for oh excuse me could you do me a favor and get me onto the site I I never un able to do this problem I'm sorry thank you all right yeah and then yeah and if I want to get into the portal I have to sign it up here right oh yes yeah yeah to I want to in's see I did the WR thing thank you see this is what happens you have this is exactly what happens at home it doesn't let me in you want it to automatic yes I could okay you have to save it on that device um there a way to can you can you let me see just get me you know what I think I'll just stay right here I don't have to get to the portal if I have if I need to Dr Hart I'm sure will get me this is this is fine thank you check check check check one two Hey Beth how are you good hey [Music] [Applause] and check check one two check check yes Bron can not everyone and welcome to the Readington Township Board of Education meeting uh this meeting is being held in compliance with the open public meetings act and is open to the media and the Public Notices were du posted and the meeting was advertised in the Hun County Democrat and The Courier News formal action may be taken can we get a roll call please M dento yes M fi yes M borski yes M Ryan here wol here Dr social here three are absent yes can we stand fored Ali to the flag of the United States America the for stands Nation [Music] indivisible thank you Dr cers uh good evening everyone good evening thanks for joining us tonight um this evening I'm going to talk a little bit about our current Readington Township housing developments as well as uh its impact on enrollment and some enrollment projections um as it's now 2024 January of 2024 um and we're planning for next year um it's hard to believe that we're already planning for the 2425 school year um but we are um it's important for us to review our housing developments as well as our enrollment around this time of year um I want to show this first slide and just call your attention to um the fact that this presentation in some way shape or form dates back to February 2021 and in fact even dates back before that there were conversations that we were having about our housing developments even as far back as 2019 um although that presentation wasn't as pretty as this one kind of like this format but um for the past several years updates have been occurring and this presentation seems to get longer and longer and longer and more slides every year uh so I'm not going to go through everything uh in in all of the slides or in the presentation in totality but I do want to highlight a couple of things for the board and for members of the public that are here tonight um so we're going to focus on four primary things our current enrollment Trends our enrollment Trends and then our current enrollment um the housing developments that are being built in our Township the impact and projections they've had on enrollment and how our redistricting plan has been uh performing over the past several years because we're in our third year of uh redistrict so those are the four areas that we're going to focus on first um enrollment Trends and for enrollment so this is our enrollment history for the past 10 years or so um from the 20156 school year to the 23 24 school year based off of our uh October snapshots so as you can see there's been a pretty significant enrollment decline from 2016 all the way to about20 uh we have leveled off with a little 2122 enrollment increase um but a little bit of a decline in enrollment this is District wide over the course of the past sever years um with this we also recognize that because of the housing developments um we wanted to closely monitor monitor the Three Bridges in White House School enrollment and their history so this slide really shows you the enrollment over the past about five six years at White House school and Three Bridges school to show you that had we not addressed the housing developments and maybe some of the inequities between School enrollment um you see particularly in the 21 or excuse me 20 and 21 school year where there was a real gap between White House school and free school in the 2122 school year that was the first year of redistricting where it was optional for parents to uh Place their students from White House to threee Bridges then 2223 which was the first year of of kindergarten students attending Three Bridges school as opposed to White House and then the 23 24 school year and you can see that we've we've made that gap between the two two buildings and we've kind of shrunk it with our redistri for the past couple years which is great for the buildings it creates consistency and parody uh between the two K3 buildings so our school configuration um members of the public and and the board know this these are our K3 schools based off the our December 2023 enrollment reports unless there students were at Three Bridges already in preschool this does not uh include our current preschoolers that are P have school um here's our configuration grades 48 um both holling book and Readington Middle School uh Readington Middle School we still have one large eighth grade class that's at the middle school right now and that student graduate um we anticipate Readington Middle School woman decreasing pre substantially next year probably around 450 next year so the housing developments uh one is the Willows at White House station this is on melson Street um not far from White House school it's a total of 72 units it's 100% affordable and it was completed in 2020 uh there were 29 students grades prek through 8 and 26 students grades K through 8 so taking preschool out of it and I took preschool out just so that you can see the two numbers because preschool uh attends not just White House school but but some of our providers as well um we fluctuated anywhere between 36 and 37 students from uh White House station from The Willows at White House station to our lowest involvement this year at 26 students so anywhere in between there is our fluctuation of enrollment at the wildness the rigid reading T was completed in 2023 this is our newest Housing Development a total of 254 units and you can see the breakdown of the affable versus market rate uh currently there's 37 students in ring our district from grades prek through 8 32 grades K through 8 again I separated preschool because not all students are attending our school some are attending private providers uh this um is off of group 22 uh now known as Camelot uh this is the former Branco Interstate Ironworks uh on m road development this is going to be 192 units and a breakdown of affordable market rate there um with estimated completion in 2026 approximate um and talking with the township there are there is considerable work to be done like sewer capacity there needs to be a road that's going to be built to get access and utilities need to be run so we thought maybe we' be completed in 2425 it looks like probably 2026 um you can see if you go all the way over to the the map to the left you see a little um text that says White House school um from what I understand I believe there's going to be a walking path from this Housing Development to White House school which could impact the number of students right that could be very appealing to families to be able to walk to an elementary school um but there should be a walking path kind of along parallels in ground tracks potentially then the Diaz property is in Three Bridges this is 80 total units all 80 are affordable a developer has been identified estimated completion as know um and talking with the township we're really not sure if this would be like 2027 2028 um you know they they still have to work out some sewer capacity for