all right we're going to go ahead and get started may I have a motion to return to public session please have a second all in favor notice of this regular meeting of the port Pitman Board of Education was advertised in South Jersey Times posted at bro Hall a copy thereof delivered to all pit schools to be posted and posted on the distri website further notice was posted and filed as required by law saing the suppor meet and close session at 7M in the Pitman high school media center the president shall entertain any objections with supporting reasons to the contract of this meeting on the grounds that it violates the open public meeting act see none good evening and welcome to this evening fitment Board of Education um before we get started for Our Moment of Silence I would like to share the board of education's condolences for the loss of our former school board members Jennifer Walker Martin she was only able to serve for one year and she made a tremendous impact on our district she and I had the pleasure of starting the board of education at the same time and she hit the ground running she brought her professional expertise to the table and she asked incredibly insightful questions the Board of Education extends our deepest sympathy to our family and friends please join me in a moment of silence thank you please join me in a salute to the flag flag the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible libery and justice for all uh Mrs Rose please call R Miss Miller present M papalardo here Mr Gman is absent Miss hi iono here miss farl here Miss po here miss Bolton here Mr chrisen here I'm GNA go ahead and turn it over to our high school principal Dr Lombardo so I want to thank everybody for coming this evening thank you to the board of ed for allowing me and Mrs nichel to be to recognize our senior high all South Jersey choir members um if you give me one second the so yes these young ladies are here to entertain you with their extreme talent and be recognized for their all South Jersey efforts Mrs Nichol is also here because she is our Junior Senior High School Spotlight for 2023 2024 so I would like to say a few words about Mrs Mel if I could but before I do that I would like to recognize her family that has come over as well her mother and her father her sister and the fiance so not her fiance f a few words about Mrs niichel we have had the pleasure to work together and I cannot imagine a more professional a more talented or a more child centered educator than Mrs Mel what she does not only for our school but also for the community of Pitman is often not able to be compared to other Educators her skill that she gives to the students is not just seen in the classroom but it's seen throughout the community but on top of all that she is a phenomenal person her ability to bring students into the program and retain those students into the program is something that is very rare when it comes to specific arts or anything that has to be specified she manages to bring kids into a program and retain them because that's who Mrs ml is she is someone that gives 110% all the time and not only that she is a wonderful wonderful colleague to everybody in the building if you need someone to volunteer you go ask Sarah and the answer is always yes can you grab us a couple kids to sing tell me where and when do you want to do a cross-curricular lesson absolutely so these are just a few things that make Sarah the amazing person that she is she comes from a wonderful family who shows up at every event that we have here every time she's on that stage even as she's wearing those red heels and her mom goes I don't know about those heels Sarah but they are there to support not only her but all of her little babies as well so I want to say thank you on behalf of Miss Stewart and myself from the Junior Senior High that we are very fortunate to have you and we hope that you stay for many many years [Applause] supposed to talk about the academy yes yes pleas so before I guess before we recognize our All State should I do that part first we can have them just go we all know about theem excellent all right and these are um our four All State vocalists for this uh year uh Mia was in the mixed choir which is friend on her base she signed as part of the njaa convention in November and then Fiona and Megan and Gana will be there in about a month uh as part of the Trel choir and that correlates with the New Jersey music educators conference so they are four students out of tiny little Pitman representing us at the state level so I will never not be so incredibly proud of them so they are gonna sing something which I'm wondering if that was just a trick to like okay all right they're going to sing a song called via mus which means long live music [Music] [Music] mus [Music] for [Music] music [Music] [Music] mus [Music] for [Applause] the last um thing I'm gonna do is we have our jacket for Fiona James this is her first year in all state chorus as you can see the other girls they've been in it multiple years so no they don't get another jacket and then they asked me for a second one but now fion gets her jacket and everyone gets a lovely certificate [Applause] thank you thank you thank you congratulations we're gonna go ahead and take a brief recess so we can congratulate stay right there get some pictures theard get restarted that's going to take us to our first public comment Pitman Public School Board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest this is the first of two public comments we will have tonight the first public hearing is on agenda items only this is a public comment and not a dialogue between the board and the public you will have three minutes to speak and is your opportunity to comment or ask questions in accordance with board policy number 0167 we ask that you state your name Municipality of residents and group affiliation if applicable if you recognize to speak please stand to my left at the podium and speak clearly into the microphone so people