[Music] good evening everyone thanks for your presence this evening and thanks for your patience uh we called our meeting to order during our closed executive session and prior to that we had a meeting with uh both Township officials to discuss the budget so I want to thank the all the township officials for coming out tonight and um we can get going on uh the public hearing on the 2024 2025 budget and now it's my pleasure to turn it over to Dr aderhold to provide the presentation good evening everyone good evening members of the public that are here with us this evening members of the Board of Education members of the public watching this evening uh it's my pleasure to present the 2024 2025 uh public budget um this is our annual hearing um as uh Mr kin noted we were with both townships prior to this meeting uh to review the budget with the township officials as well um as we start every budget presentation um we like to think of our budget as a representation of our mission and vision so to ground Us in tonight's presentation we talk about the importance of empowering all students to thoughtfully contribute to a diverse and changing world with confidence strength and character and love of learning and that mission statement is grounded in four separate uh goals uh but interact uh that interact with one another and I'll just summarize it talk about whole child every child Global child right we talk about the importance of uh our learning our students as Learners and reaching their full potential so when we think about the budget each year so what is the school budget we talk about the importance of planning it's a planning tool to help us think through the work uh for the 2425 uh budget uh for the school year but work has already started with hiring and strategizing about professional development and curriculum writing and um hiring and administrative hires and all that kind of work we talk about the importance of it considering contingencies because unlike um C other private organizations that may have a credit line or may have different funding sources or can can raise Equity we we can't do that we have to think about contingencies and manage risk to manage the public uh funds manage the public um property manage the fiscal needs of our community to make sure we're delivering a highquality Educational Service to our school in our school Community uh we make sure our budget was a reflection our Val considering safeguards and buffers and that's to make sure that we can stay operational we we have a responsibility to deliver certain programs and we have to make sure that we can see that through now with those safeguards and buffers if there is Surplus at the conclusion of the year which we have had for I've been here 15 years and every year we've had um we've had a surplus that Surplus goes back to the taxpayers in one of two ways um either through um capital reserve funding or back for the subsequent budget and you'll see in note that there are monies from 2223 that will build 24 25's budget when we think of our year-over-year areas in which we have budget drivers special education tuition increases is always one of those areas and this is not because the district costs this is because our out of District placements can exceed the 2% in allowances so out of District providers often will see 10 to 15% increases we have custodial contract renewals that will happen during the 2425 year uh we have seen over an 11% increase in our health care costs staffing needs uh there are five built-in positions which I'll talk about transportation is uh the vean of everyone's existence when it comes to uh budget costs every district is played by this with respect to Route renewals getting out of District routes athletic routes field trips but the driver shortage fuel increases and ultimately the state's look back formula how C CPI or the Consumer Price Index is calculated is a Formula that drives renewal rates we also have over half a billion dollars of depreciable assets when we think of our facilities so just like each year homeowners need to consider upgrades in areas well we have to do that across our 10 facilities um in our increased square footage so roofs boilers flooring Locker Banks lighting um heat pumps all those kinds things have to be uh we have to pay attention to salary increases of course across all of our different um staff members have negotiated agreements um that we have to honor on the teaching Staffing side we have five increased positions four of those are in special education we have built in a board certified behavior analyst a speech therapist and two autism teachers and we had one net increase in our English language learner elll teacher position um so we have added five staff positions into this budget we have going into year two of a new guide with our our Education Association we have increased stiens within that agreement so just things we have to be mindful of to make sure we're building dollars in there's a whole Litany of supports and programs and structural supports that we have to be again mindful of with respect to this so some of those programs is our oring Gillan training um you know essentially reading Intervention Program our the growth of our DLI program our DU language immersion program the ongoing efforts around ntss and MTI the tier systems of support responsive classroom Handle With Care whatnot uh I mentioned the special ed Staffing uh but this is a a story of growth but it's also a story of decrease out of District costs that help us build these positions and about building programs inhouse if we go back seven or eight years we had 120 130 students out of District uh we now have around eight and that's not because we've had a decrease in the number of students receiving Services we're still hovering in that 11% to 12% range it's because we built more programs inous to keep students in District on the healthare side we are going into year three of self-insured and we've we are now starting to see uh some inflationary drivers post uh post covid closure at 11.6% that still beats the state's uh renewal rate which I think was at 23 or 24% on the route renewal side I mentioned CPI or Consumer Price Index uh the state set this rate in late January but released it in early February at 5.81% for Route renewals this is not the total transportation cost because there's other things that go in with District own buses District staff um the management of it um Insurance mechanics things like that but this is on the out of these are our 90% of our routes will increase at 5.81% on the capital project side these are facility upgrades this comes out of Reserve dollars um we would be um recommending 3.7 million towards these projects a roof replacement at Town Center uh this is