001mission statement. Yeah. Uh fellas, yes. Ready? I'm going to say yes. Excellent connection. Yeah, we're good. Good evening, everybody. Can I have your attention? Thank you. Okay. I'd like to call to order uh the board of education uh for the committee of a whole meeting uh on June 4th, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. in the cafeteria at the Connor Road Primary School at 56 Connover Road, Colts Snack, New Jersey. Can I kindly have a roll call, Mr. Maska? Yes, you may. Mrs. Cameron here. Mrs. Horowitz here. Mr. Orico here. Mrs. Ramirez, not present. Mr. Reignetta here. Mr. Scales here, Mr. Scarpa here, Mrs. Vulpi here, and Mr. Walsh here. Thank you. You have a quorum. Great. Thank you. Pursuant to the Open Public Meetings Act, chapter 231, this meeting has been duly advertised in the Asbury
002Park Press in a schedule of meetings dated January 16, 2025, March 4th, 2025, May 21st, 2025. notice of which has been filed with the deputy clerk for Coleneck Township and the requirements of posting of notices have been met. Uh Mrs. Cameron, can you read the mission statement? Sure. The mission of Colts Neck Township Schools is to empower and inspire students to be confident, creative, self-sufficient learners who maximize their strengths and talents and contribute as responsible participants in their everexpanding world. Great. Thank you, Mrs. Camera. Uh, at this time, I'd like everybody to rise for the flag salute. Standing. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat.
003Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. Uh um Okay. I just want to remind the public that this meeting is uh livereamed. if we could take uh notice for the uh information items. We got one listed and then we're going to move right on uh into the comments from attending constituents. At this time, if anybody would like to get up and make a statement or uh have question or comment, you could do so at this time. Take the podium. Uh just remember to state your name and address for the record. I'm just going to move a microphone over to the podium. Great. Thank you very much. Yeah, come on up. Good evening, Kevin. Um, I think it needs to be put on. Yeah. Good evening, Kevin O'Brien. 18. The enclosure. Colts
004Board of Education adopted the 2025-26 budget with a near zero increase in early May. So, congratulations and thank you for all that you've done. But I'm not done. Goals and fiscal plan for the school board and the district include developing and implementing a a funding strategy for capital improvement projects, implementing safety key safety and and security features. Go ahead, clap for it. They deserve it. enhancing transparency and consistent and and and communications. Your team shared information at the town governing body meetings. It's the first time that I've seen that done in the 25 years that I've stood before governing bodies uh as a representative for the people in support of transparency. So, hats off to you. You take the extra effort. You bring your flyers with you. You mingle with the public. And I haven't
005seen that ever done before. So congratulations. The district has maintained a near zero tax increase. You've adopted well to the ever challenging FA issues uh throughout the budgeting process both at the state and the local levels. One such challenge was the decrease in funding from the state. As a retired senior, I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to each member of the board. As a team, you invested long hours to pull together for the residents and for the students. and I thank you for all that you do. Great. Uh thank you, Mr. O'Brien. I just uh want to reply with a comment. Uh we do appreciate you recognizing the hard work that was put into this budget. It certainly wasn't easy. Um I think I publicly thanked uh the finance committee, uh Jason
006Orico, uh the finance chair, Phyllis Camera, Brian Scarpa, and Kevin Walsh. uh they worked tirelessly uh with um Dr. Mary Jane Garabay and Vince Morasco um to come up with the budget and I'm proud to say that even though we did not have any tax increase, no programs, no teachers um you know nothing was sacrificed uh to get there. So we're very proud of that and uh you know we we appreciate the public recognizing that. So thank you to the board members who achieved it and uh thank you uh to the public for recognizing it. Thank you, Mr. [Applause] Brian. All right. Anybody else would like to come up and make a comment? Okay. Uh we will close public comment at this time. Uh later on, uh towards the end of the meeting, we do
007offer another public comment. So, you'll be welcome to address us at that point. Um okay. I am going to uh ask for a motion. We have a couple of action items 1 through 19. I'm going to ask for a motion to move those action items. Motion. Second. Okay, great. Any members have any uh questions or comments on those 19 items? Uh we'd like to recognize uh Jessica Ramirez joining us. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. If there's no uh questions or comments, uh can I get a roll call on those action items? Yes, you may. Uh Mrs. Cameron? Yes. Mrs. Horowitz? Yes. Mr. Rico? Yes. Uh Mrs. Ramirez? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Retta. Yes. Mr. Scales. Yes, Mr. Scarpa. Yes, Mrs. Vulpi. Yes, Mr. Walsh. Yes. Thank you. The motion passed unanimously. Okay, we are going to
008move uh on to the best part of this evening's um board of education meeting. Um the board of education is honored uh to have all of you here tonight uh to celebrate all these wonderful achievements that um that have been done by our students. Uh I'd like to hand it over to Dr. Garbay so we could proceed with the awards. Thank you. So, we know how to fill a house for a board meeting, and that is certainly with having children here. So, thank you for allowing this opportunity. Um, tonight we have our spring celebration of students, student learning, student accomplishment, and and some very special distinguished guests for 2025 governor's award uh award recipients for Colts neck. Um, that being said, celebrations happen to every single day and whether it's today, tomorrow, it was yesterday
009or in years to come. Know that we celebrate every single one of our students in all that you do each and every day. But tonight is your special night and tonight we are going to be recognizing some students um who we feel are definitely certainly worthy of recognition at this point in time for their special achievements. Um, and so to move forward with that, our first presenter this evening is our principal, Trisha Bar, who is principal at Connor Road Elementary School, who will be presenting this year's 2025 principal award sec to our second graders. And Mrs. Vulpi would join me at [Applause] the well. You know, at the primary school, we are always a team. So, I also want to introduce my right hand, Mrs. Mary Milano, our assistant [Applause] principal. I want to thank
010you so much, Dr. Garbe and President Bulpi and Vice President Cameron and all members of our board of education because tonight I get the pleasure of introducing you to some of Colts neck's finest second grade students. These children are going to be presented tonight with the principal's award. And so our children have asked us repeatedly, well, what did I do? Did I get a perfect score on a test? Did I do something specific to get this award? And I have to tell you friends, it's not any one thing that you did. Your names came to our attention by your grade level teachers, your related arts teachers, Mrs. Milano and myself, Mrs. Wgleman, and it's you are here today because of everything you are and all that you do and what you bring to Conover Road
011Primary School. Every single day, you show that you are caring and you genuinely want to try your best. Every single day, you challenge yourself to try to achieve new goals. Every day you are a cult. And you know what that means, right? C means you are O you are on. L you are and T you that's right you are caring on task leaders who try your best every single day and that is why you have been nominated to be selected as our principal award winners. Now, moms and dads, I'm going to try to shed a little bit more light on why they are here. Among this group of children today, we are going to be introducing you to those that are creative artists, caring classmates, and always engaged learners. You are going to meet, although
012I'm not going to point out by name, one child here who started kindergarten as an incredibly reluctant reader, was afraid to read and would even say, "I'm never going to learn to read." and would cry about it. That child worked every single day with her parents, with her teachers, and now is the the child who has grown in the most amount of reading levels of all of the children at the primary school. In this group are several children, raise your hand if you are a kickball player at recess. Yeah. So, what makes that group of children who are especially extraordinary, you can put your hands down now, is we introduced kickball right after we returned from spring break. And we encouraged all of the kids to play. And one of the things that was so
013impressive about this particular group of students is we have one child in second grade with very specific learning and physical needs. And these children all took on the role of being coaches and cheerleaders and encouraging him to to play. And he got up to the plate and he kicked and it went pretty far. and he was so proud of himself that he immediately ran to third base. Well, one of the children, again, I'm not going to say who, but one of the children that's here being recognized tonight looked at the pride in his classmate with special needs face. And he said to all of his teammates that are on the field, he's like, "Hey guys, that counts. That was such a good kick. That was going to be a triple anyway. It counts." And every
014one of the children, they were like, "You're right." And they all agreed. And from that day and every day after that, when they choose teams at recess, that child is always the first one picked. So that's that's this group of children. You are also going to meet one of my friends who didn't see herself as a strong math student. And so every single Monday morning, she got to school about 45 minutes before her peers and founded a math group and worked really hard and with confidence in math and now is really showing incredible strength and confidence. So, I could you could probably tell I can go on and on about each and every one of these children and tell lots of stories about them, but to save you all from having to listen to too
015many stories, I'm going to present to you the principal's awards with the three adjectives that the teachers and teammates have um indicated. So, these are the three adjectives that were used the most frequently. So friends, when you hear your name, I want you to stand up. We're going to tell our friends that are joining us all the wonderful things about you and then you are going to receive your certificate from President Vulpi. Deal. All right. Our very first principal's award winner is Gabriel Amador. Gabriel, you have been selected for this recognition because you are sincere. You are empathetic. Do you know what that means? It means you're extra caring and you are motivated to learn. Congratulations. [Applause] Okay. Okay. All right. Quinn Brown. [Applause] Quinn Brown, you are here today and we recognize you for
016being compassionate, respectful, and [Applause] intelligent, Kate Copela Look at that smile. I love it. Kate, you are here because you are determined. You are kind-hearted and you are always interested and curious. [Applause] Congratulations, Gerard D. Bernardes. [Applause] Do Mrs. Milano and I have the best job or what? Gerard, you are here because you are confident, you are patient, and you are known to all of your teammates, all of your teachers as being a leader in all that you do. [Applause] Congratulations, Francesca Dphano. [Applause] Francesca, we recognize you this evening for being reliable, inquisitive, and collaborative. [Applause] Joseph Demuzzio. Joseph, we are so proud of you and we recognize you for being thoughtful, for always being a hard worker, and for always being so attentive and respectful in class. Thank you, J.R. Fabi J.R. you are
017being recognized this evening for being involved, for being eager to help, and for being a rule [Applause] follower. Matthew Gaglio Matthew, your teachers and team here at Conover Road Primary School want to thank you and recognize you for being a friend to everyone, for being caring and always being motivated. Great job, Genevie Galetta. [Applause] Genevieve, you are here that today because your teachers and the office team have described you as somebody who is always a cult, someone who is always caring on task, a leader who tries her best. You have a big heart and you are known as an upstander. Do you know what that means? All good. AJ [Applause] Molinro. AJ, we want to thank you for being a leader by your great example every day. We describe you, you don't even know this,
018as our one-man school spirit squad. and that you are laser focused on doing your best. Congratulations, AJ. McKenzie [Applause] Monise McKenzie, we love that you are independent, you are spunky, and you are fearless. Dylan Ludina Nolasco. Dylan, your teachers and I would like to recognize you because you are always positive. You are a role model and you are an attentive listener. Thank you, Christian Oro. [Applause] Christian, you have been selected for this recognition because you are enthusiastic, you are creative, and you are always encouraging to others. [Applause] Wyatt Pennix. Wyatt, we recognize you for giving 100% effort 100% of the time. You are helpful and you have a heart of gold. [Applause] Paxton Writer. Paxton, we present you with this principal's award because you are friendly, you are understanding, and you always bring the joy
019to everything that we do at the primary school. Nicolina Sanalippo [Applause] Michelina, you are being recognized because we know that you are always trustworthy. You are capable and you are determined. Hazel Silva. Hazel, you have a cheering squad here. Say hi, Hazel. We recognize you this evening because you are competent, you are courageous, and you are a also a calming influence on all the crazy that sometimes happens in second grade. So, we thank you for that. Thank you. Megan Watts. Megan, tonight we recognize you for being motivated, for being smart, and always reliable. Marielle Wickberg [Applause] Marielle, we thank you for what you've brought to the Conover Road Primary School, and we recognize you for always being clever, mature, and [Applause] adaptable. And last, but not least, Savannah Zalinski. [Applause] This young lady keeps me
020on my toes. She dreams big big dreams that we have to rain in a lot. But the her biggest effort actually is going to be on Monday, right? And what are we doing on Monday? bringing desserts around the entire school. We're bringing desserts around the entire school for teachers because Savannah wants to thank all of her teachers for all of the amazing things that they have done for her and she has made sure that she had we have a pretty large group of second graders that are all dressing up uh for the occasion as waiters and waitresses so that we can thank the teachers. So Savannah, we recognize you for being grateful, for being genuine, and for being [Applause] caring, Mrs. Bar, Mrs. Milano, thank you so much. We're going to do a photo op.
