e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good evening everyone adequate notice of this meeting was provided by sending such notice the Asbury Pro press the Middletown patch and mown town Public School District website and the posting of such notice of the August T minor administrative offices and each elementary middle and secondary school and District roll call Mrs cetti here Mrs Farley here Mr fitgerald here Mrs B here mrsas here Mr to here Mrs W here Mrs tobacco here Mr here need a motion to approve exec session for H and Personnel matters discussion all in favor I I oppose exension see e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good evening everyone please stand for the pledge in a moment of silence hold back 22nd 2024 deil worked as a secretary in the district at oce elementary school before retiring in 2017 we extend our deepest condolences to the whole back I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all thank you okay we're now going to open up the meeting with our student speakers from High School North Mr Aiden k s there we go hello there all right I knew something had happened good evening evening at the pride a student staff member of the month prip program celebrates academic excellence and reinforces the value of maintaining a strong work ethic last month's award recipients include our ninth graders Gabrielle stingel Aiden F our 10th graders Robert Kimball and Danielle and CD s our 11th graders Juliana Santi and Patrick bista and our 12th graders Danielle Dam and Olivia zik our staff member is Mr V our CST secretary our annual Arts Fusion showcase students talents and display the remarkable artistic projects it was an repressed exhibit and was well attended by community members ow won earned the Reynolds medal award the prestigious honor that demonstrate outstanding achievement Math and Science our a boys and girls stru program both earned a nor championship titles following strong performances at the divisional meet this month Petri Divine Place third in the High School National Power olymic competition in new orans a phenomenal achievement a reverse praise referral programs present students with opportunities to recognize staff members positive contributions and influence through school all nominees receive a certificate in high school work super Council consisting of elected officials from each co-curricular Club then selects one monthly coing recipient based upon this submissions last month's Award winner was Miss Torres a Spanish teacher North was recognized as a US News and work report best high school a Noy accomplishment yes ofla [Applause] there go three of our talented artists magic over GI and Riley Luma painted a fantastic basball Dugout mural celebrating the program's recent historical successes this will enrich the fuel for years to come Nicholas Al Franco and David C's horror film that his near was selected for and recently screened at Princeton Film Festival danello Leo and L reic received Italian scholarships through the Italian Teachers Association of New Jersey and the coia foundation for their exceptional performances in Italian over four years 13 highly deated student athletes will be celebrated at our spring signing event on Tuesday May 21st AER gymnasium these individuals will sign National letters of intent and National letters of intent to comp at universities across the country AP testing begins on Monday May 6 360 students will be taking 517 exams on our campus this morning the administrative team conducted an AP test assembly to provide inspiration and discuss Tes of procedures bring your child to workday featured our Pure leaders ling up with staff members children and escorting them to various activities throughout the school our teachers facil ated Arts science video gaming World Language physical education and social studies related experiences it was a m day for the community thank you have a good night thank [Applause] you um hello we uh me and my three friends we founded a club at North uh athlete allies for autism as a new student by co-curricular Club at High School North its purpose is to develop relationships between General education students and students with special needs as well as to share our purp our passion for sports uh we have we have already visited new M school on two occasions since our founding on the date of March 1st 2024 during these visits we became acquainted with the students of kindergarten through fifth grade and we played alongside them in a series of enjoyable games these these games included catch kickball tag and more it has been such a rewarding experience so far and we look forward to strengthening these relationships in the months and years to [Applause] come thank you guys so much it means so much to all of us that you thoughted this club and you reached out and that you've grown it already and so quickly and I know it means a lot of the kids and um we just really are grateful so thank you and so proud of you very proud so proud of you can we get everybody's name though if you don't mind Jack Jack Jensen McKenna Gibson McKenna Gibson James Jens his brother James Joseph Tui Joseph Tui thank you all for good [Applause] job okay next up our High School South speaker Mr Jake Den Bowski good evening it's nice to see all of you here tonight students who receive recognition in the 2025 National Merit Scholarship program are Colin Bon Anna canava Patrick Dempsey Ryan Lon ré GTA and David Stalker on April 20th South Jor ré GTA played second in the engineering category at the New Jersey Academy of Science Junior Academy program during their annual meeting at Kane University his project title is infrared localization designing a novel end affector for nomatic EMS soft robots first and second place category winners at this event are invited to present at thean American Junior Academy of Sciences meeting in conjunction with the American Academy of Science annual meeting to be held in Boston next year ran GTA also presented at the Delaware Valley science F he was not selected to move on to the international science fair however he did receive first place and $500 for a promise of future engineering Excellence from the Pennsylvania SC Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers Valley Forge chap he reported that the fair was a great experience and he's very happy with the results and thank you all for the support the mids South academic team closed out the year on a high note three mids South teams faced off against tough competition from over 20 other schools at the mass pop culture ball however these teams SC no match for the likes of Patrick Demitri ran Liller Madison she Ste Steven Aon Mia Demitri and Izzy molski the team took home first place becoming the first academic team to do so their two fellow teams finished in 11th and 18th Place the team is looking forward to preparing for next year's competition congrats congrats Eagles congratulations to Mr kis for on being selected as a recipient on the M University Roberts chable Foundation outstanding teaching award this the selection committee was impressed by his creativity commitment to teaching and the impact he has had on the lives of his students we are fortunate to have dedicated teachers like Mr fles at Middletown South congratulations to Luke zini Christian gone Alex Ross Bend Marco and Michael Puma their films the half naked gun and the last call took home awards for best pictur and best cinematography at this year's C place film festival in Summit New Jersey the spring Sports season is in full swim with over 400 students competing in nine different sports the tennis team competed at the Stockton Invitational winning their two matches against atami and Ed har Township in track and field sophomore Logan birbank and Brad Smith took home first and second in the 80 North Division of me while J Junior Peter chalia took home the title in p on the girl side Rosie Shay Abby o and Caitlyn Brown swept the first three spots in the 3200 meters and MADD hussy won the shot B the boys golf team had an outstanding season highlighted by senior Dan Cassie finished in third in the short Conference Championship South staff student cornhle tournament came to a conclusion the day before spring break with the team of Mr Jeff corpal and Brian Balor defeating Mr Kevin hickey and Sean Strauss the in the championship the tournament raised over $1,400 with a $900 donation going to the Winner's charity breast detentions and $250 