part of a long-term strategy for um second EIP or Energy savings Improvement program uh there's a tennis courts at North had damaged uh end of last year um we had a temporary fix this year but we have now look at some resurfacing needed through a windstorm U the north theater is desperately in need of some support this is going to be a couple years in a row of having to bring forward some dollars to do the entire theater would be around two and a half to million uh so taking it on in shunks we'll start with sound system issues then we have some lighting that's been looked at through the first esip that we're having that the the uh Engineering Group take a look at again um so there there's going to just need to be some attention that South that North theater uh CMS in South's robotic rooms need some power upgrades on the system and then there's just some upgraded Paving and heat HS uh at at Grover we are looking at a second uh esip this is an opportunity to drive energy saving to for the district but decrease in in our energy footprint and ultimately translates into some saved costs the way an esip works is you anticipate a net amount of dollars resp to Savings Program to try to drive um a certain amount of construction if the savings is above gets applied to save against the budget so you can take bond to do the work through the esep upwards of 15 it's a 15-year Bond uh but you have to be able to prove to the Department of energy and others that there's a saving so we're going through that process now for the second esip the good news is if you can prove it then you can do some upgrades to try to save additional dollars um and we have saved around 1.5 million a year in energy costs as a result of the first esep so constantly trying to find ways to to find some savings this is basically those same projects I just noted um but uh adding in the top right um annually we build in around a little over a million dollars uh towards building on grounds um annual budget it's a big a big uh facility right the the 10 schools and all the grounds so there's there's mowing contracts there's salt needed for the winter there's flooring that gets done above and beyond other projects we just did Commons 2 and three at South over spring break these kind of dollars go to those to types of projects um I should also just note the full roof replacement uh you'll note the word Rod next to it uh it's not a name per se it's regular operating District Grant uh it is through the state we had applied for uh we believe we should have been funded for and we are having ongoing conversations with the doe we expected some point that we will be awarded that Rod we will not do that project anytime soon until the Rod Grant is authorized uh because the the savings to the community is over a million dollars so if that 2.8 is the total cost then we should see money returned from the state's portion of the rod Grant so but you have to have it budgeted to do it so if the rod gets awarded in September October November we could still do that work at the end of next year in June but if it's not allocated in his budget we don't have authority to do the work like most communities our story is around inflationary drivers and so just for some context of of some of the budget challenges uh put a couple slides together just to give a sense of where we're where we've been and what we're seeing um so Transportation uh column column one I went to the the last full year preco to get a snapshot of what we budgeted so for the out District transportation routes was just over 10 million in 2425 the the two biggest District routes that get bid are special education routes to out of District providers and regular Ed routes or just normal neighborhood routes the normal rate neighborhood routes are larger in 2425 than the entire Transportation Route budget in 1819 that's how much the costs have been increasing in some of these areas um employee benefits you can see a $9 million increase special education over that time you know are anyone else here dripping in this room okay I'm gonna assume that speaker feedback um uh 8.6 million in 1819 to 12.7 uh going out in all right all right uh you can see uh salary guide percentage that's a coil on the roof I'll put money on it all right so sorry uh uh again salary guides are negotiated an uh annually in contract right so um you can just get a sense of how contracts have moved over that time period Insurance 2 million to 2.3 uh during that that window technology the the black out box up there on the right it's not that we didn't have I didn't I couldn't there wasn't the way the budget was back then it was split across multiple budget year uh budget categories so I couldn't get a clean number easily so it just really started in 1920 it's not that we spent five 561,000 alone in 1920 and then had a 1.7 million a jump to 17 is that the way in which our prior budget managers budgeted um we bought with excess Surplus at the end of the year and with um some new budget managers and Chris coming on and uh Derek coming on we put that into the budget so you see that that change is not that we spent differently but you will see a large increase from that uh 21 22 22 23 as we're jumping and some of that's because now our the idea of Chromebooks in device um uh cycles of replacement are now four grade levels per year plus staff devices um in instead of two and three like as we've increased and gone to one: one we also have more cyber um costs and more Hardware costs from you know the the um the the network right the size of the network the redundancy within the network the security systems in the network all the different switches and blades and uh device that you see in all the rooms all cost every time you have one of these hot spots it's it's upwards of ,000 do uh to put them in we have hundreds and hundreds of them in some of some of the schools like North and South right so every classroom essentially has their own hallways have multiple cafeterias have multiple gyms gymnasiums and auditoriums if you look around you start seeing lots of Hardware all that has a replacement cycle and a cost so if you just look from 1819 to 2425 these are large large budgetary increases you know and nothing's increasing at 2% nothing is increasing at 2% and why is 2% important for the public 2% in allowances is what we're allowed to increase um by by the formula by by law so when things are above 2% now we have to make decisions around around what that means with respect to um program costs 23 to 24 when you just look at those increases what increases at 2% again nothing nothing increases that 2% right so we have all these drivers that are costing year over-year um and we have to be mindful of the inflationary impacts and to ensure that we