[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board of the Board of Education Office emailing written notice to the brington county times in The Courier Post filing written notice with the municipal clerk of eam Township Mr Yates can we please have a roll call roll call Mr Bach here Mr Brown here Mr demarcy Miss Fox Mrs null here Miss Lee Miss Mr Thompson here Mr fisicaro Mr Compton here right so we have Mr demarcy Miss Fox Miss Lee and Mr fisicaro absent we have War thank you Mr Yates whereas an njsa 10412 allows for a public body to go into Clos session during a public meeting and whereas the Board of Education of e sham Township has deemed it necessary to go into close session to discuss certain matters which are Exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the Board of Education will reconvene f following the end of Clos session at approximately 7:30 p.m. now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education will go into closed session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa 10412 items 2.2 through 2.4 do we have a motion to go into close session motion by Mrs null very fervent motion thank you Mrs null seconded by seconded by Mr Brown uh Mr Yates roll call please roll call on Executive session Mr Bach yes Mr Brown yes Mrs N yes Mr Thompson yes and Mr Conan yes we are in executive session thank you Mr Yates per Mrs nolles motion we will see you at approximately 7:30 p.m. [Music] a he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] e [Music] oh [Music] la [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] bab bab d [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] no [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] n n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] m [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] ah [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] e [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hey he hey hey hey hey hey hey hey heyyyy [Music] hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey heyy hey [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] he [Music] o [Music] [Music] d [Music] [Music] d d [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] e [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] n [Music] [Music] la [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] B [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] what a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all those are able could please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance United States of America the for which it stands one nation indivisible liy and justice for thank you our mission statement tonight will be read by board member Mr Brown the mission of the 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 and provide and problem solve individually and collaboratively and become contributing members of a diverse and Global Society thank you Mr Brown I'll now hand the floor over to Dr Smith for presentations all right thank thank you Mr canthon so this is easily the best board meeting of the whole year because it's it's about honoring students we've got so many students here who've done incredible things covering the Arts Athletics academics and much much more so we're going to go through uh a number of these and and um if I could have um our board president Mr Canton and our board vice president Mr faka join me up front the the first awards we're going to give out are for meline B and Julia guzo and if they could come up the girls they won the silver award for the Girl Scouts of America come on up [Applause] [Music] [Applause] conratulations thank you may get a picture midd if if you can I don't know if you want to explain a bit about like what is the silver award what did you do like it sounds amazing so I don't know you want to give it a whirl sure yeah okay so the Girl Scout silver award is the highest award that a girl scout Cadet can achieve Cadets are Girl Scouts in grades 6 to eth the silver award is done in small groups of two to four girls during their middle school years only 10% of Girl Scout Cadets earned this award the silver award challenges Girl Scouts explore their Community find an issue they feel passionate about create a plan to solve it and execute the plan the silver award project is led by the Girl Scouts in the group with support of their leader and parents when necessary this award encourages leadership good communication problem Sil problem solving and taking initiative the end result is to make a positive impact on the community the nebor of our silver award project is everyone please when we were choosing the direction we wanted to go in for our silver award we decided we wanted to impact our school community Community Julia and I attended Dei Middle School something that stood out to both of our friend groups was that our time at recess consisted mostly of standing around or waiting for a turn to do something the options for activities at Deasia were basketballs soccer balls kickballs and volleyballs but if your group wasn't one of the first outside then you most likely weren't getting one which led to many kids wanting to play Waiting to play or feeling left out if they weren't asked to and not every student wants to play or is able to play a traditional sport at recess many students get very competitive which can be intimidated and some students struggle in large group social settings we realized that many students were not engaged in recess ourselves included and changing this could be the positive impact we had on our school community so we got to work researching and planning out our project according to the American Academy of Pediatrics re recess is crucial and necessary to a child's development physical activity is of course one part of recess but not every student has the same abilities other crucial benefits to recess are promoting relationship sh with peers encouraging creative thinking and building social skills like problem solving cooperation and conflict resolution then we asked students what they liked and disliked about recess and what options they would like to see at recess many students won in more of the items already there and many won alternate activities to traditional Sports we brainstorm and research items that would be age appropriate sturdy for outdoor use and accommodating to many abilities we knew the half of the money we ra would go towards purchasing additional sports equipment and the other half would go towards different recess games some of the items we purchased were beanbag tus giant Jenga and Connect 4 ring toss sets and jump RS we fundraise with cookie sales and fall product sales through our Girl Scout SHP all the items that we donate to Dy Middle School next month we hope that the students of Dei enjoy more items to choose from and we hope more kids can play a game of soccer now but more than that we hope that the students who normally stand around at recess because they aren't the best soccer player they don't have a large group of friends they have anxiety being in big groups or they have a medical issue that prevents them from participating in a sport we hope that they feel seen we hope that everyone feels like there's something at recess for them to do whether alone with a small group or maybe even a large group we also hope that our project sheds light on the importance of recess for reasons other than physical activity and that not every student is the same so multiple recess options for varying interests and abilities is necessary because the motto for recess should always be everyone plays [Applause] that was that was beautiful that was fantastic I just you're both amazing thank you so much for talking to us about it so uh and I know uh I see family over there too so that's awesome all right thanks so much yeah [Applause] yeah so next up we've got um from the mall Fon Middle School yearbook Club they won the J's 2024 National yearbook bronze level program of Excellence award and we're going to call if actually if um Mr Hoffman wouldn't do you want to you want to join or yeah all right you know thank you thank you and then uh Miss Smith and Miss KY if they're here if they want to come up to awesome and and we're going to call the kids up one at a time so we've got uh Elena escabedo she's here uh Ree ginart [Applause] Lyla Rose [Applause] laori Zoe mandry [Applause] Kayla [Applause] Weiss and Joshua [Applause] Zuko congratulations awesome awesome so here we have our bronze award-winning MMS Mustangs yearbook Club that's all let's all move in let's all move in yeah yeah yeah thank you both so much thank you thank you next up we've got the Elks sa contest winners and I saw Mr and Mrs matches over there going to join us up here the Elks W runs an amazing contest every year that we're very fortunate for our students to participate in and um this year's contest was what the Bill of Rights means to me we'll get we'll get I I know you're able to explain more too but let's get the kids up first so they can be up standing up with us so uh let's have Caitlyn Schultz come up if she's here [Applause] kayin is in fifth grade at Marlton Elementary School and her teacher is Shannon mcglaughlin she won first place in the Southwest District for fifth grade next up is Emily [Applause] Lee congratulations Emily is in sixth grade at the mton middle school her teacher is chrisy alato and she won first first place in the Southwest District for sixth grade and second place in the state americanism program and uh thank you so much thank you want talk a little bit that' be great thank you thank you so much for coming out we're so impressed with all that these children have done I'm a retired teacher myself and so I really know uh these we have um we have certificates for the students who are here we had other winners okay let's see um Kaitlyn good and Emily let me just see who you are okay very nice very nice and that's the district but Dave please get them their um their okay here we are yeah those are the district certificates and