh Hill Court in Marlton I first want to thank the board for the hard work that you've been putting into this budget um it takes a lot of time and I appreciate the questions that you've been asking tonight we understand that the budget requires a focus on priorities for many of us the priority is to leave the Middle School teaching staff and structure alone we oppose cutting eight teachers from the Middle School we oppose dismantling the middle school hall and pods model which is also known as a teams approach which is evidence-based to be beneficial for cognitive and social emotional growth the budget presentation slide indicated that $700,000 would be saved by cutting these eight teachers so we're suggesting that to offset that projected savings we look at other options first you might use money saved from retiring teachers to fund teachers the number tonight was $80,000 as representing a teacher however retiring teachers are at the higher end of the scale and about $130,000 would be a more appropriate number for them so two retiring teachers could save three active teachers secondly uh we ask that you re-engage the Town Council about those selling those properties in Cambridge Park and country farms you mentioned this tonight which I appreciated and we know that the town offered to purchase those properties in 2021 I guess the price they offered wasn't acceptable so it went to the county just this past November 2023 and then it seems to have stalled so we're asking to really jump on that if there is an offer that could be money that could save our teachers third um please re-engage the Town Council in updating the agreement over their funding of the sro's and ask them to fully fund the SRO the presentation tonight said that they're funding half which is wonderful and that that agreement goes for another year but they are expecting a 2% tax levy from the local dispensaries so they will have more money that they could potentially fully fund those SRO next I think Mrs N asked um Mr Yates about the um capital reserve funds and I'm asking that you creatively look at the Surplus in that number it sounded like we were required to pull $1.8 million from that and we're earmarked 1.5 which leaves about $300,000 in Surplus which could be half of those eight teachers lastly take a look at any leftover money from the ECC and TBA funds there might be money there for the students who paid for this year and then those programs were ended so we're really asking you to take action to save the Middle School structure and make this the priority good evening my name is Terry buter moitz my address is 29 Buck Le Lane I have a sixth grader at Marlton middle school and a third grader at Marlton Elementary where I'm also the current PTA president I'm speaking tonight in firm opposition of the dismantling of the middle school house structure in a small way I feel somewhat responsible for the house system being the number one Target in the budget because the truth is about a year ago in a PTA president's meeting in the context of the full day kindergarten conversation Dr Smith asked us how we felt about the health system at the time my oldest child was approaching the end of her fifth grade year and starting to get nervous about what Hall she would be in in relation to her friends my response to Dr Smith at the time was that I was okay with the health system going away because I didn't think the stress of am I going to be separated from my friends was a healthy was healthy at an already stressful time of transition while I still don't love the social aspect of the kids being in the same Hall with the same kids for all of middle school I know I speak for so many parents new to middle school and Mr physic Caro that I just didn't know I didn't have any concept of the true value of the teaming model on every other aspect of her education no fifth grade parent does unless they're an educator thems or went to school in a similar system I certainly didn't know that removing the house system meant removing a ton of teachers and she is thriving in a system that makes her feel seen and supported in a way every middle schooler needs at arguably the most vulnerable time in their primary education I spoke to my now sixth grader in preparation for these comments and asked her how she would feel about having no more Halls no more independent study she looked at me panicked and said and I quote kids need that time there are so many more kids that need help than kids that don't when would we get that help if that period goes away we understand some cuts are inevitable and there are some tough decisions that need to be made and as a board I know you've been bombarded with story after story and a ton of research as to why the system is valuable and I also know you've been bombarded with a ton of suggestions of other things we can look to to avoid such a seismic loss to our unbelievably dedicated staff one key Point that's worth noting is that as of today per the public record four top of the skill teachers have submitted their intent to retire as of July 1st is the cost differential between a step one teach teacher and a top of the scale teacher being factored in as you're factoring as you're calculating headcount because that savings should go right back in to the teaching headcount so tonight my ask is simple as we talk about turning