can meet the programs that we established for our students so budget to- budget tax levy um this is just to give sort of like a historical approach to what what you can what how we budget and how the fixed costs have grown um you can see in the bottom 13.7 million is budgeted fund balance from a prior Year's budget that is being returned to the taxpayers to meet next year's budget that's a good story of savings but it also means we have to generate 13.7 millions of savings out of next year's budget to make the following Year's budget so it's very challenging with inflationary costs to continue to increase the only way to change that number is to decrease costs and that means cutting programs cutting Staffing other way to do it is to collect more from the taxpayers which is not something that you know it's not not a popular decision um and the third way to do it is when fixed cost comes off like like the payment of bond and that money drops that could help decrease some of the fund balance needed the district does pay for the totality of the debt out of the budget we do not collect our debt above and beyond the 2% in allowances we have every right to collect over 13 additional million dollars per year from the taxpayers which you don't do if you were to collect all of that the taxpayers would see a huge spike in their taxes but that budgeted fund balance would go down to zero right so but again it's that's just the cycle of budgeting that we're in fixed costs have gone up 4% we did see a state aid increase at 16.1 million and a total tax levy is 2.82 not 2.80 it should be 2.82 there um we do split the township enrollment uh the way we fund with Two Towns is it's based on an enrollment split the enrollment split is based on the a Assa report which is the October 15th report and you can see we' been holding on in that 41 58 or 59 range with all the housing stock coming in in West Windsor um that you can see just driving around the community we should start to see that number in West Windsor percentage increase um as no more ratables come on but at the same time you will see a an impact in the tax split and then that gets factored across the ratables across two fiscal years for the district so we're on a school year so we have to split it between January and June um of one school year in July and December of another against the 2024 tax year or 2025 year for the township townships and then there's this other um just a data point about it's the taxpayers guide to educational spending this is an attempt to look back over prior budget years and they remove um three major categories from the the dollars transportation's removed special education cost and pension obligations so they remove those three big categories because they get hit differently in different municipalities um and I I used an example earlier Nutley has no IND District busing so if you were going to compare Nutley versus mon Clair and Factor transportation in it's not an Apples to Apples comparison so they remove Transportation special ed and pension liability and then they compare over time the last year that's available in the look back is 2021 which is you know it's a little bit back at now but you can see wwp when you you factor for like categories is still below and growth dollars over time is below um some of our local points of comparison right hope well Montgomery and Princeton and then of course the state so we like to believe that we provide an above value uh experience for our students at a below value cost that being said obviously that's not what it cost for per student when you add the other obligations in so some unknown contribution contributor uh in 2425 we renew Healthcare and prescription on the annual year so January 1st so as we get our renewals um we could have fixed cost increases starting in January one thing that we're watching and and you know when you talk about health care plans it's not just plans of the staff but the staff's family in the healthc care World they call that number of belly buttons on the plan um and so like co antivirals co antiviral have been covered through federal dollars um not anymore um so you know every time someone needs the co antivirals um we're as a self-funded district going to see the pass through costs um we do have significant significant Staffing challenges across the state of New Jersey um Across the Nation um wwp's been at the Forefront for trying to have conversations around this uh with our assistant superintendent Mr Char kamela has been leading meeting the way with CJ pride and that organization um I've had the pleasure to serve on the governor's task force and been co-chair for the njasa committee on retention and recruitment um you know and this board of education is the first Board of Education in the state of New Jersey to pass um a annual stien or semester stien for student teachers right so you know we're really trying to look at every way to recruit and advocating at the state level and doing our part locally um so so that Staffing challenge is such that in years past when you could really try to hire a step 012 someone newer into the education field now to fill positions you're either not able to find someone and you're hiring a lot of um exhausted um staff members to cover extra sections and get paid and that costs more than hiring someone because you have a vacancy and they're doing that yes a financial benefit but the reality is that there that is not a long-term solution uh you could drive class sizes up which no one wants um or you can hire people up the guide to try to come in and that has long-term fiscal implications for districts about long-term physical health so it's really incumbent upon us to try to find ways to hire people in at the beginning of the guide um to try but you know hire veterans when needed right and we do we've done that for years um and we continue to do that because at the end of the day we have to deliver a program for our students um and then we have building and grounds renewal that's going to happen during the 2425 school year that's really going to hit the budget for 2526 but with increased square footage um uh a new contractual um union labor force with ABM because they've unionized um there are going to be pass through costs that we should be expecting on the allocation of Revenue side the big thing for the community is twofold um right at the Top Line uh top right third line down you see 2.82% that line this is total tax levy fourth line down on the left that shows the 2324 to 2425 proposed budget that's in front of this board tonight um you see the increase of over five million there and it says 2.82% so that's the total tax levy impact that's what impacts the tax base all the other stuff is the ins and outs of money