##VIDEO ID:t29H1QMkGrM## e e e e e e e okay okay start with the Pledge of Allegiance I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all roll call please Mrs Harold here Mr Pico here Mr Valley here Mr vardo here Mr yum here Mr muscatello here Mr Shar we have a court okay uh this is to advise the general public and to instruct that it be recorded in the minutes that in compliance with chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 entitled the open public meetings act Stan hope Board of Education located at 24 Valley Road Stan Hope New Jersey has caused this notice to be posted at the office of the Stan hope Board of Education mailed to the New Jersey Herald the municipal clerk of the burough of Stan hope the Stan hope post office and posted at the Valley Road school and on the Stan hope Public Schools website setting forth the time date and location of the meeting the Stan Hope School District in partnership with the community commits to provide a quality comprehensive education for all Learners with equal emphasis on academic excellence and citizenship through values respect and service our vision is to inspire and cultivate a community of innovative curious compassionate and globally minded Learners equipped with with knowledge problem solving skills and the ability to persevere to make a positive impact on society and shape a better future okay starting with presentation comprehensive financial report welcome on thank you welcome back yep and just hit the little button to turn your microphone on right in the front the little the little microphone there you go you're on thank you well good evening everybody I believe Carissa passed around a onepage summary it's like back and front so if you look at the top corner it has the page number on there so I'm going to start with um the just go for financial highlights and then um any questions let me know feel free to stop me because sometimes I tend to talk fast because I do you know a lot of these presentation this time of the year and I just you know okay so on the top of the very first page is a comparison of the fund balances between 63024 and 63023 at the uh 63024 the over4 fund balance is $2.9 million which is a slight draw from the previous year about $67,000 now most of your 2.9 is restricted in various reserves you have $105,000 in encumbrances which are Goods that You' have placed at order for us of June 30th but have not received item as of that date $1.5 million in capital reserve that you can use for any projects in your longrange facilities plan $356,000 in maintenance Reserve that you can use for any required maintenance around the uh for the school facilities $280,000 of what we call current year excess Surplus so that is the number that you require to use in your upcoming budget cycle in your 25 26 budget cycle coming up the uh prior excess surplus of $250,000 plus the $43,000 in the what we call destinated or subsequent years those two numbers add up to $293,000 approximately that's what you're using in your current school year to 20 24 25 school year and then that leaves you with your 2% unassigned fund balance which is the $310,000 so which is approximately the same as last year so you've been kind of a little bit stable which is good um and the metal section is just an overall analysis of what makes up the you know 67,000 overall decrease in fund balance you have a deficit in local Revenue uh deficit meaning what you uh comparison between what you anticipated versus what you actually realized in Revenue uh excess in state revenue of $60,000 that's mainly from your extraordinary Aid $548,000 of unspent budget appropriation but after you factor out the $100,000 of incumbrances you're left with about $440,000 of uh budget appropriation not spent and then you have three you utilize 300,000 during the year to support a fund balance to support your budget um and then you liquidated prior incumbrances of $373,000 you also took $150,000 of um funds from the maintenance reserve for required maintenance around the school and then you took in $240,000 of Interest earnings from your capital projects fund which is related to interest earnings you earned um with the unspent bonds proceed okay and then the uh bottom is just a trend of how much Surplus you've been using so um in 2223 $380,000 23 24 like I said before about 306 and then 2425 your current year is 293 and then 25 26 is 280 so we're trying to Trend down a little bit because if you remember if remember quite a few years ago you didn't really have that much excess Surplus so it's better to not have that much Reliance just in you know of the off chance that if you lose of the momentum okay so if you flip to the back uh the top portion is just an analysis of your capital reserve maintenance Reserve like I mentioned before your capital reserve ended up with $1.5 million maintenance jerve $356,000 and then the middle section is the comparison activities in your food service fund so for 2023 24 school year you uh netted $25,000 positive so your unrestricted fund balance went up 25,000 ended up with 110 and then the bottom is just analysis of long-term liabilities and obviously for budgeting purposes you just you know worry about your annual death service requirement for your seral bonds that's it for the financial highlights any [Music] questions and then um having seen many school districts our size where are we comparable with other districts are we in as strong or stronger or on I think you you in better shape than you've been in compared to Prior years like I mentioned before or it used to be that before Co you really didn't have excess Surplus so because of Co um a lot of school districts are seeing I don't know what I don't want to say windfall of money but like between all the M uh grant money that the state's throwing at you they were able to accumulate a lot of excess to our plus but then the issue that I'm seeing now in some of our school districts is that is the ability or the inability to like kind of regenerate the amount of surplus that you've been relying on so that's why it's always good if you have excess Surplus try not to use it for recurring expenses because if you for some reason one year you can't regenerate that you don't have you know a budget hold that you going have to make up so we're on stable ground you're stable right now okay question okay no and then I think in terms of comments and recommendation there was only one comment it didn't rise to the level of a formal recommendation that you need to have a corrective action plan because um your Finance Administration is already aware of that and it has to do with um Student Activities receipts just being deposit it later than it needs to be uh then I think steps of have already been taken to address that so that's why we didn't put it as a formal recommendation yeah so this was something I think I spoke about with in our business committee um to to kind of simplify uh when there's field trips or Student Activities and parents send checks