##VIDEO ID:iHioU8zFbpU## all right good evening everybody and welcome to our board meeting September 10th it's nice to see everybody here see this what happens when you put out free cookies everybody shows up that's really great so um I'd ask everybody I'd like to call the meeting in order and ask everybody to please stand for the flag salute i al to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all and we have a new board member joining us this evening it's B Dua from Branchburg and so at this time ask Mr Boyce if he would please administer the oath of office to mop can you raise your right hand and up to me I st your name I ever shall do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and theti of state and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the sa and I will bear true faith and aliance to the and to the governments established in United States and the state and to the governments established in the United States and the states under the authority of the people so help me God under the authority of the people's God I st I do solemly swear that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of the Board of Education and that I am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to r. s9-1 and that I am not disqualified as a voter pursu to R9 okay and nor disqualify conviction of a crime or offense listed in njs 18a colum 12-1 nor disqualify due to conviction of a crime or offense listed in njs 181 and that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of that office and I will faithfully and partially and justly perform all the duties of that office according to the best of my ability so help me God according to the best of my ability so help me God congratulations [Applause] welcome Michelle we're glad that you're able to join us and become a member of our board so welcome thank you happy to be here uh Mr Boyce would you do a roll call please yes Mrs Van Horn here Mr seril is absent tonight Mr Jess here Mr Carlson here Mr pontillo here Mrs crasa here Mrs Dale here Mr kimick here Mr Garcia here Mrs Shaw here uh please note that adequate notice of this meeting in compliance with chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 entitled the open public meetings act has been provided by action of the board of education at its regular meeting on January 3rd 2024 notices to The Courier News and Star Ledger circulated in the school district and a posted notice to this effect on the board of education website and building bulon board administrative headquarters 51 West Cliff Street Somerville New Jersey uh at this time we are open to the public for public comment on both agenda and non-agenda items so if there's anybody who would like to speak now with your chance everybody rush at once all right uh seeing none may I have a motion to close public session please thank you Mr Carlson may have a second second thank you Mr vort is there any discussion all those in favor I any opposed any extension motion carries uh at this time I have a motion to approve the minutes for regular and executive session both on July 30th and August 20th please so move thank you Mr Van Horn May a second second thank you Mr Kim is there any discussion all those in favor any opposed any extensions abstained for July 30th meeting and I'll abstain for August 20th thank you and I will abstain from Seven thank you motion carries all right board president's report well welcome to another school year uh we heard it was a very good opening our first for our new superintendent so we're happy about that and we welcome all of our new staff members here again if there are no cookies left it's because all the administrators are standing in the hallway and so you know they're circling the table so if there's none left we know who to blame um but we welcome you to Somerville uh we hope that you will be here for the long haul this a great place to work especially with our new superintendant so we're looking very forward to having everybody here to help educate all of our children and to continue uh their progress and to continue the Excellence that we are in Somerville and we have some great administrators that you know that you will be working with so once again welcome I'm not going to steal all your thunder so that's all I'm going to say and uh here's to an excellent school year for everybody we really appreciate it we're looking forward to it uh this evening we're going to we're going to move a consent agenda like we've done the last two meetings and by that what I mean is we're going to have two separate votes we're going to have one vote which is all the items that are specific only to the Somerville board members and then we're going to have a vote which is specific to everybody Somerville Branchburg um however prior to making the motions we will ask if there's any discussion on any of the items and if there are any reports by our committee chairs we can present them at that time as well and if there are any items which board members would like move and voted upon separately we will do that as well right so once we come to that when we start with uh item 10 we'll go to that um at the last meeting Mr kimik had a provided very good description of the difference between board goals and District goals and I know that our superintendent is going to be moving forward and having a discussion on that this evening but uh Mr Kim presented two goals just off the cuff about things that board members have been talking about for some time but never really put in a goal and now that we have a full-time superintendent who's actually here and actually doing the work um it is time now for the board to move forward and to set our goals and then hopefully to carry them out so that is going to be a process which will start tonight but which is going to carry forward through December and then that way we hope to have all of our goals finalized and then voted upon in January when we do our reorg so that we'll move forward for the 25 calendar year with our new goals um if Mr Kimmi would like to just briefly mention the two goals that he mentioned at the last meeting that would be great but I would ask all the board members not only to consider um the items that Mr kimmick is going to discuss now but also think about what we've been through the last couple of years right where everybody started when they came on the board what goals what ideals you want to see happen in our school district and we'll bring that to Future discussion