that comes in different categories and you a lot of that's coming in and out of um Capital general you know general fund for Capital reasons meaning facility reasons so it it looks like we have a reduction or going down to 1.59 that's not the true number that hits the tax base the 2.82 is the other number there that that is um something different than Years Gone by is that second on the left the enrollment adjustment the enrollment adjust adjustment of a $1 million 9,000 U dollar that's based on going from half Decay to full Decay right the half de full Decay it's not that we gained more kids it's by formula the kids don't count half a kid because we had half Decay every student added 05 so when they go to the way we calculate tax Authority the tax Authority now weights them higher which gave the board an opportunity um to choose to go to a higher um percentage at 2.82 that's one of the allowances right 2% and allowances the two allowances are healthc care adjustment and enrollment adjustment by formula you have to take the enrollment adjustment first and you have to then take the newest generated sgla for health care first because their goal is to have Bank cap which is what you don't spend expire and this is just the continuation of the total revenue sources at the 1.55% in the bottom right and the total dollars of all the ins and outs of money so the general budget there is the 189 million but then when you add in the capital reserve transfers when you add in state aid when you add in federal dollars the total budget is 245 million uh 249 excuse me uh just under 250 so for the purpose of the revenues we have the 2% increase on the general tax fund which is a 3.65 five the enrollment adjustment of a million n 1 mil 9,000 and the recommended sgla that was generated for 2425 sgla stands for the spending growth limitation adjustment for 2425 is a 458 when you add those three numbers together you get you the 5.1 of total revenue increase plus the capital reserve allocation that is money going from capital reserve to to go towards facility projects and then the state aid increase of one six that's essentially those three pots are the new money uh which gets um in in the first three pots gets us to the 2.82 now could the board have gone higher yes the board could have one collected on the debt that $13 million bill which we didn't do we're paying for that out of reserves and out of the ins and outs and some of that money that's moving plus out the general fund and then the board could have um used an additional above that 458,000 generated Healthcare sgla in 2425 there's an additional 800,000 that number was 1.2 in change so we have the 800,000 remaining for next year to consider and from last year we have Bank cap of 1. 1487 remaining so the board has an additional tax Authority just through the Healthcare stlas of 2.2 million and you could collect on the debt so this board today could collect another 15 million-ish from the community we're not recommending that but we are recommending the 2% the health care adjustment and the the pre-budget year tax levy enrollment adjustment so we are recommending um the 2.8 to on the general tax levy the local tax levy what this means for the average assessed home and I know that's theoretical and I know people might look at those numbers and go where do you find that house but on the average assessed home of 4579 in Plainsboro the average increas is $179 um per year and then in West Windsor for the mythical $524,000 home the average increase is um is $151 now again there's this is across all ratables it gets spread across all ratables and depending on what your assessed value of your home is would depend on that impact in taxes with respect to the total budget that's in front of you tonight just as a recap Slide the administration recommends to the board the budget to- budget increase of 2.2 on the local tax levy um which is coming from those three sources and includes in addition the state aid increase of six um through this process there's tons of different staff members that have been part of this obvious our administrative team that's here at the table um our budget managers our supervisors and principles directors our secretarial uh budget um secretaries that work on the budget I mean everyone plays a role our business department the sort of the the heart and soul back end of the board office is that professional staff that works with our benefits our our payroll um our accounts payable our bills our payroll I mean there's just a lot of unsung heroes in a in an organization that hires over 1500 people employs over 1500 people with a $245 million of of money of million moving in and out um and a lot of checks and balances going on um you know there's there's a lot to be proud of on that side of the house too um so I want to thank all of them and obviously the board you put a lot of time in through the committee work through the curriculum work that impacts this thinking through the budget Retreats and the Staffing um and I do think we have an excellent product for our community a lot to be proud of um and you know we're pleased to make this recommendation tonight I'll take questions from the board thank you so much for the presentation and to your team for all the hard work that went into it just actually had a question I know you said for the uh special education um that the number of students going out of District um went from like 120 130 to 80 and then just looking at the increase on that one slide with transportation and special education um is there like an idea of the savings that was made with that number of uh students coming back into District yes is that looking at with it's a really high number so they would have been higher yeah it's not a one year it's not a one-year Savings in the sense that the programs they just start last year right so but over time um every student that is brought back in the district can can save upwards of $100,000 um when you start looking at the placement costs the transportation cost the extended school year cost sometimes a nursing cost sometimes an aid cost the nursing depending on the students's need could be a shared service um it could be an out of we could potentially have to pay an out of District provider for a portion of nursing where a district nurse can suffice by the student based on the student need um sometimes you have students with exorbitant Transportation costs Things That No parent would want for their child um a bus run for an hour to go to an outed District placement with an aid and a nurse on a bus for $150,000 annually just for the bus not and that includes the nurse and the IIA salary but not including the out of District costs and the special who would want that for their child um so we're