##VIDEO ID:toOGvp5i0U0## e I e e all right can I get a motion to come out of the executive session and resume public the public session so moved second all in favor please stand for the plge of Allegiance stes can I get a motion to approve the minutes so moved second second all I I presence report so good evening everyone thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to join us for our November 2024 Board of Education meeting as we approach the end of November I'd like to begin by offering congratulations to our Robinsville High School boys soccer team for outstanding season their hard work dedication and team spirit they demonstrate on the field are truly commendable they made our community proud and we look forward to seeing their continued success in the future I'd also like to recognize the Robinsville High School drama production of almost main the cast and crew put on a phenomenal show this past weekend bringing creativity passion and heart to the stage it's always a joy to see the talent and dedication of our students have in the Arts and I want to thank our faculty staff and parents who helped make this production such a success this production was especially significant as it was our first to utilize our newly renovated stage the upgrades the upgrades truly enhance the performance and we're excited for many more Productions to benefit this new space looking ahead we are excited for the upcoming Pon Road Middle School and Robinsville High School winter band and chorus concerts on December 8th these performances are a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the musical talents of our students and the hard work they put in all year I encourage everyone to mark their calendars and join us for what promis to be a memorable of music as we prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday new next week excuse me as we prepare for Thanksgiving holiday next week I want to wish everyone in our school Community a happy restful and joyful holiday this is a time to reflect on the many things we are thankful for and I hope we all enjoyed a quality time with our loved ones we also want to make sure the public is aware that the New Jersey Department of Education I'm sorry New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is planning to hold a public hearing on intent to approve an air pollution control preconstruction permit for the princ Memorial Park crematorium on December 19th 2024 at the Trenton Ancient Order of Hibernians located on at 2419 Cruiser Road and Hamilton New Jersey the public hearing will start at 6 o00 and end at 9:00 p.m. lastly as end of the year approaches our schools are planning a number of holiday celebrations these events bring our community together in spirit of unity and joy and I encourage everyone to participate in the festivities as we close out the year thank you all for your continued dedication to our students in school let's finish the year strong Happy Thanksgiving and I look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events superintendent report thank you Mr Vice President um so I'm so excited to see um children and families at our Board of Education meeting um when I got here five months ago um we said that we were going to be transparent and our meetings would be reflective of our of who we serve and those the children uh so I'm really excited when I get to see um our our product who we support here at our meetings with us today um I engaged in some conversations with our principles and I said I'd like to really showcase um different groups of students and let the public see some of what we do uh from the outside in and uh so Dr buer said I want to go in November I said all right bring it on I said you only have 15 minutes what are you going to give us and she said well we're going to bring the robotics Club here and there might be close to 60 kids and I'm like all right awesome and she said and then we're gonna bring the fourth grade choir and they're going to do a song and so the only thing Dr buer and Mr pasaro do your best to give me about 20 minutes or less but welcome third and fourth graders welcome parents um and I'd like to turn the program over to Dr buyer and her amazing um students so um good evening uh Dr Gorman Dr Pierro thank you so much for having us we're so excited members of the Board of Education um when Dr Gorman in uh invited and had the idea of bringing students back to Board of Education meetings we were so excited we'd love to Showcase um all the work that we do at sces so our first presentation tonight is from our third grade robotics Club under the leadership of Mrs Jennifer Gold without further Ado all right good evening thank you guys so much for having us my name is Mrs gold and I am the Sharon School steam teacher as well as the robotics Club adviser um I want to thank you guys so much for having us and the opportunity to share what we've been doing in robotics Club all these weeks um this is the group we have so far they are an amazing group right here thank you guys for coming out tonight they are Innovative they are so passionate about learning they're excited to come to robotics every week um they work so so so beautifully together and you know we've been doing a lot of really cool stuff that they want to share with you guys tonight so the main overview of the club is that um it is designed to inspire students to explore steam Concepts while working together collaboratively to program a variety of robots during our 10 week session so they will have exposure to several types of robots during these 10 weeks I'm going to turn this over to them now though because they really wanted to share some of the things that they've been doing with you so come on up bgy we've been working on problem solving teamworking collaboration programming engineering critical thinking and creativity the types of robots we are using is Dash ozobot and spear oolt all right so we have two videos coming up boys three of you guys can come up um and they just want to give you a little preview before I show you the videos so s you can talk about the first video what they're going to see first in this video you will see something very cool we basically use two blocks repeat forever and dance confident we put repeat Forever on the screen then added dance confident inside repeat forever it looks like a symmetrical flower enjoy the video oops oh wait a minute hold on I want the other one to play first H let's go back I want to play the can somebody play that first video for me I don't know why it's not I can help thank you so the first video wait yeah I got you thank you so much so this is the Dash robot um and we have a sketch kit that goes along with it which incorporates the art component in Steam and the kids just were able to um put code and programming into the robots in order to design different things so what sah was saying earlier was they made this symmetrical flower which I thought was really neat and Innovative and this is really just them kind of coming up with their own Innovation I didn't really give them much Direction I just said play with it play with the code see what happens and I love the outcome all right so the oops I'm gonna go back uh let's Play that video now so actually before you play that Von explain what we're gonna see in this video you will see how I made a t-shirt using a robot uh I failed first but then tried again and I did it correctly it okay good oh sorry wait hold on I'm sorry guys that video yeah so first of all just the fact that they thought to even program a t-shirt I thought that was so cute I'm really creative and that they were even able to figure out the pattern of that was amazing so at this moment they figured out that they did something wrong but they didn't even take it hard they just said no problem let's fix it I know what I did wrong they went back they revised the code and then they were able to do it good job way to show resilience guys all right and then the other robot that we've been using we just started working with ozobots so tell us what we're going to see in these videos in these videos you will see that um we used lines and colored markers to make a code and the robots follow it you can find it so these these robots are colorcoded to do certain things you can change their speed you can have them do different tricks um they can do spins and they can zigzag and back walk and all kinds of things like that they can jump lines at intersections you can tell them which way to go so the kids had a lot of fun just sort of exploring this is the first week that we used it and we just kind of gave them a little exploration time and then the second video is something similar but we can play that it's about 30 seconds so right now what we started today in robotics is the kids are making obstacle courses and they have certain criteria like they have to go through a tunnel they have to measure the tunnel make sure it's certain um certain size they have to open and close a gate so they're having a lot of fun with that that's a lot of really good engineering as well all right so now the kids thank you the kids really wanted to be interviewed so we did a little interview segment where I made a video and kind of spliced them together talking about what they what robotics mean to them um I will warn you guys I didn't get to everyone so there are a couple of them here today that really still want to say something so I hope you guys don't mind if I call a few of them up after I show the video so we can go ahead and play that like if we are creating anything we work together how to like how like to make friends and P to work together I think that coding like a lot of bots is very important cuz I'm planning on becoming an engineer when I grow up so coding B coding robots is probably going to come in handy so what kind of things are you enjoying in a robotics Club right now I'm enjoying the OOTS the dash is especially the dash my favorite thing about the dash is that like at my sounds we can record crazy stuff and believe me it's hilarious my favorite thing is when I get to code the robots with my friends spending time play with friends and getting to know people the fun part is that you get to Cod robots we get to work with robots and program them with that table mates all right my four friends come on up real quick I'll have you guys have a chance to tell everybody what robotics means to you right Sasha you're gonna go first um so uh so my favorite kind of like so the thing I love about like robonic is like that we like use robots and like it might not work always but you always can make things right and I just love it is just so fun and also I love our teacher [Music] yeah I signed up for robotics cuz I wanted to learn how to code robots good you um whatever you wanted to share um what I like about this club is that gives it gives you life lessons about teamwork and coding and Technology my the fun the fun part in um robotics is uh V you code and I really like the OA Bots but I I'm not very good at it but I tried my best and I like the dash to because we tried the different stuff um in with my group and I am looking forward to the Sphero bolt because it's I it's it's its name in its middle name like it has old so I am think I am uh thinking that it's going to go fast and I really like robotics real quick um so future plans we actually had almost a hundred students sign up for robotics Club so in order to accommodate almost everyone if I can um I am hoping to run two more week sessions throughout the remainder of the school year so I can get as many students as possible three two one thank you for the opportunity to highlight our club tonight thank you for coming thank [Applause] you that one was a little sloppy very nice thank you so much Mrs golden our third grade robotics club we appreciate it also families thank you so much for your commitment in Partnership and signing your students up picking them up and things like this don't just happen so a big um thank you to uh my colleagues the curriculum department for making these kinds of things happen and giving these opportunities for our students so thank you appreciate [Applause] that so next next up tonight is our fourth grade choir under the director leadership of Mrs Nicole Jeffrey and they have one song they'd like to perform for you this evening so [Applause] enjoy e for I think our mic dead m good evening I am Mrs Jeffrey I am the new music teacher at Sharon Elementary School this year and I am the proud director of the chorus and as well as the band we have here about 50 of our 65 chorus students to perform for you tonight many of them are also participating in the band we have 160 band students this year um and and these students are giving up time in their class to to come to extra rehearsals for chorus which means a little bit more