021So, if we could kind of keep our students, our winners, in front of the table, if board members, if you would stand up to have your picture taken with the award winners, and you can take all the pictures you want if you want. This is our our big group of second grade award winners, principal award winners. So, if you could just Yeah, you got behind the behind. You say behind. Yeah. Sorry. Sounds good. Y Never going to get lost. Never. No. Okay, everyone's got their pictures. Okay, if our students could have our seats, board members, take your seats. This is Vulpi. We're going to move into Cedar Drive Middle School. Uh, and I'm going to invite uh principal Dr. Colin Riby to the uh podium who's going to introduce our third marking period high honor
022role. But before we do that, we're also going to welcome Mrs. Hope Deia who will be announcing our participants in our Continental Math League challenge. Dr. Rigby, good evening everyone. Thank you very much to the board of education. We appreciate Dr. Garabay, Mr. Morasco, Mrs. Vulpi. Thank you so much for having us tonight. What a great night. Uh, congratulations to Mrs. Bar and Miss Milano, and our 20 outstanding second graders. We can't wait to see you at Cedar Drive Middle School. So, congratulations to you for your outstanding accomplishments. Very good. Tonight, we have an opportunity to celebrate excellence in the classroom. And before we announce our students, I'm very proud to introduce a teacher that spearheads, okay, some very, I think, e exceptional competitions at Cedar Drive. So, I'm going to ask Mrs. Dia to
023join us. So, Mrs. Delia has a very unique role. She's our math interventionist at Cedar Drive where she's working with students that may struggle or have some obstacles or challenges with math. And yet she and then she also runs programs and competitions for our highf flyers in mathematics. So she really sees a wide spectrum each day. If you visit room 50 what you will see is you will see energy. Okay? You will see a lot of care sometimes some yelling and the yelling comes because Mrs. Dia is a former collegiate athlete and it feels like game day every day. and the kids know that she holds them to a very high standard, but she is their biggest cheerleader. So to Mrs. Dia, we thank you for all of your efforts to celebrate our students, to
024work with them. And now I'd like to turn it over to her for some recognitions. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Rigby. tries to make me cry before I step up and speak in front of all of you. Okay. Okay. Congratulations, little ones. That was fantastic. We can't wait to see you at our school. Yes. Um Okay. So, I run two math competitions through the year. There is the Continental Math League that is a series of five tests that are run through November to March. There's one test per month. It consists of six questions and the students get 30 minutes to complete this test. Um the questions range in difficulty from the first couple questions are pretty easy, more computationbased. They're a little bit more they're a little easier. They can answer them a little quicker.
025Um and then as they progress into questions three, four, five, and six, they're definitely a little bit more challenging. Again, they consist of computation skills, logic, there's re reasoning, spatial awareness, geometry. They're very difficult questions and they definitely make the students think. So I have kids that stay until I'm counting down the last 10 seconds and then I have some kids that finish in 10 minutes. So it's very interesting to see how they think, their perseverance, their level of effort. Some of them I watch them. I like to walk around. There's like 80 students in the cafeteria with just me. Um and it's it's coordinated very well. They're very well behaved. Um, but I always like to watch around, walk around and watch them do these questions. So, it's interesting to see how their minds
026work. Um, so we have with the Continental Math League, like I said, there are five tests. Each one is worth six points. Um, and then I display the names of the top scores in each of those six tests. So, the sixth graders take the sixth grade test, seventh graders, seventh grade. The eighth grade test is taken by all of my eighth graders and the seventh grade students that are in advanced algebra. And then the ninth grade test is given to the students that are in geometry. So I have the top score recipients those got the top scores for each of these levels. So I'm going to start with the sixth grade. So there is possible 30 points. Now this is also a test that is given nationally. So it is given across the country. There
027are six or seven regions depending on the numbers they get for each test. So, um, some of our older kids, they placed very well. So, I'll get to that in a second. Um, so for my sixth grade, and I don't I saw a lot of students, but I don't know who all is here. So, if they're not here, then we'll just Okay. Um, so with 17 total points was Alexandra Edwards and Sanchi Sundai. [Applause] work. Um, with 20 total points in the sixth grade was Gianna Nicholson. Doesn't look like she's here. 21 total points was Zachary [Applause] Dunn. And again, this is out of a total of 30 possible points. And these questions are not not easy. So my sixth graders I give a lot of credit to because they walk into the cafeteria, 80
028students and me. And like Dr. Riby said, I can sometimes be a little overwhelming. Um, and they walk in and they're looking at me and I'm like, "Find your color, find your table. Let's get going." And they really do. They kill it. I'm very proud of my sixth graders. Um, second place for the school with 22 points was Austin Palantonio. [Applause] Good job, bud. Good job, kiddo. And then in first place for the sixth grade, she only got three problems wrong out of all five tests. She scored a total of 27 points, I don't know if I saw her, is McKenzie [Applause] Huang. Yeah, she killed it. She did awesome. Okay, moving into my seventh grade with a total of 16 points. There was three students that got 16 points. Um, Jillian Dalvat, Michael Shapiro,
029and AJ [Music] Goanzer. Good job, kiddo. Good job. Awesome job, AJ. Job, bud. 17 total points was McKenzie [Applause] Zobro. Good job, McKenzie. Good job, kiddo. with 18 points. In second place was Parthy [Applause] Escandar. Good job, kiddo. And in first place for the seventh grade, Alexander Morphino. He had 20 points. Good job, bud. job kiddo. Congratulations. Okay, eighth grade. Now, some of these are seventh graders because they take the eighth grade test because they're in advanced algebra. So, with 17 points, we have quite a few. Eighth grader Leila Duprex. She's not here. Eighth grader Malik GMA. Seventh grader Austin Klene. I saw him. Seventh grader Al Addison Linham. She's [Applause] here. So Add's in seventh grade taking an eighth grade test. You got 17 points. Nice job, kiddo. And Colin Wkelman, do you want
030us to bring it to [Music] you? Battling through. Yeah. Let's go. Good job, bud. Just a little knee surgery. No big deal. Good job. Good job. Second place for the eighth grade with 18 points, Sophia [Applause] Sika. And in first place, seventh grader Daniel Shapiro. I think they're here. I don't think they're here. And then my two ninth graders that we had. Um, second place was 18 points with was Reagan Quigley. She's here. Oh, I didn't see her. You snuck in. I didn't see [Applause] you. So, Reagan's done the test with me. Well, three years, right? Yep. Awesome job, Reg. And in first place, um, is Parker here? Parker churn. Well, Parker got first place, 19 points. He also was a regional winner. So, we are in region six in the nation. Like I said,
031this is a national test. He tied with two other students in region two for first place. So, he actually I mean that was that's fantastic. It's New York, New Jersey. I don't remember if Pennsylvania is in there, but he tied for uh first place. So, that's awesome job by Parker. And then the second competition that I run is called the AMC8. It's the American Mathematics Competition. Um it's called the AMC8 because it's a test that that assesses anything from eighth grade down. So all three grade levels are welcome to participate in it. So I have sixth, seventh, and eighth graders that partake in this test. So my sixth graders have a little bit of diff disadvantage as do the seventh grade because there are eighth grade concepts that are taken that are assessed on this
032test. So, I do try to tell the kids that when they come to me and I'm no pressure, do your best. I try to, you know, pep them, give them a pep talk. So, a lot of them take this test and they do very well. This one is a little bit harder. It's 25 questions. They're all multiple choice and they get 45 40 minutes to take it. Um, these questions are tough. I mean, I always take all the tests just to make sure if they have questions, I'm able to answer them. And this test was really, really challenging. So, I do want to recognize um we had four students that scored in the top 25% for this test and there were almost 80,000 60,000 60,000 students that took this test. So, we had most of
033them are up here. Well, yeah. So, Addison Linham, [Music] no, I read this wrong. So 80,000 students took this test. Addie did better than 60,000 of those people. Seventh grade. Austin Klene, I don't think he's here. Yes, he also did better than 60,000 students. Paula Kzix, also a seventh grader. So, these students got I believe it was for 14. Did you get 14 out of 25 right? Do you remember? I think so, too. 14 questions out of 25. Good job, kiddo. Awesome job. And um Daniel Shapiro, who's also not here, he actually got 16 out of 25. Also a seventh grader. So, like I said, very, very proud of these students. They did an amazing job. Yeah. One more round of applause for all of them that are here. Yeah. So, you guys want to
034come up? We'll take a photo. If we could just have the board members rise, we'll have our picture up. Yes. Next to it. Thanks. Let's have one more round of applause for our competitive math students who were make us so proud. Way to go. Okay, you can take your seats now. And Dr. Wrigley is going to continue with our third marking period high honoral recipients. Dr. Rigby. Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Garvey. So for high honor role at Cedar Drive, that recognizes all the students that received a 93 or better in all of their coursework. So one thing I think that's important to recognizes middle school is not easy. And I think these students should really be I I I think you know um celebrated tonight because not only are they contributing to our school community,
035but they're also working so hard in the classroom. I know I I I speak on behalf of their teachers, okay? how proud we are of them. And we'd like to recognize first our sixth grade students who received high honor roll. Skyler Graves, Alexandra Hormiker, McKenzie Huang, Audrey Capadia, Irene Lee, Elizabeth Rumsby. No. Oh, there's Irene. Yeah. All right, Irene. Good job. Good job. Good job, Irene. [Applause] Did we do this? Yeah. We did Elizabeth, right? Charlie Sabatino. As Charlie is coming up, we also want to recognize Charlie received an outstanding jazz soloist award at this recent Hershey Park music in the parks. So Charlie, well done. Giovana Sedinary Sanchi Sundi and Michaela Saddle. Good job. Hey, great job. You can just stay up here. Our seventh graders who received high honor roll for marking period
0363. Jack Baron. [Applause] We could have vice president camera join us here. Jonas Camera. [Applause] Job. Good job, Jonas. Parthander, you have to step down. [Applause] Thanks, Mr. P. Good job, Caitlyn Friend. Paula Kosix Addison Linham and then Paula first and then yeah good job Jolie Magro Alex Morphino Bel Resnik Llaya Si here. We know. Good job, Violet. Daniel Shapiro, Michael Shapiro, Avery Tan. [Applause] No, you put up there, Kevin. Oh, Kevin. We'll do both. Giovana Wall. Oh, I got that one. Giovana [Applause] Walsh that she gave it to you. Yeah. Good job, Gia. Here, you guys take a picture. Good job, Cooper Wilcox. Reagan [Applause] Yale and McKenzie Zabro. Hey Ray, good job. Proud of you. Yeah, it was really cool. Yeah. Good job. Good job, Mackenzie. and our eighth graders who received high
037honor role for marking period 3. Reys Adams, Liliana Nicholson, Samantha Pattrell, Sam here. Yeah, Sam's here. Good job, Sam. Autumn Reneck, Valentina [Applause] Rodriguez, Lissa Skiaka. Hey Val, good job. And Isabelle [Applause] Tuminelli. [Applause] Congratulations is good job. Hopefully you have. Yeah, good job. There you go. Congratulations to all of our high honor role. We're very proud of you. If we could just do a photo op. So just stay there for one sec. We all want to leave it up to Kevin. Mrs. Vulpy, did you want to say something? Did you want to speak or after? Did you want to speak or after? Yeah, I was just going to say quick thank you. So, if the kids can have a seat really quick Oh, okay. Um, something. No, I'll say something. Um, okay. We're going