in with their kids our staff haven't uh brought those checks to our business office that same day as they're expected to so that our business office can then deposit those checks same day uh what we've seen happening um and even before uh you know man came in and to do the audit um we addressed it is understandably teachers would collect the checks for a period of a week a couple weeks keep them in their their drawer once they have the class set then submit everything all at once however they really can't be holding on to those checks uh so we're working pretty hard to make sure that that's something that's that's rectified because we're always just you know afraid of well what if somebody steals the money because it's happened in you know some of our schools so that's the risk and that's my presentation I mean I just want to leave with you know thank you very much to superintendent and Karissa and I mean every year we drive Carissa crazy and like I don't know what we would do without you so thank you very much thank you Carissa lot a lot of hard work into that and thank you man for coming out and her group is amazing to work with I have to say so good well then good thank youg thank you you too yes have a great one okay uh that will bring us to you see a public hearing on the agenda this is to um talk about the superintendent contract renewal we did talk about it at another meeting and the changes but this is the formal public hearing so just to summarize the changes um this is um a 5year contract it is year one is actually now it's replacing what was year five of his prior 5-year contract so this year is flat and then it has the same 2% per year increase that was in the prior contract the big change here is tuition reimbursement for a doctoral program that he'll be attending and a slight increase in spending for professional organizations between the county Roundtable and the New Jersey Association of educational leaders so those are the highlights of the contract changes um are their questions hearing none okay this is good yeah this is good okay we'll move on to the superintendent report thank you sure um you know if if if approved uh you know just again want to reiterate which I think I've done several times how much of a pleasure it is to work in this district and and I'm excited uh that you have faith in me to continue that for the next uh several years and uh we've seen a lot of good things and I expect uh more to come um so thank you again for that um so number one I item on the superintendent report is the Hib and suspensions uh we've had zero Hib investigations uh that were completed since our last meeting uh and we've had one student serve one day of in school suspension since our last meeting um just a reminder that the governor Ed educator of the year which is the teacher of the year award uh and the education Specialists of the year uh Award nominations are currently being sought the deadline is noon on Friday so if anybody uh who is either on the board or who is uh viewing on our live stream is interested in nominating someone for these Awards uh I urge you to do so by noon on Friday uh the district put out uh nomination forms through email over the last couple weeks uh so you can find them there or Reach Out directly if you're not sure uh where and when to do that um my third item we had parent teacher conferences uh last week uh again successful uh we we offered opportunities for parents to come meet in person and to meet virtually um we had a couple minor scheduling issues internally that we uh will uh work through for the spring conferences but nothing that I think directly impacted parents at all um so overall it was uh two successful parent teacher conference days um our uh annual veterans recognition program took place uh also last Wednesday um as usual we had a tremendous turnout of veter uh the kids were very excited if you haven't had an opportunity to Walk The Halls you'll see uh that it it's decorated in in uh patriotic Decor uh to honor the veterans that came um despite a about 30 second blackout in the middle of uh of the lenpy valley choir singing um it was uh it was another Flawless event um I want to specifically thank Kathy YY who uh put so much time and effort into putting this together and making sure that uh each year is as good if not better than the previous um I we we couldn't do this without her and uh you know kudos to her for all of her time and her effort um thanks to Gil yak and Jen for being able to attend uh really appreciate it uh and I wanted to thank Mr Pico for his service I know you weren't able to attend you had a a trip planned I understand Ohio you were you you were missed uh but we certainly uh appreciate everything that that you do for our country or have done for our country country uh and I also wanted to uh thank our our HSA each year um we've purchased medals for our veterans uh to recognize them it's a nice moment where the the student council is able to you know lift the medals place it over their heads um but this year we changed it up a bit the HSA purchased shirts for all of our veterans which they specifically um uh many found me uh to to just uh thank um the HSA because it was a nice gesture one individual mentioned that he's got all of his medals hanging up in his his den as he said uh he goes which is nice but at least with a t-shirt right he can proudly wear it in the community uh you know when he goes to these other events so thank you to the HSA that was a really wonderful gesture um just wanted to briefly touch base on high impact tutoring if you remember last year uh we were awarded a competitive grant for high impact tutoring I believe we received a in the neighborhood of 35 to $38,000 uh for us to run a tutoring program for students in third and fourth grade we did so very successfully um we had four or five teachers that were working with students after school and during lunches uh and for those targeted students we did see a pretty significant increase in their their njsla test scores for last year uh the um excuse me Department of Education uh made available to districts who previously qualified an additional 8 per of funding um that 8% is just over $3,000 to us it's not a lot but it is enough for us to again do math and language arts uh instruction in third and fourth grade one time per week after school for 15 consecutive weeks so although it's nowhere near what we were able to provide last year it's something and we're hoping that uh if anything else it provides some of these targeted students an opportunity to just get some extra help after school and focus on those key skills um you'll see on the agenda tonight four teachers uh that I'm recommending to uh continue to this program uh with their stien amount um and uh yeah I think that's all I got for there uh for that item um just a recap of school board's conference unfortunately Jen wasn't able to attend I know she had planned to so it was mati and I representing uh Stan hope in Atlantic City um it