001okay um good evening everybody I'd like to call to order uh the uh Committee of a whole meeting of the Board of Education February 5th 2025 at 6:30 p.m. in the Board Room of the administration building at 70 con Road in col snack New Jersey uh can I please get a roll call Mr morasa yes you may Mrs Cameron here Mrs harwitz Mr Oro here this is Ramirez I believe participating remotely and we'll come back to her Mr Retta here Mr scales here Mr Scarpa here Mrs vuli here Mr Walsh here and Mrs Ramirez I see her video presence and she's acknowledging is present thank you you have a quorum okay great thank you uh pursuing to the open public meetings act chapter 231 this meeting has been duly advertised in the Asbury Park Press
002in a scheduled of meetings dated January 16th 2025 notice of which has been filed with the dep Le Kirk for coln Township and the requirements of posting of notices have been met if everybody can please rise for the flag salute it will be to my right hand side I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible Justice okay uh good evening everybody thank you for coming I just want to remind everybody that this meeting is live streamed uh I want to take uh note of the one information item uh at the beginning um and then once we do that I'm going to open uh the floor to public comment um if anybody would like to get up please state
003your name and address for the record um and if you could please put your microphone on um and anybody's welcome to come up at this time okay my thanks to the board members who attended the last town oh Kevin O'Brien 18 the enclosure sorry I do it so often my thanks to the board members who attended the last Town council meeting um I'm neither for or opposed to the affordable housing project U but what I found disturbing coming back to the Board of Education particularly is the Builder formula will produce 1,200 um more Apartments resulting based on the calculations or the projections that um the mayor had project had said at the meeting on the 29th 334 more students just from those 1200 units plus the 100 from the um cnck Mana facility you're looking
004at almost a whole another building to build um at $30,000 each if I understand correctly budget number maybe higher or lower don't know uh to educate looking at over $1 13 million a year uh and I don't see that in your budget right now um so that's not all going to hit at this particular time but it's something that we get to look at uh from my perspective a Veteran's Home and a senior living uh facility eliminates the cost of the $13 million it it reduces the uh smart planning also reduces the 2.4 uh million traffic trips a year on Route 34 reduces our waste effluent by 80% reduces impervious coverage in skylow so it's not just helping the school but it's helping the general Community the 13 million that I talked out over 20
005years is $260 million that's a terrible burden on young families moving into cols neck and to the Next Generation to follow we can't stop the tsunami but we can manage the Mandate seeking HUD funding would certainly help building smarter building smaller would also help the town had no projections for students uh for the coltsneck Manor on January 14th did they do research or was their student number just a wag U don't know I'm also curious what four property south of 527 would they expect to build these 1200 units um so that's still a puzzle by me the mandates have been in place for years opposed to acquiring land via eminent domain we get a car wash cult neck keeps kicking the can down the road paying legal bills while property values continue to get more
006and more expensive hope is not a plan the biggest challenge that I had at the last meeting I was confronted by a Luca broy wannabe um got in my face and told me he didn't want to hear what I had to say he told me if I didn't like that that I should sell my home uh that's get an infringement on My First Amendment right and that's only going to make me keep speaking out more and more um he said we don't want affordable housing in Colts Neck well that's not really up to him anymore is it it's up to the judge so I'm hoping you folks will join me in lobbying for smarter building um I did make an a call out to the local veterans community they've got a building in um tinon
007Falls and they've extended an invitation for me to bring in and a few people so I've asked a couple members uh from this board I've asked Dan to join me and I've asked a gentleman from the planning board the chairman of the planning board haven't gotten a response back from him uh but I'm trying to build a little bit more interest and take this in a different route so we won't have the tremendous burden placed on the schools thank you questions thank you for your comment anybody else like to come up and make a comment okay absolutely yeah good evening um simply want to introduce myself my name is Dan bazetta I'm the newly elected member of the township committee I've met some of you um uh PR previous to tonight I've met some of
008you tonight just wanted to um let you know that I look forward to working with all of you uh if there's anything that I can do to help this committee uh even though I'm new and I'm still learning the ropes I'm happy to do that and uh I do look forward to working with all of you thank you and good luck thank you thank you for your comment anybody else okay um if we can close uh public comment at this time um moving on I'd like to uh call the attention um to the action items for approval this evening um you know number one if everybody wants to take notice of that um and then we'll move right into number two um I'll I'll be reading a statement and then I will uh offer the
009floor up to uh Mr Uh Kevin Walsh and uh Mr scales I'd like to call attention to the following resolution by the cnck Township Board of Education this resolution was initiated by Mr Kevin Walsh and executed by Robert scales it's imperative that our state county and local government officials are aware of our position the Council on affordable housing has mandated colck to withstand tax burdens overcrowding schools and possible environmental disasters with little to no push back from our local and County leaders back in April of 24 NE Town taxpayers took it upon themselves to collect donations to help fund a geological report generated by TRC some members of this board donated in hopes of getting the answers that the township should have should have been seeking I wanted I want tonight to thank all of
010those citizens who continue to defend this town against unfair affordable housing mandates this board of education will stay steadfast in our commitment to keeping our financial cial burdens to a minimum while still producing an excellent education for all students with that being said I'd like to have Mr scales read the resolution and then uh once again uh if Kevin Walsh wants to make a comment as well and then open the floor to uh the rest of the board members thank you this is a resolution of the Colts Neck Board of Education expressing deep disappointment in affordable housing mandates from the government in Trenton and the lack of actionable data from our Township and Mammoth County committees regarding impacts to taxpayers whereas the state of New Jersey through mandates imposed by the Council on affordable housing
011and subsequent judicial rulings has required municipalities including colck Township to facilitate the development of affordable housing unions without sufficient consideration of the impacts on local school district districts and whereas the Lana Square development is situated on an environmentally sensitive site near the yellow Brook which flows into the swimming River Reservoir the township committee planning board and County Commission have failed to conduct a thorough assessment of the potential impacts on the existing water supply which could directly affect the students of the colck school district a failure in this Wastewater system could compromise the drinking water endangering not only our students but also more than 300,000 residents of Mammoth County and whereas these mandates fail to account for the strain that additional housing developments will place on our school system including increased student enrollment overcrowding and the
012financial burden on local taxpayers to fund necessary expansions faculty hiring and educational resources and whereas the financial responsibility for accomodating increased school age popul ations due to these developments is unfairly placed upon local property taxpayers with no corresponding increase in state aid to offset the cost of additional students infrastructure and educational services and whereas the township Committee of coltsneck has failed to provide adequate transparency detailed fiscal analysis and meaningful opportunities for public engagement regarding the long-term financial and educational impacts of these housing mandates on our schools and community and whereas the lack of open communication and clear planning from our local government leaves the school district and taxpayers without a clear understanding of the full consequences of these State imposed policies and whereas as the elected representatives entrusted with ensuring the highest quality education for
013the children of colck Township this board has an obligation to advocate for policies that protect both educational excellence and fiscal responsibility now therefore be it resolved that the coltsneck Board of Education hereby expresses its deep disappointment in the affordable housing mandates imposed by the state of New Jersey which disregard the financial and operational burdens placed upon local school districts and be it further resolved that while this board remains grateful for the township committee's shared services initiatives and dedication to our schools we urge greater transparency and proactive engagement with the public including detailed impact studies fiscal projections and collaborative planning with the Board of Education to address the consequences of increased development on our schools and be it further resolved that the coltsneck Board of Education acknowledges and appreciates the coltsneck township committee's affordable housing dispute
014resolution submitted on January 29th 2025 we encourage the township committee to engage other impacted stakeholders and expand their reach on further resolutions and be it further resolved that this board urges state legislators and the governor's office to reassess these unfunded mandates and develop a fair fiscally responsible approach to affordable housing that accounts for the infrastructure and educational costs born by municipalities and school districts and be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution will be forwarded to the township Committee of coltsneck our state and County legislative Representatives Governor Phil Murphy the the New Jersey Commissioner of Education the US Housing and Urban Development departments and the Office of the President of the United States and other relevant stakeholders thank you great uh thank you Mr scals um I'd like to uh give uh Mr
015Walsh uh the floor um Rob thank you for writing a resolution CL worded and expresses uh our the commitment to one educating all kids in colight um future enrollment that's Our obligation but the impact of affordable housing on our Township is unfair it's unfair to our taxpayer it's unfair to our residents it's going to be unaffordable to live in our town especially I want to um include the senior citizen population our fixed incomes and this taxes are going to inevitably go Sky High so that that's my concern a quick statement on my uh behalf as a board member I deeply disappointed our Township committee did not communicate much earlier the impact with affordable housing obligations to our school Community this delay is this delay in open transparency is affecting our ability as a board of
016education to proly prepare long-term Financial Bud budgets for the certain large infl influx of students our Township committee had our planning board hold a public hearing about the third round and new new newly released leas fourth round of affordable housing obligation on January 14th too little too late the meeting was the responsibility of the township committee and not the planning board I commend the planning board for their presentation with which highlight the amount of housing units we would have to build we will have to build and the significant taxes that will follow I believe round four obligations will result in over 500 units that we are responsible for and the possibility of 100 to 200 students our school board had to request affordable housing data to prepare for our district uh from the township that
017should have been the other way around our Board of Education should not have to reach out to the township committee for information this should have been provided years ago um my hopes are great great with that being said my hopes are are great at work in relationships with the township communicate with our tax sucessor to see what kind of ratables we're going to have come in how much money we're going to receive to pay for all this and um again the mission of our Board of Education number one no matter where the students no matter what our obligation is to give them the highest level of Education we're I'm committed to do that I'm sure our whole board is thank you uh thank you Mr Walsh uh at this time I'd like to open up
018the flooor to any um comments or concerns with the resolution um I'll say something yeah so I'm hoping that this resolution um inspires other boards of education and townships to take similar action so that we can all ensure responsible growth that considers traffic congestion for bus routes um and residents increase Demand on public services as well as the long-term financial burden on taxpayers or as Rob mentioned for educational resources that includes textbooks Chromebooks teachers possibly new schools and I'm really grateful for Rob for his proactive planning which is essential to ensure that we maintain the quality of life our residents expect like our small smaller than average class sizes while balancing these challenges so thank you for doing this anybody else yes Mrs Ramirez would like to be recognized yes thank you can everyone hear
019me okay yes okay so I have a lot to say so please bear with me uh this evening um so on January 30th uh board president Angel Le you sent out an email to the full board with this a copy of this resolution asking the board to come prepared to the meeting this evening for discussion on this resolution and so first I just want to say thank you for giving us a heads up about the resolution so that we could all uh be prepared for this I was disappointed as I did share with you via email that the next day when uh the board received uh a draft working agenda to see this as an action item my hopes and my impression from your email was that we would be discussing discussing it tonight and
020that we would be collecting input as a committee of a whole to have input from the entire board all nine members of that board well it's wonderful that Rob was able to put this together and that's great and it sounds like Kevin was also instrumental in this we are not a board of only two members we are also not supposed to be operating in committies or behind closed doors we've heard so much over the last several months about transparency and keeping the public a breast of everything that we're doing and having public input last meeting we just added a second public comment section so that our public is able to not only hear what we're discussing but then come back up at the end of the meeting and be able to comment on it because
021some of the things that we may banter back and forth about or have discussion about back and forth the public then may want to get up and say something about it so tonight we're discussing this we're then going to take an action on it and the public after hearing what we have to say has not had a second opportunity and I think they deserve to have that I think that that was the purpose of providing a second public comment section so that's why in my email to you which was I believe on the 31st or the 1 I can't recall now exactly um I requested that we put this off that we have have our discussion tonight as a committee of a whole and then at the next meeting or potentially later depending on how
022long it takes us to all come back and have discussion about this that we then vote on it as an action item um I understand your position as Bo president you absolutely have every right to have your your ability to say nope I'm moving forward with this as an action item which is what you did you responded back to me I appreciate the quick response uh but I do think that it's fair that all nine members of our board have input on this um since I was not prepared for us to be taking action on it I have several inputs and and I'd like to change different language here and there but for us to go through line item by line item word by word on this during tonight's meeting for a very lengthy resolution
023and then go ahead and take action on it after I think we're gonna we need a clean copy of this resolution to read and so all of that being said I still do wish that we would hold off on actually taking action item action on this item this evening and that we would discuss it tonight potentially discuss it at a later date maybe even via email so we can get a clean copy of it and then move forward after that at that point on an action item in addition to that I also asked you in the email and I did not receive a response asking if our legal team had an opportunity to look over this resolution my request in doing that is because there's a lot of accusations in this resolution this isn't a
024happy feel-good resolution like we had last month acknowledging the board members and I want to make sure that we are ensuring that our board is not opening itself up for liability here I can't in good conscious V for something that I don't know is vetted by our legal team and if I'm not mistaken last month we held off and we tabled a policy that was thoroughly vetted by our legal team and we did so so that the full board had an opportunity to review it and bring concerns so that the public had an opportunity to bring concerns this resolution is being proposed to not only be sent to our local government our governor but the president of the United States yet we are not going to have our legal team look at it that seems
025irresponsible and it does not seem like it's something that our board should be doing in addition to that the township as far as I'm aware prior to the first week of January when new board members were seated I had great communication with the township committee I spoke regularly to tarab bus and as Township leis on we always communicated and anytime that we had any concerns about anything especially as some of these things went down the pipeline for the affordable housing we requested information we had an open dialogue with the township committee um I do believe Mary Jane can speak to that and and attest to that now prior to my time on the board I'm not sure what took place but I do know that at least last year while I was on the board
026in the leadership role that took place and any information that we requested and it was back and forth the township committee did reach out and they did ask us for our demographer information and we went back and forth and we shared information and we were moving along with that the end of last year I made clear during several one of several of my president's reports that we would be staying on top of this and I do believe that our Administration is with an open line of communication with our Township committee now I don't know what's happened since January as far as the leadership goes I'm not privy to that information so if something has changed then I do wish that the full board has would have been made notice of that but to my knowledge
027the township committee has anytime that our Board of Education not private citizens but as our board of education has reached out to the township committee to request information we have received it and so I don't know has has our Administration not received information as board president Angelique have you not received information um and I'm going to kind of put those questions out there but please let me continue and at the end I love to hear back from everyone that I'm going to address questions to um Rob he spoke in the in the resolution that he drafted about a collaborative planning in the resolution but I don't think that there's been any initiation on our end since January to do that I know that we've spoken heavily about getting our demographer at one of our meetings
028and being able to have them present to uh the township to the Board of Education um in a public meeting so that not only the board of education but also the public anyone that watches our live streams anyone that's there has an opportunity to uh you know hear what the demographer has to say whether we move forward with the Sundance company or whether we sought out a different demographer I think that that's wise I think that prior to us sending um a resolution to again the governor to our local government to the president of the United States I think it's wise for us to do our due diligence and ensure that we do have all that information and while you can have the opinion that it's a Township job to reach out to us I
029feel like that's you know back and forth we're going to feel like they have to reach out to us they might feel maybe they we need to reach out to them why don't we just be proactive and be the adults in the room and we can take on that initiative I know that we have nine very serious very passionate individuals on this board of education and I don't think that any one of us is not capable of taking that Initiative for this District I think all of us got elected because of the attitude that we that we have and that uh you know that responsibility that we take very seriously being on this board um in addition to that you know at the meeting right you reassigned and and now we have an ad hoc
030committee for affordable housing has our ad hoc committee has our our ad hoc committee chair Rob have have you reached out have there been any meetings set um like I said earlier I know that we're supposed to be operating as a committee of a whole but I do know that obviously some of this happen behind closed doors so has there been any other meetings uh with the township as the affordable housing uh committee chair has there been anything else that's taken place that maybe the full board and the public is not privy to that has then initiated this resolution um because it seems like we have the things in place that our board has done the things in setting up this ad hoc committee which I I love the idea of it I know that
031all of these concerns have been brought to the attention of the board even uh at the end of last year as some of this started really coming down the pipeline and so if you know if there's things that we we move forward with we have these committees we have these uh leadership roles in place so I think that we need to explore those Avenues first before we're putting out a resolution are urging the township to do something or urging our local government to do something I think we do need to do our due diligence and ensure that we've done everything in our power moving forward okay Jessica Jessica i' just like to interrupt you um I I know your statement's pretty lengthy I just want to answer a couple of uh questions and try to
032move the meeting on we have a considerably long agenda this evening and uh I I want to keep the meeting moving um just to answer briefly a couple of your questions um uh legal councel is not needed when doing a resolution just so you know that it's not you're right no I I am well aware of that I don't want you to feel that you know we put this together recklessly there is no need for legal counsel on this um and for the but that doesn't mean that it's not wise very wise for us to have counsel in this situation again this is not a feel good resolution this is something possibly defamatory I'm not going to sit here and argue in public I'm just not not going to do it with you I putc
033this is a discussion excuse me I just want to let you know when we put when I put it out to the full board several members of the board responded to me with some changes and additions they would like added we took that into consideration and Mr scales basically adjusted the resolution and that was that so I think we had enough we're going to move on if anybody else has any other com ments I'd appreciate if you step forward are you stopping my my ability to have a comment and a discussion right now I understand I I heard everything you said you felt I I still have more to say so are you stopping my ability no I'm not stopping I'm not stopping but I think you made it clear that you you're concerned about
