all right good evening everyone welcome to tonight's uh Board of Education meeting our meeting was called to order during the closed executive session so we can begin the public portion um I would like to kick things off on behalf of the Board of Education by recog izing the hard work of the school startime exploration committee over the course of six months 20 Community stakeholders including students parents administrators and members of the board um researched analyzed and evaluated potential shifts in school start times their goal was to better understand the impact on family schedules grade levels Child Care extracurricular activities transportation and budget among several other considerations this was no easy task the committee accomplished their goal and their recommendations were presented to the board on November 13 2023 after a careful consideration of the research and recommendations provided the board has decided at this time not to pursue a shift in school star times given the anticipated residential growth in West Windsor and Plainsboro the possible startime legislation and potential Financial impacts it is the board's position that a shift in school star times would have a significant impact on the district's ability to maintain uh the many outstanding programs and services currently offered to our students the board thanks the members of the school startime exploration committee for your time thorough research and insightful feedback your commitment to analyzing the feasibility of new start times is truly admirable and your diverse perspectives are highly valued the committee's recommendations will serve as a pivotal starting point should the district decide to re-examine school start times in the future so now uh I'd like to turn over to Dr aderhold for any comments good evening everyone and thank you for being in attendance um just want to uh provide uh two well one update and one comment for the community um as many know and we communicated this out back in the fall the Board of Education and administration moved forward with the acquisition of a new property uh located at 221 223 Southfield Road um just this past week on Tuesday uh Dr Russo and myself attended the closing of that property and we're pleased to have just acquired just under 28 Acres of um Farmland it's actually was a tree farm um so we we now are in possession of some property that we will look to um look to Future growth um it's it will at this time be evaluated for a potential School site um and we're it's many years in the making uh but you know as I um have shared with some of the uh members of the board and some members of the public when we think about the current referendum and the work that's being completed now in 2024 that work began uh with the first presentations to the Board of Education in 2015 um so the idea of developing um developing a plan developing the financial structure of how you're going to pursue it going out to a referendum going out to bid architectural drawings feedback from staff feedback from community members uh developing um the community's willingness to support such a a referendum and then ultimately building something takes years um so this is nothing that is going to be developed immediately but it's work that we have to think about long-term planning at this time um and so that I did want to just notify the community that that purchase has gone through there was quite the process to go through the Department of Education to get all the approvals recommended uh we're very appreciative to the pr family uh and their partnership with the district the conversations with the primes first started in 2018 2019 um and and now years later we we've acquired the property so a thanks to both uh Bob Ryan and mural Hibbs um also want to just mention that this is national school counselor week um and we'd be remiss if we didn't just pause to acknowledge the many counselors throughout our school Community whether they are school-based counselors or our ubhc clinicians um or our Sac counselors um our counselors are tremendous resource um to our students to our families and we thank them for their dedicated service and again just want to recognize that this week February 5th through February 9th is national school counselor week all right thank you have a great evening all right thank you Dr ader hold um and now I would like to invite our student representatives to give us a report on High School good evening so starting off strong on January 11th High School North students participate in their second year of diversity equity and inclusion day which is a workshop-based educational program focusing on issues related to diversity and belonging there were performances of student music groups as well as positive message booths with over 38 hour 38 sessions that ranged from disability awareness to cultural dance and discussion on advocacy we're grateful that so many of our staff members Community organizations and guests were part of Dei dat and we're very proud that most of our students and participated in it including some students holding their own student Le presentations the positive response from student staff have been inspiring and we look forward to holding another de Day next year secondly High School North held its second annual prom shop on January 13th right here in the central office it was a huge success with many students and families coming out and borrowing prom dresses and suits to wear speaking of prom junior prom tickets are now for sale each ticket is $95 and J