Emily here is our lodge certificate you came in first place in sixth grade so that came in that was wonderful and Caitlyn you came in first place in fifth grade so congratulations you've got all these things oh do I have it switched oh here let's fix this here hang on here you got that you got that all righty my goodness yeah give her yeah give her a hand here there she's she's juggling all of this okay we're not finished yet we have after after our after we judge the essays all few hundred of them and the teachers judge them then we judge them the ones that we deem to be the best go onto our district of nine lodges in the southwestern part here in New Jersey that's from heightstown all the way down to depford and over to New Egypt and so we have a lot then they get um the best that the best are sent on to the state now we know these two girls they've just gotten certificates from here from Marlton they just received certificates for the district so obviously they're pretty good after the district they are sent on to the state and where they are judged with all other um other essays that have been written all over New Jersey and they yes 100 102 something that 102 lodges in little New Jersey so the Elks is a pretty big deal so let me see could you hold I would like to read this okay okay here would you get would you hold that down thank you okay the New Jersey state americanism program 2023 24 essay contest what the Bill of Rights means to me the new New Jersey Elks americanism committee State contest winner division two grade six in the state she came in second place Emily Lee congratulations Emily that's very impressive we have had Marlton has had State winners before but not many it's hard when you're compe meeting with students from all over the state also also uh wait a minute hold on also being District winners they have received each girl has received a $50 gift card this is for you this is for you thank you and now the state winner okay I know she can't congratulations to Emily now let's open it and see what's in there you got your hands full okay this is a a check from the New Jersey state Elks Association for $200 so congratulations honey both of you have done such a great job I'm going to put this back in the envelope for you okay very good here there we goway congratulations oh oh we have oh I'm sorry we have other winners who are not here tonight we have [Music] from from Marlton Elementary School we have Ben forer from Miss Nichols class and he came in um third place we also have Brielle wolf and she is also from Marlton Elementary in M Atley and Mrs Hap's class so we'll pass them on we'll make sure that they get their certific ific thank you so much good luck to all of you here let's get together for a picture yeah let's get a picture we go very nice very nice thank you thank you right it's a lot of awards bling oh that's fantastic fantastic we've got up next honoring students who earned placement in the 2024 South Jersey honors Orchestra we're going to go through these by school so first up is going to be beer and I saw beer principal Dr Morris want to come on up yeah come on up come on up and teacher Tamara Kimler if she's here come on up we'll call the students up one out a time first up is Annabelle Lee [Applause] you can do the you can do like the handshake line if yous yeah awesome awesome next up meline Cruz and then stand here stand here [Applause] conratulations next up we have Alice Solano not here not here all right and then Hannah Wang if she's here Hannah there she is all right congratulations Hann thank you you want to go handshakes yeah go down so this is our beer South Jersey honors Orchestra students you want to scooch take a picture come down this way thank you Dr Mor next up we've got Dei Elementary School I saw Miss green out there screen if she wants to come on up oh yeah everybody's getting getting involved in uh Miss Smith or Mr Lightfoot if they're out here oh yeah yeah come on up come on up so we'll call the kids up here one at a time first up Conor lukovich [Applause] con sh shake shake shake yeah do some handshakes you go up and down he's wearing a great DS t-shirt as well next up Faith physico [Applause] Cameron [Applause] Mig Abigail lean [Applause] El [Applause] Wang congratulations our Dei Elementary School South Jersey honors Orchestra students [Applause] congrats again [Applause] DS next up jaggard we've got teacher westner if he's here out there or Mr [Music] mongan we're going to roll right on into these names Cooper Lynch come on [Applause] up congratulations buddy than you yeah I like the shirt nice thank you uh Inola ugui [Applause] there okay Eva [Applause] Samir Lori Lee [Music] [Applause] all right that's our Jagger South Jersey honors Orchestra [Applause] winners next up Mar Elementary School we've got Karin Falcone [Applause] Renaissance woman with the baseball softball on that's awesome congratulations Abigail cerney Alyssa [Music] George Harper Booth oh Elissa George is coming up awesome come on I got going too fast I got excited thank you so awesome this is our Mees South Jersey honors Orchestra students [Applause] next up rice I saw principal Amanda fry out there come on up and if if if Tamara Kimler is here she can come up to their teacher we're going to go with uh Emily Cummings if she's out there [Applause] Graham [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Campbell meline [Applause] Diller great job awesome awesome nice handshake thank you very nice this is our rice South Jersey honors Orchestra students let's get a picture let's get a [Music] picture next up vanan if Mr deas is here he can come on up and we're going to roll into names Elizabeth Miller [Applause] Nora [Applause] Kerber Samuel Hassen [Applause] this is our van South Jersey honors Orchestra [Applause] winners now on to Middle School we've got de Dolphins Miss green if you want to come back come on back up and Miss Smith Mr liot come on back up David [Applause] Yang yes absolutely am Marie k tan that's [Applause] beautiful Cody Herber all right here we've got our Dey Dolphins South Jersey honors Orchestra winners [Applause] y we'll take it great congratulations congratulations on to Mustangs and miss Mr Hoffman yeah coming back up and uh first up we've got Ellie galambos she's here awesome [Applause] Darwin [Music] [Applause] ducas Rachel walri [Applause] Nathan krmer all right these are our MMS South Jersey honors Orchestra students [Applause] from music to math for this one I'm I'm going to go with um all elementary together we'll get we'll get all the elementary kids up here as one big awesome group um Terren limb if he's here Terren earned the highest fifth grade score in berer school [Applause] Max Giordano Max earned the highest fifth grade score in Eve sham Township School District Cooper Lynch Cooper earned the highest fifth grade score in jaggard school and I recognize you conratulations thank you Owen Wakley w w thank you thank you Michael highest fifth grade score in Jag [Applause] School Michael Shapiro highest fifth grade scorer in Marlton Elementary School Mason Pion highest fifth grade score in Rice [Applause] School Samuel Hassan highest fifth grade scorer in vanz an coming back up again to [Applause] Saia these are our Math League Elementary winners great [Applause] group now we're going to do Marton we'll do all all Mart middle uh here we are all right Emily Lee she's here highest sixth grade score in etsd conratulations you're going to need help carrying all this stuff to the car later aren't you Samantha McMullen highest fifth grade scorer in mms Yellow [Applause] House elain eart highest fifth grade scorer in Martin Middle School yellow yellow house nope all right Anthony [Applause] Hughes and he had I got it out of order there he's highest seventh grade schoer in Blue House fantastic [Applause] Andrew ver highest eighth grade scorer in etsd and then Landon Hackney highest eighth grade scorer in mms blueh house conratulations Little Closer Closer Closer Closer Closer Closer [Applause] Closer DMS Math League pervy agrawal if she's here [Applause] awesome highest sixth grade schoer in etsd [Applause] push car vat um V highest sixth grade score in deacy Middle Greenhouse Charles Lou [Applause] he was the highest seventh grade scorer in etsd oh here we are awesome Zia Lee highest seventh grade score in deacy Middle red house and I think her sis might be picking it up for her zabelle coming back down [Applause] Gracie [Applause] O'Donnell highest eighth grade score in Dei Middle Red [Applause] House Dar gajera jagera uh um highest eighth grade score in deacy Middle Greenhouse nice let's all scooching together this is Dei Math League winners deacy middle [Applause] everybody [Applause] congratulations so from there we're going on to Athletics and I want to just say as a as a form of transition there's a ton of math in sports lots of statistics and this is soccer next and I've seen there's all kinds of soccer statistics now that didn't exist 20 years ago 10 years ago um so uh this is the Marton Middle School boys soccer team for their undefeated season Carter [Applause] Beerman and if we can have um if Vince principado or Chris Thomas are here the coaches if they can come on down too next up viven [Applause] chhatra congratulations thank you yeah nice Elijah Conan [Applause] congratulations Dylan [Applause] cafina congratulations Jackson Coleman [Applause] thank you Mika Hollow ni H Nia I got that right Bren h [Applause] Grady [Applause] IES oh sporting some kind of sports injury looks like right there congratulations Grady Brady clouder [Applause] congratulations Drew [Applause] Lada got the red shirt on I like that thank you yeah Liam May Brown [Applause] congratulations thank you Sullivan [Applause] mclusky Ethan Ramsey [Applause] thank you Kyle [Applause] reaker conations Carter [Applause] reev congratulations Landon [Applause] Ryder congratulations thank you Hamza [Applause] salahudin congratulations thank you Matthew Schultz [Applause] congratulations William [Applause] Sparrow