at home can hear seeing no one Mrs Rose is there any correspondents there are none that'll take us minutes I will now move to accept a motion that the minutes of pment Board of Education as held on the dates listed below are approved as printed and reading dispense with may I have a second all in favor I any objections any exensions okay so I'm going to do a couple things over here and then I'm G to move over there because I have a couple slides to share for this evening's president's report on December 14th Mr gr and Mrs Carol and I were able to attend the njsba Gloucester and Camden County meeting the meeting was the final meeting for our field service rep Jesse Adams and we wish him a long and happy retirement the topic um was orts on Saturday December 16th the njsb a legislative committee met virtually from 9 to 12 Senator gopal was in attendance he is the chair of the Senate education committee and was one of the sponsors of Senate Bill 3732 which res which is what returned two-thirds of the um the S2 funding to districts like ours he highlighted his focus on the formula shortfalls and addressing those issues he also spoke to his commitment to not taking legislative actions that serve as unfunded mandates to school districts finally he received substantial feedback regarding private preschool programs and their belief that there should be more flexibility in the preschool expansion Aid to be utilized by Private Preschool Partners within school districts the government relation team for the njsba outlined a number of pending legislative action or items um and they also discussed their 24 25 legis legislative advocacy agenda and that was initiated at the um prior meeting uh I did send notes to the Board of Education members I'm not sure if you had an opportunity to review them the one item that I just kind of want to bring to members attention that we should kind kind of keep an eye on it's assembly bill 3319 it's a carryover from last year assembly Bill 4496 it relates it could really impact our referendum in a positive way it relates to the level of um funds that you would be IG to receive back as a regular operating District so um there was some hope that it would be signed prior to the end of last year but we didn't quite get it through so I'm gonna go ahead and oh I apologize I have one more on Thursday January 11th I met with councilman missa who serves as the Pitman Boro Council liais on to the Board of Education as always we appreciate the ongoing partnership with Council referendum planning was the primary focus of our meeting though we're still very early in that process for members of the public who may be interested in learning more or becoming involved in the process I would estimate that sometime in the spring we'll have some additional information and be seeking um folks in the community that would like to be part of either a community Forum or a community engagement panel but um I I would anticipate it'll be after budget season before we can kind of get that ball rolling so if you'll just give me one moment I'm going to pop over and see if I can remember exactly how to plug this computer in and get it all set up I joked with our Tech Guy earlier that I need my old lady print level text to be able to see what I'm supposed to read okay all right this one's going to be a long one I apologize in advance but I could stay in the weed so to speak on this topic Qui all night long so I will do my best not to but I do feel like it's really important information to share so we're going to go through it all right so I just want to give members of the public the information up front that board members um were given the opportunity to review a rough outline so that they were in agreement with the message that was being shared tonight because I can't represent something as if it's unanimous if it's not something that everyone has agreed upon that it is their position on a topic so so that's the information that was shared to them was like I said a rough outline they do I did send you all the um slideshow right now so you have it in front of you so you can look at it in a little bit of closer detail so the Pitman Board of Education and we are again unanimous in this position we are not closing Pitman high school we just want to make that really clear I understand where rumors start and we feel like it's really important for folks in the community to hear that um and we are continued to we are continued to supporting a preschool through 12th grade district in Pitman for all of our students we know that Pitman public school district is special we appreciate the Tyler efforts of the District staff Administration students and their families and the community across all grade levels in Partnership to Foster an environment of exceptional learning experiences our district is a testament to perseverance we have survived devastating state aid Cuts Rising costs unfunded mandates from the state a pandemic and aging facilities we have preserved we have pre press we have been successful because of our staff members who have seen they've moved buildings and grades and they've done it numerous times with Grace and professionalism they've lost colleagues to staff reductions we've had administrators jump in and learn brand new roles with a student forward focus and we appreciate every one of their numerous efforts to help keep Pitman Pitman and all of those challenges that we've faced face as a district we know that they're the reason that we're successful maintenance staff that's kept 100y old buildings clean and safe AIDS cafeteria staff secretaries guidance workers child study team members secretary business office the list goes on and on and I know I'm leaving some of them out but a we are here because of our people and they have worked tirelessly for our students and that is why we continue to be successful despite those budget cuts and despite those numbers that have been difficult and those moves and consolidation and reconfigurations as a board of