this uh piece of property these are our four housing developments if you notice um of the four housing developments one is located in the three Three Bridges sending area of town um the other three are located in the rhouse area so how did we predict the enrollment that would come from these housing developments we used the ruers formula um this was a white paper that was published and that formula told us of this and it's really just kind of at the bottom in blue um we've been monitoring enrollment at the Willows for the past four years because that is our Housing Development that has been completed has been enrolling our students um for the past four years as you can see by the time we were in year two we were at about 28 students 31 students 26 students now down year four at certain times during the year we're up to 35 or 36 students but total for the Willows we've averaged about 28 students or 58% of the recer formula have has moved into the bills so when we look at the recer formula it's a K12 formula and we're a K8 School District so we have to find some sort of comparable data it's really difficult for us to use that ruers formula we know that if we use the ruers formula and we applied it to the Willows we s an average of 58% of the students that rors predicted we would get enrolled in our schools were in fact enrolled so our projections are based off of anywhere between 58 to 65% of formula but that's not the only factor that we have to consider the other Factor we have to consider is that these developments are very different types of developments so if you take a look just briefly The Willows is more Town Homes 72 units there's different bedrooms and bathrooms it's 100% affordable the rigid Readington is 254 total units so just looking at the numbers of units on their face value 254 sounds like a lot more than 702 right it sounds like we would be receiving a lot more students from the Richard rington but there are some other factors the style Apartments they are the style homes the fact that there's some elevator buildings there are some buildings that are not elev that it's a complex of about 10 different units um the fact that that 25% is Affordable 75% is market rate and if you notice there are very few free Venter homes so when it comes to you know a place where maybe families going to live with children and more bedrooms the more likely family is going to be there so when we look at using the ruer formula it's even that 58% is not going to give us the most accurate prediction as you can see from this chart over our time of looking at the Willows using that 58% of the RoR formula gave us the 209 students that could potentially enroll at the ridge 58% of that would have been 121 but we're actually in what with right now 32 students grades K through 8 so the ruers formula may not be most applicable to a develop like the Ridge and maybe using the Willows as a comparison for the ridge might not be the most accurate way to estimate enrollment uh we'll have to continue to monitor this because the other thing I want to mention to the board and to the public is that the ridges in year one while they're at full capacity right now we could see more students m in next year we could see it stay relatively stable we know that we have a lot of middle school students over at the ridge um in Readington that may be graduating over the course of this year and next year so we'll have to see how many new families come in but um the recers formula I think over predicted because the recer formula over predicted I think it had us over predicting a little bit we were prepared we can still absorb many more students but I think we have to watch The Ridge very carefully over the next couple of years to see how many students we have for the ridge that'll give us a great comparison for Camelot because those developments look very similar again right 254 units 192 units kind of garden style Apartments multi floors of two three4 apartments um we'll have a better comparison and then the Diaz property looks very much like the Willow's property so we'll have a better comparison that way as well I know I'm going really quickly it's riving stuff really is but stop me if you have questions so the redistricting plans we are in like I said we are in year three we considered various options the option that we went for our preferred option was option one which was this gradual movement of students enrolling in kindergarten from the White House Senate region to fre brids so this was a this has taken us a little bit longer to implement um but it was a really nice way for families who uh had older siblings attend White House school who had a connection with white house school to stay and then any newly enrolled students were redistricted down to um Three Bridges including Kart students so here's our 5-year plan uh we are in the 2324 school year so now right now from the redistricted area students in kindergarten and in grade one are attending Three Bridges and any newly enrolled students to the redistricted area are attending free bridges as opposed to house here were our impacted street names um this is the redistricted area these uh street names formerly went to White House school now we're going to pre Bridges School here's what the map looks like on the right hand side you see the streets highlighted with green those are the that's the area that was redistricted so overall implementation we're in the 2324 school year um this was what I reported to the board of the public when we were looking at enrollment in August um so our September enrollment for k Garten in White House School in September was 70 and pre bridg school was 63 There were 11 kindergarten students that would have attended White House school they attended Three Bridges school which made the number 70 and 63 so we we moved 11 students from White House to Three Bridges and then one additional student um I think it was a second grader perhaps who was new to the district uh went from White House to free bridges total 12 students were redistricted this past September combined with um 12 kindergarteners and 10 students in first through third grade the year prior which is a total of 34 students who've been uh redistricted from White House to Three Bridges so in enrollment comparison if you take a look Three Bridges and White House this was as of September were at 290 students in 319 you know about a 1929 student difference had we not redistricted it would have had about 100 student difference so it would have been higher enrollment for White House School lower enrollment for free bridges school and who knows if we would have had room for preschool White House if we hadn't done uh so we've created a lot of consistency between the two buildings um by having this process uh we monitor enrollment from the ridge monthly uh we filter the students living at the ridge that we can monitor their enrollment we know how many students have come we know how many students with I how many students with f4s how many students might be limited H proficient so we monitor our enrollment from the ridge um this is our current preing enrollment from the ridge I think I put this in the earlier slide from September to now January so you see it's grown from 29 to 37 um from September to currently I can't predict if it's going to increase at this rate I think we probably going to hold steady for the rest of the school year around 37 we'll have to look periodically next year to see what enrollment at the ridge looks like um one might ask the question what has enrollment at White House and free bridges looked like for the past 10 years so you can see that our enrollment was higher in both buildings