trying to find ways to bring programs back um and so to that end one of the programs that the board has um moved forward with we entered into a lease purchase with 72 Grovers Mill um road so um we're in year two of that contract that's the old monu to the left of North across from Mil Stone diagonal from Community uh that's where our postgrad program is now our kids 18 to 21 our house there um and we just opened up a mental health um program for middle school students going in and out of treatment programs mental health facility a lot of students are uh in the category of school phobia um high anxiety depression uh we had one student that hadn't been in school for a full day this entire year but since we opened the program at the beginning of this month has now attended School almost every day but has been attending inperson for inperson instruction um because we're trying there is no program out there for students that have high anxiety High needs 11 to 14 year old you can find them mixed in with hospitalized programs and you can maybe find it with adult adult programs or with high schoolers but not necessarily specialized to middle school so we're we're really trying to think of like what is our specific need how do we help support students and families and so yeah over so over time if if we went to a pure reduction from 130 to 80 you would save about five million in tuition but then you'd have a subsequent increase in some instructional Aid behav speech PT District Staffing costs but it would nowhere be at the same rate at what you're seeing because a it depends on level there's all these code ratios of how many students per room but if the ratio is six students per teacher in IIA and you can and that cost of that teacher is 70,000 in benefits and the IIA is 35,000 in benefits you know you could be looking at 110 in salary 105 in salary two benefit packages let's just say 60 so now you're at 170 well those three those six students if it went to six could save you 600,000 out of District cost now you do have your transportation would be the same most like would be cheaper but now you're talking about oh but there's speech there's PT there's OT there's Services there might be portion portions of CST right that you have to think about but you could still save an offset over time the money the money does add up and it just means you can continue to provide this the breath of programming so the question becomes do you have the facility space when we talked about those growth staff there's two autism teacher growth the autism growth isn't because there's more autism students ever than before there's more autism students in District than before so the students now are staying in the district so now it's the students aging up meting certain ages you need to then hire the next Staffing for that but we do have bcba in there or certified Behavior an us and speech the students hasit hitting BST Center um are now having some of those increased services that we don't didn't have enough of at those uh in CMS are now needed there so as the kids are aging through the system is moving up we have to keep out of supports and services so there's definitely a savings but it's not the full 5 million so I don't want to need but it is is significant sure bless teachers out there together yeah well well one thing I'm I'm proud of is that we have a very strong hiring process and we have been willing to hire veteran Educators when we you know and and bring in folks to fill the vacancies right we're we're going to make sure that we have high quality Educators in front of our students and then we have a process to support train evaluate way our staff and you know on their different learning Journeys wherever they enter the system but we do also believe that we have to be mindful of look there's a budget reality if if you're hiring someone at Step Zero versus step 10 and you just look at the differential between a step zero and step 10 over 10 years it's a quarter million dollar out right so the difference again that that's a significant number right just and that's the same position being filled over time cost the taxpayers now if you do that on you know position after position you have 50 openings and you do that 10 times right 2.5 million over 10 years is a significant amount of money that doesn't mean that you might not need to bring in a step 10 physics feacher um but because the shortages we're having trouble finding PE English Elementary education positions that 10 15 years ago you would had 100 200 300 applications for each so what's changed two reports I can give you and the community and their online about what's changed and what the shortages are but as a state if you go back about 12 13 years we graduated over 6,000 students seniors in college to become teachers per year we now graduate less than 3,000 right so what changed pensions benefits the perception of Educators this is going back to previous administrations but Co didn't help Co helped the first three months and then it didn't right so there's been definitely things that but you know if you're a kid graduating today from college and you're entering the workforce 22 years old to get a full pension you have to work till you're 6 65 years old 6 45 years I don't know many Educators work with in my career that have gone over 45 years I can only think of two I work with one was our so life Rick cave was 43 Rick's a baby in the future you know you'd have to go another four years so like the way they changed formulas you know think of our our current generation of grad friends are working for home you know and similar dollars more and being educated the other thing is think about kid time period that in kids that are graduated this year with the high school graduate next year's CR of kids entering and graduating from college are the kids that spend 3 months virtual followed by their entire senior year in high school even H vir our parents kids right those kids who work on on screens are most of them did and say you know what I want to do I want that's the that's gradua so that's the challenge only systemic change but we also have folks think and I I just there's not a lot out on this but I have a theory that Educators kids aren't becoming Educators right and I know that just stories but just no different than other public servic by the police I mean Educators police fire kids don't become educat police fire don't generation that's part of Gap right turn it back to [Applause] to see okay we'll start with Miss H scw yes next is Miss malga m steedy m oit yes Miss bons Miss tenier Juliana yes M president this not but that was only for resolution one so next travure regular scus crap those were separate from the bud okay we'll start Miss Chenier yes Miss gr Miss