over stones and I know Dr Smith went through some of those stones tonight have you the board seen proof yourself or are you taking what you hear at face value if you cannot look in the mirror and not honestly say you have it is incumbent upon you to vote no to this preliminary budget because you know as well as I do the guest vote tonight even if you think it doesn't matter just because it's just a tentative plan it's due tomorrow is giving your blessing to this plan and you are complicit in the ultimate dismantling of the Middle School House system should that happen there's far too much at stake and if there's anything in this life that is worth all the due diligence it is the safety happiness and education of our children thank [Applause] you my name is Jacob pilman and I live at 33 snuffbox Lane good evening Dr Smith and members of the Board of Education you have heard from parents and teachers now I'd like you to hear from a kid I wanted to speak tonight because I'm a current sixth grader and I feel it is important you hear from the kids too the eam Township School District strives daily to prepare students academically for their future teachers create lesson plans and insire us and offer us help whenever we need it children are not just coming to school to learn they're coming to school with worries sadness stress fear attention struggles and ner Divergent challenges thankfully es etsd has known and understood for years that children are people and need to be fully supported developmentally which means addressing our social skills emotions and behaviors as well as our education for instance something that happened to me that was that I was struggling with my locker I had count I had tried countless times to open it even resorting to switching lockers eventually I talked to a trusted teacher and and they helped me during independent study after a 5 to 10 minute practice a teacher then told the six Green Team to cut me some slack if I'm a minute or too late Middle School structure is important it allows students to have personal relationships with their teachers while they're not there with where they are not just numbers independent study is so important too it allows students to do work and ask questions to teachers that they normally can't do at home whether it's not a quiet environment or they need teacher help this is one this is one week period is very helpful please keep our Middle School model we are not many high school students we are early teams with our own unique needs please keep the team time so we are seen by the same teachers who all get to know us as one Comm group this is a great district and when the administrators and District leaders continue to uphold the importance of social emotional learning it will grow it will continue to be a wonderful place to learn and grow thank [Applause] you good evening my name is Kevin want me I can bend I'm good either way good evening my name is Kevin pman I have two children in the district um I had a whole speech prepared largely about preserving the Middle School model and the lack of Engagement with teachers and parents to try to find solutions for the incredible incredibly challenging funding issues we Face instead I wanted to touch on a few things that were said tonight in regards to instrumental music lessons in middle school they do not receive more instruction than High School students kids who continue with music in high school have instrumental music classes concert band classes Orchestra classes jazz band classes a wide variety of options for them they meet four days a week at least as every parent with a child involved in the music program knows especially those on the board are in the administration this is blatant gaslighting telling half truths and withholding relevant information is just dishonest I and all of the parents and staff expect and demand better the comments about last year's presentation for kindergarten are another example of gaslighting we can all go back and look at the slides and watch the presentation and see how clearly the taxpayers were told if you don't vote for the kindergarten ballot measure these are the terrible things that will happen here we are the terrible things are happening in regards to whether or not the hall system is being eept again it's gaslighting tell us what is happening and be honest about it don't say it will be one or two classes then say well there's no way to know how much cross pollination will be between Halls the students aren't going to just move or walk they're taking classes in another Hall with students from the other Hall please stop pretending that this is anything other than a dismantling of the hall system we the stakeholders in this room are not stupid and the consistent gaslighting and lack of transparency has resulted in the loss of trust and faith in this Administration please we implore you do better hi I'm Oren cougar I live at Foxwood Lane I sure one moment please uh we need a motion from the board um in our bylaws if we have a meeting going past 11: we need board consent um I am looking for a motion for us to go past 11:00 for this board meeting noting that we'll take action past 11 motion by Mrs null seconded by Mr Demar see any questions or comments seeing n mr8 roll call please on going past 11 uh Mr deari Mrs null yep on going past 11 Mr Bach yes Mr