[Music] the north hter Vorhees Regional High School District Board of Education meeting on Tuesday July 23rd 2024 is now called to order in accordance with the required of the open public meetings meeting act njsa 1046 6 at seek adequate notice of the meeting has been provided by submission of notice of the time date and location to the Hun County Democrat excuse me on June 6 2024 notice and to the extent no the agenda of this meeting have been posted at North hunon High School and bhe High School provided to the municipal CLS of Bethlehem Township Cal uh Califon burough town of Clinton Clinton Township Franklin Township Glen Gardner burrow Hampton bur Highbridge burough Lebanon bur Lebanon Township tubry Township and Union Township as well as other interested parties and posted on the fire district website fire exits are located in the direction indicated if alerted to fire please move in a calm and brly fashion to the nearest smoke free exit at this time please silence your cell phones and a roll call m t here Mr Chapman here here miss Gallow here miss H here M KR here Mr M here Mr M re here miss SEL is Mr Spanton is absent Miss VI here and Mr faran here can we rise [Music] for Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay I need a call for a motion second to approve agenda item 14 uh 4-1 which is our minutes from the June 25th 2024 board meeting second second all in favor I any opposed and extensions just okay all right right we'll start open good news um we've had numerous summer camps that are continuing to run through the summer at North hland High School those are open the both schools in the district but they're actually based at North hunon just to keep things centralized um we have extended school year happening at both North hunon and vores and has been going very well at both schools students at the vores esy program were invited to and attend the dress rehearsal of the VHS theater production Mary Poppins Jr on Friday July 19th during the school day it was a great opportunity for them to see the show get a feel for the overall theater experience and gain interest for the winter unified musical which is a great as well uh from a facility update we have HBC work continuing uh it's moving forward and it's scheduled to wrap up before the start of school year so everything's on schedule and that's always good we have um no new Hib reports no new hi um no new Hib incidences to report this month uh we have one hi report that was unfounded from last month and need a motion okay so need a motion a second to affirm the determinations of the hi incidents reported at the June 25th board meeting so moved second and just to clarify it was a May date so not last month right CU we're in July yeah it was it was entered in May May yeah it was May that it was reported that was it was reported to you at the June meeting okay and you're affirming got you got thank you it was before the June meeting there has been nothing sens okay gotcha thank you uh all in favor I any opposed any extensions okay so move and then the monthly reports are there um we did move them back to his chief School administrator report but we did talk about those in curriculum yeah so we'll keep talking about them in curriculum we're just going to but there's nothing to vote on so we're going to keep them back where they were but keep it on the agenda show uh so our next regular board meeting is August 13 2024 at 7.m at this location um as of planed right now Gwen Thorton will be here to uh discuss board goals and objectives with us uh the deadline to submit nominating petitions for school board vacancies to the county clerk's office is July 29 2024 at 4 p.m. the NJ SBA work shop 2024 is October 21st to 22nd Atlantic City I know I know Brandon you WR express interest in going I don't know if others are going but so I guess the one request I have this year is if we're the one person is going maybe we can try to like break up the different you know groups to sort of you know get the maximum and maybe this year we can try given make doing readouts afterwards just sort of maximize people who can't go it's just an idea uh that's it just one clarifying question on um committee meetings for August um I couldn't recall there if what the status of the committee meetings was if we were putting them on if they were tentative or if they were set I think we're keeping them we'll keep them again I guess if we don't there nothing to do we can always cancel it later but why don't we keep them at the moment okay so yeah we're going to be I guess doing that pretty quickly again two weeks right so uh so public comment so during this portion of the meeting the public is invited to address the board of educ ation with comments you are requested to sign the register provided for this purpose um and state your name Municipality of residence group affiliation if applicable and director comments to the school board president while all comments will be considered by the Board of Education and a response may be forthcoming if in when appropriate individual school board members may not respond to the speakers at the time of their appearance the public comment period will be a maximum of 30 minutes in length unless there are unusual circumstances you'll be allocated 3 minutes to speak and no will be permitted to speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard please keep your comments respectful and non defamatory and maintain the level of the Quorum appropriate for a public meeting where students may be present and in the audience any comments none you just all want to hear me talk tonight yes we did okay then moving on uh uh Beth for quick yes I have to remember that I'm right after look I can pull everything up hold on a second okay so the uh curriculum instruction and Technology committee met on um July 17th um everyone was present um at the meeting with the exception of Jess um was out that unavailable that day uh what we and as mentioned previously