uh years ago 2012 and 2013 um we did not have and I even think 20 maybe 2014 we did not have full day kindergarten so when we had full day kindergarten we had to open up more classrooms so while there was a lot more room in White House and Three Bridges 10 years ago remember with full day kindergarten we now have um less classroom space because now half day has split into two full day classes but there is room capacity wise there is room for students at Three Bridges of White House it's just whether or not we have the classroom space what about grades 4 through so we've been talking a lot about White House and Three Bridges with new housing developments do we have room to grow at Holland Brook and middle school and the data from the history would tell us we do 10 years ago we were looking at Hollow work enrollment of over 400 and Middle School enrollment over 700 again there are some new programs at hirs we have some self-contained special education programs like watches new classrooms being disabilities classrooms learning language disabilities classrooms but there is room to grow should enrollment at grades four gr increase if we have space we would need the staff we need to review um you know our needs if we W it were to grow so a couple of final thoughts um remember I Illustrated earlier The Willows and the Diaz property are very comparable looking types of developments they're going to be better comparisons as we move forward looking at it Go similarly The Ridge and cavalot are going to beable properties to look at as we move forward enroll um The Ridge enrollments have not materialized you know we were estimating sometime over the course of this year that we would get around a 100 students at the ridge that really hasn't materialized but monitoring is going to be really important for the ridge moving forward so we're kind of we have to simultaneously plan for this large eighth grade class to graduate and enrollment decreases but at the same time how many students are we willing to receive from housing developments that are uh being built in our district um so drawing enrollment comparisons in the future we should look at comparable properties redistricting I'm confident to say that I believe that we balanced enrollment in the K3 buildings and I think that's a nice achievement of the board in the administration that we came up with a comprehensive plan um that didn't displace students that didn't that didn't disrupt families and educational continuity that has allowed for this balance to happen over the past couple of years and now that we have preschool um this may help us better project our enrollment um in kindergarten in the future usually it's next month we'll do our uh registration for Kindergarten now that we have preschoolers instead of me calling the cor building secretaries every month saying I have an update on kindergarten enrollment how many students are be looking at that nagging them all the time we'll know better how many preschoolers we have and that may in fact how many kindergarten students that we have um kindergarten enrollment really is kind of an unknown until you know May June and even in the summertime we often see enrollment fluctuations as well so that that's my update my brief update in in 20 minutes but I I'll open up to the board for questions if you have any questions about any of the slides enrollment projections housing developments and redistricting all three of those TOs did you just to clarify the numbers the numbers for White House school and Three Bridges you said they did or did not include preschool where which one tell me which ones um the current current yeah I made a note of another 32 slides here back we go Three Bridges did include preschool because they've always had preschool um the existing preschool so this is from our December 2023 enrollment report so the enrollment report for fre Bridges including preschool White House did not because preschoolers didn't exist there in December yep so there are preschoolers enrolled in our preschool program at White House and satellite that so the number of students enrolled in our district is a little bit larger yes okay so we I I talked with my secretary Daren on how we capture the preschoolers now right because your the enrollment report that you approve every month now is going to include Three Bridges you might see next month their enrollment might look a little bit different because now we went from two half day preschools of 27 students 27 students to now 11 15 student uh preschool General at preschool at Three Bridges and now we've added two preschools to White House school plus the private par we're going to what we were going to do is just put preschool students in Three Bridges in White House on the enrollment report and then have a different enrollment report for the private providers kind of at the like a footnote yeah like a footnote of how many students yep thank you yeah of course I just want to make a comment has a question but I just um we've been talking about enrollment you know for a long time and this whole plan you know this has been a wellth thought out plan I remember you know it comes up in finance a lot you know so this is something that uh I what I appreciate about it has been a thoughtful measured approach all along and and there's so many variables that you really you know you can't predict but I know that you know we continue to follow this closely and and I think all things considered I think I commend you it's it's really been going very well with respect to just following the enrollment and I know it's it's it's going to continue to go that way thank you you're welcome enrollment is the challenge like I said we're simultaneously looking at decreases because we have smaller classes coming in graduating larger classes but we have to make sure that we have room to grow should there be you know more people moving into our community um enrollment from the bridge or from the Willows and now that we have preschool I we are getting emails people are are interested in enrolling their children in preschool I don't know if that's going to be I don't know that impact is that going to be a game changer for our community where we find young families moving in saying wow we've got this great opportunity let's let's move our entire family to rington because they preschool because we do have Bor districts that don't have some of don't even have full day care so thank you any other questions I mentioned preschool a couple times so now it's time for the fun part of the presentation mainly because Stacy beagle's GNA present it in please oh please Stacy will you join to yeah so let me let me just tell you so Dr goes last Thursday send me a couple pictures of preschool and I'll put together a slide great Thursday night Stace can you put together the slidee presentation then Friday sa could you come to the board meeting present meanwhile I reaching out to Anthony going hello help me so any my defense I was up at 4 4:00 in the morning multiple days last even it yous I would I would made it the night before however oh yeah this is the fun part our preschool let me tell you we've only been what three weeks three weeks and it is just absolutely phenomenal so I don't think there's music to this so I'm thinking maybe we go through going to be music last Thursday I promis put music on carry over so what I'm thinking is perhaps you just click through the pictures and I am just GNA jaer because I am so excited I met today sorry don't ENC so we are coming up with the name for our preschool um what's [Music] that so our peaceful sites as you know we have three Bridges White House School Berry Patch stand learning