was uh and I should say uh uh Mr valy as well uh in his dual role as board member and superintendent um it was another Well attended event uh very well organized School Board does a very nice job um I would recommend if you haven't had the opportunity uh as a board member to attend at some point to attend at least one just to kind of get get the feel for it um you know try to go to a couple courses I think more than anything else and and you may may agree or disagree um the greatest benefit is networking with with other board members in other districts just to kind of see um what's happening in New Jersey outside of our little area uh what schools uh with similar demographics uh are doing uh and doing successfully um and it's also nice to see what some of the larger districts are doing and and how we can somehow try to incorporate that into our our small school district um but again uh very successful uh the best weather we've ever had probably for uh School Board um yeah I was I was sweating through all my clothes walking to the conference Hall each day which I wasn't complaining about but um and then the last item I have we spoke briefly about this at our October meeting uh I did put out information for students to apply for the uh student Advocate to the Board of Education uh I I sent it via email to all of our eighth grade students I met with our eighth grade students at this point right now I do not have any applicants um I'm going to try one more more push with our eighth graders to see if there's anybody that is uh interested um if there is not uh what I'd like to do is ask our student council representatives to play a more active role in communicating with the board um I I think overall you know we're trying to create a student voice uh where the board is hearing directly from the student body on some of the things that are working and possibly are not working in some of the needs um so if if we're able to do that through student Advocate that's great um if not then I'll explore some other avenues to get students represented uh at our meetings um just a reminder next uh month we have our honor rooll recognition uh where we'll be inviting students and parents um that's all I have I don't have to answer any questions that any of you have um is it possible for the student Advocate to just open it up to the middle school maybe if we build it a little younger and get some continuity in there it might help them be a little less afraid of it we certainly can I think Middle School is a across the board yeah we certainly can there's there's varying degrees of maturity right from sixth grade through eth grade which you know but again still have them go through the process put it out there and see who's interested and and if you get somebody who's a little younger uh you know maybe a little coaching to start but they can grow into that role as they become an eth grader be great so yeah I'm sure there's a couple students in the younger grades who are interested okay all right okay any other questions comments thoughts all right Personnel curriculum School climate and culture committee meeting update I would like to say it's very hard to follow Steve's reports when it's my committee because he covers all the basis the only thing that we talked about that Steve hasn't already discussed this evening is he is working hard on the 2526 school year schedule because while you know we'd all like to think it's simple and you just send the kids to classes Apparently that is not the case there's a lot of time no in all honesty there's a lot of time and effort that he has to put into he's looking into trying to put more middle school choice um as far as electives go so that kind of creates some scheduling nightmares I'm sure for him and how you get the kids from point A to point B at the same time to give them choice but oh wait we only have so much staff and so many hours in the day so he is working on that he promises me he's going to be really creative because I'm really excited about the idea of choice so looking forward to hearing more of that in the upcoming months good mind if I elaborate just a little bit so um I I currently have a a working draft of a schedule uh that will incorporate in sixth seventh and eth grade greater choice in student electives in the areas of art music and stem um one thing that will be required here uh and its significant um budget item is making additional staff full-time that have been part-time for more than 10 years now um so that's a big question mark and it's something that our business office and I are working very hard to try to make happen not just for next year but so that it can be sustained over several years right the foreseeable future um because once you add something it's it's worst case scenario is if you then take it away from them as if it was never there um that in itself uh has been uh desirable not just from our Board of Education uh but for anybody body who participated in our strategic planning in the fall of 2022 um that was uh that desire was expressed loudly and clearly um by our community by our staff by the students that attended uh to to make those special areas full-time so that we can have a more expansive um Visual and Performing Arts programs and stem programs in the school I am meeting with not uh it might be this coming Monday uh Middle School staff and special staff because they're the ones who are impacted the most by this to share the draft and to get ideas and feedback from them because anytime you make a a change like this there are as well although there are positives that come with it there's also things that you potentially are going to lose um some can make the argument that these things will we will lose for a positive some will make the argument that it's a negative um but at the end of the day I want to hear from them before we put anything out to the community um and make those budget decisions uh and also open it up for for ideas because you know I've been scheduling for a long time but I uh am not going to stand in front of everybody and say that I have all of the answers um so that's where we're at right now uh this is the earliest that I've I've attempted to build a schedule for the following year but again I I just outlined all the reasons why it needs to happen right now and i' just like to say to to the community and staff part when and it's more than 10 years when the Arts got cut first to 50% and then slowly over time we were able to bring it up to 75% the goal has always been to try to get it back up to 100% both from a staff you know a staff standpoint because people want benefits they want full-time work but also from what it brings to the school so if we're finally in a position where we can do that that's great on that count as well you bring up a good point too financially right so we we have um staff that are are are hired at 70% and you may not realize like okay 30% of a salary is a good amount of money but it's not that much once you go beyond that 