038to be honoring um our uh teachers of the year award, but I just want to I see some kids leaving. I just want to thank all the children um who received awards tonight. I know it's not easy uh achieving these grades. It's a lot of hard work and dedication and uh we want to let you know that this board of education is so very proud of you and all your accomplishments. So, thank you very much. Okay. Each year we have the distinct honor and pleasure of participating in the governor's educator of the year recognition program. It's a a a nomination process by your peers, by members of your community, and all the things that go into that. And um we're I'm so proud and honored to be presenting this year's 2025 recipients. uh for the
039Colts Township Schools. These are selected by um uh by a panel that is part of uh board member involvement, community involvement, administrator involvement. And I wish I could make a book of all the things the wonderful things that people say um about you uh that bring you forward as recipients of winners as being winners. Each year uh recipients are honored by not just at the district level at board meetings but also by at the Mammoth County Superintendent Round Table and we celebrate each recipient from every school and school district uh in celebration of all that you do to support our students. So it is with great honor if Mr. Morasco where's Mr. Okay. So first we're going to talk about Connor Road Primary School. So, I'm going to speak for a minute about Linda Wigel,
040who couldn't be here tonight. She had another family. She had a a conflict this evening. But if you walk through the hallways, I don't know, tomorrow night, tonight or different things like that. Or if you've ever walked through the hallways of Connor Road Primary School during the evening of the arts or the Connover Road Primary School art show, you can see the impression that she makes on our young artist is evident where they go. From drawing shapes to drawing to re recognizing dimensions, color palettes, all of the things she doesn't just teach. Art, she inspires artists. I am so proud and honored to have Mrs. Wigle as part of our staff at Connor Road Primary School. and not just at as a school, but she is a presence that is felt for over 30 years
041in this district in education. And we are so blessed to have her each and every day interacting with our students and introducing them to art and hopefully going on and inspiring future artists. So, please join me in congratulating. She couldn't be here, but publicly I wanted to recognize Mrs. Linda Wigel, the 2025 Plan Road El Primary School Teacher of the Year. So sometimes you get asked the question as a superintendent um what is an instructional assistant? You know um because in my district or other places they call them power professionals or they call them assistants or whatever the case may be. Um I call them gifts. I call them gifts to the students that they work with, the community that they serve, the team of people that they work with, all for the purpose of
042supporting a child. That's what they do. That is their role. They support students with disabilities and depending upon what the with the uh whatever the plan calls for the supports that are needed above and beyond communication with teacher communication with parents so on and so forth. So, it is no surprise, and I don't want to give away any secrets, all three of our education service professionals selected for 2025 are instructional assistants. And that is a testament to the work not only that you do, but that is recognized each and every day by your peers, by the parents, by your administrators. So, all of that said, it is my pleasure to present the 2025 education services professional of the year for Connor Road Primary School, Mrs. Karen Byer. [Applause] Okay, moving on to Connover Road Elementary
043School. So, once again, as you can see, a theme for the night. It is my honor as we talk continue to talk about the role of instructional assistants. It's not just about what they do in the classroom. It's what they do outside of the classroom. Whether they're helping someone in the cafeteria, whether they're walking someone to and from class, whether they're running a lunch back and forth because a student forgot it. Above and beyond is how I like to describe instructional assistance. And that is exactly how I would describe Mrs. Ellen Hannon, who is the 2025 education service professional of the year. [Applause] teachers of the year. Um I wish we could give 125 teachers of the year because each and every year there's um ways that we can recognize. But when I have the
044pleasure of sitting in a classroom and watching someone that I had the pleasure of hiring a few years ago and sitting and watching the growth and the way that you continue to inspire your students and be eager for feedback and how to improve and what can I do differently to reach my students, it not only makes me um proud of the work that you do, it makes me proud of you. And so with sincerest appreciation for all that you do and all that you are each and every day for your students, it is my honor to present Mrs. Shannon Eisenman, the 2025 Conover Road Elementary School teacher of the year. [Applause] I can still go on about what instructional assistants do. And um Mrs. Felicia Lit Trena, who is the education service professional of the
045year at Cedar Drive Middle School, is an instructional assistant and a very very proud as well as um valued member of the Cedar Drive community. when you may when I'm preparing for these things I may or may not reach out to the principal and here's Dr. Rigby says, "Give me a word you would say about uh Felicia Lrena. Lover." That was what he said. And it's not it is about you, but it's also what you do and the care and the love that you bring to the your child that you are, you know, working with each and every day. And we are so grateful for everything that you do every day to make a difference in the life of the children that you work with. So, it's my honor to present Mrs. Alicia Latrrena, the
0462025 instru uh education professional services of the year. Now, you're welcome. So, I'm going to mirror what Mrs. Bar did. And when it comes to our uh teacher of the year at Cedar Drive Middle School, I'm going to use three words to that I know to describe Mrs. Carrie Sullivan. Um colorful tutus, right, that light up, may or may not light up. Um passion for literature and language arts and caring and compassion for every child you work with. Um, I would not be lying. I wouldn't I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy over the past 10 time 12 years working with you that uh talking about Shakespeare, talking about all the things that we love about teaching literature to kids and introducing them to the world that comes to life through literature
047is uh I would be lying because I have enjoyed every moment of that. And it is no doubt and no surprise to me. But it is my honor to present the 2025 teacher of the year at Cedar Drive Middle School, Miss Carrie Sullivan. [Applause] Can I just have my Can we stand in front of the [Applause] board? If we do do one more photo in front of the board, that would be great. Thank you. A little tight. Oh, sorry. Get in. Yeah. Good job everyone. Thank you and thank you to the members of the board of education for taking the opportunity to recognize our students and staff this year. Um we are a very proud school community and we always work very hard to make the community proud, the board proud, ourselves proud, but most
048importantly to work to make the difference in the lives of children each and every day. So thank you for taking this opportunity to recognize our students and staff this evening. Much appreciated. And that concludes our presentation portion of the evening. [Music] Great. Uh at this time uh before we move on to the um the cow uh portion of our meeting, uh everybody is welcome to stay, but if you would like to exit at this time, you're you're welcome to do so. And we're going to go right into uh the meeting. We're not going to have a long break. No, don't. No. Uh there will be no recess. So, we're just going to give everybody time to uh decide if they're staying or not. Gia had just texted me. She's like, "Mom, I'm starving. How long
049does this mean?" I said, "A 8:30." And she's like, "Are you kidding me?" She's like, "I don't I don't know. Let's see. I don't even know where she at. Do you remember Jonah somewhere? Don't wreck the school. Uh, they went outside. Yeah. Okay. Okay, everybody. We are going to um Oh, where's Jason? Okay. Uh, it's okay. we can continue uh without him. We are going to uh move right into the rest of the meeting. Uh at this time, we're just going to take note of the two communications on the agenda. Um and then we're going to go right into our board liaison reports. We are going to start with Mrs. Sarah Harwitz with the parent advisory committee. I have no updates for the parent advisory committee. Uh that's fine. Thank you. Uh, also the PTO,
050uh, couple things. So, as the school year winds down, we're approaching the end of PTO activities. The final general meeting was held this morning. New members were voted in to serve on the PTO executive board. Um, we'd like to extend a warm welcome to the incoming board members and express our deep gratitude to the outgoing board for their dedication, leadership, and countless hours of service. Uh, there's still time to sign up for the eighth grade dance. Uh we're currently at 95% registration. The fifth grade moving up party will take place on June 19th during school hours. Uh we're also happy to share that the second grade carnival was a great success. Thank you to everyone who came out and helped to make this such a fun event for the students. PTO registration for 2526 school
051year will open in August. Please remember that registration is required every year. So please make sure you consider getting involved. Lastly, just want to thank the PTO for everything that they do for our schools, our teachers, our students. This year was filled with so many incredible events. Um, their generous support and meaningful contributions that they've made a lasting impact on our school community and we really couldn't have done anything without them. That's it. Uh, great. Uh, thank you, Mrs. Haritz. Uh, do we know um who took the, uh, president, vice president? I know Mrs. Samato. She gave uh, I think four years. I think she was at her tenure. and I wanted to thank her for all the hard work she's done over the years. Um, I don't know many of the ladies on the
052PTO. I do know her. So, I want to extend a a warm uh thank you uh and appreciation from this board for all the dedicated hours she's put in. Um, I'm not sure who was uh took her place. Do you know? Okay, that's all right. We'll report out next meeting. No worries. Thank you. And thank you to all the other PTO ladies. We appreciate it. Okay, moving on uh to the Cold Neck Township Schools newsletter. Mrs. camera. Um, just that the summer publication will be published right around mid July. Great. Thank you. Moving along. Um, obviously it's towards the end of the year. Things have been very quiet, so I don't expect much, uh, uh, lengthy reports. Uh, Colneck Township uh, schools, arts, sports, and extracurricular. Mr. Ornetta, thank you. U, just a couple things.
053Um last night 69 uh Cedar Drive Middle School and uh Connor Road Elementary School school students singers sang with thousands of other students at the credential center as participants in the American youth voices concert. Uh I saw pictures I um express people to go and uh look at pictures and video that's up on um Cole Township School's Facebook uh cuz they did an amazing job. The pictures look great. The kids s sounded great. Uh there was thousands of kids there singing all together in harmony which was great and uh did a great job and all the videos are up too. So go go go and and go and see that. They did a great job. I'm sure Dr. McGar will probably talk a little bit more about it. Um Friday uh Saturday will be the
054fatherdaughter dance. Uh you can still sign up um at clesportsfoundation.com. It'll be it's going to take place at Trump National uh from 4 to 8 and it's um six $160 for the father and daughter and uh every additional child is another $75. And also I just want to congratulate um all the uh people stu students uh and um members and coaches who participated um in flag football this season. Um and uh congratulations on everyone who um won the Super Bowl and participated in the Super Bowl. was a great feat just even getting there and uh look forward to next year. Congratulations. Great. Uh thank you Mr. Reignetta. Moving on to the Colts Township Committee. Uh Phyllis Camera and uh Brian Scarpa. Thank you. And thank you. I attended a meeting on May 28th last Wednesday.