and White House prep um over the last couple weeks we have all been at all of these sites and we really are and one of the things that we talked about with um working with Learning Centers is the fact that we are we we're building a community and that's exactly what we're doing and today at the first department meeting the teachers that were on um on our Google meet because we're all at different you know places are like I love the fact that we are now a team our teachers are working collaboratively together our coach is working collaboratively our relief teacher and then all of the directors and and and us we're working together and I think that was one of the really big positive things about moving forward with this is that this is a community a collaboration a partnership so I'm just going to flip through these White House school three bridges are are three um Learning Centers next year we're adding um Pioneer Global to um our Learning Centers now the fun part so our classrooms um part of the preschool part of the preschool program is actually the classroom environment and how it's set up so I'm going to click through the first couple um slides are our brand new programs our classrooms that we have created learning environment is huge in terms of when you're taking a look at evaluating the program um the centers making sure that each of the centers are Vis are visible to the teachers this our this is our very patch okay now we're getting into the fun part this is the first day Anthony and I were at um Barry patch welcoming the kids and it was so much fun Barry patch was a that was an bacon classroom was empty so we we furnished it we outfitted it still looks I mean we're getting a lot more materials in there but that was one of the classrooms that was we we bought everything for we did so four of the classrooms we totally outfitted from nuts to bolts although we found that like um where we ordered from didn't Supply some of the materials for example we got dollhouses but we had no furniture hello like how are you going supposed to play so we had to order that stuff which we you know which we did but look at these little kiddos like how like they transition so quickly to the classroom and I met with a teacher I'm like like how did the kids do going from half day to full-time and they're like oh my God I think the teachers had more of a challenge than the than the kids but just so like look at these little faces so this is just like this is just the first three weeks and and the first day Dr Hart and I had um we met up at White House school because we had the family conference and it was like like like the whole winter vacation well like we're gonna have snowstorm this is going to be crazy we don't have the teachers and we really didn't we truly didn't have a full staff until this past Monday because we had teachers who were coming from um other districts that needed to give you know their notice but we made it work and Dr har and I are together on the on the second going we did it this is so good and watching the little kids come in it was just beautiful the picture we were at White House school and it was we had family conferences so you see the White House school students coming in with their red shirts Andre Rosa did Dr D Roa did a whole special thing to welcome the kids she did so we had our big assembly we we had our family conferences we had a big assembly and all the students were uh the K3 students were there and then we had the preschoolers come in at the very end with their red shirts on and we played they played music for them and everything we Stacy and I went to the back and we just looked like we did it right made it worth it we had there was we're still building the plane mind you don't worry there's like turbulence but we we we did it and not we did it it was a to Total Community and the the teachers and the pair of professionals and the reles they made it happen they did we really did we just like said you do this do you do this we got this right we did it I get my hand dirty we didn't this was it was an enormous team effort I mean you can see it on the kids faces this was something that um yes we we I'm sure we made a lot of preschool parents very happy with free preschool and refunds right before the the break and everything like that um but at the same time like we did this not necessarily for that although the financial matters but this is making such a huge difference in the lives of kids right there's we've enrolled more kids there's more access to to preschool I think this is going to pay dividends for our district and for the community you know for for years to come so it was it's been an enormous work we're still working but it's all good in terms of what we're working on Stacy Jason with all the financials and working all the private providers Don race and the facilities Department over winter break um I think we talked about this in finance but we we needed to we didn't I think we have Furniture before winter break we had we had teachers come in over winter break to set up Clash just no question whatsoever when can I come in they didn't ask for compensation they wanted to come in set it up so January 2 those rooms were ready those teachers were ready everyone was ready it was really exciting and we have so much more that we want to do we're already taking a look at how we're going to trap to see like what improvements are we going to see when the kids you know come to kindergarten but um we're gonna have well he doesn't know but I'm gonna come and present more at the board meetings just about certain things that we're doing because we're even they know we are just start we are we are just starting this and we really it's it's really exciting all right can I go back and sit down now I'm done unless I have questions oh please questions from the board About Preschool um anything I know how we work well together what we do like picture it oh my gosh so just comment fantastic job rolling it all out to everyone involved um and I know we are still trying to figure out the whole PR piece but I'm just suggesting that we somehow let parents know even The Wider Community about preschool program I know that a lot of the younger grades you know that those students know more about what's going on just some some way to publicize and well we are so so no so we're our registration is coming out um that information is going to be coming out we're going to be doing registration 23rd and 24th um we have an article coming out in the Centennial about our preschool also I think all of our Preschool teachers and whatnot we have stuff on the website so um it's are finding what the the right way to you know publicize our you know our our our school um I think a lot is worth math too I think a lot will happen too if to call for registration for kindergarten preschool registration for next year we and and it seems like folks know because we've been feeling phone calls and emails from families in the district asking about next year September 2024 which is a good signal that it's out there but Point well take you want to shot it from the rooftop I did notice before we opened this year there um L um I noticed before preschool opened there were a lot of long signs at I live here Barry patch we seeing them there and places I thought that was a good way to get you know the community to see it um I didn't know if maybe we can continue with even more in other places throughout the community just to raise awareness to people who I don't what is the Centennial I don't even know what that is oh it's a newsletter that I sent out but it goes through Genesis it's my my superintendent newsletter families that