going to the runnerup memorial s while also having a $250 donation going to a randomly chosen charity the celiac disease Foundation April is alcohol awareness mon it is recognized each April as a time to bring understanding and prevention to alcohol abuse and the individuals and their families and friends who are affected by it the National Council on alcoholism and drug dependence has chosen The Color Purple to represent and acknowledge the many lives that are affected and support individuals who are tacked in an effort to raise public awareness April 19th of this year was proclaimed wear purple day in MTH County staff and students were encouraged to wear purple on this day in an effort to acknowledge the importance of alcohol wearen congratulations to four Middletown High School South students sersa stritz Lily V Isabella Sor and Anthony DeMarco they are winners of the mama County High School playright Festival their plays were chosen from those submitted by students across the country I'm sorry across the county their accomplishment should be celebrated thank thank you [Applause] now I'm going to turn the microphone over to Mrs Al phone to speak about the presentation the final 2425 all right so thank you everyone for coming out this evening um and I'm just going to preface this by saying I am extremely proud um of the budget that we are putting forth this year for board approval um it really was a collaboration amongst our administrative team our Board of Education um our building Administration in an effort um as I had spoke about at the tenative budget hearing um last month in realizing some very specific goals moving into um next school year um and those things were to continue to expand upon the educational Excellence that we hold as our standard here in Middletown we want to continue to to keep moving forward um and progress um the experience and opportunities that we give to our students we wanted to also create a really efficient model for sustaining a lot of our services and support across the district and then finally we wanted to present something that we felt was fiscally responsible to the taxpayer so those are the three real overarching goals um that we went into this budget really trying to um realize in the end so Shan if you could advance to you can I just spoke about that so we can go to the next one so these are the budget numbers that are most relevant um to the public um the most important thing and the thing that I think we're all really really proud of is we're able to include in this budget some really amazing things for our students which I'll get into a little bit later but we're doing that with only a 1% overall increase from our budget this year which is really amazing um the tax increase to the taxpayer as you can see is 2.95 that has not changed from where we um spoke about last month where that that that percentage increase would be and as you can see the impact to the average home assess in Middletown is the average home is assessed about um $650,000 give or take and the monthly and yearly impact you can see based on that average home assessment um our total operating budget you can see there it's pretty big over $183 million but we are a large operation running 16 buildings and educating approximately 9,000 students so um those are the most important budget numbers when you boil it down for you and the and the public as a taxpayer so go ahead ch um here are some of the revenues that we do receive and if you remember last month I spoke about the fact that over time our state aid has significantly declined and while we receive um almost $14 million in state aid that has been cut drastically over the last 5 to 7 years to the approximate amount of between $4 and5 million and when you look at that in an operating budget that that's a significant amount that we've had to compensate for um and we've done that through the realizing of efficiencies and really analyzing our our um spending and how we're structured in order to Prior prioritize things that we feel are the most important to give students that you know excellent experience that we certainly promote um and have come to know as as what's important here in Middletown um we do receive extraordinary Aid $1.7 million um we do get some Transportation Revenue which is about half a million doar some semi- reimbursements um you know a little under 250,000 um we did um benefit from the sale of our Port Mammoth property um that sale will be finalized in the upcoming months for $2.5 million and has really been um a real benefit to us in being able to do some really positive things which I'll get into but you know the highlight of that really is being able to put full-time art and music back into our elementary schools so um that Revenue source is being used to um help help offset some other costs so that way we can um move forward with that initiative because we do feel it's a really really important thing for setting the tone for fine and Performing Arts across the district um and then we have some miscellaneous revenues that come in from tuition and other sources so our programmatic enhancements that are priorities in this year's budget are really exciting um this is my second go round in Middletown and these are some things that we've been talking about for the better part of I would say 7 to 10 years um number one and certainly something that I'm tremendously excited about being um a curriculum I have a high a curriculum background that's where my passion is and um an elementary principal for many years is the implementation of Orton Gillingham and our ability to be able to provide that to all of our students um in our in our primary grades kada to at our um foundational literacy program um it really is a powerful powerful um philosophy of instruction related to foundational literacy IT addresses um students that have learning disabilities particularly dyslexia um and it really is effective in ensuring that our students have strong literacy skills moving through their Elementary School experience um we are also going to couple that with with a pilot of Orton Gilling hands morphology program which is a word study program for students in 3rd through fifth grade and we also are going to be working towards a redesign of our third through fifth grade literacy program with a greater focus on um emphasis on core skills that are present in the curriculum and in the standards um so that way we can ensure that students really do master or the greatest Mastery possible is achieved before moving into those Middle School years where there is a greater and heightened requirement for application of of those skills that they're really learning in that pre- to 5 range so we're excited for that um something that we certainly are able are going to be able to move forward with next year in this budget um number three as I spoke about something we are tremendously excited about is the return of full-time art and music to the district um we definitely felt this was a high priority um in the sense of building back um our Young Learners ability to be exposed to Art and music so that way they can experience and potentially see that as something that they could pursue moving through their middle school years and on into high school um that really Ducktails nicely with our redesign of our Middle School elective courses which will give a greater emphasis to student Choice within the electives and sustainment of their ability to be able to stay with something that they're passionate about whether it be art music technology um really setting them on the path for um those passions that we really are trying to cultivate at a young age and continue to grow all throughout the K 12 Continuum um if you take a look at number four um we are looking to improve our structures for elementary building support with our school social workers and school psychologists um Shing up both are a child study team and ensuring that those teams in our buildings are working cohesively and in a connected manner to provide the greatest degree of support for all of our students whether it be students that are general education students or students that are special educa special education students um that can bind effort between our former sbs's and our um child study team members who all except for learning Consultants work under their school social work or school psychologist certificates with which are New Jersey Department of Education certificates they're