education we have to balance governing in a way that's ethical responsible and transparent and all while ensuring that we're good stewards of public funds with that in mind we believe that the Pitman public school district will continue to provide an exceptional education across preschool through 12th grade it won't be without sacrifice it requires us sometimes to form Partnerships with other districts for athletic opportunities or to employ creative strategies to ensure that we can offer the widest range of academics to our students like VHS and kind of all those collaborative efforts that our District staff makes on a regular basis and so we just we really wanted to share that message and I could end my president's report right now and I'm sure everyone would be thrilled and we would get home far sooner than we will but the attorney gets a flat rate so we're just gonna just stretch it out pitman's really good at getting every day you know a real good bang for our buck here so we're gonna we're gonna do it so I I know that rumors are conjecture or wild speculation or somewhere in between and that everyone 's cousins brother's mother has told them that pitman's going to do this or pitman's going to do this and that with this school district or that school district so let's go through um some of that information and we just these are pieces of information that I found really helpful in educating myself about what the process looks like as it pertains to some of those rumors and I think it's important to kind of make sure that members of the public and other board members are aware of it as well so we're going to go ahead and get started first thing I'm going to show you oh these are all of our email addresses we're always available please reach out if you're a member of the public and you have a follow-up question after tonight or in general anytime we are all available via these email addresses you can find them with a much handier link on our district website and um we can chat you want to have a cup of coffee and ask me some more follow-up questions about the information that I'm presenting tonight happy to do it come on over to our house if you like Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds and can tolerate some dog hair all right so I want to share I want to share some of the nuts and bolts so to speak of this conversation there's no scenario if we Lop off some portion of Pitman Public School District students that we would no longer be serving in house that you're not fiscally responsible for those students education you if if you enter into any type of agreement with any other District you still have to pay all of the costs associated with educating those students be it as send and receive as sending and receiving relationship on a tuition basis a regionalization uh you still pay for your out of District special education a cost you still pay for your transportation cost to get those students to and from you pay for the additional resources the state comes in and says in some of these scenarios this is an appropriate cost but you pay above and beyond for any of your students needs while they're in those other facilities you pay for portions of their facilities they they make sure they don't come out on the losing end so I feel like folks oftentimes speak to what we could do as if you will suddenly not be financially resp responsible for those students education and that is not the case so I wanted to talk a little bit about um some of the different scenarios and what they look like and just provide members of the public with some additional information so North hunteran bores Regional High School District website had a really great resource on this and I thought why reinvent The Reel so I reached out to their board president and asked if I could please use this because I think that they do a really nice job in explaining what that looks like so we're talking in this scenario about a regionalization when you enter into regionalization agreement it's you and other districts that serve as the sending districts and the question is how do you figure out what portion you're going to pay of that bill so us and a couple neighboring districts get together and you create a Regional High School and you try to figure out what everyone's portion of that bill is so the tax formula is calculated by the state it's an equalized value of taxable property within each municipality in the High School District so I kind of want I kind of want to stay there for just a second the key word there is taxable property so let's say that we're looking at a community so some of the things that aren't taxable for example are churches or universities so let's say that we're looking at a community that had lots of churches and a big property holder in their town was church and that is the that's not eligible as taxable property but our taxable property within our community doesn't have that same amount of non-t taxable properties so when the state is looking and they're equating the number of number of elementary school students in each municipality the number of high school students that number one factor right there of taxable property is going to play a tremendous role and it's definitely part of the conversation and the other kind of factor in this scenario when you enter into a a regional district situation like this is that those enrollment numbers can change every year this is re this formula is Rerun by a Regional High School and that is how they determine what that tax burden will be like and when you go into budgets in Regional tax school districts or in Regional School Districts you'll see as part of their budget development what they anticipate the estimated cost to be associated with each community and how that could play a different role so this is kind of a breakdown as to the six step process as to how they um continue to utilize the information from the first three steps and the equalized property value you know that's one of the things we talked a