so that way we can have an honest open discussion and set realistic goals that'll help to move us forward I give you build up thanks Mr I give you a big buildup you did I I I'm surely going to disappoint now um I I think the last meeting we talked about just things that have been long discussions since I've been on the board I was on the board for three years and all for a year and now I'm back on again and just the idea of you know thinking about things that are exclusively within the board purview you know when we think about um Capital planning at facilities when we think about um things like how do we support the district's efforts with regard to assessment and student achievement um I think the discussion that we have to really grapple with is what's the board's role and what's the administration's role and again giving Mr lusco lots of I think Str for himself and structure for ourselves to be able to operate and understand what our roles are in doing that um I know we talked about you know things like committee structures in the past and the way that we actually go about doing committees and and you know kind of thinking about that as a board and thinking about our own functions as a board and how we operate together in order to support the district um efficient operation of the district is really our role I think um administration of the district is you know the administration's role um so one of the things even that that I know we have to kind of grapple with is something like even how do we adopt board goals like we don't have a process for that um so I think it's just something that we have to really talk about this over the next couple of months as we lead up into January really think about the way we want that to look as a board of education and Su of that to get into how we function and and being an effective or highly effective board as we go through that so that's thanks that's very good thank you um and then the last thing I just want to mention is you know our committees that we have the board has a lot of committees and we've over the years they kind of morph into certain things and uh and speaking with Mr lisco you know we're looking to kind of restructure our committees and I know that you know for instance our curriculum committee right we have very good members on our curriculum committee and I know that our committee chair Miss Dale has had some challenges in the past not because of the committee members but because of the former interim superintendent who really was not forthcoming with some of the discussions that we wanted to have and didn't allow her to run the meetings as they should be run you know so the the process is that the committee chair and the superintendent will get together to talk about what items should they would like to discuss and the superintendent will then direct his uh administrator in charge of that area whether it's Finance whether it's curriculum to come up with items on agenda based upon that meeting the superintendent will then share that with the committee chair and then they will have their meeting and they'll discuss the committee chair at the end of that meeting will take minutes we'll send a draft to the members of that specific committee for to make sure everything was captured and then once everybody agrees to that then they'll present it to the full board for our review prior to an upcoming board meeting and then That's the basis of which the committee chairs will provide their um updates at the board meeting and then to move all the items and we started to do that but then it kind of got lost for a little bit so you know Mr lisco has been is going to be working on that and again that's something that we'll be discussing over the next couple of months so that when we get to January we get to reorg we'll be able to implement that and see how that looks moving forward and I think that'll be benefit not only to the board members but also to the district as it helps us to move forward so um and that's all I have so I'm done I appreciate it uh what we have here is a wonderful uh showing today and this is exciting for me I got to welcome this group uh during the summer over at vanir where we had a multiple day uh new staff introduction and orientation and it was really great to first of all meet everybody uh you know I've been responsible for hiring some of you uh but coming on August 1st some of you folks were already uh hired so that was a number one a great thing and I really appreciated that number two I got to hear about your background your passions what uh you came to Somerville for and then number three we got to work together towards kind of setting goals and uh you know expectations and understanding for uh this wonderful District so to me that was a great time to meet you guys uh the uh you know new uh lifeblood of our district uh every district is going to go through changes from year to year and it's really important that find folks that are dedicated and passionate about young people so that we can continue the great things that have happened in this District so I welcome all of you here and just having so many of you here literally everybody is either here or had to go to grad school from our new hire so that says uh a tremendous amount about uh you about your dedication about your passion um and it says a lot for us uh that you know we made a lot of good choices and the board U I'm sure is excited that such a great turnout is here so I'm going to turn it over in a second to our building uh administrators to introduce you um we have cookies and treats uh to share with you after um but really just this is a warm welcome we're excited to have you here um I'm sure you've already gathered in your short time here that this is a very special Community one in which everybody is passionate about their schools they put that front and center uh they care about the young people here and and providing them with great educational opportunities through a quality education we have a board that's committed to that that supports that uh each and every time um you know we get together and um you know I I can't wait for them to to meet you um so I'm going to start right here with Mr Foley uh the principal of our high school to introduce the new High School staff sure thank you please thank you to the board of education for allowing us to introduce our uh new staff our class of uh 24 um teaching staff here so I'm going to start here with our art teacher Ashley