not clinical certificates but all of those individuals are able to support not only special education students but all of our Learners in the building um with with various things so this will create more connectivity and cohesion um our fifth item up there that's of major important is the refurbishment of the link cof Annex for our 8 to 21y Old transition program we refer to it as our miles program and we are really excited about this we are hoping to get that up and running for September where we can have our 18 to 21-year-old adult transition program offsite because it mimics an adult experience that's work-based more so than housing it in one of our um right now it's housed at High School South so we are looking to refurbish that link coft Annex which is a property we own um to be like a functioning house with a kitchen um and some um mocked up bedroom spaces where students can actually come in the morning practice life skills and go out to a work site so um that is definitely something that um we will be one of the only districts in Mammoth County to have that type of off-site location for our 18 to 21 year old program and then the final high priority in the budget which I spoke about last month is our migration back to District employed related Services Personnel um mostly our OTS occupational therapists and physical therapy staffs right now we contract the majority of them with outside vendors we are still going to contract some degree we are going to be bringing gradually over time um many back into being employed under our umbrella it gives us a little more autonomy in stationing them in buildings that have high needs needs um we have the ability for them to have sustained relationships with the students they're working with versus sometimes with a contract provider where it could change very VAR and be very variable based on the availability of the provider so this is not going to be something that happens overnight we're going to gradually migrate it back so we ensure that we have the right balance of contracted employees and outsourced related Services um in the most fiscally responsible manner but doing this will help us to realize some immediate cost savings so these are the four broader buckets that we looked to create efficiencies within our budget and really this didn't come with the the elimination of things it came with some consolidations it came with some new ways of thinking about things that we have done um certain ways for quite a long time and you know I commend my administrative team in the board because this really was a very thinktank mentality and and our mission was how do we do this better right how do we do this better how do we create structure structures that are effective that are efficient and that most importantly meet the needs of our students in our classrooms each and every day so we our goal was to have this budget um you know be proposed without any impact to students in classroom and that was really something that we were unwilling to concede in this process and and that's really what I'm most proud of is there we've we've benefited from this new model and this new structure so the first thing um that I want to talk about are some of the modified supplemental support services so we are going to modify our footprint for our interventionist at both the middle and the high school because of the way the schedule is structured and you're locked into a very bell-to-bell schedule um it becomes more and more challenging to pull students out of class for intervention so we feel that we can repurpose some of those interventionists back into classrooms to maybe um run some additional sections and do some other things there still will be interventionists at the middle in the high school just not as significant of a number because we feel they're more purposeful in classrooms with kids um we are going to be modifying our media specialist footprint at the middle school so they can um take on some of our gifted and talented instruction for our sixth grade students across the three buildings and this will also come with our educational technology Specialists being returned to classrooms to work with students um in those areas as I had briefly mentioned on the previous slide when I talked about our child study teams and our social workers and school psychologists we're going to be recategorizing our SPSS is who are our social behavioral support specialists at the middle school they as I had mentioned all work under their social work or school psychologist license so they are just going to be put under that greater umbrella with the rest of the social workers and school psychologists so that way they're a connected group that are working for the betterment of the all the kids in the school so that gives us greater flexibility on streamlining some of the work and um having multiple um people in those in each of our elementary schools who have different skill sets whether it be a combination of a learning consultant and a school psychologist or a learning consultant and a social worker so we do believe this efficiency and this this shift in structure um not lessening of people but a shift in structure helps us to Port our students better collectively in each building um we are going to realize some savings through attrition from central office administrative costs um you'll see on the agenda tonight we do have the retirement of an administrator that we're just going to shuffle some responsibility around in order to streamline ourselves up administratively across the district um we are also going to be taking a look at our security footprint there is no absolute on where this is going to land but our goal is to provide the safest environments for our students across the district K to preek to 12 utilizing both our class three officers and our security guards in a way that is cost effective efficient and doesn't compromise safety so we will have a a cost savings there but it won't come at the detriment to student safety so we will we will start rolling that out we're still formalizing some plans on that but but certainly our goal is to be not only safe and secure but also financially respons ible um we're going to be moving towards aligning at the middle school our guidance ratios to the National Standard which is approximately one through one uh counselor for 250 or so students um this is because a middle school counselor's role is much different than a high school guidance counselor's role and we're going to be taking some of those middle school guidance counselors in line with those ratios and utilizing them for other purposes in working with our students um in counseling settings but not necessarily guidance per se and then finally under this category is the reconfiguration of our RBT structure we um we not only employ some rbts in our district we're going to drop our 12 footprint a bit in order to be able to Outsource to um a contracted provider for some other things sometimes our needs um you know are are um easier met with flexibility through a contract attracted provider but just like with our OTS and PTs we want the right balance so in order to be able to do that effectively we're going to drop our footprint of hired people for our rbts temporarily to see how that Partners up with our contracted services so that way we have some people that we deploy immediately and then for our more significant situations we may Outsource to um a provider if needed so under the curriculum umbrella we're going to streamline some of our curricular expenses um our I ready digital tool we're going to be modifying that um we feel that our kindergarten students um our littlest Learners that would be potentially utilizing something like this we're going to scale back for them and we're not going to be purchasing the digital tool for them for next year um we did pull our kindergarten teachers to get feedback we had some parent feedback as well and we do believe that this is the right move for that grade level um that will help us realize some cost savings um in that area we also have taken a look at our usage statistics on other digital tools within the district and made decisions as to whether to keep some certain tools or not keep certain tools based on usage um because when you get low usage statistics and you're paying a high rate for some of these tools you every time you're using them they're costing you a lot of money so it's important to really look at the usage