75% you're now obligated to offer medical benefits to these employees so maybe that additional 30% might cost the district let's just say around $18 to $20,000 you know for somebody who needs family benefits you're you're looking at an additional 25 to 30,000 on top of that salary increase when you when you take all of these numbers right it adds up to a significant budget amount not just for the next year's budget but for every single budget year after that uh and as you heard um man share in in the auditor's presentation you know yes we have a surplus right now but that's not something that we can put into salaries because it's a one-time expense or a one-time uh lot of money that we can't expect to have from year to year so just want to say thank you for all the work on that it it sounds fantastic and I just want to emphasize I think it's important for the board to keep in mind the the health insurance adjustment and enrollment adjustment that the board is entitled to for the next two years which could increase the base uh the base uh budget amount of the district in excess of $100,000 uh that should be a serious consideration on the part of the board as Steve is working so hard with his team to increase the opportunities available to our students great idea I that's we did that couple what four or five years ago right we used that adjustment I think we used it during during we did we used it during Co y right I think Gordon was here when we did that I was gonna say that was that was it was before right before then if it was Gordon it was before it was right before I think it was Gordon I thought it was right after that it's I thought it was thought it was Dr MC yeah okay might have had one more but but yes we yes we have that in our pocket thank you Steve yes what kind of benefit would it be to uh for the children to have the part-time teachers go full-time so what I'm trying to build right now uh so right now our middle school kids sixth seventh and eth grade they have fizet every day which is something that would remain they have World Language three days a week Monday Wednesday Friday they have art Tuesdays and Thursdays for half of the year and then stem Tuesdays and Thursdays for half of the year so they have a very general art class A very general stem class uh for only a couple days each week for half of the year um they also have a built-in we call eha extra help and assistance uh which is ultimately kind of like a study hall with opportunities to get help from teachers um what I'm trying to do is to build a specials class that's every single day um potentially in trimesters uh but for each of those specials teachers to teach two courses at each grade level so for example rather than having sixth grade art you might have drawing and painting and sculpture stem and and these are just hypotheticals these are not real classes that we've built right so for stem it might be coding and broadcasting for music it might be guitar and music theory if you have trimesters at each of those grade levels you now have opportunities for kids to choose from six different classes right to have every single day so they may choose to do two stems and one art right that's the student choice that we're trying to build in and that is typical of a middle school program that's not a tiny K like us right when I was teaching in Randolph those kids and this you're talking 12 to 15 years ago had these choices because instead of having 25 to 30 kids in a grade level they had 250 to 300 kids in a grade level and you were able to manipulate that schedule the scheduling part of this is aside from Staffing and finance the scheduling is is um one of the more challeng ing things because you only have one team of teachers and you and you know it's there's just not a lot of flexibility and the I guess what I was getting to is that I mean anything that would improve the students you know so if you have to spend a little bit more money to do that it's only money it's only money but we only have so much I understand so whatever we put towards this has to come from somewhere else I understand that but my concern is are the students anything that they could get to improve their learning that's that's my main goal what I can share with you and I know this is only your first year on the board finishing up your first year through S2 which is the state aid cuts that we've had for a period of seven years we've we were we lost money for seven years in a row we never once caught a student program and we've actually added student programming um so I think that this board as it's currently structured and and our Administration uh appreciates and agrees with your sentiment that kids have to come first and uh student programming is where we have to to to focus okay good thank you the other nice thing for the middle school then would be they would actually get a music option so right now the only option because of scheduling and part-time staff is for them to do bander choir after school so they don't where like K to 5 gets music through throughout their week the middle schoolers don't so that's another plus too if we can bring that fulltime it gives the kids that are musically inclined or those who aren't sure if they are but want to try it out the option and it also follows them to the high school right some of these students who have that very strong interest in art in music in stem when they get to the high school because other schools have that they're a little behind in the courses and where they need to be to catch up right we have students going into nth grade who maybe were in banned part-time but students coming from other schools who have had banned a lot more full-time and can start in more advanced classes so we really want to track it to the high school as well if we determine that we can make it happen financially and if we can build the schedule to sustain these programs The Next Step would be to reach out to uh lenp Valley Mr kazatsky who who does wonderful curriculum work up there to look at what they offer and then make decisions for what we want to offer because I think it's inid interest to create a feeder for them I don't want to create a that's going to then die at the end of their time at Valley Road school where they start from scratch up there I'd rather provide an opportunity for the kids to get the prerequisites here so that when they get up to lenp Valley they don't have to spend the time on the basic stuff they can dive right into the the more advanced programming I agree you know like I said my main concern are the children y if I could just as well like uh whether if you implement staggered scheduling and please I don't want to take this as we're limiting teachers from opportunities to get health insurance by any means but if the goal is to get these programs in you ever think about maybe shared services figuring out a way to combine we always consider shared services and but but the challenge with this specific topic is in order to make this work I