rodford please stand I have a couple of brand new vssl teachers here so Danny please stand stand now I'm going to go over to PE health and that's Robert stash [Applause] social studies Quinn andrasco instructional assistant Christin Gian engineering Omar pad computer science Co de georgees all over there and our Student Assistance counselor Emma [Applause] Janis yes Middle School our Middle School principal and Maps principal Mr Scott ha good evening everybody I am excited to introduce uh the newest bulldogs and map staff of the 2024 uh school year and I'm extremely appreciative of our staff taking time out of their busy lives to come and join us uh and get introduced tonight so thank you uh first uh teacher of ESL Miss Dana Nelson we have special education teacher Miss Kim suin have teacher of Spanish Miss Maya Salis we have instructional assistant Miss assada Taylor everybody at this time I'd like to introduce Miss lindsy F representing Vander Elementary School please introduce uh your new staff good evening everyone I am so excited to introduce the new staff at Vanner and you all know what to do because middle school and high school already did it uh Amy Supernaut kindergarten teacher Brianna fazi music teacher elenie aella PE teacher Jamie Vince first grade teacher Wanita Watkins instructional assistant Lisa brus fourth grade teacher Samantha Marx instructional assistant jaxi Newman first grade teacher and those are the new staff at [Applause] vanderbeer and now Scott so my apologies deep apologies I'm a little bit embarrassed I did not I did not see her sneak in and sitting in the back she Blended in uh Miss Ash proed speak in language with us in the middle school again my apologies really a thank you to our building Administration and and there's a whole bunch of uh our our administrators out there that came to support you and I think that's just uh evident of who they are and and how much they are passionate about this District these are a lot of lifelong Somerville uh folks that either started here as students or as teachers and have stayed here their entire career and I I know I've said both in my orientation but a million times to the Board of Education that's what's attracted me this Somerville I was so excited uh you know to to come on board here because uh so many folks have dedicated their lives to this town it's evident as soon as you talk to folks that they're passionate about it and right here in this room are more people that either went to school here live here currently or are uh dedicating their lives um you know once again to Somerville so that is uh what Summerville is about you know as soon as you start talking to people you find that out very quickly and it's what makes it so special so I know this is going to be a tremendous class of individuals not only because of who you are um you know what you've done in your career uh but because of these folks out here that are to to support you through the you know every day the ups and downs that we know come with education um but lean heavily into them they're a great resource you also have Miss Sharon gornick out there who another great resource uh from the association so you have a lot of people that care about you and want to see you be successful because when you're successful our kids are successful um so thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to come out tonight uh to meet the Board of Education uh hopefully share some of these cookies if they're still there with us um and uh please get to know that the board are we going to take a break now or after it's up to you I think can we I think that's she's having withdraw she's already here you know 15 minutes later than you why don't we do that and then I'll come back and my rep as we okay you with me hi for those who don't know me turn off the one mute the hello hi for those who don't know me I'm Riley dorno I'm the Somerville student representative and I'm a senior this year so since Mr seril is not here tonight I'll start off with sports so for starters all for uh fall Sports have kicked off their seasons over the past past few weeks after long summer preseason uh the boys team especially recently held a memorial game in honor of past head coach Ray pachy and they are one in one on the season the girl soccer team is also one in one on the season and the football team has had a successful start and it's 2 and0 uh the field hockey and cross country teams have also had very successful starts of their season uh moving on financial aid night will take place on October 9th 2024 starting at 6:30 p.m. in the High School auditorium for all senior parents please come out to learn about the financial aid process for college uh next is for free reduced lunch forms which I think covers all the schools and all families are required to either complete an application or acknowledge that they are aware that they have the option to complete an application and are choosing not to do so for the free reduced lunches uh you can access it in real time calling your guidance counselor or downloading copying the form off the school website uh the late bus Branchburg Transportation offers a late bus to students who live in Branchburg and are staying after school for Club tutoring or a sport uh students must sign up in the main office each day they would like to take the bus prior to 1 pm. if you have any questions you can ask the main office uh model un is holding an interest meeting on Tuesday September 24th at 2:30 in room 2:15 for those who are interested in learning about debating solving And discussing world problems um all the pictures from from uh this past Year's commencement ceremony and school year are all available on normandy. comom senior parent night is October 1st from 6:30 to 7:30 in the auditorium to learn about the college application process from the high school's counseling department and finally all grades have met with all the administrators this week for their class meetings and everyone has been adjusting to our new schedule quite well and yeah very excited for the school year awesome thanks Riley appreciate one item uh just to add about our student representative we will have a second student rep chosen very soon uh a junior from Branchburg so the way that it's done traditionally is one Somerville representative and one Branchburg representative and uh it's a two-year term in in best case scenario so we're going to be adding a junior from Branchburg very soon for the next meeting