##VIDEO ID:JFDVLucOAj4## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e one small victory yep it actually sucks okay we're gonna call the November 21st public meeting to order I have a roll call please Mr slam Miss Ahern here miss Brock here Mr saglia Mr cantino here Mr Krauss here miss pallet here Dr Ross here Mr Sweeney here Mr Zimmerman here we have a quorum recommended that the board go into close session for the purposes of discussing legal personnel and student matters may have a motion please so moved moved by Mr cantino second second second by Miss pellet all in favor I I we are in close session e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e m I have him next to me I'm good okay um it is recommended that the board return to open session I have a motion please so moved move by Mr Krauss second second by Miss pellet all in favor I we are back in Open Session uh may have a roll call please Mr slam M Ahern here miss Brock here Mr smag here Mr cantino here Mr here miss pet here Dr Ross here Mr Sweeney here Mr Zimmerman here miss Cella right okay okay please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation indivisible thank you reading of the meeting notices please the New Jersey open Public's meeting meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest to discussed or acted upon in accordance with provisions of the ACT bernon Township Board of Education has caused notice of this speak to be published and act what notice has been provided and notice this meeting has been properly posted in accordance with the New Jersey open public meeting law uh just a quick couple notes next work session is is December 12th um and the next public meeting is December 19th thank you Mr the approval of the minutes uh from October 10th the closed work session and then the work session of October 10th the closed public meeting of October 17th the public session from October 17th the minutes of an additional meeting on October 28th and the minutes from the closed additional meeting on October 28th I have a motion for the approval of those minut so moved moved by Mr cantino second second second by Mr Krauss any questions or comments seeing none uh I guess a roll call please miss Brock yes abstain we're noted Mr smackle yes Mr cantino yes Mr Krauss yes Miss pellet yes substain noted Dr Ross yes Mr Sweeny yes Mr ziman St noted yes motion carries thank you m slam okay item H we are having a presentation from the famous auditing firm of nisaia LLP and Mr Ray sarinelli is there any further uh introduction that we should give Mr slam I think that was good I don't think we can uh add too much to that Mr selli the floor is yours you need this so I I am going to yes okay good evening everyone um I have for you tonight the uh presentation of the audit and what I was like to do is um go through this schedule C1 which is basically an income statement uh so and it uh of all the schedules in the audit it's the most accurate um representation of what happened during the year um so if you if you follow along uh monthly with the board secretary's report this this uh Financial schedule essentially uh follows the board secretary report is basically what happened on a budgetary basis which is what you control the revenues and the expenses that you set by the budget are then acted on uh through this schedule so it's it's really the most accurate representation of uh the year um in the form of of an income statement so uh like all income statements on the first page here we have um the revenues broken down into three sections so you have local revenues you have state revenues and you have uh Federal Federal revenues uh obviously in the local revenues the biggest portion there is is your taxes um but there's also tuition and then there's unrestricted revenues as well as interest um you know the unrestricted kind of goes along with the interest earned um so in this schedule you see the budget the budget as it has been amended throughout the year would be um you know including any transfers that were done and then the actual results compared to that and then any variance between the budget and and the actual um so what you'll see there anything on the far right side uh as a positive is very good uh it means that you know your the revenue you actually received during the year is more than budgeted um so one of the very big positives that you had this year is uh the rise in interest rates uh you see that there's three or $456,000 um of unbudgeted basically Revenue uh that came in so what happens when an un budgeted Revenue like that um is collected it basically helps boost your fund balance or or you know what would be retained earnings in a in a public company so um you know beneficial to the financial position uh anything that's collected over what's budgeted so you know the Highlight there is the interest earned and the the other highlight is extraordinary Aid uh extraordinary Aid came in uh much higher than budgeted which um as everybody knows you know the state aid has has been uh slashed dramatically over the last uh five or six years so to have uh some of that come back in the form of that uh extraordinary Aid was was another good thing then you'll see uh towards the bottom of that page there or yeah about three qus of the way down are the on behalf um uh receipts and so I call them receipts uh revenues that that's money that's not actually received here that's a contribution to the uh tpf pension plan on your behalf so you know $2 million $9 million all of those transactions that were unbudgeted there did not actually occur through your accounting software you didn't receive $9 million on the flip side of this when we look at expenses there's expenses paid of those exact same amounts and so basically all we're doing is showing that you received a benefit from the state and paid it out to the pension system and that's all the schedule you know that portion of the schedule is doing so you know at the bottom there you see 32 million do of state aid funding you know a big chunk of that about uh close to half of that didn't actually happen here the rest of it above that the one the 154,000 the 2,202 all of that you did receive and did help stabilize and fund your budget uh so and then then the last Revenue there at the bottom uh is the the 93,000 uh from the federal government any questions on the revenues uh before we kind of move quickly through the expenses I guess in summarization you had a good year Revenue rise everybody thought that so then over the next uh 12 Pages or show or so are your this one up here I can scroll through I got there okay yeah so um over the next 12 Pages or so you'll see the expenses and obviously there's there's many varying expenses that go into running a school District obviously um you know some of the biggest are just salaries uh the general education expenses but there's um you know 12 pages of expenses I'm not going to go through them in detail but I I think one of the good things is is that um you know there were uh the administration was very careful on spending compared to your budget because of the huge budget fluctuations that we've had over the last several years especially with the state aid costs and so this year the budget kind of stabilized a little bit on the expense side um you know through the cutting of costs so if you look at the the next 12 or so pages and could scroll down to page 13 of 13 um but essentially what what what happened was is there was some you know a number of savings that were done throughout the year that kind of also helped um stabilize the financial position and the fund balance um so we'll talk about that now so if you look at actually go up one page 12 of 13 so this is where everything comes down to um you know the revenues less the expenses equals your fund balance or what's left at the end of the day so um if you look you started the year with 10,531 445 and ended the year with 12,667 629 um it looks like there was $2.1 million of growth uh which would be a very good thing um that's not quite the case and we'll talk about that now so we could go on to page uh 13 there scroll down one yep so um you'll notice the uh biggest number on there is the 3,116 671 in the in the furthest right column that says 2024 um and that is your year-end encumbrances and so what what a year- end encumbrance is is very similar to an an account payable it's an expense that happened is related to this year 2024 but was not paid out in cash in 2024 um so the expense is there but it's not paid so it hasn't been charged out of the budget and what what essentially you have to do is hold back some of your fund balance because it was it wasn't an expense you're holding back some of your fund balance to be have those expenses paid in the 20 25 school year so when you see the the uh fund balance grow by 2.1 million at this point where we are right now that 2.1 million plus an additional million has already been paid out for expenses that were part of the 2024 year so when you're looking at that 12,667 if you take the expenses that have been paid out in the subsequent year this year that we're in now it's really more like um it's $3 million less so it's really more like 9 million 667 which would be about a million dollar reduction in fund balance um which would be more in line with the trend you see there of the total fund balance right the 2022 23 24 you went from 15 million down to 10 million 531 and now you're you're at about 9 A5 million once those incumbrances are taken out and the reason why the incumbrance is if you look year-over-year you have 2022 and 23 to compare there um the health benefits um it was negotiated for cash flow purposes that the final two payments for health benefits would be delayed into into uh this subsequent year so that's why there's a big fluctuation in that incumbrance number and kind of a little bit of a stabilization of your fund balance you have a little bit of a higher fund balance at the end of the year those expenses are then paid out in the subsequent year so that's kind of confusing and that your fund balance is up but it's really a lot of it is because you have expenses that haven't been paid yet Everybody follow that so with that said I would still say this was overall a Very Good Year financially there were some good revenues some savings on on the expense side of things and even the fund balance kind of uh coming down about a million dollars I still think um kind of a stabilizing year 2024 and I think moving forward um you know with the 2025 budget you have a a balanced budget which I really didn't think you would have for a long time after the last five years where we had this huge increase in fund balance because of uh the pandemic and then we had huge state aid losses we were relying on that fund balance to try and balance the budget and you're really relying on your own revenues I think or your own fund balance I think now um you're at a place where moving forward we're just going to be um you know dealing with the normal running of the school district the budget is balanced you're not losing $2 million a year you're not losing $5 million of fund balance utilized a year the the the Budget moving forward should be fairly balanced with what revenues you have available to you to run the programs of the school district so for all the negativity that brought to you during these presentations over the last three or four years I I would say I I am seeing a more positive trend moving forward um that's not to say something couldn't change I don't have