need for example an art teacher here the entire day could you because I'm adding three extra periods at every single grade level for them to teach and please I I know more than any it's hard hiring people nowadays and keeping them right but two part- timers sharing a role it's been difficult we've had over the years how many art teachers come and go because they get full-time work we're trying to build the continuity we keep losing good teachers same thing happened in music it happened in art it's going to keep happening unless we find a way to make the positions full-time right so 10 years ago which Jen was referring to it's actually right when I joined the board I'm sure Gil will never forget the meeting where they tried to cut this completely they negotiated it back up to 50% because of the public outcry in losing the music and the art programs and that would be my fear right you finally get this going we're 3 years in we realize it's not sustainable that's why we have to do a lot it be good to have for three years and nothing don't get me wrong but morale wise and you know make it sustainable it has to be but I I love where the mindset is so yeah good luck but for sure in order to in order to keep good people we have to find a way to be able to offer benefits because it's really difficult in today's world to say oh we want you to come work at our establishment but sorry we can't provide health insurance I I don't know that many people that want to walk around without health insurance no but that's why shared services sounds like and you've kind of got us in that mindset that that's feasible um that might be a good option well I I see this as a result of many years of many years of thought and planning this just doesn't happen by accident you know what I mean where we were to where we are today the dollars had to line up the programs needed to line up the facilities you know when you think about it a year ago we we didn't have a stem lab you know what I mean now we have that to offer so it just and that's to me that's kudos to everybody who sits around this table making those decisions because as Carmen just spoke that has been the mindset of my 15 years of sitting here of every single board member that sat here with those same sentiment kids come first and that that was our Guiding Light through this and and you know with the proper Administration took time but we're here we're here that's that that's the big thing all right Gil that'll roll us right into you for business services all right um couple items on here uh first we discussed or we were going to discuss the audit but at that time we were waiting from feedback from the auditor so that didn't happen just till tonight so glad to hear that um we had the healthcare open enrollment and there is uh a program that teachers here can sign up for which is a New Jersey direct programs which are quite expensive which has a very low Cay um it cost the board a little bit extra but it costs them as the employee a lot they pay a lot extra in order to get that and um Steve this the benefits really don't outweigh what you're getting the money that they're paying they really don't get that much extra in benefits and I think Steve did a great job in showing them that the current program that we have is just as good in some aspects somewhat better so four of the six uh decided to change and they going uh back to they're joining into the regular program to elected to stay with the NJ direct programs um uh there's a calendar that was drafted for next year's meeting times uh we just that was just held up for the budget calendar correct so Carissa drafted a calendar um I reviewed it with her uh I shared it with you I don't know if you had an opportunity to look at it um I'd like to get it in your hands or in front of your eyes before our next series of committee meetings uh with the hope that we can identify any conflicts uh and make revisions before the upcoming reorganization meeting right so when we have that reorganization meeting the board will hopefully then vote to adopt this calendar and it's always better to have those figured out before we sit at the table during that meeting um so just take a look at personal conflicts uh holidays religious conflicts all that kind of stuff uh so that not just you're avoiding conflicts we're also avoiding conflicts potentially for our community who may want to participate and then the state will release their deadlines for the budget and we'll go in I think we're kind of riding with what we did last year as if they're going to open that up to the same weeks that we need to have the budget done and if we need to we'll just adjust those accordingly okay any questions on that the calendar especially uh next next is the um minimum wage increase um there were three groups substitutes substitute custodians and substitute secretaries who are not part of any bargaining unit and there has been a change in the minimum wage from uh $153 cents to 1549 starting uh uh January 1st so we have we're approving that we ask for you to approve that tonight that increase in salary um there was also a stien for power professionals that are pulled from uh for substitute teachers for daily coverage so if they're a power and sometimes we needed we can cover the power with another power or put two together and um that other power can be used as a sub so that's an idea that I'm proposing to the board and also to the uh the stanh Hope Education Association um nothing has been determined or agreed on or even discussed yet um other than just me sharing a desire to provide an opportunity to compensate our par professionals who have substitute certificates who are stepping up and filling in uh when we are short staffed uh so um uh I I I left that uh for the association to think about I hope that they'll come back to me in the next week or so so that we can determine how we want to go about it and it may just be a potential sidebar to the contract uh next is the um the completed or ongoing projects from uh the summer Andor the construction project uh one is the uh display sign up front it's fully functional now correct fully functional up front uh the gym floors have been refinished uh the large field in the back of the school uh We've contracted with the maintenance True Green to try and get those fields in better condition and you've also been approached by lacrosse and soccer I've spoken to um board members for the local lacrosse and soccer programs uh who are very interested in using that field uh come very early spring late winter and hopefully moving forward uh it has been my understanding that it's been a desire of the board and of myself for our campus to be used as much as possible to offer that support to the community uh and we're hoping that by improving that Turf uh and proving providing the opportunity for these organizations to Line to Line out the field as they need to to put equipment down there goals uh and such um that it'll just open up opportunity for the organizations