055Uh uh there was an executive session that kicked off at 6:30 p.m. and shortly thereafter there was a resolution by the township to adopt or actually they specifically removed the planning board member pursuant to a a decree. Um I'll leave the personnel matters out. The annual audit uh for 2024 was reviewed and approved. Uh the details of what were present of which were presented by the CFO. Uh again they went into executive session and there's a regular meeting associated with it with new business agenda. There was a few res few resolutions that were passed specific to the annual audit. Uh the approval of the fireworks display on July 3rd uh in the purchase of some computer tablets for the fire department. Uh just general some maintenance and normal business operations of the town. And then
056next meeting will be on Wednesday, June 11th at 700 p.m. Great. Mrs. Cameron, would you like to add anything? Yes. So, um first I want to discuss the Memorial Day parade. Um it was a patriotic success. So, congratulations to everyone who made this Memorial Day par grade parade um a meaningful tribute. So, the event brought together our entire community, the Colts neck police, fire departments, the Colts Neck High School ROC marching band, the women's club, our neighborhood churches, the Lions Club, um of course our Colts kids on bikes, students representing football cheer, Girl Scouts Club, um Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, the Colts Neck Sports Foundation, the Trail Riders. um all proudly participated. So um special thanks to the department of public works and all the incredible volunteers who work behind the scenes to make it
057possible. Um the next thing is that in the environmental commission outreach is trying to recruit younger families to get involved. They shared information with all our school principles and the board is encouraging families to consider participating. They did mention that National Night Out, it's not till Tuesday, August 5th, but just I'm just sharing that now. Um, it was rained out the last two times. So hopefully hopefully it works this time. And of course, early voting is now open. Early voting began yesterday. It runs through Saturday, June 8th. Voting hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 6 pm right here at the Coleneck Library. So please make your voice heard. Great. Uh, thank you for covering all that, uh, Mrs. Cameron. Okay, moving on to the
058Coloss Township, uh, senior citizens, Mr. Walsh. Sure. The senior's summer concert series kicks off this Thursday. Really good. I may actually attend with a lawn chair or two. And that's um, starts at 7 o'clock. It's right be behind town hall. So, tradition in our town that the seniors come out and they put the concerts on. So I encourage the senior seniors to come out. They have a trip coming up. They just had a meeting today at the Colin. There are meetings are the first Wednesday of each month. They have a trip coming next week. Top hat in LBI and July 10th a river Queen Cruise which is I believe in Bel. It's a nice trip. I've been on it. And that's pretty much it. One coming into the summer season so there won't be too
059much activity. Great. Um, like to extend a thank you to Frank uh Sakorus. How do you say his name? Uh, I'm I apologize if I'm not saying his name. Uh, he works with me every year at the uh, Firehouse One doing the election polls. So, if you want to extend a thank you from our board of education for all the community service he puts in as well for our town. I will. Yeah. Thank you. Uh, okay. Moving on. Naval Weapons Station Earl. Uh, Mrs. Ramirez and Mr. Scarpa. Go ahead. Me. All right. Me first. All right. So, um, a few meetings ago, we had spoken about doing, um, a commemorative or student memory project here, uh, for some of our military students that are leaving our district. And so, um, we had to do some
060research on that and of course work with our naval up in Station Alison, Ida. And she did confirm that there's actually no other school district in this area that does any uh, type of project like that. So, we're excited to hopefully be able to bring something like that to Colts Neck. So, we're working with um not only Naval Weapons Station Earl uh staff and personnel, but also our facilities manager, Nec Moretta um and our administrative team here to kind of fine-tune and figure out something that we can do here. Um this might take a little bit of uh time because we have to be considerate that um there's it needs to be something that can be done in a very short time frame. Uh because when these students and their families get um notice that
061they're going to be leaving, uh they don't you know, they're busy. They're packing up their their things. And so, uh, we're going to hopefully be able to find something that, um, potentially we can implement this school year, but, um, if not, uh, for sure, uh, next year. So, stay tuned for more details on that. Great. Thank you, Mrs. Ramirez. Uh, would you like to add anything, Mr. Scarpa? Yes, please. Um, I think your mic is off. Thank you. Uh, Dr. Garbay met earlier this actually late last month with Miss Ida West Jones and Miss Reynolds who discussed the potential field trip to the weapon station. Uh the dates for the field trip to the tour of the base are forthcoming but they are in the works. Uh we uh we will communicate that way in
062advance for this trip uh as this framework gets developed. Uh and this trip is a first of its kind. It's promising to be a unique experience for both the students and teachers alike. uh and we will continue to update the public and the school base as this trip uh uh builds out. So, more to come in that space. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Scarpa. Moving on to the New Jersey school boards. Um we have the unsung superhero and education awards coming up. Uh this award uh actually spotlights some of the most important yet many times overlooked parts of school districts. I I can't name them all, but it consists of bus drivers, nurses, paras, security custodians, etc. Uh the winner will be recognized at the New Jersey School Board's workshop October 20th through the
06323rd. Um if anybody would like to submit a nomination, please do so by June 3rd. Uh submission forms can be found uh in your New Jersey school board's emails dated on June 3rd. Uh reminder, the AI conference is is going to be this Friday, June 6th at Mercer County College, 9:30, 3:30. It's $119 registration fee, and I believe you can still register. I'm not sure. It's a little tight, but I think you can still register for that. Uh June 26th, we have the Spring Law Forum that will be at the Hilton Monroe Township 9 to4. Um it's a little pricey actually. It's $299 a member. Non-members are $5.98. $598. Uh that will feature some law case studies, legislative updates, and school attorney ethics. And that concludes my report on New Jersey school boards. Moving on
064to the Coulseneck Township Board of Education liaison to the Township Planning Board, uh Mr. Walsh and Mr. Scales. Rob, I'll let you take it away. You got it. Um so we had a successful meeting on uh the 29th. Um the the subcommittee is making uh substantial moves um to help the town with a presentation to the town planning board. The town planning board will then be making a presentation to the township committee. This uh this report will essentially have recommendations of what our subcommittee that constituted a number of different people stakeholders from around Colts neck. We'll be presenting that to the town actually in this building. um on the 9th and then that will be presented in public forum on the 11th. So once that is actually um presented to the public then the copy
065of that report will be made public for everyone um that's on the board. Um and then once I have a copy of that I'll be able to give it to all of you and then I'll be able to update the fact sheets um that we have presented as well on our websites. Um so more to come. That's uh again July or June 9th that is going to be when we are presenting to the township committee and then 11th township committee presenting to the public. Rob, could you highlight the tax impact for the projected student population? I know you had came out and fig you furnished it to the township committee. Yep. And Dr. Garban, I'm sure you're aware share with everybody. Yeah. So you talk about the estimated revenue for the district, right? So the
066estimated revenue for the district is 1 million69,978. So that again is based off of our information that we've done as a board. So that is what we're expecting to come out of round three, which is the Lavana Square. So what we're presenting on to the town is what the obligation of round four is going to be. So there's been no tax projections from round four because we don't know necessarily what units are going to be built for round four. But the obligation which has been which is called the deferred obligation from round three that was satisfied. So that's going to be moved to round four. So you will see that in the report once the town puts a a stamp of approval on that and we know what sites will be built and what we're
067you know the potential future plans will be. We can then now because we've done the previous work apply those same formulas to the land or the units that are going to be built and then we'll be able to figure out what the next tax implications will be for uh the district. So this is what we're expecting. Again, we have to work with the town assessor. The town assessor does things in waves. So, to be frank, right now, even though there are substantial amount of um construction being built right now in Lavana Square, if you've driven by it, it's it's almost halfway done, um they do not pay a penny of taxes until that's reassessed. So, right now, they're paying the same amount of tax that was the original assessment on that farmland that they've been
068paying for the last 20 years. But the good news is there's no impact to the district until that's complete. And then once that's complete, you'll see that in the next quarter, the quarter after that, once those tax bills um come in. But that's going to be what our subcommittee is going to continue to do. We're going to have to continue to work with the town to find out what the implication would be and put pressure to make sure that we're getting every dollar out of there and that duly goes to the school as it should. So, um yeah, go ahead. Just as a reminder, the option for the board now that there's more known with regard to the obligation is to update the demographic study based on the fourth round. So that would be something
069we probably would want to get information. Did we did we as a board approve that study? I believe we did the update to the study. I think we waited until the fourth round. I think that was the recommendation from the demographer was to wait until that. But if that's okay, we can reach out to them, put that in motion to to do that. I think we should wait. I think we should. Yeah. Mr. Mr. Mr. Bazetta, I don't I don't think I saw him, but um Mr. Bazetta during one of the meetings, which they'll hopefully be in in the report, you'll see sort of what the future holds for that study, but we've got a commitment from the town to help us with an additional study. So, taking what we did from Ruckers and the
070previous study has to be retaken into consideration. As you see from the fact sheet that we have, we have a real life example. The real life example is the grant, right? So they originally had estimated only 15 students but the real life example is that there's 45 there. So we can apply those same metrics from that real world example apply that to Lavana Square and then that should give us essentially have this the the study that we've done that and the study that the scientists if you will have done. So that'll give us a good indication of where hopefully we should land softly in the middle. I'm hoping somewhere there. I think that that's it from from my side this section too. Yeah. Uh okay, great. Uh thank you Mr. Rush and um Rob, I
071appreciate that. Let's move on to uh buildings and grounds. I see we have nothing there. Uh communications, nothing at this time. Moving right into curriculum. Uh Mrs. Camera. Okay. Item number one, the completion of the 2025 NJSLA and final refus refusal data. So testing is complete for the 2025 spring NJSLA assessment at Cedar Drive Middle School. There are a total of 22 refusals compared to 51 refusals in the 2024 spring NJSLA assessment. So this is a 57% reduction in refusals. At Conover Road Elementary School, there was a total of 10 refusals compared to the 18 and the 2024 spring NJSLA assessment. This is a 44% reduction in refusals and there's no irregularities in testing. Um any comments on number one? Okay. Um number two is the 2025 summer assignments. The summer work for students will
072be available on the district website after tonight's meeting. Um the purpose as per Erica Reynolds is for students to build responsibility, time management and academic readiness for the upcoming school year. Any questions, please reach out and contact D um Dr. Erica Reynolds, director director of curriculum at reynolds coltsneckschools.org. Um the assignment guidelines for grades K to 5, all assignments are optional. For grades six to eight, math is optional. Um, grades six to eight language arts is required and it's due Friday, September 5th, 2025. Okay. Anything else? Um, any comments for number two? Okay. Number three, I sent if everyone um who has their computer or phone um I sent out some information if you could go to my email and that way you can um see a copy of what I'm going to be presenting.