a crystal ball I don't see everything but to me the the financial indicators of where the district is financially moving forward should be fairly balanced um so I I'll not going to leave you with that but that's kind of my opinion on where uh the fund balance and where the budget is I'll quickly go through the other you know statuto statutorily allowable um pieces of fund balance that you have um so your total fund balance is 12,667 uh we already went through what the encumbrances are um there's also three three reserves that are on there the capital reserve the maintenance reserve and the unemployment Reserve um the capital reserve is at 2 5 million uh down a million dollars from two years ago uh pretty stable from last year and I think um you know uh Rey has some more specifics on those on that number moving forward but a lot of that 2.5 million has been used up uh in this 2025 school year for projects that are ongoing so I think it was good to end the year with 2.5 million but you know that's going towards you know maintaining the the asset of the um School District so hopefully you know if you have another balanced budget year another good fund balance year some more money can be used in that uh can be moved into that Reserve at the end of 2025 because I do know uh a good portion of it has been used up already in 2025 there's also the maintenance Reserve is is 300,000 I think that's um a good place for that uh Reserve to be at this point in time uh so that Reserve can be used for your maintenance needs it can be utilized through the budget process process or can you have withdraw uh withdrawals from it uh by resolution and essentially it's that's what it's for it's for maintaining uh the the school district for certain maintenance needs that unexpected maintenance needs that come up throughout the year then the unemployment Reserve is for um contributions that the board has made and the employees have made to for future unemployment needs um if if they're Ever Needed um and then what uh I'll talk about the unassigned fund balance and then we'll talk about the excess Surplus and the designated for subsequent years expenditure so the unassigned fund balance is is 1. 1491 million that is 2% of your operations and essentially what's that that is there for is uh cash flow purposes it's the most amount you're allowed to have is 2% of your operation um and it's basically there just to support the cash flow of the district so that there's cash on hand money on hand in a lot of states the uh allowable unassigned fund balance is uh much higher but in New Jersey we have 2% um it's good that you're at your 2% because um you know you need that money there to to continue to support the the spending of the district and so um the last thing we'll talk about as far as fund balance is the excess Surplus and the designated for subsequent years expenditures and essentially what these are are are draw Downs of your own fund balance to balance the budget essentially using money out of your savings to help balance the budget um and so the designated for subsequent years expenditures is money that is uh designated when the budget is created um and that is used in the subsequent years in the in so money that was generated in 2024 used for the 2025 budget to help balance that budget the excess Surplus um operates on a two-year cycle where the excess Surplus gen in this case generated in 2023 is the um the fund balance being used in the 2025 budget so it operates on a two-year cycle because your budget is done in March but you don't know where your fund balance your excess Surplus is going to land until June so you can't use money from June and March so it's kind of operates on a two-year cycle so you'll see those two numbers are uh fairly close to one one another the 2.1 million uh was used in this current budget the 2.2 million will be used in the uh 2526 budget um over the years uh that you see there the 20122 and the 23 year you'll see some big fluctuations in those numbers um we're as I said we're getting back to a more stable budget picture and what you want to see is those two numbers stay very fairly stable with one another big fluctuations mean that in one year you used a lot and the next year you used a little so you're going to have to find more revenues unfortunately that usually means taxes so to try and keep stability in that number uh is important over the last five or six years or so those numbers have fluctuated greatly because the pandemic was crazy losing a lot of state aid was crazy so uh I think you know the board and the administrations over the years have tried to do the best to balance the budget with all those crazy things going on and I think moving forward my hope would be that those numbers kind of stabilize around that $2 million number so that's all your different fund balances where thing where things are uh financially for you as I said I I think you know to me the indicators are that there's a positive picture moving forward there's a balanced budget moving forward um and I'm hopeful for that for the future so any questions on on that good so I'm looking at our fund balance at the end of the year on page 13 and for 2024 you had said it says 12.6 million but because of health benefits I believe it was it's actually more like nine because we delay the last two payments right did we also do that in 2023 no no okay so that means so that's what yes go so I was thinking that means that our fund balance at the end of the year is lower again than it was in 2023 and then lower than it was in 2022 is that that's okay moving forward or is that something we should address so I that was kind of a strategic plan for it to come down like that and so what happened was during the pandemic School wasn't operating uh how it should right we all know that so there was large savings and expenses which caused the fund balance to rise dramatically M um the plan was to try and utilize some of that fund balance that built up over a number of years as the state aid was dropping um to try and get to a point where Taxation and other revenues could catch up to what programmatically was happening on the expense side so the draw down of your fund balance was kind of by Design okay I I thought it was going to continue to go down for a long time and uh like you said it is technically down year-over-year because those expenses are going to make it more like 9.6 million uh but I see kind of stabilizing there if they so if you went from 15 to 10 to 9.6 to 7 to five to three that would be bad but I think what's happening now is there's more of a stabilization um you know there could be some decreases in the future but I think it's more of a stabilized decrease than just dramatically dropping so next year we should be looking to see it remain around what it is this year I would be hopeful to see that I mean I still think uh there is a chance there could be a decrease just because um inflation is very high yeah um it's it's coming down but it's still higher than than it has been um so we'll see we'll see where like I said I don't have a crystal ball but I do see a more stabilizing effect and then one other I hope no one else has questions I had one other question um on the first page sorry um it says original budget 63 million actual budget 78 million that's purely because of these things like post-retirement contributions pension contributions all that say non-budgeted right and those are the things that don't they're non-budgeted I don't want to say they're not real but they don't happen here yeah a contribution is made by the state of New Jersey in the billions of dollars range and they make one lump payment into the the tpif pension system and then an actuary comes in and says okay Vernon Township got this much uh Sussex swanage got this much and that's your that's your share of that huge contribution that they made and then they make you show it in this schedule just to confuse everybody yeah but it's not it's something that's completely external right right thanks yep one question um or actually a couple so for the fund balances those all in interest bearing accounts that make up the almost half a million of interest that we earn so uh all of our all our funds are in interest paring accounts and then I guess kind of piggybacking off of Carl um how do we foree the preschool expansion a help what it help us with our fund balance this future year or like just trying to think through that because that's that's a big addition to this year right yeah so we received the payments uh monthly as part of state aid so what it will do is hopefully have a somewhat positive impact on our amount of Interest I do anticipate that you know the factor limiting that will be that I think interest rates are going to continue to gradually go down so we'll have maybe a little bit of a higher balance but um interest rates will going down and then kind of the kind of going back to what you were talking about with the health benefits so back when we under the state plan um my prede predecessor negotiated that um we would delay each payment two months right and the idea was to keep the money in the account right so that helped with interest so that's another factor that will offset because once you go to the private plan uh which had uh I think you know as we discussed before a lot a lot of cost avoidance for funds that would have been over what was budget and a little bit of savings um that's why that's why we went with the private plan you can no longer do that so you have to catch up and go month for month so you have a little bit more coming in with prechool and um you won't have the two months sitting there and help benefits so um I did just want to add related to our fund balance um the things that we really want to keep an eye on our excess Surplus because that's what we end each year with which allows us to fund um the next budget we create right so if that goes down too low then that's when we have a revenue cliff and you looking for additional revenues uh which are very difficult to find in a school district uh where you're making cuts to balance the budget and then um as Mr s mentioned uh we also want to keep an eye on Capital reserves just because the number of capital projects that we probably have to be we have to be pursuing here um so it's going to be kind of we want money to keep going in but money's going to keep going out too because when money's coming out that's good because means are doing projects but you need to make sure the money keeps going in so you can continue to do those projects um so on page uh four there's a total Sport and extracurricular activities line item that was a lot uh the original budget is much higher than what we actually spent so you do you know why that like how did we save that 803 I can't I wrote on top of it so it's 83 or 85,000 what page was it on uh page four and it's School sponsored co-curricular and extracurricular activities and we had the original budget was 304 and the actual was 246 and the variance is 83 oh thank you and change you know mainly it says salaries is that mainly salary so did we cut like activities and save stiens like or I mean did something go away because just to get to that savings I'd have to go back and look I think there were a few clubs that maybe didn't have the um participation levels at one point uh so that could be could be related to that um but really that it's a little bit difficult to speak to because I also didn't create the budget that this year went off of okay um so I know early