right excellent so thank you so much for joining us uh welcome to miss Sha thank you so much for uh joining our board and uh I think it's time for us take a 5 10 minute recess so that everybody can mingle and then if you'd like to leave all right everybody welcome back uh we hope everybody had a good snack and now we're turning it back over to Mr laiso thank you and you know most my district highlights were covered you know it was just a great open to the school year um nothing better than getting the kids back into our hallways uh you know you see all the students uh engaged in their learning which is just wonderful lots of smiling faces especially at Vander year lot of sleepy faces at the high school a little bit of Bolt at the middle school but uh that's what it's all about and I meant what I said about this group it's a fantastic group of new teachers um you know supported by a great group of Administrators so I you guys are sticking around and helping and supporting them I think them seeing you is a huge huge thing as well they know that they have your support they know that they're part of the family and part of something bigger so thank you for that um with all that said I'm really excited to uh introduce some folks here so first of all um this meeting marks an important Milestone something that we're really excited uh to bring to everybody and that's addressing the district facility needs as you know this is an ongoing process something districts always have to do there's some things that you have to do because they're coming to the end of life and then there's some things that we want to do because it enhances what we do both athletically academically um on a daily basis so we've been uh really doing our due diligence to look at what were the most critical projects that were're in need um we looked at our long range facility plan revamped that according to our needs and submitted um some requests to the Department of Education which will be talked about uh soon um our district is a strong track record of budgeting and taking care of a lot of those facility needs over time A lot of times Brian and the board have been able to do that in our operating budget on a year to year basis but the larger Big Ticket items uh such as the ones we're going to talk about tonight cannot be funded without a referendum and that's uh why we're here so um I'm going to turn things over to Dan and George in a minute our architectural team but they're going to present those larger projects to you reminding us um you know what's at stake and answering you know questions that might come up uh this is not a vote um this is uh us over giving an overview of what's going on the general big picture to everybody um and really what you want to do is uh try to maximize the dollars that are eligible from the state and we're going to talk about that as well we don't have all those answers for you yet but I think it's exciting to know that a lot of what we're going to talk to you does come at a discount um hopefully through the state uh and while we've addressed many of those things through the budget like I've mentioned you know things like HVAC Roofing aging science labs um athletic fields that requires a larger Financial investment and without that ref that referendum we can't get those critical projects done um and certainly not on time always so the goal is to make sumerville Premier District we want to attract families we want to enhance our community connections we want to provide the best possible educational environment for our students we want to continue um to do so in a fiscally responsible way uh so we'll continue to engage the community in this process that will actually be talked out at the end of it uh end of the project excuse me president presentation by Laura um to really talk about how that engagement will go down um and what I'm really excited about right now is to turn this over to Dan and George to talk about all the different components of this project lay out uh the you know large big picture here uh and really talk about all the great things that will be there and available for our students uh at the end of this so Dan George thank you Mr Lisa again my name is Dan Konan with FD Architects with me I have George duthy principal architect and I have Laura Bishop from Laura Bishop Communications and we'll walk you through the refer referendum planning process as uh the superintendent informed us of that Somerville is undertaking uh I'm going to break down a few things and we're going to go through where we are today in that process we're going to do an overview of what all of this entails we'll go over the breakdown of the cost and the project categories and where they fall and we'll talk about some of that eligibility like we talked about I'll give you some cost summaries at the end and then we'll talk about next steps and what the calendar will look like moving forward into the future and all the updates that will be forthcoming so where we are today in the process we know that Somerville is planning a referendum for the March of 2025 that's a critical date for financial reasons of old debt falling off it's uh strategic to plan around that so a referendum for those who don't know it's a process by which you're asking the voters permission to by selling bonds to borrow money okay and that's what we're going through in this process and this process is the projects that go into this for Capital Investments and and Facilities is really from an ongoing extensive due diligence process the district meets multiple times a year with us in the finance committee and chunks down those projects which ones go in budget which ones uh need to be um planned for in this referendum and we do that multiple times a year and what that led to was we submitted multiple project applications to the New Jersey Department of Education that sets you up in a position to receive uh cost letters back the Department of Education will tell us what projects are eligible I'll go through that and then we also amended the long range facilities plan as a superintendent alluded to as part of the state process that was done at the beginning of August which again will set us up in the timeline to receive financial information back from the state around November and then we'll update the community on what those actual numbers from the state look like and just so you know again this is the district still has an ongoing planning effort where we are looking