to to have somewhere to play in practice because that space is not cheap uh I know that as uh serving on the local baseball board and and coaching my kids throughout the years if you don't have space to practice and you have to rent it it it almost doubles the amount of money that the the parent has to pay for the program so if we can provide that space free of charge uh that's that's local for for our families I think that that's a wonderful thing um next is uh cover moldings that's the base moldings in the hallway replac in the hallway uh we'll be looking to potentially replace that in the classrooms in the next year or two um there was power washing done on the garage the playground awnings front of the building the uh old AC window units have been removed uh truck maintenance has been done to extend the life of the truck in preparation of winter and new stoves microwaves washer and dryer were all um done for the Autistic Program for replace new in there and the the removal of the units for tonight the AC units yeah so an addendum item in in business tonight is the disposal of the obsolete air conditioning units that we removed from the classroom as you know we no longer need them because we uh installed univ vents that provide heat and air conditioning to these classrooms um they're five years old they are in working condition um so we will uh once the board approves their disposal I will be working uh to try to put them um to offer them to those who could potentially uh use them within the community okay that answer anybody with questions thank you right back to you Gil head Services head Services that'll be short nothing much changes up there um things are going well school is busy um negotiations are moving it's kind of hard to say it's a very difficult situation because the association up there has no strength they're not a organ well organized group and it's far to tie them down to a contract and to meetings and stuff so we're trying to move on on on with that other than that programs are going project search is doing uh well we had another commitment to extend the uh scholarships where um $155,000 will be offset by uh an organization for kids for tuition uh so the sending School District could any sending School District would say 15,000 for student on there so that's helping with enrollment going on so any movement on the other building um yes a little bit uh we finally got a chance to speak there's a building next to it called uh salus the same siiz building broadleaf which was a school for kids with special needs also was in there uh they went out of business or they Consolidated and uh we're trying to expand we're we're we're at our maximum and we still giving kids in tours and we're looking to expand a little bit and we want to be able to use that building and we were trying to buy it we were informed that the current owner has to pay out the rent they were under a rental for the next seven years they're obligated to pay the rent for seven years so we're trying to work out on a deal where we could they could pay some of the rent we'll pay some of the rent and we could use the building for at least seven years and try and move into a rent to buy or however we could work it to eventually own have ownership of that build building and that'll give us a chance to separate some of our programs because currently we are a prek to 12 all in one building and we'd like to separate some of that grade level stuff out of there and uh it would be a big benefit to us okay I just wondering because I know you guys need to have more room because driving kids when I drive kids to that school I could I could tell they got the little kids with the big kids and they're all like bunched in together yep okay thank you other questions comments okay it brings you to my report so um just a quick update on regionalization the Grant application so what I gave you all last meeting or the meeting before was a copy of the paper application the state has decided in its wisdom that they are no longer taking paper now they are moving to an electronic format for the grant through the Department of Community Affairs so now we have to undergo a process to get um a essentially approved to use the Grant application software and then take the paper application and submit it electronically through that Grant application software which is supposed to be a better way for the state to track the funds that they are Distributing before for this program the funds and the distribution was manually tracked essentially and so the state's moving to an electronic grant program so net Kong is still going to be the lead on the grant Administration so they need to go through the process of actually applying to get the account and then they can put the application into the new online Grant system so essentially nothing else has happened other than hurry up and wait which is how things tend to work in this world one more next week yes next week yeah so um hopefully that is uh going to get its way through the system in with njca all day every day good luck thanks it's very helpful good luck well you know yeah yeah yes so again it's an existing platform that's out there tob's Point um and they're just moving all of this into that platform so that's where it is so like I said there's been no changes no real updates other than now we have to get this electronic application moving in order to move forward with with the grant um and then as Steve mentioned I went to the uh school boards conference down in Atlantic City um it was a very good conference it was very well attended there was over 250 sessions that they offered uh throughout the three three and a half days down there um a lot of them got closed out because there were so many people interested in so many of the topics that they actually need even more space than the convention center has to offer um which is great there's a lot of interest in what's going on um as when Kelly our New Jersey field service rep was here last time when she did our ethics training she indicated that she could come in and bring some of the training to us since I know a lot of us can't travel I've asked her potentially for the February board meeting to come in and deliver a training that I attended while I was there which covers kind of um board member roles um and committee responsibilities committee structures best practices in committees and how all of that works it was a really eye openening presentation to understand what they recommend and then to hear how other boards were handling it and what they were doing and I figure February is probably the best time just because we have reorganization in January I don't really want to tack it onto that and we'll have our new board members seated by February as well so we can kick off the year strong with understanding what their recommendations are and what that looks like um the other big training that I attended was my governance 4 uh mandatory training so in every your first three years you have