last year I remember we talked you about I think there were certain levels of teams that weren't there so maybe we didn't have those coaches for those but that's a lot of yeah so yeah so I mean the the biggest thing is probably how my predecessor budgeted for that one um so depending on how that was budgeted for maybe they over budgeted there I'm not sure I'd have to go back and look okay um yeah just be I just like to know if we had to cut anything or we have fewer teams or anything it's just a good thing for us to know yeah but a couple fewer teams but obviously that didn't make not to make up that yeah we could just get an explanation that so what do we continue to do M Arelli H what do you continue to do can we just continue to get that more state aid that'd be nice for once you pray that the next uh fun round of funding formula is more beneficial than the last one um I I think um you know as I said I I think um you're you're into a more balanced budget picture so it it's it's going to be about running the dayto day with the revenue that you're capable of generating so um you know looking at what revenues you you have what you can create um you know with interest Taxation and staying within those means to to run the district um you know I don't see you know obviously with the the loss of state aid is very difficult because you are used to running the district with this much money and now you're told to run it with this much money moving forward you know what you have this is the revenue that you're going to have and I think you need to figure out a way to stay within th those means and try and keep that fund balance and financials even keeled so that there is no large fluctuations in programs be because you have to cut things because there's not enough Revenue coming in um so I think you know staying the course keeping an eye on excess Surplus keeping an eyee on what revenues you have to ensure that you continue to stay in a balanced budget along the lines with the balanced budget that we're moving forward to revenues and expenses equal each other we still would have a fund balance like that would not go to zero and just be true right expense to income I cannot think of a district that solely relies on just the revenues all all school districts as far as I know rely somewhat on their excess Surplus and they're assigned fund balance to help balance each budget each year and uh I always say that gives you the greatest flexibility because um you know if you have some large expense that suddenly comes up and you know about it you can you know you're projecting it you can use a little bit more of that assigned fund balance and get through the which is basically you know what got got you through the last couple of years with the state aid laws you relied on your own fund balance to try and you know get to back to a balanced budget that's what all districts do is use a utilize a little bit of fund balance try and balance their budget so that they they have small fluctuations each year but they try and stay even killed on it you I so I would say yes you'll always be using some portion of fund balance to try and balance your budget thank you Mr okay appreciate it I do have one last thing I have to go over with is there is the um there was one uh recommendation that we we put in the report this year um which is good last year there was four findings three recommendations they were all cleared up uh this year so if you could just go down one page so you see in the in the middle there um and find during our review of fixed asset records we noted that addition deletions in the fix asset report were not being properly recorded So essentially what you have here is um uh you know fixed asset accounting records and uh the last time that you had a full appraisal of all of your assets done uh for accounting purposes I want to say is is at least 15 years ago maybe 20 years ago so the further you get away from that that full appraisal um you know the greater chance there is that those fixed asset accounting records are not being as accurately kept so an appraisal is an expensive Endeavor and the district has not been on the good side of things in terms of revenues for a while so um now that I like I said you're back to a balanced uh balanced budget position it's probably time to Endeavor to get a fixed asset appraisal done so I I don't want you to think this is you know something that was I don't want to done wrong this year it's kind of been a long time coming and I've been holding off on having it as a recommendation but it's something that should be done in in the near future to try and make sure those those accounting records are brought up to date thank you so not the end of the world but something to consider uh moving forward with now done thank you thank you very much thank you I would like to say that it is mainly due to the diligence of Mr Russ Rogers and Mr Ray slam that we are back to somewhat an area where we can breathe and thank you very much both of you great job guys thank you thank um I had a president's report but I left it on the printer sweet it was brief anyway it was just to uh say congratulations to all of the Fall teams and the fall band and the play and uh congratulations to all the student athletes and all the students and also thanking them for their participation also to wish wished the uh winter athletes and with winter students well in their Endeavors this winter and um hopefully I can say this on behalf of the board and wish everybody a very uh joyous Thanksgiving and that's that was basically it the board reports item uh J Mr Zimmerman okay so Finance is basically the Order review that we just uh heard from Mr sarinelli thank you very much for the building and grounds part so we have the high school fire alarm replacement change order which I believe started out at about 138,000 and due to Mr slam's diligence we got it down to 98,000 that's good on other repairs that were not foreseen that need to get done we have about 28,000 in boiler repairs that allow gr Hollow and Rolling Hills oil tank repairs tanks filed Hydro static testing which is required every three years at wner Ridge Cedar Mountain all the schools except for the high school those repairs will be approximately 66,000 burnning Township High School water heater has issues that's about 4,000 and there is the potential in the future that we will need to replace the elevator at the burningtown in high school I believe it's the one when you first walk in the building on the left and we putting that out to The Architects to kind of determine how we move forward and costs Etc and then we still have I'm not going to read them all but it's 40 something projects that are in progress in different stages of that we completed we've completed up to about 20 of them that's some stuff on hold but basically we repair the whole District at the same time will we all get a copy of that yes I'll will put it in okay thank you I didn't email the minutes but I will forward to everybody but I believe Ray has been giving us this in general no uh yeah I can I can share that with the thank you uh curriculum miss pet um so we had a meeting I didn't put the date on here so that's not good but um in are Russ Rogers Vinnie gastro Nick blasto Hal sheett myself uh John Krauss and Carrie Ross um we talked about uh qac um just got a status report that progress is being made they anticipate being finished on time um it will be a challenging year for all districts so fingers crossed um the CT enrollment numbers we looked at um just to kind of get a sense of how many kids are participating in the CTE courses uh we have 164 in The Culinary across Ross four levels 56 and Engineering across three levels Allied Health has 71 students across three levels cosmetology has 82 in a four-level track um graphic design has 128 computer science has 34 marketing has 88 we're uh we're still looking for a teacher for construction technology so that class is not being done right now um so the two that are a little light engineering and computer science um we're trying to get those I guess the problem with those are that some of the higher level classes are not getting um as much enrollment so we're trying to get enrollment up on those um then uh we do also have some trouble finding qualified teachers for the um construction field um that's an ongoing issue um then we talked about family Tech night which is something that we're going to try to run for the district for parents to help get their children to use technology safely and responsibly um so I'll be sharing tools and Nick last will hopefully be sharing tools and strategies for monitoring and setting boundaries on devices um that's going to involve demonstrations of features like guided access on iPads apps like bark and Life 360 and general screen time management tips um and then we had an update on the instructional coach uh the what the instructional coaches have been doing since they came on board um so there have been some great things done there um they've been working on a rubric development for teach Teaching Standards um they've been uh actively modeling lessons in classrooms based on teacher requests um and we're ahead of schedule on our English curriculum updates and our math curriculum updates which they've been working on uh so that's pretty much everything um yeah um and they've done over 200 hours of curriculum analysis thank you Mr Sagle a policy good we had we had our meeting on U first Thursday uh month the November 11th um from 5:30 uh 6:30 it was uh myself Russ and John Krauss attended we do it U all our meetings are virtual um review the second reading items for final recommendations and uh we discuss uh recommendations for our new AI policy and also policy 55301 uh which I'll talk about in a few minutes and we made um also we made changes uh well I made changes and everybody uh seem to like it I guess and U we're we're using a Trello as a combine board um so you can move stuff around and keep track of all our our um policies that as they move along the track the software that you talking about right yeah it's a chart you know like a I don't know like yeah buckets and you move everything around cool okay thank you so I had the link on the the report that went to to everyone if you need access I can uh I should give I'll give viewing access to the board the committee has editing access um so then Bal to we're we're we had no um changes um we were all we were all good with the second reading which were 5200 regulation 5200 for attendance uh policy 5350 for student suicide prevention and regulation 5350 which is also the followup for Su Suicide Prevention so as they're outlined in in uh in the superintendent's notes that we we are in agreement with that um for first reading um this was not discussed in the board um it was brought up in the workshop last week um it was a minor change I spoke with Russ about it and we just talk I talked with the committee um uh actually today and uh we're all in agreement there's one minor change in into this and it's the addition of uh in grades K2 was added in the district employee section you talk about p511 yeah did I say the wrong number I'm sorry no you didn't mention eligibility resident non-residents yes nonresident yes yep p511 it was highlighted in the copy that we got correct okay yeah so that that's the only addition uh as a committee we feel like it it should be in there it helps uh protect the the the low number of spots we have for the for residents in that prek uh preschool uh