prom itself will be on April 19th additionally marking Period 2 is officially over grades for this marking period were due yesterday which means we have begun the second semester of the school year as marking period 3 starts all grades except seniors are now undergoing their scheduling with counselors we look forward to seeing all the classes that our students will take Disney is officially 1 month away starting on March is March 1st is the parent informational meeting which was two weeks ago and next student next week students will have an informational meeting to discuss rules for Disney Travel the musical is in 3 weeks this year's High School North is hosting a mean girl Mean Girls Musical and we're very excited to see what our theater Department brings for high school juniors Washington seminar will be taking place at the end of this month from February 27th and onwards High School North freshman student council hosted their first solo event Family Feud it was a huge success with the Council planning to do more similar events in the future additionally during this week the senior council is selling roses for Valentine these roses will be handed out on Valentine's Day to special someone or a friend or two High School North and South's Chinese Club will be hosting a combined event China night at High School South on February 23rd at this event there will be Chinese Cultural hip-hop dances booths and food all of this helps our community Embrace and learn more about Chinese culture High School North's model un Club attended the ivy league Model United Nations conference this past week from January 25th to January 28th with over half of our delegates winning Awards High School North seniors competed in a very anticipated events many seniors had the opportunity to compete in the annual swing dance competition with the rest of the grades spectating the tier Le team wrapped up their very successful P teacher competition in order to raise funds to go to Nationals reigning champ history teacher Mr Romero won for the fifth time again completing his win streak and keeping his dominance in our school thank you and I'll pass the mic to South okay now for some South news so so a lot has been happening with South uh especially with our music program so all our ensembles Orchestra band combined have had festivals with the grover middle school so um especially notable was our performance by a South senior soloist adve Gupta playing Rock bov's uh conto piano Concerto Number Two I believe uh there's also been notable occurrences with our winter sports our basketball team has held a teacher appreciation night and we're heading into postseason for our winter sports winter sports which excuse me which means a lot of senior nights are being held and Spring sport Tri outs are underway uh beyond that we've also held a Mandy night uh which had really great attendance and our junior class just organized our illuminations talent show in which South students performed acts ranging from rapping and dancing to singing and even one ventriloquy act uh a lot of yearbook photos have also been um like being submitted and coming out uh including including I think a recently Due baby photo submission so I'm excited to see how that turns out and quite a few College decisions especially from um early Public School uh applications have been coming out as well so a lot of my friends have received good news so with Valentine's Day coming up uh our Echo Club is like North student council selling flowers we're selling carnations so red red for romantic intentions and then white for friendship and they're also selling capella performances so that will be interesting to see and our peer leaders are hanging up hearts for every student around South uh in order for every student to be able to see their name up on a wall uh we're also heading into a busy scheduling season for everybody so uh yeah and um and as with North both the North and South China Chinese clubs are planning China night on February 23rd and South's musical is also coming up within the next few weeks next three weeks from February 29th to March 2nd um and will be performing A Chorus Line we're already well into rehearsals and ticket sales will um be around that time as well also for for Black History Month our we've been having African-American poetry read alouds in the media center so yeah okay wow thank you Johnson and Eliana uh very very busy um had the pleasure of actually being at the coral and the orchestra Festival BL Blown Away amazing thank you guys for the report um we always love hearing about stuff at high school and now we will move on to the first opportunity for public comments the board oh I'm so sorry yes we do have a presentation thanks for the reminder oh I toally skip that um and now I would like to introduce Dr Chris Russo for the 2024 2025 budget presentation discussion which we are all looking forward to okay wow that that's actually a tough act to follow because this this ends up being the nuts and bolts but it's good to hear that because that's why we do what we do on this side so it's uh fitting that I do follow that excuse me so everything we do during the budget cycle and the budget cycle literally starts the week or two after um the prior Year's budget is approved so the end of April beginning of May we'll start having some somewhat serious discussions on what the 2526 budget looks like um so it's an annual uh recurring event so we start with the mission statement everyone is read that many times and you've had it uh and I've done the