Miss ho Sorry Miss ho yes Ted miss mikas m yes Miss bonson Miss Juliana yes Miss one second man' president just uh we will need a motion to go out of order in order to to grab that it's okay so so it's okay so uh it was what was the item number I'm so sorry I didn't hear it now one okay so we just need a motion to go out of order uh uh consider Personnel item 1 a sorry I don't mean to be tone tight no that's just an all in favor Hi and then now CU she would take personel item one Chris before you make that you me just for the the P for the public um the motion is respect to U two principal appointments um so just wanted to uh share that I'm really pleased to bring forward two candidates to the Board of Education this evening for the principal position at mstone River as well as for Dutch neck elementary school so with respect to milstone River um is my great uh privilege uh to make the recommendation of uh the current assistant principal at milstone River Elementary School uh Heather Shanklin Heather has been a dedicated member of our West Wister Plainsboro community at Millstone since 2015 uh and she has um she is uh couple months away from her doctorate so we're excited for her uh with that as well prior to being in West Plainsboro she was an instructional supervisor also spent uh over a decade as a as an elementary teacher um you know Heather is a dynamic educator and we're thrilled to see her in this new role Heather we're extremely proud of you and we look forward to you as new next principal at milstone River Elementary School [Applause] and with respect to uh Dutch neck Elementary School I'm thrilled to make the recommendation to the Board of Education uh for the appointment of Melissa Locka Melissa's in the audience with her husband Jesse also an elementary principal um Melissa has been an administrator for the past 17 years um eight of which as supervisor of stem in Lawrence uh Township Public Schools the last eight nine years excuse me as principal of Lawrence Elementary School um prior to that she was a third grade teacher U Melissa brings an extraordinary amount of leadership experience and Elementary experience to the district um we're thrilled to welcome here to wwp and thrilled you can join us this evening in in uh in the board office so Wella thank you and looking forward to working with you congratulations okay the V okay we'll start with start with yes Juliana yes for just want to start off by thanking you guys for I'm a child parent of a high school staff student um he's as well as a school um student who is a he be going to um the reason oh sorry Megan y German 465 Meadow Road Apartment 9304 Princeton New Jersey 08540 um the reason that brings me up today was an incident that happened on April 18th um my son is in the golf program at high school J and he was approached by his book um after his range practice uh he was packing up his Golf Club and he had a glove hanging from his clet uh the coach approached him and said I going to have to get you a new glove um my son was really confused about that comment um and after that comment the coach had asked if he stood for the FL um my son said yes he does uh and then after that he had asked two other students that in the vicinity of this conversation um we ask the other two kids if you guys still for this is the just do you stand for the flag missing good this love was purchased by his papa he was my father he's a veteran in the United States Army um and I really need clarification on as to why this teach coach ask this question we have a lot of family members that have Decades of serving in service having a schooler here um as well as a mayor of um so there's a lot of public service that we have and my concern is is why was this question as we're dedicated our family's dedicated to community Public Service um know there's no regulations on personal cting as far as what students can to as long as it's not their auditory fast forward to today asked my son to put on the glove he told my son whatever he Grand said it looks like the FL fine FL that fine um that he liked it and was just really extr to my son so I just wanted to bring it to your attention as well as have FAL thinking as for it's very concerning for me and my family and Son uh who cares the the flight um I wanted to bring two um I just wanted to bring my name is former mayor of Hamilton Town Dr adah and to the school board member cler I would like to say thank you thank you for your service thank you for what you do it's very hard to be in school districts today watching through your budet % your budget is fixed so I wish the residents knew that and knew how hard your job is and how hard Serv thank you so um tonight I come before you not for a good term and when you look at the colors of the flag and what they mean the American flag FR and Bor and bravery white means Purity and innocence Le vigilance perseverance and Justice in their simple of each and every day dist Across the Nation SC take about 15s about 20 seconds and your student canook it requires that you show respect to the American PL and um what great can here mostly is we have a school we have school in w that came home and question whether or not his answer was correct no child whether you display the American flag the flag of China the flag of India the flag of Japan should ever have to wonder if the flag that they choose to there if it's not if it's not inappropriate and it follows the guideline of what is displayed outside of this how does that happen with the American flag on us soil and a student that questions whether or not he gave the right answer and the teacher knew the American flag was on that glove when he asked the student do you stand for the flag you wouldn't have asked that question if you didn't know the flag was already on would not have asked that question so I say is you know I don't know how many of you were once Educators or Educators or um what your background is a PTA member I just think let's make this a teachable moment let's say to our you know our faculty our staff everyone this isn't what western or plane throws about it's not what Hamilton was about it's not what this country is about we celebrate diversity and we celebrate diversity particularly in this school district I think it's 86% of of your school district or a Asian um and minorities and I think it's is it 85 86% if I'm not mistaken but you know I just think this could be a teachable moment and to walk away from this and say hopefully another child will never have to be ask that question or doubt the Integrity of the American Life FL or any flag they choose to display um my three minutes are up okay I don't think I need to come back but please if we can make it a teachable moment and let's address the policy it