responsibility they need to make up the work that they miss and practice at home they're wonderful group of students they're enthusiastic and we've only been practicing for about four weeks and I think we're uh doing a wonderful job so far I'd like to thank Dr Gorman for the invitation to perform tonight and also my colleague Miss Applebee who's been wonderfully supportive and helpful Dr bouttier and Mr PR Faro for your support of the program it's uh been a wonderful start to the year and I'm looking forward to our performances throughout the year and we have one song to sing for you it's called Big World small world St many many dayses countes [Music] [Music] [Music] we are [Music] [Music] children [Music] is world [Music] and we are [Music] [Applause] [Applause] what a fantastic job thank you so much again thank you for this opportunity families we appreciate you coming out and uh be on the lookout for a concert coming soon Dr Gorman again members of the board thank you so much we appreciate it Dr buer thank you so much parents if you want to stay for the whole board meeting go for it but uh I think uh your kids might get a little uh testy on you thank you for all coming out today kids did a great job just share this one okay okay cool okay so for now that the ones that I've really come for them important business let me continue let me continue with my superintendent's report I want to Echo uh Mr vice president's uh report um I want to recognize our boys soccer team who made an incredible incredible run this season capturing the Central Jersey group two sectional championship title please despite a heartbreaking loss in today's State semi-final their hard work and spirit made the entire school district and Community very proud um I was glued to my phone before our meeting tonight watching the game on the YouTube uh live stream before tonight's meeting and I know we all share an incredible um celebration and uh feel really proud about the accomplishments of the team so congratulations again to the team okay and now for my second favorite part of our board meeting and it's only because of the third and fourth graders today um I would like our student uh representatives to give their student report uh get us up to date uh ya and Javon on what's going on in our schools from a student lens uh this working hello I think hello everyone my name is Yao Appia and this is uh Jen siles I'm the secretary and Jen's the treasure and today we're just going to talk about what's going on in the Robinsville School District so for the high school again boy soccer finished out the regular season undefeated They just won the sectional title versus Del Ran the varsity and JV cheerleading squad took on the cvc's this month and did amazing the varsity girls came in second place but also won the best dance routine all fall Sports finished out their season and winter sports will be starting in December for the clubs model un recently competed in the William and Mary High School model un conference in Williamsburg Virginia where they took home seven Awards including best delegate Black Culture Club went on their Washington DC trip last week they visited Howard University and the national hip-hop Museum the Chinese Club had a very successful fundraiser event selling Boba wlhs is doing a chocolate covered pretzel fundraiser the class of 2026 is doing their annual Country Gardens pie fundraiser and the class of 2027 is doing a cheesecake fundraiser for the executive Council the executive council is preparing for the winter pep rally we will be setting up the Spirit Week themes to send out to the school soon every class is working on their dance to compete against one another and we will be setting up a clash of classes basketball game and now I'll pass the mic over to Jen so for Pawn Road Middle School student representatives from the prms student council met to recommend incentives to be added to the pbsis reward system students had a spirited discussion and decided Ed on an impressive list the rewards include an easy pass for the lunch line a private lunch with friends playing a board game with their favorite staff member principal of the day and Etc staff members have already begun recognizing students in the system for being fair which stands for flexible accountable inclusive and responsive pwn TV is ever expanding be on the lookout for a new and improved and hard-hitting coverage of pwn Ro middle school as they begin to interview our prek population they look forward to airing that content in January they're not sure what they are going to say but it will be entertaining during the week of respect this past October students were given paper rings and were asked to write examples of respect what it looks like what it sounds like and what it feels like the Rings were assembled and combined to into a giant chain to represent the idea that respectful actions in the school Community can create a chain reaction making someone feel appreciated and respected can encourage them to treat others in the same way the chain is now on display in the lobby for Sharon Elementary School uh Sharon school had a great time celebrating Wellness week during the week of October 21st they like to thank the efforts of Mrs Kim white the school counselor for organizing the following activities Sharon students practice mindful coloring during Boomers Nest they practice being active listeners and participants during a presentation at lunch about making healthy food choices the presentation was led by Our Food Services director Miss Rachel KO SCS students had the opportunity to partip participate in yoga at recess they would like to thank Miss Marshall third grade teacher for leading the yoga sessions at recess finally as CS students and families also donated food items throughout the week the donations were given to the robinso food pantry and were very appreciated Additionally the fourth grade students visited our very own Robins o hydroponic Farm the sces students engage in a hand on Hands-On learning experience as they explored the leafy green machine which is the nickname of the vertical hydroponic shipping container Sharon appreciates their continued partnership with the at Robinsville hydroponic Farm lately in continuing to build positive relationships with the St with their students as well as continuing their building based work in pbsis positive behavior supports in schools the teachers have opened up their classrooms and invited members of the lunch resesarch recess team to read a story to their students the lunch and recess AIDS are enjoying this experience and Sharon admin is thankful for their dedication in working with the students thank you so much for allowing us to sit on the board and speak get this meeting today we are looking forward to attending next month's meeting as well thank you thank you gentlemen great job feel like you've been here for years all right lastly uh we want to recognize and thank uh the Robinsville beind organization co-founders Cynthia Rosen and ashida Nik um treasure have generously donated over $7,000 to our district to support our students their kindness and dedication truly embody the spirit of our community and we are deeply appreciative of their ongoing support can you ladies uh just say a word about your organization and maybe we could take a a picture or so with the board oh there they are awesome okay hi thank you for having us tonight um this is AKA she's the treasur and one of the co-founders of beind and I'm Cindy I am the vice president and also another Co co-founder uh for this initiative what we did over the summer was we asked our local community to sponsor a child for the summer each child was um a sponsorship of $25 and we raised enough to cover all of the students who are on your free and reduced lunch program so that they could have $25 in their account and they could choose an item that they'd like to have at lunch if it's something extra that they normally would not have um and we're grateful for the community we always get support from them and they just actually stepped up and did a wonderful job raising the fundance thank you so much I was told this is your second donation to us as well yes we did one last um spring semester as well well I I could speak on us all for us all we really appreciate it and I love um the joy of giving which is on your website yes that I that I looked into so thank you very very much and if the board doesn't mind can we get a picture for recognize the donation thank you thank you there than thank you Dr Gorman um one second uh thank everybody again one more time um and Taco uh Dr Petro's um message as we approach the holiday I want to extend warm wishes to all of our Robinsville families for a happy and healthy Thanksgiving with your loved ones enjoy and uh and relish every moment that you have with them thank you Mr vice president that concludes my report thank you Dr Gorman uh business administrator report Mr mccre good evening everyone uh once again so uh people ask me about the the elections I we do not have uh certified results yet we'll be approving those at next month's meeting so congratulations to the unofficial uh winners um two board members and and and a new one and joining us for for next year and to outgoing Mr galotti uh let me log into my computer so we can present um I can I give you the sure go ahead okay so um as we've been uh conducting this series of presentations from the business office to improve transparency when um Nick and I was reviewing it and we sort of wanted to get the big picture of this presentation so while the uh the topic of the presentation is expenses right so how much does it cost to run a school district what you'll note in here is that we're not telling you how much it costs we know how much it costs but I want you to know the level of um detail that the business office in the school district goes to each one of these expenses and has been very creative in scrutinizing expenses finding alternative revenue streams and doing things that are just not as traditional as you would normally say well these are just our expenses so thank you actually when when we were going through this presentation I said this is a very positive presentation and yet the the title is expenses so keep that in your lens on a big picture on as Nick goes through the various different expenses in our district and how we're tackling them so thank you everyone so uh we're doing expenses this month uh uh we're supposed to do the ASA that is the application for state school aid we'll be doing that next month it got out a little late it's not supposed to be certified for another couple of weeks I didn't want to give you numbers that weren't exactly accurate um the application for state school aid is when we um see how many students we have we take a roll call on October 15th and that is your financial numbers that the state calculates off of that for next year's budget um we're doing expenses listen you know nobody wants to cut anything nobody wants to do uh everybody wants to grow and so forth so some of these items have been done already some of these are hypotheticals it does not mean we're doing all of these it is just a discussion Point uh people ask me taxpayers ask me have we done this have we done that have we done these certain things some of them are are are UNP palatable some things aren't uh wise to do some things things we've done already um so I just want to take that with a grain of salt for everybody on this once again decisions will be made for next year's budget come February March April with public discussions so solar this is one of the things that we we have done uh initially we thought it would be around 130,000 in savings we underestimated to 100,000 in savings that was Supply only what we pay for electric as time goes on we're saving more because our increase are fixed at a very low amount so as electric prices go up faster than I think a couple of percent we save even more and that's offsetting what's not on here is demand charges that's what the utility company charges you extra for the amount of power you are using for using their transmission lines and so forth when you go solar you're basically making a power plant on your own property and you don't use as much of that demand that becomes very important down the road so typically half the cost is Supply and the other half is demand in total we're saving about a quarter million off these two major solar systems that we didn't pay anything for uh and kudos to you know it was difficult to do those kudos to the high school principal and the Middle School principal for managing the parking lots and the Staffing changes we had to do while building these massive systems um and there's a hyperlink on the website for you to click on to to see how it's tracking and the environmental impacts