congratulations and Sterling Washington [Applause] this is our undefeated MMS Mustangs boys soccer [Applause] team let's make two rows let's go two rows that's it that on to congratulations again to the MMS undefeated boys next up we've got DMS girls lacrosse undefeated season if kathern hton and Caitlyn Rell are here and they want to could come up and join us awesome want you want to take Okay cool so we'll go uh br anac [Applause] Alexandra basilis get that [Applause] right Abigail [Applause] Brown Victoria [Applause] brand Madison [Applause] Berger Brooke Butler meline chunk [Applause] Riley con Khan Riley KH Anna Damian [Applause] Julia din [Applause] denelli Gabriella despenza [Applause] thank you Payton [Applause] Duma Lillian [Applause] geline McKenzie juts [Applause] Casey Liza Liza Lisa [Applause] Lisa Ava Lumley [Applause] Maggie [Applause] melnichuk Gwyneth [Applause] Oliver Renner Rogers [Applause] thank binley [Applause] Rogers did she get hurt during the season yeah you're faster on those than I am without them so just saying awesome no wonder undefeated no wonder Mora Spicer [Applause] Madison T tan [Applause] feeman congratulations Analise [Applause] Tierney conratulations madori Johns and Adriana sponseller this is our deacy dolphin undefeated girls lacrosse team let's get let's get a picture this is awesome this is [Applause] awesome I'm in the back these are you should come over you should come over and be be right next to yeah [Applause] fantastic fantastic that's incredible it's so fun um congratulations to all the student winners tonight we're going to take a short couple minute break for the board anybody's welcome to stay if they want leave if they want um but we'll just take a little break for three minutes and and uh but thank congrats again to all the kids [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] sh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hand over the flo to Dr Smith for part two of our presentations all right so preschool the um the application for the 25 for the 2425 uh school year is not released yet so this is based on uh the current 2324 application the um the mission of the district always our starting point for a board meeting for a budget for change for talking about preschool the uh it's very exciting to get to talk about this tonight the um we've watched districts all around us expanding preschool we've watched the state of New Jersey establish it as its number one goal and start years ago shifting millions of dollars towards achieving it the uh our district did not had the opportunity to um apply for a preschool expansion until we were able to achieve tuition free full day kindergarten so this um this moment really isn't possible without the work of um everyone including the community in voting for um tuition free full de the other reason that we haven't been able to apply for is the funding was made available to districts based on free and reduced lunch percentage our percentage is below 10% so we are in the lowest bracket for um free reduced lunch percentage the uh as if we turn 360 Degrees every District we would be looking at is expanding preschool Cherry Hill Mount Laurel Medford um Vorhees the funding covers the cost of general education preschool and can help with regular budget expenses this is what we are hearing consistently from all the districts that we've talked to in 23 24 each P participating District received $1,514 per preschool general education student educated in District that number according to a webinar that that we attended uh about a month ago is expected to be above 16,000 for the coming school year educating preschoolers who are classified special education that's already the responsibility of every school district we already do that it's not covered by the preschool funding just a little rundown of kind of the 30,000 foot View across the state 272 of the 582 districts with K uh last year that's this is data from 2223 we're participating in this preschool expansion more have joined this year I named a few um and uh and there's a link there which we'll post this presentation to the website so people can access the link at that time but it takes you to an article Le that um shows New Jersey ranks number one in the country in Pre preschool enrollment which is a key part of why not in every that I've seen But in many uh rankings were also ranked number one in K12 education why preschool so two years of school right tuition free for the youngest kids that were certainly responsible for and accountable for fully funded by the state of New Jersey and there's been a lot of you know we've been in S2 districts we've lost over half of our state aid in the last seven years which has caused a lot of really difficult decisions progressively um this is really the first time where we're able to get the state to give us money for something good and the impact on the kids cuts across every metric you could imagine we know this we worked really hard to add a half of a year of school for kindergarten which cost our local taxpayers more money right um was about $98 a year for the average of home to add tuition free full Decay what we're talking about right now is about adding two full years of school at no additional cost to local taxpayers now we have 130 three and four year olds slated to attend half day at Rice next year we pay for those kids out of our regular budget minus 57200 in tuition that families pay for their kids but it does not come close to covering the full cost if we apply for the funding and our application is approved and I have to add that part because um it might not be there's a there's a very uh thorough application that as a you know that my teacher brain likes as a criteria for Success it outlines exactly how many points you earn it's very much like a school project how many points you earn for different components um but it's not a guarantee that it would be approved but in year one where it approved we would receive and our year one plan is is just to count the kids that were already paying to educate so we would receive again based on the webinar from last month 16,000 roughly per student time 130 2,800,000 um just for the kids that already are attending would be attending rice this coming year now a contingency of the preschool expansion is that all half day classes become full day so that means in our case nine additional classrooms teachers Paras preschool instruction instructional coach preschool intervention and referral specialist busing the cost of which about 1.5 million it depends a bit on when the application would be approved so we know with the um deadline um anticipated the deadline for the application would be August um very unlikely the state would turn that around and approve it um you know by September so we' be looking at implementing sometime during the year and from what we understand you get the full Year's funding even if you implement midy year the end of the plan quote unquote for the five years again at at at our Pace because when when you're embarking on something like this and I think this spring is is a great illustration of how there are so many changes already always taking place so on paper district has to have a 5-year plan but um so much will be learned as we go along and seen in terms of interest for example um but eventually um the plan has to show that you can serve 90% of your general education Universe of three and four year olds so for us that means a plan to serve 710 three and four year olds which is 90% of our general education Universe we average about 450 kids a grade um minus those who are classified right now which is 110 and this includes partnering with private providers and there's there's a town a sister town to us almost the same size as us both in terms of the town and the district that is ex started preschool before us and they're expanding it to a great degree through private providers which is wonderful as well because again what we're doing is expanding educational access for the the kids who are youngest kids so we hope to be able to partner with private providers the key piece is to have a plan on paper right that's the application whether or not that full plan is reached who can say right five years away the state's goal is to expand preschool so expanding to partial extent meaning counting the kids that we already have have being able to turn former TBA rooms into preschool um looking to possibly use additional space that some of our elementaries have not all means expansion to any extent which again is benefiting those children and bringing more funding into the district and districts as they go through this progression they've been using Lottery system until they're able to provide a preschool spot for every family seeking one and we would likely do that as well the uh the plan overview so as of today 4535 kids we designed this plan to avoid moving students out of a school as a result the um so Evans is the key piece of it would reopen as an neighborhood Elementary School in September 2027 with only preschool and K in its first year and then those kids would roll up age up each year thereafter so kids wouldn't be switched out of a school into Evans they would just matriculate into Evans as they would any other school in the district um and it would end up looking like rice which is about half prek half K5 two or three classes per grade timeline um we would look to submit the plan by August submit the application it's reviewed ideally approved in the fall last year districts saw their applications approved at varying points throughout the year there were two application Windows last year from the webinar uh last month we learned there is likely only going to be one this year which is the August one which is kind of why we're doing the presentation tonight um so that we can have um you know I can recommend approval or the board's consideration for approval of the application at the June meeting the uh you know similar repetition from prior slides uh full days required 2.08 million