034the legal ramifications which in a resolution I'm not concerned about it um and we to we that's not the purpose of me making the public comment this isn't a a discussion between Angelique and Jessica this is a discussion of nine board members I I understand I feel if we let somebody else speak at this time I feel that they felt that they were included as a member of the nine board members and they had um uh a a decent amount of time to respond to the email and what they want to change you didn't respond with any any changes you're saying now that you didn't have a chance to say anything or do anything but I think four or five members actually reached out to me with their concerns and their additions and we handled
035it you didn't say anything you just said that you were surprised that you saw it as an action item as president I decided that it was imperative that this community the county and the local government knows our position on this if you want to vote against it that is your prerogative but we are moving forward with this resolution tonight thank you that's fine so I would I would actually like to make a motion to table this resolution until later meeting when we can have full input during a committee of a whole meeting for all nine board members as well as additional input from the public for individuals who maybe couldn't be there in person tonight give them another meeting to be able to have that public input and certain that we table this until we
036have a legal uh opinion on this resolution you you certainly are welcome to make a motion to table it and give the board members yeah that's fine you're welcome to do so Mr morasco do you need me to see a clear uh motion all right so motion to table this resolution until a later meeting date when all nine board members of this board have time to not only give a thorough input for changes to the resolution but also to have our legal team view it sure is there a second I'll give her a second that's I'm sorry did you call my name I'm sorry um Vince I'll take a roll call please sorry no further comment uh any other comments before we do so okay that would be no yes can everybody please put your
037microphones on for the vote please thank you okay on excuse me the motion from Jessica R to table to table Mrs camera no Mrs Horowitz no Mr Rico no Mrs Ramirez yes Mr Rett uh though I take to heart everything that uh member m Ramirez has uh said uh just now um I a no for tbling it though as I fully agree with this uh um motion as I as this resolution as I I'm the one who actually brought brought up the id idea of this last meeting uh but I want to thank um Rob and I want to thank um Kevin for putting it together and taking everybody's suggestions on it and uh putting through a wellth thought out resolution a coherent resolution um and if I though I did think it was going
038to be put in the Cal meeting today um I do think all these different stand stanzas in here are well thought out and it would have been very difficult and hay to talk about this so much in a count meeting like this so uh and it is spread out in the public right now so I'm a no for tabling this thank you thank you Mr scales nope Mr Scara uh to Echo uh um Mr retta's comments that the resolution was very well thought out it was presented it was given over 72 hours of uh notice to the board so I vote no to postpone Mrs VY absolutely no Mr Walsh no thank you the motion to table until a later date did not pass okay thank you um we are going to move on uh
039to our presentation oh I'm sorry I forgot we're going to take a roll call to approve those action items at this time um Mr mka can you uh move forward with that please yes on the superintendent action items um one through two Mrs Cameron yes Mrs harowitz yes Mr or yes Mrs Ramirez yes to one no to number two thank you Mr RN yes Mr scales yes Mr Scarpa yes Mrs VY yes and Mr Walsh yes thank you motion did carry um okay we are going to move on to um our presentation um yeah can I just uh Dr uh Rigby is here from uh Cedar Drive Middle School I just want to thank him for coming out after hours to do this presentation uh and we are grateful for you thank you good uh
040good evening and again uh president fuli introducing Dr riby who's here who's the principal of Cedar Drive Middle School um the presentation tonight as you'll hear from Dr Rigby is an overview as well as a requirement uh by the State Department of Education regarding chronic absenteeism which is one of the standards that they use for raiding our schools in accordance with uh the statute that relates to uh every student succeeds act all of the things that go into State funding so it is a requirement chronic absenteeism was selected by the state department of education New Jersey as an indicator of success for children and so as a result of that Dr Rigby is going to walk us through the presentation the action item the action steps that the uh school and District are going to
041take in partnership with our families and communities and hope to bring a little bit of understanding uh to this process and the action steps that we're taking so thank you for being here Dr R we Al turn the presentation to you good evening everyone Dr G from board thank you for the opportunity to to talk to you a little bit tonight um about attendance at Peter drive and certainly for your time I know you have a busy agenda so I'll do the best that can to be respectful of your time really three goals uh the first one just an overview about how attendance is reported to the state to talk a little bit about policy that we have on a state level and local level the second is to Define and unpack the term chronic
042absenteeism exactly what that means and why has been identified as a school okay with chronic absenteeism and then the third goal today would be to talk about where we go from here so our corrective action plan our next steps so hopefully we can kind of accomplish those three things not new to anyone the state of New Jersey has laws that require all all parents and Guardians to make sure that their child attends school and they're very clear on that and our local policy 5200 from the coln Board of Education Echoes that same language and makes sure that all families are responsible to have their students uh their child and their children attend school worth pointing out the regulation um that is 5200 the regulation is very detailed and it has a lot of um information
043about what constitutes a school Deb which is a student has to be in the building for four hours it's a little different for kindergarten but for Middle schol we're talking about that a 4-Hour day so the regulation goes into a lot of detail and it talks specifically about um some of the things that go into reporting attendance something that comes up all the time is what's an excused absence and what's not an exuse and if you take a look on the on the screen there the state of New Jersey has given us guidelines and there's seven areas that are considered excused absences and if you take a look I don't have to go through all them but um we have you know from college visits take your children to workday um religious observance what's not
044up there and I think it's important is if your child was sick and that's okay okay but I think we have to say and we can argue that point but this is the guidelines that the state is giving us and this is the seven reasons that a absence can be determined excused okay when reported so attendance rates for each school we have a responsibility okay to to be able to uh share that with the state of New Jersey okay annually what does it really mean and Dr garab did you know I think I think started that conversation with some of the things that factor into a school's performance report right a report card a school report card that everyone is familiar with different factors one of them is the absente rate and if a school
045is chronically absent it could have an okay an impa on how how a school performed on their performance report so the summi of ratings which constitutes njsla scores and other things attendance is part of that let's talk a little bit about what it means to be chronically absent so the state of New Jersey has been clear that they say if you are absent 10% or more of the school year it's going to be determined that you're chronically they absent or absenteeism there what is that I mean most schools and Dr G does her best sometimes you know in terms of 181 days to start 182 days let's use 180 days as the average for most schools in New Jersey right so if your uh child is absent 18 or more times that's 10% or more
046they're going to be identified as someone that okay is chronically absent from school one of the things I think that's worth talking about is let's just think about a child okay they could be sick for two days and they could go on two College days so what does that mean so you have 180 days in the school year they were sick twice but instead of 180 you're we're going to use 178 days why because those two College days are excused for the state of New Jersey so they were absent twice divided by 178 days and that child has excellent attendance you're talking about slight above 1% so great now that same child goes away for two weeks on vacation okay with their family 10 days plus the two now they're up to 12 divided by
047that same 178 because of the two excuse absence and now that child is at a little bit above 6% but still okay now you put in an extra six days maybe there was another vacation maybe they got sick with the flu for a week next thing you know that child at 18 days divided by the 178 and now you're over 10% what does that mean it means that that child is identified as someone that's chronically absent what do we do currently at Cedar drop and I could probably speak again for Mrs bar and Mr oen locally we can excuse absences meaning if the parent and you have a child home sick you're going to call and Mrs hire is amazing she's a rock star she's our nurse she's on the phone wanting to know why
048the child was absent working families and that's what we're I think col Prides itself on right is those connections so locally we can say yes we understand why your child was absent and it may be quote unquote excused in our eyes here we're not going to follow truancy charges we're not going to investigate anything with the family because we're in communication so locally we know why but please understand when we report to the state that's not considered an excuse AC okay we send letters we send letters after five we send after five uh absences we send letters after 10 after 15 and we also make phone calls okay to selected students just to learn their story and I think that's really what it's about is to figure out why a child may not be coming
049to school and make sure that we can understand that here's where we are for Cedar drrive from 23 24 we had 10 students in sixth grade the absent 18 or more times we had 15 students in seventh grade and we had 32 in eth grade yeah puts us at 57 total that's 57 students were absent 18 or more times at 18% of our population if you go back to that third slide Falls below the 10% threshold that means that Cedar Drive okay has been identified as a school with chronic absentees what that means is that we now have the opportunity to create an action plan to respond to that so what we do so what we do I said I love I'll put my mic on I love your wording your use of word of
050opportunity to creat your an action plan that's such a positive connotation of this situation so appreciate it Dr so we reached out to parents uh so thank you to those of you in the room that responded um we we did have probably about a third of our parents responded um to a survey and we also asked the CR Drive staff so what you're going to see here and I'll go through it quickly just out of I think respect for your time but what you will see is some of the things that we got from the survey drove our action plan if you take a look about two-thirds of the parents said yeah we understand a lot of the policy 5200 we have a good understanding of it but that also means that about a third
051could use a little bit more information about that policy reasons for absences family shared nothing that's surprising to anyone right illnesses some sports some competitions okay religious observances I think things that were're all familiar with interesting and and this was nice to see families did say they want to be communicated with and I think connected with as needed not necessarily just every the of every month or every marking period but as needed and you'll see how we hopefully are going to accomplish that 50% 49% phone call or email you take a look and it's always humbling sometimes when you get survey 8% want letters and what do we do right now we send letters okay so if you take a look I think we're going to adjust in terms of I think just kind of
052our Focus there but this is definitely humbling in terms of what uh what families need um but this is worth sharing really good perspective in the comment section I think our our community and our parents they get it it's trying to find the balance if your child is sick they should stay home okay but yet we also have parents that value education and want and understand the importance of consistent attendance at school for their academic and social growth so if you take a look at you know whenever you have time there's a I think a spirit of understanding that balance and of an awareness I think we have a community that values education but we also want to make sure that we get the word out there how important it is to be consistently in
053school we ask the staff okay the staff also agree that we have to get that word out about our policy our regulation for 50200 we can inform the parents and our families a little bit more if you kind of take a look at the uh the graph there also very similar stashed Impressions similar to families why students are being absent from school things that staff have tried you want to try and make that correlation between hey if we're here every day we're GNA have a better academic experience you're going to be more involved you're going to be more engaged also to talk about I think partnering with families which is going to be a theme of tonight and certainly moving forward before we go on to our action plan I think it's important it's not
054just a snapshot for 2324 take a look this is where we are as of last Monday students that have been absent nine or more times so if you double that we'll get to the 18 so we have 13 sixth graders who have already been absent nine times we have 21 seventh graders and 25 eighth graders so right now if we didn't do anything we're projected to be at a similar spot that we were last year so this isn't just something that we have to respond to from last year I think this is going to be good for us going forward all right formal communication with families and we started that already in terms of I think getting the word out about what exactly chronic absentee ISM means we got good feedback from the survey but
055to really help parents understand now again in May as the spring uh season comes into play and then certainly in September of of 25 they back to school nights make sure we get that word out continue to identify students with excessive absences get to know their story and make sure that I think we have a great team in terms of Mrs hire leading that from our nurse's office but then also you see we're going to expand that team a little bit adjust our letters and notifications not just to be letter but to be email as well which is nice and we can handle that but maybe start at 4 absences 8 12 and 16 it's only going to increase the communication with families we have a this was a suggestion from staff which we welcome
056we have an attendance committee our first meeting is tomorrow just to sit to collect data communicate with home figure out if there are academic or Social Challenges what interventions can we have and what can we put in place to make sure that we improve that we want a partner we're going to get on the phone we're going to connect with families and make sure that we understand that we uh that they that they see that's it's a support from home but how I mean a support from school but how important it is for us to make sure that we increase our our our attendance and address any concerns take a look again documenting why we're AB to see if we see Trends develop action plans if we need to we have amazing people I think
057to to be able to intervene at school from all of our staff our child study team members we can handle a lot of things if we're communicating with parents if there's any obstacles in the way monthly review of action plans determine the effectiveness adjust we need explorations of incentives you might have uh when I went to school or maybe when you went to school perfect attendance award things like that but maybe yeah right Mr scales yeah some type of breakfast or pizza party but we want to find that balance right because we don't want if someone's sick okay we want to make sure that they don't come to school okay um we want them to get better so I think we have ideas that we're going to explore we'll report back and share with Dr
058gab but uh the idea of um maybe monthly right if you know if you have uh monthly um attendance improved attendance from one market through the other just so that I think kids can get involved too also no one nothing better than if you ever drove by 5050 from like the town that little red uh barometer there is always a good thing we'll show them hey this is our goal for the month we want to have 95% attendance at Cedar and to be able to show that in a newsletter and just get the word out hopefully you know I think the spirit is to be really clear communication with families um to be on it in terms of monthly monitoring to be able to um to address concerns collaboratively and then develop interventions where we
059need to so that's our plan if you have any questions or uh comments I certainly I don't know if there's time now if you have any or but you can certainly contact me um yeah we'd like to open the board I'm sure somebody would like to ask you a question if you don't mind Dr rby yeah uh Dr Rigby thank you very much it's always good to see you I appreciate your time um so two questions and a comment uh one I found telling about the deck is the surveys to students and the surveys to teachers service to parents and the surveys to teachers a little bit different teachers recognize vacations and the parents didn't mention vacations on there so we're in colck I'm going to assume that most folks in colck take EX and
060the vacations that spread out over the course of the duration of the school year for my own edification what factor is the vacation well let's assume none of these kids in sixth seventh and eighth grade are taking College trips so there's the okay what factor is the vacation piece and uh because you do appreciate the feedback you know 50% 20% 50 uh because that would be helpful in the messaging the other question is is that what impact could this have on our potential blue r and status as a district as we proceed forward because I do know we have test taken responsibilities to to is there an attendance factor and my comment is I was recipient of a gold certificate for for uh never missing a great a CL um a day in the second
061grade I came home with a fluid 103 fever but I got the gold certificate so I will say that if you put that out there to some people maybe nerds like myself but it impresses on some people so two questions I appreciate your time the first one I I can respond to is I don't have an exact number but I can tell you I'm getting to know the story is sometimes a family trip does contribute to the DAT you know I would say pretty you know I don't have an exact percent but um and families are open with that so that definitely is a factor how much I don't know exactly but I would say that is in play and the second question I'm probably let Dr G answer that one she'll do a much
062better job okay if we go to before goes to that one about the vacation factor that might help with the messaging Factor you know like if it is largely driven by vacations that will help tweak your messaging to student to the student body and the parents and say hey before we plan this let's be cognizant of our numbers and maybe we're impacting the community as a whole the second question uh thank you though one thing we can do is sometimes in Genesis they with they'll have a note you know for a reason of an absence we can see if we can run a report and be able to dissect that data that that was something we can I can get back and inform the board of if we're able to run that report based on
063the notes alone it's usually just the input information it's usually sometimes not something we can do with the anecdotal information that's added into a reason that's input into you know those reason would say doctor's note it'll say you know visit or something like that so I'm not sure that we'll be able to run a report from that so um but we can return to that I can provide that information regarding Blue Ribbon School status that uh while I have have not seen in a rubric regard to attendance there is a school rating that comes out every single year and jade.com always puts it out there as a rating which is tied to the performance report chronic absenteeism is a rating so last year the rating of CED or dry was at on a scale of
064one to to 100 was 68 point something with that out of a one to 100 and chronic absenteeism what is a factor in that so it's it's a very public display it's a big faction of that in addition to another you know other listings of things performance overall that are all laid out on the performance reports as well so um with regard to the Blue Ribbon school that has a lot to do with academic performance there are certain think caveats in there that are automatic Flags not to do that so I can explore that in terms of attendance anybody else yeah just a a few great presentation by the way you've got great executive presence if anyone's ever told you that before very good control the room very well um it I'm going to use
065the c word Co um what I would what I would find useful to see because again I think the action items are great and the plan's great but what I you know being a parent and having a Social Circle I think sometimes parents are confused of when to send their child to school if they're sick and when they're not right so I'll give you an example like my mom's listening she's going to kill me but I used to sad and feel well my mom would give me two Advils send me on my way and say take it at noon right and then I would go to school sick so since Co I think the the children are being held back more than they normally would right because before I would say we would just send
066them in they'd have runny nose awesome they had a runny nose but I don't know if the guidelines like we we mentioned the the policy but the guidelines of when a child can come like if it's 24 hours after they have a temperature or or 24 after a flu or something like that might be helpful because if there's a way to mine the data to find out like if there is a trend like maybe two years before covid was this ever an issue and then from covid to now right the and all this the success of years like have we ever had this problem before is this the first time we've seen it like if you guys could try to figure that out I think it would be good because the action plans are great
067I think Community engagement is good but also if we understand sort of the and not just put a bandaid on it and try to figure out like all right let's try to make something a little bit more concrete give it to the parents then they know all right this is when I send my child to school it might help as well too so no I think very good point that in talking to the the latest um group of letters that we sent out to follow with phone calls Mr scales Co must have come out at least 40 50% just in conversation and since then so I think uh I think that's a good perspective is that it anybody else before we so right now we have Mr Mercer assistant principal myself Mrs H and Mrs
068hums our counsel so we we call off as a team and as you see we have about 59 right now that are at n so we just each take a number of them and connect hopefully we're back in and and able to say that we are no longer a uh a school that's been identified as PR but thank you for your time okay great thank you very much okay so we're going to um do the Comm um okay we're um we're going to move on to the uh committee board liaison reports um once again a comment real quick about Communications if you don't mind uh is that allowed just before yes yeah I'm actually I'm sorry I it's my fault I missed that take note of the communications there was one uh one under Communications