as well health benefits what can we do for health benefits so when we came on board uh four years ago one of the first things we launched was to see about joining a joint Insurance Fund and so as we do we we team up with other school districts for Property and Casualty Insurance I said let's do this for health care so we were on state health benefits which continued to rise about 10 to 133% a year the district had moved to a private plan when we got here they estimated oh we're going to I forget what the price was but I think it was something in a 15% increase we locked out uh quickly um they actually reduced our cost and fixed us for 18 months it saved about a million dollars for the school district and offset and additionally saved about $300,000 for the employees so every employ on average employee saved $1,000 of their own money and the district save a million and those increases are around five six 7% per year so much more manageable than the state or private plan a future option and this is for do Dr Ruki uh uh looked about this and we want to do more research together about this um is a self-care option and that is something where Hamilton has been doing um and Tom Z has done already um basically you provide your own care and you team up with doctor offices directly um how much does that save not much because you're actually increasing your services what it's really saving is that instead of having 6 7 8 10% increases it's 2 or 3% when you're you're talking about a67 million health care plan year after year after year it saves an incredible amount of money and that's more manageable when we're limited to 2% of our budget so that would come into parody so we're going to do more research on that uh for the future of course there's Clauses that you must maintain the same level of care and plan so that's contractual so you can't be changing things so it's always like like office Automation and and systems update so we increase efficiency as you notice from the taxpayer guide to educational spending we do not have many administrators here our staffing levels are much tighter uh and much more efficient things you know we can't do as much as as others so we have to be smarter uh and faster on some of these items so we've outsourced uh our computer systems to to handle that and support us so we've moved to Genesis electronic time sheets contracts um board docks as we see now that saved us some time uh and even teacher systems with um with Atlas and helping them out as well so as these systems come on board we get to do things more and more efficient um you know and helping out Network infrastructure you've heard uh we've talked about this before we added our own fiber line between our buildings this is saving 42 Grand a year and that's a number from two years ago okay this was a shared service with the township uh as well so we're we've upped it from you know um 1 gig to 10 gig line lot less latency it's incredible what we can do with that uh and it's our system okay uh vendor Partnerships and equipment I me we went to Amazon right saving tens of thousands of dollars and options of stuff that we could normally not get I just approved an order today for repair of of of a motor right so Brian Murphy or buildings and grounds is going and looking for door closers looking for items on our 20-year-old buildings that you really can't find but we can find them on Amazon on um copier management we don't I don't lease copiers I I I don't lease pretty much anything um you know it would if you lease The copier in three and a half years you can own it but you're doing a fiveyear lease each copier we're saving about $10,000 we have over 20 of them right and instead of lasting five years and doing new lease they're going six seven eight years long and we actually bought smaller ones just as fast but smaller 110 volt Vice 220 so when we get to move them they're easier to move and teachers prefer more of them than having a big fast one with a line of people uh of course we're going online so we're doing less copying so you don't need as big as well that saves a lot of money in our district over time 43b payments this is for vacation payouts sick uh sick day payouts when you're retiring or separating from the district so the non- Affiliates and administrators have agreed to this so we save 7.65% or FICA they save 7.65% so this is adding into the tens of thousands for us and for the employee uh almost every year Outsourcing right always a touching subject uh Transportation it's already been done probably a decade ago I I don't know exactly when we do have some of our own routes though so we typically Outsource the general education routes big buses triple tiers they're hitting the elementary middle and high school so that's a three tier very efficient we have a very efficient busing department but some of our special Edward routes are very expensive so we'll do those inhouse so you'll see some of our smaller buses we'll run those ourselves we have looked in the past there are more routes to do for us that we can save like 20 thou in tens of thousands 20 30,000 each route the problem is you have to buy a bus buses are 100,000 the biggest issue is there's almost a year wait long time on sometimes there's an excess bus and you can take one immediately so I'll be bringing it to the business committee we may be we may have to buy a bus and and do the math on that for next month uh we're doing the plans right now um custodial and Food Service already been outsourced okay so custodial Services once again I think about a decade ago for both of them if you brought back custodial I estimate about one and a quar million it is always an option to bring back your own transportation Department your own food service your own custodial but there are costs involved um Food Service I didn't do the math uh we do have still the lunch aids with us uh in our district 2164 an hour um they're all part-time right and it's very hard to find them so even if you try to do that position it's not worth it I'm not recommending it I'm just giving you these are your options and your information so you can see when it comes to Outsourcing certain things things we pick and choose what is smart and what is not smart and is it worth it or not uh cafeteria financial management right this program uh is growing over time uh we were on a national school lunch program it fell off by choice during covid they gave a lot of money out we could not join you had to wait a year we pushed for it to join we made 1.1 million in Revenue it brought us back into the black and every child ate for free it would have been amazing if we had done that for two years um typically you're losing about a 100 Grand though okay why is because not all the costs are written in so it's an accounting method with that we can increase the prices when you're on the national school lunch program they dictate the price of the main meals so you'll see there's a different price for the high school of course the quality or the options are much higher at the high school and and and then the other schools um but we're mandated so as price goes up in food costs and uh minimum wage we were held flat on the cost of food um future option future action is I foresee that the high school will go above 10% in four or five years you will be mandated to go to the national school lunch program you will gain more Revenue since the state will chip in 50 Grand but your options will go down right like there's no friers there's no special drinks and so forth so the quality will change um it's also like I said almost a half a decade away so many options could change so um I don't want to talk about it that much more than this it's just it's on the horizon and we can look at that in the future Energy Efficiency LED lights Sharon done we got a program for that that thing paid itself off in a few months we did that last year so there's a program called New Jersey Direct install the utility companies are involved you have to have a certain KW kilowatt demand remember the solar system that we talked about it goes by the meter 250 kilow is the limit Sharon has two meters when they built the addition they put a second meter so we played the game and got that in there the middle school they're changing the rules now at 300 I think it's averaging 295 it was much higher before solar so now we can do the Middle School we're waiting for the those contracts to come out and we're doing the audits as we speak so we want to rush on that and go right through when that program comes out which is first come first serve future High School it was about a megawatt now it's dropped to 800 well above the limit you would think the government would say the biggest most you know most energy consuming buildings especially government buildings and schools should be on the program they have not it hasn't been for a decade um if you know somebody can change that that'd be wonderful but I have asked some politicians already um so we're doing that in-house little by little future optimization right um You have to look at class size and programs we know three4 or twoth thirs to three4 of our budget is Staffing levels that's really where your expenses are courtesy busing haven't done the math yet but it's about a half a million dollars in courtesy busing um that's always a discussion point we are Ching team up with the township and there's projects as well and grants to pave certain uh and build sidewalks so that we have to team up with the township for that one development alone nearby is 100,000 just in courtesy busing so if we if that gets done then those children can walk and it'll be a lot it'll be easier to swallow to do a project like that instructional Aid Outsourcing we had talked about this years ago in previous boards it was about 400,000 in cost due to the increas in cost and the increased amount of AIDS I'm estimating to$ 650 to 750k for that in a couple years now the key point with that is people talk about Outsourcing is there is an Outsourcing law that was passed during the height of covid that as long as a contract is in place you cannot do anything you must honor the contract right our contract is up in about a year and a half so that has to be properly done if that is a serious thing once again that is not for this board it's not even for the next board it's the one after that so two years from now for a discussion point uh SRO that's always come up in the past as well from the public and people asking you know we have a shared service with the township are you going to Outsource the SRO right now you're looking about $35,000 in savings you could go to class 3es you can go to other options uh and contract now is that worth it or not is a discussion Point that's always been a note now I want you to understand that this is also a balance act because they have the same concerns as we do cost of Staffing goes up pension goes up Health Care goes up and so forth and that is shared the key thing now is the township contributes a great deal of money to offset this program okay my memb said they they're offering 100,000 Plus for a teacher to help it comes out of this if that goes away it's a different discussion but for now at $335,000 in savings to lose three armed police officers is is not something that we recommend but we just wanted you inform and be transparent on all the options out there Athletics you've seen this before these are the 22 23 numbers um I haven't I don't have the updated numbers for 23 24 yet um mind you we've increased the cost for for students to pay for these programs it's $140 per season so when you look at these costs take off the 140 and that's what it's costing us granted this is a couple years ago um and there's been increases and it does fluctuate I've also included and but you can see some programs um net net it's the district about four $400 per student While others are over 2,000 some programs are are are low in the 20,000 range others are almost 100,000 okay this is just a chart that shows per uh that information in a graphical way Charter Schools this is a new impact last couple years uh had Tifa we had two students going there we certify this every year we have to pay their cost I think it's around 12 to1 15,000 and it's certified every year and it does adjust this year was New unbudgeted I don't know how to say this name but I think it's more coron charter school that just opened up five children unbudgeted so estimating 60 to $775,000 that will be built for that um and it could grow it could grow um Aiden L that's almost $1,200 that's mandated by the state we have almost 150 students for that that is an estimate um this is what we pay to transport to par so if we don't transport a child to a non-public or Charter School we pay this to the parent taxfree okay can't do anything about that you can get a bus