additional funding 572 from tuition um timeline continues year two essentially would be looking to activate the former TBA space looking possibly as well depending on uh what space might be available in um one of our elementary schools but this is a slow Runway here um and uh again seeking private partnership in town year three looking to open two more classrooms again continuing to seek private partnership year four the two Evans leases end that's um El Academy and uh Len Regional High School District and we would use the summer to get Evans ready um it would reopen as a neighborhood School September 2027 um and we would establish the the sending zone for Evans at that time so not not at that time but we would establish it as we get closer to that time it's it would be too premature to um determine that now with um over three years uh you know in the future so then year five the progression moves along as the kids at Evans age up you're six seven eight n as Evans fills up with K5 there are fewer kids in one or more of our LR elementary schools which would maybe free up space for um preschool classrooms it's it's likely that not all of our elementary schools would have preschool and I'm going to pass it over to uh Mr Yates for some conversation about funding and infrastructure all right so preschool funding it is allocated to uh districts of New Jersey by the state of New Jersey as Dr Smith indicated the funding um will provide to us or districts that are awarded the the aid roughly $16,000 next year we won't know what that number is the cost per pupil is what it is we won't know until the workbook is released but it is our anticipation that it's around 16,000 in change uh that workbook should be released I would think sometime in the summer if it follows prior year timelines with an August deadline for submittal to the state it's really designed to Target um low income families so that all children have access to free preschool or early childhood educ ation and the funding will cover the costs such as teacher salaries classroom materials and facility maintenance the funding will pay for 15 students Max in every pea funded classroom so 15 students no more we can certainly have less it will cover the cost of one teacher one full-time teacher one full-time classroom assistant and no more than that so if you wanted to add a secondary classroom assistant the funding does not cover that individual um and then of course uh curriculum materials supplies all of the necessary items to get that classroom up and running for paa will be funded through uh the the funding itself um and then there's some infrastructure needs these are just kind of the the basics but every pea funded classroom has to have a minimum of 750 square feet of instructional space so if you have a classroom and you've got a closet in there instructional space would be net of that closet space and then they have to have bathrooms um and the bathrooms will have to have preschool uh fixtures so child siize fixtures but preschool fixtures that preschool height requirements you do not have to have a bathroom in every um preschool classroom as long as when they leave their classroom they can see a bathroom so line of sight so if you have a bathroom around the corner it doesn't count so um that is that for us that that does give us a little bit of um uh some constraints but uh some of our classrooms will have bathrooms in them others if they're not line of sight we're working with our facilities Department see if we can't fix that um and I'll turn it over okay uh just wanted to briefly touch base on the curriculum part of preschool so as everyone has talked about there are certain requirements and one of the requirements of this particular Grant or funding is you have have to follow a certain curriculum um and one of the approved curriculums is creative curriculum and that actually is one that we're currently using in our preschool classes right now so just a little background on Creative curriculum uh we had a committee back when we started the preschool integrated program that was actually back in 2010 uh we formed a committee that had both preschool representation administrators kindergarten teachers we were looking at different alignments in terms of does it align to what we were doing in kindergarten play BAS all a whole bunch of criteria um and of those creative curriculum is what the committee selected and that we adopted at that time um there have been different revisions along the way that we certainly have stayed with creative curriculum and and updated um at different times it's Hands-On Project based play based is a is an easy way to describe it in terms of the different kind of instructional areas so there's a language and literacy component a math component Science and Technology social studies in the artarts social emotional learning um and interest areas and again with that play base one of the Hallmarks of creative curriculum is the inquiry based so we do a lot of studies so when we're doing a particular study like light like sound like um grocery store everything in the room kind of is transformed so the interest areas match the books that they're reading some of the different problems that they're doing so it's all connected and inquiry and play based um so we are currently using this program with 21 preschool classes both General Ed inclusion and self-contained and obviously we make different modifications along the way in our self-contained classes as appropriate the second piece of that is the assessment piece so we again are using gold uh it has different objectives based on just Child Development and learning so there are 38 objectives and they're all along a Continuum of learning what is a typical three-year-old typical four-year-old progress reports what parents get in terms of it's not a report card it's a progress report comes directly from that and then the last pie piece is something specific to eam so we have developed with our teachers and we currently um continue each summer to kind of modify and adapt is a shared reading resource um so basically we have differentiation for three-year-olds versus foury olds in a lot of programs you might see threes and fours together our programs are separate so we separate those resources connected to special days and themes and things that are connected um so that's just a little bit about the curriculum you're next clicker uh okay uh regarding uh Staffing for the preschool program in the first year we'd see the the most changes the most um uh new staff being brought on board uh during that 2425 school year after the application is approved our district would need to hire approximately six Preschool teachers for our half day prek integrated uh going into full day prek three Preschool teachers for our halfday prek disabled program going into full day prek and approximately nine par professionals uh and that would depend on the configur configuration of the classroom uh along with that uh we're looking to uh hire one District pre preschool instructional coach uh one preschool intervention and referral specialist and we also need to include transportation in this um approximately four bus drivers along with four bus AIDS uh in year two September 25 our district would need to hire six preschool teachers and six power Professionals for the six new prek classes uh and that would uh most likely be housed in our former teddy bear Academy Wing uh right here Mar to Middle uh year three uh would be to be determined based on the number of preschool rooms able to be opened using the available um Elementary School classrooms and year four and five are exactly the same uh once again to be determined based on the number of families seeking preschool spots uh and this we're looking uh to house it as was mentioned earlier at Evan School you ready Jen and one of the questions that we've received most frequently is how would preschool expansion impact special education uh one thing that is important to note about special education is that um that our district is responsible for locating referring and identifying all students um beginning from age three all the way through to adulthood who might have a disability uh and whether that's a disability primarily due to physical sensory emotional communication cognitive or social difficulties even if they're not enrolled in our district so that includes students who might be attending non-public schools that happen to be in Marlton if the school's in Marlon those students are our responsibility uh additionally if students live in live in our district um and even if they're not in school here if if anyone that they interact with so whether that is a private provider a physician a relative that lives in California if anyone one sends that referral or recommends that student to the school district we're responsible for completing that evaluation and determining if that student is in child is in need of special education and related Services even if they never step foot in our school district as a student it's our responsibility to identify them as as needing as needing support So preschool expansion wouldn't impact that however what it would help us do is identify more students sooner and our goal in special education is always to provide support hopefully even even in advance of needing special education and that's one thing that preschool expansion would potentially do for us um and help keep students in their least restrictive environment which is of course in their neighborhood schools learning with neighbor neighborhood peers um and in our general education classroom so part of preschool expansion um includes the um as as Mr danten mentioned on uh when speaking about Staffing and intervention position ition so would definitely be the least restrictive environment and provide more students support um in in general education uh classrooms and that is our our ultimate goal um and overlapping that is part uh is part of child find which which again um impacts um early childhood education thank