069and sure Rob go ahead yeah no just a comment on um please turn on your microphone for full transparency um so I it's it's weird I think there was another one in there about um like camera there was something else about like the hearing the noise in the room but I've I've listened to board meetings for two years three years or whatever it was since we were recording them and it's always been an issue right so I don't know if when you listen at home it's very very low so like right now if I'm listening at home I have to turn my volume up to like 70 in order to hear it so I don't I mean I don't know if this was a you know a veiled statement or not but this is it's
070been like this for two or three years so if there's a way for us to turn the volume up over there that might help as well too so actually I found um when we do speak right into the mic uh I could hear very well I mean we just have to be cognizant of doing it but um if we could try tonight and then you know follow up we'll see uh we'll see the feedback after tonight okay so speak directly into the mic um okay moving on to the committee board liaison reports um once again this is a very lengthy meeting so I'm asking uh the board chairs to be as brief as possible at this time um uh many of you may not even have anything but we'll move to Mr Walsh on buildings
071and ground Safety and Security please savw some of the projects we' like to see in 25 oh yeah microphone Fe first feedback um first of all there's a tour or chair board members um on building and grounds and security we have a tour of the facilities on February 27th I hope to see each and one of you all of you at the uh for this facility tour and it's going to be conducted by Nick Moretta to give you a good perspective of uh the schools and the infrastructure and um you know give you a different perspective especially when we're talking about large budget items Finance items again I'll just defer to Vince for the review of some some projects we have in mind for this coming year I think we're actually going to be discussing
072those items in the um Committee of the whole work session section under buildings and Grant so I'll be happy to thank youit of that yeah that'll be fine any any other board chairs if we have extensive Committee of the whole uh reports just be brief on the uh liaison uh Communications uh yes uh thank you uh so uh thank you president vuli uh for granting me this time to speak about a court tenant and principal of this board you know as a committee lead for board Communications and as an elected representative of the good folks of this town I ask for four minutes of your time uh to address a matter of great importance that arose by coincidence at the township committee on January 29th 2025 4 minutes that's not a lot of time but
073what represents is something far greater so here's a fact uh the freedom of speech as protected by the first amendment of our constitution is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or Community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation censorship or legal sanction this board is an elected representation of the taxpayers of this community and one of our jobs is to fully and fairly listen to all of our constituents and do our very best to represent their best interest for the benefit of our school children for those that might be a student of History you might recall a moment Back in the New Hampshire presidential primary of 1980 when a then governor and sued to be transformative president took to the debate stage and said I am paying for this
074microphone Mr Green it's funny how history repeats itself to Mr O'Brien who was kind enough to be with us today and to this board meeting and to the rest of the good Folks at this town both present and those participating virtually this board pledges to you that we will never turn off your microphone while you most certainly respected while we most certainly respected the Quorum and Cadence of a formal meeting such as here tonight inclusive of the recommended time allotments for public Communications I cannot overestimate the true value of the voice of the public as a board of education with a cumulative record cumulative record of Decades of experience both professional and personal beholding to maintain the level of respect of the voices of our community taxpayers is of our highest regard that same level
075of respect and professional Decor was not presented to Mr O'Brien at that meeting and as a taxpayer he was indeed paying for that microphone four minutes 8 minutes 12 minutes it doesn't make a difference that is your first amendment right and you should have been allowed the opportunity to finish your prepared comments your voice is valuable it is heard and it will be represented here at the board of ed meetings the board welcomes the public voice and it will give it its fair share that it is due that is your first amendment right and it is our responsibility to uphold it thank you uh thank you very much uh Mr scarber that was very heartfelt and we appreciate um your observance of that thank you um moving on uh to the curriculum committee um I
076don't know if you want to say anything before your I'm Gonna Save my comments for the agenda items okay terrific um moving on to uh Mr Rico Finance negotiations we'll discuss everything under the just the appropriation extraordinary a charge increase we're going to be discussing the 256 budget fa on okay great um policy Mr scales no we have a lengthy discussion for our session so I will okay that's fine hold to then um uh for the advocacy the same thing I'll be brief but I'll wait until uh the cow portion um uh Mr Retta would you like to share uh anything for the ad hoc committee for the Arts Sports and extracurricular activities uh sure sure um just a few um as regard regards to uh spring Sports uh baseball uh the uh registration is
077uh still up uh right now you have the early bird uh registration fee of 195 uh through Fe February 7th so just a few more days for that um and they're taking kids uh born September 2009 through August 2021 uh for four and 5-year-olds it will be t-ball um opening day is uh Saturday April 5th and will go to the third weekend in June and uh for the the first time there's no volunteer fee um just go to uh colst exports foundation.com uh to sign up through the uh Team Snap app and uh also softball uh for uh four to 16 year olds uh opening day will be April 1 uh and it'll go through June 28th uh there will be 12 games plus playoffs uh four to six year olds four to six year
078olds will be tball uh and then uh seveny olds to 16y olds uh will compete not only uh against their fellow uh col neck teams but also against teams from Freehold and Marboro uh and you can email michelle. pain at ksports foundation.com for any questions including uh the registration fee um uh boys lacrosse um from kind for kindergarten through uh eighth graders um is still available to register uh till uh February 15th uh the registration fee is $125 and that will go from March 24th 4 through uh May 19th uh weekly games and two practices per week and uh unfortunately frag football right now is uh registration is closed they um all the spots were filled but you can sign up uh to be on the wait list again go to colc sports foundation.com and
079every sport has their own page and uh if you go to the contacts page every uh sport has their own contact through email for any question as well uh great thank you U Mr RN um just looking at this me and uh Dr Garay just saw there's a couple of typos you know uh accidental typos the sports uh is a liaison not an ad hoc committee which we discussed last meeting so that'll be corrected um and just going forward uh we just decided we're going to remove this section since uh when when it is a cow meeting this way we're not doing double time here so this will be removed going forward and the only thing that will be on here is basically the liaison um you know uh Vinnie and um Mrs um Ramirez
080uh her position with and Brian scarper with the uh Naval Weapon Station okay and the county school boards all right everybody understand and and Sarah with the PTO okay I'm sorry and seniors yeah so yeah this will be we'll restructure this um for the next meeting okay um Kevin do you have anything for the seniors okay great um Sarah how about you for the the PTO I know it's not listed here but we certainly do not want to forget thanks uh the PTO has started their book swap collection uh donation boxes are available at all three schools if you're interested please donate books that are suitable for prek through fifth grade uh no encyclopedias or adult books uh they will be collecting donations until February 28th and students will have the opportunity to shop for
081uh Shop books on March 5th any remaining books will then be donated to the library uh also just make sure that you're checking their emails for events uh by grade level as there are a ton of grade events on there to be aware of uh lastly invitations were sent out for the pto's uh 41st annual Gala which will be held on March 27th at the Southgate Manor in freeold okay um I don't know if there's really much on the parent advisory but I want to give you the opportunity to say something if you had something prepared uh yeah just that our first uh parent advisory committee meetings of 2025 will be held on Tuesday February 18th at 700 p.m. and Wednesday February 19th at 10: a. in the administration building um Angelique and I will
082be attending and I look forward to meeting parents and working together on some key matters okay great thank you uh Sarah um okay I have some report uh for the state and County School boards um it's a little lengthy I'll try to read quickly um uh the uh new New Jersey school boards had a virtual meeting it was held last night uh the guest speaker was Senator Vin goal um these were some of the things that were uh discussed uh there was a bill uh a 5117 it was passed on February 3rd uh this is a reference to um you're running for a school board election uh you now need 25 signatures um on your petition instead of 10 signatures that was for the previous year um currently there's 1,800 pieces of legisl in the
083state house um to briefly go over comments made by uh Ving goal and the board of directors um uh he had mentioned uh the goal is to move special education funding to the state uh I believe now it's 70% is that correct um he wants to move it 100% funding uh that will remove the burden of local school districts so that would be phenomenal for us if that could be done um so he discussed a little bit of that he also discussed uh School District consolidation um you know I'm not sure if that would be in the best of everybody's uh interests but uh it would pertain to the districts that have low attendance uh he mentioned that some districts have four or 500 students I'm not sure where where those are but uh he
084had mentioned that uh he spoke about researching uh shared services um uh some of us on this board have also advocated for shared services um and he also also touched on President Trump's uh proposal of eliminating the Department of Education uh he mentioned uh many federal uh Department of Education employees were placed on leave or early retirement um I had asked uh like I said me and Phyllis had attended we had asked a couple questions uh I had asked him how he felt about uh president Trump's uh cutting off Federal funding to schools that indoctrinate students and uh teach transgender ideology um his response uh was was unusual he he said I quote I'm not sure what that means um I'm not sure a senator of this uh um this position wouldn't know what that
085means but uh he said he hasn't seen any of that in Mammoth County but um and he doesn't know if any school districts are uh teaching any trans ideology um in my experience uh he's also said in the past that there is no sexually charged materials in Mammoth County Schools uh but that has been proven false so uh you know those were uh his replies to me last night um uh let me see uh Mrs CA had asked um uh Mr goal how affordable housing will affect Local District um local districts he actually danced around that question um with absolutely no response uh he told her to uh contact him after the the meeting so um you know if our top Senators aren't giving us answers to anything it's kind of shameful uh that they're
086even in the positions that they're in um so that was all I have for the New Jersey school boards at this time all right moving forward uh let me see I think we got everybody we get everybody here the ad hoc for affordable housing did you want put it in this section or do you want to report on it another um it's up to you rob I'll leave it up to you because I just real quick um we could leave it here I would think because it's technically still ad hoc right so um just a a couple comments regarding um Mrs Ramirez um what's going to wind up happening is um we're going to put together what's called a housing impact to col residents and School District it'll just be a quick fact sheet um
087for where we stand so again we've had the town and thank you mayor bus for attending that's why we mov these meetings it's great to have you here as well um the resolution it's not design I think Mr mirez I think you said like not nice I don't know what your the terminology was but I mayor I I'm sure you did not find that we're we're trying to attack you at all with this resolution right so um the way this resolution is designed is to make sure that we understand that the township doesn't have access to certain data the school board doesn't have access to certain data that's what this resolution is about it's unacceptable that's why we need to find out from all of our County and our state uh legislator legislative teams where
088are we going to find this data so what I'm going to do provide to the public is give you my version of all the data that that we have seen from the township that we have seen from our our reports that we've seen from the previous demographic studies and then I'm going to show you what my recommendations are for each of that I'm obviously not a a lawyer or I'm not a demographer but I stayed in a holiday and express last night so but what I'm going to do is um I'm going to make it public so everyone can see it what we're going to compare is the 1990 study that was done on the Grand and then what the current the current population in the grand is now we're going to compare to what
089the demographic study was that Ruckers gave us and then versus what we think the impact is going to be we're going to give you transparency on what we think the value of the property will be what the current tax revenue is over the last couple years for that particular location and then giving you just the the facts I I'll have a number of different sources that are on this report as well that'll show you how we price valued properties here in Colt neck and across Mammoth County and the state of New Jersey so we'll be able to see and estimate how much Revenue we should expect now granted the units could change there's phases of the property so if there is a lot of demand for two unit and three unit rooms those might go
090up so that's probably why we don't have access to all of this data but I'm going to make it again available to the public I encourage comments I encourage help we have a lot of professionals um that are in Colts Neck that can help us with this but fact of the matter is is that we're all in this together there's not going to be any one within our town or the state that's going to be able to to wave a magic wand and help us we're in a we're I don't want to say we're in a crisis but we're in a potential very very large financial burden and we need everyone's help so I encourage you please comment you'll have my email on this as well too and then you'll get the facts you'll get
091the numbers as we get them and then if you get stuff and you have numbers bring them to our Forefront as well too so we're going to show you the impact and then you'll see what it's going to cost the to um as we know it so that's just from my side of things and then I'll have an update um next time as well too and then we'll release that to uh the general public so great U thank you Mr SC um okay we are GNA skip around on this agenda tonight um um Mrs Reynolds has an unforeseen um issue that she has to you know um basically be at so we're going to move her up uh her presentation up uh at this point so if you'd like to you know yeah absolutely yeah
092if I can while she's said getting set up we can revisit some of the other conversations with that but I think that what we did for the the request of the board chair of the curriculum committee is we put all of the conversations that involved Dr Reynolds into one presentation and of course all of both Dr riges as well as these will be shared and then I would imagine you would solicit questions from the board or anything like that that aren that extend beyond tonight's questioning and things we can work that way so so there's really three slightly four pieces of information that are on the agenda combined into one presentation so we can move through it so I just wanted to make let you know that's how we compiled all the information so I
093apologize Dr Reynolds please all right hi everyone Thanks for allowing me to be here tonight um the first item on our agenda is the science so I know Dred to I certainly will that was something that um uh Mrs camer had brought forth and said made a recommendation that we look into I had communicated with uh Dr Reynolds of course and Dr rby regarding this interest and um I was fortunate to have an interaction was able to connect with uh you had referenced Wall Township that was looking into it I was able to connect with the Wall Township superintendent who gave me permission to contact Mr Laughlin who is the principle of wall Intermediate School who actually is my former children's principal that I know very well and so I had no problem picking up
094the phone and speaking with Mr Laughlin on the phone um though you are correct they are piloting a program with very limited resources they are fortunate they have a high School Roc program they were very quickly able to utilize that staff member to provide a course and I'm going to say that because it is one of those things that is still very much in development because in all of their research connected with the person who is actually running the high school Roc program there isn't a middle school curriculum for that is designed for this so that being said while work is being done and they're planning for more Middle School type of things done um Mr Laughlin and Dr henr hen were more than welcome to us having representation and conversations with them as part
095of Middle School people to develop programs so just know that that's in play you know that we're working on that and um those lines of communications have been established with an interest in either exploring as you would had said like a club or maybe um and and that's usually how we've piloted classes of interest when we were doing robotics it started as a club and then we moved it forward so seeing how it goes from that for so that's where we are in that process right now just thank you for reaching out and doing all that work I appreciate it thank you all right so I'm going to start it's a little bit different than the agenda but this is how my presentation is set up so if you don't mind we're start with scan
096and Sh forom Li scanning and shelving so organizing classroom libraries is a vital task for teachers and administrators to sure that their classroom libraries right are com yes it is I have this on I'm very fancy I'm like my moment all right thank you Mr R I appreciate it oh it's okay um and I think we I think they can hear you they can hear me um so we want to make sure that we're scanning and organizing our classroom libraries um it's a vital task for teachers and for administrators we want to make sure that our classroom libraries are comprised of materials that are with a variety of Interest abilities reading levels and different levels uh for students that they serve and we think that these books should also be of high quality and selected
097for their value within the curriculum um as teachers grow over time and as teachers move around um they have donations of books they have student contributions um they get years of accumulation so regularly reviewing our classroom librar can valuable tool and managing these resources effectively by also helping to address concerns that may arise so if you're looking at our district policy right here according to policy 2530 need take a look at that for resource material the superintendent will develop regulations for the selection of resource materials that provide for Effective consultation of teaching staff members at all appropriate levels ensure the budgetary allotment and wisely distribute through the instructional progam and ensure an inventory of res resource materials and that's essentially what we're do right now want to make sure that it's well balanced welled in
098a coverage ofes of materials and a variety of content so what are the benefits right what are the benefits of why do we want to scan so the first part is accountability so we want to make sure that our books are aligned with requirements about appropriate content for students at different ages making that it demonstrates consistency and accountability during audits or reviews want to enhance the quality of the collection of our classroom libraries so we want to make sure that we're looking at those gaps that we have making sure that we have all kinds of reading levels and genres for students and that there's a variety of books for them to choose when they walk up to that classroom Library make sure that we are improving our book selection and usage so um making sure
099that we are having the latest trends in book us and relevance to the curriculum and informing future budget planning if we see a book that's constantly being taken off the shelves in the classroom we want to make sure that we're purchasing more of communication and transparency so we want to provide an opportunity for teachers to make informed decisions about their library and have accessibility to staff and to parents so the tools and the methods so if you're taking a look these on the resources the two things I'm going to talk about is book Source shelf and our Amazon book scanners these are the scanners they're super fun and Tiny and it brings you back if you ever worked in a store and you like scans so that's what that's what's happening um teachers have also
100found they're way craftier than than I am so they found out to scan using their is even faster um some use their phones we can't obviously ask teachers to use their phones but whatever works but we did provide teachers with these they're really nice they charge they plug in just like a cell phone um so all most of the teachers have these we have these at Cedar right now and Elementary School I'm gonna talk a little bit about that Dr Reynolds can I interrupt you for one second I'm sorry I just want to point out because just so everyone is level set in the room we have our libraries right we have our libraries that we traditionally know of as the library right if you've ever into primary school you know that is an immense
101library with a tremendous amount of resources those are going back and I'm going to date myself what it would have been called the card catalog right so and you went through The Dewy Decimal System and you looked in the drawer to look up your right okay so I'm bringing it back to that time period That's all digitalized the the the specific you know and those are things that our librar and our media specialist keeps track of of what's in the libraries the physical buildings of the libraries this initiative and I apologize for not introducing ing Dr Reynolds correctly with this initiative deals with the classroom libraries as you know we have a readers and workship model that we Implement through our language arts facil program and which is all about robust classroom libraries and providing
102multiple opportunities for students to select pieces of literature in accordance with the curriculum the uh themes being taught all of those things so this is what this initiative is doing is bringing greater uh accountability transparency and all the things that Dr Reynolds is highlighting to the classroom libraries if that makes sense and consistency and continuity for cogging those resources so I apologize I didn't want I just wanted to level set with the room so I apologize that's okay thank you so we are scanning I passed around the scanner just so you can see how much fun it is um and if anyone wants to come scan books you will accept any scanners but uh scanning books using the scanners okay so we're viewing the classroom Library so right now we have book source which is