same to you so won't C tell you Death by PowerPoint so then we also everything uh Falls within the Strategic goals and you've seen at our uh at our uh various meetings where we've had deep discussion uh with the goals and how they uh they tie to the budget and uh what future uh programs or current programs uh are and what we want to do and how they tie into the budget into the Strategic goals so you see them as well so what is the proposed budget what is a budget it's a planning tool it has to consider risk and contingencies it has to be fiscally responsible and it definitely reflects our values and it must consider safeguards and buffers because the budget that we started you know working on months ago essentially starts 24 months out the budget we get serious about in January doesn't start till 18 months out so uh uh you know there that we have to consider safeguards and buffers as we go forward so to hit some of the stressors on the budget right off the top special services we have tuition increases uh we have additional students which require additional Staffing we have facilities we have custodial contract renewals we have health care costs not only with increased uh usage we're self-funded so we pay our claims we have increased usage but we haveen inflation in that category where if something called cost x a year ago it's x times uh 8% now and then we have new New Jersey educator healthc care plan and Garden State healthc care plan in which we're siphoning off um revenues that could come back to the district that offset the cost of health care they're going into uh employees are going into the other programs where the district doesn't see that money however it costs us uh the same cost for healthcare staffing needs as I mentioned special education and uh English language Learners transportation and cost of root rols cpis Consumer Price Index you'll see later that's over 8% driver shortages and fuel increases the number one needed job in this country is CDL Drivers it requires a CDL to drive a bus um and we all know what we're paying at the gas pumps if you still drive a carbon uh car uh combustion engine internal combustion engine facility capital projects uh as you know we try to maintain our facilities and uh obviously there are always projects needed every year and every summer and salary increases we have uh we we we we we have our agreements in place and uh we're moving forward obviously uh we have to fund them budget considerations again as I mentioned we have a additional English language learner teacher and we have additional special education teachers as per proposed at this time in this budget new salary guides are in place increased stiens for extracurricular activities in athletics due to the contract negotiations some of them were actually brought up uh to a a a more current salary structure they had had not been touched in years they've been brought up plus we have additional stiens in place that we've put out for additional programs for the students summer summer curricular curriculum writing for elementary language arts and math we have new standards at the state level so uh we have to uh we have to rewrite our curriculum or bring it up to the latest uh standards as recently provided to us Healthcare it's our third year of being self-insured overall I believe the program is has done well for us um we do see increases but we see inflationary increases uh as everyone does but we don't see massive increases that typical school districts do um on their total premium pay we see increases on a small administrative cost relatively small compared to the overall cost of insurance um each year which that number is still significant for a normal household meaning when we talk numbers uh compared to you know a $30 million health plan that we have use rates have been significantly increasing and along with inflation so our renewal for our anticipated cost is 11.6% root renals that's our student transportation CPI increased a more than 8% we're looking at 8.6% that's a self- calculated number amongst a bunch of districts how the state has not released it yet they could always finagle that number but using their formula uh we should be at 8 88.6% that number is huge our transportation line in the last 5 years has gone from around $10 million to almost $ million in that time and it's because of uh additional routes driver shortages uh fuel prices um and obviously there's Insurance increases on the programs on the transportation because buses have catalytic converters and uh quite a few catalytic converters get stolen knock on wood we're not there yet we haven't had those that happened here yet um I need to actually push a button Insurance increase in insurance re renew we have co uh I I'm president of the New Jersey schools Insurance Group so I get to see the various claims and and have the discussions in executive session we're getting hit with covid claims now um natural disasters we know we all know them fires in Hawaii floods in hurricanes in um Florida and all along the Jersey coast so there's a uh because of inflation in the uh General economy um there are so many lawsuits regarding uh replacement cost of houses and buildings uh if you know a square foot per home cost was 200 bucks several years ago it's now $400 homes aren't covered for that at this time so there's a lot of lawsuits so insurance companies are uh are dealing with those lawsuits then we have theft as I mentioned with catalytic converters and just damage overall and then we all read every day about cyber