you Dr Bland and Mr dantine and Miss mul and Mr Ys we've got a clicker here great great great moving on on so some FAQs um what if funding this has come up what if funding for prek uh would be cut by the state in the future um and I I I would I'm not going to flashback but there was a slide earlier that showed that currently almost 300 districts in the state are expanding preschool using this money um so you know it's very difficult to imagine a governor saying let's eliminate that funding from all these districts that are um expanding preschool with it at that level of being so widespread and because we're talking about children we're talking about families and communities being strengthened um it's very difficult to imagine uh you know that happening um the slim possibility of something like that happening should not preclude a district from embarking on this right right that would be like saying I'm not going to you know take on any um positive possibility because at some undetermined future date there is a possibility it might not be there anymore we nothing would very little would get done um at worst and again this is just um trying to imagine what would be the the worst case scenario that the state could possibly try to um push through it would be um continuing to fund the districts that are using it and sunsetting the opportunity for districts without an approved application um what if it costs the expansion costs more than the funding covers so we're hearing the opposite you see districts expanding every year doing this um that data says um districts would not be you know jumping on this if it was going to cost the money the districts we've talked to say that it covers all the costs and there's even some um left over to offset some regular budget expenses uh Evan Zone we would wait and determine that as we get closer um partly because of enrollment shifts and also um we we don't know you know we we we really don't know yet we're going to use it in the application but it's a long way out so we would really need to see if it even makes sense when we get to that point to to use Evans um but it certainly helps us get funding for the students that we currently are paying for out of our regular budget um and then the rent for Evans this coming year it's about $1 million um which is a sizable amount and the um what we would look at as well as we get closer to that date is um you know how the the local costs um of the funding that are covered by the funding could offset the district's Reliance on that Revenue okay any questions from the board I have two questions um so is my understanding that in the state of New Jersey uh education is compulsory for K through 12 um meaning would preschool which I'm sure most people would want their children to be a part of um but you know is that still an optional sort of service yeah so parents would opt in to it um we know that there is um desire you know we how much we don't know how much interest and that would that would partly Drive expansion as well um I I've gotten a few emails from people wondering you know almost like okay I'll just say like when are we starting the expansion but also why are we not doing what all the other towns are doing you know so there's there's those emails to me are saying there's interest out there but how much we don't know till we till we embark on this yeah absolutely and and and and I only ask because as that pertains to this law but um or the law that created the program um and and my other question is regarding Transportation um is more buses or bus drivers going to be something that we're going to need as the amount of kids uh participating in this program increase each year with the 5-year plan CU I noticed it said four buses in the first year but I there was um as far as additional to that you know what's what what's that Lookout look like uh in addition to what kind of transportation is needed for preschool uh as in completely separate from you know like they they they they're not able to be on their you know like the neighborhood bus route because I I assume it has to be something different yeah so good questions um we're seeing districts districts are approaching that in different ways so some are using preschool only buses some are doing like preschool and K combined and some are having preschoolers ride on regular buses or using that a combination of all three so for us we have I'll call them available buses right our our challenge has not been buses our challenge has been finding drivers um we have we recently hired a three which was great um since we did the um increase to the alley wage guide for the drivers so we anticipate seeing more increase in driver interest as that rules along um our transportation department believes we can you know achieve that those four additional drivers that we'll need by the time um this application is hopefully approved the buses we have so and as we move along through each year the pace fortunately the uh you know year one and two like year two would be expanding TBA which would be a maximum of six classrooms so um it's an achievable Pace when it comes to hiring drivers our compensation right now went from being less competitive to very competitive with other districts and um you know we can project that we'll be okay as we move along with that we'll keep working on uh recruitment could I ask about Transportation so you said year one four additional bus drivers are needed is year one beginning in January so year one would begin once we have approval from the state of the application so some districts this past year implemented in like late fall some in January some even as late as March this year because they're only doing the state's only doing one application window which is August we could anticipate that the approvals I I I I would foresee fewer approvals like more approvals earlier and fewer approvals later in the year so more implementations that occur um in the in like the late fall um so you're thinking the late fall would be the approval yeah I mean it's it's hard to hard to say but um sometimes um another thing we've seen talking with districts is they submit the application the state gets back to them with feedback they have to make some adjustments and then resubmit it so something like that can kind of extend the the approval timeline but um but it would be ultimately what we be looking at is a midyear implementation might be January might be earlier but it would be a little like what we've already done this year when we went from half day to full day kindergarten mid year do you anticipate we would have to hire for new bus drivers mid year or would we just do more Hillman's routes at that point we would be so we're we're we're working on hiring drivers all the time so like if four drivers showed up tomorrow we would hire them you know um through our process you know what I mean so we would make sure that you know they they met our standards but we would we would hire them every driver we hire we can use so and then can you just walk me through year one again did you say only rice half day do you going through that one more time with me please yeah so so um like the number of students there and how many going over from half day to full day mhm yeah so we have 130 uh general education three and four year olds right now slated for Rice so they would go from half day to full day part of okay 130 janed yep and then any of our um if I go to this slide here any of our half day um preschool classes that are special education would go full day as well so like our integrated classes so we have six of them they would go full and our three uh half day preschool disabled classes would go full as well so it's a total of nine classes going from half day to full day okay and so the additional Staffing and bus drivers you had a dollar amount on that yeah that was back uh I'm sorry you have to flip no no no it's it's good there we go so so uh that would be about 1.5 your estimates you know okay I see we both Park about 80,000 for a teacher and then real quick what's going to happen in year two is that just teddy bear Academy just teddy bear yeah okay trying to keep it all straight in my it's a lot I mean if if again it depends a little bit on um existing space but um if there was a high demand we might look in year two to add like one classroom or two class rooms in an elementary school that has the space right because they all do not have the space is that correct correct correct okay and also one other question I I thought that the transportation is not included in the preschool Aid did I read that incorrectly it's it's the funding so like the funding covers the roles right up there the in addition there's other things listed that the funding covers like I didn't list at all but the funding can offset percentages of existing staff so in the end something that the funding doesn't cover can be covered by offsetting costs in other ways any other questions sorry just trying to process everything um all right let's let's just real quick talk about uh the fall of let's say this gets approved the late fall of 24 sorry there we go um how are we so we have we have the preschool kids that are already in rice but we're looking to add more beyond that that's I'm trying to clarify no we're not adding more beyond that on 24 the goal of year one is just to get funding for the students that were already paying that already exist here already exist okay year two then is when we start we start adding those numbers yeah we start bringing people in yeah yeah yeah that's where I was just getting a little fuzzy I was getting a little fuzzy with that that that makes more sense your one is just is just what're what's changing year one is those half day classes go to full day but it's the same 130 student students only now we're getting State funding 16,000 per instead of paying for it out of our regular budget and for for year two for year two you're you're basically opening that door to anyone who wants to any any child that wants to do that