demarcy yes Miss Fox yes Mrs NL yes Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Mr fiso yes Mr conon yes motion carries thank you Mr Yates all right I'm waren cougar I currently have a sixth grader here at morlon middle I'm not one that normally speaks in public so for me to be here in front of you tonight is huge so I'm just going to go read what I have my child and the others in the district need to matter and I hope you see that we're all here for them they need a voice too as they're the ones that are being directly impacted by the decisions you're making on their behalf I'm asking that you please leave the Middle School teaching staff and structure alone Middle School is appropriately named Middle School just for that reason they're not our youngest and they're not our oldest of kids it's a transition period to high school and should not be treated with the same teaching model as high school this age group isn't mentally or socially ready and needs the extra guidance and support that our current model provides independent study and team meetings that occur behind the scenes are not only needed but warranted for this age group the separation of Halls that offers a school within a school has so many benefits that it truly works for this population our kids need this middle level of teaching as they grow and develop into adolescen each section of schooling acts as a different level of development these levels are what start to create a strong foundation for these kids to stand on their own I'm sure you can all look back and remember where you were at their age so please take a moment and remember these years are really important thank [Applause] you hello I'm Jennifer pelman I live at 33 snuffbox Lan I am a mother of three and a licensed clinical social worker each day in the United States millions of adolescents go to school with mental health concerns that threaten their well-being and educational performance in 2022 New Jersey declared there was a youth Mental Health crisis in this State schools play a critical role in addressing the social emotional Wellness of children our middle school children deserve the best we can give them moving to a junior high model would be detrimental to the children and a huge step backwards for eam Township School District when many of us were in this when this room last people shared their concerns and changes for the structure of our district at that meeting at the end parents were reprimanded for not coming to the meeting prepared and in the same breath were told this is not your job well Dr Smith and the board I'm standing here today to tell you that the well-being of children is everyone's job and since the last meeting we've been busy a parent Facebook group has grown to over 800 members and people are asking fantastic questions and getting informed an informational Gathering was held to share ideas suggestions and for revenue and budget cuts parents have attended the town council meeting that have never gone before and numerous emails have been sent to the legislative Representatives so what are the next steps now we need to come together finally Dr Smith stakeholders have emailed you and asked for meetings since January and before and yet these meetings have not happened in the March PTA president's meeting you stated I knew this was all coming when I saw the budget projections in 2020 you stated the spring of 2024 will be a bad time I knew it and I knew a lot of people are going to be angry I ask you why did you wait so long to involve parents and have strategic meetings we all know and understand there are Tim taes for presenting budgets and that has nothing to do with the planning that takes place before the budget time lack of collaboration to this extent while stating in meetings that you saw it coming leaves people with the feeling at best that you like to work alone and at worst it calls into question issues of transparency and Trust so again I ask you to please remember the district's theme of cooperation and create a strategic planning committee neighboring districts had their Board of Education meetings much earlier in March far away from the 20th date which is tomorrow they posted the presentation online ahead of the meeting these are districts right next door to us not things that are not comparable to the Board of Education members many of you ran on platforms of transparency integrity and advocacy on this board are parents of current etsd students people committed to systemic legislative changes long-standing public servants as well as newer people of fresh ideas many are etsd graduates themselves who benefited from this Middle School model that is now threatened thank you to the board of ed members who tonight push for specific times that parent advocacy groups could be met with before the final vote I implore you to remember the platforms you ran on realize that you've been told parents are supportive of this structural change and clearly that is not the case realize that you've had three meetings you've reached three minutes okay I'm going to keep going CU you let other people keep going uh no I did not I let people wrap up so if you can just wrap up I'm going to wrap up them I'm asking the board to act tonight based on the pleas of the voters who elected you to the teachers we see you and we thank you and we're your allies to