if the cost is lower but for two kids or three kids or even five it it'll never cover cover that um so I there's a little tension here you can see my note there you know we are funding these schools directly and their transportation while we are discussing budget cuts state aid cuts and courtesy busing Cuts while they're getting out all filled um conclusion next steps listen we're going to continue doing this we're going to continue looking at items I take input from the public all stakeholders within outside I'm always available I'm always looking for new things I know we have a new superintendent coming with a background such as mine um I'm looking forward to hearing ideas especially from his experiences and see where we can do things right and then we'll bring to the business committee for further discussion and so forth so that is the end of this presentation does anybody have any questions on this and I think it's already been posted because it's part of board dos now quick question on the charter school can you can you elaborate on that one I didn't quite understand why we are paying Charter Schools yes so uh Charter School will open up um a student from your District can go there of their own choosing and we pay the cost and is that is that for the law yes and it doesn't have to be in the local area I I I know hatikva is far away um you know so it is it's been around for decade what's the criteria in the sense why why do the parents actually choose a charter school it's a choice typically it's a marketing um thing you know they they they'll say they have better scores the parents will go I see typically from my experience in my previous school district one one family will go and then they'll get their neighbor to go and then another neighbor will go and and I'm wondering is there like a uh some type of incentive or Kickback plan or something um special programs yeah um that they don't exist with them uh um I I think it is a Rel religious SE I'm not sure how they get and mcon I think is is a former Catholic School it's tied to the Catholic now if the same thing happened to St Gregs we have I think 27 students going there that could be a half a million dollar hit right $400,000 hit all in one shot and you have no choice about it this goes back to do you make a program yourself to attract Talent from other schools for educational purposes or do you lose your talent right um it's a further discussion I just there's nuances there and and and Mr nandon uh you know last board meeting and some of the board members asked me to take the revenue slides and do some math on it we have I have done the math I've done a whole you know Six Sigma relationship on it equalized the values but I did it in a vacuum I was bringing it to the other administrators in the district admin and going through it and figuring out a better number and presenting it probably next month okay thank you any other questions are there any lays on reports yep um so we had njsa last month and so there was um no meeting but we do have a meeting on Thursday and I'll be there virtually um and that specifically is for Mercer County where all the Mercer County um board members are invited to talk about what's happening at a larger level for Mercer County um and we typically do these month monthly thank you Amanda any questions on that committee reports we'll start with education development and policy Miss Layman thank you Dr Pier am I on good okay so we met on Thursday the 14th um there were no actionable items discussed however we did talk about a number of topics I'll just briefly brush over them um we talked about the AVID program which is currently being taught as an elective at pond in grades 6 through 8 and these students are learning career and college preparatory skills and mindsets the program's aim is to close the opportunity Gap by preparing all students for College and Career Readiness through challenging learning experiences um so Dr Gorman would like the district to explore this impactful program further so that we can challenge our students remove any barriers and um allow all of them to reach their potential we talked about the dual enrollment program and that there's a significant need to add more programs to give students opportunity to explore academic interests and earn college credits um the district is not eligible for dual enrollment Grant but miss defasio has formed a committee to partner with NJIT for stem programs and TCNJ for additional Humanities courses um the curriculum department is working on launching additional courses at no cost to the district um the atlas program which is the districts which will house the district's curriculum will be made public I believe in about a month Dr Gorman online at the next Board of Education meeting we're going to preview it for you um so everybody could see it thank you and finally we talked about the Heritage celebration so the district has created a schedule of observed holidays to ensure that each School recognizes each holiday so that all holidays are recognized not necessarily celebrated but at least recognized and we don't miss any um finally oh that was it actually the next meeting is December 10th thank you excellent thank you any questions for Ed policy our Personnel was me uh Personnel met on November 14th at 7 o'cl in Dr Gorman's office uh present were Mr Ray M Miss Muka Dr Gorman Dr wuki M Tremor Mr defasio and Mr mccre topics uh we talked about administrative assistance settlement to keep the uh position in the bargaining unit for the Rea we also talked about of the office assistant job for red um the new job description for red is uh the current person is moving so we revisit and expand the job description for for U Mr mccre talked about for facilities which is going to pull a part-time position off the table because our director of building the ground was able to utilize a part-time assistant to to use for scheduling and processing uh facility rental work in the district Mrs tror provided her monthly staff updates to review any additions uh removals or modifications and finally Mr defasio talked to us about posting for ESL position um we need a full-time posting for this new position due to an influx of identified students uh need service there were no actual items and our next meeting scheduled for December 10th at 7:00 for business um Mr R thank you Dr P the business committee met on November 15th uh all the committee members were in attendance we discussed the additional playground grades at SCS and PMs which has now been installed we also discussed about the access road between RS and prms thanks for the Jersey barriers I think students are feeling safe and they're able to commute and walk um we also discussed about prms energy audit um which is waiting for an updated program ex expected in few months uh we also discussed about or's interior door replacement um maintenance shop or shipping receiving set design is still under work uh prms hitback uh replacement of three pneumatic walls for unit D3 D4 d8 waiting for a coat and ORS Auditorium stage which is all done thank you I think the students enjoyed it including my daughter who actually said Thank you to the administration for the beautiful stage um prms cafeteria cafeteria AV upgrade I think it's all complete um there is some upgrades which which is still underway is that correct Nick the prms cafeteria AV upgrade is it still some something pending so the cafeteria upgrade for the HVAC um I'm surprised it's warm right now but uh it's broken it is uh on with the rod Grant application so that bid went out it's supposed to get repaired probably over the summer great thank you and the shadon elementary school Cricket pitch uh that's under progress the there is a meeting with Robins Premier League to discuss the pitch contractor and donation that's more what I have the next meeting is on December 13th thank you right thank you Mr nonan uh for community relations uh M vuk credit right um thank you so we met community relations met November 14th rugu Amanda myself with Dr Gorman and Christy defasio weren't present um a few of the topics that came up the first being um the crematorium uh and just understanding that the board for community relations purposes needed to communicate to to the community that the board did not actually receive notice um because the address was different from what should have been our address for notice um and in fact because this is the community relations committee we're just encouraging the community to bring forth the opinions at the public hearing um as was mentioned in the president's report uh and to continue to stay engaged um where we can um assist in this uh the second was the community senior citizen engagement status we felt very strongly um that there could be the preschool um working with senior citizens and making sure that there is a stronger engagement um CommunityWide and thought that there were some creative ways so more to come on that um and there the the third is the grant documentation status I understand that there were some opportunity for us to follow up with a link to put in our newsletter for community relations regarding all the grants that we um go over and what are status would be so more to come on that in the newsletter um the and I I believe it's also available on our website but we're going to make it clear clearer for the community to see um then we have town hall to educate the community on budget uh so obviously we know that Nick has been doing a an amazing job with really making sure that for the community's purposes all this is made very basic and um digestible uh and that if there is an opportunity to also add glossery terms we going to suggest that to the business committee for us to consider um so that it is either even further digestible um so the status on parents square and Facebook integration we are doing something so that parent square and Facebook have a better link with one another so the parents continue to use parent square and get alerts that they are receiving on Facebook but may not be on the app where we're directing everybody to so there's going to be better integration and lastly I know um the other committee already mentioned it but it's the holiday recognition and the Heritage Month really really important for us to start recognizing that there is a plethora of diverse um events that are related to people's backgrounds or status and uh in each of the schools we're going to try to make sure that bulletin boards can recognize that and teachers are aware as well and I just wanted to bring forth at this moment um the first thing that will be on our bulletin board which is there's a recognition of the Veterans for Veterans Day um and Nick thank you thank you for your service as well um but there are many of us in our community so we'll be sure to really integrate um the holidays that should be recognized and ones that can be recognized depending on what the community really wants to see and the students and what they want to bring forth um so just a a a recognition of diversity in all those ways thank you thank you m Muka any questions right security uh Mr Howard all right thank you uh security met Friday November 1st uh bright and early at 8: am there were um eight different topics that was discussed at the meeting first uh there was some school safety updates uh there was a presentation uh by aenda kosi on Vape detectors um the police gave kind of an update of the fullscale exercise that happened on the 7th of uh November the rhs parking lot there was some uh discussion about the cameras that they complete and they're reordering uh camera groupings for facilities um there was discussion about the door alarms uh researching future meetings with the administrat with the administration for for planning uh the preschool expansion uh security film uh second vendor to conduct a site visit and about uh discussion about the physical security system um for uh curbing on the interconnection road uh Jersey barriers were installed there was pictures in uh the weekly memo about that and panic alarms um there researching switching to IP based alarms for the district and uh finally there was uh discussion on the survey for safe routs to school um about the possibility of sidewalks in partnership with the township for increased safety and reduction in courtesy bus routes and the next meeting is on December 13th um at pwn Road Middle School thank you Mr Howard any questions actually I have a question I I know it was a huge big deal that people came I'm gonna say the seventh yeah can you talk a little bit more about what that was I mean they had superintendant from all over really coming out and I want to like really shout you all out for your amazingness because um to be a leader in this community is to put forth things like that so thank you very