program um there was also we did talk about it I put it on here this is not in our uh in our agenda for tonight is the regulation 55 30.1 random drug testing uh we will talk about this probably next meeting we just want X Russ if you can get us some more information so we can make a a determination we should we need to change it we also probably spent a lot of time on this one on another policy new policy for AI um again this is not on the agenda for tonight we um as a committee we decided that we weren um that we we're not going to submit it for first rating because we we don't think the district is ready uh and we want want the district to be ready to implement AI in the in the district before we put out a policy um it should be going pretty close to it so as a recommendation at this time we recommend that there's an ad hoc committee is formed to review AI use in the district and uh we will use the input from that committee later on to start our first policy for this so the the policy committee is recommending an ad hoc committee on AI well or is I could say I was recommending it maybe that not work called it a task force oh yeah task for task force yeah no not committee ad hoc task force just to piggy back the curriculum committee also has a I mean the the staff is going to do an AI um committee I can't call it an ad hoc I guess because it's just staff but the the administration is going to put together a committee of and they have a lot of people very interested in learning um who are staff members uh who want to participate in that and talk about how to approach is over both of those committees because it is the curriculum and we need to get a policy with it as well but we were looking at I was looking at uh possibly some grants as well and one of the first steps is having this AI task force or committee uh so Mr alasso has been working on that so I'll keep it I'll keep in conversation with both of the committees as to where we are in this process I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt go ahead no that's that's uh I just had some notes on uh what we're going to review next time I put this on here doesn't mean we're going to review it in the next meeting like sometimes we do push things off to following meeting but um and I also encourage all board members if they have anything they want to review us to review to uh email me and uh and Russ and both of us and we can we'll put it on the agenda um I do want to speak about the committee a little bit but we can save that I can wait to it's yeah okay if you want to I mean if we have yeah if you don't mind talking about now um I just think what um Russ I don't know I think we talked a little bit about it um I don't really know your final plans I know you just said something about Nick is putting has a task force he's putting together um I I I think it really should be an ad hoc committee where we have involvement from multiple all the stakeholders um AI is such a rapidly changing environment right now um I just this night this week is Microsoft and night week this is where they Pro they show everything they're going to be doing right so almost everything they had on there was AI it is involved in everything we they had lawyers this they had count they had AI Bots that talked to help give counsel to lawyers in their firms so we have they had um scientists that were making proteins using AI which used to take five years to make a protein and it's now taking a year we have graphic design we have GitHub co-pilot which is does uh I feel like I'm doing an advertisement here but I'm so it helps programming so the the you know and just to show you how AI has affected us as Society um it in uh when cell phones came out to get 100 million users it took 16 years when internet came out we did a little better it took seven years to get 100 million users and then Facebook 4.5 you know chat gbt chat GPT um took three months almost you're good three months so and that was this year and so in three months a hundred million people started using Mayon plus it forget about C forget about all the directional stuff that we you know use for directions and everything it encompasses everything and I and I think it has to be a holistic approach where we bring information from all over the stakeholders and I don't think it's um we should focus just on teachers or focus on students because I also I Ian talk to Russ about this is the administration should be using these tools we should be using tools to help our teachers our staff and administration as well to bring in um it's AI is cheaper than buying hire a new person just to to just do paperwork right we've we've Le learned to use these tools in the time to save us some uh time and and uh production as well good um also I wanted to invite uh our uh technology supervisor in not only the curriculum meetings but in the policy meetings sometimes too because I think there is more than just one role but having him there and understanding what people are asking for I think we can come together as as a as a board uh and and and do some of the things we want both in the curriculum committee and the policy okay committee so I would just say I guess Joe I'm and he's the expert yeah is I I think we we should look at as a board and and decide I mean I would really like to see it at hog committee where we do take all the stakeholders because it's going to affect the teachers it's going to affect the staff the administration the parents the children um board members this is and I think we need to move fast on it I I don't it's a rapidly changing field out there and it needs to be addressed we our programmers our kids are programming our kids have doing graphic design our scientists the kids are doing science it's going to affect everything so it's almost too big for a committee like you know because it's almost like you need to just bring AI into every other every committee instead of just having because the committee just be overwhelmed with the all the different Avenues you could go in with it right like I I think you can get direction of wherever you start you know obviously there's going to be tools that we need internally we need tools that we can allow students to use and we need uh and we have to give some guidance and Direction um but yeah maybe you're right and maybe an over there an ad hoc ad hoc committee anybody else have anything I mean I was thinking ad hoc is not enough I mean we we probably should have a standing committee now because and this year maybe we do some add things that are related to AI but next year that might be totally different yeah yeah so let's talk about that at the work session definitely something we need to think about Carl um going along with AI I think when we have chronic absenteeism and cell phone use as standing standing committees adog not GNA happen forever I don't think I think AI is in a very similar category because not only is it something that's changing the way we operate as a district but also it's both I to say it's a problem in the classroom definitely I mean kids are using it to write papers like you wouldn't believe I and in my district where I work I still don't understand how they get it to pop up on the Chromebook but at least once a week I catch a kid he's got the worksheet here and he's typing the question into Ai and then copying down the AI and they can say write it at a third or fourth grade level and it will make it look like it can be a really big problem with plagiarism and I'm sure our administr already completely aware of it but to me in the classroom and with students this is an issue akin to Chronic absenteeism cell phone use there are issues that we're seeing in 2020s education that are raging rumaging school districts um so I really like that you're bringing that into the policy committee and I think it's something we should put more energy into yeah and as you as you see it as a useful tool too it's really necessary to have a little paradigm shift as to um what parts of it can be used productively and what parts of it are used in in in in a way that isn't productive because like I said we're using it ourselves to help cut down productivity yeah and it is helping us so and I told when I when I brought this Pol listen when I bring a policy to Charles I I go Charles we have to move slow on this one I go there's a lot that we need to talk about and learn about I don't want to I don't want to put a policy together without learning learning about AI because I there's a lot for me to learn as well and that's why I want to make are experts are are with us in some of these other committees to see how it can be used in other ways and we are fortunate because Charles is an expert he talks a foreign language to us any sorry it's very easy to confuse you all I was just going to say that it could be a district goal for next year too um potentially and inform professional development efforts and everything that follows from having it as a district goal Melissa uh going to say well I agree with what people are saying about it being a multifaceted issue and we don't want to jump into things prematurely I also agree with Charles that we need to also get moving on it because of what Carl was saying I think that there have been I saw one article I wish I could remember the sores but there was somebody I think um at a high school level who was disciplined for using the AI um accused of plagiarism but because there was no policy on the books in Michigan we have a lot of discussion about plagiar as it comes up relating to this so when it when it happens we get a lot of the players involved so we don't have the policy yet but we're having a lot of deep discussions about it already um so but like I said I'm not about rushing about learning about AI but getting the policy set the way that we want some parameters you guys want a student if you have time maybe we'll we'll we'll tap your resource thank you oh that's great anybody are you done I can go on for another 10 minutes but actually what I wanted to say was like what Carl was saying and a couple of other people mentioned about the the plagiarism and stuff but I actually I look at it that maybe teaching is g to evolved we're not going to be teaching the same things we're not teaching is going to change tremendously in the next few years and I think uh we need to be right on the Forefront just for our students yeah I agree and all the work us it's got to be thank you Maga special services Mrs aern sure we met on November 13th um this meeting was a little bit brief just because we had an October meeting as well um we talked about cpag which is the special education parent advisory group um we're excited to say that we have pent parents volunteering to take leadership over this forum with teachers Administration and board member participation um the first meeting is scheduled for December 5th in lsbury Hollow library from 6:00 to 8:00 pm um we also discuss instructional coaches um we discussed the fact that even though the current coaches are not specifically for special services they're still assisting and passing on their guidance to special services and we just are excited to say that there's a change to the team um with Susan McDow um McDougall stepping into the role of principal at wner Ridge given the preschool expansion Susan Suzanne will be rolling off her role with special services and Brian James will be stepping up to the plate to fill this role we just want to welcome him to the committee and his new role thank you very much um absenteeism