we did talk quite a bit about the um the monthly reports um that I wanted to just talk about so one of the things that we had spoken about was the the kind of um inequity of the number of suspensions that were we were seeing coming out of North honen versus Vorhees uh we looked at since we were looking at April May and June's monthly reports it was um it was it was fairly significant and more so than just because one school is larger than the other so I also went back before this meeting to take a look at what the even prior four or so um monthly reports showed and it was it was very similar um and so what we'd like to do I think is better understand if if it's just that the penalties or the the suspensions are not being uh evaluated in the same way you know what are the differences what's happening at the schools that one school is giving out a lot of them versus others um so I think that that's something that we want to take a closer look at uh going forward and uh we'll do an assessment of it uh as we get into the school year again um the other thing we talked about because we have to approve the um emergency virtual instruction plan tonight uh was whether or not the state had been considered considering allowing um snow days uh to count towards I think we allowing snow days to count towards the 180 days if we were to use um if we were to do at at home like remote learning type of of situation so um no one have heard of anything yet uh but if something comes up we'll obviously bring it to the to the the whole board's attention and I already mentioned the um the uh the monthly reports um other than that it was a it was a fairly quick meeting since school's not in session and that was it I know um regarding the emergency uh friends that are in other states especially in the midwest where they get you know they can't get there they've been doing it so I'm hoping New Jersey will follow suit sure that way we don't have I remember years where they were tacking it on to the end of you know June and giving up weekends in May because we went over yeah when we had a lot of those B I should have also mentioned just um the there was only one out District placement um and then um we're also approving the contract for the commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired services so we'll be doing that tonight any other questions okay so I need to call for motion and second to approve agenda items 81 through 84 second Chris sorry all in favor I any opposed any extensions okay so moved uh so policy so Kim is out tonight so she had a death in her family so our condolences to Kim and her family um policy met on July 15th for about a half hour there's nothing to approve tonight but we had two uh two items of discussion one was uh we discussed an existing procedure that allows parents um to contact the librarian to ask um that for their specific student um certain books be restricted for that student to be taken out um so this is a procedure that will be uh including back to school night to inform parents um the second one was uh a request that U when the school is having assemblies that parents be not ified of the assemblies and who the speakers are on the topics to provide an opportunity U for possibly for for the child to be opted out of it and um the administration said that they would start that process so those were the two topics any questions on that or I I just had a question on the first one did is it a current process where a parent can inform the librarian that they don't want their child to read the book or is that something new that's going to Beed understanding is that's that's an existing process in place it is okay I just want to clarify um the other thing is um so probably not for the same reason but um as far as notifying parents of assemblies um I wonder if there's a possibility that there is an assembly on something that a parent feels would be really beneficial for their child if there's a possibility to work with the school to allow children to actually attend those so an example was um last year there was I think they brought in somebody who had been a a prisoner of war I think um in the Vietnam War and yeah and um it wasn't open to all the kids and um it was odd because the AP World History Class had been just learning about Vietnam and not invited um to that to that assembly so I think there's a real benefit if there's something whether it's relevant to to what's happening in a person's personal life or what they're learning about in school if they'll be given an opportunity for children to attend if they'd like to there's space that's a good idea yeah yeah they they will accomp that's great yeah okay does the policy for the restricted access exist at both schools or is it just it's my understanding it exists at both schools but is not um published um easily published so we're going to just we're just going to make sure everyone knows about it okay questions yeah see I think the only request I have is is for both of these rties is if if they're working or not working work well maybe just as with we reevaluate mid year what's working and what's not and adjust yeah certainly for the assembly also right if it's not manageable let's just talk about it and see if there way but okay is there a way I don't know in the instance that you shared um and I I don't know which is is if a class or a group is running an assembly does that tend to be broad broadly known or um because of particular program or a teacher is running it it just may not be widely know it's a classroom activity it might not be right broadcast building wide um but if it's multiple classrooms it usually is you know there's something in the announcements about it right so people hear about it but but I think notifying parents will give them an opportunity to if a parent thinks their child would would benefit from going one of those assemblies that they might not have been scheduled to go to it'll look in that way yeah I guess