103and when we scan with this scanner all of the books in the classroom library for a teacher is going into book source and that what teachers can do right now with the free version of book source is they can Search keywords search summaries Lexile guided reading page word count genre tracking of a book option of student reading option for student checkout system what's great about this right now is there may be a topics that a child is interested in like baseball that a teacher can go in on book Source type in and that you can see all the books that they have if the teacher is finding you know what I have all these kids that are really interested in bball and I don't have any books that can be an item or book topics
104that we can look to purchase for in the future so the next part is class shelf pilot and so this has a fee attached to it and so our plan right now is we have most of our books in book source and I'll talk about that and then the information from book to bookshelf and so that will give us an efficient system of approvals and it will give us a parent interface and a classroom Library analytics so we will have the option to see how many times books are checked out if we want we can look at a summary of what the book is about we can see how many books on a topic that we have so this is the next step but we're right here with book source with the free version um
105right now so looking completed okay and so we've had the scanners which you have right now in your hands they've been purchased for the elementary school and for Cedar Drive so we've have them from grades three to eight curriculum and technology department so myself we've collaborated um with programs and hardware setup staff information and training um also the instructional coaches are highly involved in that as well with the other Administration the princi books in classroom Library 6 to8 were scanned and they are in the book Source system right now so all of those books are scanned we have at Cedar ding gr through again we have the language arts um we have the articulation so we've had langage Arts articulations with Administration to look at those current books and their relevance to our curriculum and
106and we have our our pilot license purchased and preparing to transfer that information from bookour CL so for our action plan and what is currently going right now in process is that we're going to continue scanning books at the elementary level in grades three through five our goal is to have that completed by the end of this month in February um and establishing a timeline for classroom libraries for the 25 26 school year in for primary school and monitoring and assessing processes Foraker does anyone have any questions about the process that we're doing for scanning classroom libraries in three through eight for right now so um first thank you transparency and engagement are key and U I appreciate this proactive approach just um going from book source to class shelf um you mentioned how it
107provides more data does that include summaries of of the different books it does it does okay and that's the piece right now that we're missing also has camera is a level of approval so if the book goes in book Source um for my excuse me bookshelf I'm sorry bookshelf once book Source connects to book to the Bookshelf program there's a level of approval and it comes with a summary so it is connected to um Common Sense Media so if a book may not be quotequote flagged it would let Administration know and then we would have levels of approval for that w the 2600 was that for per school or was that for the entire program bu oh for all three buildings okay we had a small nominal fee for the pilot program um we're actually
108going to be meeting with them again this week to get that really up and running we were trying to get most of the books scan first and getting all that set up but we'll be moving and gring with that soon yeah no thank you so we'll be able to give an update again um however you want to approach it again at the next to meeting or curriculum meeting I'll be happy to give an update okay thank you I had one question uh this is remarkable technology uh data data sharing or data capabilities and stuff like that so what are the safeguards are are there safeguards is there need for safeguards in this uh as it relates to scanning books and could that be shared outside of the school I mean it is going up to
109so you're saying sa I just want to make understand you're saying about the book like the topic of the book and the content that's in well yeah could could that be shared outside of the confines of the school correct yes oh no no this is all going to be public so it's all public okay this will be public yeah okay there's a whole um there's a whole piece to this so once we get all the books are we're working on getting them all scanned and as soon as we get them done they just turn the scan it's fun go once it's all scanned then we'll have it and it will be public so all these books um will be either in teachers class libraries will be available on our website so right now you have
110access to looking books in our library that have been purchased in fallet Destiny that's a program that our library media Specialists uses to track all of the library books that are checked in and out this process is going to um work on our classroom librar in individual teachers room so we'll be able to see those books as well that makes sense thank you Mr scarp if I could too are you referring to any kind of like information that links to data to our schools that could be of well exactly that my next line of question once you put anything from a black and white uh piece of paper into and my friend Mr scales could speak more towards this there's a general concern about the safeguarding of our our books and if you will sure
111be shared to other jurisdictions that potentially used against us I I mean we're meeting with final site which is the public well not final site excuse me the component of um bookshelf you know this week so those are the that's the next pieces of the implementation of it with regard it but we have not seen anything and technology has been involved with that to to say that that's a concern for us at this time the same along those lines that was my question thanks for prompting Mr Scarpa the what happen sometimes with with books and and libraries is that there'll be outside like we'll call them organizations if you will that will look at like like Mr Scarpa said what we're reading what we're doing where does all the data sits where is it's going
112to sit in a warehouse for that just our district has access to or could someone from the public say outside the district would they be able to access this system to see that data not this system but they'll be able to see the list of books okay so it'll be it'll be 100% complete public knowledge of what just like our current books that are in the library fully fully transparent with that all the books that we have that have culum you know there's access to on oursite so the classroom library in in a specific teach room You' be able to look up mrs's room and you can look up the books that are in her class and so what happens right now is we have families that are transient right that are moving sometimes parents
113will come to a teacher and say can you read a book about us moving and my child check that out and you know the teacher can say yeah wait hold on I can go into book and I can I have a book about moving and then they can offer that child that book or offer them books on a certain reading level right um or then if they're like I don't have any books in my library my classroom Library I can go to our library right here and do that we also have a great relationship with the library a lot of our teachers membership there as well and so we have you know it helps us it helps us to also choose books on for different Y and it will it show the amount of times
114a child reads a specific book so we do have the option for that that's of with yeah learning are teachers that do that now that haveen that initi there's interest to purchase yeah so let's I mean let's just say again please the reference I'm going to use for the friendly dog or whatever the Red Dog so would someone another would an outside organization be able to to go into our system and see that x amount of students read this book okay that's the what I want perfect in that okay thank you and Mr skilles just to clarify if it can verify what they how much they've read of it no it will verify they took it out so they physically left the classroom as a checked out book reading is another story right my qu
115my line of questioning and again it's unfortunate the day and age that we live in um there it's predatory for people to look at what the teachers and the students are reading and then there could be content sent to the school sent to the families things like that that would would correlate to those books so as long as there's no it doesn't show the data that says x amount of students read this book that's all that's perfect so public information is public information just wanted to be to clarify that no one will see how many that's all perfect thank you are there any other questions yes yeah will any student be able to um read a book from a grade level that's higher than them like will a fourth grader be able to read the
116book that's related for an eighth grader abely absolutely and that and this this is why this is so great for us too to do because this allows the teacher to know sometimes a teacher may not know every single book in their library right and what it's all about and what level it's this allows the teacher to have the information right at their fingertips so they can say Mr Retta you're going to get a book that's higher in your level and I might be getting a book that's just right for me and someone else might be getting a book that's a little bit lower level so that it's perfect for them so yes absolutely and the teachers will know I mean if the child tries to do it themselves yes got thank you okay so I'm
117going to move on to the next presentation so I think I'm okay with time but uh we were doing okay so this is the next part is um supporting students success in mathematics a tiered intervention model so I am going down this is number five on the agenda for curriculum so the next um part what we're going to be talking about is outlining our comprehensive datadriven collaborative approach to identifying and supporting students who need addition and that all students have the opportunity to suceed so what you can here these are the data resources and sources of criteria that we use to help us um identify students as a whole The Strand based analysis I know Dr gar you wanted to talk about the Strand again I always like to level set for the room for
118the board in terms of that so just knowing I know Mrs camera I'm sure has familiarity with you state standards develop standards right the state gives us what those standards are districts within those standards are strands of skills and content knowledge that have to be recognized and captured in District created curriculum okay so when we're writing assessments and we're writing we're writing it we say our curriculum our assessments have to be aligned to the standards it's not just the standards you have to look within the strands of the standards to see what specific skills the students are supposed to be demonstrating as they progress through the curriculum which is aligned to then the standards okay so when we're talking about strands it's a subset of the standards if that makes sense that's what I just
119want to make sure everyone's on the same page before we progress with that so thank you areces and the here have to we have our Envision topic tests we have our Envision benchmark assessments mid assment we're taking the mid right now can't believe we're already at the middle of the year right our quarterly Assessments in grades six through eight we've already taken two of those stages grades three to six for stages the stages assessment is a cognitive assessment that we take in students in grades second and in grades four it's um scored based on the student the child's birthday and it helps us to identify students for gifted and talented as part of the gifted and talented our gifted and talented information is located on our website as part of that but just to explain
120what stages is NWA map benchmarks we take those three times a year so as a school district we're required to have an in-house Benchmark we use the NWA math test we took one assessment in the fall we finished um this Monday wednes Tuesday um on our winter assessment so you'll be seeing those scores uploaded in Genesis underneath documents page if you currently have a child that's in grades one through eight our first graders took this assessment for the first time in the winter so if you have a first grader you'll be getting your um a separate notice went home to those uh parents and they have their scores will be in there in addition to some of the data that we use in identifying students in of math intervention NFA scores and again we only
121have those in students through three through eight as that's when that's the dat we have so what happens is and how we identify our students is we take that NWA map Strand and the NWA map is The Benchmark that we take here in house that gives us strands of of data based on what Dr garab was talking about with the curriculum and our standards and it understands students strengths and weaknesses so it gets really specific on where are targeting instruction for a student and then we align those are um areas with the corresponding curriculum topics so if a child is weak in number sense we'll take all of the students that were low in number sense and we will Target that and we will work on that using our Envision tools which I'm going to
122talk about in a little bit okay um okay so this is our multiple measures criteria this is linked on our website you can find this presentation under gifted and talented all of our information regarding our tip and services again we call as our targeted Intervention Program you hear us say that a lot and you'll also hear us say te which is a targeted enrichment program so um if you're have never heard of these before our tip refers to almost like basic skills so to speak okay and then our te goes and speaks to gifted and talented all right so all of this information is there you can and take the look at so what happens is you saw the multiple measures of the we have this is our Matrix this is exactly this is an
123example that comes out of link it and our data warehouse so you'll see our student in our program are blacked out for student privacy and you'll see that at the right hand corner it is sorted highest to lowest in the percent and I don't know if you see but it says that there's 89% is the highest that in grade three when we did the percentages how how children sport so as you go through the top this is exactly this is placed in here and it's weighted and you'll see that the green means that it's at the highest and it meant that the child is meeting it and so what we do is we run these all the time this is our matrices our coaches our instructional coaches have the ability to run this so we
124can identify students we can identify them based on any of these topics okay and then we take this and we work on strands of areas of week and then we identify those students to be placed in the next slide you're going to is you're going to see these are students that may be at the bottom of the Matrix as they are in R these are students that need help that we need to Target their instruction for okay and you'll see that we're sorted by the percentage of lowest to high you'll also see blanks you'll see missing data on here those blanks that missing piece of data means that that student did not take that assessment they were not here it could be for multiple reasons it could be that they chose not to take the
125assessment it could be they here it could be that for some reason they were injured and didn't take that assessment it does not count against them okay because of the weight that we had but I just want to show you that it is in here and this is this is what we are constantly using this is a real life real time matrices that we run and we will be doing this again because we just finished our winter Benchmark for so as you're going through and we're looking at and we're monitoring our student PR gives you a little bit of a timeline so we have teacher feedback we look at our Envision topic test we're looking at our map assessments we're looking at The Envision mid assessment we're looking at the stages If the child is
126in second or fourth grade we're looking at the yearend assessment and then if the child's in 3 to eight we're looking at our njs this progress right here just to point out is continuously monitored using theives and the benchmark assessments um and it's we look at this over a broader period of time um a team of educators will review this data and they will make informed decisions so when you're talking about interventions there are three tiers to intervention the first tier we're going to talk about right now is called tier one this is targeted support in the classroom okay so this is students identified in tier one intervention this is small group instruction okay that happens within the classroom and iated instruction led by the classroom teacher so we use the Envision support materials which
127you can see over there that we have available um there is flexible grouping based on students needs we have ongoing progress monitoring which means we are constantly monitoring students to make sure that they are meeting the goal of what they need to work on so we're constantly monitoring it once they get it we move on if they're not getting we have to say to ourselves why are they not getting it and what can we do support them these resources that we have from envisions right now are helping us to use our small group instruction tailoring our support with that um this approach ensures that students receive targeted help without being pulled out of the classroom right now for core instruction and we're contining a monitor them if a child may not be making progress we're
128going to move on to tier two here's what a tier instruction looks like yes yes what does the student do with this how's the what's the interaction with it program this is our math program in K through the envisions math program so what this is right here is showing you all of the pieces to it and how we're using our math program and all of the different pieces in our current math program that we have so um is that is that answering your question no I want to know what what does a student rely on and the teacher instructional assistant there's a couple more sides I don't answer it let me know okay okay so for tier two so we have an interventionist right here um and a math coach and we're to analy student
129data from math andion okay students iner work and we'll analy this and analyze the data we have intervention materials which are right there so they target instruction the intervention activities there's ring materials and there's something called the mdis that's thats up there those materials that's called the MTH Diagnostic and intervention system so when a child needs additional help we're going to the materials that are in this box that are aligned to the standards and the strands and the curriculum that we had and they're getting prescribed instruction like if you were go to the doctor to get medicine to fix an issue a problem they're getting the prescribed um information and lessons right in there and they're working one onone with the teacher to help them okay um and so we have all of we have
130all of these things that we're using right here to help them um these students receive focused instruction from an interventionist they will meet with them two to three times per week um the materials will come from The Envision intervention activities they'll come from the mdis system um we also have reteaching resources and this is aligned to the classro learning helps us to address gaps in their learning and it keeps it aligned to our current curriculum and our current standards so the next part is the prescribed differentiation so inside of our math books when you open up our math books we have volume one and two and I have it in the additional practice workbook I'll show you this in volume one and two there's an independent practice piece and there's a problem solving in Gres
131K through these check marks are differentiated questions of the math program so when you child is pulled for a small group and they're meeting with the teacher the child isn't supposed to do every single problem that's there they're going to be a grouped based on their need and what they need to work on so a group of students that go back into a center may only be doing problem number two if they can answer problem number two that means that they're doing well and they're going to move on other students may be only doing problem number five this says higher order thinking if you have a group that's doing really well they might be solving this problem and then the next problem says an assessment practice so every lesson has this and we can identify
132and Target specific instruction which is happening in our small group centers on The Daily K through five to show what they're working on it's an easy quick check for our teachers to check and any teacher that you will talk to is doing this I don't know if that helped answer your question getting more okay then offers offerings within our Envision mathematics so there are intervention activities there's ring there's ma building mathematical and then there's enrichment activities so all of these sheets we have on paper and they're also available to print out online so we have online where you can where you can print these or you can do them right into the right into the book teachers have you know they're professionals and some make they make their decisions so some like to use the
133book some like to print them certain teachers like to give them home for certain practice um when you're working with a group of students that may need extra help and they're modifying this is when it's great to go online because they have the ability to change things online um have the ability to make some of the font bigger for certain students and modify things so we're really lucky that we have the ability to do that because we have all of the features with online and the pap and I can pass out the so the additional practice the practice bu another video andity we all have available here this is what the additional practice book looks like these are our I going this pick a project have students continue to work on a project introduced on
134page 471 in the students Edition they go on here they pick a project I saw this going on in first grade this week during an observation so that was with tier two so tier one's in the classroom uh tier two is when we are pulled out and you're working with an interventionist working on a specific strand using the resources that we have in envisions and then we have our tier three interventions and this is the pullout resource room this is when we are still really working with a student and we're seeing them struggle um they may be the red students that you saw on my image before that are at the lower bottom that we really want to make sure that we are helping to support in addition pull out resource room is a a
135certain uh program that's designed specifically for students with disabilities so whereas uh that's that's it's a specific cause and they can have different curricular resources uh as well as you know pacings and different things to meet the needs of the students and their disabilities in accordance with their I AP okay I'm sorry so so that means I'm sorry so tier three I just want to make sure I understand tier three is only for students that have IEPs tier three is our resource room because if you go follow that uh response to intervention model we do our first tier is small group instruction differentiation within the classroom itself tier two they're still getting their instruction in the classroom with their classroom teacher but they are also getting supplemental support of instruction in your tip program your