073Okay. So this is an inquiry and investigation. We're not going to make any decisions tonight. It just lays out two different ideas into using SAV SAVIS mathematical benchmarks compared to what we're using right now um which is the MAP assessments the NWA map assessments. So it starts with a comparison um in terms of criteria. So, SAVIS is aligned to our district. Um, the MAP testing is not. SAVIS is our math program while um sorry, the MAP testing is a nationally norm test. So, we're comparing our students scores to the whole nation and then we get a percentile based on the on the entire nation. Um, SAVIS has high alignment to the NJSLA while MAP testing has moderate. There is no cost to SAVIS. It's part of the program already. While MAP testing has an additional
074cost, SAVIS is integrated into our current instruction while MAP testing is separate um, additional setup and training. SAVIS provides a lot of instructional level feedback to the different units. And again, the math testing is these national norm scores. Um, so you could kind of skim through the rest. Again, SAVIS, it's, you know, it's limited year, um, year-over-year. It's the growth data while while the, um, map testing, it shows measurement over time, and they're both used pretty much the same frequency, three times a year. So, there's some advantages and disadvantages to both. um with the SAVIS benchmark some of the advantages it's already integrated into what the teachers are doing again like I said there's no additional cost what I really like is the high alignment with the with the NJSLA which is you know what
075we want to do we were trying to get attain blue ribbon status and it's easier for teachers to use um in terms of the instructional next steps right um some of the disadvantages it's not as helpful for broader growth comparisons it's limited ability to compare students growth both overtime or across school districts and it may lack validity for evaluating students not performing on grade level. The advantages to the MAP testing, it's again normed, it's adaptive, it adjusts to each student's level, it gives clear growth data, it helps students identify if they're below grade level. Um the disadvantage again is that additional cost. It's not tied to our district's curriculum pacing. it does require additional professional development to interpret the results and it does not align as closely with NJSLA. So there's some more additional information
076um that I went through, but the one I really want to highlight is our goal as a board, right, is is this blue ribbon school status. We've said that numerous times and it rewards measurable academic excellence. So by using SAVIS benchmarks right we are practicing the format the question types the timing um there is an advantage with using this for blue ribbon for you know to help us achieve blue ribbon status um obviously there's the financial aspect as well which I've mentioned quite a few times now so I I would like to discuss this tonight um we don't have to finish the discussion tonight because I just kind of wrote this up today and um Dr. Reynolds helped me with this. So, we worked, you know, she gave me a blueprint and then I went
077on. But I am leaning toward us going this direction. Um, just because of it's another tool for helping us, I believe, achieve blue ribbon status. So, we could continue this discussion at another date if anyone wants to just, you know, comment now. I'm fine with that. But it is there's a lot of information. It's like four pages, pros, cons, um different bullet points. So, I just wanted to present it and if anyone wants to, you know, talk about it now or wait till our next cow meeting so you have more time. Sorry, it's like a journey to get the microphone down here. Um so, I'd really be interested to um hear what Dr. Reynolds has to say about this. Um, obviously Phyllis, I know your background is in teaching and and whatnot. And so that's
078obviously I feel like it's it's easy for you to look at this and probably, you know, pull out some of that information, but for someone who's not in education professionally, I'd be interested to hear what someone who is and specifically in our district has to say about what how they feel about it. Um, I love that we could potentially save some money doing this, but I want to make sure that it's not at the detriment of our students, of course. um you know if it brings us closer to blue ribbon status that's great but again I think that there's um there's a bigger picture here uh because we didn't get this until recently I didn't have a lot of time to digest it obviously and I know we don't have to you know decide anything
079tonight right um so a I'd like some more time to look it over but then um perhaps uh Dr. Reynolds could uh kind of give her opinion and maybe she can uh type up something for us or present something to the board um for us to kind of you know uh compare and contrast here um to kind of get more of a nitty-gritty. Um just at a quick glance, this looks like it's a great overview of some, you know, uh key pros and cons. Um but I I think that like in most professions, I'm sure there's a lot more um to be said and a lot more details. So, I'd like to hear um from her, you know, and have her kind of pull some of the the teachers that are impacted um by it
080as well. Yes. And really, the whole beginning is all her. Um the um if you if you look closely, this was all what she had given me. The comparison is all her, the pros and cons was her and then the bullet points. Um some of them kind of go into my opinion as well as what she gave me some information on. So, just so you know, this was worked on with her, not so just, you know. So she is giving some information but you know um I love that idea. So maybe she'll you know be able to give a presentation or something else. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. I think on Thursday of last week when we had tal presented the the topics uh Dr. Reynolds presented a separate um document for all the topics
081of discussion. So I have no problem if you'd like Mrs. Camera I can send that to the board on on behalf like as a follow-up conversation um and and to see what Dr. Dr. Rollins had provided for the purposes of this conversation. Obviously, when we if we are making any recommendations for changes regarding formative assessment, we want teacher input. We want all of those things because there's been just from a historical point of view, much of what we do stems from our placements for all of those things on formative assessment on NWMATs. So, it's not it's one of those um decisions in my professional opinion that is the uh canoe versus the cruise line where you don't want to turn anything too quick because it's going to capsize but you can canoe you know as
082you would in a canoe when you're making a faster decision right so I think that we have to do it with purpose we have to do it with you know for all the all the reasons with all factors con you know considered and with regard to I you know the one thing with looking at professional development our teachers have received professional it's embedded in their practice of of how they look at multiple forms of assessment. So yes, I I will provide the board and any you know additional conversations if we want Dr. Reynolds to come to a future cow meeting or whatever information provide from also Mrs. Kennis our math coach with regard it you know and yeah whatever information you want and continue the conversation. Yeah. Could I also ask that we um discuss
083timing? So if we were to switch over to something just like when we've switched over to different um you know vendors or or programs sometimes there's a timing consideration there. So is you know next school year the best time to be switching over or is there you know a better time. Um so if that could be included in part of that deeper conversation I think that would be helpful for us as well as the board to consider. Right. And what is good to know is um it's pretty much aligned at the same timing. You you know you you would the way SAVIS works it's it's topics one through four. you have your first benchmark, then it's 1 through eight, you have your second benchmark, then it's 1 through 12. So, it's constantly giving data um
084and great information throughout the year. But, you know, absolutely, it could be something in two years from now, but I like that starting point. So, oh up again. Okay. Um, anyone else for number four? Okay. All right. Number five. This was presented to me by a Colts neck resident. Um, so I want to give full credit to Alan Ryan. It's called Tunnel for Towers, the 911 Institute. It's an educational, sorry, educational initiative by Tunnel to Towers Foundation. It's dedicated to teaching students across the United States about the events of September 11th and honoring the heroism of first responders and civilians. So, if um maybe over the next few weeks again, we can look at the different websites for tunnel. Oh, okay. I have an update. Go ahead. So, um, great minds also think alike. A
085parent approached us, um, in the fall about this and, uh, Dr. Reynolds actually said in a training session November of 2024, I think it was reported out at that time. I can go back and look. Um, and then we also just received, uh, the broadcast for uh, actually it was on May 28th. The 911 Memorial Museum offers free professional development teachers and one of our social studies teachers is already registered, Mr. Joseph tweet trezy is already registered for the professional development over the summer with more probably with possibly to come. So we're uh it's it's as as uh you know when the planets align and more thinking and and different things go on. Absolutely. So yep. So that's quick question. Great. Is this the one with the uh is the museum on like in a
086bus? Yes. So one part of it is the mobile the mobile exhibit. It's the traveling exhibit that brings the history and impact of 911 directly to communities. That's one part of it. It has artifacts, stories. Um, another part of it is um developed with educators, right, where they are teaching our students about first-person accounts. There's um lessons, lesson plans for them. Uh there's an entire book series that goes along with it. And then there's speakers that can come again to our schools and share personal experiences, which kind of reminded me of what Sarah wants to do with the Holocaust program. It's just making it, you know, bringing it to life for our students so they really understand um the devastation and what what happened. So, okay. Anyone else? Um for number five, tunnel for two
087towers. Okay. I would just add we had five seven five to seven f seven families that lost loved ones when that attack occurred. And I remember doing notifications to the door. So something never to forget. I think our student population a bit benefit from them visiting our school. Okay. And the last thing is um just something we had started discussing in addition to our SAVIS math program, our LL math um looking at STMath or other supplemental math programs for the 2526 school year. Everyone on the board knows that I um I would love to start in the primary school STMath really focusing on our ELLL population, our our English as a second language population, our um tier population, our um IEP population. It does not replace SAVIS. It really just reinforces and extends what students
088are learning through exploration and problem solving. And because there is no reading, right? There's no there's no reading at all. It's there's no problem solving. It really is the conceptual aspect of math. So I know we did a trial. We did it sort of, you know, just they got a very small section, which I'm glad you explained to me. So they really have to start the program from the beginning. And the best way to start it is with our youngest children. There are some other supplemental programs that also are excellent, but I I really believe based on my own personal experience that this this program is exceptional and it is um you know within our budget we have the ability to to to spend the money on it. So it is something that I don't
089know how we can move forward with it or you know you know how I feel about it but um other programs as well. Sure. And um I know Dr. Reynolds uh was actually working with u Mrs. Lindono our ML teacher uh responsible for the ELL program implementation of the program um who was working in a very similar way in analyzing it. So um you know we may explore that we we are we're likely going to be exploring that with our uh ELLL MLS next year as an option. Um but one of the things we did do in you know the dialogues that have happened at the deis we did reach out and looked at our specific subgroups of the data that's available through the state reporting system um districts similar to ours um who were
090based on the data available through um the department of education website and uh performance reports looked specifically at districts like ours in our area that were outperforming us in areas of like special education and we reached out to those districts directly to see what they're and a lot many of them are using a program called touchmath and so we uh Dr. Reynolds has been in contact with touchmath and we're following a very uh similar comparative process for touchmath as we did with StMath. So it's the end of the year people are working through it. So we're looking at potentially um proposing something to the board as early as July to say this is what we're going to be adding you know as options for our students and staff to use with our kiddos. Okay, great.