the parents we're in this together and I'm proud to stand with you to our children we are doing this for you and it's a responsibility of adults to turn over every stone until we can find a way to give you what you need to thrive and sore I'm hopeful we can find the 700,000 somewhere else Thomas Edison said it best there's a better way to there there's a there's a way to do it better find it hello my name is Chris Miller I live at uh Preamble drive here in Marlton um I did not prepare a speech I didn't even expect for myself to be here this evening but uh I I actually just got home I am an educator myself in a neighboring District I'm a music educator and I have children that are here in the school system we're fairly new to Marlton and I just wanted to speak on behalf of music education and the importance of music education for human beings uh whether they're in elementary school middle school or High School uh I just sincerely believe that music changes people's lives it affects everybody and when we start pulling these programs away from children I can just speak for myself that uh music education shaped me as a human being I became a a performer and a musician and I toured along the East Coast before I decided to become an educator and start teaching music for a career I've taught thousands and thousands of kids and I've seen it firsthand it affects their the way that their brains work for everything it affects math science writing reading everything all gets impacted from music and to to know that this is a potential thing that we want to remove from our kids experiences in school absolutely disheartens me as a human being and as an educator uh and as a father in so different ways for our children so I'm just uh really begging you to please reconsider affecting the music education of our our children that are here in the district thank you hi I'm Rosemary Bernardi ATT Health X Court East a former board member Ben uh this is probably my 2 first uh budget uh have had to sit through a budget presentation um so you know uh over the years we've had a lot of issues in uh Isam Township um a lot of challenging uh times um but I I'll Echo everything that the parents had said about the middle school program that is like the core of um the heart of our schools you know people move here because of the schools and it's the Envy the Middle School House concept is really an Envy for other districts around the around the uh State here so um it's unfortunate that we're at this point due to CS two funding um that's even being on the that this is even considered as a cut um the reason I'm here is really to talk about you know I'm glad to hear that you guys are open to uh to having a meeting i' want to do two themes one is transparency we uh I would ask that you actually go beyond the what you're required is actually to put the budget book online because I think it's very hard for us to solve a problem when we don't have all the details so if you could uh Avail that to us that would be great um the second thing is about collaboration I just want to say that you know um you know it's really so great to see the parents here and thank you board members putting together budget the administration doing all the hard work it really is a a hard process but if we can collaborate you know there's a lot of great ideas we know traditionally we're going to have new numbers we could have you know you're going to have the GIF adjustments you're going to have the health insurance you're going to have breakage from retirements uh the ECC you know how is that going to farare out at the end of the year you know really look at the fund balance accounts analyze those we have Surplus um I feel that there could be a whole uh collaborative committee to talk about Transportation transportation is what three4 four million are your budget I mean we really need to look at this a little bit differently so if we were to have a collaborative uh meeting that would be great Jen suggested the strategic planning session I think that's great um because honestly without a plan you know this is really we're going to be back here in a year talking about the same thing so I think that the board really needs to look at you know options for uh this year and how it's going to look you know next year and the year after so um the other thing that we're looking at too uh we uh as Jen mentioned parent United uh I have we're working on legislative initiatives we could get relief from uh stabilization Aid we can get relief from another bill that if they pass that we could go to 2.5% cap we can get um additional Aid uh Transportation they're looking at the school funding formula so there's a lot of things in the legislature that we could advocate for as a community it's unfortunate that we're here now we should have been do doing a lot of this work a while ago to start that work but we are going to do it so one of the things I want to just focus just to wrap up is really you know we and you have reached three minutes so yeah that's right I just want to wrap up that you know it's really great to see so many people here and really well we pitched in the kindergarten meaning strong schools strong community so I think I just want to close on that point because really you know we just have that strong schools strong community and here we are to support that thank [Applause] you uh just reiterating again thank you everyone for your comments um if your comments were typed please do email them to us so we could take aant to read them again um we will we'll now move on to the approval of the minutes we need a motion to approve items 6.1 through 6.3 do we have a motion motion by Miss Fox seconded by Mr Bach any questions or comments on the approval of the minutes seeing none Mr Yates roll call please on the approval minutes Mr Bach yes Mr Demari yes Miss Fox yes Mrs NL I have a question I'm sorry I will say yes to 6.1 board retreat but on 6.2 I was absent from the executive session can I just say abstain on that part only okay yes to the regular meeting on that 6.2 but not the executive session minutes yes to 6 point 6.1 in total and you're abstaining from the executive minutes on 6.2 correct yes got your exstension is noted Mr Thompson abstain from 61 yes that arrest your exension is noted yes to all abstaining 6.1 Mr fisar yes Mr conon yes the motion carries thank you we now need a motion for item 7.1 through 7.11 superintendent's report and an administrative item so we have a motion motion by Mr Thompson seconded by seconded by Miss Lee uh before we head into a roll call I'll hand the floor over to Dr Smith thank you Mr canthon just giving the time I'm going to shorten my comments and just say uh first thank you congratulations to all the staff that made our district Wellness night last week such a success it was a fantastic evening and saw a great turnout from our families also I'd like to plug our wonderful District Allin event it's all in disabilities awareness event tomorrow back here at MMS at 5:30 it's a fun familyfriendly event for everyone hope to see you there and then thank you to ETA for their collaboration on the three sidebars on the agenda the work to get a sidebar on an agenda can start months earlier it just worked out that it happened to be tonight but this is an important step in ensuring that our drivers are earning uh you know competitive wages that'll help us bring more routes back in District and that money that we Sav we can turn around and put right back into Staffing since at this point point the cuts we're making have pretty much exhausted non Staffing so thank you to ETA for that thank you Dr Smith any questions or comments from the board Mrs N I'm sure the board knows how I feel since we discussed it but um I can't accept this tentative budget as it is I feel as though I didn't was not able to analyze all of the information well that's not until item nine I I'm sorry I'm sorry I thought ignore me no problem Mr R I know we've been um working hard on these on these sidebar agreements and in particular I'm I'm really happy that we're on the verge of of passing these uh you're right there's that $4 million Transportation cost and that is a a horrible cost and the more that we a protect our drivers make their pay more competitive and also allow for other drivers to take a look at our our transportation and see that they can cross over with that same type of competitive pay uh will help us eliminate those Helman those Helman routes and every time we eliminate one of those private routes that brings more money back into the district so I am very happy that we're working on that I believe all of the sidebars are and the people involved um they they they are that very important I agree thank you Mr FIS any other questions or comments on superintendent items Mr Yates roll call please on administrative items Mr Bach yes Mr demarcy yes Miss Fox yes Mrs nll yes Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Mr fisar yes Mr conon yes the motion carries thank you moving to item 8 curriculum and instruction we need a motion to approve items 8.1 through 8.5 do we have a motion motion by Mr fyso seconded by Mr Thompson any questions or comments as it pertains to curriculum and instruction I do no on tonight's agenda is 8.4 the eam Ed Foundation funding request we did speak about this in curriculum what was that last night and so I want to point out to the public how wonderful they are they're they are supporting the eyes on art show which is I don't know when it's starting but it's every year at the end of the year um and I want to thank if I have any eam Ed Foundation board members here I want to thank you and anybody out there they work very very hard to support put on events and support our district so I want to thank them for that that's it thank you Mrs null any other questions or comments from the board seeing none Mr Yates roll call please roll call on curriculum instruction Mr Bach yes Mr Mr demarcy yes Miss Fox yes Mrs null yes Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Mr pisaro yes Mr con yes the motion carries thank you we now need a motion for items 9.1 through 9.20 under finance and operations do we have a motion motion by Mr Thompson seconded by Miss Lee any questions or comments for the board under finance and operations is this the part this is the part I know it is I'm only kidding I'm kidding anyway before I speak about the budget 9.19 I also want to give a shout out to our new uh the school bus advertisement uh finance committee I don't know when that's beginning is that next school year they're probably going to be uh put on the buses tomorrow morning oh tomorrow wonderful so I just wanted to ask the public