don't have kids in the school district yet would not get it so we need ways of getting into those families we've um pulled all of the lawn signs that we've done uh previously because it said you know free preschool starting January 2nd um Jason's office is working on creating a mockup and getting a QR code once we have our registration website open and we're going to put more LA Signs all over the town um I talked to dorine today about doing flyer that's something that we can give to all of the preschool providers that they can send in backpacks just for parents put up in grocery stores Library you know just a a nice ad that says we are accepting preschool and hum Amer students so think word is ad that we're offering a free preschool you know in terms of you know you know community members and what not [Music] um yeah I mean it's part of that same problem communication but that that is something that we're always our challeng absolutely it is especially the Readington news um the Readington White House Community page face Community Facebook page I should say um I when I need you to I've emailed the administrator so that he can post he may have seen it and he'll post like from superintendent schools like he he does like a nice disclaimer and then we'll put our blur there so I'm going to try to do that again as well Facebook just have a comment again I I appreciate the levity because you know this is you think we just talked about enrollment that take years of planning and this you know a few months ago no one knew about it you know it kind and for you guys to get to this point I I can appreciate you know like L like you can't fake this kind of passion for Education these are people who really and there's other Educators in the audience but you can't fake that because you really want to make a difference for these kids and you it happening so uh it's it's it's real and and it's exciting and it's just unbelievable this monu this is a Monumental task to happen in the short amount of time to reach all those you know the classrooms look phenomenal uh so it's just really it is very exciting and it's only going to get better and better and yeah let let him know about the excit sometimes I think I drive him nuts and he just like get out of my office but did you hear that it is appreciated absolutely so thank you thank you for this because it's just um it's really wonderful for for everybody I'm so happy you came toight so happy to be here Dr so happy you hired me remember that remember I don't know what to say I get a new contract I don't think tenur yet I'm not tenur yet but hello um the the final thing under the superintendent report tonight is just the draft of the 2425 school calendar that I included in the Boe portal for the um for the board um it's around this time of year that we start planning for next year um especially the school calendar I know that families and teachers and staff are going to be anxious to see this in the coming months so they can plan you know vacations and things like that for next year um I'll just point out that it's a the calendar is a challenge because of where Labor Day falls and building in snow days um and and all of the days off particularly because of Labor Day falling where it does and where the winter break Falls um ending on you know December 20th and having about a week and a half of winter break it's a nice long break but it pushes the last day of school to June 21st and that's that's pretty late um so this is just a draft a couple of things could could be modified um coming up I spoke with the I should put this on um some options that we can consider might be um you know building in just one snow day and one virtual day like we did the other option might be um you know teachers want to come back if we want to start teachers the week before Labor Day and then start students the day after Labor Day that would have us get out of school a little bit early as well so I'm going to have that conversation with uh or had that today with members of the rtea there's some teachers here I'm kind of afraid to say it too much they come back before Labor Day but I think but if you get out earlier that's all I could say they seem okay with it you say we do wow so uh there could be a couple of minor changes but that's up for consideration but one of the other big factors that we have to do is coordinate with 100 and Central as well that I know for families that have students both in our district and at 100 in central um to have as much consistency with the calendar as possible um is our goal with Central remember they have a different board and they have a different teachers contract so there are some days that Central you know has this professional development days or you know their calendar might fluctuate a little bit to the extent possible we really want to align winter break spring break and and days off with us in h 100 Central um so this is a draft are there any questions about the current draft or anything else that you'd like us to consider as Administration in creating uh the calendar okay that's my superintendent report thank you Dr Hart okay we are now open to the public limited to action items on the agenda but before we get started with that I just wanted to um mention to everyone in the audience that U just to remind everyone that this board operates in committees so everything that's on the agenda has been uh discussed extensively in in the committee so I just want to mention that uh it's uh before anyone you know if comments make you're certainly welcome to come up and this will be the time Cur house so I just had four questions about the preschool so the uh preschool is based on a a grant correct so how many students did that ultimately cover and what was the amount of that Grant and then basically what are the ages that the preschool covers okay one second just take thank you and the way we we will'll address your question thank you for your question um I've taken notes I hope I got everything down but we're all kind of taking notes so we'll give Dr har an opportunity to answer is this okay to address that yeah it's completely up you I can address now or we can finish public comment and then I can address everybody if you'd like okay yeah that's fine how would you'd like to do it um let's do that thank you anyone else any public any other comments okay all right okay uh so the preschool is I want to make sure that I'm clear that it's not necessarily a grant this is preschool education Aid the difference is this isn't a grant that's short-term funded this is additional state aid that comes from the state that should sustain for the more long term so as opposed to a grant preschool education it's like getting state aid which is part of our budget formula it's just additional state aid for preschool so not necessarily Grant it's it's education Aid uh we applied for uh the education Aid back in August it funds 105 students total um that are enrolled in our programs right now actually I should say 105 students total um minus 10 special education students uh because they are funded through separate funding through Ida other Federal funding and state funding sources so actually the funding is for 95 total students uh it's approximately 1.6 million correct $1.6 million of funding that we have and that's for everything teacher salary um benefits materials supplies anything related to preschool comes through that funding as well one last question go ahead what would you anticipate if that were a permanent program the population might SE to enroll in it's a great question the state asks us to use a specific formula to estimate the amount of preschoolers um and it is based off