to see if what you're paying is worth the benefit across the district so that's how we made those decisions um we will be deferring some of our curriculum writing that we can um sometimes we're caught in between Cycles where we're waiting for standards to be revised at the state level so we've pushed pause on things that we know are coming down maybe a year a year or so from now um it's not a detriment to anything and we've also done the same thing with our textbook subscriptions most of our textbooks are ebooks so we want to make sure we realize the full six-year cycle which is what typically you purchase um before renewing even if a new version comes out um we just make sure that the standards are still covered and we continue to maintain that textbook for the life of the subscription whenever possible as I had mentioned our amended Ser related Services model I won't believe or this point but it's the migration back of some U Middletown employees to for OTP and speech services and we'll be continuing to look at that and and move some more back over the course of the next couple of years and then the final big bucket is the modification of our mental health support structure across the district and as I mentioned last month we benefited as did all the districts um really across the country in federal money related to um covid learning loss Co mental health concerns um th that money is termed it is no longer available to us those project periods have ended um and with that has come the funding that was backing a lot of the more extensive mental health supports that we've had and if you kind of rewind to a Time prior to covid um you know we had a moderate level of mental health support in the district because we are an educational entity um certainly there was a need after covid to really ramp that up for that specific purpose and I do believe it's time for us to dial that back not only from a financial perspective but we have returned to a greater sense of normaly and the focus swinging back towards you know AC not that mental health is not important and not that we don't support it but certainly there is a good balance in in in those things so we are going to be reducing our tier 2 effective School solution support across the district um other than a tier 2 counselor we will retain to conduct our fit to returns which is after a threat assessment is conducted and we will maintain all of our tier three counseling services and those are our clinical um our licensed clinicians that effective School Solutions provides for us um and when people refer to the ESS program and the tier three three clinicians those are the individuals that we're talking about and those are the the individuals that will be retained um through that contract for next school year so these are from those four buckets that I just talked about the approximate cost savings that we were able to realize through restructuring things um and again it was the mentality of just thinking differently about how we can do this better um by by looking at things differently by repurposing things that had been around for a long time but maybe weren't serving the purpose that they were intended to originally um I as I said in the beginning I am extremely proud of this I'm proud of it um I'm proud of the work that the team did on this I'm proud for the school community and I'm really really really excited for all of the great things that are in this budget for next year because I do feel like it continues to move us ahead in a direction that I know I am my administrative team is and the board is confident um that we will continue to be a district across the state that really people look to to see what we're doing everybody wants to know what's Middletown what are we doing and it's because we have this standard of Excellence and we really do value being Progressive um and putting the best experiences in front of our students so thank you very much um we appreciate you coming out and showing support um and um I'll you know close it with that but thank you thank you Miss alone any questions from anybody on the board or I I just want to know if we could address the security issue concern sure I can expand on it right now we are evaluating our security for print across the district um as you know we have class three officers and we have security guards in all of our buildings so our goal is to be safe and secure 100% but to also be financially responsible and that doesn't mean making a blanket cut to any one area we want to dial into to where the places and the times of day that have the greatest need and and then staff to that capacity so that's our goal um we do have some ways that we can cost save in that in a new model and again I'm going to go back to It's thinking about things different it's not necessarily eradicating one area or another it's how do we restructure this to get the greatest efficiency and also the greatest value for for the money that we're putting into the budget in certain areas so we will certainly not be um focusing on any one area it's really going to come um after a really extensive view of the needs and the times of day when we need the highest levels of security whether it's arrival dismissal um after school before school and that's how we're going to staff it um we have like I said we have class three officers and we have security guards all equally important in different ways and then we're going to put a footprint together that makes sense for us here in Middletown that's the goal thank you you're welcome Hey if anybody has any comments to make on our [Music] budget state your name and address Mark I just have a question you have the 2 and a half million from Fort M school which is great um what are the plans next year after you don't have that additional 3 half million you know the plans for so you're not in a $2.5 million gap next year yeah to continue to look for efficiencies um cost savings across the board I mean there are some things that you know we've discussed that could potentially happen but I'm not going to put the part before the horse at this point but again it's going back to Staffing to need right and so we're moving into a model that helps us to have greater efficiency across the district and I hope we continue to move in that direction yeah yeah I think it's an important piece thank you you're welcome anyone else like to make a [Music] comment amenos middle toown I just have to I'm just not understanding the um shifts in the Middle School formation of how how everything's shifting there which part the whole so our media Specialists are going to be taking on gifted and talented and um we are going to realize some savings through attrition we have a middle a media specialists at the middle school potentially retiring um and then they will be shared amongst three buildings and also do gifted and talented um and then we will have um our educational Tex technology Specialists Middle School is the last level across our district that still has that position so they're going to be phased back to classroom positions and then our um our guidance counseling footprint is going to be put more in put in line with that ratio I talked about and some of those individuals will be repurposed to other guidance positions in the district or to um potentially sack positions because some of them do hold sack certifications so right now I know at at Thor it's one guidance counselor per class so sixth grade has all has all guidance seventh e they're actually in line with the ratio for so that they will stay satisfied they they stay the same pretty much so what about the interventionist I'm not understand so we over time had grown our interventionist um crew at the middle school to be 12 across the district which is two in each content area in each building which is more than any other level in the district and you know it's kind of one of those things which like how did we get here um however we have to remember those interventionists are excellent math and literacy teachers so they going to be a benefit in the classroom and really impactful classrooms of kids so all we're doing is taking that and putting it in line with the rest what the rest of the district has so each building will have one literacy and one math interventionist and then the other individuals go will go back into classrooms to teach their content area and how does that affect like the students with the iup like it doesn't the interventionists