to have capital projects in addition to the referendum and the district has been very very successful in the past taking those projects on and then you get to these multiple larger projects that really are the impetus for planning a referendum in this case so what that overview and process looked like when we were meeting with the finance committee on the board was the current needs identify the administration and the facilities department and our and as we go through and survey and again it's unlike a to fund all these um larger Big Ticket items without a referendum going through the budget and this is important if you go through the budget you're paying 100% of that cost with the district as you as through your Capital with a referendum with a successfully pass referendum the state will contribute up to 40% of those costs and they call Debt Service Aid so it's very critical to remember that if you were to do this in capital over time it would take longer the projects you would be paying the whole thing in a referendum when projects are deemed eligible meaning a renovation or a whole system and interior Renovations for instance I'll go through which ones are eligible you can get up to 40% from the state from Debt Service with a successfully passed referendum and what this entails in this case is updating critical Building Systems and envelope and we're also looking at renovating educational spaces for you that will directly benefit obviously your learning environment and your students and then we're looking at also some enhanced athletic facilities that also will serve the district and benefit the community at large as well so that's a general overview of where the process is and what a referendum is and how you get there and through that process what we do is we divided projects for a referendum with Somerville into five primary categories we' like to call them building Integrity we have indoor environment and HVAC that's air quality we have educational improvements those are projects that directly involve student learning environments in classrooms for instance we have site improvements and we'll go through that that's the site outside and uh Paving and things like that and then we have Safety and Security projects so what we've done is preliminarily in the plan we have two ballot questions so when a voter goes to the booth there will be multiple questions in this case the proposed right now is what we're looking at is a question one which is a tax neutral impact meaning the 24.4 one million won't have an impact on your taxes those projects include Roofing Replacements at your uh high school and middle school those are the roofs over the ongoing years that are next in line that are out of warranty that are in the condition they need to be replaced we're looking at improving your HVAC in your gyms you have air conditioning in your Elementary School we are looking at adding that to your high school and to your middle school we are looking and that's also in the auditorium as well as part of an auditorium renovation so when you get to the educational products we are looking at a full-blown Auditorium renovation of the uh 1970s uh weigh in the high school so that means the you know the finishes the ceiling the stage all those kind of things that go along with a full-blown Auditorium renovation you have site improvements we're looking at repaving parking lots and all around the high school and we're doing that in such a way that we're looking at to be eligible for the state to get money to do that we're looking at other uh things like a storage building at vanderbeer where there's an athletic need and you have um SE boxes uh the construction containers out there right now looking to remove those and put in a like a shed in facility bigger to store athletic and help the fields in that area and then we're looking at security vestival you have a security vestival at your high school we also are looking to do that in such a way at Vander and at the middle school where it prevents someone from coming in and going directly into your school into the corridor they would come in and check in at a window get their license scanned and won't have to go into the building unless completely necessary same setup at your high school looking to replicate those yeah I want to just point out when you say tax neutral the reason it's tax neutral is because this is debt that's rolling off the district has debt from a previous referendum that is going to be rolling off and this debt will take the place of that debt that will be rolling okay that's what tax is and that's why that amount of money is tax okay break thank so this is just to put some images of where we're looking these are the roofing uh Replacements on the left side you'll see the high school that's the auditorium and a couple of the other connecting wings and then a small roof area on your middle school again projects that are deemed eligible by the state to receive up to 40% funding this is your current Auditorium we would be looking to renovate this space we would be looking to take the seating the flooring the stage the definitely the lighting uh acoustic treatments your lights and your rigging system and curtains to get your space up to the level of performance that you're offering with your departments we had some this is one of those projects we've talked about for multiple years it's been building and building meaning that the department that's putting on these uh performances with your District really needs a space to rise that occasion as well these are the typical condition of of the uh science labs on your third floor in your high school School uh that's an example of a recently completed science lab that our our office did uh we would be running renovating those spaces to get and replace those cabinets and again enhance those spaces to bring them up to current standards uh to teach your high school this is a condition of the multi-purpose room at Vander this is an interior renovation again you can see the ceiling the flooring definitely need some TLC here and then we have some panels so looking to renovate this space this is critical when you think about it this is where all of the students in that school all funnel through the hallways and they have this is their sole place to have CAF uh sole place to have lunch in the cafeteria so it's important you know this space is critical to the operation of the school this is the paving that we're looking to re accomplish