much good so um so since I've been here I've I've echoed that I thought Safety and Security are at a really high level in this District sometimes you don't know it when you're in it um but from an outside lens um I noticed it immediately um you have stakeholders at the school level at the local law level um at the county level at the NJ doe and at the state level and the federal level since I've been here working with them in Tandem and the most important Focus has been pure safety organization practice drill reflect get better at what you do um and so when this was brought to me literally my first month on in Robinsville I'm like go for it I fully support it um to that end Nick will give you just an overview of um the day and it was pretty spectacular because I know it included our kids um and we had signed off per Mission slips from um some of uh the drama students and they were acting full they were in they were really into it and I I heard it was very very successful Nick yes so uh the county has a a a rapid response Force where they send multiple police officers from every district and a certain percentage of their officers for crisis action um they try to go to every school once a month throughout the the county so they understand what different schools look like and do their training so this time they decided to do something large we're talking you know helicopters coming in uh drones flying inside a building to look at items uh getting actors involved and how we coordinated through through US was okay let's do a um a a reconstitution plan um how to get everyone back together again and how to get your children's back again and Communications plan um and and kudos to you know uh the high school principal and the Middle School principal for for running these operations um transportation was also involved buildings and grounds was involved I mean cafeteria will be involved like how do you feed students you know this could be a long time period and it's just not a crisis action of it's something very bad happening it could be something of when you know we lost water we lost power there's a gas leak how do you do this and the reconstitution piece uh and bringing everybody back together again so there's things that they've learned as well they've taken notes we're waiting for those notes and actions uh to get involved but they also had numerous other school superintendents here and there's a discussion and they quickly realized and you can understand you run out of Manpower real quick who's going to take care of this who's going to take care of that in your communication systems right and so we're going to upgrade certain things and talk about it but quickly they're realizing that we may have to do something like this that the police do for school districts like we will volunteer two administrators to go to your school district if you need help can you send two or three to us and so forth and go back and forth and what can you do and come up with a common operating plan and a common operating picture of what to happen so uh I see a lot more things coming from this um and leading the way um but there's a lot of you know you can realize in any situation something bad happens you're going to run out of Manpower uh real quickly and um you know we want to be involved with that and get involved with everybody across the county so it was nice to hear about that personally I was not there um it was one of those times where I could not be and but I really wanted to see all these great things that we just spoke about um and um waiting to hear for the reports and see more information I know the county is getting their reports together uh obviously would be confidential U but it'll be shared with the security committee so thank you everyone thank you and I think uh the importance of that drill and overall school security you know can never be overstated I know on where I work down in Gloucester uh County we have a similar um mandate where different people are U dedicated to you know two or three there's two or three of us from Gateway who will go over to if God forbid there was a incident in other's Town um and it be reciprocated as well so we kind of have those Partnerships so I think that's a good way to kind of move forward and having a common language for the county I think is so important because that's who's going to be responding is these counties as well as local um law enforcement so thank you for your efforts and making that happen all right and our last report is uh special education Mrs Hill D'Angelo oh Save The Best For Last um go special ad so uh the report today is have two things we have Mr Christopher Butler you want to raise your hand oh yeah yesterday was his first day congratulations welcome to the school district we're so happy to have you um yeah okay great he's the new assistant director of special education services he spent two and a half days so far in the district so welcome the second is Robinsville Rises this is the old ceg um it's our first Parent Academy on uh the 14th of November understanding your child's disability oh that's in the past sorry friends uh and then there was parent interest in inclusive practices and anti-bullying efforts districtwide and there's a presentation in the works moving forward so we're really taking the feedback from the parents and um making sure that we build out parenty for that so thank you and thank you for speaking up for your kids for special ed thank you Amanda any questions all right excellent public comment time will be alocated for public comment at this meeting members of the public wishing to address the board of education on agenda items must State their name municipality and the group if any they represent a member of the public shall not be permitted to speak until he or she is recognized by a presiding officer in accordance with District policy 0167 each comment shall be limited to three minutes no participant may speak more than once no dialogue between a speaker and a board and our superintendent shall extend the 3 minutes time limit live streaming of the meeting shall be for viewing only the public will not have the ability to participate in public session comments unless they are physically present at the meeting although the board encourages public comment the presiding officer can interrupt warn or terminate a participant statement question or inquiry when it's too lengthy and may also interrupt and warn a participant when the statement question or inquiry is abusive of seen or may be def flammatory moreover the presiding officer can request any person to leave the meeting when that person does not observe Reon able to Cor in adherance with the protocol established by New Jersey School Board Association the board will use the public comment period at as an opportunity to listen to Residents concerns but not to debate issues or enter into a question and answer session issues raised by members of the public may require review and investigation and may or may not be responded by the board or the superintendent during the meeting all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate with that can I get a motion to open public comment second all in favor we'll start with allocating 20 minutes go from there all right Mr gr I just want to be clear that I can speak on the crematorium because it was brought up on the agenda correct I'm going with yes because there's yeah man it'll be the next next uh comment session since I did speak about it during the address but it's not an agenda item that we're voting on for tonight not a problem I'll be back hi nin canon in Robinsville um first of all congratulations Tanya and thank you for running and thank you for putting yourself out there congratulations um number two I want to talk to you about um what Nick was uh explaining about the $60,000 for the students that are going to go to the charter school and the prices that we may have and then if the uh students go to um Catholic schools and then we have to pay more and to be very honest I just wanted to ask this I've been coming to these meetings for a very long time and I never heard this before is it a possibility for you guys to explain a little bit more because that's a lot of money that you are talking about about and if this is a new law I never heard of it before and if you can explain it because this is really concerning because we didn't budget for it and so we have to come up with the money somehow from somewhere and um I like to know um where do you guys stand with it and also um one more question that I have is um I don't know you may tell me to sit down because it's not the time for it but I was just going to say that I had a very big conversation with the Council of Township about a lot of issues that it's could be concerning their school and U one of them is that to make sure that our addresses are correct everywhere so I wanted to bring that up and I wanted to see if you have any kind of explanation for it and actually you can say that we do not talk back and forth and we do not explain things but this is something very important because the next meeting will be at that meeting that you guys announced on the 19th of December and that could be a subject to bring up so if you guys could please answer my questions I would really appreciate that thank you thank you n hi Jeffrey yep I live in town center I have a daughter we just star in Sharon Elementary School just a point of clarification on the first question that was asked so are you saying that it will be raised as new business in terms of the crematorium or do we have to raise the comment up in the next section I'm this is my first no so basically what happens we have two public comment sessions for every at every meeting the first one is on agenda items mostly because then after the first comment session we actually vote on approval of those items then we open a second comment uh SE uh item time I'm sorry uh for any basically any school related matters that may come up so the crematorium would fit into that second public comment agenda okay all right because I saw it noted in the community report uh Outreach report that we had to raise it up in order for it to be added to new business so want to make sure we didn't miss the opportunity to raise it up so that it is added to new business with discussion understood yeah it would not you have not missed your opportunity so during the second public comment session you'll be able to speak on the crematorium situation and we've actually uh anticipated that this might come up in the second um and so we've um will even allow the board to have a discussion in as new business any other public comments on agenda items I seeing none can I get a motion my apologies good evening gam masasa uh so my public comment is related to the charter schools so I don't know if there's a way to do this but if we can as a board just figure out or estimate how many students in the future are going to be interested in going to Charter Schools and get a better understanding of the impact to our budget this is again the first time I've ever heard that students from Robinsville are going into Char schools I definitely know about students who get busing or support to go to other schools but we don't it feels like we don't have that much money in our budget and every year it's kind of really close as to whether or not we're going to be able to afford the things we need anyway so if we're paying for students to go to other districts I don't know how that's sustainable I chose to live here as opposed to other areas of New Jersey because of the school district so it's concerning to me that there are other families here who don't believe they can get a quality education and are choosing to send their kids to other schools and that we have to pay for that thank you are there any other comments for agenda agenda items can I have a motion to close public comment second all in favor before you take a motion on this uh I'd like to so it's been changed on um so you're going to take a motion to uh approve monthly resolutions we've added two items uh from executive session it's been added already um so those watch ing this on board docs it's live um but in case you saw this uh you hadn't you're not on a computer you're not going to see it so uh we're walking on in the business section motion to approve settlement in the matter ruthanne Jennings versus Robinson Board of Education docket number m l 1787-b Ville Board of Education and Robinsville Education Association docket number c 202 24-1 191 unfair practice charge thank you Mr Vice superintendent recommends that the Board of Education approve the following Personnel education policy and business action items can I get a roll call motion please and oh sorry first the motion to approve Mo so mov Nadia and Amanda any discussion