to do governance one two 3 and then in your reelected year you do go four and then every time you're reelected you do another governance four training and all of that is um School law update and school ethics update so they go over all the various cases that are out there what school districts have litigation pending why it's pending what happened what board members did that maybe they shouldn't have done or what the school ethics commission decided about what was done and how cases were handled um so it's a very good Training for those of you who who need it and haven't done it yet it's very enlightening this year and again to hear how other folks in the room responded to this and what were doing on their boards like like Steve said it's always very helpful to hear you know the things that we do in many cases we are uh I I feel far above and Away what other districts might be doing and in other cases what other districts are doing there's some really good best practices to learn so I'm looking forward to New Jersey school boards coming in and just going over some of that with us um but like I said so for right now I'm looking at February depending on when that meeting lines up and if school boards can be here for it um it won't be long I promise but it's it's a good course so that is all I had questions comments thank you for trying to arrange that that's awesome okay that would bring us to our first public session but seeing no public I'm guessing we can move on travel and workshop reports lots of them this month comments questions thoughts everybody going everywhere uh a lot of a lot of uh training in reading and writing y uh to address the the revisions to the standards um the teachers overall over overwhelmingly who have attended have said that it's been tremendously beneficial and um we're hopeful that we're seeing this the this those results in the classroom great that would bring us to minutes for approval can I have a motion please motion second items one and two regular meeting and executive session all in favor vote Yes yes anybody no abstentions okay moving on administrative action items can I have a motion please moved second second all right uh just one item on here the anti-bullying bill of anti-bullying Bill of Rights questions comments hearing none roll call please Mrs Harold yes Mr Pico yes Mr yes Mr vardo yes Mr yam yes Mr muscatello yes Mrs sharpstein yes motion's carried education action items motion please don't move second second thank you okay trips 2425 school year no good no questions everybody's good I read okay m Mrs Harold yes Mr Pico yes Mr Valley yes Mr vardo yes Mr yagnam yes Mr muscatello yes Mrs sharpstein thank you that brings us to Personnel uh can I have a motion please motion second uh item one is the contract that we spoke about earlier in the public hearing so just pay attention to that on there and then we have items what do we have on here 2 through seven please including the high impact tutoring grants on there as well comments questions discussions very talkative group all right hearing n Roll Call vote Mrs Harold yes Mr Pico yes Mr Valen yes Mr vardo yes Mr ynam yes Mr muscatello yes Mr sharpstein yes motions carry for five more years yeah we got happy to have you thank you all right business services please 1 through n addendum item number 10 a motion please motion second thank you all right item 10 being the disposal of the air conditioning units any other questions on anything on there hearing none go ahead roll Bo Mrs Harold yes Mr Pico yes Mr Valley yes Mr vardo yes Mr yagnam yes Mr muscatello yes Mrs sharpstein motions Carri thank you anybody have any new business they'd like to bring up I don't know if it's new business or old business but i' would like to have more formal discussion because it was discussed last month it's regarding HIV okay um more particularly for our policy committee uh you know looking at our student handbook we have literature in there that we can restrict certain activities to students that are falling behind academically attendance wise but there's really not much in terms of accountability for reoccurring HIV violations um and if there is please correct me but in general terms I find it kind of unfair that students that have been found with HIV violations still get through 10 class trips where there's students who don't get to go because they fall behind academically um I don't find it fair that they get to run for class president or get to do extra things that honestly is it should be a a an award a reward for your efforts so I wanted to see if we can add literature to our handbook to just simply put that in there as well now kids are going to make mistakes you know I don't like punishing somebody from one mistake from here on out but there are sever there are levels of severity that can happen in an HIV case or reoccurring issues uh in an effort to help limit how many HIV issues we have I think sometimes their terms of accountability um might help so I will share thank you one of the things that I learned in that uh course that committee course as well as the go for training was um one of the responsibilities that I can actually ask of committee to your point policy is to take this back as a recommendation and bring back a recommendation to the board to discuss that is a formal recommendation about what we'd like to add to policy in terms of addressing this um and it falls within the scope of the policy committee so it doesn't need to be an ad hoc committee or a separate committee to address it it can be the policy committee who reviews the policies and brings back to the board recommendations that we can then discuss as part of the policy committee discussions um so I think that's the right way to handle this uh particular issue um what I also did find is uh through the go four training is that many policies out there in many schools do outline certain different um criteria not criteria that's the wrong word but to your point uh actions and consequences depending on the levels and severities of the HIV or may be possible or up to and including this so it's very broad language because you don't want to Pigeon your hole yourself into things to your point their kids they're going to make mistakes but there has to be something spelled out to help the people in the school have something behind them that they can enforce and so I think there's probably room in our policies to make that happen including corrective action plans and I apologize um there's online courses they can take to help absolve an issue right there a lot of little things it's about teaching them hey you're going to make mistakes I don't want it to keep going I also don't want a student to suffer for two years and not be able to do things because of one mistake but there are levels of severity we've seen that should be taken seriously so so as part of our I'm sorry General um one of our district goals is to engage in a culture and climate survey uh this school year um which my plan is to begin