support tailored Landscaping LLC any other businesses you want to get your name out there you can have your sign on our buses so I want to thank tailored landscape LLC and what else um I believe there there was nothing else besides the tentative budget I just wanted to say as I was saying before it's no secret we spoke about it in executive session at this time I cannot accept this tentative budget I have many many questions as obviously other board members do and I didn't have enough time to review all the back uh the workbooks and so on so um plus the fact that this will this will impact every child in Marlon because every student in Marlton goes through the middle school so you know moving forward I I hope that as a board we can work together and find savings elsewhere so it's unfortunate that the board is faced tonight with having to accept this budget it's unacceptable really the fact that this meeting was scheduled the night before the budget is due it puts us in a difficult position I saw online some districts met uh earlier in March I wish we could have done that so I asked for better planning in in the future thank you thanks Mrs null would any other board member like to comment Missy um first I would like to thank everyone who spoke um tonight for your feedback uh both here and uh via email it's very important for all of us on the board to hear from the people who are affected by these decisions and regarding the vote tonight from what I understand tonight's tenative budget whether it passes or fails is ultimately going to the county soon and the way I see it if this vote fails tonight um the meaningful changes and dialogue that the community is looking for and deserves is not going to be happening in an emergency meeting in the next 24 hours this is a longer process obviously and this is why we have a multi-step budget process so tonight I think we've all seen how the numbers are looking we've seen the presentation we're on an even playe field and this vote as I see it is not an end it's really a beginning of a dialogue and it's disappointing that it's taken this long for the dialogue to begin and that's something for the future but this is where we are right now and I hope to see um work with the parent groups that have formed and making substantive changes uh before the final vote in uh more than a month thank you thank you Miss Lee any other questions or comments from the board Miss Fox I would also like like to thank everyone for coming out for your emails um while it is true that the final budget will not be voted on yet I feel that there is just too much of a gray area and I'm not convinced that the collaboration between stakeholders and board and administration will happen if it does not go through and for myself there there was a lot I heard today that I am just not comfortable with saying yes at this time thank you Miss Fox any other questions or comments from the board seeing none Mr Yates roll call please on finance and operations Mr boach um I am going to say yes with the caveat of because if you know if we do vote it down today it would be we would have a lot more work as a board that would not involve the public I don't want to do that I want to give you know the public groups the most time um with this so I am I want to make sure um that that happens so that is my goal you know for this um and I'm going to make sure that the groups you know get representation with that and we get that pulled together a lot sooner than later so we have that time it's it's okay this is what I'm this is what I'm going to do so Mr demarcy no to 9.15 that's on everything else just to clarify Mr Demar you said yes to all no to 9:15 thank you your your vot is counted Miss Fox yes yes to all no to 9.15 thank you Mrs [Applause] N yes to all except a no for 9.15 Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Mr fisicaro yes Mr conon yes the motion carries thank you Mr Yates moving on to Personnel we need a motion for items 10.1 through 10.10 do we have a motion motion by Mr Thompson seconded by Miss Fox any questions or comments as it pertains to Personnel seeing none roll call please Mr Personnel Mr boach yes Mr demarcy yes Miss Fox yes Mrs no yes to 10.1 through 10.6 no to 10.7 yes 10.8 10.9 and I'm sorry no to 10.9 and no to 10.7 yes to everything else if that makes it easier for you yep it does thank yes to all 10.7 10.9 you're no correct thank you no Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Mr fisicaro yes Mr conon yes that motion carries thank you moving to policy of which we have no policies moving to committee reports are there any board members who would like to share a committee report seeing none we will move to Old business of which we have none we will move to new business there is none uh now we'll move into public comments on any open items uh this meeting will be open to the public referencing any items of Interest however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person and please state your name and address at the beginning hi Rosary Bernardi at 10 hell effect Court East um so I heard from Mr Bach that he's willing to have a meeting do I have commitment from is there a a commitment from the whole board I guess I'm a little confused the next step is just to be clear like with dates and you know next actions we're going to have like I'd like some clarity