needs to and uh hopefully this this kid will continue to display the American flag and his education but I do have to say before I CL I'm so sorry that he has had he's had a tremendous education here both of them my nephew pleas thank you so much um are there any other public comments hello uh my name is Joel Lyn I reside at 130b Drive uh apologies for the barding request before I get into it first I just want to say thank you and so Sou be here standing in front of you that uh is to my request here as a representative one of vendors do have an overdue invoice for the installation of doors actually want to see if there's any questions or issues with this first line two thank you um do we have any other comments from the audience okay seeing none I'll close this public comment period um thank you for the for the public comments um just procedurally we don't respond in as as the comments are going so just for the public that might be seeing this for the first time uh to the gentleman with respect to the invoice Dr Russo is the assistant superintendent for finance so everything goes through his department so he'll follow up with his payroll department accounts payable department with respect to uh Miss y um and and the comments and the concerns that were brought forward today um both to the mother and to Mary ad who I'm the proud resident in Hamilton so I appreciate your service so thank you um had the opportunity you speak multiple times so thank you for your service um there there's no there's no policy or practice that would prohibit um a student from wearing a glove with the American flag or with any other um with any other item so it's it's an unusual circumstance that you're raising um we will uh definitely look into the matter U with the athletic director as well as the the principal so uh it's possible that your nephew is going to be asked to to speak and share his experience um so I I I the fact that you're here tonight my guess is that you're more than willing to do that um so you know we would appreciate you sharing what what occurred and we'll look into the matter um no one should be made to feel that that somehow the glove that has red red white and blue is not an acceptable um glove to wear and if especially has significance that holds for you towards for your grandfather um so you know we will again look into I'm sorry that that that that occurred I'm hoping it's a misunderstanding and uh but if it's not then we're going to have to take um appropriate actions to to address it and to have a learning experience from it because uh we want all of our students all of our students to feel comfortable um and um that should not be your your experience so um we'll speak to miss enata in the morning and miss dobinson and and ask them to follow up appropriately um it's the boys golf team obviously so I have a sense of who the coach is based on that so we can follow up um tomorrow so thank you thank you for coming thanks for the comments appreciate it Ed reps ad for up e to thanks Dana uh I'm gonna turn the floor over now to LY for the curriculum committee report thank you the committe on April 16th we began with Dr D who uh shared with the committee the process and details for submission and approval for the 2022 23 performance report which outl the district spending to support student grow as it relates to the needs resulted in the pmic next Dr provided a general overview of changes in the 2022 23 performance report and shared uh general information related District data a more comprehensive review of student performance by grade globo will be reviewed during the testing presentation and more information related to school performance report can be found um on the district website on the agenda for uh voting tonight uh first the quicking committee recommends professional development recommends approval of the following professional development first two teachers to participate in a one-week science summer Institute from July 22nd through the 26th um at Ron Valley col Community College in Somerville New Jersey at a total cost not to exceed $800 plus travel second is one for one teacher resource specialist to attend uh Institute for multisensory education or in Gillingham cert certification course from April 1st through June 30th of this year virtually at a total not to exceed uh $2,350 plus materials and third is uh for 17 district teachers to attend comprehensive oron Gillingham plus training uh in Princeton from June 24th to their 28 at a cost of $1350 plus mileage this year next uh the cek committee recommends approval for district participation and the New Jersey Department of Ed uh for the developing resiliency with engaging approaches to maximize success the acronym is uh dreams the dreams Pro project during the 2425 school year at no additional cost to the district uh next the curcum committee recommends approval uh for the adult and youth Community Education Program the American Red Cross water safety instructor class moving on to field trips the committee recommends approval for a middle school and high school future problem solvers to International Conference uh the University of Indiana and lington on June 5th through the nth of this year cost of the trip is about $1,500 per student and the next approving for travel for advisors to accompany the middle school and high school students to the Future problem solvers International competition that I mentioned earlier um and the cost of that trip is to not exceed is not to exceed 1,400 for a teacher including travel the committee will next meet on May thank you thanks L and now I'll turn over to our fin finance committee chair Louisa for a report the finance is that working the finance committee met on April 16th the committee reviewed the financial reports for the month and the administration certified that there are enough funds to complete the year the committee also reviewed the finance items on the agenda including motions for the approval of athletic supply bids through the Ed data Cooperative pricing system as well as for the disposition of obsolete equipment and the approval of various Transportation agreements and joint shures for the 2425 school year another motion on the agenda pertains to approving staff travel next the committee discussed the 2425 budget the preliminary budget has received approval from the county office we will advertise it on or about April 22nd and the public hearing on the budget for final approval is scheduled to take place on April 30th staff updated the committee on construction projects in the district beginning with the referendum projects The woff Phase 1 Project has been successfully closed out the woff phase 2 project is awaiting final electrical inspection the controls integration for phase two