so like if again if if our interest exceeded our capacity then we'd use a lottery system okay all right okay Mr Mar go ahead um so I'm looking at it here now we part of what was on one of the slides was that we were expecting um as part of our uh new revenues from the program uh was that we were going to have to lose the $572 that is currently paid in family tuition however you also mentioned that uh we are currently exceeding that amount uh in terms of what we pay for those services so in reality is that actually a savings to the district because now the funding is supplementing that yeah so we that 572 is basically 4,400 per student in tuition that the family pays and just to give a sense of scale so the state is funding general education students at 16 for next year at 16,000 or even a little bit more that's what we would get for every one of those general education students what we get right now is $4,400 interesting okay and what is our cost per [Music] pupil currently so it's difficult to break down per pupil we can give you an aggregate per pupil for the district as a whole but to break it down for though what what what I would say is again OB k through eight and there's one number cost per pupil for K through 8 can you make any sort of I what I can say is like again going back to um that taxpayer guide to education spending and this information was in our um tenative and final budget presentation our District budget is almost $3,000 less per student than the average K8 budget so looking at our budget dividing it by the students we spend almost $33,000 less per student than the average District so um the difference between what we spend on prek versus grade five versus grade eight it's all the state doesn't break that out that makes sense I understand any other questions from the board thanks Dr Smith we'll now move into public comment for agenda items only this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only 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 state your name and address at the beginning is there anyone who wishes to speak about agenda items tonight hello my name is Chris Miller my okay to go yeah okay oh okay okay thank you my name is Chris Miller I live in ravenscliff um I just uh I guess I was a bit stunned to see this presentation tonight after my last visit here being uh so intense with everything else that's happening in the community and and to our school district and uh as an employee and an educator outside of this Township I understand the appeal of preschool um for everybody but I think it has a tremendous impact on the schools the resources of the schools the teaching staff that are in the schools and uh I just I I I don't think that that's a wonderful idea um I love the concept of it but I think that it will have a long lasting impact that would hurt the district that's all I had to say thank you hi my name is Kevin pman I have two children in the district um I just had a couple of comments I wanted to make about the preschool presentation tonight that were largely jotted down during the presentation um I think the first is I agree with Chris everyone's for preschool for kids everyone is a big fan of it it's all of the reasons listed for why it is helpful and all of the benefits from it are absolutely true and valid the concerns that the community have are largely related about the finances of it and the fact that it is not clear that the district can afford to do this right now we're not saying don't ever do it we're saying please wait to do it in this presentation very little money was discussed very little real numbers were discussed the things that were discussed for next next year is that we would receive potentially if the number is600 or $166,000 per student we would receive $2,800,000 we would be have new expenditures of $1.5 million for the slides in addition to losing $572,000 if anything moves at all we're already not covering what the preschool program will cost next year the first year in we will be losing money on the program and that's the year that's supposed to be the easiest it's supposed to be like the standard one that shows how simple this is going to be we're not talking about transporting kids from different places in the district these are kids who are already enrolled and we already understand how this works the fact that transportation is not included as one of the budget items as one of the items that is covered by the preschool expansion program the preschool expansion funding is a huge issue we already know that transportation is a massive cost within the district and that we have a ton of problems with transportation and with the rising cost of Transportation now saying we're going to add another four drivers when we can't hire another four drivers now that we're just going to find them and hire them is it feels like it's wishful thinking for how we're going to go forward with the plan it there are few to no numbers talking about how what the costs are going to be going forward talking about where the additional 710 students are are going to be housed in the out years we've talked about doing it at Evans but we haven't talked about what the true costs of reopening Evans are what the costs of modifying Evans are to be able to be used for this program the costs that we can charge against it are the against the program are the ones directly related to what is covered in preschool so if Evans opens initially is half preschool half kindergarten then any money that we could have charged towards the preschool expansion program only half of it can we use the other half has to come out of the district's Pockets because only half of the school is going to be used for preschool the other half will be kindergarten classes there are so so many questions that we have to present with less than a month time to this few number of people to add 800 students to the district to add 800 students to the district we're just asking for a pause to do for time and details to be presented Ed to the public thank you hello Rosemary Bernardi 10 Halifax Court East um I have a question if it can be answered are you voting on the preschool tonight okay a second F regarding uh preschool is in year one when does the actual check arrive if you open enrollment in Fall does the check come fall when does the check actually come here oh okay all right well then that answer well it kind of then that's an open because I think that makes a difference in terms of preschool because we have I shouldn't say we the school district has the issue with the general budget so I guess I'm concerned when the actual check arrives because you're you're talking about impacting this year's budget so I guess this to my second reason I'm up here is item uh 10.10 on the agenda Personnel addendums um there's what over 60 uh people that are being moved around um regarding uh because of the budget cuts which is um concerning that we're we're not talking about budget um when you have the ability to raise the tax levy and talk about budget tonight you all had um honored so many students for honors music orchest Etc but yet we couldn't we couldn't have the conversation about saving uh the uh the music position for uh small group lessons there's a list of items that account to about a million dollars so I guess I'm in terms of priority why aren't we talking about those budget items which actually could have infect impacted that addendum if you talk about raising the tax levy you wouldn't have to adopt 10.10 that could be um amend Ed I believe and then save some of those programs or those positions not have to impact so many people in the school district um going forward so I I I guess I'm a little confused on the timing like why aren't we talking about this year's budget and the people that are being impacted um on in that in those items on 10 10.10 um and I'll come back to preschool afterwards thank you hello Jen peelman I live in um Woodstream I just wanted to stand here and just say um that I'm supportive of preschool as well too but asking us to slow down um ever since we've been talking about preschool I know like private conversations I've had with Dr Smith and meetings we've had we keep being told that there's no concern that politicians would pull that money back and stop the program if that's the case for the Pea to not go away then many many people who unfortunately couldn't be here tonight because it's a really busy time for parents don't understand what the rush is everyone is supportive of it etsd parents United is supportive but not in the timetable that's being um kind of predicted or whatever the next board meeting is exactly four weeks from right now and right now you're only speaking to 22 people in this room some of who are your staff and some of who are kids that are wanting to talk about things or whatever so it's not a good cross-section of the whole town um when is how is it going to be pushed out to other people so I heard you say you're going to post it it everyone could be watching this now I know many people are but anyone that's a parent on the board or knows a parent May and June is such a busy time of year you guys honored so many kids here tonight there's concerts there's sport events there's tournaments there's end of the year f activities communions every single night of the week there was so many people that messaged me and said they couldn't be here tonight and they were upset about it and they were tuning in from baseball from swim practice please do not let the lack of numbers visible to hear tonight show you who's not like interested because there are so many people that are interested and super concerned about this um when we met with you parents etsd on April 13th we asked for dialogue and communication and collaboration if especially if there was going to be a massive shift to the district fifth grade's not moving for now yay that's so great the teams are staying for Middle School we're so grateful to all of those things this is still a big shift for the district though this is huge and