of our previous year's first grade enrollment which was I I forget with the first grade enrollment but it's first grade enrollment times two because you're because it's threeyear olds and four year olds so it's almost like you're functioning two grade levels um the total was 266 students was the estimate based off of our first grade enrollment we have to open up a program that serves at least 90% of the 266 so next year our plan and we have five years to do it but our plan actually for next year is to um anticipate enrollment of slightly above 200 so we are almost going to reach that 90% of the 266 enrolled students very shortly probably next year um but that's the formula that we used I thought Mr B said it was roughly maybe this figure is wrong about 19,000 per student want to say 16,700 per student the rates are a little bit different so a public school child is funded in a formula by the state different than a private provider child is funded by the state so for I I think it's, 16700 for private school 15,000 15,000 for public school approximately something like that and you asked about ages too it's any eligible three and four year old um the child has to be three honor before October 1st of the year in which they're enrolling because our kindergarten policy is is that they have to be five onor before October 1st of the year they're enrolling so we'll we kind of roll the clock back two years thank you yeah of course thank you thank you for your question anyone else well now move on to correspondence have we um we didn't get any any correspondences no emails okay not for this agenda not for this particular agenda all right next thing we're going to um take board action on the approval of administrative reports can I get a motion to adopt 1.01 second can I get a roll call please is depento yes is FY yes is borski yes is Ryan Yes m w yes drel yes motion passes now the approval of the minutes can I can we get a motion to adopt 2.01 so move Jennifer second Caroline can we get a roll call please M dto yes M viori yes M borski yes M Ryan Yes m b yes Dr yes pass moving on to finance and Facilities can we get a motion to adopt 3.01 to 3.11 so move second Caroline and we do have a committee report thank you Mr sure so the first thing we discussed was the 2022 2023 school year audit results the annual comprehensive financial report was presented by bkc CPA's audit results showed a 3% increase in expenses which is commendable given inflation rates a healthy a healthy capital reserve remains approximately 3.7 million and overall the district is financially sound there were no audit findings nor corrective actions recommended this is excellent news and demonstrates consistent fiscal responsibility and sound decisions made by Jason bow Dr Hart and the board um the second thing was memorandum of understanding mou with law enforcement agreement the objetive of objective of the state mandated with law enforcement is to ensure a positive and functional relationship between law law enforcement and the board Readington district has signed the agreement and continues to benefit from a productive relationship with local law enforcement uh third thing was refuse recycling bid results the district has reached the limit of the existing refuse recycling contract which required a bid process the initiated bids were solicited and one response was received this is expected due to the large container sizes volume of waste produced by the district and very few vendors able to accommodate this capacity an increase of 10% was proposed and the board recommends accepting the bid which will result in incremental cost of 7,000 10% for the first year and thereafter 10% increases for each of the next two years thereafter the contract can be renewed for an additional two years if the board and administration choose um next thing we discussed was the architect fees for solar a fixed fees is proposed for the purchase power agreement requesting the amount of 29,500 plus reimbursable expenses the fixed fee for the owner's representative Services is 5,000 per month per site plus reimbursable expenses it is important to note that the completed fee will be reimbursed to the school district by the successful PPA company upon contract execution the committee agreed to negotiate the owner's representative Services fees we also discussed the green coordinator position the committee discussed a recap of the prior actions taken for this position redefining the role which is eligible for a stien the role is eligible to engage in shared service agreements contingent on board approval and is aligned with the district social awareness goals to focus on sustainable Jersey and green initiatives currently the role is vacant mentoring shared services agreement with South hunon Board of Education the committee endorsed the district entering into a shared service agreement for a staff mentoring program with South hunon Board of Education this is a one-time agreement for one position uh we also received a donation for White House School a Community member has graciously donated $1,000 to White House school for use in the library and or enhancement the board is appreciative of this generation generous donation board goals the committee reviewed the school Year's goal re relevant to finance and agreed these remain areas of focus for reference the goals are listed below Focus goal number one settle an agreement with the rtaa before the end of the school year continued goal number six to set budget parameters that effectively plan for enrollment growth maintain the depth breath and quality of the educational and co-curricular program that are both sustainable and fiscally accountable to the community evaluating and assessing our redistricting plan to accommodate shifts and student population continued goal number seven to continue to upgrade and refine Safety and Security measures to ensure student and staff safety preschool update a brief update on the initiation of the preschool program was shared as was shared this evening all planned updates were completed on time in a short two-month period the board appreciates the leadership and efforts of Dr Hart and the staff to success bring this program to the district we also discussed expanded free lunch thresholds by the state of New Jersey New Jersey is expanding the threshold for free lunch to more students this year an additional expansion is expected next year funding is provided via both federal and state funds this important program benefits children mashio Food Services and the district Finance agenda items Bill list donation architect fees audit results mou with law enforcement shared Services agreement with South hundon refuse recycling bid award we set our next meeting for February 6th at 8:30 a.m. for budget and March 6th at 8:30 a.m. our tentative topics will be solar proposal scoring budget Capital project cell tower security Rod SDA Grant resolutions thank you Mrs Ryan does anyone have any questions regarding the minutes if not may we get a roll call please M dento yes m f yes M borski yes M Ryan Yes m w yes yes passes I'm moving on to education and Technology um we get a motion to adopt 4.01 to 4.04 so move that second Caroline excuse me uh there's no committee report we did have um actually two meetings were canceled due to the snow uh the next meeting is scheduled for January 31st that's why there 's no committee report tonight um does anyone have any questions though regarding what's on the agenda okay um can we get a roll call please M dependo yes M fi yes M borski yes M Ryan Yes m b yes Dr C yes motion passes okay moving on to Personnel can we get a motion to adopt 5.01 to 5.17 so move second bet