and the W Co woff HVAC project have rece reached substantial completion District staff training was conducted last week the media center Renovations at Town Center are now complete at Village Media Center Renovations are ongoing work above the ceiling grid is nearly finished display boards have been hung on the walls painting is nearly complete installation of casework and flooring is expected in the coming weeks at morce Hawk Media Center Renovations are progressing work on the masonry walls is nearing completion HVAC duct work and unit ventilators are currently being installed soon drywall installation will commence on the framed walls and Sops staff also updated the committee on other capital projects the first preconstruction meeting for the white moisture remediation project has been conducted and work is scheduled to commence on June 24th the first pre-construction meeting for the emergency radio enhancement project at Community has taken place permit applications are currently being submitted classroom furniture for 72 Grovers Mill Road is expected to arrive in the coming weeks next staff updated the committee on Food Service issues the RFP for a food service company has been advertised a pre-proposal meeting for interested Food Service management companies was scheduled for April 18th proposals are due by May 7th following our New Jersey Department a of Agriculture administrative review the district is required to reimburse for $1,826 for findings related to certification benefit insurance issuance and verifications corrective actions have been submitted approved and implemented overall the reviewers were very pleased with the district's operations in March 202 24 for cafeteria there were two fewer serving days compared to the prior month breakfast serve decreased by 425 totaling 2,634 in March compared to 359 in February lunches served decreased by 4,417 totaling 38,1 160 in March compared to 42577 in February the number of breakfasts served in the six Elementary classrooms continues to increase totaling 1,7 781 breakfast served up by 119 per day from the prior month all schools are now offering Halal menu items the new walk-in refrigerator freezers for Town Center Village and Millstone are being scheduled for installation during the summer of 24 of the 621,000 supply chain assistance funds 499,000 have been allocated to purchase Foods meeting the minimally processed criteria additionally $6,795 ,000 for local foods for school funds have been spent thus far the deadline for allocating These funds has been extended to March 2025 the committee will next meet on Tuesday May 21st thanks Louisa and are there any questions or comments for any of the Committees so now uh we'll move on to the voting portion of our meeting can I get a motion for administration items number one through seven plus an additional case number that was added to item number two case number 264 915 HSN 04292 h24 and as well as the pink addendum uh Dana and uh this uh any questions or comments okay we start with this Krug yes Miss bonsel yes Miss chenera yes Miss yes Miss migga Miss Shetty yes Miss zich yes Miss Juliana Miss McAn yes now can I get a motion for curriculum and instruction items numbers uh one through four uh ly and Pua questions or comments okay we we we'll start with Miss malga Miss Shetty yes Miss zovich yep Miss bonsel Miss chenera yes Miss hoe yes Miss Krug yes Miss Juliana yes Miss mccuan yes can I get a motion for finance items number 1 through 11 as well as the blue addendum Anda any questions comments okay we'll start with Miss hoe yes Miss KRW Miss migga Miss Shetty yes Miss zovich yes Miss bonsel Miss chenera yes Miss Juliana yes Miss McAn yes now we'll move on to Personnel can I get a motion for personnel item uh items number one through three plus Personnel agenda numbers one through four which are the green yellow purple and orange uh agenda umin and yeah just one sec just note that the resolution will be for one B through G as we already voted on a so for um this motion all the agenda uh for numbers one 3 G uh and two and three y questions comments okay we'll start excuse me okay we we'll start with with Miss chenera yes Miss ho yes Miss Krug yes Miss migga yes Miss Shetty yes Miss zich yes Miss bonsel yes Miss Juliana yes Miss M yes um before before we move on I would like to acknowledge few retirements we just moted on we have I'll start with um Mr Glenn Bartram a social studies teacher from High School North Michael Jackson social studies teacher at Community uh Michelle B instructional assistant at Dutch neck Donna strubel secretary at Grover and William Thompson uh instructional assistant at milstone River uh we thank you so much for your years of service and dedication to the district um and we wish you well and um enjoying every moment of your new adventures and your retirement and um thanks again for your service now we can move on to the approval of uh board minutes can I get a motion to approve the minutes from uh March 19th and April 9th umja and Dana um all those in favor say I any yes I'm abstaining for on the March 19th minutes do we have any boardly asop reports um do we have any new business that takes us to our second opportunity for public comments the board invites thoughts uh invites comments for members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement which will be limited to three minutes in accordance with board policy 0167 all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer this public comment period shall be limited to 15 minutes uh do we have any comments from the audience seeing none I will close this public comment period um and next we will uh we have to recess and to close the executive session whereas the open public meetings act authorizes Boards of Education to meet an executive session under circumstances certain circumstances whereas the open public meetings act requires the board to adopt a resolution at a public meeting to go into private session now therefore be it resolved by the West wior cbor Regional School District Board of Education that it is necessary to meet an executive session to discuss certain items involving uh personnel and student matters which is item number one as well as item number eight superintend evaluation process and timelines be it further resolved that any discussion held by the board which need not remain confidential will be made public as soon as feasible the minutes of the executive session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists he had further resolve that the board will not return to open session to conduct business at the conclusion of the executive session and again a motion to adjourn to closed executive session and all those in favor say I hi thank you uh everyone and good evening