lot about was that equalized property valuations it was part of that local fair fair share um and I just want to really highlight number five municipality percentage of total high school students is multiplied by the state determined equalize property valuations so as we've seen with the um the enrollment Aid that we the local fair share was so impacted by that's a state determined number of those property valuations and when they're looking at what your portion will be they're going to utilize that table and we've talked about this as well glester county is an outlier in this process proc from the perspective that we're the only County that has a countywide assessment process there's one other County that I want to put a little asteris next to that kind of has something different that isn't quite just like everyone else but nobody's doing it like glester County with a centralized process so that's one of the things we kind of want to highlight and we want to discuss how you get there so I I want to kind of scroll down here to um this breakdown of our certified tax rate so this is from 2022 and I want to talk about if you can take a look you can see that there's the school tax which is in column four and then there's the Regional School tax and obviously you know it's easy for folks to kind of look on the surface of the school tax and think that that encompasses all of the educational needs of the children that live in those communities but out of this chart Pitman is actually there's 13 districts that have a higher rate than we do um and so when we look at the dollar amount that is associated with some of those communities we have we have communities in gler County that are paying an excess of $7,200 per an average homeowner just for their school tax bill that's that's not encompassing their Municipal Taxes and we have several districts that are in excess of $6,000 Pitman is sitting around let me just check my my numbers $ 4,668 is the average amount that the average home owner is paying towards the schools from their portion of the tax bill so these are some of this these are some of the factors that you want to look at when you're talking about what a regional tax uh what a regional tax situation would look like and what the cost impact would be an additional item I kind of just want to touch on as well is um we talk about these Regional School Districts and we talk about sending and receiving relationships that we could enter with another District we have to think about representation as well if you enter into a sending and receiving relationship with another District depending on the number of students that you're sending it it will depend if you don't have 10% of the enrolled population in the School you do not have a seat at the table and if you qualify over that 10% threshold in a sending and receiving relationship and it's a npers board you get one seat at the table so you have one voting member to represent your students interests in those conversations you're only permitted to vote on things that are relevant to your um students so you know if they're part of a larger District or perhaps there's a portion of your population still being served in a k6 or a K8 and maybe it's a junior Jor Senior High that you've sent the kids to you're only able to vote on those things that are related to the maybe 9th through 12th graders versus the seventh through 12th graders and then one of the other factors when we look at Regional Boards of Education um is what the federal sensus status say so let's say that Church community that we just talked about that has that large amount of property that's not taxable happens to have 18,000 kids that live there for nine months of the year well according to the federal census data wherever you spend most of your time sleeping and eating is where you are registered for federal census numbers so those 18,000 people would be under that municipality and therefore they would have a larger share of representation on a regionalized board and in that scenario they could represent the interests of their Community to a greater voting degree than we could so that's definitely an additional factor that you want to keep in mind when you're talking about the various Partnerships that um could exist so next thing I want to kind of touch upon and like I said I'm just kind of trying to move through as quickly as possible because I really could spend a great deal of time talking about all of the different nuances um is the termination of a sending and receiving relationship so the burden of proof for requesting district is that the withdrawal will not have any substantial negative educational Financial or racial impact on the affected District so sorry let me just scroll down so I call this the marriage Clause you you're Maring this person this is it you're not dating or to date myself you're not talking to them I don't know I don't know what the kids say these days but you're not doing any of it you're married for 10 years and in an effort to leave that relationship you have to have the Department of Education give you permission to terminate a sending and receiving relationship so Princeton in Cranberry is a uh good example of a sending and receiving District so for example cranberry had a significantly smaller portion of the Princeton cranber of the Princeton School District in enrollment cranberry was charged I think it's $1 17,43 in tuition that's just for the students that go to that school that's not encompassing the $1.18 million in transportation cost for their 248 students I believe off the top of my head and it's also not encompassing any of the alternative placements that those students may need that aren't being serviced in Princeton so their educational needs are being met at outside schools it's not encompassing any of the special education costs that are um being required for those students that are in fact going to Princeton so one of the examples in their contract they even pay towards Princeton High School's library