work with our general education population okay y so it's not affecting interventionists or not affecting the I students right thank you you're welcome anyone else like to make a [Music] comment Bud rate hi Victoria Ryan beler I I'm trying to understand the budget cuts with security I I all I know is what I saw online that all the security guards are coming out of all the elementary SCH SCH and to me that just seems wrong that's not our goal as I just mentioned okay so what is the goal the goal as I said is to make sure that the buildings are safe and secure during the highest times of student traffic whether it's arrival dismissal recess and then staff it to need size of building matters we have class three officers um and certainly we're going to be rolling out the restructured footprint um in the coming weeks well when you say when important times like dismissal or coming into school who's to say if somebody was to come into school to do something is going to say well we're only going to do it you know when school starts or when it ends no if you don't have there during the day we have class three officers there all day I don't know we do have we do have a police presence in the building I just think of all the principles we have in two high schools that you know if we redirected some of that money to keep on the security guards that can actually interact with our children during the day if there spikes and this cuz class 3es can't they can't touch a student they can't subdue a student if they're doing something but a security C again they're trained in it and then that responsibility is now placed on our teachers when they shouldn't have to be they should be teaching else see else we to move on uh comme reports curriculum and [Applause] instruction okay I need a motion to approve presentation of the final 2425 school year budget so second discussion all in favor oppose [Music] stions the committee reports to Mrs Arley and instruction yes thank you we met uh last week and um few things that we covered in the elementary level fourth and fifth grade um they convened a committee of teachers to look at coming up with a kind of hybrid report card um structure to get those students better prepared for the switch from the standards based sort of one through e to the numerical grading that they'll face in middle school and high school um because you know feedback has been that it's a it's a big job it's a big learning curve to sort of adjust um from that standard space to the numerical system so for fourth and fifth grade probably some kind of a hybrid between numerical and standards based will be launched for next year um so they're working on that um Orton Gillingham as Mr alone mentioned in the budget presentation um Orton Gillingham is adop going to be adopted in all of the elementary schools for K through 2 and all of our K through 2 Elementary School teachers will be courton Gillingham trained before September so going into next school year everybody will be trained and ready to go and then also as Mr cell phone mentioned um the morphology pilot for 3 through five will'll be rolling out in a couple of the schools to see how that will work and whether that should be adopted in the future um see there is the too good for violence program in conjunction with the Middletown Police Department this is something that considering rolling out for next year in the sixth grade as an extension of the lead program which the fifth graders received and it's you know character education setting goals conflict resolution positive decision- making you know the feedback from the middle schools is that this would be something that would be very beneficial to the students especially to continue that um education from the fifth grade so that's something that we'll to for next year and I think that's it you that's far moving on to student services thank you uh yes uh special services also met on April 25th um I I notic the the tripa students left I was impressed they were here as as long as they were but um but I just want to say on behalf of our committee um I can't think of a better example as being set for not only students but but teachers and adults and throughout the town everything uh that's just the Home Run and it was born out of well born out of their their minds they created it but I came up at the parent feedback session posted a few months ago and I was there and and um mother of the student who founded it mentioned that they had created this they were moving along they had hit a little bit of some administrative roadblocks and you know kudos to the students to High School North to Administration it wasn't no one was going to say all right well we'll get this going next year it was you know mountains removed and it happened within weeks that it got what they needed to move forward and it's I was surprised to hear what's happening this baseball season this this spring so um that was just awesome that's that's something we're all very proud of um uh and then mrone touched on a lot of the these items but I'll just highlight You know despite the the really awful Financial realities and budget hits we continue to take year after year after year from Tren like she said to the tune of like $5 million over the last four or five years um I was pleased that despite you know those difficulties that special ed and special services programs I don't think were you know negatively impacted at all um you know for example the related Services positions that we're doing more efficiently by going inh house what that means is we're hiring six new people by this fall to to occupy those OT and PT roles which is really exciting um I'll also we talk about our community meeting which is exciting is that we've heard for a while now that the the foreign language teachers are struggling with you know um having support in the classroom for students with IEPs and col fors who are in foreign language classes which is just an extra layer of difficulty um but you know through the scheduling process the way that's going go going forward is the administrators are identifying professionals already on staff who have the right certificates who can support those uh language teachers with an in-class consultative uh model um to provide the right assistance for for the students with those needs um and then similarly the the redeployment of everybody who was an SPSS a social behavioral support specialist into the roles of U Learning teacher consultant School social workers psychologist um you know none of those people are going away they're being redeployed in a much more efficient and uh impactful way on a broader group of students so that's all very exciting um despite you know budet real all con Years thank thank thank you Mr pass over Miss Dar the finance and Facilities thank you Mr so the finance committee did although the bo already vote I will report that the finance committee did discuss the budget again in their April meeting I just want to bring to everybody's attention the budget was advertised in the newspaper as required on April 15th um that was approved by the county superintendent and we have public he so that's good uh we also have a few items on the agenda related to technology contracts that are partially erate funded so there's three contracts on the agenda this evening a total approximately 150,000 but for these Services we are eligible for key rate reimbursement of approximately 40% when the items that qualify for that so again these services are included in the 2425 budget and we do utilize the funding to offset some of the costs really as far thank you m so I'll continue with facil so facilities we did talk about some project updates we the ongoing largest ongoing project now is the high school track we had an on-site meeting with two contractors last last week to talk about scheduled coordination and Logistics uh we will decide on um by the end of this month we had to decide on track um colors and and field markings and so forth so that's that's already in process coordinating with our athletic department and also our facilities Department uh we also have a for High School South hbac um we have the change order for fire detectors on the agenda we did talk about this with the facility committee previously there were things that we originally thought were installed they were not so they were not in the original s for work the total change order is approximately $54,000 roughly 20,000 that will be