091Yeah. Okay. Um so that's anyone else with um any comments on supplemental math programs? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. So um that's it for today under curriculum. Obviously we'll continue um discussing both three and six. So thank you. Okay. Uh, great. Oops. Did you? I'm sorry. Sorry. Okay. Oh, you did. I did. Okay. Sorry. A little bit longer. So, the school applied um submitted an application for what's called focus grant. It's funding for optimal comprehensive universal screeners. So, it's a grant applied for through the New Jersey Department of Education. And if awarded, this grant will help schools better identify students who may need extra help in literacy or math. And by applying for this grant, the district is aiming to secure funding that will help um expand researchbased universal screening tools, train staff in data interpretation,
092improve the early identification of students at risk, and strengthen our tier one um and tier 2 and three interventions. Okay. So, I guess we will hear um well actually I'll pass it to you if you know when we'll hear. Sorry. Um so, this was an an allocation uh grant. Each district uh in the notice of grant opportunity that was published by the Department of Education was awarded a specific amount, designated amount that if you apply for it in the the application fits the criteria, um you would receive that amount. So, our amount for Coleneck is $4,150 uh as per the Department of Education and we are going our application um affords us an opportunity to have another uh teacher trained in Orton Gillingham which as Mrs. Camera said is one of our tier uh tiered
093intervention programs for our students in literacy. So, having that flexibility is the implementation and professional development that they're looking to support with our screeners. Our universal dyslexia screener, Dibbles, is something we, you know, we have. It is one of the the Department of Education's recommended screeners for dyslexia. And so we're looking to enhance our responses to, uh, early literacy as the in accordance with the NGO. So, uh, fingers crossed and hopefully we'll hear about that soon. Great. Uh, thank you both very much. Um, Phyllis, this is is that okay? Thank you. No worries. Um, moving on. Uh there's nothing under finance tonight. Um moving into policy, Mr. Scales. Yep. Uh so three items. Um number one, bylaw 0155.2. That's just a formality adding the verbiage for uh Mr. Walsh and myself. Um so that leaison
094position to the subcommittee to the town COA subcommittee is officially listed um in our bylaws. Um number two, board review process. Um, I could let Dr. Garbeay drop that bomb at everyone what we're going to ask you to do and then I will uh I'll add some color commentary. How about that? Okay. So, we um in in our in my weekly updates and Mr. Rasco and I prepare each week there's at the last section is policy and um as we know we've been doing the transition from uh Strauss SMA to uh NJ and JSBA. the bylaws are now uh available and there are links in the update to where there was language um it's it's a complete crosswalk uh which is identified in the update which talks about what bylaws are now um the entire
095bylaw section excuse me is ready for board review. So I think Mr. Scarpa and I were thinking of asking requesting the board to have a deadline of review of the new bylaws to determine an agreement. The bylaws are obviously the operating structure of the board of education. So that's why we prior I you know we prioritize the bylaws for the board. Um the administration is currently working in students. Um I'm working with Mr. Morasco for finance and operations and all of those things. Um so administration is near done, but you'll see in the links in the update that go out um that there is specific language that is identified in each one of the bylaws that a word or two may be different in the by a specific bylaw, but that word or two makes
096a difference. For example, in a school board's bylaw, they use the word may. in as in in the current Strauss Esme by law it says shall. So big difference between a may and shall as we all know. So those are the type of small nuances. Um in the process of reviewing all the bylaws I was able to identify that each one has been captured. There wasn't one that was omitted or left out of those bylaws. So that's why at this point in time the so that's why the bylaws are in fact um ready for board review. So Mr. Scarpa, I don't know if you gave any thought and I'm sorry, scales, excuse me. I just looked at Mr. Scarpa. I just looked right at you, so I apologize. I didn't His fault. I didn't know
097if you uh gave thought or consideration to the review of the bylaws. I know it's a busy time of year. In the interim, just so we know, so we're not in um feeling uh a big crunch for time because it is a lengthy process and it it needs requires, you know, many eyes. Um, we will we do have a plan in place for the PDF upload of our current policies. Even though stresses won't be our curriculum policy provider, we do have a a plan in place that I'm working with Dominic Petrillo and uh Mr. Capaso to have all of our policies, current policies, uh, remain in place until the board reads everything. So, we can either make a decision as a board and with uh, Mr. scale's direction to say recommendations to say we're going
098to do one big swooping adoption of all new bylaws and policies or do we want to do them section by section? I think it's worth a conversation of the board and that will help us kind of structure our work as well as timeline and I'm going to give that to you Mr. Absolutely. So a rising tide raises all ships as I like to say. So we uh we need all your help. U but in a serious note, I mean it's it's it's good because it allows us to pull back all the the layers of the onion. So just to Dr. Gerve's point, like there there's a little bit of a verbiage adjustment for some things that again just by law it's it's a substantial difference by the way that someone could interpret something. So we've
099done a once over and then we'll highlight. I don't think we need to do um like a fail swoop of stuff because I think that's when you try to do everything all at once, you could you could miss something. Um so I think by calling upon as I'll say one team, one dream, sort of the sections that you kind of oversee on your committees, we'll distribute that to you so you can review it and then see if you have found any errors or inaccuracies or anything along those lines. And then obviously I'll read over every single word just like I did the other policy handbook and just make sure that we've got everything in there before we go. Last thing we want to do is obviously have something inserted into everything that we've worked hard
100on and previous boards have worked hard on just because of one similar or I'm sorry one um one separate word that was just interpreted differently. So there's a lot of different there's a lot of work that we've done as a legislative body that we've added that doesn't have a categorical name or number in there. So then we have to decide okay where is that you know what section is that going to be listed in what's the number of that but we'll essentially we'll prepare it so it's easily digestible for each of you and then I would assume one of the next cows we can discuss sort of and report back like if you had found anything um and then just maybe I don't know how long it would take I mean we have what nine
101sections so we can't make it nine action meetings but maybe we could do like three per action meeting or something along those lines just so it's in chunks rather than just one fail swoop. So yeah, if we could put maybe almost like the bylaws are encompassing everybody. So I think that if we made a goal and said by the Jul July 9th cow that all eyes were on bylaws that we could say and in the in the what I prepared in the update it actually has the specific I think there's only four uh areas specific where I said this these were language changes this and so for example but one um there's another one in that we're still working through in the in the student section that the entrance age is omitted from the attendance
102policy. So we have to put that back in that that's not a policy. So those are things that um the the the the policies that the building administrators and the administrators you know live by and really do refer to on a regular basis. Those are the eyes that you know we we put on them in terms of that. Um so uh like I said bylaws are ready to go and then administration by probably the end of next week. The administrative section um there's a crosswalk which we'll identify. Uh currently I'm working off the table of contents from Strauss Esme and saying okay this is now new policy so and so so and so and so and so um um school boards gave us that cwalk but I'm doing a cross reference because I want I
103want to see our current stop policies and see what's now represented because some of the policies have now been condensed and they identified for us which policy is now captured in what. So it may be um what used to be five separate policies in stress may has now been captured in in one but when you're reviewing that you have to go through those five policies reading that one and seeing where it goes because we're relatively current with our stresses policies and so are they. So we just want to make sure that that language um they did a a really nice job providing us with the information. Now it's just the the editing piece of it which is fine. Yeah. Yeah. So I I'm I'm pretty I mean I would probably say that we could look
104at administration and bylaws you know by the 9th and then as you said we could divvy out into finance and all those and all the other ones as well. If I could just make a suggestion um when we reorganized we have a policy committee. So does it make sense to have our policy committee get together in a room hunker down and go through those bylaws and then present that to the full board um in order for us to vote on it? does like I mean it seems to me that's what the purpose of a policy committee is for is for something of at a large scale like this. It's not you know we don't need to I don't I don't know that it makes efficient sense to delegate to individual committees versus I think I
105think it falls in line with the policy committee for what their the purpose of that committee is for. If we look at our bylaws and what their purpose is for a big project like this it might be very efficient and then present that to the full board. this way then we can kind of take it in those smaller chunks. Just a suggestion. I I uh I think it's a great idea. I I support that. Um you know, like I said, it will take some time. Nothing's going to happen overnight. Uh but you know, like I said, we we could do it as an ad hoc since we're a board of a whole working as a board of a whole. We'll do like an ad hoc policy committee and Rob, there's people that you assign to
106the policy. Yeah, it's Rob, me, and Phyllis. So, and I'm sorry, Mrs. Camera, Mr. Scales. Um yeah, and Jason. So, yeah, we already have it set. So, yeah, I'll speak to um Rob and we could set something up. And I believe you set it up when you set it up. You said it was for situations like this so that we didn't have to like Yeah, for situations. Yeah. Thanks for giving us all that work, Mrs. Ramirez. I appreciate that. Well, this was supposed to be a joint exercise so everyone could be engaged. We were supposed to delegate sections to everybody. No, I mean that's what I mean. Again, honestly, we're Jason looks thrilled. the final the final review will be Yeah. Yeah. So, but I get it. Yep. Um, makes total sense. Okay. All right.
107Thank you for bringing that up, Mr. Ramirez. Um, all right. Uh, Mr. Scales, anything else? Yeah. So, the, uh, number three, the draft parental bill of rights, we have a, uh, version two. So, we've taken all of the feedback that we received from the parental advisory committee um and we've taken the feedback that we've heard from the general public. We get some wild wild comments. Um, so just to just wanted to kind of just bring it to the board's attention um and to the public just again I I it's I don't mind sounding like a broken record because I think it's it's imperative to sound like this um when people are trying to digest something that hasn't been done before um as a district. But this again this bill of rights um I want to
108use an example. It's it's not the best example, but it'll it'll highlight how a bill of rights works. the Bill of Rights, especially from this this particular parental bill of rights, it's not any new policies whatsoever. So, I don't I don't know other another way to clearly present that to everyone. It's not changing a single thing that we have currently. What it's doing is it is summarizing, and we just presented what we're doing with our new policy holder. It's summarizing all the policies that we have as a district, all the policies that we have as a state, all the policies that we have as a federal government, and it summarizes all of those to present what the rights are to a parent. And then there is governing legislation and laws and policies that branch off
109of that. So essentially, we have worked backwards like I had mentioned before. If you think about when a when a judge makes a decision, right? If if there is a a prosecutor, a defense attorney, when a judge makes a decision, what do they reference before they make their decision? Do they reference the individual law and policy or do they reference the bill of rights? They reference the individual law and policy. Right? So, what the Bill of Rights does, it is a foundational document. It's a summary of what your rights are. Some states approve and codify those rights. Some states change those rights. So for example, New Jersey has a lot of changing of the rights that you are granted on the federal level. An example would be the amendment, the second amendment. Think about what
110the second amendment is, right? Could I bring a firearm with me into a public building? No. But do I have the right to bear arms? Yes. Right. So what happens is is I have a right but then each individual state legislates and provides a law that is associated to what that bill of rights was. If you go and you scroll all the way down to the Bill of Rights and you read the end of it, this says in clear print that this is a document that summarizes all of the rights that parents have and will not supersede any laws that are currently in place. The the revisory that we've done with the parental advisory committee requesting is to make it more navigable. Right? So essentially taking the way that the US government lists what the
111actual constitution of Bill of Rights is, what they do is they list the Bill of Rights, they provide an index for each of the articles and then one a third layer that we're going to add for something that's more navigable is then add the specific policy group that that section that you can reference as an individual district. If we were to do that for every state and federal law, then it would be a 30-page document for each of the articles. But what we'll be able to do is provide what the right is and then you have the link to go to to the individual section in our policy handbook. So, what we've been able to see so far is there there's been a little bit of public comment on some things they didn't know about,