136Intervention Program and they get pulled out for that they do they do and then tier three is uh reserved for your research room special if you're following that that model that response to intervention model that's when that classification will come in if it's based on their needs for their disability okay you're welcome and we were just answer that adjusting our interv and looking at this Dynamic process so you graduate from an intervention students May graduate from an intervention if the data shows that they no longer need the support so the medicine is working it's working that prescribed instruction is working they no longer need the support we can look at new identifications as the curriculum progresses as students get older as things change um additional strands are relevant new students may be identified for an
137intervention based on the Strand being addressed within the classroom and that's okay we're going to help them where they need their help and then we can move them right along this is not meant to be a thing where kids our goal is for them to get the help that they need and move on it's not it's not supposed to be a permanent fixture child and then uh looking at communication regular updates are shared with the instructional staff parents and administration so we have another big analysis coming up in March of 2025 because we just finished our map winter map assessment what happens now is we did this in the fall this is the exact image of our data digs that we do with our teachers we look and we continue to monitor collaborate and we
138uh find interventions our process is fluid it is daten NJ so we have the number of students and the percentage there we look at all of that data we compare that to align that with our vision to make sure we're continuing that classroom instruction and the intervention and the ongoing an um to allow for responsive student centered support and stud if I may add just one I'm sorry I just want to add one more thing too with regard to that fluidity piece of it we were talking about that is something that's why I mentioned the strands because sometimes students just need some add additional support So pre assessing and following a student in the initial part we say okay they're not grasping it as their chronological peers as they're progressing so we'll get them support
139work on it in a very it might just be a particular skill or strand or standard that a child is struggling with and we'll get them in remediate and hopefully in a term exiting there's a lot of fluidity the same is true of enrichment right so a child may be performing High across the board and then moving forward and allowing them to be receive enrichment or higher level problem right as they're going through for particular areas that not might not be consistent in all Concepts right so that's something that we also try to build as well so I apologize have some programs that are running after school for additional additional support that are based on the strands we have one um in math at the middle school that students have the opportunity to participate in
140right now and we have um one going on three four and five at the elementary school so yes this is happening during the school day but Federal funding does allow us to extend that beyond the school day and we were very lucky to continue that um this year as well so real quick um 10,000 foot view like I'm mean Vision they don't have like the a corner on the market right to produce all this stuff right so are we comparing sort of like this program to other like programs like do we have the data of how the children are graduating from this program or going through the program and like are we comparing it to other programs as well or is this like the the mandated that comes from the state or do you have
141a choice between what you use noot program even with when we're looking at it we pilot everything before we look at it we umies had many differents that were brought in that teachers wrot lessons and piloted and practiced in theirs and then as a lot of conf to are helpful because we able to to them negotiate offers andot and because now are able to our matrices and at our students and them support they that we have so that but this isn't always evaluating we're always really reflective and no this is not the end this is we're doing right now if you looked at our matrices three years ago it it looked different so we're constantly refining our practices to get better and now we have the ability that our instructional coaches figured out how to
142run the matrices themselves so that we can continue R our mat Stacy that we don't need students don't identify students is and um just to add on to Rob most districts are using Invision right now for Math and mostly it's because it's closely aligned to the njsla cool right do you do you agree with that so that's really why so many using this program y makes sense so I had a question about the tier one so that's a lot of responsibility right for your classroom teachers to now who are supposed to meet with everyone in the classroom and then give additional time to um the students who who need extra help do we provide you know like AIDS or any help for them so they're so they have the time to really to still meet
143with everyone else you know because you don't want to like a lot of times the middle kids then don't get the attention they need so and I know that just you know as a teacher it's very difficult to balance everyone so I was just wondering if if we're giving support to our teachers for tier one interventions um this year to help support our Math teachers he's been great in building thinking classrooms at the middle school um so we've been able to support um our Middle School teachers that way um also the way that we run and how Envision the program is you know what they say the best way for us to run it is through centers so our teachers are doing it they actually prefer to use the centers because it helps them to
144differentiate and to really get those students so if the teachers actually prefer just to use the centers are fine I think teachers that have two teachers are with the specialed co- teer room and they definitely benefit um we do have classes that have Aid in them as well and they do have time to collaborate at their PLC meetings and they um have the ability to use our math coach Miss Kennis to help as well too if I could jump in I'm sorry one the other piece of that too and I'm never not going to be a curriculum person so I can't help myself in these conversations so I apologize and it was so funny and listening to Mr scales for question we're always superflous as well so the answer your question question is no we
145don't have to use that program but we do right because of the conversations that we have in the investigations so to your question and that we up with that was the whole purpose of like link it you know your data warehouses that you use because getting teachers to be really good at using data and being and really wanting the data like as soon as it's done with map testing they want to see it and link it they want to see it where they okay how are they doing because that's part of the progress monitoring and so that's a culture that we've really really embraced here in the district which I'm happy about where it's a case where you can say I want the numbers to show the results the assessment data and that's why our
146data warehouse has become so instrumental as a supportive teaching tool because it informs the instructional practice so you might be in one small group one week right and then as you know two weeks later after school you might be with another group of students in another group and that fluidity is um something but to the point with regards to prep time PLC time data conversations faculty meetings a lot of the times as Dr Rigby uh Mr Osman Mrs bar will give time at faculty meetings you know the stuff that's informational gets set as informational and then they'll use the time for data discussions about kids so that's the one thing is really it's not just about getting the data it's how we're teaching them to be using the data yeah okay so so with the
147tier ones most of the teachers though the majority are are on their own to meet their needs or they have I'm still not clear on that or or they have additional help when they're supposed to meet with these students I'm see seeing how they balance educating everyone and then giving this additional time to these tier one students so they're using they're using their small groups so it's all it's just done naturally as part of what they're doing in their planning and they're doing this really across all content areas um so it's not I haven't heard anything that they're struggling to help plan and if they are we've offered supports and provided that for them absolutely okay so if a teacher will say know how to I don't really know how to implement this lesson they
148will refer to our math and she'll help them and she'll help model but yeah we try to provide supports to them so that they feel supported when and um so I see the this is the additional practice workbook that I'm assuming many teachers use for homework um it's an additional practice workbook so we have that in print for K through three excuse me we have an imprint for kindergarten through second grade and it's also available on okay so the third through fifth graders don't actually have the workbook they don't have they don't have it they have access to that online right chose not they didn't find it necessary they have accessibility to it online the teacher shows that yes it's also a very high additional cost so the amount of times that they would use
149it we just print it online um so I feel strongly that the students should all have a of the additional workbook book page I do know from using the program that it's very difficult for parents and it's constantly changing every year the setup so to find it and print it online is VE you know it's very timec consuming obviously printing it out also costs money I don't know you know exactly what what would the difference would be in price but I do feel it's um not really advantageous to our third to fifth graders not to have this especially before The Benchmark tests something they can go back they can review so you know that's just my opinion of you know obviously it's something the board will have to make for um budgetary reasons down the
150road but if we are vested in the program I do feel they should have the entire program available to them I know most of the surrounding districts do but that was something the teachers actually yes none of them not one teacher in that grade okay interesting I'm shocked but that's okay that's good to know ACC right no I know that yes yes they said there really wasn't a need for it I did ask them if they wanted it um we would obviously get whatever is needed I did um I did obtain quotes for that it's an additional I think off the top of my head was like an additional $12,000 Ed onot for one year okay right I'm good for questions thank you okay and I have one more okay so I will I have
151uh one more and then then I'll be done speaking to all of you sorry okay so we're going to go down and we're going to move we're down on number two on the curriculum agenda we went a little we went a little over to keep you awake okay um so here we are so we are gonna talk about um our being a reader excuse me we uh being a writer um program that we are currently piloting right now in K through five so last year um last year we purchased in K through two the being a Reader Program which is the upgraded program to the current program we had in literacy which was making me we now have being a reader K through five and so um as we go through you're going to see
152that we are now currently piloting being a writer and we're going to compare that for the last part of my presentation today we're going to compare that to Lucy ckins Writers Workshop which we currently have in so the rationale for the pilot um and why did we need to why did we need to see this so if you're looking at our njla data okay um we are while our nlaa data for meeting an exceeding expectations is overall strong in the areas of writing expression um conventions we still have approximately 20% of our students who fall within the coaching and not meeting ranges our goal over the next two years is percentage also grade students trend is our low scores in these areas so having a more structured program in gr through will help those skills
153for GR success um writing assessments on demand if you're looking at our data from 23 24 43% of students in grades were Prof in narrative only 56 of students in opinion and % of students in grad we're proficient um looking at the narrative writing looking over here that's anle from our data you'll see a lot of there that is in R um we are piloting this program to see if it's something that we would like to purchase right now we have one teacher in K through five that are piloting additional teachers have volunteered and are also piloting um we will be looking dat that we just took to see if it made a difference um I don't know if we've done it long enough to make really see the difference but what teachers are seeing
154right now in this is that it is more structured and that it is more aligned to what we're teaching in literacy so it's really crcular but teachers across um grade levels have expressed concern with student skills levels in the area of writing expression and conventions so they've noted that they are not carrying the skills previously learned and is AD begin Lucy wrers worksh aded in around anded 201 students structured learnings to proficient andent wrers so taking a look being a writer the pilot that we're doing and luy cins and comparing the two we're looking at being a writer combines direct instruction clear sequence covers opinions informative narrative writing integrates writing into other subject have clear rubrics and structured assessment explicitly aligns with State Standards track student progress over time it scaffolds understanding interaction and structur
155feedback it gives structured support for all Learners Luc independent less emphasis on structured collaboration offers differentiation requires additional planning for diversity emphasizes formative assessment less structured assessment tools so this is currently what we have and I'm not trying to say that what we're not doing isn't great but we've noticed that there is an area for improvement so when you're looking at what we're currently doing to the people that were piloting we now have teachers that are going to our literacy coach saying uh hey can I get this I don't want to anymore this isn't working I'm noticing all the gaps how come they're doing gramar how come this is a line and what I'm doing I'm I'm seeing there's too many it's too loose so we now have more teachers that are piloting the program
156which is really cool because I'm not we didn't ask them they're coming to us saying I wantan to I want to do this um and they want to get they want to get better what we're really excited about is that this program also has a structured approach to grammar instruction and if you talk to our Middle School teach um so looking at being a writer it systematically integrates grammar within the writing lessons many lessons with developmental progression uh clear and direct instruction specific grammar skills taught and isolated Min lessons student workbook that incorporates all of the skill practice our writing Workshop um grammar is informal and it's taught through many lessons but it's not as structured as what we have structured sequence concepts are taught as needed so it's really teacher preference this is saying
157what should be taught and how it should be taught so it gives everyone a very consistent blanket meaning about grammar um and also writing Workshop has a student driven approach which is great but sometimes we need to make sure that they are discovering as they learn to need grammar for their writing we have to kind of show them how to structure and I'm sure Dr gab will agree as being a um I guess ex retired English teacher former she's still here um so this is a quote from the grade one teacher that's piloting so we're all enjoying um the interactive nature of the lessons students to teachers teachers to students our students to students student partner work is fun and engaging students who would complain about writing are now excited to do the work I've
158seen this firstand just take a look at at all of the on the stage it's amazing um this is so exciting to see any classrooms so far students are able to do what I'm asking them to do their level of Independence after direct instruction is much improved these are quotes that they're coming to us with you can take a look up here good Tuesday we have Jim and do you remember what a is let's a to remember be kind with your heart that's in kindergarten so they're talking about nouns and then they're talking about nouns in their literacy lesson when they're being a reader because it's the same and it's connected so kids are doing this all day it's super cool and it's really cool to see all of the things that they're doing and
159all of the writing that they're doing in their notebook um these are workbook examples of student examples on photos these are photos of some fifth and third grade pilot lessons in Cross grade level revision Partnerships which is really cool to see too um working on working on what they're doing and looking at their writing pieces think that believe that best these are of openings what it looks uh so yeah we're really excited and we've seen really really good success with our pilot program does anyone have any questions about the being a writer pilot I don't have any questions but I actually taught the program I brought two of my my manuals so if you want to look through them I'll talk about some of the things that I also really appreciate about the program so
160as you said before there's a big emphasis on the writing community so it encourages a lot of collaboration peer sharing um it's a process-based approach which is what we want for writing so that means brainstorming drafting revising editing publishing Etc um there is the integration of social emotional learning so for families that that um care a lot about that that's that's integrated I'm assuming that's also in being a reader at the end of each lesson so now they're getting seal in part of their ma um sorry part of their reading and part of their writing so that's just something to just um know there's a lot of great mentor text and it's all um real literature so that would all be things I guess books that would be in the scan and shelf as well
161as right the scan so the books that um those necessarily wouldn't be in the scan shelf because they would be part of our core novel list that we have on theb um the ones in the scan shelf will just be part of the regular classroom Library okay great we do have those books though um it should be located on our website okay great so so again the parents are it's more to me so parents can see what their kids are reading if they want to know um and so I just you know and again the biggest Advantage is that additional gramar component which is missing in the current program yes so so I'm a fan of this program and I do think just it's advantageous to always have a reading program that matches with with
162writing um for budgetary purposes a lot of times districts will like implement it just first grade like K to 2 and then as that second grade cohort starts moving up it moves with them so when we go to financial you know the finance uh committee or when we talk about finances for budgetary purposes that might be something we consider but thank you thank you okay um I think Dr G and MRSA I didn't know what else um you wanted me to I don't have any so with regard I'm out of presentation that's okay with regards to the other questions there haven't been any other updates with regards to uh we're continuing to Monitor and we'll continue to report out accordingly I'll sh any other information about we was continue to monitor as we said with
163our Co with our opt outs for the uh Comprehensive Health and physical education we'll continue to uh monitor that and Report out accordingly and then uh just knowing on February 19th anticipate giving an update as to where we are with our student achievement goal for uh uh for this year okay with regards to where we are thus far use utilizing uh the data and resources that we have that many of which Dr Reynolds touched upon this evening okay I didn't know if there was anything else Mrs C um well should we just go back to should I go through the rest of the curriculum now since we're on curriculum or are we going back to the beginning now I just wasn't sure because I did want to say something about number four we skipped number
164four okay so um and it doesn't have to be today but I was curious um going back to our supplemental resources I know you mentioned um all the aspects we have of the savis program I I believe we have iel as well for Math and then I was just wondering what other computer intervention programs we had and the possibility of teachers piloting some new programs one being um stmath for the next um school year especially for our resource project population as well as our tier students okay so do you want to talk to me a little bit about STM and why why you um why you think it would fit based on based on like what the presentation that we just saw why do you think thatd map would be a fit for us sure
165so it's the complete opposite ofel and really savis in instead of um there's so much reading right there's so much reading in our current math program so a lot of a lot of our students struggle with the math program more so not because of the actual Compu ation but because of the amount of reading they have to do so St there's no reading it's all done through puzzles so it's instead of the algorithm it's all the the basic understanding so it's just a it's really a magnificent program and it's all online Mrs it's all online okay so it's um so it's differentiated it's you know again it's it's learning tailored to individual student needs it's all problem solving and critical thinking skills through visual learning and that's real really what a lot of times our
166students that are in these tier programs they need the visuals and it provides measurable outcomes so both in math proficiency for the special ed population so all the research is there I believe I gave you the link to that program so it's something I can send to the rest of the board to you know learn a little bit more about and so I just think it would be advantageous to try you know with that with that particular population to start piloting it and you know if they don't like it it could be you know one and done or I believe they will love it but you know who knows okay awesome that's just you know so that's just something thank you um Mrs Ramirez would like to be recognized she has a question or comment
167yes thank you um Phyllis you said that U many of our students struggle with the reading that's involved in the math um so I just want to not um if Dr Reynolds agrees with that that our students our district do we see that they're struggling with the reading with all the math there there is a lot of there is a lot of reading in the math program that we currently do have and so if you're a student that has if you're dyslexic or you are struggling reader it can be challenging for you it can be challenging but we do have the ability to modify with the resources that we have we do have the ability to modify to differentiate to make sure that our students don't get so overwhelmed so we're able to make things
168not as overwhelming for them right now okay and uh do you think that having a program where they didn't wouldn't have to read as much would be helpful in their their overall math performance sure I mean I have to I have to look more into stmath I know that it's an online program I know a little bit about it from other districts but I have to look into it to see if it's something that our teachers think is you know NE could use as an additional resource here okay thank you thank you yeah I mean I remember when I was in this school and when I was doing math it was nothing but numbers and when I was in reading or writing and obviously it was nothing but word sentences paragraphs pages and um online
169you know books chapters everything right you know to do a reading and writing um I think integrating reading and looking at the homework that my children have gotten you know my son is amazing in math but sometimes I had to sit down with him and I had to read to him you know the instructions and you know in math there was nothing but numbers addition subtraction you know times tables you know the whole nine and maybe there were instructions But the teacher would verbally you know teach the kids and explain to the children hey this is how we do this and Ma Happ they would explain it and then the children would do repetition repetition repetition numbers numbers numbers you know and then when they would receive homework they would look at the numbers and