ad Miss Miss pellet um I just want to say that great about cpeg it's been a little while it's good but it's getting back up and running um so uh The Chronic absenteeism ad hoc committee met November 19th um we had a lot of people in attendance John Krauss Jackie van Orton Jennifer pelety Kristen gof Sophia keni uh Nick demac Pauline Anderson Susan McDougle Alyssa myON Russ Rogers and Jess Rami um we talked about the data report for each school and how they're doing with absente last year versus this year there were some mixed numbers but um there were some encouraging numbers as well we felt that there was sort of a trend that we're hoping will continue with fewer absences at specific schools and some of the others were kind of neutral um but it did look like some of the measures that are being um enacted are are actually uh making a difference so that's really encouraging um we talked we had uh everyone went around the room and talked about the challenges um basically the reasons for I'm not going to list all the reasons for absenteeism but um some of them are things that we can't address easily for um just one example of that is transportation issues if a kid misses the bus and has no way of getting to school the district doesn't really have a way of addressing that so those were those are the kinds of challenges we talked about um then we talked about success strategies um uh some of the things that are seeming to be working are more communication and support for parents whose children are refusing to go to school for reasons like anxiety depression or social issues even academic struggles counselors are meeting with students they're um forming groups of students who can kind of help each other and talk about goal setting for uh for um absenteeism um administrators are providing positive reinforcement for improved attendance and that seems to be working um so there's like a lot of encouraging stuff I think our the staff has worked really hard on this issue and um and we're feeling a little bit uh encouraged by it John and I shared some takeaways from some um sessions we attended at the New Jersey School Board Association there were a lot of sessions on chronic absenteeism because it's such a big issue right now um so one possibility that uh John session I think it was came up with was talking to local doctors and health care providers about um only scheduling appointments for after school so that students aren't having to leave school to go to those appointments um identifying students with high absentee rates who have no AC no non academic connection to the school like they're not involved in a club or activity or elective that they're passionate about and kind of trying to learn them into something that will make them more interested in being at school um many of the things that the New Jersey School Board Association recommended we were actually already doing so that was very encouraging as well um and we did get feedback from our parent committee members who said that the communications initiatives at the school seem to be making some Headway um students are actually talking to their parents about needing to be in school and parents are talking about absences and seem to have a better understanding of what constitutes an excused absence which is frankly not very much there's like hardly anything that allows you to be out of school so there's like a better understanding of that and we're hopeful that that means people will understand that they need to make more of an effort to bring to get their kids into the schools so thank you thanks for the committee that's wonderful yeah well it's really the staff but I think it's to the we're talking about kids for a change right yeah um thank you very much uh public comment all right we're goingon to open the meeting to the public uh agenda items only please identify yourself and what municipality you're from and you have five minutes the meeting is open to the public okay uh no pressure anybody online we have Martin peringer Mr peringer he can you hear me yes we can okay this is part one the other one is not on the agenda uh it is regarding a check on the check register written to Vex robotics for $245 purchase order number 45- 0576 and and I assume that this is in relation I have been complaining before that we did we were doing VX robotics but we don't have a Vex team we now seem to have three teams I believe they are supposedly located in Glenwood New Jersey which is a part of Vernon we have a team 74 620g a team 74 620f and a team 74620 V all of them are properly registered and paid up it seems because they are listed as active V the T team name is Vikings F the team name is Fox Thro and G the team name is GM I assume that can either stand for General Motors or for Glenn me so my question is are we going to have three teams is this erroneous and are we going to compete and when and and I know you're going to probably answer them on one of the next meetings so in POS I'm posit I'm happy that we have some teams and my question for this is just regarding the teams I would like to find out a little bit more and maybe as a side note that ask to be informed when we actually have some teams and that maybe speaks to email replies and I haven't gotten any notice I found this out on my own just by reading through the um through the board of uh through the agenda and then employing Google thank you thank you we will get back to you on those I hope so we have Jesse paladini Mrs padini good evening um first just a comment based on an observation um I heard three board members say earlier abstain where noted but none of them said what they were abstaining on and I think the public should know what they are abstaining on so I would um suggest that in the future they specify what exactly it is that they are abstaining on because of transparency the public should really know that the second thing I want to comment on is that I would implore you to take Carl Cano's comment seriously regarding AI now there have been people in our town who have made ridiculous comments such as aliens coming down and impersonating citizens and and therefore we should no longer allow Zoom comments and so on but I write textbooks for a living and I use AI every single day and while you were all talking I tested it again anytime I use Ai and I ask which is what I just put in tonight what is the source for this information I just asked a question um um does Earth orbit around the Sun or something like that and it gave me a whole bunch of information and then I said what is the source of this information now I knew it was not going to get Source what it said was the information I provided is based on wildly accepted scientific consensus and is supported by centuries of observations and calculations such as science textbooks NASA and space agencies peer reviewed scientific journals while I really don't think that there's any problem with people impersonating citizens when they call on Zoom I think this will be a huge problem with students um using Ai and just plagiarizing or even having AI right an entire asay for them and as Carl said you can even ask for AI to write it on a third grade level or a fifth grade level so this is a new thing it's new to everybody I understand that but do take this very seriously because this will be a huge problem it's not the same as what we used to have which was turnit in.com where you could just enter an entire paper and it would come right up if it was plagiarized that's not the case with AI so you really need to review this and you really need to get some policies in place and that's all I have to say thank you thank youbody else no that's all okay since nobody else wants to say anything we'll close the meeting to the public and move on to student representative report m m ganella time okay hi everybody um okay so I have an update on painting parking spots so I wanted to say thank you because it did get approved which is really really nice um but the weather got too cold so with along with all of the senior class members and then also in conjunction with Mrs Young we decided that it would probably be best to paint them in the spring um we're gonna have a fun day make we're I talked to Mrs Young about making a day about it so we're gonna um try and do something that's more memorable for the seniors with the nice weather towards the end of the school year we talked about maybe leaving a piece of advice or a quote that we want the um current Juniors which will be the incoming seniors of next school year so that they kind of have an idea of like what they're getting into um just some everything's good about that but we all wanted to say thank you that's a great thing um we're all very grateful um I don't really have anything else to talk about I have some good news and some updates um fall sports are ending they did end and the winter sports season begins on Monday after school first one practice 5:00 pm I'll be there and with the holiday is coming up there's lots of opportunities to give back to our community um Key Club is putting together and donating Thanksgiving baskets and for Christmas we're running a community toour tour drive to benefit members of our community um Mrs Young told me when we were having our meeting that we helped 740 families last year so if you would like to help you can um donate Thanksgiving basket items and unwrapped toys in the High School main office so that would be very nice and then we're also playing on having some holiday themed uh activities at the high school like a door decorating contest and then our holiday themed spirit week before leading up to the pep rally around Christmas time and that's really all I got but it's been a great school year so far we're all very grateful and everybody's looking forward to a good rest of the year so that's all I got great thank youa always he's tough always he's tough going after the student representative and after the board president gives a report as well U number one information medals and reports we're pleased to announce the r Hill students artists of the month are for November artworks at the board office and also the high school students will have their artwork displayed at the municipal building in November uh congratulations to Board of Education President Joseph Sweeney for earning the prestigious Master Board of Education member certification reflecting its dedication we gotta move on we got Mo profal development governments and advocacy for students the preschool Lottery occurred on November 14th with the expanded program starting December 16th it's coming quick approximately 85 families were placed or 85 students were placed at Walmart Ridge 15 at Discovery years and we down to 24 on the wait list families will confirm by November 22nd and any openings will be offered to the waight list uh Cedar Mountain welcomes grandparents and special guests tomorrow November 22nd to visit classrooms and attend the book fair roolling Hills is also hosting a book fair this week lsbury Hollow honored veterans with a celebration on November 12th uh that's one of my favorite uh family events to attend I was unfortunate I wasn't able to attend it this year it's a what a wonderful event to celebrate our our uh our families the traps Marketplace at Glen meow was uh yesterday November 20th showcased students launching their businesses after learning entrepreneurial skills and in its Hands-On program it was a full gym I sold many board members and uh uh families at this event as well and it it's just to show