112right? Some rights that they weren't sure that existed. That's exactly what this bill of rights is to do is to show you what your rights are. Are you 100% granted that right in a particular state? Not necessarily. So that's essentially the summary that I have for everything. The revisions in there. Um wanted to open the floor, see if anyone has seen the revisions, has any questions, anything along those lines, and we can uh I'll take your comments and questions from there. Go ahead, Mr. Ramirez. All right, everyone, buckle up. I got a lot. So, um, some of the stuff that I have here from reviewing this Bill of Rights is they're nuances. Um, but I wanted to throw them out there and and you know, put it down, document it. Other things are uh concerns
113that I have um that I think we need to make some revisions. Um, but I wanted to start off by just confirming that at this point we have not had our board council review this. Correct. Okay. So there's some right. So I imagine it will look something like and just to uh confirm for anyone who's wondering it will look something like we'll the board will say okay we're really happy with this and then we'll send it off to the board council. Correct. Correct. We're trying to save any any legal cost. Uh no it makes sense. So yeah we're going to make sure everybody's uh input goes in. We do a final draft. Once we feel okay with everybody I'll submit it to legal counsel. Okay. So, there's some things in here that I'm not even
114going to bring up because I do believe that once our board council reviews some of this stuff, I think there's going to be some things that are going to be need to be amended from there. So, we'll let the legal teams, you know, deal with that. Um, one of my questions for you, Rob, is I know we keep referring to this as a bill of rights, but twice in this current version, you refer to it as this policy. So, I think that we need to make a clear distinction. Is this going to be a policy? Is it going to be policy XYZ labeled parental bill of rights or is this going to be a separate document, the parental bill of rights? And I think that that's important to make that clarification because a policy is
115subject to different rules and and standards when we're talking about adopting it as a board. If this is just a separate standalone document um that's going to be handed out, it it's you know something that uh you know the board obviously is going to vote on it no matter what, but it's not subject to those same rules and regulations, right? we don't have to do a first and a second read on it necessarily if it's not a policy. So I think it's important to distinguish that and make that clear and consistent in every version, this version and any future ones going forward. So there's two times that you refer to this as this policy XYZ. So I think again it's important for us to to take that out. Um, obviously the links to the policy
116need to be in there. I think prior to us approving it as a board before it gets sent to legal because I'd like to see the specific policies that are linked to each section just to confirm and and kind of follow the train of thought with that. So, um, that's something that maybe in an updated version we can have in there is those actual links to those specific policies. And I was wondering if maybe we didn't have those links because maybe we're waiting to have those finalized New Jersey school boards. So, I assumed that was probably part of it. Um, but I think Exactly. Yep. I assume that was probably part of it. All right. Um let me go on. So in section 3.2 uh there is in parenthesis it says such as vaccinations administered
117at school. Uh so that's already legally not allowed. Um minors are not allowed to be vaccinated uh in schools. Nor would a school actually administer them um as minors. They can't they have to have parental consent for that. So I just don't know that we need to have that in there. I think that that could potentially be confusing to a parent who's reviewing this and they might assume that oh well good thing this is written here because if not I might actually that that my child may actually be able to be vaccinated within the school which it's not legally allowed to. Um section 4.2 this is probably one of my biggest issues with this current version. So, as per New Jersey uh um standard 18A 354.7, the only types of education that you can opt
118your child out of legally in the state of New Jersey is health, family life education, or sex education, which we've already stated in 4.1. So, in 4.2, Two, I believe this to be confusing because I think what you're suggesting is that parents have the ability beyond the health curriculum, beyond the family life education, and beyond the sex education to opt their child out of any part of the instructional program or specific lesson that conflicts with their sincerely held values or beliefs. And that's not true. As per New Jersey law, you're only allowed to opt out of those things. You can't say, "Well, 2 plus two conflicts with my moral beliefs. I want my child to be opted out of kindergarten math. So, I think that that entire section um doesn't need to be in there
119because I do think it contradicts New Jersey state law federal or federal law. Well, federal law will allow it probably would. Oh, sorry. So, federal law there's some again some states federal law allows it. So again, when you say me, you mean the federal government. So everything there is nothing in here that I have changed or added or anything. Again, it's a summary of all federal laws, state laws, local laws, and then it institutes what our individual policy is as a district. So in some cases, federally it'll be allowed. State it won't be allowed. And then if you think about what happens is federal law supersedes state law unless the the federal government um sues the state sues federal government goes to supreme court. You you know how it works. We can't ever go ahead
120of state law. We can't ever go ahead of federal law. So essentially the pecking order is it's federal state and then district policy. So there's going to be some things in there that the state doesn't agree to that we don't agree to but again it is a right to a parent but do we in the district provide that and codify that right? Not necessarily. Okay. Can I add one other thing too? I was just thinking of four points. reminded me um in the eighth grade social studies curriculum um they study social issues and I know that that the teachers send home permission slips because a lot of those books are very controversial and parents have and do say no to certain certain of those literature books. So that you know that's just an example of
121when we we have that ability as a parent. So that's the thing is that again there is there again think of that every time you have a question it's a pecking order the federal government state the local so you're get you're a lot of the questions that you have are granular into like we you know the state doesn't allow this the district doesn't allow that and you are 100% correct but what the bill of rights does again it's it's law of the land right so it's it's literally it's the foundation that we build everything off of so going again back. What happened? The Bill of Rights Constitution was built then legislation off of that. We are just working backwards to go back and create the foundation so that former future boards now have the foundation
122to work off of of what they think they can legislate and create policies for. And then you submit that to the legal team and then the legal team will provide you with what the actual law is, if we're allowed to apply it or not. federal law still does not allow you to opt your child out of basic, you know, first grade math. So, I hear what you're say. It doesn't I hear what you're saying about the specific social studies. Um, and I believe that that would probably fall under something to the effect of the family life education. Um, I could be mistaken, but um, I think that 4.2 saying that any part of the instructional program, it's way too broad and too vague. Again, this is my opinion. Take it for what you think it's
123worth. I think it's something that we need to maybe dive deeper into and maybe that's something that needs to be pulled out if it's going to remain in there for our legal counsel to review more closely because I think that that opens us up to a parent coming in and saying hey listen I don't want my kid and your bill of rights says this and then we're just opening up a can of worms for parents to say well your bill of rights says this and I'm going to hold you to this because you said that this is this is true and then we have to go back and forth. So maybe there's a way then to change that language to reflect more closely to what aligns with those actual laws. Jessica, sorry. Um, forgive me
124if I'm misremembering, but I remember in discussions we had when we were in leadership together, if a if a parent had a specific um, uh, question, a specific um, disagreement with a particular question, say it was a math question, a math word problem question, and had to deal with, I'm just putting this out there, something to do with maybe uh, global warming. They put in the global warming, right? uh they had the opport did you say I don't remember I was talking about they had the opportunity to talk to teacher about it that's saying this particular question we don't really agree agree with this question can we have a different kind of question or can we can the can we word it different or something like that do do you remember us talking about that
125can you clarify that that came up a few times there was different various scenarios that I remember us discussing um but I don't believe that that's like a very specific scenario where I know Mary Jane's door is always open I think that this is right and this is more broadly part of any part of an instructional program that that isn't just one word program a word problem or you know something along those lines this is part of an instructional program and I think that that's where and again maybe we're getting into the nuances too but this is why we have to get more specific with this especially if it's one one question you know I think something like this again is is going to having that direction from our legal counsel I think is going
126to be important for that section specifically we can move on from there I'm just adding on to what Vinnie that it was interesting. But um back in September, one of my professional development days was how um we are now expected to incorporate climate change problems into our math curriculum. So it does, you know, bounce off to what Vinnie's saying and again um it does support the idea that it could be in conflict with, you know, a family's beliefs and values and beliefs. So um but you know again that's why we will have legal look over it but it might be bigger than just the health. It could be. It could be, you know, cuz we have literature now, you know, we have we have the eighth grade curriculum where I know parents have said no
127to some of the literature that that the teachers have provided and then we have, you know, your views on climate change, teach their own. This is what I'll I'll go back to again is that we're we're we're getting granular into the Bill of Rights isn't going to list the specific laws. So, do you have the right to ask your teacher about something? Yes, you do. Is your child or is that parent going to be awarded to pull them out of that? Not necessarily. What does our policy say? That's what So again, it's the the right federal level, state level. Then what does our individual district say? So again, this is it's we're not legislating here. We are summarizing and then policy supersedes anything that the Bill of Rights has. Rob, I 100% agree with you.
128That's why I think that section is contradictory to what you just said because this is saying that it is that you're allowed to opt out versus, hey, let's have a conversation with the teacher. Hey, let's discuss this. But again, I don't want to belabor and waste anyone's time here. Um, in section 5.4, before you put in parenthes or when you created the bill of rights here you put uh such as school resource officers we don't have SRO's we have u sele um so if we could just uh change that again I know that that's a nuance um but I think it's important if we're going to put words in there they should reflect our actual district and finally this is a nuance that's near and dear to my heart but as a Christian the first
129line of this says do solemnly a vow Um I could not uh in good conscience vote for anything that says solemnly a vow. Um I think that should be replaced with truly affirm. Um so again I know it's a nuance but the very first line we the parents of Colts neck and the board of education of Colts neck do solemnly avow. Um so as a Christian I'm not comfortable solemnly solemnly a vowing to anything um other than my faith. So um I think we should be changing that to truly affirm um just like I would never solemnly swear either. So, uh, just some of my feedback there. Thank you all for listening. Thank you. Sorry. Uh, okay. Great. Thank you for everybody's input on that. Any other uh questions or comments on the policy portion
130of the agenda? Okay, we're going to move on. Nothing under negotiations. nothing under transportation. Um and the personnel is just FYI's. Okay. Um one second. All right. Um Okay. At this time, we are going to open the floor to uh comments from the public. You're welcome to get up. State your name and address for the record. You could do so at this time. mic. Oh, here. Uh, here you can have mine. I got it. I got it. Two simultaneous questions. Yeah, just snap it in. There we go. Okay. Hi, uh, Julia Garitano, 130 Route 537. I've spoken before again about the this um proposed parental bill of rights and I would just like to um actually mirror pretty much everything that Mrs. McMire has has commented in my latest comments as well in that um
131I I hardly think that we can call the draft that is in this current agenda a revision when there's only just placeholder texts and not the actual policies like that. That was the biggest comment from other parents and especially at the uh parent advisory committee was that the policy links or the policy numbers be referenced so that we can correlate the right back to that policy. You know, I do understand now too that you are in the process of changing. So that's going to, you know, but that kind of would have been a little bit as like a disclaimer at the top possibly like we are in the middle of policy changes. When our board adopts the new policies, we will have links available rather than like literally nothing is I I went through word
132by word. nothing is revised apart from just having placeholder texts. And after the discussion and the response um from last meeting, I just I felt I found that kind of very disheartening um especially after about the three and a half to four weeks since the first draft was um brought out. Um so um and I I do agree it is rather difficult to navigate through the policy page. I tried to because I wanted to try to find those policies myself as you know because there was no link there was no number and honestly in in what the district policy on the board of education page um like the the the policies I I went through and I I couldn't really find one policy that connected to the rights that are written here. So, and really
133honestly, I think my issue is just calling it a bill of rights. If you want it to be a summary, call it the parental policy summary or something instead of a bill of rights because it's it's it's not a bill of rights. Thank you. Great. Uh, thank you very much. I just want to reiterate again. I think you know you answered uh the question the policies uh we are in transition and the book is quite lengthy and I'm sure if you've seen everything we have to read through I'll be honest if I didn't have a team I certainly couldn't do it. Um so I appreciate your u your leniency waiting for that to be done but we do recognize and we we make a mental note of all your comments and we always appreciate them.