security ABM buildings and ground grounds it's year five of five now this over the cost of The Last 5 Years realized it has increased this contract quite a bit and it has because we already had a renewal a pre-negotiated renewal rate but realized we've added significant square footage uh several hundred, additional square foot square footage to our footprint so obviously there's been additional charges for that nothing extraordinary this year with uh with ABM however uh when we look at uh I was to say longitudal look you'll actually see that number's gone up significantly over the five years um Rod Grant well capital projects we have the Town Center roof Rod Grant we did not receive a rod Grant in round one we're still in round one but we're hoping districts out there that cannot actually enter into their contracts for rod rod is regular operating District hopefully their money will shake free and then we'll be offered uh a percentage of our project it's up to 40% uh of what that project would cost High School North theater lighting replacement of controls and fixtures we're looking at that for you know possibly doing that we're looking at the costs um it may not be something we can just pay out of the general fund we may have to come up with a smaller program of just doing some circuits to uh bring that up uh to speed just for for this first year um that's a long-term program that we need to look at but we might be able to take step one maybe and you'll see why when I get to the last slide High School North tennis courts repair replace we're down one court right now uh we do have pricing on that we're going to continue uh reviewing that project High School North bleachers um that is that's an iffy uh proposal right now we have them they are working they've been repaired uh but we are uh looking at perhaps replacing them uh over the next couple years I'm bringing these up because if we do find room to get them in this budget I don't want them to be a surprise to anyone if that makes sense the exciting news woohoo um start of a new Energy savings Improvement project um we're meeting with Schneider Electric uh in the coming days to actually get the uh the audit going it's just picking up from where they left off on the first EIP um the program as we're looking at budget numbers the program is working uh with containing our energy costs and uh you know we have lighting we have new hbac because of this program so it is working and we're looking to enter into a second and uh we'll see how that goes and that will include additional solar and you know we'll be bringing proposals back for maybe carport uh solar panels those uh sort of uh addition for additional uh solar program unknown budget contributors what this means is during the course of the year what do we know we're going to get hit with that we don't know what we're going to get hit with well we know prescription increases increase mid year December healthc care benefits will increase mid year uh and we still have Staffing challenges due to uh Statewide shortages so we don't know how many six periods we'll have to pay we don't know how many uh you know staff members about to bring in ETC for various uh reasons all right revenues 2% of the general fund tax levy increase is $3.6 million that's given that's in statute and statute also is the spending growth limitation adjustment so a school district is required to stay at 2% of its prior year uh general fund tax levy unless it can generate school um spending growth limitation adjustments and you do that through an increase in health care cost and an increase in uh number of students 10% in one given year well that's going to be very hard that you know we would need a th students to enter the district so we don't have any student spending growth limitation adjustments but we do for healthcare we generated uh $2.1 million or so in health care adjustment spending growth limitation adjustment last year we spent a third of that we were looking to spend a third a third and a third and what I mean by spend we were looking to use that Authority um however as this budgets moving on we may recommend that we use the remaining authority of $1.4 million uh so we may have to use that as we go forward you may see that from us in future discussions enrollment adjustment as I mentioned none banked cap from this year's when I say this year you realize I'm talking 2425 as we do the calculations uh we see that we can generate another 1.25 in spending growth limitation adjustment which is additional uh asking Authority for additional uh tax levy so we have not calculated our capital reserve allocation to go to capital projects which again that's separate of this that does not impact taxes and state aid increase we're anticipating a half million do because uh we know that we should be at 100% of formula the governor has stated that uh as well this year and that's what we're basically owed is a half million dollars we've been shorted each year the last several years um what we've been shorted has been made up to us according to the sfra of 20 I'll stop there all right increases we're looking at possible Health increase of $1.9 million but we're anticipating salary increases a $3.5 million so you realize on the last slide I said 2% of the tax levy is $3.6 million we're well above that $3.6 million in the first two lines Transportation increase again fixed cost 1.27 million you know 1.27 is what we anticipated you know in millions of an increase at 8.6% CPI buildings and grounds increase to 277,000 technology 