uh Miss bandua yes Mr Gadi uh he fell I I'm having issues with my phone so he fell off on that so I'll have to M markam absent on that uh Miss Hill de Angelo yes Mr Howard yes Miss Leman yes Mr nandon yes Mr Ray yes Dr Pier yes Mr olberg is absent and I think I skipped Mrs Leman I'm sorry about that ma'am she said yes I got everybody okay seven and two motion pass all right old business new business yes just putting back on the agenda per the community relations we knew and anticipated Dr Gorman that we were going to talk about the crematorium so just putting on crematorium as an agenda topic you want to take can we we could do that right we could take public comment and then have a discussion hey we can do that let's do want to open up the public comment you can ask the questions and then we'll answer it I mean or you can do the discussion now and then open the public okay before um before we do that just because there was also brought up in the first uh first public comment about charter schools so just to kind of um to my knowledge and please correct me if I say anything incorrectly so charter schools have been around now for you know quite a while um this is actually not a new law as far as you know districts having to pay money for students who go into uh choose to go to a charter school some of the questions come up on why choose a charter school I mean there's a plethora of reasons it could be um people like you know child in as smaller class sizes right maybe the Char school is smaller than the not setting is more appropriate they feel for a student um the charter you know in the name of the charter school is kind of a purpose and a lot of times these Charter School specialize in one very specific thing that could be very attractive to that family and that situation so they might choose to go um in there so there is a kind of a little bit of a you know a singular focus on some of these Charters also just to clarify charter schools are public okay they are public schools as just you know Robins was a public school um they get public money for that so just kind a brief understanding of what charter schools are and and why somebody may choose it again you know I can't answer for you know specific family sit situations but you know there are things that are attractive to certain families uh about that um so you know Nick you might be able to speak a little bit more but I would think that based on prior we do kind of anticipate a little bit of money you know getting pulled in that direction but so the uh this goes hand inand with with another program uh in itsy as well and so um with a charter school it's been on a long time Specialties they could have a math program they could have something in there um you really can't block it um unless you have a program yourself but there is difficulty in in doing that and there are legal um backgrounds on it um they do admissions sometimes they do January February March they accept a student in may they could accept a student in the summer or take one mid year remember we strike our budget in March and April it's done so you get your numbers after the fact and then they have to be certified after they do their audit so you can be paying a bill from two years before so uh I never we never had charter school children here before never I since I was the ba for over four years ago um and then all of a sudden two popped up on the radar right uh something bad about it it's just it's just what happens right um shockingly it's a small amount my last District third of the size we had like 10 of them it grows and grows and grows okay um this one this school just opened up you can Google it you can take a look it's based in Hamilton they got hit with a major major expense um I don't know if what's going on there I haven't studied it but it wasn't five children I think it was more like 105 children and it's a big big number right um and so it it comes and goes it's the same thing that happens with a student that has certain needs right it comes and you try to budget and and it comes and goes when you have a bigger School District those amounts e and flows what you do have is you have some cushion in your lines in your budget lines I have cushion in certain lines you have cushions in health care you have cushions in busing you have cushions in special needs you have cushions certain places now I want you to understand the auditor has said this year after year after year we have the tightest budget right those cushions are much much much tighter here and so we can absorb shocks as well as others can with that being said it's the same thing withies we have a neighboring School District that has I don't know six seven eights in their school agriculture or whatever once in a while we will get an email I just applied I am a parent in the district my child just applied I'm like okay I'm Mark one more right um granted they have a special program it could be an academy Lawrence has an academy I think it's Lawrence for three kids a year they may go there you can't block it unless you have your ownmy right is this going to change in this County I don't really foresee it too much you go to Mammoth County there's acmy like it's every other school uh you know uh Mr Howard knows it well he works in that county um so you can be a competitor or not okay in this matter we are it is what it is I will try to budget for the future um this is the first year it happened if next year I see it goes to 10 okay it might go to 15 year after who knows but you have to start budgeting those things so you'll see in the transfers I had to transfer money from somewhere um and you have to move things around um but it's been around a long time you really can't do anything about it it's the law all you can do is make a better school make the best school that you can so nobody leaves your school and they want to come here move into my town and there are other ways that you can do things when we talking about it it's part of the long range plan uh we'll go offline on that but thank you for your time on that I I can tell you I'm in the process of doing the budget um for home down now and I have to aot 800,000 for votex because we get that many kids going every year so it's crazy all right thank you all right now we're going to have our public comment on school related matters so time will be allocated for public comment at this meeting members of the public wishing to address the board of education on agenda items must State their name municipality and group if any they represent a member of the public shall not be permitted to speak until he or she is recognized by the presiding officer in accordance with District policy 0167 each comment shall be limited to three minutes no participant may speak more than once no dialogue between the speaker and the board and their superintendent shall extend the three minute time liit provider here in live streaming of the meeting shall be for viewing only the public will not have the ability to participate in the public session comments unless they are physically present at the meeting although the board encourages public comment the presiding also can interrupt Warn and or terminate a participant's statement question and or inquiry when it becomes too lengthy and may also interrupt and warn a participant when a statement question or inquiry is abusive of scene or may be defamatory moreover the presiding officer can request any person to leave the meeting when the person does not observe reasonable to Quorum in adherence to the protocol established by New Jersey school board's Association the board will use this public comment public comment period to as an opportunity to listen to Residents concerns but not to debate issues or to enter into a question and answer session issues raised by members of the public May re require review and investigation and may or may not be responded to by the board and or superintendent during the meeting all comments will be considered and or response will be forthcoming if any and when appropriate so now can I have a motion to open public comment on school related matters so moved second all in favor Mr grber we can talk about the Amanda grber Robinsville resident as you are aware Princeton Memorial Park is planning to build a crematorium within 200 feet of our schools members of the community have fought tooth and nail over the past three weeks to force a public hearing with d and with more than 1,700 signatures and on a petition and over 85 emails to D we have done so but I am standing in front of you Robinsville Board of Education our School District administration and asking you to fight as hard as we are we need you to fight you as land owners within 200 feet legally have the largest standing in this case we need you to fight we need you to fight the importance of your voice legally surpasses all of ours you have the ability to fight for our kids I ask I also ask that you do not rely on the township for advice do not rely on the land used lawyer for advice our Township lawyer stated at Thursday's Town council meeting he doesn't work for us he works works for the mayor and the township Administration and frankly that has been proven on so many levels over and over these past few weeks we need you to do that independently from the township we need you to do your own due diligence and finally we need you to not only attend the D public hearing on December 19th but also send your emails to Connor laosy Thank you for your time I look forward to seeing you on December 19th nin Canan Robinsville um whatever Amanda said I have to say it is absolutely true because in that meeting last Thursday it was me and everybody else that was inside of the Town Council the only um when I asked the question when the meeting was going on and then after the meeting was adjourned I had more conversation with three of the council two of the lawyers the township uh um person that Chris that they just hired and uh the mayor the mayor so I asked permission from each and every one of them that I'm going to bring it up here because and they said go right ahead so a lot of the stuff was said to me um that well the address was wrong nobody um checked the address even after the address was checked and corrected Boe did not put in any complaint because they know the rule of 200 ft they know that state New Jersey state mandates and because New Jersey state mandates literally we cannot do anything and our our hands are tight the uh Paul the lawyer I want I want to be emphasizing that he did say that he is representing the mayor and the council and um so in a way I want to know I want to ask all of you what is the action that you guys are going to take because we we fought as much as we could to get 1,700 signature many many comments and complaints to De and D finally responded and said that you're going to have a meeting on the 19th so are you going to send a representative to talk from our Boe or are you guys not going to talk because if you guys are not going to do anything and we know that it is us that has to do the fighting we like to know it's better to know what we are hanging on to than not knowing and get surprised I don't like surprises I never did I don't like surprises and please don't surprise me because then I'm going to be on every meeting on every case and I'm going to bring it up up because I did that on the Town Council it was me and seven eight of them and all the answers that I got got to the point that talk to the Boe so I am here I am asking you as nicely as I can as politely as I can and this is the comest that I can get so I would like to I appreciate you guys to explain to me and please don't tell me we will send you an email and you can get the answer on the email email doesn't work because 1,700 people want to know the answer too so I would appreciate if you do the discussion here bring up the points talk to us and I really wish that the new superintendent was here because if Dr Gordon was not going to be here so he's going to be here so that's something that it may have to be passed on thank you hello my name is uh bashal kadakia uh I have a daughter who started in Sharon Elementary School about the crematorium this was something we didn't know or I didn't know shame on me about this going on and as we learn about it we've been fighting for this which is why I'm here my first Board of Education meeting ever this is an important topic for not just the the kids who are going to Sharon Elementary School now but future right if we want to build a better school we want to build a better system stop having them go to charter schools these are the types of things we need to fight for right and that's what we're here for and that's what we guys need you guys for we don't know all of the ins and outs from a uh legal standpoint but we do need your help there