on that yeah I I'll I'm going to be reaching out to the groups that were here tonight so we can form a committee and discuss the budget where we're at and ideas that people might want to share and we can try to find a common ground to walk forward on so I I guess you know just from a facilitation perspective you know having everyone's schedules I think it might be be easier if we can just pick a date right now now we're all in the room here um Jen yes let's pick a date we all have our calendars here I think it would just be easier um and we could have a committee meeting to have I I feel it's going to get lost I just think that the Board needs to decide from their perspective and I don't know that they're prepared to do that here uh and I think the president needs to decide you know if this is going to be a full board meeting or if it's going to be a committee like an ad hoc committee so I think that's why we're saying that we need additional time so I mean I think that we can say we'll be in touch by the end of the week uh okay well moving on is public comment so all right I if you can discuss it during your board discussion to come up with uh how you're going to plan if you're going to do an ad hoc committee or honestly just have another Open Session um and I think it would be great if we can and in we you know we have people here today uh we do have Outreach but there might be other people who could have other ideas so I wouldn't want to limit that conversation thank [Applause] you Colleen Ellis 73 ulene I just want to say um Mr demarcy Miss Fox Miss null what you did tonight was not easy thank you [Applause] hi my name is Evans Scott 106 Williamsburg Court sorry I'm late uh I was listening to the meeting on the way from work I got off about uh 10 or so um I caught the last part of the public comment what I wanted to just talk about is the lack of transparency as it relates to the school funding formula because that really is the root of every single problem that we have and will have going forward until it's changed and I finally figured out one of the biggest factors so it's aggregate income it distorts the entire formula so they don't use median income and that's what matters so as long as we have that one single Factor we will be continuously affected so this process will go on and and on and on just like we talked before until it's addressed so we have to get everyone in the room the entire Community to literally raise their voices to Trenton to the Department of Education to the treasury Department to say hey we need to switch the factor from aggregate income to median incomes and then it will truly be representative of the community at large aggregate wealth is distorted by high income earners I've got tons of data here that I pulled from that I can share later on but that's where we need to take this [Applause] thanks we will now move to board member announcements are there any board members who would like to share an announcement Mr dearcy I assume this allows for a comment not necessarily announcement as well you can announce your comment okay announcing my comment um I wanted to speak uh in regards to to the vote we took um I did vote no and and and and I and I I want to tell the reason I ran for Bo I said this at the last meeting the reason I ran for the Board of Education was because of the harm that our community was experiencing based on the state aid formula that was crafted by people who don't understand Ean values uh having been elected having been here for two months I understand that you know the budget challenges that we face they are not easy solutions and even though the state has caused it you know our advocacy is one of the only steps we could take to to prevent further funding but the reality is this year we have $1.6 million that we have to find that being said one of the biggest factors that I have considered in this has been the Outreach has been the the the calls for suggestions that to me shows that that even shim you know teachers parents you know and and as we saw tonight students uh is a community who cares cares about the schools um and and and that to me spoke volumes which is why in that aspect of of team in that aspect of you know we're we're behind this we have to work on this together this is why the community meetings that we must have with the stakeholders are going to be crucially important in navigating these issues there needs to be not just parent groups there but also teacher groups as well um and realistically any other interested group because every resident in this town is affected by the state aid cuts and budget cuts in some way or another whether you are simply a taxpayer whether you are a student whether you are somebody who's looking to move to e sham Township there is that factor that has to be considered um I I I think that there also needs to be a recognition of the importance of logistics um in regards to handling uh not just mental health but also special education that those two things are are crucially important in today's generational education you know I I walk these very Halls not that long ago I see some of my former teachers in the crowd tonight um but the way I see it things are different than even from then for kids in the challenges that they face based on on the aftermath of not just the pandemic but but our changing world