100K Insurance $290,000 ABM which is our uh custodial Services a $210,000 increase special education 780k and capital projects even though M hit the taxes uh we that's to be determined so when you look at those first three lines and we can only increase taxes by 2% or $3.6 million you see uh where we're heading with this presentation so here's just uh putting the numbers in place and and actually calculating some of the major categories I won't read them to you again um but when you add those up it's $8.3 million in increases this is what we've added in for Appropriations next year we have the software it's is in the state software we will receive the revenue side of the state software at the end of February when we get our state aid notices so that's why this is kind of a two-piece project we move together uh separately so we see what our anticipated appropriation increase now this is pretty much where we are with the revenues we know 2% in our tax Lev is 3.6 million we know we can use 1.48 7 of our banked cap which is the sgla for healthcare from last year that would be our tax levy would be five increase would be $5.1 million state aid increase is a projection at a half million you see that total and you see the revenue shortfall right now um this number as we work and dig into it is not coming down the number is actually going the other way as we sharpen and sharpen each number um but I you know we submit a budget on March uh 19th is when you know we'll vote on it to submit it by March 20th so we have another uh six weeks that we will be working on this and we'll be looking at it um so I don't have good news but I do have news so again nothing's in stone right now this is something that you know we meet you know several days a week to go over what's the latest where are we have we thought of this have we cut that have we done this and um we've been looking at efficiencies and we've been finding efficiencies that's what I pride myself on on the operation side um but you see with inflation and in the economy um the fixed costs are are you know are getting to us this year it's it's a perfect storm everything's coming together in one year is what we're looking at any questions go ahead Dan on it's a different it's a different mic than I usually have um usually it's on all the time anyway um so the no pun intended the million plus uh question is to how are you going to cover this short this anticipated shortfall well we're we're looking and we're you know so I can say year you know it's kind of been like I've been up here and I've been a million dollars I've been a little over a million dollars away we've been there and I'm kind of in the back of my mind going well we can do this or uh we can do that and we'll get there I'm not doing that this year um so no we're going to continue to look uh you know where there's any couch cushion um available um you know we'll have to we'll have some serious discussions between now and then before we present again on how this number tightens up so I mean I I can't just I don't want to say something not flippantly but half prepared and then have to go back on it so that's why but we are looking at we we you know we've got seven or eight different places to look Al so when is the next budget presentation in this forum this forum so we'll have the um February 20th board meeting we'll have the audit presentation and then the March meeting will be uh an opportunity for for um the tenative budget to be presented for submission to the County's uh superintendent which requires the board vote for that submission in the interim they'll have the opportunity for the board to come together um we'll also have the opportunity for the finance committee to meet twice um so there will be opportunities for this board to have conversations between now and the March meeting um as Chris said the the it it is uh the ugliest budget we've seen in a long time um and we've seen uh probably since 1011 and that's the year we lost 7.7 million in state aid um the 1112 excuse me um when we look at this year's budget and you look at just some of your major drivers um your special education costs going up just under a million your health care increase going up over 11% your um transportation cost calculated by state formula at 8 point well we anticipated being over 8% why can we anticipate that it's formulary driven and the formula is a look back formula so it looks back over uh 24-month period you go back six months to um jul uh June 30th and then from that point you go back 18 months so you look back months 1 through 18 and then you don't look at 19 through 24 so it's so over a 2-year period and then you look at what was inflation for the Consumer Price Index for the transportation are formula between Philadelphia and New York averaged over that time period And when our our state puts that number out um that becomes the renewal rate they usually put that out by the end of January and it has not been released yet um that's a state generated number and then the the transportation providers get to decide whether they accept that or whether they force you to go back out to bid to give an example of where we are with transportation at this point in the year our athletic bus runs are in the red and we're in the winter season we have never been in the red in the winter season right and that's just because the exorbitant cost of additional routes end of day in weekend routes are facing all school districts and when I say we're in the red we increased an increase in budget over the last