four weeks from now when you have all those like fun things that I was talking about parents don't want to miss like a communion or their kids Tournament game or something they can't so they watch it later and maybe they send an email but then they're not able to dialogue with you like this or ask questions in front of of everyone it's concerning that a lot of specific numbers weren't shared I'm concerned because Cherry Hill is something I follow closely and a lot of those moms were linked with preschools for September in Oakland that's where their money is going so that's where they were linked is that something we're considering people should know that kind of stuff and be able to ask so I would just ask that you slow down and have some availability either Dr Smith to let people come and talk to you like a tent like you did outside or just to dialogue more about it and slow the process down that's what I'm asking thank you hi good evening my name is Erica poinset I live at five Charter oakle in Woodstream um I have a couple questions about the preschool I'm assuming it would run normal school hours for three and four year olds okay so I feel like the issue with that is that doesn't work for working parents so how are you going to compete with your Chester Brooks your kinder carees your dayc carees where my son received a perfectly good preschool education and is excelling at vanzan as a kindergartener you know for someone like my husband and I who had to be in work by 8:30 in the morning so I mean to to Echo everybody else if this is going to have a trickle down effect on the students that already exist in the district um really think about it and I'm not saying preschool is not great all my kids went to preschool but my Straight A Student sitting back there and she went to half day preschool so you you know full day what does that look like for a three and a four-year-old do any of you have three and foury olds still it's a long day and I can just tell you from my own work experience working in preschools having my own child who's only five now they don't survive all day you go to any preschool and the second half of the day is like a free-for-all sometimes because they don't have the capacity to keep going on an educational level for a full day so I agree we need to see more numbers um you know cost everything and and just take your time and think about it preschool is a great thing but there also are a lot of competitors like one thing you mentioned in your slide are private providers what is a private provider who are we partnering with like that is something I think as a Township we should know and you know where are these private providers in terms of helping with some of the other eam Township Educational Foundation things like keeping things like music alive my daughter is a musician she does have something she would love to say but she's scared now it's not the time to say it because all that was spoken about was preschool but um she wrote a wonderful speech about how music impacted her life through Middle School through covid she still had wonderful Educators that gave her lessons over Zoom so not the easiest thing to do and they still did it and those are the people that you're impacting with some of these decisions so again I Echo what people have said and just really look at everything and take your time thank you would anyone else like to speak on the agenda seeing none we'll close out that section there is one more public comment at the end of the meeting for any items of Interest now move on to item six approval of the minutes we need a motion to approve item 6.1 and 6.2 do we have a motion motion by Mr Brown seconded by Mrs null any questions on the approval of the minutes seeing none Mr Yates roll call please on the approval of minutes Mr Bach yes Mr Brown yes Mr deari yes Mrs null yes Mr Thompson abstain from 61 and 62 your abstention is noted Mr fisicaro yes and Mr conon yes the motion carries thank you Mr Yates moving to item seven we need an approval for item 7.1 through 7.6 under superintendent report and administrative items do we have a motion motion by Mr Thompson seconded by seconded by Mr Brown I'll hand the floor over to Dr Smith before we vote thank you Mr canthon just a few comments tonight the uh etsd AR Gala closes on Monday June 3D in the township building if you haven't gotten a chance to see it yet please check it out amazing student artwork also on Monday is the annual Eve sham Education Foundation Larry Cole Memorial Golf Classic this year's event is going to feature something new a live drawing of the 50-50 raffle winners for the new uh EF fundraiser aimed at helping fund one of our two two or three positions for the next uh two years tomorrow's update will have more information on it about how to purchase these 50/50 tickets at multiple locations throughout our town our district is grateful to the efforts of EF and all our Community Partners ptas PTO and more uh with this effort lastly just as the year winds down I'd like to highlight our staff for their continuing efforts to make every day count for kids and I've just in the last month gotten to do observations um which are windows into exactly how that looks tailored differentiated by grade um across the schools care creativity those cultivated family environments fostered throughout the school year on consistent display in classroom after classroom grade after grade school after school it's truly inspiring it's those relationships and connections with students and teachers and all of our staff that are built day by day all year that's what makes the difference so thank you staff for what is so so clear and that ends my comments Mr thank you Dr Smith any questions or comments from the board seeing none Mr yat roll call please roll call on administrative items Mr Bach yes Mr Brown yes Mr Demari yes Mrs null yes Mr Thompson yes Mr ficara yes Mr conon yes and motion carries thank you moving to item 8 curriculum and instruction we need a motion to approve items 8.1 through 8.4 do we have a motion motion by Mr deari seconded by Mr fysic Caro any questions or comments from the board seeing none Mr yates's roll call please on curriculum and instruction Mr Bach yes Mr Brown yes Mr demarcy yes Mrs null yes Mr Thompson yes Mr ficaro yes Mr conon yes that motion carries thank you Mr Yates moving to item nine finance and operations we need a motion to approve items 9.1 through 9.20 do we have a motion motion by Mr Thompson seconded by Mr Bach any questions or comments for finance and operations seeing none Mr Yates roll call please finance and operations Mr Bach yes Mr Brown yes Mr demarcy yes Mrs null yes Mr Thompson yes Mr ficaro yes Mr con yes the motion carries thank you Mr y moving to item 10 under Personnel we need a motion to approve items 10.1 through 10.11 do we have a motion motion by Mr visicaro seconded by Mr demarcy any questions as a obain of personnel from the board seeing none Mr Yates roll call please on Personnel Mr Bach yes Mr Brown yes Mr demarcy yes Mrs NL yes Mr Thompson yes Mr fisicaro yes Mr Conan yes and motion carries thank you Mr Yates moving to item 11 for policy we need a motion to approve items 11.1 through 11.4 do we have a motion motion by Mr Thompson seconded by Mr Brown any questions or comments from the board as it pertains to policy seeing none Mr Yates roll call please on policy Mr Bach yes Mr Brown yes Mr demarcy yes Mrs null yes Mr Thompson yes Mr fisicaro yes Mr Conan yes the motion carries thank you Mr Yates we will now move to item 12 committee reports are there any committee chairs who would like to share a report seeing none we'll close out that section we'll move to Old business of which we have none then we'll move to new business of which we have one we need a motion to approve the as discussed in executive session today motion by Mr Thompson seconded by Mr Bach Mr Yates roll call please roll call on new business motion to accept the settlement as discussed in executive session Mr Bach yes Mr Brown yes Mr dearcy yes Mrs null yes Mr Thompson yes Mr fisicaro abstain exstension is noted Mr conon yes and motion carries thank you we'll now move into open public comment um pertaining to any items of Interest however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you please see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to 3 minutes per person and state your name and address at the beginning is there anyone who wishes to speak on any items of Interest hi Rosary Berardi again 10 healthx Court East um I'm a little dismayed that there was no discussion and any of the comments at all about the current the recent legislation regarding um the ability to you know you you received um 45% of your lost state aid and the ability to uh open to go to ta uh tax levy cap a new tax levy cap so I guess I'm a little confused why that was not discussed at all what your plans are you have until uh five days after the adoption of the state budget to readjust your budget for this year um interesting also too in your um when you approves the Personnel items you o approved a new position which wasn't listed in the budget um so that was concerning as well so I I guess I'm really at a loss so what what are you done with the budget for this year there will be no adjustments I guess that's really my question there's a lot to unpack with the new legislation so we are discussing it at this time well there'll be like a formal meeting I guess because there you know you only have the last meeting and you just approved a new position in tonight's meeting um which was not outlaid in the budget uh discussion items so I'm kind of at a loss here um do we need to start emailing everyone I just don't know what direction you're going to go in to preserve items in that were cut you know there's a list here of about 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 12 12 positions that are still on the table a million dollars worth so there's nothing all right hi everybody I'm cing poet I live in Woodstream I'm a sophomore at Cherokee high