deducted from our remaining allows so the 34,000 will be added to the contract amount um again these are required to me code and they wer included in this original scope of the work we did talk about Mrs Al mentioned it in her presentation but we did talk more about the link ad project and we have a $200,000 lot in the budget to work on that we talked about how much of that work we could do in-house and we just need to finalize some drawings and I know our facilities department is also working on some of the mechanical needs and we are collectively looking at rebates and incentives that we can get to offset some of that cost so that work will be Ono throughout the summer and that's see thank you m Mr just want yeah I just want to add that um for this month we're canceling our facilities meeting because we've gone through a lot of the budget stuff and we will reconvene it in um May so that we can um I mean June so that we could get an update on our summer programs what they're going to be doing in the buildings and so on so on sounds good thank you yeah we'll definitely be talking about the summer work that we doing at that point upd thank you okay now going to open the microphone up for public comment or AG gender items only any like to make a comment please step forward name and address see Don't Step the vote close a portion of public comment and move on we have a couple of proclamations here um have administrator Administrative Professionals Day therefore be resolved Middletown Township Board of Education hereby recognizing Wednesday April 24th 2024 as administrative professional day and expresses deep appreciation to the administrative professional for their unselfish service to schools departments and the community we also have school principal day therefore be resolved Middletown Township Board of Education due hereby Proclaim Monday March 1st 2024 as National School principal day in Midtown Township Public Schools they have Teacher Appreciation Day therefore be a result Middletown Township Board of Education due hereby Proclaim Tuesday May 7th 2024 as national teacher appreciation day in Middletown Township Public Schools and lastly we have school nurse appreciation day therefore be resolved that Middletown Township Board of Education School District due hereby Proclaim Wednesday March 8 2024 as school nurse appreciation day in the Middletown Township of schools um I'm just going to add uh in my report that I'm very proud of Middletown North and Middletown South for being recognized by US News and World reports being the top or the best high schools in the country no matter where they fell it's irrelevant we they should all be proud the teachers and the students alike that they have been recognized for all their hard work to have the year I think they're owed a round of applause P all us [Applause] if I was the person who is making this decision I would say Middletown school is probably the best in the nation but unfortunately it's not a but proud of everyone and congratulations I'm going to turn over to Mrs El for a superintendent report I'm sorry listen is on didn't sound like it for second um so a couple of uh you logistical items um we have our amended school calendar on the agenda for tonight if you remember from the weather related days um our last day for students will be June 20th um our Middle School graduations are scheduled for June 18th and our high school graduations are scheduled for June 19th with the rain date of June 20th um High School exam schedules will be sent out in the next week or so we do have it structured we just want to work uh look at it one more time before our high school admin teams send those out to our school communities um on the amended calendar you'll you'll notice that the last day for staff members is scheduled for Monday June 24th um because Friday the 21st is is our uh federal juneth holiday observed we are going to allow our staff members to make a decision as to whether or not they would like to exercise that holiday on that Friday or come in that Monday um if they choose to come in on Friday then they certainly do not have to come in on the Monday but um on certain federal holidays when students are not present and 12-month employees are here um we can give them that flexibility and I think we will have probably many staff members that will take advantage of that to close out the year on a Friday um versus a Monday but everybody will have that personal choice available to them um I would also like to extend my congratulations to both High School North and High School South for being named um the US News and World Report best high best high schools for 2024 and that's Statewide Regional which is the New York metro area and then also Nation so all three categorical areas both high schools were included within um again commending our students from high school north on their successful start to the triaa club um I'm just so proud of them I can't say enough they took the idea and they ran with it um thank you to Mr Cullen for making sure that uh he was staying on top of them because you know they're very motivated middle uh High School boys that are involved in a lot of things so um I know they wanted to get it done and uh Mr Cullen kind of was uh the one revisiting it but there it was all their idea and those kids um I'm going to be publishing in my newsletter for the month on Friday some pictures from it and it's just amazing so um kudos to those young men and thank you to their parents for raising such outstanding kids um I do want to talk a little bit about our esss program um I'm just been aware that there's some misinformation that I think is kind of making its rounds on social media so I want to take this opportunity to kind of correct that narrative if I can um as I mentioned ESS is our um tier three counseling um support program that is present in a number of our buildings within the district we do not house it in every single school because that wouldn't be appropriate and not financially responsible quite frankly um in this program it's not just about providing a counselor but it's also Al the other supports that are provided to families for students that may need support for um their children and their families who are having challenging situations so um that includes um treatment plans for students individual group and family therapies family and caregiver support urgent interventions when needed like immediate mobile response um classroom pushin support and direct link to medical professionals including medication management so it's not just about the counselor in the building it's about the full complement of resources that the students that are a part of the program and also the school benefits from so I want just to make that clear like it's a collective Community benefit um in our schools that do house ESS we have also layered in additional resources such as board certified Behavior analysts and registered Behavior technicians to further support our students that may be experiencing challenging behaviors having a clinician is only a piece of the puzzle so you have to provide a layered approach to resources so that way students have a variety of supports at their disposal in order to um move towards greater success in inclusive environments and I and I know the mission of my administrative team and of this board is to do everything in our power to keep every single student we can within the walls of our school building and I won't concede that until we've exhausted every single opportunity out there including layering and supports like this um how do we determine where ESS is placed um that comes with a lot of analysis of what's going on throughout the district it is not halfhazard um we often I would say most often place the program where there's the high highest organic need meaning the most kids in that building at the given time that need that type of support and it the goal of that is to not displace students from their home school so when we look at how do you get a program in your building or why did my building get a program like that that is the reason it's because we are trying to do what's right by the students that are a part of that organic population and not disrupt students needlessly um you know these are districtwide programs so while we do house them in places where those organic populations are the highest we do often invite other students to become a part of that school community and our our hope