year so that's how much that they're increasing for for the for the athletic runs and for for Field Trips Trips that used to cost us $4 or $5,000 for Outdoor Ed we got a quote for 12,000 for outdoor head for for the same exact trip of five years ago so these Transportation contractors are really have just exorbitantly jacked up the prices um in the route cost now some of that's because buses moved out of out of the state some bus companies moved out of the state creating a bus shortage it's hard to get drivers based on some of the requirements in New Jersey to get your CDL and then gas prices went up but now if you're a transportation company the formula works in your favor right because prices have come down at the pump but you're getting the higher renewal rate so they're making big profits off of school districts but we can't do anything about the formula that's that's a legislative formula salaries are up and rightly so um and their negotiation rates across um you know have gone up and our contractual costs uh for salary increases are around 3.5% 3.4% but our 2% is our budget cap so to Chris's Point like every single area that we spend is getting hit at higher than we're allowed to raise and that's the challenge of this year's budget so we'll continue to look the challenges is that the vast majority of the budget is people in don't see many efficiencies or reductions when you talk about people because that means changing programs for kids and I don't see making a recommendation to Red reduce course offerings or to increase class sizes so we are going to continue to have to look at Savings in areas where we can try to find efficiencies but quite frankly we've gone there we went to self-funding for healthcare we renewed our insurance rates we changed providers we've found those efficiencies in Prior year budgets so there's not many Wells to go to it's pulling this small amount back from an energy line or pull this amount from um you know shifting pots to cover areas of growth and that's how we're trying to to look at it but the budget no matter what gets tighter each year and that's and while that's a challenge I just always want us to remember there's 100 districts that for 5 years have been cut each year in state aid and so they've had inflationary cost and loss of state aid we have seen an increase of state aid so yes we're challenged by this but I have colleagues that are cutting 6 million not two million right so I I do want to try to Big Picture stay in perspective that there's other places far more challenging now my responsibility is to this community um well I advocate out there for for all we have to think also about the students and the staff here in wwp so it's just it's a challenging mix for districts and you know while members of the legislature are um kind in reminding us that we should think about increasing salaries or we should you know increase these Services there's no appetite to change the formula and to increase the the ability for us to raise um additional Revenue but you know that's that's code for the folks in the audience raising revenues means increasing taxes so I'm also very mindful that as I say bring in additional monies it means increasing taxes on the TA on the local taxpayers so it's a very difficult balance um when you look when you look at all the programs um L did you have a comment or question thank you uh Dr adal I was just wondering about Transportation just sitting here because you said almost 19 million increase over five years it seems like a trend if there was I don't know something if we've been thinking something outside the box to deal with maybe Transportation but I guess we can have those discussions as we move on in the budget discussions but yeah and quick to answer to that is realize the pool drivers isn't there so us running a program or them running a program it's not much there we'll talk uh are there any other questions or comments from the rest of the board okay thank you Dr Russo we appreciate your transparency and clear presentation and Dr aderhold for your additional insights um well we could still have some laughs though yeah um yes you have a very big job ahead of you um and we'll now move to first opportunity for public comments the board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items and items of concern from members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name an address prior to making a statement which will be limited to 3 minutes in accordance with board policy 0167 all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer this public comment period shall be limited to 60 minutes do we have any public comments good evening good evening an Clifton 18 gston drive I'm representing the West windser bicycle and pedestrian Alliance it's an all volunteer nonprofit organization that works to make West Windsor and our surrounding communities more safe for bicyclists and pedestrians of all ages I was here at the December meeting uh to suggest that the district increase the amount of bicycle and pedestrian safety Ed education offered in the schools at the end of the meeting Dr McDonald was kind enough to introduce himself and express interest so I'm back with another suggestion um actually as a followup to an email I sent earlier uh last week so we would recommend that the district take advantage or make use of programs offered by the greater Mercer transportation management association also acronym uh gmma they have free after all this budget news they have free uh bicycle and pedestrian safety programming