okay we have a committee report Mrs wolf uh yes we do uh the committee met on January 12th at 8:45 a.m. the committee discussed Staffing updates uh the committee reviewed the job descriptions of preschool coordinator preschool Community parent involvement specialist and discussed the preschool updates uh enrollment projections and updates were reviewed Housing Development analysis was shared uh the AG HBS principal search the search for the new HBS principal is progressing discussed Staffing request for the 2024 2025 school year were reviewed Personnel matters and focus goal number one settle an agreement with the rtaa before the end of the school year and discuss continued goal number six to set budget parameters that effectively plan for enrollment growth maintain the depth breath and quality of the educational and co-curricular programs that are both sustainable and fiscally accountable to the community evaluating and assessing our redistricting plan to accommodate shifts in student populations agenda items are hiring of staff preschool job descriptions substitutes and retirements and the next meeting was set for Friday February 9th at 8:45 a.m. thank you Mrs wolf does anyone have any questions regarding those me okay can we get a roll call please M Depo yes M FY yes M bori yes M Ryan Yes m w yeah yes motion passes okay moving on to communication uh can we get a motion to adopt uh 6.01 to 6.03 Mo second Jennifer and we have a committee report Mrs depinto can you read that please sure the policy and Communications committee uh met on January 16th was a virtual meeting at 4 o'clock the committee began the meeting by welcoming a new member and for the benefit of that member discussing briefly the purpose of the committee including its work in reviewing and updating policies discussing proposed legislation the role of stress ese in providing updates and the differences between board policies and administrative regulations among other aspects um for the communications planning update the committee discussed how the board had approved the sheriff Services agreement with the public relations consultant Dr Hart has scheduled a first meeting with the consultant to discuss planning and our Communications objectives with a goal to launch our Communications plan in September Dr Hart will provide another update after that meeting there was discussion about how to better advertised board meetings apart from the board briefs and the newspaper notices and Dr Hart indicated that this would be part of his discussion with the consultant the committee also discussed possibly having a newsletter or targeted mailings as a communication method one member emphasized that we should strive to integrate the Consultants proposals into a plan so that we do not merely have proposals without action and to regularly update stakeholders about the goals achieved um then we discussed um alert 231 for policy 5 1111 which is the eligibility of Resident non-resident students regulation 5111 for the eligibility of Resident non-residence students policy 5116 education of homeless children and youths and regulation 5116 education of homeless children and youths the committee discussed proposed revisions to policy 5111 and 5116 and the corresponding regulations all of which have to do with non-resident students and homeless students policy and regulation 5111 have been updated pursuant to new statutes governing the enrollment of students who do not reside in the district typically because their family is in the process of moving Dr Hart gave the example of parents who were moving into our district but not closing on their new home until October yet wanted their child to enroll in our district in September or the reverse situation where a family was moving out of District near the end of the school year but wanted the child to finish the school year in the district the district faces the situation about one to five times a year in the past our district offered a reasonable grace period for this situation and did not require tuition payment from the family now however the statute requires some tuition payment from the students who are not residents which tuition would be decided by the board and for Dr hard there all formulas and then approved by the county superintendent further the revised policy and regulation require a specific time frame from when the student can be admitted to our schools even if no longer a resident after some discussion over various time frames committee members felt that it would be better to make the ending of the first and last marking periods which is typically eight or nine weeks the time frame rather than a calendar date Dr Hart also noted that families in this situation are typically required to provide proof of the mov such as assigned purchase agreement or building permit policy and regulation 5116 relate to the education of homeless children who may be domiciled in District but who have been displaced from a permanent home because of economic or other circumstances the policy and regulation capture legal changes which now put students displaced by natural disasters and terrorism into the category of homeless which means that our district can now receive funding for education for educating such students from the state or District of permanent residents lastly as to the proposed policies and regulations one member voiced opposition to the replacement of his her pronouns with a their pronoun which the member felt was unnecessary to and divisive Dr Hart noted that changes had been made by him to make the pronoun changes grammatically correct and the language less clunky school calendar 2024 2025 draft was reviewed in reviewing the proposed calendar for next year Dr Hart pointed out that the rtea contract requires 181 days for students and 186 for teachers the law requires 180 student con uh contact days this calendar only includes one snow day and one virtual day and thus only a total of two days for the incent weather if we end up meting more than that we would have to include an additional School date possibly during spring break or at the end of the year which here would require students to return on a Monday for the last day none of which are great options there is a discussion about possible solutions Dr Hart proposed speaking to teachers to determine if they would agree to return in late August for professional development days which would allow school to start for students the day after Labor Day September 3rd instead of September 5th after speaking with teachers Dr Hart will update the committee and the board one member commented that we should try to align our calendar with 100 Central's calendar as much as possible for parents with children in both our district and the high school Dr Hart said he would discuss our calendar with Central superintendent uh we then discussed advocacy uh teacher attention and pensions there was no update Dr Hart noted that per legislation there's now a fee holiday to obtain a teacher um certificate in addition there has been a waiver of the requirement that the teacher candidates take the teacher lure exam which consists of basic Reading Writing and math skills the court competency teachers exam is still required there's no update yet as to proposed legislation for grandfathering Teacher pensions in order to attract candidates who left teaching previously um and then communication coordination with hun Central was discussed hun Central is working on their Communications plan as well and so there might be an opportunity to coordinate our own plan with Central former board member Jody bman is on a committee that is looking at Central's communication plan and she has graciously