is that those School communities Embrace those students with open arms and really bring them into the fold with a great degree of empathy and understanding for the type of support that they may need to be successful um we always we always are paying attention to this just because a program is housed in one school for one year that does not necessarily mean that will be the landscape for next year however we go back to that where is the organic need how do we displace as few students as possible um and we certainly look to support the schools um with these multiple layers because not only do the students as I said benefit who are in the program but the entire School Community benefits from it and I do believe there are lots and lots and lots of lessons to be learned through the mindset and the lens of inclusion especially empathy um so I just wanted to make sure that there was an understanding CommunityWide of how we approach this and there's a lot of intention um and a lot of hard work that goes in behind the scenes to ensure um that we're that we're doing all we can as I said and it's something I will never concede if I don't have to is our goal is to keep students here and to bring them back if temporarily they do have to travel outside of our district to get some additional supports that we can't provide for whatever reason but um and that has been a mindset Shi shift for us in the community so you know thank you um to those buildings that are supporting those programs and thank you to those families that are helping to develop those really really important skills of empathy in their children so um that's all I'll say about ESS I'm very passionate about it cuz I do feel it's important um we do have on the agenda uh this evening the appointment of the High School North principal position um after an extensive interview process I am making the recommendation to the board of ed for Mr Matthew ferry to assume the position effective July 1 and I am certainly confident that Mr Ferry will continue to Foster the attitude of Excellence that Mr Cullen has sparked at high school north um over the last two years and continue to progress the school community in a positive direction um if the indication of a US News and World Report um best high school categorization is any indication I would say we're doing a pretty great job over there so I know Mr Ferry is going to continue that along um congratulations to our support professional staff members that we honored this evening it's always great when we get to bring what I refer to as our unsung heroes up on the stage for recognition from the communities and their colleagues so congratulations to them um and the last thing and I just want to make mention of our evolution of our parent um information committee pick as it's um referred to we are going to try to do things a little bit differently for the future to try to get more specific and targeted conversations around some of the initiatives within the district so we're going to be pulling on that pick group um to come together in small group forums with myself and some of our curriculum team or special services departments dependent upon the initiative to have small feedback sessions where parent parents can really have a voice in creating impactful change so I thank you I thank you for your continued support um and we're looking forward to a great rest of the school year thank you Miss okay moving over to approval of the meeting minutes I need a motion to approve 11 A and B so move discussion all in favor I oppose extensions be a motion to approve appointment for professional Services 12 A and B discussion all in favor oppose exensions the motion to approve business office consent agenda 13 a through I discussion all in favor oppose extensions the motion to approve recommendation of superintendent of schools consent agenda 14 a through nus n113 so discussion all in favor and 13 minus n13 we do a roll call okay [Music] discussion all in favor oppose exension I'm no on a recommendations of the agenda the harass no unfounded and yes on the unfounded and I am voting no on the founded with the exception of 26175 and yes on the nonf founded anyone else good yes I need a motion to approve 14 N3 discussion can I get a roll call abely Mrs CTI yes Mrs Farley yes Mr fitgerald yes Mrs Vues yes Mrs skolaski yes Mr to yes Mrs R yes Mrs tobacco yes Mr yes congratulations Mr thir I will say as Mr cin is in the room have big shoes to do if he left the room I'd say he have tremendous shoes to don't make sense of course uh yeah right he's got to come to the curriculum office make it we're going to continue on the Legacy we have going on here and congratulations Mr CL wish you all the best and we're rooting for you every way okay we have uh old business anybody have old business um yes I just want to um say that I attended art Fusion here and it was outstanding I don't know how many people got to see it or how many community members this place was packed but the artwork was exceptional and it gets better and better every year so I think that that's going to get even better with the inclusion of Elementary art and music and all that good stuff and um can't wait to see what happens in the future I was there as well and I will did on L Jones said it was beautiful uh new business new business I do it's going to be a little bit much but um first I want to say um congratulations to Julia March of High School South during the interview process for scholarships I found out that Julia is the Pennsylvania women's cross psycho cross champion and N NCA New Jersey JB Ford champion for 2023 and the New Jersey mountain bike series leader which brings me to the next thing is I know we have bikes in this District CU we purchased them and this young lady has done a tremendous job with cycling and we would never know if I didn't sit on the interview and and it's something we don't know what a lot of our kids are doing I wish there was a way we could reach out and do a survey every year and let kids tell us what they're doing on the outside of school because some of these accomplishments are amazing I also wanted to congratulate Patrick Divine which Aiden spoke about before it's his first round of high school Nationals his first year in powerlifting and he came in third place in in the nation in his our weight group and he also after finishing that broke five New Jersey State records and he's the only one that I know in the high school that's doing powerlifting so I think that's a humongous um accomplishment so I just wish we could find out more things like this about our students and what they're involved in because it's good character next I want to talk I had the privilege of sitting in on the honor of being part of the um scholarship interviews for high school north and to talk about best high schools both our high schools it's an understatement I mean what I'm going to I hope you you know go with me with what I'm going to tell you but almost all of who interviewed are leaving with college credits and at least a large portion of them are leaving with one year's worth of college credits that's incredible so listen to them speak and how much time and effort they put in besides their extracurricular activities I don't know how they do it good time management many of them have mastered three languages that's very impressive quite a few of them hold leadership positions in their jobs they holded within the community um most of them expressed how grateful they were to Dr cordier and Mr Cullen for their leadership and support during their High School career everyone had at least one or more teachers that they felt encouraged them to go above and beyond to succeed and a lot of teachers names were repeated repeated over and over again and just the kind words that the students had to say about these people it says a lot for our district all expressed that they have they were provided what they needed to get where they are today and prepare them for college I asked them all one question what could we have done differently or would you have like to see us improve during your time at north um more information about vocational was a a big plus promote AB courses earlier especially a freshman year but you have to consider that this class of seniors were Co class so that was almost impossible to do and I did Express that we have made a big difference in that advertise clubs earlier and prove how we advertise them they want to know ahead of