available for students in K to2 3 to 5 6 to 8 and 9 to 12 um also appropriate for some of the new drivers as they get their driver's education class um we can help with Logistics they also have a bike rodo on Bike uh education that they offer for third graders uh we is WW BPA acronym for West wsor bicy SCH pedestrian Alliance we can help with Logistics so if anybody's rolling their eyes about bikes in the schools but we we could help with Logistics um we also would welcome opportunity if we could help at field day or record Breakers uh we were at move like a move like a Jag day earlier in May with at Grover middle school so we we like I said all volunteer all nonprofit and we would welcome an opportunity to help increase the amount of um safety bike ped pedestrian safy in the schools just to help kids learn how they can be how they can be safer and maybe wouldn't it be great especially with all this Transportation news wouldn't it be great if at some point we could get more kids biking and and walking to school so thank you very much for your consideration thank you Miss Clifton do we have any other public comments hello my name is arjin Patel uh and I'm Anish Patel and we live at 564 Village Ro West so um we are both Juniors at High School North and we are also Brothers we are part of the West Windsor biker and pedestrian Alliance we were concerned with the lack of rectangular rapid flashing Beacon and poor lighting conditions of the Community Middle School and High School North crosswalk due to du the lack of lighting on many roads and intersections many accidents have been caused such as the recent tragic death of a 12-year old CMS student Crossing Rabbit Hill Road this accident might have been prevented with better lighting nearly 3,000 students attend high school north and CMS and aggressive drivers are on the road at school arrival and at dismissal times as well as the following after school activities it is especially crucial to improve the lighting in this area recently we have sent out a petition to our students and adults of West Winter and Plainsboro to get their opinion on whether we should improve the lighting in just 5 days we have got a total of 460 signatures on platforms like Google forms and change.org one of the students comments that stood out to us was that pedestrians can't get through the sidewalks because they had to deal with three directions of traic traffic at the same time we would like you to consider adding better lighting lighting conditions and rrfb to the side crosswalk between CMS and HSN as it is a hazard for many students Crossing thank you thank you Arin Anish do we have any other public comments this evening okay and uh before I close or should I close the FR okay um seeing none I will close this public comment portion and turn over to Dr Adder hold well thank you to miss Clifton for the the offer I just want to thank you for your comments and I know the the bike Alliance has been in touch with the district and with Dr McDonald's and we'll be coming to our I believe our May PTA PTSA leadership meeting has been doing some presentations with our some of our ptas and so we thank you for your your support um into Argent and Niche thank you for letting us know about the petition and we we are aware that um I believe you've also been in touch uh with with the district with the PTA at North with uh the township and with the building Administration I believe you met with Mr Thomas as well over there at north um the just for the public the uh sidewalks and the roadway are governed under the M the municipality um so I have been in touch directly with the business administrator for Plainsboro um Mr canro and um we've been in touch with the chief Blanchard as well regarding the Outreach uh Dr McDonald has directly worked with traffic um officers in Plainsboro you may have seen recently they put more conage cones out some signage out and they've had more of a presence like the beginning of the year um we have had Outreach from uh one or two additional community members regarding the lighting um outside specifically those crosswalks uh that was also forwarded to the business administrator um over in Plainsboro they have contacted from their Communications to us psng um which may be a part of the solution uh not suggesting it's the only solution um and then they're going to have to do some investigation um based on feedback they get from their Plainsboro police uh Traffic Division as well as PS regarding if they choose to pursue additional lighting um you know we're happy to continue to to interface with the township um but you're you're moving the right direction and I I know Mr Thomas was going to work to connect on some potential student opportunities um to continue to raise awareness um clearly the tragedy of the the 12-year-old but um many may not realize that two years ago we lost a High School North student over the summer who was on a a bicycle in a summer tragedy um colleague to some of our our students that are at North still um so we've had several losses in the community um crosswalk or bicycle related um that have hit really home in the the North Community uh CMS community in particular um but within our school district community so we appreciate student advocacy and and clearly uh student voice gets some attention so we'd encourage you to continue to um Advocate at the at the building with the PTA with the township um and to continue to raise that awareness uh Dr McDonald is there anything I miss cuz I know you've had specific um no Dr I had