to have extended hours for their students to use they pay a portion of that um they pay a portion of certain repairs that are done on the facilities and the conversation around Princeton and cranberry kind of re-evaluating whether or not they wanted to renew the relationship circled around um some of those factors of tuition and and what the impact would be but was kind of running out of room in their facilities and they were looking to go out to a bond referendum and to determine whether or not it made sense to build an additional facility that was large enough to Encompass these students that were coming from another Community the Department of Education it was extremely unlikely Princeton was counseled to not um apply to sever the relationship because they did not think they would be successful so Princeton Council there's no known successful termination post 1986 where one district has objected so if you and the other districts would like to end if we'd like to end us sending and receiving relationship and the other District said no thanks we'd like to keep your kids there's not a successful example since 1986 of the Department of Education granting that so that's what I mean it's marriage and so without a crystal ball to see what that looks like for whoever your partner is you're making um really a lifelong choice for our district and then I also just want to highlight botin and Lincoln Park this is actually a an example of a district where they jointly position positioned the commissioner of Education to end the sending and receiving relationship they had engaged in lengthy legal battles multiple suits civil litigation I mean really had kind of run the gamut it looks like there was even um a pretty extensive legal battle over who was paying to repave the high school parking lot and uh ultimately they were not permitted to end the relationship despite both school districts requesting to do so Lincoln Park has one seat on botin but what's interesting about that is Lincoln Park has the majority of students they have about 56% of the students whereas Putin has 44% of the students and yet they only have one voting member while botin has nine so if you're deciding you know whose interest you're going to represent I can appreciate how it gets a little sticky on who who's picking up the check for certain things so they have like I said engaged in multiple legal battles about parking lots and all kinds of different stuff so these are just some of the things to keep keep in mind when you talk about those sending and receiving relationships so I just want to I just want to touch on briefly some other factors and that impact us from a um from a State financial aid perspective so one of the things we talk a lot about is that declining enrollment and S2 I know Folks at home have heard a lot about that we talked about the local fair share and what role that played in our district state aid um but there's there's multiple layers to the school funding act and how that formula kind of equates what different districts receive and so these are just a small handful of some of the different variations and how different districts in the state of New Jersey are funded so what we're formerly called Abbot districts but are now called School Development Authority districts um they refer to 31 special needs or high needs districts that are located in communities that were determined um prior to the late 90s as being the most um High needs districts but none of the districts have been removed so even if they've seen some gentrification and they've seen this really large number of um affluent folks moving into the community they still remain labeled as an SDA District SCA districts receive 100% funding for major Renovations and Rehabilitation projects through the um I apologize through the uh the New Jersey develop School Development Authority where is regular operating districts which is what we are we receive 40% for eligible projects so sometimes I feel like we see um other districts in the State Building these beautiful additions or uh getting some really nice projects that they are able to to get through SDA funds and and that's not something that we're going to be eligible for we're only eligible for that 40% and only on certain items that's that's an example of something we worked through this year for the um the gymnasium air conditioning that we were able we were eligible for 40% but when those funds run out there was another Grant application that we had put in for a rod Grant and we didn't make it that far down the list there's only there's only so much to go around when it comes to that type of funding so the other angle that you kind of want to always consider is that adjustment Aid threshold differential School Development Authority districts have a different differential for how they are um considered for adjustment Aid adjustment Aid is offered to them if they uh are considered over burden from a tax perspective so in districts like ours regular operating districts you have to be within a 10% threshold so if you're paying more in your local property taxes with in the state average your adequacy budget is within 10% in excess you are eligible for adjustment Aid in that scenario but in an SDA District you're eligible you do not have to meet that same threshold and so that's an additional area that some of those 31 districts see a surplus of funds comparative to what we see um to give you some idea I think it's 19% of the enrolled students in the state of New Jersey are being serviced in SDA districts and charter schools because those are also encompassed within SDA um and they receive about 56% of the funding in the state of New Jersey from a state aid perspective and then the last kind of piece of this puzzle that I kind of want to touch on is the invisibility of pilot so payment in of taxes it's one of the things we talked about with local fair share but it's basically invisible from the from the perspective that when the state runs the local fair share