at the around the high school you have both the student and the staff lots and then around the entire building Paving many needs again this is one of those projects that come up in facilities and we you push down a little bit as it gets to a point it's at the point where it should really be entertained and and replaced from cracking and to prevent anything f future this is uh Vander this is a a shot satellite shot you can see this orange rectangle here is where we're looking to put a storage building and the building that you see in the corner is actually an identical building that was the same type of project completed somewhere else that's the exact uh floor plan and what we were proposed in that location at Vander this will help serve again current storage needs from what's on site and it'll also help serve and I'll show you one of the athletic fields in the back of Vander that that it could help serve as well so those were all question one again tax neutral like as George duy pointed out what we're looking at question two is two projects for a total of 27.4 million we are looking at a new gymnasium building at the high school that's on a vacant lot I'll show you where that is it's a new gymnasium building that will Encompass a few things and then a multisport synthetic turf field at Vander I'll walk you through those so we're looking at a new gymnasium building at the high school this is on the lot across from the ramp that connects to field uh field Turf 2 out to the side on DAV in front of Davenport you would go out of the site on your Curr genium is located where you see the wheelchair symbols coming out from the ramp across the street would be this new building this building would h house more seating than your current gymnasium I think your current seating is around 530 let's say this is up to 700 people could fit in this new uh facility it would have uh in new storage uh spaces and a house an athletic trainer house a new larger weight room it would house team locker rooms and it would also house a new concession a new Hall of Fame with the potential for other spaces like an additional nurse suite and to get the trainer out closer to the athletic facilities and this addresses some of the district's uh needs for scheduling and space that's currently lacking in the athletics department this is just an image of what the actual floor plan uh could look like and this was what was submitted to the Department of Education again you can see in the the light blue is the gymnasium the ability to have multiple Sports you can see a basketball and a volleyball layout for instance a larger uh weight room which is currently in your high school which is the dark blue your lighter yellow or green is the locker rooms a training facility and red and then the where we Circle in the middle is an opportunity to have a new Hall of Fame and have that really showcase for your athletics department and then again that's in recently completed gymnasium that are office did which is akin to what we're looking at here this is the multisport turf field at Vander uh we know that your some of your High School Varsity Sports are actually housed at Vander uh the fields are heavily used I know there's uh uh issues with grading and drainage in the back fields what we're looking to do here is to build up that uh drainage put a drainage system underneath and put a multiport turf field uh you guys are very accustomed in this District to having turf fields you don't have to rest them you can use them multiple times this really helps with scheduling and this arrangement for this field really serves the largest breath of population for your District it'll serve your Varsity Sports such as baseball and softball we can have flexible arrangements for those two sports for baselines for instance you have a turfield in the back in the Outfield that also can serve five or six Sports boys and girls lacrosse boys and girls soccer football um and and field hockey for instance and when we connect that back you can see the little row connecting that back and that little orange um rectangle is the storage building so you can see how that would serve each other and this would leave your asphalt play area where your students play now for elementary school so what is all this look like as as far as cost and how this was submitted to the Department of Education we are looking at question one here again 24.4 million again tax neutral and we are looking at of that 24 million just to be clear of the 24 million 93.5% is what we deem eligible so 93% of that cost 22.8 million we look at and the way that we estimate these costs is we want to be forthcoming we want to be what we believe to be conservative this is how was to the state we the state will then come back and tell us what those projects were indeed eligible and then they'll tell us the amount that they give us again up to 40% Deb service Aid so of the 24 million 22.8 we were deeming eligible meaning that the state would contribute uh 31% of the cost of this question so it would they would contribute 7.75 million the local portion would be 16.6 million yeah one to emphas this is the way the projects were submitted to the state the state may agree or disagree it won't be a big difference but they could agree to give us a little more money they could agree to give us a little bit less money and may not agree with the this is our estimate of how we see the eligible projects and usually we're really close on so that's the breakdown you can see for question one we did the same breakdown for question two on question two we look at 14.5% of those projects are eligible and then again estimated from the state to be eligible this estimated State share you can see there about 6% they will pay the other 94% is the local share and with those two totals together so you can see question one again we're asking looking for the state to contribute hopefully 31% for the 24.4 million and then for question two for the 27.4 million and then again all of the eligible cost for a project will come from the New Jersey Department of Education and what we're looking at is this is the timeline to receive those answers and then educate the community and be transparent with what all those costs actually come out to be and once we get them from the state so again those were submitted to the Department of Education what that looks like now is we are probably around the first week of November early November we are looking to get our preliminary