you when when you're opening a business it's not a oneperson event and uh I appreciate all the time energy and effort put in by the students and their families it was really nice really and I have some Christmas presents for my wife just don't tell her uh in athletics uh the ver Vernon Township High School girls cross country and volleyball won divisional titles girl soccer field hockey and volleyball advance to the second round in the state playoffs the winter SE season begins on November 25th be in the good luck on the first swim practice thank you the Viking marching band took first place in the group IIA competition on November 2nd the Vernon Township High School hosted the susus county Junior honors band and chorus concert on November 13th that's nice to bring everyone from around the county to Vernon to celebrate uh middle school middle school music congratulations to the 20 Glen Meadow students that accepted in the 2024 susex County junior honors B um thank you for celebrating these achievements with us and we look forward to the uh next season and uh celebrating other accomplishments of our students number two recommendations it is recommended the board approve the following faculty staff appointments as listed below in the charts and it's quite an extensive list and there okay I mentioned theendum as well and you'll notice that if it is uh preschool related you will see Pea on that as well we want to make sure that they're uh noted properly in in our agenda so that they know that they're associated with that program and that means they're paid by that program yep that's corre I thought he might have used some bigger words in that first but short and sweet um it is recommended the board of prob following six period appointments as listed below C it is recommended the board approve one summer work day and D it is recommended that the board resend to Summer work dayss letter e it is recommended that the board approve the following positions for the 24 25 cclc program all to be paid with the 21st century Community Learning Grant funds letter F it is recommended a board approve the following professional development Trav that complies with the provisions of njsa 18a 11-12 for the Vernon disip uh employees in this in this first table it's the title two Grant funded and in the second one are other conferences and trainings that are would like to be approved as well letter G it is recommended that a board approve the harassment intimidation and bullying school safety and random drug testing reports letter H it is recommend that the board approves the f policy for a first reading that Charles talked about P 5111 letter I it is recommend that the board approve the following policies and regulations for a second reading and final approval R 52000 and policy regulation 5350 letter J it is recommended that a board approve the administrative agreement between SEC and the Vernon Township School District for the fall 2024 spring 2025 Academic Year for the concurrent enrollment program courses are subject to based upon new offerings or curricular revisions attachment a letter K it is recommended that the board approve permitting the following student to attend Vern tach School according to Board of Education policy 5111 child of Employee of the district be permitted to attend vernant tachp high school as a nth grader for the 2025 26 school year L it is recommended the board approve the following job descriptions technology integration Specialists cclc program director cclc site coordinator letter M it is recommended that the board approve the revised organizational chart for 2024-25 school year which is attachment fee letter N it is recommended that a board approve the submission for the 2025 26 school year preschool projected enrollment I have that inform of a motion please so move by Mr Krauss second second second by Mr cantino comments questions and opinions Mr cantino so so I have a question about item c um it is recommended the board approv one summer work day and then right after it it says it is recommended the board resend two summer work days um is this the same someone else someone else the someone else did the summer work okay it just it's we wanted to tie it to the appropriate person who did the summer work okay and then one other question it says um what where is this this is an item at says Chromebook Academy online and then we have six different days of training a lot of them have already happened I don't know if that's I'm pretty sure that's normal um but what does the Chromebook Academy do I'm a little curious about that and also um just elaborate a bit on that for I would I would probably leave that to uh someone else to elaborate and I'll make sure I get that answer to you by tomorrow if we have school you know I don't want to get anyone excited out there but I got to make I got to make a lot of decisions tonight um so I I'll get that information to you as soon as possible Carl thank you okay Dr Ross I noticed there's a number of uh part-time Aid appointments or um um hour adjustments some of with the p some with the preschool and some not is that just is there something happening with that or is that just normal well what happens is some of the AIDS are becom uh paa some of the current AIDS have are becoming paa AIDS and then when that happens there's an opening for it for prade that's a non paa so we just want to associate them with the correct like got it correct funding and and a lot of it depends on what students are with based on the time and and the and the and the cost thank you Mr CRA yes um I letter J please uh the the CSUS County Community College articulation agreement did the teachers get compensated above their regular salaries when they teach concurrent courses with the college I don't believe so because they're teaching a class for the for our school right that's what right okay I that's what I just there are there are class they will teach classes that aren't concurrent we do have teachers that teach classes for SEC outside of our our regular school day yeah that would be something else I'm just say when it's concurrent I just wonder if they got more money for that I do not believe so I will sure I I verify that tomorrow okay and I I looked at the job description the letter i for no it's l I'm sorry L for a technology integration Specialists and nowhere in there are the letters AI I just wondered if that should be in the job description somewhere I would leave that up to our expert as well um I wouldn't I wouldn't do that right now because there might be a reason why not yeah know that's what I understand that's why I wouldn't want to approve that one unless there we looked it over and May maybe added AI stuff well I I would recommend that we approve it now and if we want to adjust it we can we can okay I I believe there's a reason why we're having an approved because I think we have someone in that spot right now yeah we want to make sure we associate them with the position okay and one more question I noticed that we're going to be approving Mr down is the new AP right so I see that he has to then resign as the head football coach and as a fiz teacher are we replacing those yes all that uh it's been a whirlwind I think that was the change from getting a Walnut Ridge princip uh the change of getting a Walnut Ridge principal you'll see here a supervisor of special education and then a new AP at at the high school so the next the next move is those most they were all internal candidates this next cand this next job we're we're posting right now for all those positions okay thank you can let go follow to um question yes for the dual enrollment classes um do they need a like aert from SEC for that do they need some kind of no they just need to have a master's degree Master okay I think they and what we do is we'll work with them to get them approved as a they teach the concurrent class as well yeah they need some kind of approval from the school okay I think it's the curriculum that needs to be approved well I remember we lost a teacher once and the kids in that class all lost their dual enrollment credits because the teacher was the new teacher wasn't correct approved right so they have to have that I have a couple questions yes uh Expo some are in uh the Grant and some are I asked that same question response what some are affiliated with their Association so the registration is paid for them because they have a affiliation that they're already a member of so and if if they're not a member they had to pay the full registration so there's a discount for those that are that are part of a all right so that explains the difference in the in dollar figure but what why are some Grant funded and some not Grant funded um Vin yeah they you explain that to me earlier today I did ask that question so title two funding has to impact instruction with in the classroom so any of the administrators or uh people who are going that actually end up in the classroom and impact learning can be covered through title two and the others are the tech tech people not in the classroom doesn't impact learning so it can't be covered by the grant thank you that that was much better than I would have done okay item P we typically have a student number oh the child is not enrolled yet we haven't been having those numbers because they're not they're not we don't have a number for they're not enrolled in Vernon yet okay okay okay that answer is that anybody else have anything Charles um on the uh on the the recommendations for the faculty um um gu is the first he are any of those appointments are they are they new positions or are we besides the preschool I understand preschool is definitely going to have all new stuff but anyone any of the other positions that are on here are they new newly created or are they being just being built I have to be careful here because sometimes with with AIDS uh as an IEP changes there may be a need um but besides Aid you could yeah let me double check again but I I no their positions that were here okay lbur house social worker is that a new position or is that a back that's that's because there was a position there was a paa position created in in in preschool that's filled by somebody that we already had gotcha so that's not a new position just being filled again right yes so that was that was a social worker transferred the PA which created an opening that was filled by someone else I understand yeah I mean like brand new positions like not like uh there's Nuance it's it's Sometimes It's Tricky I you know Bas I I I do I do not believe so um I'll check them over again I I looked it over um like I said the only ones that get tricky there are a lot of AIDS in here so I wouldn't I wouldn't know that and then um you want you want a minute or um yeah just give me a minute just just to double double check I believe I did it before but it's been a day or two since I looked this over like I said it gets tricky some of them are you know or leaves um resignations we them too don't I'm not even there yet Charles I'm moving as quick as I can though start dates okay get there yay no that's because of a retirement okay no good I'm ready for the next question all right I'll try to remember earlier C you off guard like that um actually I I I just wanna I think John bring up a good point not not so much um if we're voting on something and for the for letter I right U or l l um if we're voting on a job description and and obviously we don't we're not hiring somebody for that job description this this time but