formula an equalization Aid formula um pilot properties are not included in those numbers they're not part of your Equalization valuation so when we talk earlier about looking at like a regional tax or Regional School District we talk about where that Equalization valuation plays a role in in what your state age should be um we see that there's this huge occurrence of pilot properties in some of these 31 districts in fact they are the some of the largest guarantees of pilot properties so it's an ongoing Factor when you run those formulas as to why they see some dis disproportionate levels of funding so the last thing I just want to kind of touch upon and I I thought this was really interesting this isn't a new issue I know that we like to believe that it's just purely related to the declining enrollment in Pitman and um it's a Pitman problem and it's really none of the above but I found this really great article from 1934 and I thought this was really great state legislators have busied themselves with thinking up Petty restrictions on schools they have passed over the main issues for the betterment of schools as set forth by the recommendations of the governor survey commission made a year ago Daniel W Davis supervising principal of fitman schools told the high school PTA at its opening meeting last night schools have come to be regarded as a burden by many because the taxes are unfairly apportioned said supervisor Davis the cost of schools in New Jersey is around $120 million a year by contrast this is no large sum as an equal sum is spent on Candy tobacco and chewing gum in the state each year the difficulty is that many of those who benefit from education directly or indirectly are not helping to pay the bill it is saddled on real estate which represents only 35% of the wealth of the state and is assessed for 85% of the cost of the schools so I I did think that it was um interesting that these conversations have been going on far longer than any of us have been here so I just want to just share some final thoughts um I think it's really disheartening when I hear the rumors from folks that um kind of attack either Personnel or people we're a people business right and at the end of the day um that's what it's about and we are where we are at we have survived and thrived because of our people and we we should be be feeling so fortunate that we have so many wonderful staff members and community members and parents and students that um continue to make Pitman great and continue to be the exceptional people that help provide those learning experiences for our kids so I just thought it was really important to share this information both like I said with members of the public and the Board of Education these are some of the considerations that should be really um a focal feature in topics that we hear around town and I thought that it would help with some of those rumors that folks really like to run with so that we can make sure that everyone's everyone has as much of the facts as I can get in so thank you guys so much and I think I'm gonna turn it over to Mr chrisen next thank you uh just I'll run through a couple things very quickly the hi report is listed there uh for the month of January uh security drills are also listed a playground update I think we generally can see dayto day how things are going there obviously the weather is going to impact our continual movement forward to having that completed right now we are waiting to get the fencing completed so we can get everything secured uh there's still some Tiding up we need to do before we can kind of have our official opening over there but we are moving along very well hopefully we'll have that ready for the spring I did put down possible referendum Mrs Miller mentioned that it's also maybe will be mentioned in our finance report it's something the board is currently working with our professionals to determine what that potential cost might look like uh we have a list that was created through the Strategic planning process through our facilities committee and this list is all encompassing all the items in which they identified as needs here in our district our professionals are costing them out and we're looking at what that bottom line number will be we are in the process of ident identifying some Financial individuals to assist us through this process a bond counsel and some other Financial assistants will which will identify the amounts of money that we will have available that we could potentially go out the bond for so it's in the process our Target date is sometime in March for the board to finalize uh what the overall project will entail and last last few things uh there's an HIV semiannual report that we have to give this time of year reflecting our HIV reports for the period of July 1st uh through December 31st of 2023 um I think it's a reflection a little bit of what this Miller reflected upon in her address relative to the special nature of this community that we have no HIV report s that were reported to the board during that period of time been in this in this business for a long time since HIV was created and uh I've never had the opportunity to say that um so it certainly is a reflection of the environment that's created here in this District the way in which people treat each other I think the proactive approaches that our staff takes you know from a social emotional perspective in dealing with things that need to be dealt with and I think it's a very good positive reflection upon this district and I think I you'd even hear some students I think who are coming from other districts who are coming seeking this type of environment because it's not necessarily what they've been experiencing in the districts in which they're coming from so we want to continue to uh to promote that where we can and uh I think we should be very proud of everything that's done in this District to provide that type of environment for our students uh the other thing I I want to just very much one of the