and and that could be very uncomforting for a lot of kids and a lot of families um and and I think it's important to say that you know we sympathize with that you know we're all understanding of that um and and and in future conversations we we're we're going to have to keep that as a factor in the decisions that we make um yeah you know something else uh was brought up about the local advocacy that has been done about this issue to not just our board but other elected officials and other governing bodies here in town that is crucially important I you know this is this is a chance for every governing body here in Eve sham Township to do something about the biggest issue that our community faces uh you know with regards to the SRO funding with regards to the properties that were mentioned um you know this is something that me personally think should be a big effort on behalf of the entire Eve sham Community as a United cause to address this issue State advocacy thank you to every single person who has written a letter to our state legislators um to you know ask them to say there are crucially flawed issues in our state aid formula um you know it's a very complicated matter you know that that that I would need two hours to go through but that would bring us to about almost 2 am so I don't think anybody wants that um but I but I went to Trenton on uh last Monday um and I and I testified at the assembly uh budget committee um two of the legislators who sit on that committee represent one of the towns in lrhsd right which is one of our partner districts every kid who goes through here ends up in that District which as we all know just lost $4.7 million um and and and you know I looked at them and I said how is this how how how are we how are you as elected officials going to permit this to happen to your home District this is not something that we could just sit idly by and say you know what that's the politics of it what is happening in Trenton what is happening with the stated formula is the politics of it that's where that's where we're going to address the long term of this issue because this will keep going on unless the people who don't understand the eve sham values that are making these decisions here from our community um you know just and i' I've gone way over my time limit but I mean you know I think at the end of the day when it comes to the to the budget you know my guiding philosophy and I mentioned this is that every stone needs to be overturned and and I appreciate the work that our Administration has done to you know the the the other things were listed in the budget and they said you know they they they went through those ideas and explained different you know challenges that came with those suggestions but we also need to have that community meeting and in that community meeting we need to go step by step with those suggestions and look at the financial figures of adding up to that uh it's it's about $640,000 we can and we will in those committees look at those suggestions and find a solution together thank you thanks Mr Marcy anyone else like to share an announcement Mr Brock um not so much an announcement but can we agree that we're going to do another board retreat to talk about um you know to really discuss the budget in depth as a board it's desperately needed I need a motion to approve a board retreat before the final budget vote in um yeah motion by Miss Fox seconded by Mr dearcy any questions or comments on that all right seeing n Mr Yates roll call please on a board retreat prior to our final budget approval on board retreat Mr boach yes Mr demarcy yes M fox yes Mrs NL yes Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Mr visaro yes Mr con yes motion carries cool Saturday it will be on a Saturday it might not be this Saturday um Mr brck are you with your comments you have more um yeah that's basically it I wanted to just get the ball rolling on you know these meetings you got it so you know I know we'll be talking you know during the week to get that scheduled yep any other board members so I I had a feeling that my no vote would be a symbolic vote but I had to vote with how I felt um I do want to say I know Dr Smith has taken a lot of shots in the last few board meetings um seeing him behind the scenes He does care a lot and I know I know this but from my point of view um there's going to have to be cut somewhere and someone is not going to be happy with what it is but I do agree that I mean some some of your ideas that were sent to me are things that I I'd never thought of and that made a lot of sense and I would very much hope that we can coordinate the Outreach meetings to really see what else can be cut that does not affect the students and the teachers thank you Miss Fox would any other board member like to speak seeing none we'll move to a motion to adjourn motion by Miss Lee seconded by Mrs null all those in favor thank you meeting [Music] adour [Music] [Music] n [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hey hey he heyy hey hey heyyy [Music] heyyy [Music] [Music] n [Music] hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey [Music] [Music] hey [Music] [Music] e [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] yeah [Music] yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] m [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]