eligible cost from the state and then we'll engage the community and start to and Laura Bishop can speak more to this and I'll let her uh talk to how we're going to engage the community with those with that information and all this eventually leads into uh determining what types of ballot questions you want to have later in in December and informing the clerk no later than January 9th and then you can conduct a referendum vote and the community will vote on March 11th it's the second Tuesday in March for 2025 so again strategically planned because Deb is rolling off as Mr duthy pointed out rolling off in 2025 the new question would come on and that's why we have a tax neutral question one Laura do you want to speak to hi everybody thank you um I'm pleased to be part of uh this the team again um working with George and um Dan so the communications um is key to this U referendum addition a lot of work has gone into um deciding what projects the board the administration you've spent a lot of time working with professionals that determine the projects that should be in the referendum and we we um have worked with districts Statewide on on on passing uh referenda in informing the community but our goal is to inform and engage the entire Community every voter um to understand what a bond referendum is what their voting on um and the the uh benefits to the the district and the community so we're going to um this is actually the the first step in that process and at back to school nights I know we're doing sort of a and have information available for parents at back to school nights um we are we build a website that's um connected to that that links to the district site that has all this all the information on it including um the the schedule but um FAQs photos um we produce a video so we we want to engage the community and reach them in any way we can so it'll be social media um Flyers um mailing to the Entre entire Community if the if the board decides to do that so we engage the entire Community we look for the the key messages that will resonate with your with your voters um we're very uh committed to informing the community engaging the voters we're we without advocating for a yes or no vote so our our our goal is to engage the community um we look for the key messages that might resonate for example when I saw the 70s uh La Labs the science lab in the auditorium one of the we've experienced this with other districts and one of the messages we say is students who were in those labs or on that stage are now looking to retire so just like think of that that they're they're performing or or in science labs that that they're they're retiring their careers are already done so you we actually want to um get those me drive those messages home um we have a little fun with it right so maybe like you know just doing something like 70s and in the social post so you get people engaged um we set up a dedic ated email on that website so that community members can email their questions and get get answers within a day or two um we we really want uh a lot of involvement one of the keys to the success is uh forming a Communications committee that represents the entire Community from you know preschool parents to senior citizens to parents um to alumni uh teachers uh a couple of board members and we get together and um try to you know get feedback and input um on the messages on the referendum and so we and and then also look to them to provide feedback about what are you hearing in the community that's negative or positive um and that's a key group uh that we'll will meet uh at least once a month typically the first meeting as usual it's a two-hour meeting because everybody is giving their input and we there's a lot of discussion um so our goal is to engage the voters to make sure everybody's well informed about the vote and then get them to the polls um at every voter as many voters as possible in March um we'll we'll go a little um so tonight and then at back to school night information will be available it will be a little quiet in October and early November especially with this general election there's a lot of noise around it right now we don't want anybody to be confused and we also don't want voter fatigue with this referendum so right after the the November vote we would um gather that Communications committee together and be prepared to um probably launch the website in December um and then be ready to roll out um full force uh right after the first of the year um and we also host uh referendum forums that can be in person or virtual we found that the virtual forums we developed um right after covid in 2021 um actually dur still when Co was still we weren't able to gather um we found that those were very engaging we can sometimes have as many as 150 or 200 uh community members watching virtually uh The Forum and then sending their questions in so um we can do a virtual we can do a hybrid which includes iners and virtual so that's really important and we typically do that right before that would probably be before like maybe mid January just as uh community members are receiving their mailin ballots so we want to make sure everybody's informed over those ballots anybody have any questions okay thank you excellent thank you very much so um a lot of information this is just the you know the first roll out to the public uh The Architects and Miss Bishop have met with the board we had you know several small group meetings with the board to start to go over this to talk about what we wanted what we didn't want and that's why it was developed into the two questions that you see there we do know that there's still more discussion which will be coming from the board members um hopefully in working with Miss Bishop will be our Communications committee which is chaired by Miss crasa and also has Miss Dale Mr shil and it was Miss fzi but now miss sha you will be on that committee so um but you know that would that would be something good and I've worked with Miss bishop and have known her for a long time and and she's very good at what she does um and she listens to everything that the board and the community has to say in order to help you know get all the information out there like she said she's she's neutral she doesn't press one way or the other but she makes sure that everybody's informed so that they can make an informed decision and while I have not worked with uh Dan and George I've known them for a while and I know other