170say okay I know I know exactly how to do this you know now when the kids get uh the homework or when they're in math class there there is a lot of reading there there is a lot of reading and you know my son's like like you know Daddy I I know these numbers and I know and I know how to and subract and I'm great at that but like you know you need to you need to read you need to read this problem to me and I would have you know and I would sit down with him and I'd be like okay you know now that he's pretty much proficient in in reading now it's not it's not that much of a problem but you know I do feel like adding maybe like a
171paragraph you know having like a paragraph or two where having children to actually have to read a problem it's not as advantageous for the children you know because some people are amazing some students are amazing at reading and writing and some students are amazing at science and some are amazing at math you know but I feel like you know mixing mixing math and and reading together at a very young age is a little disadvantaging to certain to certain students um you know and and then having those separate having reading and writing having science having social studies they're all separate subjects but I I think in the be I think in the very beginning especially in prek and kindergarten and first grade second grade third grade I think it's just very important you know math is
172just numbers and reading and writing obviously you know that's very that's selfish um um yeah I I believe the children would have a better time with math if it was if it was just numbers and then memorizing the addition tables subtraction tables you know and the times tables and so know and I and I totally hear you um you know part of what we're evaluated on just in our NJ Q New Jersey qac requirements was to have cross curricular and so having reading a part of ma of the state requirement having things speaking listen very very unfortunate my job is to make sure that I that we pick programs that align with the with the state standards and things like that so that's that this program in particular is that and yes there there is
173a lot of reading and that is part of that cross-curricular piece like so even in like Mrs Cameron was talking about in the reading program they talk about social studies Topics in there as well yeah which is very unfortunate because I feel like six or seven different subjects and you know they should be all separated and they should be because then you'll know right away is this child really struggling in math or is he struggling with reading comprehension we don't know you know it's it's hard for us to it's hard for us to gauge when there when there are six or seven different subjects and they're all intermingled together um you know i' probably said this before a million times but back in 1995 when I went to Cedar Drive there was none of that
174there was none of that and the kids you know we all strive that we all did amazing I mean it was it was it was it was great you know it was great now I I feel like with this curriculum that the state of New Jersey um you know wants us to abide by it's unfortunately you know a little I think a little more difficult for the children and I I don't think it's good to combine subjects I think everything should be separated this way we have an amazing gauge hey so and so is great at reading and writing they're great at math they're not so good at science and we have a clear separation and a clear picture of okay you know because I mean if some kid is struggling with reading comprehension he's
175going to struggle with math now you know if some kid is I I don't is there there's no math I'm assuming in reading and writing right I mean that's not coming I'm assuming I there's no nothing like that but there's but there is reading co-mingled with co-mingled with math you know and there and you there is some social studies co-mingled with science so it's like it makes it even harder for I think the teachers and the parents to gaug okay is my son struggling like what is my son struggling in math but it's because he doesn't know how to read yet because he's in kindergarten in first grade you know and my son is you know my son doesn't know anything about social studies so he's kind of struggling with science and you know what
176I mean it's it is it is it is um so just to address Jessica with the reading with savis yes she actually wanted to comment she comment first sure yeah Mrs Ramirez if you want to um address the board now yes thank you again um so uh just like to note that the stth program so it's it looks like um from my research that it's it's a online program so I know that something that has been brought up several times is our concern about doing a lot of our teaching online um and so at least from what I'm seeing there doesn't seem to be um of course there's resources it looks like that we can um order and um probably print out as well but it looks like the majority of it is actually online
177so just something for us to be mindful of when we're trying to limit that screen time and then additionally uh phis I think you also touched on how um some of our current programs have thatal integrated in it and it looks like stmath also has it um as well so um you know I think that uh a lot of these programs probably have very similar components to them and then the specifics of the programs are probably based in in those nuances that um I trust that our curriculum coordinator and our teachers all have probably have their preferences on it as well but then I'm sorry were you gonna comment on something else about with savis yes I'll go back and then I'll address what you just said um so just so really the families know
178the reason it's it's really challenging savis math for um for your struggling readers is because the problems are written for end of grade level so you're starting first grade and the reading is really what's expected by the end of the year so a lot of children that's one of the reasons why it is it is a very challenging reading program even though it's a math program the you know the the entire back page is is mostly reading the tests are word problem after word problem um there's not there is basic computation as well but it is it is more geared toward problem solving that that is the way it is and again it does follow um njsla questions so that's just something to you know be you know mindful of and um yeah so it's
179not like to get to keep all the programs we currently have so that would be something that hopefully um Dr Reynolds might talk to teachers about but just doing a current review of the computer programs that we have what we're utilizing you know across all subject matters you know we'll gather hopefully some data on these programs we see which programs are underutilized so that we can make informed decisions and um kind of go from there and that that's why this this St program for you know my district used it a lot of districts use it it it has had such great success with um your tier and special ed populations that's why I really want to you know ideally start with them and I can only speak for myself it was so the the the
180the data speaks for itself it brought such tremendous progress it ended up being now brought to um um all mainstream classrooms in and just in the K to 5 it's not as strong in the Middle School unfortunately that program but yes to be mindful of the time but it's not it's not to it's not supposed to be in addition to a new program hopefully for for what you were saying about being mindful of the time it's to hopefully replace something that's being underutilized okay thank you you're welcome okay we are just going to backtrack um once again we're going to try to be as oh okay nothing that I mean okay what do we next on the agenda okay so what else so that was four four we did five six six we had summerbridge
181did you want to speak about summerbridge or did you want me to actually oh okay perfect so we so when we were talking about budget savis items the things that we're looking at some of these things with regards to K to5 digital consumable resources uh social studies um and the Summer Bridge those three items one one two and three as we're working through with all the program manager Mr morasco and our work through budgets I'm we wanted to put those on there because those have all been Grant funded so as we're preparing and looking at our budget just understand that those things will now be represented and funding locally as as we're moving forward with them because those were all things that we're able to in addition to the being writer pilot so those are
182when we're trying to be talking about that's when we talked about the Clash uh shelf you know that's something we're we're working through and navigating as we're looking at each item item that the program managers that we're looking when we're building our budget for 2526 just wanted to call out that those have been previously fully Grant funded and then we're bringing them into the the local budget as the best we can all right okay we're gonna make it work Dr G we are going to make it work just one other thing going back I'm jumping back to savis now but in terms of the budget you said that we we give the nwaa that's our in District test and then that's sages for math sages is a cognitive assessment that we use for our gifted
183and talented as part of the regulation the state regulation of what we need to do that's the assessment that we so I'm just thinking aloud like savis has a lot of benchmarks and I'm wondering if maybe we could again financially think about maybe eliminating maybe the math components and using what we already have bought the the benchmark savis assessments instead of maybe the nwaa just because you know just to save money we already have the program we already have the Benchmark tests that are part of the program so you know it's I'm sure you know it's topics went through four then it's one through eight and one through 12 so it might be something that we can you know we have the program we're spending the money on it maybe maybe then take something away
184just because it seems like a lot of Assessments in a short period of time as well all right else go okay and um in terms of summerbridge I just have a few notes um so I think that we all support the idea of um supporting our students academic growth and overall development and engaging learning opportunities over the summer both academic and extracurricular I know there's music programs our programs obviously helps prevent learning loss reinforces key skills uh Fosters personal growth so hopefully we can look into some grants as well what are we lo you said we're losing all the the current grants was Esser or no s well the every student succeeds Act is an entitlement Grant that's given EV every year currently through the US Department of Education and put through as the state
185right so that those are those are run through our programs there we've paid for that we did a competitive grant for the reducing student learning loss Grant we were we awarded that addressing Excuse me yes addressing student learning loss that's what we paid for the first year of the summer bridge program with and then at year after year we've continued that we also paid for that with another competitive grant that we went out for last year which the high impact tutoring Grant and that we that was summerbridge was paid for as a combination through the high impact tutoring grant that we went after as well as a combination of some a less uh leftover ARP funds so what's done and what had to be completely spent is the high impact tutoring Grant had to be
186finished this year okay by the end of June 30th ARP grants had to be expended for or allocated by the end of September or a date in September this year so the federal funding that was post Co covid ex be State funding they came out postco is gone so we enhanced a lot of our programs and supplemented which we were allowed to do plus I'll also add that we went after stabilization Aid last year so well that was a big another big component of how we subsidize our our um offset the losses that we had the year before in state aid because we were number one in state aid reductions even though it wasn't necessarily represented accurately because that was a reduction through as I explained um publicly with regard to our state uh military
187aid impact Aid allocation so we had $800,000 that is gone so in terms of we we had a lot of additional funds coming into the district that we've used for uh programs and resources back to students some of those things are not carrying through some of them and those are discussions and decisions that we're making um right now at the administrative level before we pulled that everything into that bucket of what that draft budget looks like for the board so right now we don't know about any additional grants that we can start applying for or there just there are not there are none the state department always puts forward additional like discretionary grants going forward competitive grants that are going forward so we check it frequently I check it frequently we're always looking at different
188things um right now there doesn't appear to be something and sometimes so we're so right now I'm not aware of anything that is a competitive grant that we're going for point do you need to know we're going to have a summer bridge program as Administration it's we're in February it's schools ending in June well if it's going to be a priority then we're going to find a way to fund it to make it happen I feel it should be an absolute priority speaking for myself for the kids and the parents in town we agree with you yeah so then and that's all that work that we're doing before it gets there saying that this remember our budget is a statement of our priorities as board right so if we're prioritizing that it will be a
189statement okay so moving on to number seven this is just um yeah so this is about updating what's going on with the um or the New Jersey Comprehensive Health and physical education standards many people know that President Trump has recently issued executive orders addressing gender and gender ideology in schools notably on January 29th 2025 he signed the executive order entitled ending radical indoctrination in K to2 schooling which aims to eliminate Federal funding for schools promoting critical race Theory and gender ideologies so just in light of recent executive orders from president Trump um addressing the gender and gender ideology in schools it's important that we as a board just monitor how these changes may impact the New Jersey Comprehensive Health standards so I'm just letting the public know that at this board will continue to stay
190informed and ensure that any changes align with our District's commitment to parental rights and educational integrity and we remain focused on creating a safe and respectful learning environment for all students while also upholding our community's values and Rob scales of policy and obviously curriculum we will work closely to stay updated on any developments and but no action is required at this time and um I did you want to say something about number nine district one District goal number one student achievements yes as I referenced before that's just uh an information item that you'll all be presenting an update on that a brief update to the board in my superintendence report on the 19th thank you Mrs camera um we are going to skip around I I apologize for um all the skipping on this agenda
191tonight um I by accident missed it was a typo we missed the um uh liaison position to the naval W Weapon Station Earl i' like to just backtrack I know Ida is here tonight and I just want to make sure that you are informed with anything um you know that may be pertinent to you know your thing so Mrs Ramirez and Mr Scarpa if you have anything prepared for that um if You' like to address it uh does Jessica want to go first or Mrs Ramirez would you like to go first or yeah okay I think great Brian's in person there Brian can give an update he knows all the all the same information I do okay great thank you Mrs Ramirez so yeah so thank you and thank you m Jones for for being
192here tonight and we did connect this week uh we are on schedule and in the process of getting our badges so that we can make do a tour the facility uh we are on schedule for um later this month uh checko calendar uh for this tour uh we do look forward to a an expanded partnership with with the Naval Base uh we think it's an absolute critical piece of our infrastructure and makes us very very unique and allows us to not only stand out from other communities which to benefit from their presence so as we as I I have not physically been there I'm sure Mr Ramirez has but uh as we as as we get more and more aligned with the the enabl base uh we will report out specifically on their particular interests
193and and see how we can develop this relationship to really set colene community apart from its uh um other communities that don't have this opportunity so more to come and I'm thank you very very much for this opportunity and if you have anything you'd like to add by all means please is Mr Scarpa M if I may one of the other things that we're working with Mrs M M Jones Mr scar bont is coordinating a meeting with the um current Administration as well as the counselors who work directly with and intimately with our military families along with representation from um Naval weapons station Earl so that you can hear get a firsthand kind of inside look as to what the needs of the families are the supports that we have in place for them and
194so on so this wouldn't ever kind of like as I I refer to as level setting as to what we are what we're doing and how and we can continue to you know move the relationship forward okay great um okay moving on now uh to the new business board operations I just like to kindly request uh for number one uh this New Jersey School Board Association cow presentation is very lengthy um you can uh you can actually go on if if the board approves if we can skip over that and you guys can uh basically review that on your own uh just in sake of time tonight I I I don't know if I could get a straw poll if anybody would mind if we skipped over that is that okay yes yes okay all
195right um number two the revised 2025 Board of Ed meeting schedule uh Dr gar if you want to speak a little bit about this I know we were doing all the updates to not coincide with the township committee yes you can see that we've moved around we've continued this is revision number three and if everyone's in agreement we will put it if we can give feedback to through Mrs BBY if everyone's in agreement the revision will go on the 19th for approval because public notice has to be made so we can move forward and do that because I do believe the first conflict is in April so we want to make sure that we're ahead of that I think we had four and the original version that was there um and I think in the
196version I put forward there's two or one Tuesday now the rest we tried to do Wednesdays and it coincides with the next item that's on there that is the draft 2526 calendar that also is in there so if we're looking at those we're trying to build the calendar which we're also plugging in you'll see that you'll see based on the draft calendar that's been linked in there why some of the uh board meetings were challenged a little challenging to to to put together but we think if you look at those two together we can look at and on the 19th provide feedback to you and me with regard to that we can put it Forward both for recommendations on the 19th any questions on either one of those all no just a comment so thank
197Dr G I know it's actually a lot of work to adjust the schedule uh there were six conflicts for six conflicts the original schedule uh and this is really an extension of good faith and workmanship with the township committee so we saw their public schedule and we work to go around as much as we possibly can so thank you to all parties involved and we are excited to really develop a relationship so that both the township committee can attend we can attend theirs and the community can attend both meetings so thank you this you're welcome anything else okay perfect um moving on to advocacy and government relations uh this is going to probably be the briefest uh uh thing of the night um I did uh speak with um Dr gabay uh last week we
198didn't have much on here Dr Beck didn't have much uh but I just wanted to um highlight the new executive order that was um basically passed today by President Trump um uh men have been banned in all women's sports so I'm very happy uh to hear that and uh um Title Nine has been completely restored so uh Mr scales I keep putting everything on you but um once this all gets uh pushed down to us through our state I expect everything to be updated and reflect all of these executive orders appropriately um and that'll be it for advocacy yeah just a a quick comment too just there's confus confusion on how it all works too um I can give you just a again not a lawyer but just touch on supp to be short yeah
199I know so when when President Trump issues an executive order it is not law yet but as you know federal law always supersede state law so what happens is is that we get an executive order we get direction we know what to do when to implement it how to implement it unfortunately our state government as we all know is very Reckless as as far as their just their spending and they're very Reckless as far as just any monetary policy so what will happen in most of these cases and what they proven is that when there's an executive order as you saw Governor Murphy had threatened um the feds this year or two days ago about an illegal immigrant in his house why is it relevant is that we we don't know he's a Loose Cannon
200as far as who he's going to sue when he's going to sue so even though it's an executive order and it is supremacy law it's articles of the Constitution that they we I feel that we will be sued in any of those executive orders once we Implement them so what we need to do is draft resolutions that we are going to honor the executive orders and hopefully we can wait for that executive order then to become state law so that executive order then has to be challenged in the courts to become state law once it's state law then Murphy and the minions cannot Sue any of the school districts for honoring the actual executive order so it's going to take a a little bit but rest assured as to your comments as well too that
201we're you know we're we're the law of the land is the president of the United States and he will always be respected regardless of what our uh state of New Jersey government thinks they are above the law they are not that is a tyrannical act that won't be tolerated especially in the the school district of colck so to Madam president your comments we're going to be watching um and we're going to be implementing as soon as possible as as we get guidance so thank you excellent thank you uh Mr scow okay um quickly moving over to buildings and ground Safety and Security um Mr Walsh if you want to um start hey we talked um my um expressed a interest in increasing approving the alting city Dy middle school and a business administrator met with
202some folks that gave them some U maybe guidance that the guidance on possible cost and maybe getting an estimate and I think it was the same folks that were involved in the county lighting behind their parking lot but long story short Vince was there Vince can really tell the board in a public what uh how we can proceed with that item and also your um cap Improvement programs you think are a priority for our district and talk about that as well one being the roof and one being the upgraded switch gear room at this on over Road Elementary School so first of all the um I want to note that there are many informational items for the board that are that are buildings and grounds and EIP project related that are in the superintendent's up
203weekly update please review them those are more or less informational items not so much you know discussion for committee type so the things tonight we want to just go over real quick are those priorities that um we reviewed in the December 11th board meeting for the budget we did um you know identify the roof the remainder of some critical Roofing Replacements that are beyond the scope of the esip that were not addressed you know through the ISA project as far as the solar that is being installed um so we have a a roof study that was previously provided by professionals and we're following along that replacement schedule and in in getting to that end we are meeting with an architect um this week as a matter of fact tomorrow the um facilities manager and myself