offered to keep Dr Hart updated on their work policy 5111 and 5116 will appear on the next agenda and the committee's next meeting was scheduled for February 21st at 4M thank you Mr toino appreciate that does anyone have any questions about anything that came up in the minutes I just have a quick question to make sure I'm understanding um so the two policies 5111 and 5116 that it'll appear on the next agenda that means for second reading is that because I see it on the agenda tonight so I just wanted to make sure I was understanding that correctly yeah no I'm glad you asked the question because you're right there's a first reading and a second reading could you explain that thank you do yeah um agenda item 6.01 uh which are policies recommended for a second reading those were actually if you take the timeline backwards those policies were reviewed in a no probably a November committee meeting were first read in December and now they're a second read this month 5111 and 5116 were reviewed in committee this past month appear on this agenda for first read because they went through committee now they're through the board for first read and then there'll be a second read on the next agenda for those same policies so when you think about policy think about it in terms of three steps committee review first board first read second Board second read third and last and then that's final approval thank you yeah of course and also just to add to that I noticed the distinction in the attachment where there's the lines through that's in the first reading correct correct yeah and then the second reading is without those lines how the attorneys do it thanks for the question uh any other questions regarding okay can um maybe get a roll call please M dependo yes Mrs fi yes M borski yes this Ryan Yes M yes drel yes pass uh next we're moving on to any unfinished business anything at all from the board no no unfinished business okay all right uh moving on to new business from the board and what's on here is Bo board uh protocols I just want to take a couple of minutes to review the protocols uh I believe um and if you guys if anyone has anything else to add to this just let me know but uh we were all I think everyone got a copy of the handbook so this is nothing that I wrote this has been established a long time ago and I just want to draw everyone's attention to I'm just going to review them briefly to the Board of Education protocols I'm certainly not going to read it but um it starts by saying children's interests come first the board will represent the needs and the interests of all of our students so that's kind of the overview of of the protocol the first one listed it says don't spring surprises on the board members or the superintendent so um you know actually Jen and I had talked about this prior of course to the meeting so we just want you know we want to follow the process you know there's a process that's been established and we just are asking of them to follow the process which is to bring things up in committee and and not no don't put any motions out to the board unless it's been discussed in the committee but if you have any questions about anything certainly can bring bring things up and then it will be brought to the committee before it puts on the agenda so that's that's kind of that's the first one um communication about the General District uh questions or concerns again watching with that email uh we always have to watch that reply all uh so emails are really just for informational purposes only so that's otherwise we really can't be doing board business through email so it's just a reminder of that um I've made that mistake more than once with the reply all that's why I know uh follow the chain of command um own the Collective decision-making process and act only as a body uh exemplify the governance role again I'm not going to read these but I am asking if you haven't read them to just review them because it it's it's really a good frame of reference uh annually conduct a self- assessment evaluation uh clearly State goals and just meeting protocol uh so that that's it and I just um again wanted to take unless any has any questions you certainly can ask them now or please feel free to call me if if you have any questions about about anything with respect to the to protocol so so I just um wanted to mention that let me look at my notes anything else that we should add to that J that that we had talked about um I think just with the clearly State goals we're carrying that through in committee so in committee we're focusing on goals that relate to that specific committee to help guide the work correct yes absolutely thank you thank you for that okay um so that was really it that's all I wanted to mention about board protocols is there anything else that anyone would like to bring up about new business from the board ask a clar question for this evaluation do we have a timeline of when that's going to be for board members I remember that's always like in the beginning of the year do you know when that's going to be um no but I will certainly find out don't Dr do you have any information on that last time we did a self- evaluation I thought we did it in the spring if I remember correctly around the time or right before the time that you're doing the superintendent evaluation I feel like they both happen at once and then we save the results of the self- evaluation we use it in our July retreat but I remember it being a lot for board members to do both the self assessment survey and the superintendent evaluation surveys all at the same time um so maybe Camille and and Jen maybe we want to talk about when we want to do a board self- evaluation if we want to if there's a specific timeline to do it okay did you have a a suggestion no I didn't I just I really like that I think it's a great way to see as a board member you know individually where you're at and then what things you should be looking out for right so it's just I like kind of it earlier in the year yeah then later sure okay that makes sense we can talk about it I think if I remember correctly didn't our consultant uh Judith Wilson I thought that she had a tool that she sent to you like a survey monkey or something like that she received all the results compiled everything so none of us had anything to do with it and then she brought it to the retreat or shared it with us in advance and then brought the results to the retreat in July that sounds most familiar to me I have to look back at my emails though yeah okay yeah so we'll we can talk about it but thank you for bringing that up make a note all right uh does anyone have any other questions about or anything at all any new business at all okay um all right we're now open to the public for anything on or off the agenda okay um now for the executive session I I just need to ask a question I'm sorry but do I read this first or ask for the motion first I'm not clear on that do I ask for the motion or read read it and then do the motion okay thank you okay um a motion to adopt U the following resolution which is we resolve to adjourn to Executive session in accordance with the Sunshine Law to discuss a hip and the superintendence evaluation for a midyear update for approximately 60 Minutes at which time the board expects to return to public session where action will not be taken the matters discussed will be made public if and when the circumstances requiring confidentiality no longer exist however it is not presently known when such circumstances will exist can we get a roll call please M dependo yes m f yes mski yes M Ryan Yes M wol yes Dr Cel yes yes okay so now going to [Music] we'll come back