districts that they're in and they're always uh at the top of their game uh you know Dan had mentioned with regards to the cost right so now we really don't have a cost impact yet because we're waiting to get our preliminary eligible cost letter from the state and basically what that means is the Department of Education takes the project applications that have been submitted with the estimated costs and then they say yes or no as to if it will be educationally necessary and if it will be funded and we get up to 40% of those eligible costs because the state gives you 40 but then they take 8 % back as their viig so basically you get 32% of 40% for your eligible cost and they do that all the time um but once the preliminary eligible cost letters are received by the district what will happen is the Architects will meet with the superintendent and Mr Boyce to go over them and if we feel that there's still a little bit of wiggle room in there we have the ability to go back to the state and petition for you know change some things and petition for some more money um and regardless of whether we do that or not the next step is the state will then send us a final eligible cost letter which is this is how much you're getting and then from there uh once they have that money then Mr Boyce and Mr lisco can provide it to our financial professionals to come up with what the tax impact would be and things of that nature and so you know those are things that we'll be working towards between now and December so that we can come back and have all the information available for everybody um you know so if I mean if the board members if anybody has any questions for you know the architecture or from Miss bishop or for Mr Boyce or Mr lisco you know please uh if not there will be more meetings that will be coming uh I think you know the board members are very excited I know everybody's excited about portions of the project I don't know if everybody's excited about the whole project but I know that there are a lot of really good parts to this project which we know will benefit our community for years to come and also our Branchburg Partners as well because they'll be here in the high school and benefiting from the science labs and the auditorium and you know if if we get some Fe and things like that so it's it's a very exciting time uh and we look forward to everybody getting the information that's that's it all right so moving on to the agenda um as I mentioned earlier we would like to do a consent agenda so uh for the first part it would be uh we will but not right now we would have a motion for finance items 1 through six curriculum item number one and Personnel items 1 through four only for Branchburg vote but before that I would ask if Mr Carlson or Miss Dale have any reports that they would like to uh present this evening and then once the reports are done I would ask if there's any of those items which I just mentioned that board members would like to be voted upon separately we will certainly do that so I will turn it over to miss Dale first ladies first um curriculum does not have a report at this time I just do want to highlight that we had since I wasn't here in August we had a wonderful summer session for the students who were able to attend that and I know a lot of the kids in this District really enjoyed going my own children included so thank you to the administrators and everybody who worked together to put that together thank you thank you Mr Carlson no all right so uh then if I might may I have a motion for finance items 1 through six curriculum item number one and Personnel items 1 through four please thank you Mr Carlson I have a second second uh thank you Mr Kim all right uh Mr Boyce roll call please yes Mrs Van Horn yes Mr J I'm sorry Mr Jess yes Mr Carlson yes Mr pontillo yes Mrs crer yes Mrs Dale yes Mr kimet yes Mr Garcia yes even when Mr seril is not here he's here uh and now for the items that will include the Branchburg vote are uh Finance items 7- 11 curriculum items 2 through 4 and personal items 5 through 17 I have a motion please so thank you Mr vanor I have a second thank you Mr Mr Carlson there any discussion further uh Mr Boyce may I have a roll call please yes Mrs vanor yes Mr Jess yes Mr Carlson yes Mr pontillo yes Mrs crasa yes Mrs Dale yes Mr kennick yes Mr Garcia yes Mrs Shaw all right thank you uh is there any old business that we have this evening seeing none I have a motion to close Old business please thank you Mr K thank you Mr Carlson is there any disc question all those in favor I any opposed any extension motion carries is there any new business seeing none they have a motion to close new business please thank you Mr Carlson have a second second thank you Mr Garcia is there any discussion all those in favor I any oppos any extensions so Mo uh the board does need to go into executive session will we be taking any action this evening we will be all right then so with that being said uh whereas pursuant to njsa 10 call 4-2 B the Board of Education May exclude the public from that portion of a public meeting where on the board discusses any of the matters set forth at njsa 10 col 412b 1-9 now therefore be resolved that in accordance with the provision of the open public meetings act the board shall conduct a closed session pursuant to the provisions of njsa 10 col 412b for the purpose of discussing Personnel matters covered by the attorney kind privilege and pending or anticipated litigation action may be taken so may I have a motion to go into executive session thank you Mr Kim thank you Mr Carlson is there any discussion all those in favor I any opposed all right all right we're back may I have a motion to reenter public session please motion thank you m Kim second thank you Mr Carlson any discussion all those in favor any oppos any extensions so move we are back in at 858 and we do have uh one item on Business from executive session and it's going to be to uh move items 18 through 25 as discussed in executive session um and this is eligible for everyone so may I have a motion for that thank you Mr Carlson we have a second thank you Mr Ken is there any discussion Mr Boyce yes Mrs Van Horn yes Mr Jess Mr Carlson yes Mr pontillo Mrs crasa yes Mrs Dale yes Mr Ken yes Mr Garcia yes Mrs Shaw yes all right thank you all and with that may have a motion to turn please thank Mr Carlson have second second thank you Mr kimmick any discussion all those in favor Anye any exensions and we adjourned at 859