204we're meeting to review these two projects for the budget so that they can provide us a professional proposal as to what an estimate might go for um later in the in the finance piece I have some rough estimates if you will just to have a sense of those two projects the electrical Main and the roofing because we had um quotations from the um vendor who did a lot of the roof work for the esip we have an estimate on some of those Roofing areas and and previously a couple years ago when we actually it was less than a couple years ago it's when we had an opportunity to submit Rod grains for the state and we were denied because the priority items were not in line with what the state revised their list to be
205but at that time we had submitted an application um for the for the electrical main switch gear so at that time we had a rough estimate of what that project might cost so I'm reflecting that now with some inflation factors built into that okay now the other two things that came up like that Mr Walsh mentioned that's something the board is going to have to decide upon at the time when we receive more information back from these professionals regarding basically their proposal in other words to study this lighting issue lighting concern that came up right we want to make sure that um it is a priority and we'll have a good um handle from these professionals as to options how they want to how we want to proceed with um you know upgrading that uh
206so there is a proposal involved I'll have to be I'll be bringing that to the board um when they submit something I'm sure it's going to range have a range of a few thousand dollars for that for them to go and initiate the study it's not something that was budgeted this year because we just began this conversation relatively within this this school year so more information will come in regards to that um if I may M we also talked about it as we're balancing all of the different program budgets and requests that are coming in so you know we there are long-term fixes and there are short-term fixes with regards to priorities so we could potentially reach out just like the police department has has like those movable spotlights right those those like those semi-permanent
207right they're not they're they're no that's not the word I'm looking foror yeah thanks temporary lighting that they use for parking lots and big venues and things those are that might be a a a more immediate NE fix to a long-term solution as we're prioritizing so if the goal is to increase lighting we could come up with with different scenarios or different options for the board to explore based upon pricing expenses and long-term planning that's the way that's we we we also plan to explore that as welli absolutely absolutely right and I do want to add in addition to the lighting you know another I'll call it uh you know identif identification of a of a project that is becoming um it could raise the level of a of a priority is the gymnasium floor
208at the primary school um we know that you know it's the life of that floor is as old as the building um it was tested recently for certain mercury levels it passed muster with that because it is a flooring that is a um cushiony material I don't know what it is but it's not a it's not a hard wood flooring surface like a regular gymnasium but that is something that you know it is most likely um becoming time to replace that so that has to be taken under consideration and we're getting more information on you know what is the typical life of a floor like that how much life is left in that etc etc so that's that's another thing another project um the other okay number three so three is independent feasibility study recommended
209for subcontracted this is um to further the discussion that had opened up regarding subcontracting of certain services in the district that required conversations with um and notification to uh the union leadership that we wanted to explore this under um the new subcontracting laws and so in order to study that there are professionals out there who do feasibility studies to help Boards of Education make that decision and learn about potential savings that can exist how that can be done operationally what that may look like etc etc so we're getting information about one of these or one or two of these professionals who can do this kind of study and we'd like to you know bring that to the board at some point when we get more information to study that issue so the time right it
210would be I would say prudent if this is something we really want to get after and get some information um I would I would say it's probably recommended to um you know go forth with a study before June of 25 so that um what would happen next would essentially be an RFP process in other words first you're determining you know here's the feasibility it's going to let's just say save X number of dollars then you've got to use the professional to help write professional specifications for that service that we're seeking put it out there so that it could then be you know vetted out the board chooses who they want to use to provide those services and then implement it for that Following start of that school year okay Andes that well I think I
211think before that we'd like to you know present some kind of proposal uh from one of these professionals and then the board can consider whether they want to go forward with that okay and then I just wanted to Simply give a quick update on the the pergolas I know it's been you know kind of hanging out there and a student had brought it up previously at at one of the meetings so with that we are um waiting a little bit of information regarding permits and setbacks we've had internal discussions and there's enough funding available left in our PTO Legacy Grant um approxim approximately $233,000 that was targeted for the Outdoor Learning spaces so we're able to cover the cost of the Paras okay but first we have to understand what um specific codes um are
212that we're in compliance with as well as permitting so until we clear those things and everything is okay you know we can't go forward with actual procurement of those does that make sense because the discuss became there's enough funding and there's a need or a a desire to have one additional pergola outside the cafeteria space at the middle school okay um and I'm sure I know Dr riby can talk more in detail all the benefits and the vision that he has for that however in the location that we identified where it would be it's very close to some Transformers and other mechanical equipment so we want to ensure before we put up a structure that it's vetted for the right setbacks code and and permit um and I say that because there may be some
213additional costs involved that we would have to figure out how we're going to fund that additional cost could be for the Landscaping when you put a structure in you're going to have certain things that need to be done to the base and land and Landscaping around that um so that's about it that's kind of the update for can I say something about that the pur um so I had contacted Dr gabay about the uh possibility of exploring if the board of education is allowed to set up like a VMO or PayPal account um you know allowing residents to donate directly to our student liaison projects since these are their ideas and it kind of reminded me just recently I saw something on Facebook for an eagle scout um asking for donation through a GoFundMe page
214so is that you know just to pay for these projects is that a direction we can go the board is always welcome to accept donations from people but I think the in terms we would want to definitely confer with our auditor about what is the right way for the board to do go about doing that normally it's usually a specific amount a Don specific donation amount and people write it and it's approved by the board agend so if we wanted to set up some type of structure and confer with the auditor that says we're looking to for PE people to be able to fund maybe select projects that they want to donate to however whatever the structure is we want to look at like we'll do that sometimes in District for school supplies and whatever
215the case may be but then we we can certainly touch base with John John swisser our our board auditor to set up that process it's not recommended to use things like venmo or or something or not venmo umay yeah yeah yeah yeah GoFundMe or things like that it's more like it's more the internal controls because we want to make sure that we have the internal controls for that in according with our our in procedures right okay it be such a wonderful way to fund some of these projects whether it's student council or student Liaisons to improve our schools well it's funny the way that you said that eag I just said to Mrs VY is we're looking to evolve the student Representatives you know whether it goes as a a piece to the student council
216or whether however the board wants to choose to continue with that but then almost modeling that having an eagle scout in my family knowing what it takes to to fundraise and put the whole project together and all the things like that we could model something of that nature where students not only have to put a proposal together of what they'd like they have to put a full proposal together that that we could work internally with staff to be able to say here's that and here's what the estimated cost would be and here's what I would like to propose for that and it's it takes on that service learning component um that we're talking about so that's a direction that we're look at but we will certainly by the 19th connect with uh Mr swisser to
217say here the recommendations for accepting the donations to the school district right and then also I was just thinking too the students can also lead with the student council student Le ons working together student run fundraisers you know I had mentioned a while ago the penny wars but there's so so many other ones too so that's why we thought when we we were talking about it as we were doing the transition with the student Representatives how we want this to be facilitated and bringing it back to and they would have regular contact with you know through student counsil and I think that's actually um as we were looking to implement the program last year that it is technically a requirement for high school districts that you have someone usually class officer or student council representative
218at the high school level so we could definitely work to look at that in terms of how our structure of student council I completely okay I just had a curiosity would we have the opportunity to uh um go out to our Builder Community within Colts NE to see if any are willing to Let's provide it gets approved and setbacks or or permitting uh we're at the stage of of going for a bid uh could we look for a donation in terms of some a local contractor who's a parent of students here to do this just um if if that's a savings to the community could that be explored I mean that is that is a great question and if you recall you know our new signs that are at the entrances those the landscaping around
219that was a a very good example of a donation provided by a family in the community it was a landscaper but in this case we had specific granted funds from the PTO that we we have to use for that particular purpose so we do have to expend that out but to your point if if our costs are going over in some of these other areas sure yeah like you point like the per is one thing but I've built two peras before and I know that 30% of is actually underground for the peer work so let's just say we have someone who's going to build a perlara for us but we have to bring in a contractor to actually do the cement work for the foundational support uh we're getting soot for that yeah yeah so
220that maybe maybe the funding can go towards that and something to think about because those ancillary costs could be quite expensive on a project like that so if someone's willing to donate their services or perhaps do it at Cost great open discussion thank you consider I think the other piece of that too is that also working with Mr Mora our facilities manager because as we've run into a couple times some private contractors don't NE necessarily have specs bids to school standard buildings so we work in collaboration anyone who's ever donated anything be like hey are you using kid-friendly mulch are you using this are you using all of those kinds of things with the requirements so we're always completely open to that anytime as a matter of fact I think we've had projects that have
221been uh helped throughout the years by different people who have uh brought together the pergola idea that was originally in a different location was brought forth and talked about with a family per with a a family that was bringing it into communication so yeah we're very much open to Our Community Resources what's ever out there as well yeah anything else Mr M no I'm just noting number five is I think a recurring item that I think Mr scales even touched on a little bit it's just the demographic and capacity studies I know they're currently not available there's a lot of information in the superintendent updates yes it's it's a lot it's a lot of information and at some point you want me to update and I did Reach Out email uh to Mr scales about
222meeting and putting together like an idea based upon that information that the capacity studies won't change we haven't changed the infrastructure aside from the vestibules and little things with regards to that but with the demographic study in combined with that I think maybe even being proactive and setting up meetings as you've mentioned tonight with also the vision from what the because we are also having administrative meetings about this as well with regard to comparing that and what we would need to do because the capacity study is one thing there's also the utilization component of that so I think it's important for the board and the community to know that with expansion there's not just the building footprint but what we're doing within that foot footprint is also something so while we may have 20 classrooms
223and we may have this we have several small group instructional areas we have therapy classes we have this going on we have that we have an art room we have dedicated music we have dedicated art rooms we have dedicated all of those things so how does any type of expansion or change affect the utilization because the capacity is not changing until we plan at a time if we need to do to change it it's the utilization that's impacted and I think we really want to take a good look and maybe having that conversation whether it's at a board meaning or talking about utilization with regards to how many of this because that's laid out in that capacity utilization as to how many classrooms what we're using it for and so on and we've already converted
224that to a modern time from a 2014 capacity ulation study we're in the process as an administrative team of saying okay what would need to move like what would need to shift as for example as you've all seen in the capacity study uh Cedar Drive has a capacity of 616 students it's currently at 35 so if we there there's the ideas of Shifting reconfiguring The District that are an option for us right if need be we've talked about that when we did the application for the um preschool right expansion which is available that's out there that's another conversation that's still out there in the world um that I think that we there are options with our current spaces that I think as a board I really want to make everyone very much aware of which
225is why we're sharing that information on a weekly it hasn't gone away why I haven't taken it off because it's I want everyone to be comfortable and familiar with the information that's on there and the possibilities for configuration that could also address the needs of expansion I think those are two very important conversations that need to happen concurrently as well I agree it's uh um I equated to the when they invented the fax machine so think about it you wouldn't buy a fax machine unless your friend had one because you couldn't send them a fax right so we that's the thing is we have to get someone to just give us the numbers right because then we know we're like okay here's what we're dealing with here's the numbers and then we can dive in
226like you said and we can move here we can move there we can change this this school would be grades one through four instead of you know so that's why that's the whole point of all of this is just let's just get a foundation that we can all start to build a house on and once we get it the world's our oyster so I'm excited for it I feel like we're going to get a lot of help too so anything else all right thank you Mr morasa um okay quickly moving on to Communications if uh Mrs camera and Mr Scarpa could touch base on our board our newly uh new edition of the board newsletter sure so it's our first edition is almost complete we're looking for the end of February um pretty much we're
227just awaiting the approval of the the dates the new dates so we have to approve that and then we could update the newsletter um and just so everyone's aware um Dr gabay thank you she reached out to our two of our student liaison families allowing me to highlight their incredible work um so in this Edition and moving forward I plan to feature different student Liaisons in each newsletter to keep the community informed about their initiatives and contributions as well as spotlighting one of us one of the board members and Jason arica will be our first highlighted board member so just kind of providing some insight into their role the dedication to our schools and um just a reminder we are we're going to be publishing these quarterly and again we are on schedule so for
228the end of February great thank you very much Mrs we're looking forward to that yeah oh one more thing sorry and I also just um to just let the board know that um thank you to Mr capasso he sent me up with canva and another program that I just learned sore never knew about that one uh through the district account and so these tools are going to be instrumental to making our newsletters engaging and accessible great thank you um okay moving on to finance I know um this department is could be quite lengthy I don't know if I could ask Jason um I know um I know that you guys will be meeting soon um and committees I don't know if you'd like to request that uh your uh position here can be discussed during
229those meetings or if there's something really pressing that you want to address tonight yeah that that's fine yeah we could I can discuss this yeah any I don't want to cut you short but I'm just in sake of time I know you guys will be meeting soon with your uh full committee so yes yes absolutely so you know Vince wants to go over um you know briefly with the appropriation of extraordinary a for charge tuition increase and then maybe just a brief synopsis of the 256 budget factors and then me and him will reiterate that um a meeting okay yeah and that's fine then you can report out from and then I'll report out from that yeah that's all right um also we did have a zoom call with brown and brown who is our
230insurance broker um he did email me a synopsis of everything that we had discussed in that meeting and just wanted to go over a couple things very briefly when it comes to that so we wanted to speak with brown and brown because we knew that there was going to be coming in with the health insurance um they're predicting anywhere from a 16 to 18% increase in premiums which is very substantial unfortunately um they also advised that this increase was due to mainly prescriptions and Pharmacy um and it's basic it's across the board it's not just with the co Center Schools it's across the ship it's across every other carrier and every every other broker where this increase is coming in um and it is very unfortunate there's a lot of specialty drugs out there that
231are already in the market and coming to Market that uh cost a fortune as well um there's a lot of different factors and basically right now they're waiting for the numbers and we're not going to we're not going to see the numbers from Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield one I say numbers I mean claim numbers uh until April 1 so between right now and then that's kind of a educated guas projection between 16 and 18% and I'm hoping it's going to be I'm hoping it's going to be way under that um but Vince and I and uh Brian and Kevin we are going to be um you know looking into options and seeing if we can um you know get some different numbers from some different Brokers if that's a possibility um to see
232if we can circumvent some of those increases because when you look at the you look at what the health insurance is costing the school district and and the taxpayers it's very substantial and the 16 to 18% increase you know we're not talking about like 567,000 we're talking about 700 750 800,000 so it's extremely significant it's they're predicting unfortunately a huge increase um but we're working very hard to um see once those April 1 numbers come in with the coins you know what we can do what Brown and Brown can do for us and our options um just a quick question I know last year we saved a substantial amount of money was $600,000 I was under the impression ression um that we when we switched there was going to be a cap so we knew
233that we we all knew that it would be going up but there would be a cap on the raise is that still what's happening here or like where is this huge increase coming where I thought you know when we were expecting it it to be capped so Vince as when we switch from the shift to um Horizon Shield um I don't believe we were guaranteed a c we were not in fact we had first tried to ask for a twoyear cap Deni that went back again yeah they were only willing to um you know by the time we renewed it was for the September and unfortunately a lot of the insurance health insurance companies out there they renew on a yearly basis and they don't have any caps would it be safe to say that
234to go through that process again and search again I mean nobody wants to change their insurance again but if it's this amount of of a raise shouldn't we go through another process to so Brown and Brown will once we get those numbers on April 1 be able to go back to Market and they will be able to present the information that we receive from Horizon blos and Blue Shield to other carriers okay okay um and you know that's our that would be our broker brand Brown doing that um I have other options on the table that I'm currently discussing with vin that we really haven't finalized yet um to see if we can get um more bids Beyond you know Brown and Brown but that's again a discussion that's on okay unfortunate but I have
235a question um so if we're gonna I guess we have to go for rfps again is that is that what we're looking at for insurance brokers is that what you're suggesting so that is a possibility that is on the table um that that we haven't overlooked um I I would like to first get those claim numbers from horizonal shield and then see you know really what brown and BR when they give those numbers to whoever's willing to bid whatever insurance carrier is willing to B um on our claim numbers that we horiz Shield see what those see what those numbers look like but they if they're above or right around that 16 to 18% like Brown and Brown is predicting increase then I think you know we will have to look at other options okay
236thank you all right anything else under Finance yeah just so I'm clear with Direction it's okay then as a board because we function as a committee of a whole that we're going to engage our finance ad hoc right the people who have been assigned to the finance committee and that the admin the board leison will work with the administration to coordinate meetings in between now and the next Cal so that they'll be meeting and then reporting out with regard to the budget and all things on the 19th that is correct okay the amount of time budgeting and the financing and dealing with the you know RP okay so thank you okay so am I not going into the second topic we're gonna gonna push it out to the push it to the Committees yep the