when they come back up for board approval I'm assuming right I don't unless even a transfer would be a board approval right so would the job description if you talk to your Source um says that yeah AI should belong in here would that job new the job description come with that recommendation I I would have that on board meeting to update the job description for you because you because I'm just thinking like how would you hire somebody with one description do we already do we already have this person Vin do you know yeah it's an update it's an update on their position yeah okay so it's an improvement on what we have and maybe it's getting closer to what you might want as a board but I would recommend at least getting closer to that so that we could look at it again okay but it would be okay to amend that later after we already doing the job that's we all right I just we've been doing we've been doing a lot of job description updates and and if you know that beforehand like if if I knew earlier today I would had a conversation and I would I would have been able to answer that at the meeting today you're good that's it thank you anybody else roll call please Mr slam Mr smacka yes Mr cantino yes Mr Krauss yes Miss pellet yes Dr Ross yes Mr Sweeny yes Mr Zimmerman yes Miss Ahern yes Miss Brock yes motion carries a in uh so first we have uh number one uh discussion items letter A use of buildings and grounds as noted below letter B field trips is noted below and then letter c uh draft meeting dates uh for starting January 2025 including the reorg reorganization meeting uh for January 2026 that's attachment C and just a reminder these are on uh as a draft uh they will be approved at that at the reor uh excuse me number two uh recommendations letter a is recommended the board approve the following Financial reports as no below letter B uh uh approval of board secretary and treasures reports as noted below that's attachment F5 and F6 before I move on the attachments for the prior letter A was attachment F2 F3 and F4 letter C uh Transportation quotes as noted below that's quoted routes holded trips we also have the cancellation of parental contract uh and also the recommended approval of a uh joint sh with susage Quant and another parental contract we also have the Vern Township Board of Education report of completion of the school bus emergency evacuation drill to the board of education and then letter D we have sent received so we have I'll just say as not blow letter e we have as recommended that the board approve the disposition of the following items as they're either obsolete or in disrepair as noted in the chart below letter F is recommended the board approve Phoenix advisor a service Municipal advisor uh services in connection with Energy savings obligation refund school bond series 2025 of the ver Township School District bur Town School District compensate Phoenix advis for services provided in accordance with the existing agreement of $9,500 plus 50 cents per 1,000 issued as a minimum fee of $13,500 letter G is recommended that the board approve the agreement for Legal Services between poro bronberg and Newman PC and the bur Township Board of Education attachment F seven letter H is recommended the board appr the Vern Township High School as one of the recipients of Team Mile's 5K Friday sweep St winner in the amount of $6,000 letter I CM that the board approved the 2023 2024 car funds for Ida preschool in amount of $300 letter J there's recommended the board approve the Vern Township High School fire alarm change order sorry change orders number 16150 and 16151 proposals with alarm and communication Technologies Inc and the amount of $99,450 that's attachment f8 letter K is Rec to the board approve the proposal number 44509 with Whitman environmental Consulting and engineering firm for the energy Savings Program in the amount of $5,900 for all six burning schools that's attachment F9 letter L is recommended the board approve student number 21392 to attend Brookfield school CFG residentials LLC for homebound education instruction at the rate of $50 per hour Jo at 2425 square and I should have brought a glass of water with me today uh may I have a motion please for those recommendations so mov M cantino second second Melissa Brock second comments questions and opinions recommendations to oh Sor right recommendations of 2A I miss that I'm abstaining from something but I'm curious to see why I'm abstaining the check on there well I didn't get that check they getting reimbursed or something I didn't put anything into me scrolling back up I think it's Newton hospital I looked it up earlier it is Newton Medical Center Foundation okay yep that's correct all right that's what I figured but I want to double check before I answer okay it's a cono I just saw it's recommended the board approve um Vernon Township High School is one of the recipients of the Teen Mobile's 5K Friday sweep stakes and that sounds very interesting can you elaborate on I will have uh I believe Mrs Young at the high school I'll have her elaborate on that and uh send out a little blurb to the entire board tomorrow specifically because I'll be honest with you uh she had mentioned it to me a while ago and I and I know it built upon what she originally said and I don't want to misspeak right here at the meeting I'm also very curious it is 5,000 Fridays but the amount is 6,000 well I think it may have been built upon which oh okay thank you well I I don't know if it's all true but I can give like a a summary is that good sure sure okay um come my microphone a little bit um I believe that we wanted to use it for weight room improvements um oh nice I know that that's something that we talked about um it's definitely on our Instagram of that we were going to use it for the weit room um there were other schools um that were participating in the sweep Stakes too I know um keni was participating in that too um and they won some money so it's like a oh I think they got more than we did I don't know for for sure but I know that what we were going to use it for is the wait room it's a contest that you entered or something yeah so basically what they wanted us to do uh as students was to like post on social media and use a certain hashtag and then based on like the volume of the hashtag in what school you could get awarded a certain amount of money that's from what I understood it might not be 100% but yes maybe we'll have Mrs Young pick yeah I'll give you a nice picture of definitely definitely Mrs Young would be able to give more but I know that's like um a very surface level uh explanation was great did you have anything else no that it right Hadad something else I one um letter I recommended the Brookfield schools CFG residentials but I don't have my list of approved schools on the binder is that approved school I have it what's what if that that's home instruction that would be different rightfield school yeah know here it is element use it okay I believe but it is on the list of approv schools I guess I lost that minder um D do you have something no I was just I was just checking his school for okay I just quick under field trips I see that the softball team is going on March 20th and March 25th the Newark Airport doesn't say where they're going and also the choir to Newark Airport I mean it's all student expense but where are they going they're they're going again I'll have my the softball coach and the music about the uh the trips that taking I I'll give you I'll give you all the details uh about uh their experience because just like one word said one word uh as to uh I believe they're going like on a on a on a spring training type tournament for for the softball and for the music that they're they're going to participate somewhere that's not local the music one I understand they go to Disney World or something every couple of years or something but I didn't understand where the softball team was going they have been going places in the past few years the softball team yes well well it's been rough in the in in uh a couple of in the last four years to to get out and go certain places but I'll have both the uh softball coach and the uh and the other person with the trip reach out to you in details as well miss Brock hi feel like I have my hand up all day the squeaky wheel gets the grease that's these people over here um so item C starting at the bottom of page 19 and then carrying over to 20 just the Al con uh Transportation contract um and the Joiner student just to confirm for my own understanding that is money that we are not going to pay to the parent to transport and then we are receiving money from the Joiner student so that's so um so there two separate thing three separate things happening here uh one contract was cancelled um because I believe there's a change that would have led to hitting the threshold so a new contract was issued that's usually done in only certain circumstances where it's difficult to find transportation for student based off their individual needs um and in those circumstances if we can't find um travel through you know going out the contract for a van or a bus uh we may reach out to the parent uh to see if they would be willing to transport their student um and then the jointure is separate um that is related to us uh saving a little bit of money that route already existed so we're actually going to save a little bit of money there by having another school joint that route with us and we'll split the cost thank you for clarifying because I absolutely misunderstood that thank you just had a question also like from what John was saying about the field trips so I think is group meaning what the what they're supposed to be willing for because now if you look at the ones that the board is paying for it says us ban competition but that's is that the group it's the next one's rehearsal so I mean I don't I guess maybe in the future maybe we get a little more uh or maybe the the student the uh curriculum committee if there were like education related I don't know if I want they I know they have a pretty big schedule on their committee meetings but maybe they can do a run through of what when these when these come out just ask ask me the question like any of these questions you ask ahead of time I have a little bit of time and I can I I'll give you the the details uh ahead of time um but uh because they should be requ you know like ass with some kind of well actually ban I know it's for ban purposes but well it gets tricky so sometimes it's compet uh competitions but then also you know if they're going to Disney but they're doing a competition as well um that might be a little bit different that might be self-funded so I can I could speak in details about how we talk about uh funding certain buses and and other buses they have to be student funded I had that I have some pretty uh deep uh conversations with Mrs Young this week about that as well okay and when say student F and they the 100% of the buses paid for by this yes okay and nework is up and coming that's come going there sure they're gonna go play Jefferson in softball if they're going to Florida there there's a difference in who's funding that guys are going anybody else John I have one more quick question with the finances I I don't have it in front of me but one of the funds started out negative $74,000 then we got money coming in at 10 and something and we spent more and we ended up negative $2,000 that's the only one that was was in red on there I don't have it in front of me but