I was just wondering in an instance where perhaps a teacher was doing something um for a particular course or something and you know if there's suddenly broad interest in it it it could become more of a logistical undertaking um with other other classes or teachers involved but again if that's something that can be sort of just open to and sort of explored and handled as those things come up that would be great we would take those Case by yeah okay yeah then that way they can figure out like if they do get more interest they can change the venue make it into like a larger venue instead of just being in the classroom yeah great yeah I will say and this is my personal comment not a comment for members of the board I hope the first the first process is may be a happy medium right towards towards trying to find a middle ground for for the books I and I again I appreciate this is me personal not speaking in the board I appreciate both sides of this this this debate right I don't disrespect either side but maybe it's a maybe it's a middle ground that will that will make both sides feel more comfortable that's just my person my person opinion right so um on the assemblies and other items I haven't been on like I haven't because I don't have kids in the district right now do we are they things posted like on a monthly basis of upcoming assemblies I know we have sports and other items activities is there a way that we can in incorporate the website so people could see at a glance I mean I know we can send it out to the parents but yeah I didn't know if there would be things that would be offered to others that might have interest sometimes they probably pop up during the year too depending on topic so I guess maybe in the beginning of the year it would be a great idea to be able to do that but then I guess as things are at it it would still have to be emailed to the parents in case they wanted to up their kid out but then there might be something that pops up that might be helpful for a class or something yeah because I like the you know landing page of the website on the portal to show it activities and news and so you know that is helpful for busy busy parents I know we get emails and things but yeah easily overlooked yeah yeah okay great okay so moving on to finance John is out so Finance met on July 15th for about about 30 minutes uh so the first two agenda items are the 2425 Esa and Ida entitlement grants um up for your acceptance right so this is the request and also the money that that we should receive so the idea funds are used for out a district special education placements and the Esa funds are as indicated for the respective titles on our agenda uh the 10.3 is the cafeteria meal plan for 2425 there's no big changes on that uh obviously the monthly bills list is there the other thing we discussed um is Katie gave us an update on the bus bus route bids and renewals so the increase for this coming year is going to be 8% that was um we've budgeted for that appropriately so this shouldn't be problem and this is again due to the continued hourly uh rates that are being requested uh KD also informed us that we've hired uh a retired bus driver uh on hourly race to help us with athletic runs uh the other topic we briefly discussed and I'll let you read it through the minutes was just the RFP process for um uh just in general how to how to you get services such as attorneys so I'll let you read through it in the board meeting minutes so any questions on those items I just had a question about the cafeteria meal pricing um I was happy to see that um the the prices aren't going to increase too too much going into the next school year in light of a lot of the increases in food costs did we have a sense from the provider whether they they expect to see any further increases um and do you think as a followup that they would ever make a change midy year we've never done a midyear so I wouldn't anticipate that okay they haven't alluded to that okay what was the percentage this year of the increase do we know item it's not oh it's not an overall go around and make sure each item is appropriate in area yeah okay and we have the full like they gave us a pretty good itemized list yeah I just looked at that I just saw that see that in the agenda before so then I just question what was the consensus here about um going out for R RFP what was the whole discussion and I mean I see the minutes here I just wasn't sure exactly what was fully discussed and no discussion as to whether to if we we can decide as a board to do it and if we would want to do it it's probably something we look at towards the end of the year so that um it would cycle back into writer approval process for the June meeting is probably an easy time but any the other thing to keep in mind we do have two law groups so um p is also available to us for other things so so in certain instances we can ask for that but that's that's what it says here special coun so certain yeah so the way that we've we've retained Bush we could ask Bush to to handle certain things if something came up that we wanted them to take handle of yeah we can do that would that be an individual request or would have to be a decision by the board uh I think that's a decision of me or the administration if we wanted to have to have Bush handle a particular matter okay I had two emails that I had sent in this year and asked for that and I didn't get a response for those that's why I was asking so GL what would be the instance of a special Council um what would what is the definition of um when we would engage our secondary Council what is a good example of that I don't think we would do that for normal day-to-day board business it would have to be extenuating circumstances that that kenno couldn't handle so what would qualify for that special councel request so if they were conflict counil was the only in the case that has a conflict so if there was a conflict of interest if they were appointed as