bigger things that's going on right now or we want to get going is this grant that we receive from the state high impact tutoring it's about $50,000 plus that we received and kept the board informed that you know we've had a few little stumbling blocks and Rebecca is just going to give us a quick update right you know any students who are identified for cycle one this grant all grade and gradea support tutoring support high impact support three times a week um all those families have been notified folks who wanted to get involved have um accepted and we were anticipating beginning January 9th but it is by an outside vendor named catapult learning Incorporated they are having the same problems many schools are having finding Staffing and so um we found out that we can have catapult hire some of our teaching staff to do this so um I invited Pitman Elementary School teachers um anyone at P elementary school because it will be house there uh to apply the catapult and so a number of our teachers have done that um catapult is still in the process of Staffing the three Cycles or potentially four cycles that we will have depending on you know time this can go all the way into August and as soon as we can start cycle one we will I did tell families who are having Sons or daughters in um cycle one that we will get back to them by January 30th to let them know where we stand with I know they have hired a few more tutors and um they're working very hard to to get this finished for us so as soon as they're sta we're ready to go we have two of our staff members Laura roie and Jackie shans will be the conduits between the Catapult program and our administrative staff and teaching staff um there'll be an extra like security layer um there every day with our students we felt safer with that as a you know admin team and um hopefully will be teaching there as well and I'm excited for that I'm excited to have that mixed that's the update thank you it over to our student representative thank you Senior High students have been working hard as of last meeting with the looming midterms ahead as some in upper level Spanish classes are preparing for the biliteracy exam tomorrow along with test the Pitman music department has been preparing for their Broadway BS Pops concert to take place in February in the realm of sports Pitman boys and girls basketball has been playing their hardest as they start their year off with only one loss for the boys and only two losses for the girls and the swim team has taken on their first two meets and have come out Victorious students continue to cheer on the Panthers as the winner Sports season progresses as a student representative and a peer I sought in setting out to hear what my fellow classmates have to say about the school this past week I sent out a survey to students asking their thoughts on what could use Improvement in the school along with what they deem an important asset to the Pitman community and I've been sifting through their responses in order to help gauge where my funds can most aply be used I met with board member po last Thursday and we discussed the possibility of using the money towards a mental health event surrounding finals to encourage students to take care of themselves mentally especially during stressful times I will update the board as I continue down my path of decision making thank you thank you don't believe we have a report for dat ad hoc committee so I will turn it over to our CSA search committee chairwoman Mrs Bolton Okay January update for the CSA committee we had a busy and exciting month as we move into this process um so Mrs Miller Mrs Farrell and myself met on December 20th to discuss um the questions that we will be using to interview potential candidates um so we came up some with some pretty good ones wide variety of questions on that then we met again on January 6th to review uh the preliminary applications that have been submitted up until that date um we discussed the interview process in Greater detail and then provided um Mrs rose with a list of potential candidates that we were interested in interviewing for the first rounds so that she could begin scheduling those candidates um and we are going to begin the interview process on on January 22nd and the 24th and because we have so many potentially great candidates we had to add another night of interviewing so we will add the 25th as well so I think we're excited to get this going not that we won't miss you but it's certainly been a neat um process and we are we got a lot of really great resumees and you know you're always nervous going into it but I think we got a lot of great resumés and we're all kind of excited to get the process going and you know see who's going to be the best fit for us very good all right we'll go on to finance and Facilities I'm G to turn it rack over to Mrs let me pull up that one okay this is a long one all right um the fin public I mean okay it's not longer than my normal sorry no I was not gonna yeah yeah um I just felt like it was long okay all right the finance committee met on January 10th at 3:30 p.m in attendance were interim superintendent Steve Crispen business administrator Carissa Rose board president April Miller and myself um we reviewed each of the items on the uh the finance agenda discussing a few of the items in more detail so um one thing that kind of came up was number three um and the committee recognizes we need to find ways to make the entire board more knowledgeable of the finances um in the line items that we vote on each month and the Board of Education members are also welcome to sit down with Mrs Rose to review the finances in Greater detail at any time that anyone has a question um so there is also additional training offered by the njsba as well some online resources that break down what categories of expenditures are permitted into what accounts um and Mr Chrisman did recognize that that's probably the hardest but best way for us to get some knowledge is to just kind of educate