time and and more frequently what's available more student and staff events need to make opportunities more available more opportunities to pick classes and Fields that they're interested in and if you notice none of these things are negative these are all just things that they're grateful what they had but you know maybe they would have liked to see a little more advertise Google Classroom more and um I asked them what courses would they like to have seen they want to see a class on apply to college I thought that was pretty impressive um they want to see more astronomy courses full year methology accounting classes and they also want a Cycling Club and we all know who wants that she'll be gone um changes that we could have made rethink your 80 minute schedule combine three aspects of theater acting singing and dance in the robotics class work with the robotics earlier in the course and encourage students to do more French honor things they will always remember the most and and I I can't disagree with them because I was there too first the bonfire it meant a lot to every one of them and secondly traveling to Newark on the train to support the hockey team that was a big big remember thing for them okay our students are doing and accomplishing so many things we have no idea about outside the school so I wish there was a way that we could um connect and find out what it is they're doing in conclusion we have two great high schools both learning the same curriculum both getting accepted into great colleges and both have students excelling in vocational and coming out with great paying jobs with the way the rankings come out I feel sometimes North has gotten a bad rep maybe with our new principal Mr furry we can get to the bottom of the problem and find out why we're so far ranked when we have all the same curriculum two great high schools and it would be nice to see them both up there together I just want to take a minute to um read the list of colleges that these kids got accepted into and each college has five or six kids that I got got accepted to each one of these colleges so I just want to read the list off nji Brookdale Stevens University of Delaware Stockton Ruckers Main Street main skip down Maris mullenberg MMO Rhode Island Ramapo TC andj amorist VT Virginia Tech South Carolina Columbia Ohio State Michigan State Maryland William Patterson NYU Sean Hall Cas Yukon James Madison Penn State nor Eastern Rowan Ryder pain Bucknell Fairfield University of Pittsburgh University New Hampshire University of Florida University of Tennessee Georgian Court Ithaca William Mary Case Western American Cornerstone honors program Dartmouth forom daal Quinn Pak Stony Brook Purdue FD U Clemson Indiana University Knoxville High Point Georgetown marry Mount honors Boston Princeton Browns and I'm sure there's a few that I left out but these are all great high schools that our kids got accepted into and Middletown should be proud of both high schools for these accomplishments and with just one request that maybe the high school um scholarship committees could meet and ramp their um goals on who can apply for scholarships and that kind of came from our committee that they would like to see may find a way to make it available for other students that could apply because we have many struggling students financially and they're academically doing very well so Kudos and it was an honor to serve on this committee I haven't done it for a few years um but it was impressive and it really makes you have to stop and think about what Middletown is really about what kind of education that we are affording to our kids and it's outstanding great thank you m I'm done okay Jade P anybody like to say anything good we're open the microphone up for public comp sorry public comment if you like to comment please take your name and address sorry I want to speak hi my name is Jord I'm from Ocean Avenue and I know you talk about ESS and I want to say that I do have empathy I have a family member that's a similar program 9 years old so my my son understands but for some time now he has been deteriorating emotionally and mentally due to what he's seeing and recently it's become physical he comes out of school every day full of full of complete anxiety mode if he's not crying due to the disruptions and the chaos he has started to tell me that he hates school that he doesn't want to go he's trying to make me keep him home this past week he came home with broken blood vessels in his face due to him grunting and frustration because he couldn't learn because if he had put his noise handing headphones on he wouldn't have heard the teacher teach on a good day there's only one or two in incidences sometimes there's three or four sometimes five this is all impeding on his education and is emotionally he he's not able to like get a grasp on it and now recently he he was attacked thank God he did know what the program meant so that he only defended himself I don't want him hurting nobody I don't want nobody getting hurt my concern is that I understand the program is successful for some but what about are we doing any studies on the other children what is doing to them emotionally physically mentally um if we could look into that because I'm I don't know what else to do with them I I don't it's just hot R to me I'm actually like trying not to cry um it's also lack of par participation at Ocean Avenue we feel we we don't know that for sure um because we feel like we're not allowing the building to see what's going on because things go on in there and it's it's it's just sad and I hope that someone would help us cuz we don't know what else to do then thank you my name isali north mle um obviously I'm here with J as well sorry this gets me very emotional just like you get St emotional my son has been in school since he was 3 years old he's No Angel by any mean but he loves school school works for him my son has a 54 he has an ADHD diagnosis schedule means everything to him couple months ago my son came home depressed because he had been through so much in his he loved his teachers his teacher improved his reading where he struggles the most 42 points on his eye ready and I do I give that credit to the teacher she understood him and helped him in ways that he needed to be help I watched him slowly deteriorate just like J's son my son came home one day and later he to bed from 3:30 to 8:00 p.m. and did not have anything to eat because he's depressed their solution move my son out of the class how is that fair to my son my son's 9 years old and he looked at me and said Mommy why do I have to move again he's no angel but he loves new friends he was embarrassed he was almost assaulted and he became so so depressed that I I didn't know what to do I turned to I did speak to Mrs Al I spoke to the mayor I spoke to Mr F I spoke to Mrs Min but we need a change we do and I I really hope to see that and I agree that studies need to be done on the 19 other children that are in the class because it's emotionally wrecking them we have I I love Ocean Avenue school but as of right now I have't incoming kindergarten in September I am debating if I feel safe enough to send my two children to that school because of what is happening it's scary and I don't want to see this I don't and I know there are 19 other children suffering but in the same sense when he was moved and this is not the fault of Any teacher But the teacher that was in that class another amazing teacher and he does have friends in that class but she went out on maternity to leave 4 days later 4 days he got 4 days to learn a new teacher a student teacher at that she's very she is amazing but that other class had some from September to march to learn my child had four days and he is now struggling again he's still to this day comes home Angry and sad because he had to move he had to move not had to I mean by choice he did want to move but he he really shouldn't have had to move in reality he should know and I feel like the accommodations that are making and I understand why accommodations need to be made and that is perfectly fine but we also need to keep in mind the 19 other children because accommodations are not being made for them there is no reason a child should have to put on noise cancelling headphones to be able to learn and that's it thank you thank you sorry anyone else wish to make a public step forward I portion chair the meeting discussion all favor oose have a great night everyone