conflict there a conflict right but right now we have them appointed as special counsil so they can act in any capacity that we should ask them to but we do not have them um appointed as primary board counsel so right now we've only used them as conflict Council we've used them in the a conflict so again it's up to the board president or us um we haven't seen the need yet to use Bush Walker but if there is a situation that arises they can be used perfect thank you um I have not been on the finance committee so I don't haven't attended any of these type of meetings um do you guys review the bills list uh we have it now you have it we well we do well oh I mean six years um if we have a question we we ask yeah you have yeah but no no we do if there's anything that we ask for delineation of things and explanations and all that so um we compare sometimes from year over year on increases and um but yeah we do um it's not that it's not a topic I should yeah I apologize not it's not we can't discuss it yeah for the committee yes yes yes I'm sorry yes we can discuss it and we've brought up line item and ask for clarification and that so y thank you it's great to see with the monthly bills list that there's so many reimbursements for graduate school too so many the teachers are going for that and I don't know if you can answer this but I'm just curious how how many actually go for their continuing education is it is it a good percentage of our teachers I don't have top yeah I would say the majority of our teachers you know more than half of them getting event seres are happening and we you can kind of keep track you can see their trajectory especially over time like over the last six years I can see them when they move their column changes and they turn in items so you can see the progression and it's it's consistent and steady our staff is always um improving and learning um their profession enhancing it so yeah it's sort of hidden there but anytime they move three indirectly indirectly you've been seeing it yeah what is the current um reimbursement that's it's up the buers rate I believe graduate school graduate school of education record rate um and there's a pool of money that um once that's exhausted then it's gone but I don't think we've exhausted the pool of money is there a a limit per staff per year for use in terms of like total number of credits or or is it just once the L I don't believe there's a limit for credits in the contract language but what happens is everybody gets reimbursed for your first class okay then everyone kicks their second third or fourth if that's the case and then at the end of the year we determine what money is left in that pool pay all the second um classes then all the third if there're sufficient funds then all the fourth if there're sufficient funds and so on and so forth so um there may have been times over the years that people have gotten partial reimbursement for fourth and fifth class if they took that okay other questions okay so call for motion second to approve agenda items 101 through 104 in favor motion oh sorry motion Brandon sorry second second yes all in favor any opposed yep ni yeah on all of them or just one of them or oh just uh oh um I'm sorry I'm in the wrong agenda the H I guess this the first one hold on I apologize it's s right I lost it 101 101 is the Ida hold on um oh no no no I'm sorry yes I'm in sorry I apologize no worries okay so all I guess all of any no oppose any abstentions from all them yeah moved uh community relations we not meet next month next month right um anything for delegates nope um that the next one will be in November so got the last one in did Kim have one or uh we haven't had the county since our award they'll start up again um we probably saw an email from Callahan uh for September starting up start September ring yeah cycle uh a question on student affairs um and I don't know if it belongs here or somewhere else I guess with our um student representatives to the board who have retired retired they retired retire their Duty what life um what's our process for cycling uh new students on the principles um will appoint the representative in their alternate and they'll be introd yeah so after the new school year and then they'll be introduced to us at that meeting okay so there's not an election process for them no it's it's super uh it's principal each School's principal is the the process at the schools the Student Government that's all election of their peers for the position for the student Representatives on the board comes through the principals um recommendations any students that are interested to apply to the principles they meet with them have interviews and decide who there thank okay Personnel we met on the 17th and discuss the Personal Agenda okay okay so I need a call for motion second to adopt resolution 0723 24-2 for executive session to discuss matters falling under categories 4 and a as reflected in the attached resolution the board expects to be an executive session for approximately 1 hour and upon return to public session action will be taken mov second all in favor I any opposed any extensions okay we're an executive session 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 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 call for motion and second to reconvene public question so moved second either the bees all right we're back in uh public session so I need a call for motion second to approve agenda item 6.1 as amended and 6.2 which is our minutes from last meeting on the end r no hand carries motion so mov second yes yes got it uh roll call vote yes Mr CH uh yes on 16.1 abstaining from 16.2 Miss Gallow yes Miss hin yes Miss Co yes Mr MAAC yes m r yes Miss VI yes Mr fanish yes okay uh any old and new business okay so I need a call for motion second to adjourn Jess best motion best J J best all in favor I any oppose any exensions okay we are Jour all right thank you great thank you so much thank guys for