ourselves a little more um so we talked about the rising cost of transportation and how we're just going to need to plan for a higher budget in that area next year um from a budgeting perspective it's really hard to plan for that um we budgeted an increase of 20% over last year's Transportation cost however midyear District enrollments um meaning a student moving into the district who requires tra transportation to Alternative placement can drastically impact our uh Transportation costs so we are also not eligible for extra um ordinary aid for transportation cost either so with some special education expenses o over a certain threshold we are eligible for a little bit of Aid um but an example of a student transportation contract um you know we have a student 80 88 to $100,000 for one student transportation cost um so you can see how it's really hard to fit you know if that comes up a $100,000 we have to kind of find and it does prove to be a little tricky to find you know um where that money is going to come from so the business office um you know Works diligently with other D districts to find Partnerships to share um transportations costs but in some instances we just have no other options but to go out to bid um so having our earned Transportation which has proved extremely difficult um that wouldn't even solve our issue either so alternative placements are in schools with start times and end times that would still necessitate again going out to bid So currently our transportation costs are trending to be double what was originally budgeted and in the ballpark of or in excess of $700,000 so next we discussed um the moving of administration offices to wall school to make space um at Memorial for the new preschool classes that we need to make and we just talked about some ways that we can make them all fit into certain areas over there and hopefully that works for us so that we can utilize those spaces that we already have and then we also talked about the referendum and the timeline moving forward and um how we plan to proceed on that so more news on that will follow so with that I will make a motion to approve line items 1 to 12 as written second hi any discussion Mrs Rose please call the um Mr Wrong do they have to does anyone have to um abstain for number six number six hang on one second no they're okay yeah they're fine yep make yep no problem good question hio yes Bolton yes phoh yes Ardo yes Co yes Miller yes motion thank you Bri on instruction I'll turn it over to committee chair one wait nope not anymore we're all I I gotta update my all right the curriculum and instruction committee met on Wednesday January 10th 2024 at 4:30 pm in attendance were Mr prisen Mrs Moody Mrs Rose Mrs Miller Mrs papalardo and myself some of the items we disc discuss included the engravement between the Pitman Board of Education and Pitman Police Department the new staff candidates being hired that are on tonight's agenda as well as the staff resignations and retirement some of the items being approved tonight also include some new substitutes as well as a few field trips also we discussed but not on the agenda was the high impact tutoring program which Mrs Moody previously mentioned so with that I'd like to make a motion to approve items 2 through 16 as written have a second second Pap any discussion seeing none Ros yes bton yes farell yes papalardo yes Co yes Miller I have SE from number two and yes to the rest thank you that'll take us to communication and policy alternative over the committee chairwoman is okay the communication and policy committee met on January 8th at 4:30 I was not in attendance um in attendance where board members Melissa Farrell and Natalie po Mr Crispen and Mrs Rose uh there are no action items for the committee this month but the committee did discuss the need to review all district policies so we're going to try to embark on a project to review them in batches month by month and Target is 10 policies a month fun things yeah we just want to make sure that they're up to dat and comply with all applicable laws regulations and that they align with current District goals so fun stuff coming bring us to our second public please your name of residence group affiliation is applicable and please limit your comments to three minutes if you'd like to be recognized to speak please come see to the podium to my left I'm sorry did you say I have to give my address at this no the town you live in all right hit Michael um just two quick things one I would be remiss if I did not uh comment and Echo the comments of Dr Lardo I'm talking about Mrs Michel uh she is exactly right uh you reach out to Mrs mckel because you need performers at a Memorial Day ceremony at a 911 ceremony and she's on um so I think your choice was was a good one this year the second thing is I just wanted to thank you Mrs Miller for your report tonight um and for sharing those comments and to stifle the rumors uh that go around our community you are correct we do have a very special Community here and and our prek through 12 district is a huge part of that um as a parent of Pitman Junior Senior High students as a graduate of Pitman high school as a parent of graduates of Pitman high school but most importantly as a property owner in this community uh it is incredibly important uh to have our school district here so I appreciate everything that you Shar tonight I understand it's a battle I thank all of you for your dedication uh to our school district and to our community because there's an awful lot of us that have been putting in an awful lot of time for a very long time to get our community to where it is today and this is a huge part of it so thank you for that commitment to our district thank you anyone else see that's going to take us to Old business new business all right I'll entertain a motion to adjourn have a second all in favor I any opposed the next regular Board of Education meeting is scheduled for Wednesday February 21st at Pitman high school media center thank you