BOE Meeting: Superintendent Closing WAS, Renting Jesus School Again, Wants HS to be a Performing Arts Academy

The regularly scheduled Board of Education meeting for February is being held tonight, February 24, 2025 at 7:00pm in the High School cafeteria.

A second "Work Session" meeting is scheduled for just two days later, on Wednesday Febrary 26, also at 7:00pm at the High School. The topic of the Work Session is Budget Development Process, in anticipation of near year's budget being put together and approved over the next several months.

The agenda for tonight's meeting is available here. We are only hitting the highlights in this pre-meeting report. We encourage people with questions or comments or concerns for the Board to write to them directly via email at boe@shrsd.org. Please note that any such correspondence will be published as part of their meeting agendas and minutes.

---

Public Correspondence

As of this writing, only a single piece of correspondence has been recorded. Doug Sheetz wrote in congratulating South for successfully launching the High School wrestling program over the past few years, and is imploring the Board to act on a similar program for Middle School, stating, "Previous email stating intentions for middle school program is great, and if in fact budgets are being modified also great. But we have heard plenty, especially in most recent history from BOE on many subjects that either haven’t happened or even opposite of what was promised. Before more time gets past us, because we really thought and wanted a MS program this season, can we get some assurances?".

Ethics Presentation

The Yearly State ethics presentation was provided by Patricia Rees, Field Representative for Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren Counties for the New Jersey School Board Association, available here.

The ethics presentation is quite different from those given in prior years, likely reflecting the ebb and flow of cases to the School Ethics Commission. The NJ SBA has the unenviable task of trying to make sense of the School Ethics Commission decisions to board members.

Superintendent Update

A link to the Superintendent Update is available here.

Superintendent Suozzo's February Update to the Board

We are going to cover this in a separate story as there is much to unpack, but the highlights include:

1. PreK plan. The Superintendent is now favoring renting 2 classrooms from the Jesus School for PreK for $75,000/year, with 3 PreK classrooms at LPS. The third LPS classroom would come from "flex" space, and WAS would be closed entirely. They are discussing a three year lease but "with a clause that allows us out of the lease in the event funding from the NJDOE is cut for PreSchool". This appears to be a much more responsible plan than the one the Superintendent favored in December 2024, or the even worse ones he presented involving millions of dollars of capital expenditures. The acknowledgement in the presentation that State PreK funding isn't guaranteed in the future is also refreshing.

2. WAS Water Contamination. The Superintendent does not appear to know what to do with this situation. He mentions as remedies "Determine if Lehigh Fluid Power can remediate...not sure if this is even possible", "Install an expensive and complex water treatment system" (without details), "Connect to existing public water supply (Lambertville City)". It would be heartening for the public to hear about this issue from qualified water quality experts and not the Superintendent just throwing out random ideas.

3. WAS closing. The Superintendent indicated that they will move out of WAS at the end of the 2024/25 school year, including staff in the house in front of the building. The promised Broker's report from December 2024 is delayed. The exact disposition of the school is still up in the air.

4. Performing Arts Academy. The Superintendent wants to turn the High School into a "Performing Arts Academy". They are looking to pair up with Polytechnic Academy to add 20 dance and an additional 20 theater students to the High School. With notes indicating that "Students from other districts who are accepted into the program would become full-time South students", and "current student tuition rate for a four year Polytech Academy is $10,193 per year". The projected makeup for the HS for next year is for approximately 260 total students, with nearly 60 choice students. Percentage wise, this makes for 77% local students, and 22% choice students. In a worse case scenario where all 40 "Performing Arts Academy" students were also from out-of-district, this would raise out-of-district high school students to an astonishing 1/3 of the High School student roster. And the presentation implies even more kids coming into this program if it is successful. This feels as if the district just spent millions renovating and building new buildings strictly go clear out room in the high school for even more non-local students to attend. Based on all indications, the tuition mentioned would not even cover half of our typical High School student costs.

Bills List

The full list of Bills for the month is available here.

Some highlights:

1. Another $944,000 has gone out the door to construction of the Middle School Building.

2. An additional $21,000 to Bluum for A/V equipment for the new Middle School. To date Bluum has received over $1.2 million for A/V equipment for the LPS renovation and the new Middle School.

3. Another $34,000 to Daktronics for more score boards.

4. $157,000 for cabinets for middle school lab spaces.

5. "Payment in Lieu of transportation" refers to paying students who have sent their children out of district who the district cannot directly bus to their school. We now have recorded over 40 students who are receiving PiLoT checks who have chosen to send their kids to private schools.

On a positive note, with "ESSR" covid relief funds evaporating in the 2024/25 school year, the district has been forced to severely cut back on consulting budget and non-referendum technology spends.

Financial Reports

The Board Secretary's report contains the report on all fund balances and major movements for the reporting period, available here. Among other areas, the referendum investment account is down to just $5.5 million.

Capital Reserve is staying steady at $2.7 million after the Board chose to transfer $2 million of interest proceeds from the referendum investment account for use for addressing Change Orders at the Middle School. The legality of that use of referendum interest is still in dispute.

Meanwhile, in this atmosphere of belt tightening, austerity and uncertainty in the fact of the new Gubernatorial election and term limits for Governor Murphy, the district is still contemplating spending millions more on a turf field for the football stadium. This line of decision making is astonishing in that the district just purchased a robotics line painting machine for tens of thousands of dollars just last year.

The Treasure's Report is available here. We apologize that the Treasurer has chosen to publish it sideways and upside down.

Contracts

Yet another $55,000 is being given to Aspire Technology Partners for more A/V, networking and computing equipment. Keep in mind, the district is shrinking and while we are building new buildings, we are not adding students.

Yet the district has chosen to buy all new networking equipment for both LPS and the new Middle School, on top of all of the technology purchased over the year at the High School.

Conclusion

In these uncertain times, as districts around the State and Country are facing funding and budget crises and continue to try to claw back from covid learning deficits, our district continues to focus on how to spend as much money as possible on students who do not even live here, while our own kids continue to struggle in the basic three R's.