that and and to solicit feedback from students parents teacher staff and the board uh so we'll begin that in January I think that'll be good to to be doing in tandem with these discussions right um because I think it'll be important for the board to consider the feedback right of of the students and the staff and the community uh when making changes to to policies and and establish ing criteria that that we're discussing tonight so I just wanted to bring that up as something that is is on the forefronts app and and I just wanted to say to piggyback that just because something doesn't fall under HIV because that has a legal narrow criteria to it it could fall under our code of conduct so I think even in spelling out to your point on you know if x is violated in Code of Conduct why could happen I think is important because it gives the Administration more tools to evenly disperse that and not to say that they're not but I think when there's nothing there sometimes it's very hard for them we're we're a tiny school no matter how much they investigate sometimes you know kids don't want to say certain things because they don't they don't want to get involved or they don't want to hurt somebody's feelings or as much as you want to say it's Anonymous it's really hard to be anonymous in a very tiny school so maybe in having some clearer guidelines on what happens if you violate code of conduct even if it's not an HIV offense can be helpful just so that it doesn't get to an HIV level you know to the point they are kids they're going to make mistakes that's fine but how what can we do to give them the tools then to rectify it so it's not a repeated mistake you know I was thinking of scenarios um you know imagine if there's a child parents are getting divorced or they had a loss in a family they come in school one day and they're just not in the right mind right I think it'd be good if it came down to one person whether if in the administration or an assigned teacher that looks at these cases and has an objective mindset I don't like just I like gray area for this I like a gray area for this because not everything's created equal with it so the code of conduct is a great tool for that versus the Hib which is a very defined term you know and that's a lot of what we heard in the in the Gob for training is is it is shades of grade gray it is very subjective but at the end of the day and this is especially important and why it's reported to us on the board under HIV and investigations at the end of the day it's our decisions that carry this forward so we as a board all need to be involved in understanding what is happening and how it's being done and what what are you know what what the outcomes are um you know some boards they said they meet for hours every single month on this because they have a volum of cases we're very lucky not to but we just need to make sure that we're engaged and involved and making sure the stuff is being handled the way we think it should be so one of the things to your point there with the code of conduct that that I think is difficult administratively is that a lot of times kids mess up more by definition of their age than their character they make mistakes that way well you know in a high school it was a little easier because you're dealing with four grade levels and you're kind of close but there's still marketable differences between a senior and a freshman so you know when you have a code of conduct I think you're going to have to be pretty Broad and sensitive because a first grader and a sixth grader are two tirely different human beings you know what I mean so you have to be very very sensitive to that when you write up rules and it doesn't say there's there's room for age here what stops us if anything from breaking that down a little bit right like the expectations of what middle schoolers should be doing and are capable of certainly is not what your K3 or K5 crowd I'm I'm not saying it shouldn't be I'm just saying it's a question I'm asking I don't is that something we can do that's why I'm saying I think this is for policy to take it back we can look at other schools that have a policy out there that's public see what theirs looks like in many cases you can get to code of conduct handbooks and we should take a look at those things um but like I said I think the right place for the work to start his policy and bring it back up to the board for full discussion just want to add just kind of emphasize your point about kind remaining Broad and and that that freedom for our administrative team and our and our staff to to to make decisions they see fit given each individual circumstance Y is critical and every district has room to improve but but no district is without its problems and I think it's important to as a board and to continuously celebrate the indicators of tremendous success we're seeing that are outcomes of a very positive School culture some of the best attendance figures in the county ranking number two practically tied for number one in terms of student performance we have wonderful outcomes like it's not just subjective like what I see when I'm at pickup or drop off is tremendous what I hear from kids coming home and and buddies in in the neighborhood is tremendous but the the actual database outcomes are tremendous as well and those things only happen in in extremely positive cultures it's not perfect there's always a lot of room to grow but I I do think we need to be cautious about being overly prescriptive about making changes where things are going very well under the leadership of our Administration and we don't want to we don't want to infringe on that freedom and the excellent work that I think they're doing uh making judgment calls as they need to on a daily basis I I agree 100% with you on that 100% And one of the things having sat in that seat when you're making that decision you know a lot about that kid before you make that decision decision and a lot of the stuff that you know nobody else knows you know what I mean but still I have to make the decision for that kid I don't care if that parents mad at me or not you don't know what I know and this is what's right for that kid and that what that's what becomes difficult when you have a cookbook you know when you turn to page seven it says if you do a you got to do B well you know what B fits these five kids but it doesn't fit this kid and it's the ability to fit it to the kid that makes what I what I consider good discipline that's what I consider good discipline any other new business no old business uh stem lab kill no you still doing that no no please please please I have no no no no no no no it's gonna happen G no it's not it it is it can't it it certainly can okay public session number two for the good of the order without any public that would bring us to adjournment motion motion motion I need a second second thank you all in favor say I any knows be the official time I do it the right way thank you these are shorter than last month