school and I would like to tell you a little bit about how music is a part of my life in third grade I started playing the violin which unfortunately didn't last long because in fourth grade I decided to start playing the flute I won't lie I wasn't the best at it at first and if you know anything about playing the flu it took me a long time to even make a sound out of the instrument this didn't discourage me though and in fifth grade I made the elementary honors band I got to play alongside the Cherokee went Ensemble which little did I know some years later I would become a part of I went to the Macy Middle School where I continued my musical journey by taking lessons in School playing in the band after school and always looking forward to concerts however the covid-19 pandemic made my middle school experience a little different than most we didn't let this stop our program though we continued to do virtual lessons kept on practicing and even put on Virtual cont concerts graduating Middle School I didn't quite know what I wanted to do in high school I auditioned for a band class and even decided to join the Cherokee marching band playing flute led me to learning new instruments just last year I now put the French horn the trumpet and a few other instruments I'll spare some of the other details but I can confidently say that the musical decisions I have made thus far in my life have been the best decisions I have ever made music has been something I have always been able to fall back on I have always had a place in times where I felt alone I would turn around and have somebody by my side the music programs that I have been eternally grateful to be a part of have given me a home the directors and mentors that I've had have been the most incredible people I've ever met they have always been there for me to support me and to guide me and the people are like no others I have made some of my closest friends through these programs and have made memories that I know are going to last me a lifetime I can speak positively on behalf of myself and many others that music has given us a purpose a home and a family a place that we can be ourselves with no judgment where we can feel free to make mistakes and grow from them a place where we have learned to be confident to be leaders and to never give up everybody has a power and a drive that keeps them going for many people that passion that purpose is music I remember the moment my freshman year that we got first place at States the feeling of adrenaline that rushed through my body as we ran out onto the field as a band and celebrated our success I remember the exact moment that I decided that this was my passion my purpose and my people these programs are not just about learning music but about overcoming fears stepping out of your comfort zone and growing as a student and a person I understand the challenges that the districts are facing right now but I truly hope you reconsider finding a way to findun your music program programs thank [Applause] you hi I have to read off this paper because I'm not good just speaking on the Fly here uh my name is Melissa odonnell and I live at for Normandy Road with my husband Mike and my twins Gracie and Shane O'Donnell who are at deacy Middle School I've been teaching kindergarten for 26 years at Little Brook Elementary School in Princeton taken care of hundreds and hundreds of little ones over the years I've put a lot of love into other people's children that's what we do as teachers my twins have attended Dei um school for the LA middle school for the last three years it's hard to believe they're going to be graduating this year uh I've been trying to find the perfect words to describe my children's experience at Dei under Mr Bree's care and I'm not just sure under his care I'm not sure exactly how to put this into words I tried today during my prep to get this together um everything that I have put into my students has come back to my Gracie and Shane at deacy the patience to your point Dr Smith exactly what you were just saying about your staff the patience love attention passion and heart the red staff has for our children is extremely unusual we have been blessed Mr Bray and the teachers have responded to emails early in the mornings late at night and on week weekends um my children are confident happy and thriving I have a child who needed to be challenged this year which was Gracie odonnell who won the math certific math award which I had no idea she tried to hide that from me by the way but I found out from your secretary who called me today to let me know that she was going to have this award um and another um and her twin Shane he has many challenges he's he he has IEP he's been in special education from the very beginning from small group instruction through um now he's in a regular uh you know in the mainstream group with special ed um when I tell you that all their needs have been met by the amazing red Hall staff I mean it after the six after they graduated sixth grade I told Mr Bray I was so nervous about seventh grade I mean there was no way another team would be that fabulous he assured me that they would be in good hands and sure enough in seventh grade and eighth grade they were they had more amazing years I'm not sure exactly what the secret is but I know from experience that most of this type of success and compassion starts at the top so I wanted to publicly thank Dr Smith for his leadership Mr Bray and the regular Ed teachers for a perfect Middle School experience for my twins I'd also like to give a huge shout out to the amazing special ed team in the red Hall you ladies have been such a pleasure to work with you all loved my boy like he was your own I hope other parents realize how lucky they are to have such a special group of people working with our children thank you deacy Middle School staff for all the love you've put into my children and my family I'll be forever grateful Cherokee has massive shoes to fill I hope Mr Bri gives them a heads up thank you hi I'm back again my name is Chris Miller live in Ravens Cliff I'm just here to talk about music one more time I have to say that the young lady that just spoke behind me a couple people ago uh she is her story sounds like every story that I've ever experienced as a teacher of music myself as a human being that went through a music program when I was younger um my best friends people that played in my weddings people that I went to their weddings and was part of their weddings we are musicians and we are friends for life and those people all make their connections in band and Orchestra and things throughout their their experiences when they're in school um and it is just so important to me that I reiterate to everybody that when you start to even make little modifications to a music program it has astronomical effects to everything before it and everything after it as well um and I just uh I'm shocked tonight with all of the stress that I I can imagine all of you are experiencing I I I'm not jealous of your positions whatsoever I think it's extremely difficult um but with all of that going on I'm shocked that we're talking about preschool and expanding um because to me it is just absolutely imperative that you have a functioning music program and arts program in your schools for students that are creative thinkers that have imagination that um maybe struggle to connect with other kids this is their home home for for tons and tons of kids and uh I just want to make sure that I reiterate the importance of the music program and I hope that you uh please try to just be transparent with the community as to what changes are going to take place um and if I could ever do anything as a a citizen of the township to help please know that I'm here to try to help and that's what I'm looking to do I just want to support the music program and support the kids that want to play music in E from Township Schools thank you hi Kevin pman I just wanted to add one more thing um to follow up with what Chris and rosemary said it is hard to understand coming from the outside and the parents perspective why a new administrative position is being added when multiple teacher positions are being cut it's it is baffling I don't there's been no explanation given for it and it just it looks terrible and no one really understand understands why it is but it has the appearance of that the administrative portion of it seems more important than the teaching portion of it given that there's being new positions created and people moved into them while other teachers are being let go thank you anyone else like to speak on any items of Interest seeing none we're going to be looking to a motion to go into a second executive session whereas an njsa 10412 allows for a public body to go into session during a public meeting and whereas the Board of Education of e Township has deemed it necessary to go into Clos session to discuss certain matters which are Exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the Board of Education will reconvene following the end of close section at approximately 10:25 is p.m. now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education will go into closed section for the following reasons as outl outlined in njsa 104-112 for matters of personnel do we have a motion motion by Mr Brown seconded by Mr deari and are we expecting action after no we are not expecting action to be taken after the second executive session Mr yat roll call please second executive session Mr Bach yes Mr Brown yes Mr demarcy yes Mrs null Mr Thompson yes Mr F Caro yes Mr conin yes thank you Mr Yates we'll see you all back at approximately 720 uh 10:25 is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] I [Music] [Music] d [Music] [Music] [Music] d [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he a [Music] [Music] yeah a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] m n [Music] [Music] he [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] 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