we do need your voice there the community is there we're going to fight as well we'd like you all to be there thank you Jeffrey yep Robinsville Town Center uh like I said earlier my daughter started Sharon this past year great school great teachers love it there unfortunately this news that I heard was very disappointing um as much as on a technicality they're allowing this through and DP is allowing it I would Echo the sentiments that have been shared so far that we need a measured legal response sponsored by the Boe uh hopefully an environmental specialist that can assess the air quality impact that is going to happen uh I know they provided details around it and they're saying that they're not going to pollute the air any more than a turn bike does but I don't think that's a good enough excuse to allow a new facility to be built right next to our schools especially if I heard about a Cricut ground being built out there and kids playing Outdoors um during Winters we know the air doesn't move as much I don't know if anything was done from a wind perspective to assess when uh the pollution is released if it's going to blow towards the school none of that's in the documentation that was provided in the permit so I would request that the Boe attend the December 19th meeting have a legal representative and a Boe council member hopefully to uh present the case as well as uh in the duration between now to there uh as much as I heard about the community outreach I I haven't heard anything right I I have very limited sources of information I try to stay stay off Facebook for a good variety of reasons as you will you know uh but I do check on it to be informed about the community so anything else that you can do whether it's U I think that an email was sent around that uh topic from the Boe so I appreciated that but there was nothing else beyond that so uh would really love to see a measured and uh legal response from this team thank you hi hi Gunda masasa so I'm going to talk about the same topic so first of all thank you so much for sending out that note on parent Square it's the app we all use right that was sent on November 4th about this topic really appreciate that so my first ask is if possible please publicize that this meeting is occurring on December 19th the folks in this room the folks on the WhatsApp group clearly are really engaged and know about this but there are probably many families within our community who are unaware I'm not sure if parent squares you throughout the district but if it is again this is a way to publicize this and of course people can share their thoughts whether they're in favor or opposed to right so just help publicize this more broadly um similar to what the other folks have said having your voices there would be critical again I don't know what the position is of each individual Boe member but as an organization as a team if you can identify what that position is and communicate it at that meeting it will be critical I think it is incredible that this or this community came together and was able to get more time if we initially think about the process we were going to find out on November 22nd whether or not the permit was going to be approved and that really was not enough time so it's thanks to the efforts of myself and others who emailed Connor who's at the njd of doing that petition getting 1700 signatures that got us this far and we would really appreciate anything you can do to help us if you um um can come up with a position that you're all aligned to all right thank you thank you are there any other public comments on school related matters okay I get a motion to close public comment on school related matters are we going to respond back okay discussion yeah okay thank you forication all in favor I discussion you say you want to no I think that yeah I think you know we discussed this in the community relations you know I do understand that the address would be corrected I think what we learned is the party who sent the letter got the address from some old tax assessor records which we never actually went there and corrected but because it is old no one knew that was the address that we were maintaining uh which will be corrected um the second thing that we wanted to understand is is there anything at all legally this board of education can actually do to take our voices up there and say hey this is not what we like next to the school um I don't know if we have any legal position there that we can take uh if we can then I would probably ask this board members to see what can we do or can we also you know all take a delegation and meet our politicians move few people and see what can be done here to make sure that you know that doesn't happen yeah no I just I Echo that sentiment I mean I know as parent position you know we in our unofficial capacity might be doing certain things but in our official capacity I think we just need to have more information at our disposal and things that are coming our way we're reading and are doing our due diligence and I think we as a committee can probably continue to share what is being shared in the community as you know as we as a board consider what we can do for December 19th to show up with a definitive statement and stance um and whether it be you know a def a definite um a statement to the public to say we did not know this in advance and obviously that is an important note as the community considers what advanced notice we did have versus we versus not having um so that's one the second is uh the environmental considerations we are not I not no I I am not an expert in the environmental considerations but they are important considerations to review and read so at the hearing I hope that the D does offer that information and we can sort of counter back but I think the most important thing is us as a board continue to engage with the community to say we we understand and are extremely encouraged by the fact that all your momentum and the ability to mobilize is one that does give us attention and pause so I would say your your efforts aren't going in vain we're listening um and I'd like to just be more informed myself as a board to to really stand there and and hopefully do justice with the information we have so um that's my yeah so I guess my uh my two questions I guess um Patrick probably for you more than anything is one is you know making a statement things like that one is as a public body you know they the public brought up kind of legal representation things like that now that's something we would have to talk in committees and take a take a vote on things like that how to proceed with it but what would be our options I guess to consider and moving that way so as number one as individuals and I'm going to I'm going to only disclose public legal advice that I don't think is going going to interfere with the attorney client privilege there's some additional legal advice that's been solicited that would not be appropriate for this setting but in terms of uh your statements on an individual basis every one of you is entitled to speak your mind on a Town issue um and even on a individual as a board member basis you could with an appropriate disclaimer then One Step Beyond that is a board unified position where we're saying this is the this is the position of the board and um a statement of that nature would require a board majority to agree that that is our position and that we want want to make it public and then it becomes um a board majority position so those are your three options in terms of speaking um in terms of legal representation at um a zoning Board hearing and anything further than that that's more appropriate for an executive session discussion can I ask a question so let's say for example we all decided to go to the meeting we can't really do that all together though correct so you can um you can't meet to discuss board business amongst yourselves without the public observing it but to the extent that um you all show up at the same place at the same time like a football game or a zoning Board hearing that's permitted As Long as You observe that rule to now not discuss board business amongst yourselves outside of public view so you absolutely can go there in advance now the only question I would give to you on that is that if the idea is we want to assert a board position that's something to be determined um ahead of time the right way without violating the sunshine act not on the spot when you get there going okay what do we want to say right now because that would be a problem so to answer quickly you all can be in the same place at the same time you just can't conduct a board meeting and discuss board business amongst yourselves at that location so this wouldn't because we brought it up here um at the meeting this wouldn't classif be classified as board business so again I I'm it's it's put it this way you'd be going there to make statements or have your Council make statements to the zoning board that's there's no issues with the sunshine act right there um again if you all show up at town hall or wherever it's located at and you off to the side five of you get together and start saying what are we going to say or how should we do this or you know what are we going to do next that's a board meeting right there and that's a violation of the sunshine act so um again all nine of you could present there but you can't have you can't have a meeting amongst yourselves five or more where you're discussing what we're going to do or anything related to the board for that matter now to that extent so I think you know procedurally for us as a as a body discuss this in committees kind of get a straw poll for where everybody you know stands and wants to you know comment on the issue make sure there's support for you know doing something you know if anything crafting the response will probably happen in community you know relations um you know getting getting everybody's feedback that way like Patrick saying there is already a unified statement that when we go there now I guess Patrick to follow up with this let's say um everybody goes or a delegation goes would we still be permitted to speak as individuals as well um as so we wouldn't be once we decide to speak as a board we would not be precluded from speaking individually as well is that correct correct correct so the way you would just want to frame that when you're doing something like that is you know read the board statement asserting that the position of the board is whatever it is and then to the extent that you wanted to add something as an individual you're free to do that just make the clarification that you know I'm speaking um as a board member but not on behalf of the board and that's you know for this for that purpose would be expressing your personal opinion or beliefs as a board member about how you feel about the approval for this um but what that makes clear is that you're not speaking for everyone else and then of course you can certainly speak as resident taxpayer whoever I'm sorry coming to the consensus on where we stand where we each of the stand you know should that be achieved using an executive session or can we actually do it now with resolution yeah that that's not a qualifying reason for executive session um so your two options are to have that discussion right here or um in committee now let me jump in so December 19th is the date yes I have a board meeting December 17th correct so you can go to committees you can discuss amongst yourselves less than five and committees and then have come up with an action supporting either for or against the applicant in your position and you could talk about it publicly and do something there is some time for you all to make a decision I I so what I like about Nick's idea so you know I agree personally I agree with with the public you know as an individual I agree with the comments being made from the public on The Stance and you know I'm you know not really have but having said all that our board president is not here tonight right we have Mr gladi is also not present here tonight so I think having the full you know a committee being able to structure things and then on our board meeting be able to kind of come publicly I'm sure we'll have you know people still asking hey what's going on you know and we'll be able to give a definitive statement after being able to kind of flush out everything with um you know every board member will have a say and which which will not happen at this point right now Jeff just a really a quick question is the community seems to be doing some really great activism to collect some important Intel that I think would be beneficial to us when we go into committees so what is the best way to tell the community to reach back out with the resources so that we can come up with a a