can you explain that are you looking at the board secretary's report yes I'm gonna scroll to it just to be short but I'm pretty sure you're probably talking about fun 20 let me just get up there just to I actually had it up this week but when I searched the check lost my spot okay soll through fun 10 uh so we did a black and white print for this one so it's not in color because black and white is cheaper and I'm the business Min in when I went online today to see it yeah that's where you can't find red yeah so it's it's probably I'm assuming so it's fun2 I think you said it was negative $22,000 at the end yeah it started out7 4 we got money in we spent more money than we got in we winds up negative 20,000 so cashion back is negative 22,000 so basically the way the fund 20 works is it's reimbursable so you spend the money through your accounting right and then you ask for reimbursement from the federal government so the $22,000 is what is due to us right now from the federal government and from month to month you'll see that fluctuate we do request reimbursements monthly okay thank you I just wonder what but I have one question about the checks uh they were three or four payments to St the school Alliance Insurance Fund there significant amounts for uh workus comp property and liability were they the full they for the full year about 750,000 uh probably installment one of two okay so it's twice that okay you're holding out on me thank you all right anybody else any questions comments a roll call vote please when you get it drink water the water can wait all right Mr Cantina yes Mr cruss yes Miss pallet yes Dr Ross yes Mr Sweeny yes Mr Zimmerman yes abstain uncheck 93855 on attachment after one Miss Ahern yes Miss Brock yes Mr smacka yes motion carries thank you right moving on to item oh public comment on anything was I clear on all that then them items I just want to make sure because one of them is very important to me I know you talked about it but I just wanted to make sure uh two 20 it was recommended the board approve step down as a Township High School assistant principal uh for the 20242 school year effective 126 SE at a satary 110500 pro rated um I think maybe we should add that as a separate item and we'll make a motion now and did we include p with that and P I'm going to go P it is recommended the board approve the following positions for 2024 25 cclc program all to be paid with 21st century Community Learning Center Grant funds all right so may I have a motion for item o and P please so move move by Mr Krauss second second by Mr cantino comments questions or opinion uh since we have none and I apologize I didn't point it out either we have another roll call vote please one second I'll copy the uh chart down o n p and thank you for pointing that out I believe we had discussion on it but I didn't make specific reference to it Mr Krauss yes Miss Pet yes Dr Ross yes Mr Sweeny yes Mr Z yes Miss Ahern yes Miss Brock yes Mr smag yes Mr cantino yes motion carries thank you and now we can move on to item o public comment please identify yourself and the municipality in which you reside and you will have five minutes anybody in the audience would like to come up and say so you're welcome to at the audience J beell from Glenwood first of all I'd like to thank um Mr SL for answering my email today I had a couple this is more of a I don't really know what I'm asking here my son came home the other day and told me and I found out from other kidss just in the conversation that there's been a problem at the high school with the bathrooms and a lot of them have been closed is it as a result of a problem that hasn't been fixed yet and that's why many are closed so it just seems like such a huge building that only four bathrooms are being utilized did I have that right uh believe seven bathrooms are open for closed and it's related to the grinder pump failing said that yeah um and one one night when the the band competition the some of the bathroom some another bathroom set was clogged that night that was repaired uh earlier earlier in the morning so there was an extra bathroom that was clogged at night that we repaired early in the morning yeah so basically the parts been on order um it's an older system so it takes some time to get and in the meantime uh unfortunately we've have to manually work the grinder um not a fun thing to do um but so some of the bathrooms are closed to reduce the flow to that's what I okay and the other question I had is there an annual Thanksgiving dinner that the culinary students put together or give because I understand that's not happening and it's being catered because the high school doesn't have hot water either that would be a question I would ask directly to Mrs Young have you have you called the I haven't it all really came up today and I just figured I ask here well I'll ask it I'll be sure to ask it tomorrow okay all right thank you so much I appreciate it thank you welcome anybody else all right we'll move on to people online we have Martin peringer Mr peringer yes I would like to state that I'm quite upset that you guys uh seeming to want to discontinue the zoom calling in this is supposed to be a democracy we are supposed to participate I used come to meeting in person I can't no more I'm suffering from night blindness and other medical conditions so what you're doing and suggesting is to single out people Veron citizens Veron residents who have a disability or have another defect that prevents them from driving to your meeting this is supposed to be inclusive for all now I'm trying to make adjustments to do my w my uh advocating in different matters and you have received an email I wrote my first letter to the editor today in regards to this and I think I will have to continue to do so and intend to do a Blog but especially you saying that it was regarding the especially because it's regarding one person which might be me I find that as quite undemocratic and if that comes through I will make sure to the best of my ability to campaign in any future uh campaigns against anybody who votes yes to discontinue this thank you thank you Mr parer anybody else NOP it looks like we have no other hands raised okay uh with that being said we'll move on to item P open board member Forum anybody have anything that they would like to bring up uh Miss aher so with the preschool expansion and that's coming to full day shortly I guess is there a game plan of notifying the current preschoolers of like what teacher changes you know just transitioning are we going to have like a whole another kind of open house like in the beginning uh meet the teachers and everything um just from being on the parent pickup line there's lots of concern with transitioning our three and four year olds um to full day and changing teachers potentially changing kids seems like it's going to be quite fun there was a lot of work and everything we've done this last week at different phases so miss Mr Gaggle asro if would would you be able to help answer the question about how uh current current parents are being informed about new teachers and how things are going going to be different since you're here yeah so we're waiting until tomorrow because we're waiting for confirmation on everyone who is pulled during the lottery that yes they definitely want to come or no they do not uh once we have finalized student lists then we will reach out to all of the students who are attending our program uh and give them their teachers and where they're attending uh so we we have a very broad draft right now um but after tomorrow we'll have confirmed student list so then we can actually make our class list and will there be like an open house to meet the new teacher because like that's G to be like a whole we're gonna have a whole back to school night um we're hoping to have a bus there as well so any students taking Transportation can go on and practice buckling in and seeing what being on the bus is like things of that nature great and then principal McDougall will take over yes thank you Mr gastro Mr cruss I just want a quick question can I we know how many people are watching on YouTube at the moment 27 thank you just real quick I wanted to say that I have stained earlier and someone asked about that um it was due to minutes of the meeting that I did not attend so I couldn't vote on them I think that was the case for everybody is that a hand Charles very subtle um I I just with the minutes and stuff I was just just thinking shouldn't we be using a um Rec recused because like if they're legally not supposed to be doing it I think it would clear up some some questioning you know if if somebody hears that you're being accused yeah Kelly did say we were using the wrong word but I couldn't remember what the I think it's been in our history forever here yeah yeah because Robert they said I'll look it up and get back to everybody at the work session next next time okay and then um the other thing I was today I was thinking about with the preschool um they used to have a program up at the high school where they would watch it was like high school kids and they were and it was part of a class that they had up there and it would help do baby they had like a babysitting service for or preschool for um like a half a you could sign up um this like my these are my older kids I went there so I don't I can't remember who was in charge or where it was but it used to be where the you know the home rooms are yeah it was like an early Child Learning lab like that childhood learning lab my kids went there as well yeah that all didn't do too well with my I was because I thought it was high school students right that were involv so could is there a way we could maybe get them bring something like that I don't remember if that Pro maybe there's no interest in that program anymore or whatever but maybe we can incorporate them into the paa the the preschool expansion some the preschool expansion is very specific in what our needs are I believe they gave us was it was it $2.8 million it was 2.8 2.8 million uh with certified teachers staff members Etc and they're very specific in how we use that money for full day pre full grade full day uh full day preschool so three times I told you I told you late at night full day preschool I have to start watching the weather here soon too for full day preschool uh for for all the free pre for for all of our uh sorry all of our parents in districts so like I think we've made great progress over what we used to have uh back then as to what we're doing now with with our program and I think we'll be able to offer even many even more families next year as well I I meant it a way for the kids for the students actually get some kind of credit or or you know help them Advance not not to help make the program bigger but maybe they can get I don't remember I think it was out of the home e Department I they call home e anymore they more Transportation costs in addition to 2.8 million to try to move people between building move the kids to the move the high school students right to preschool and and I don't know I don't know don't think we have it anymore right no that that was even before my time car was it a full day or half day no it was like a half day I think half day yeah it was like once or twice a week yeah yeah so I'm really excited where we're at right now Charles anybody else everybody have a nice Thanksgiving by Mr cantino second by m dimer sorry he's interested in get all in favor we're closed than thank you I don't want this