134So, thank you. Good evening. My name is Valerie Sudall. Just pick the mic up so uh I can't hear you too well. My name is Valerie Sudall. I live at 13 126 Route 537 here in Colts neck. I'm a huge believer in public education. I've been paying for it for more than 50 years through my as a homeowner through my property taxes. I I've I've found I've tried to wade through this very dense document. And I I would have to comment that no one no one disputes the right of parents to guide their child's development and values. But parents have always been able to access their child's school records and always been able to consult with teachers. So a lot of this seemed um excessive and unnecessary. When parents rights are supreme, something else could
135be at risk. Children's rights. Children are not property. They have their own experiences and feelings. They're often vulnerable to bullying by contemporaries and even by parents. One contentious bit in this uh document that I've never heard of being codified in this town before has to do with revealing gender preferences to parents. This could have dire consequences up to and including suicide. I personally know gay people who never outed themselves to their parents until they were grown to adulthood and out of the parental home. If you want to control the information your child receives about the world, you can homeschool. You can enroll enroll your child in the religious school of your choice, providing you're willing to do it at your expense. Supreme Court decisions have confirmed that no one can be compelled to participate in
136public education, but they've also reinforced the idea that parents don't have an open license to intrude into the classroom or establish surveillance or control over teachers. Public education supported by public do dollars is intended to introduce children to the wider world in all of its messy complexity. They will have challenges to face that we can't even predict at this moment. And to deprive them of information about their society is not only harmful, it's feudal. Kids are very good at soothing out the information that's sequestered from them. They all have phones. Do you really want them to get their sexed from Tik Tok or porn sites? Um, and the business about having individual individually tailored lessons that skirts the unwanted bits. Are we going to have boutique education where 20 parents want this, six parents don't
137want this, 13 more want alternate lesson plans? That way lies chaos. Seems to me. Are we going to accommodate everyone's particular views, flat-earthers, holocaust deniers, people with contrarian ideas that are factually untrue. The world includes gay people, trans people, people of color, people with a wide variety of religious faiths. The lesson we should be learning is not to deny or erase erase them, but to learn tolerance of that which is different from ourselves. Public education is meant to be the great leveler. It's meant to build community and commonality. There's no more important American ideal than e plurvas unum from the many one. The great American experiment is meant to recognize all of us as worthy all sharing in the blessings of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. I would hope that our schools and our
138schooling reflects this ideal. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much for your comment. Hi everyone. Um, my name is Allison Denoya and I live at four Westminster Drive. Um, I have a letter that I wrote a month ago and we're discussing this again. So, I thought I'd just bring it out to the public record. But first, I would like to thank Mrs. Ramirez for reviewing this document and providing substantial feedback that the public can actually hear. I think it's really important that we discuss these things in in person like a cow meeting is supposed to be held instead of just providing presentations with no commentary. So, thank you to Mrs. Ramirez. Um, and here's my letter. Dear board members, I would like to respectfully share my concerns regarding the proposed parent bill of rights, particularly
139as it stems from policy 9240. While the intent appears to be increased transparency and engagement, the current draft is confusing and may not serve its purpose effectively in its present form. Are parents aware of their rights? The question remains whether this document is solving a real problem. Most of the rights parents have are already embedded within existing board policies. Instead of creating a new bill of rights, it may be more helpful to provide parents with a user-friendly job job aid or guide that links directly to relevant policies, which it appears you have placeholders for that. Um, but something that could be shared at orientation or posted on the district's website. This would make navigation much easier for families. Questions for your consideration. There are several operational implications that deserve thorough consideration before this document moves
140forward. How will this impact existing procedures, especially around parent observations in classrooms? Will all parents be required to complete volunteer training before entering the classroom? If a child is in emotional or behavioral crisis, will school staff such as counselors be obligated to contact parents before offering support? Where is the mention of parental responsibilities? education is a partnership and mutual expectations should be clear. It appears it is still not gone through legal review um which I don't understand why but moving forward I hope it does. And I think we also need to talk about clarifying roles. I think it's important to understand the difference between the roles of the board of education and the superintendent. The board defines the what, setting policy and direction, and the superintendent and administration dei administer the how, implementing policy in
141ways that are educationally sound and legally compliant. Micromanaging implementation risks overstepping and complicating effective governance. In summary, if the necessary information already exists in current policies, the best course of action may be to focus on communication and accessibility rather than creating a new document. A collaborative, informed approach grounded in clarity of roles will ultimately serve our students and community best. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration. Great. Uh, thank you for your comments. I just want to reiterate again that um we have not submitted this uh to legal counsel just for the fact of um keeping legal costs um legal costs down. We figured we would get all the input first um go through all the studies um board input public input and then we would present a final copy and then then at that point
142uh we would take the recommendations for legal. there's no point in uh legal costs are quite high. So there's no point in everything every change we do, submit a copy. So I think it's the smartest way uh to basically produce the uh document in its entirety and then uh present it to legal at that time. Uh but there is no there's no policy or um anything we do that we would present without legal um authority. We wouldn't do that. We're not a reckless board here. If people know how frugal I am, I'm clearly not going to sit here and risk getting into a lawsuit or anything like that. Everything will be done uh appropriately. So, thank you for your comment. Anybody else? Good evening. Uh Mallerie Rearen, 165 Lair Road. I actually just had a
143question um in a different vein. Um, I was at the meeting for the budget presentation and um, I know that you guys work very hard not to to raise taxes. As a taxpayer, I appreciate that. Thank you. And, um, but I also know that we were getting less um, money than previously. So, I was just wondering, is there a way for the public to know if there are like expenses that you guys maybe have to like kind of kick the can down the road? Um, or if there were any programs that had to be cut back a little bit, maybe not eliminated, but maybe things were cut back. Um, just it seemed like if funds were less and were not raising money, then something some cuts had to be made or expenses had to be
144pushed down the road. So, I was just curious if there's a way for the public to know that. Okay, that's a very good c question. I'm gonna pass it off to Dr. Garay, but Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. So, we looked into our line of expenses and we have been cutting expenses. So, and it hasn't affected it hasn't affected um you know anything to do with the teachers, the aids, nothing. So, we we have been we have been looking at insuranceances. We have been looking at all of our big ticket line items and we've been going through them one by one. We have been sending out RFPs to bid to see if we can do any better. But, um, as of last year, we were able to reduce north of a half a million dollars worth
145of health costs. So, that helped us a lot. Um, I know Vince had um we were able to move money into a higher interestbearing account, so that helped us out a lot as well. I think that was Vince, correct me if I'm wrong, but north of about a half a million dollars extra in interest as well, right? Yeah. But that we budgeted for, correct? But that is also something that we didn't have in the past as well. um we were able to we were able to also this year as well we were able to collaborate with Dr. Gar Bay and reduced um some expenses also. So these expenses expenses roughly I would say over the past two years are a little north of a million dollars in in either added revenue and reducing expenses. So
146rough roughly yeah over a million dollars in the past two years. So so we haven't had to cut we haven't had to cut anything. Um you know the summer bridge program is still there. We have all of our programs the summer bridge we we got as a as a grant right from the from the state of New Jersey. That money is gone, but thanks to these cuts that we've made, we have able to c we were able to keep the summerbridge program and all of our other programs across the board. So, okay, that's great information. Thank you. You're welcome. Did you want to add anything? Go ahead. Yeah. So I think that there's always conversations in the finance committee that you know it's about um your as we say every year your budget is a
147statement of your priorities right and balancing the goals of the board with the priorities and the operations of the district right and looking for ways to save money um you know uh we always look at it in terms of when uh things are funded through public entities right it's a public entity you're always looking for your return on your investment Right? So if you're looking at um programs, you're looking at staffing, you're looking at usage, you're using at like all of the things, right? What is getting us our return on our investments, right? Is what we're doing. Um I think that there's always uh when we look at stuff, you look at in terms of less spending, but balance it also with CPI. We're not um you know, immune from rising costs and all the
148things. So to add to what Mr. Rico said, you know, we balance what can we do this year and there were things that we added this year. So, as Mr. Rico said, Summerbridge was 100% grant funded. It's 100% locally funded this year. Does the program look a little bit different? It sure does, but it's still a program. It's still a program that we're very proud of. Um, so it's modified to still fit within the parameters of the goal of, you know, asking for the same amount of money that we've asked for for the past two years. Um, we've added another section of a teacher. Uh, we've added a teacher in fourth grade at the elementary school for the enrollment pieces. So, I think we whenever we're looking at those types of things, we look at
149in, you know, appropriations and revenues, right, Mr. Resco? That's something that I've what you learn in BA class 101, right? Where are you looking at what do you have and what are you spending it on? Are there things that we're not doing yet? Of course there are. But that's part of an annual conversation in every budget year development. When things come up like roofing projects or things that are unexpected, the board does have a responsibility with the administration to plan for those things. We put money in reserves when we're able to do it. We tap into aids that were, you know, accessible to us. We uh are very fortunate um to be uh part of the National Association for uh military ail affiliated schools. We receive impact aid. Um you know that has been steady
150and something that we watch very carefully at the national level with news that are incoming with that um budgeting part of that. We receive some extraordinary aid for our students with disabilities that we utilize for different things. So I think it is always um you know with as as Mr. Or said going line by line by line by line is is something. Um but when it comes to the school buildings, when it comes to the program itself, you know, collectively you work to maintain that, right? You want to maintain the priority, you want to maintain the infrastructure, you want to maintain the product, right? And if you can produce a product um to which you can be satisfied whenever you're you're investing or whatever you're removing or whatever the recommendation winds up being you are
151you know um looking at it as an opportunity. The best thing about an annual budget is just that annual. So if we need something next year we ask for it next year. If we don't if we ask if it's in place this year because it's a necessary this year it might be a one-year thing. It might be something that is longterm. you know, it's always part of um what are we doing that's supporting um allocating finances to for our uh strategic plan, right? What how are we invested in terms of that? How are in terms of of goals? What is what is uh you know what how what are we ini being advised by our professional services with things? So, um lots and lots of considerations regarding the decisions uh and conversations that go on
152and with uh getting to yes is a collaborative effort at the end of the day when it comes to a vote on a budget. So, I think that it's a give and take. It's a compromising. It's getting to yes and it's prioritizing the needs of the students and that's what we try to do on a on a regular annual basis. So, um, I'm gonna find anything else. Yeah, I mean, anything here. Great. Uh, thank you very much. Uh, anybody else like to make a public comment? Anybody else? Okay. All right. Uh, we're going to close public comment at this time. Um, we're moving on to new business. Uh, does anybody have any new business this evening? Yes, Mrs. Harwood. It's not really new business, but I had the pleasure to go to the uh Do
153you hear me? Okay. Um, to go to the survivor lunch with Dr. Garbay today and I just wrote some things. I just want to share a little bit of my feedback. Um, so this morning, as I mentioned, Dr. Garbay and I get closer. Okay. Sorry. Um, today I had the opportunity to join Dr. ARB for the survivor lunch and it was extremely moving and it was really an unforgettable experience. I was really impressed with the students, their maturity, their empathy, the thoughtful questions that they asked were nothing short of inspiring. Um, discussing the Holocaust is never easy and hearing firsthand the accounts of firsthand accounts made it even more emotional and powerful. Uh the students listened with compassion and engaged in meaningful, respectful conversations that showed their deep understanding and their care. Um what made
154the event even more remarkable is that not many school districts are offering this to their students. The fact that Coltneck has been doing this for over 10 15 years, right? 15 years is a testament to the incredible leadership, dedication, and commitment of our um administrator, our administration, teachers, and staff. It speaks volumes to the values upheld in our district. Today is also Holocaust Survivor Day, a time to honor the courage and resilience of those who live through one of history's darkest chapters. By listening and sharing these stories, we're reminded that we must never forget these powerful moments of remembrance help ensure the lessons of the Holocaust to continue to resonate with future generations. I'm I'm so grateful that I was able to join um you know, you at this lunch and uh want to thank
155Dr. Riby as well for allowing me to be a part of it. And um you know this really reminded me once again how proud I am to be part of this community. Thank you. Great. That was so nice. Uh thank you Mrs. Harwoods for sharing your experience. Thank you. Anybody else? Uh I just want to make uh a shout out to Mr. Walker, the art teacher at Cedar Drive. Uh I attended the art show uh I think it was Thursday. Um last Tuesday. Um the children did a fantastic job uh with their artwork. It was displayed so nicely and I appreciate um them staying late hours uh so the parents can share uh in that experience. So thank you to Miss uh Mr. Walker. Anybody else? Okay. Uh we are cancelling the executive session at
156this time. There's no need for it. So that will be cancelled for this evening. Uh and at this time could I get a motion uh to adjurnn? Second. Great. Thank you. Roll call. Yeah. All in favor? Yeah. Go ahead. Great. Thank you. My daughter's Let me shut this.