board statement that's qualified with some knowledge um with environmental aspects and stuff that's a great question I think um Ragu as the community relations chairperson would that be so I think we could uh email of course always could email Dr Gorman um and Dr Gorman can relay the messages to Ru or email Ru directly I think either way would uh be beneficial I have a couple of questions I know that um I mean I can watch I I watch Facebook uh I know that there is a WhatsApp that's currently involved I I didn't know that ramifications of joining as a board member at this point I think online it was kind of like hey we don't have Town membership in here so that we can speak freely so I didn't know as a board member specifically with my board member hat if that was something that we should join the second thing I have of what I I'm so curious of what to say to be most powerful as a representative of children and this board that would be most important because I know that parents are going to come out and they're going to have their perspective but we have a a very unique perspective um and I'm just curious of how do we start crafting that with legal guidance so that we are saying just the right thing is should we be collecting and and researching presently to bring that to December 17th or are we talking about it in committee before so I'm I'm hoping we're going to be discussing this in commit I definitely can't make the 19th I will be in my class and I cannot miss that and and this is a very important topic to me as well but I'm hoping that this is something we're going to flush out in committee draft something hopefully with a consensus before the board meeting on the 17th before the meeting on the 19th as well yeah I think that's I'm sorry I think what I'm really saying is like I can craft something fabulous but I don't have the legal Patrick brain to tell me what I'm all owed to say as a board member in front of the D meeting on the 19th and so I'm wondering how do we do that do we need like specific are we trying to to write some kind of scientific paper I mean like ohci well like my daughter is in that school so I mean I'm not a scientist I don't have any kind of environmental background but I mean what kind of information do we need to go there and say that this thing shouldn't be there I don't understand what we're trying to what you know I I I understand both of what you're saying I think that for I mean just I don't want to put words in people's mouth but I think we're a lot of people are thinking the same thing here you know and you know in agreement um but again not all board members are here right now so I do want to make sure that we are um fair to the board members who are not here so they have say but I think that it would really just be a matter of not necessarily getting scientific or you know as far as those things but just crafting a wellth thought out statement that is representative um each of us have different talents uh different viewpoints you know I angles that we'll be able to address in this um just you know we listened to the public comment and we had um I believe it was four four or five five at individuals who came up and each one talked on the same topic but had different you know different things to say so I think that that's important for us as a board to make sure that everybody's voice is heard and kind of brought together for the statement and make sure that we're covering all of our bases and I think that you know from my perspective I want to put forth the strongest you know possible argument to to block right and I think that you know if that is the route of board you know like T said if it's a consensus with the board um you know I want to make sure that we thoughtfully go through everything and make sure that that you know they did not I don't want this to be like well you didn't think of that right and they kind of counter us with something or you know whatever it is I know so for my perspective I'm just want to look to put that together the best possible argument we have um with our you know individual perspectives so Jeff quick question so I think what I understand then we're all going to take time to meet on the various committees that we're a part of to draft our ideas or consensus on this topic what I'd like to know is it possible to make sure we have this as an item agenda item for the executive session on the 17th which is two days before the meet the the meeting on 19th so it's very clear where the board stands to the public prior to that meeting so to my understanding yes to the first part we said but the conversation would be public open public would not be an executive so the the executive session portion would be legal advice so it it'd be more of our discussion with you about um the the various laws and regulations that apply what are you know what we believe are viable legal options that you might have um qu answering questions along those lines um that information is for you as board members in the executive session the um your thoughts and rationale and and reasons why you would be um against this is all for public discussion thank you Patrick can we join that WhatsApp group just to hear some more information about this and from the public I think does the WhatsApp group one is in there I think that's what I may have to kind of oh I misunderstood yeah and do we have to remove ourselves if we're in there well so just just point of order um to clarify we were going to talking committee but this design the way the way the Board of Ed uh Board of Education meetings are designed and also part for the sunshine Act is for you know to be able to watch a meeting not necessarily to be active participants in that meeting right so and I do appreciate that that perspective and um it's I think it's a natural thing that you're watching this and you say I agree with this I don't agree with this but um it's really you know kind of just think about the Board of Ed meetings kind of being like a fishbowl right so you get to kind of see what's going in but it's not interactive per se um so I I think what we are saying though is we will be addressing this issue we're going to kind of craft things during committee at our next you know depending on the outcome of those discussions at the next Board of Education meeting we'll basically be able to kind of present to the public first about what our course of action will be and then the meetings on the 19th and then we're always open to feedback if you want to email it yes and please you know um I know Amanda already did I just popped up on my screen that Amanda sent a sent a timeline to me um so I appreciate that I also want to the public uh brought up a question and I just want to publicly address it so Nick I'm not sure if you're the best person or if Dr Gorman maybe you are um the address situation of what happened so I know some people kind of hear things but not everybody's I'll take that okay so I couldn't stop him if I tried no no it is it is my responsibility so uh I'll I'll take it uh so the the the land use board which is a mix of a zoning board and a planning board approved on June 18th um this application the crematorium um I have experience on planning boards uh I didn't find out until everybody else found out um like there's a crematorium coming I'm like whoa wait I did I get notice I should be noticed where did it go what's going on I'm within 200 feet not only within we are abing properties um and with that you can hey it wasn't shouldn't be properly heard immediately I contacted the township they responded back now Mr mccre here you go here's the notice here's the tax map here's the address here's certified letters that went out I'm like okay that applicant did everything correct why was I not informed did it go somewhere in the wrong school and uh an administrator didn't give it to me or it got lost in the mail or what happened well lo and behold the address is very old so it's not just that it's actually the middle school and the high school middle school and high school the address goes to um foxmore that was what that 15 years ago if not 20 right so I bet you that's when they bought this property that was the address of record um so uh I have someone uh involved and I said you know as a realtor uh know give me pull them up the MLS for Sharon it's someone's home uh address is PO Box 387 in Windsor New Jersey that may have been the address when the school was first built you know half a century ago um reached out to the township reached back to me immediately they're like we're going to go change our local records so this doesn't happen again and they OB obviously are going to change their own records too because they had some addresses and their their buildings have moved over time why don't we update these place we don't pay taxes if we pay taxes I assure you the tax collector would be knocking on your door give me your money or we're taking just going to lean on your we don't pay taxes right it actually still says Washington Township Board of Ed I think I'm I have to go I have to get with a hopefully Mr P you can help me with this but I may have to go to a uh a real estate attorney or somebody who knows I have to go change that as well right so this you're talking 15 20 maybe 50 year old issue that affected us now if we were properly notice what would he have said and done is a different discussion right um it just would have been it would have been heard they still would have taken action you would have put on record your concerns typically neighbors would come out with any kind of property with their concerns either for or against the applicant and it's like where's it going to go can you move this over and so forth is there environmental report is there this report what the environmental impact study and so forth and talk about those things it's still the discretion of the local land use board to make that decision right um and how it goes from there on so that's the record of it the addresses have been changed so we will know what is going on um like I said this is not the first time we've had um issues come up God bless you uh within this District where the boards had to make a decision on something right many of you don't see that I know some of you um haven't been here that long but over the years we've had some issues in the the board would craft a message it would go back and forth typically we have try to find a position Mr Carrick can you type something up for us uh he's very good at typing that up it would go around the board we'd have some discussion sometimes we tweak a few things and it goes around and around you go through committees you get more information this is a public body we're not that quick but we do it on purpose because you're making a big decision based on many many people and you are the elected officials so we'll go through that process we do have some time if if this was due in two days we would act much quicker but you have some time to get more data information and find out your position when we go into exact Mr Carri will talk about legalities and liabilities and if you go here what happens there and what that means to you I have some things for you as well if we take a certain route what does it mean and where do we get left open and there might be a liability or a gap okay um so there is time we'll go through it for the public listening right you know we're not going to go back and forth and what we can and cannot do the public comment is closed this is for the board to have discussion we typically do stuff like this in committee with a smaller group then we do it another committee so and there's some type of a gap of two or three members in multiple committees so we have multiple some people usually have it heard it twice as we go through this um you can reach out we have emails you can make your positions known I'm now opening up the comment of like notify us we've obviously know your position right now since you came and told told us you are not the first first ones we've had many emails on it um you know I will have to try to find up a map I need to see where this building really is going to go um that's already approved um and how it's going to the DP so we'll talk more about that thank you for your time on it if there's any more questions of me um but we're moving forward y just to suckle black and close that I do have good information around you know why we should not have the crematorium next to the school I think I will actually gather some material I will gather some inputs from the community and also draft up something for the board for us to actually review and come to a consensus in the next meeting thank very great done can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting vot second all in favor more one good evening everybody thank you for attending