to just Echo the sentiment that we appreciate the advocacy nothing is more important than the Safety and Security of our students and we will continue to have the conversations with the township about uh possible solutions to the challenges in front of high school north and CMS I think the one thing also just to note is there was a comment made about aggressive drivers um the aggressive drivers are often our own Community um so um we're talking about parent drop off we're talking about um student drivers and we're we are talking about an area that can serve as a community cut through for folks going to Route One and you know to cut through the community so um clearly that all hits around the same time and constant education around safety is why organizations such as The Pedestrian bike Alliance are so important um so thank you for all of your advocacy and and I I recommend you you know we appreciate your continued advocacy on that all right thank you um uh we don't have any Board of Education committee meeting reports since the Committees uh haven't met since our last board meeting so now we can move on to the voting portion of our meeting um for administration can I have a motion for administration items 1 through 4 plus the pink addendum uh Dana and Liz uh any questions or comments okay we'll start with Miss bonsel yes Miss chera yes yep Miss H yes Miss Krug yes Miss Mala yes Miss zovich Miss Juliana and Miss yes um be pardon oh I'm sorry oh okay got everyone y um can I have a motion for curriculum and instruction item number one plus the light orange addendum uh ly and Rachel any questions or comments okay we'll start with Miss chener yes Miss hoe yes Miss Krug yes Miss Malika yes Miss zich Miss Juliana yes Miss bonsel yes Miss McAn yes all right motion pass um can I have a motion for finance items one through nine plus the blue addendum uh Louisa and um Robin any questions or comments okay we'll start with Miss ho yes okay Miss ho Miss crw yes accepted stain on 9B on 9B okay Miss malga yes Miss Shetty no Miss Miss zovich yes Miss Juliana yes Miss bonsel yes Miss chenera yes Miss pan yes and the next item on our a agenda is Personnel so can I have a motion to approve Personnel items uh personel item number one plus the green the purple and the yellow addendum uh Pua and uh Liz uh any questions or comments okay we'll start with Miss Krug yes Miss Mal yes m yes Miss Juliana yes Miss bonsel yes Miss chenera yes Miss hope yes Miss McAn yes and before we move on I would like to take a moment to recognize a few retirements we just voted on the first is Hugh green math teacher at Grover retiring after 26 years in the district then we have Leslie Kessler a technology teacher at Grover retiring after 25 years in the district uh Bill totaro business education teacher at both high schools retiring after 20 and a half years in the district and Rose Leonard uh language arts teacher at High School South retiring after 33 years in the district we'd like to thank you for your years of service to our district and we all wish you uh the best of luck and enjoyment during your retirement next we'll move on to the approval of the Board of Education minutes from January 23rd um can I have a motion to approve the January 23rd minutes uh Louisa and Robin uh all those in favor say I I uh any extensions no okay um any board liaison reports thanks um as a liaison to the New Jersey Schoolboard Association and the Mercer County School Board Association vice president I wanted to thank Dr Russo for his presentation on school Finance last Thursday night for the Mercer County School Board Association um meeting meeting was attended by board members from six different counties and we had tremendously positive feedback from the participants so I want to thank you that was fun it's a good group that's awesome um do we have any other Theon Reports look thank you grin uh so lizar are the Liaisons for the district ptas and we just wanted to do um an update on the PTA Reflections program uh Reflections is a national PTA program for the Arts as many as as many of you know uh first thank you to Angelina Lee the um Mercer County Reflections chair who's also a Dutch neck parent um for the reflection work that they've done and also um the updates and also thank you to all the reflection chair people and committees for all your work on the school level because we know it's a lot of work from K through 12 in coordinating all the uh reflection projects for our students and having that opportunity for our students to to take part in um we just want to acknowledge that uh wwp students um at the county level were there were 36 wwp students who um out of 59 who were County winners so they are now placed on top of their respective categories and will move on to the state level um to compete on that uh stage so uh please check with your respective ptas for that list but um we just wanted to recognize those folks involved in the reflections program thank you thanks L Ana for your reports um any other lers on reports um any new business okay now on to the second opportunity for public comments the board invites comments from members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name an address prior to making a statement which will be limited to 3 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 do we have any comments this evening seeing none we'll close the second opportunity for a public comment um and move on to can I have a motion to adjourn our meeting uh Liz and Louisa all those in favor say I by thank you good night