237ad hoc Finance yep okay everybody agreement then I would say um you know to facilitate that I may include some information in this week's update that's fine so you can have preliminary look at that okay good okay great thank you um did we talk about number one though Charter School tuition yeah we have another two hours I saw on alert that snow is coming in two hours so we have plenty of time we have plenty of time so just uh this is only on here to alert the B the board that at the uh Action meeting we're gonna there's going to be a recommendation to appropriate some extraordinary aid funds so that we can cover the additional tuition for the charter school um there's a there's a very regulated process that every year the um
238state aid and calculation associated with what are what our local District pays for this charter school is is given to us and so so this is a result of the October 15th count and the way they calculated um the weighted enrollment and therefore it's it's really just the mechanics we have to pay this amount okay the original amount that came out from uh the state aid to put this year's budget together was X we now have to pay why and then at the end of the year the count is determined again it's certified and then any adjustment is then made so the point is we just have to have an action item next board meeting that's the recommendation from Administration so that I'm not trying to find the money otherwise through budget reallocations I have
239a question I'm just trying to understand I I just don't know if I'm caught up with this so the public school's responsibility this is I guess a the state holds us to this respons responsibility is when students in col neck choose to go to a charter school no okay yes if you don't mind just I'm just yeah I don't really I'm not familiar with us and I what I will also do to is that we because we've been working with the with the the system for about three years now and um so when we had a family move in who was already enrolled in the hativa charter school okay um the current uh Charter for Charter Schools no pun intended says that they are able to continue to attend a charter school even if they
240relocate outside of the jurisdiction of the charter school that's what the current law says so that means that the current District of Resident is then responsible for paying the tuition and transportation associated with going to the Charter School even if it is not within the jurisdiction of the town and that's what we're dealing with right now so uh we i' I've shared that information publicly before I'll happy to be includ it in in the update you know with with the information we did also at some point through the advis committee meet with the legislators about that just relook right at the regulations regarding the establishment of Charters and how visit it actually has not been reviewed by the state in quite some time and we're not alone in our challenges with that not in any
241uh opinion about a charter school whatsoever but more or less looking at the regulations that then shift fiscal responsibility and ownership to the um regarding regardless of whether or not it's in the jurisdiction so this particular Charter has once a student has been a student there that they are allowed to continue in definitely regardless of where they reside okay yeah no I appreciate reading about that I'm not very familiar sure thank you absolutely if I may add Mrs camera there's there in the January 31st update there's a link to a very good background on the charter schools which is enshrined in statute and just for my own edification uh is there any demographic re restriction on where this charter school could be can I go to Charter School in Pennsylvania and get paid for the
242transportation there so Mr Scara that's a really good question with regarding those laws because those are things in all seriousness that we've looked into as well the answer to that what you can find is no even though the if the if a statute right now if a if a charter for a charter school has that person indefinitely there even though we're challenging them that they're grandfathered in that's what they refer to it as they're grandfathered in as members um the way it's written right now and the way we've interpret it and I've gone back and forth with the state when this became a new entity for our district um is that no there are no restrictions to it so in reality uh you can actually be paying more for transportation to the school than the
243actual School self due to where the school might be located I'm just saying hypothetically that's correct thank you uh anything else under Finance okay um all right moving on to uh policy um Mr scales do you want to start uh yeah I think the uh two yeah you've got one and two Mr Mr SK I have one and two so for the one uh one and two are going to be just first reads appear if there's any questions through the policy chair if there's any questions uh that go on to them they've been revised you've seen them all before if there aren't any questions there's J there's draft language for the board lison to the district Township art Sports which just basically restructures that as a liaison um and then board committee's first thing is
244pending the adoption uh of that as well so that's it's all just r Visions if there are any issues they will appear as first reads um on the 19th okay cool excellent uh yep so item number three policy 9240 um I think again I don't know um the rules as far as uh miss Mr Ramirez had sent a email and reply to all to all the board members expressing their concern so I don't know if there how how that works or if there was a quum or or we have to alert the public of that or make that email public anything along those lines but what I wanted to do is give Miss rir as the floor to voice her concerns of that email um and just bring that to the Public's view as well
245too my stance on the policy Remains the Same um as it was tabled to give us more time to get legal opinion um so after again thorough review um it's still found that we the current policy that we have is still within the law so my recommendations to the group at that time was that the addition of the new verbiage makes us makes us more susceptible to liability that is unnecessary and my my stance stays the same so I wanted to give that to the floor to Mrs Ramirez to see if she has any comments on it Mr SC so um when you send an email to the full board uh first of all I I guess what I should say first is that all of our meeting all of our emails are subject to
246open public records act so anyone can uh request any one of our of our emails um I'm certainly happy to share with the public um you know uh you know any of the information that was in that email and that was shared um but anyone can always request our emails from us um as long as no one else replies all back and there's not a back and forth engagement um it's not a quorum so um you'll see this when um board President addresses the board or when Mary Jean addresses the full board or any one of our administrators addresses the full board with that being said the email that I sent to the full board was because the concerns that were shared in our superintendent upd um didn't seem to reflect what's currently in the
247the policy the changes that are in the policy so you're right were were fully in compliance with all of the laws and statutes and regulations with the way that it's currently written the goal of US changing this policy was to provide the parents in our district with even further understanding of what their rights are as parents it did not remove any of their rights it did not change uh their ability to do anything um which you did suggest in in the concerns that you shared U that were shared in the superintendent update it's actually further Illustrated how we are in compliance of the law and one a step further the current policy doesn't State a lot of the statutes and the New Jersey Law so the changes to the policy actually clearly state it this
248way when a parent sees this policy they'll say wow this is the exact statute or the exact New Jersey Law or the exact federal law that this pertains to so it just further Illustrated our commitment as a board of education to respecting the rights of parents so that they can clearly see that and there's no questions or concerns and this came on the foots of US repealing policy 5756 and we wanted to ensure we had a lot of parents that reached out and that uh vo their concerns that they didn't have uh the same rights or that you know they they heard different things about their rights so this policy change was to ensure that parents knew that they did have those rights so that's what I Illustrated in that email that I that I
249sent to the full board um that being said you know I don't know is there something specific that you wanted to that you wanted to address I I don't know why we wouldn't move forward with these changes after reading the email that I sent to the full board where the questions and concerns you had were all addressed um in addition to that yes we were tabling this until legal looked at it my understanding though is that legal has not looked at this yet so what are we waiting on for legal to look at this we were waiting until today's meeting to have a discussion but if the discussion is hey we want legal to look at this then why have we not had legal look at this then um and legal has looked at this
250policy which I know Mary Jean did give the exact uh comments that our legal team gave us about these policy changes so were there questions about our legal team um about their comments back was there something specific that and and I know you had very specific concerns which I believe in my email which I did not receive a response to there there was no I'm not sure after reading my response what your concern back to those things was so um I'm happy to to read my email aloud if if that's what you want me to do for the the public that's there and for the live streaming I have no problem doing that it might be a little bit difficult to understand because I referenced you know your concerns and then I you know changed
251the the font colors that could clearly see the part of the changes in the policy to reflect um some of those concerns you may have had so you know I'm not really sure how you want to go about this um you know in a a public forum here to ensure that all of those con and I'll follow along yeah um Rob if you have nothing else to say we could just move forward to a vote um at the next Action meeting yeah just mean just final again my doesn't change my opinion on it too again because there's the the we did receive legal opinion and the legal opinion was that the current policy still is within the law so again just with other District priorities and again trying to just protect the liability of the
252district again still my recommendation to uh revoke that and keep the original policy the only other question I have would be for Dr GB is just that again once we receive those Strauss smme um alerts did they ever send us an alert that specifically had called out this policy to request that we make changes do you know or if if you could find that in the archives or anything like that so essentially if it's a preemptive change and again that further solidifies the the the need to just revoke it if again we're so we have a legal opinion that we're still within law and then if we're not getting any alerts from our policy holders that we need it then again I would like to stay op theal opion that these changes that are in
253bold of the of this policy what we tabled those those bold changes our legal opinion was that is in compliance with all the laws and regulations the legal opinion was not that the the one that's currently on our in our district website that that's in compliance of course that's in compliance we know that that's been in compliance since I think 09 um the changes that we were recommending those are in compliance with all of the laws that is what our legal opinion was yes it was not based on the on the previous policy it's based on the proposed changes so I don't know what you're head if you're saying well the old one was too yes but this one enhances it it makes it better it's something that we even talked about handing out to
254our parents on day one of the school year so that they had all of this that's how important this document was was that we wanted to give it to them a hard copy on day one this way the parents knew what their rights were this wasn't something that we were it was it was a a way to be more transparent with our parents so that they could see exactly outlined very clearly stated much emphasis on each point what their rights were because the one that we currently have it's very brief um of course it complies with all the laws but it's very brief and it just gives a little bit of a snippet it doesn't really fully illustrate the parents rights in this District to have rights to their child's their their child's records rights
255to their medical records rights to uh knowing what their grades are um you know it goes through all of those rights that our parents have so I'm not sure what your hesitation is or or why my hesitation is pretty clear again where we have the again what's there is still within the law and the changes create unnecessary liabilities for no they don't our legal team has said that there is no liability with it okay that's what our legal team has said okay so I'm not sure why you keep saying that when we know that our legal team has said that there is no liability with it yep so I don't know where you're getting that information from correct well so as you know law is always up for interpretation right that's the beauty of the
256United States so someone could always sue the district for something so again if we if already in that's so if we have something that again was not there was not flagged as needed to be changed by the state and the legal opinion was that the current policy that we have is still within the realm then any changes are unnecessary so I stay with that okay if there's anybody else that wants to comment um I think we heard from both sides uh is there anybody else that have not has not comment on this uh the changes or any suggestions Mr Retta clarify are we going along with the policy that's the attachment that's in our um agenda right here we are um we are going to plan to vote in the next Action meeting on the
257uh original policy that was uh that we don't need to vote on that that that was tabled okay so not the policy from like five years ago okay just yes all right anybody else have any questions comments concerns wait so for clarification at the next meeting we're going to vote on the second read and the adoption no we procedur that's correct we had a first read that was approved that's corre okay yeah all right okay so then we'll we'll vote on the second read and then we'll move forward in uh to keeping the policy it would be an adoption the revision would go on already had a first read that was appr okay all right all right so then we'll uh we'll uh wait to continue with the Action meeting then okay all right let's
258move on to the next one Rob yep so opening exercises I anyone have any initial questions that they get to review what we were looking to amend there so we're looking to amend for opening exercises is Institute uh United States flag code and second is to Institute the um opening exercises to have the star spangle ban or our national anthem as we all went through school when we were younger I think that was probably one of the most coveted moments of of my time in school was to hear that national anthem every morning so that was a recommendation of mine as well too so just to give you two um sort of two inces with United States flag code um so United States flag code we we have to fly the American flag we want
259to fly the American flag has to be at the top of the flag pole right there's different codes in there that kind of correspond with the difference between flow flown versus presentation so and essentially we spoke about this Dr G as well there's just been some instances where before I was a board member where I would have to remind staff that a flag had to be flown at half staff or full staff because the of the death of the president we just had uh you know President Carter died I had to instruct the school to just follow that code to put it at half mask when it was at full mask so um what I'm what I'm recommending here is that it institutes the flag code into the policy where the United States flag is
260the only flag that can be flown so what flowing again means is that the United States flag always has to be on top so technically this would be a violation of United States flag code because the flags are at the exact same right so if we want to we this is the mammoth County flag we want to have the mammoth County flag the United States flag it must be underneath the United States flag right the American flag y and I thank you because I was really looking into it well I think if they're held on MK it just can't be to the right of the flag okay so I think when it's on like this but to your point exactly with regards to it it has to be higher but I think when it's on
261individual staffs it just can't appear to the right of the flag so I do you want to dive into that more and just to yeah just so we know the exact code because again there there's there's veterans in town sure right so it's I think it's imperative for us to be respectful as we can as we can sure and I did Circle back um as I said I would we are held to that code already so it's really just a codification of what we're already required to be doing amaz so refresher to everyone sure and then again I don't again operation that's that's your responsibility to who flies that and does all that good stuff so um but then again what it also does is we we touched on as well too that um like
262an Italian flag or a Spanish flag in a language arts or um you know international language class as well that that that can be flown but again same rules would apply with to be underneath the uh the American flag so that's my uh my stance on that as well too so just open the floor if you guys have any questions on on what we're trying to achieve there so any questions for anybody I think we all do Rob so we appreciate you uh bringing that to our attention in the policy perfect um okay uh the next one progress report on District goal number two on the 19th I'll give a progress report of our conversion going to school boards thank you EXC then number six I think you wanted to take that one as well
263too that was an addition for that policy 2363 student use of privately owned technology yes if I may so I think it was a follow up to the conversation that took place at the last regular Action meeting um just making everyone aware that our policy does exist with regard to technology it does specifically say that they're supposed to be held in lockers at home so I want to make sure that if we're adap ing which is something that we're going to talk about more as a board um and getting information from Dr Rigby with what's in the policy but also what's the reality right as we talked about there's policy and then there's the reality that we know that we know that cell phones are carried on on on on student bodies we know that
264so we want to adapt right we want to adapt accordingly and one of the ways that some teachers have been piling to do that which they do at the high school as well is use pockets in a lot of classrooms there's uh classroom individual like almost like Pockets like you would see like if you an oldfashioned calculator Pockets you know that you would put in they're cell phones they're being piloted throughout so Dr Rigby would like to expand that pilot um in the classrooms where they have been done there hasn't been any incident or concern from parents raised they know that it's being used they've uh the teachers communicated with it and what they're seeing is in those classrooms they are seeing some good progress with regards to how long as child's out to the
265bathroom how long you know those those types of things and distractions in that learning so I think it was Mr AR you were talking about the distractions and the learning and the cell phones and things this is another measure that we're looking to kind of just try and see if it makes a difference we're not looking to restrict we're not looking to um you know control it in any way we're just trying to preserve that time with students off their phones you know and disconnect them a little bit I think that's one of the things we value about the Stokes trip as you had gone on the students aren't allowed to have their phones and while it seems completely traumatic when they get that news in seventh grade that you can bring your cell phones
266by the end the feedback that we get is it's it's good it's okay we're okay with being away from our phones for two days so getting them a little bit detached and allowing them to focus you know inviting them let's say that we're inviting them to focus more and not worry about what's going off or what Snapchat they're missing or whatever that type of thing I think we want to find that balance get feedback from our students on it as well from our teachers so that's um just looking to expand that a little bit is what what they'd like to do with Cedar Drive so um I just wanted to make the board aware with the current policy just bring it to the Forefront as to what's there because there's a lot of conversations about
267banning cell phones in high schools and things like that that's not a direction at this point that I I think the board is looking at but we you know we're always off you know welcome to come back to that conversation but we're trying to adapt with what the reality is and what our you know and staying connected with things so that's what that's our attempt of what to do here so I welcome that feedback or if there's any concerns with us continuing to expand that that pilot of what we're doing I'd like to make a comment on that I I don't necessarily agree with um piloting the phones um I agree more with uh having a harsher disciplinary action when the phone is being used um I know that's our current policy but I'm not
268sure how harsh the disciplinary action is um I feel like if there if they're caught using their phone you know the parents should be called you know it could be taken away but I don't think it's fair to remove phones from students that uh do respect the school law and as a parent um you know as far as I know my daughter does respect the school law because she knows that phone will be confiscated if she's ever uh using it and I'm called um so I'm not sure how I feel about piloting the phones um with the teachers at this point yeah and I hear that but I think yeah and just for Conversation Piece if they have it on their person they are in violation of the policy so I think we're trying to
269adapt with the reality of them wanting to have it on the phone and we're trying to partner with them in that to have to be responsible and saying like they in class time we're we're we're asking you to disconnect from it so if they right now the way the current policy is written they are in violation of it so that's the way it so I think we have to think about it through that lens as well that we're trying to adapt with the with the reality Maybe and Just and that's just a consideration for the board in that in that sense I don't I don't um I think we can collect feedback and see how it goes and if it's something we don't have to the investment is this is the pockets yeah which we
270can reuse for something if they don't work there's no I don't wait they were paid they were bought already the pilot ones were they weren't the new ones were not yet yeah so that's where we wanted to bring it to the kind of as an expansion because if there are concerns you know they're going to come to me or they're going to come to the board so I think that that might be something continue the discussion on I there may be mixed views I personally don't agree with it but um yeah I think it's I mean it's again it's I think being preemptive is good again like it's just you know the rhetoric that you hear from Murphy about like you know we're going to ban cell phones like again it's it's an infringement on
271rights we know it's it's not going to happen there's not going to be a ban so I think being preemptive is very smart because then we could put something into policy first so it'll be more difficult to come uh to come away the only thing that like again I'll I'm going to dive into the policy I'll look at it and just again provide recommendations like I always will um the the one thing is the like again surveys as far as like the children or the parents that are involved in the program like is there a way for them to tell us like it's improved the like their way their children have used it absolutely there would be feed absolutely feedback is always super important we we would that would be part of our process like
272before we want to expand it right and we have teachers who have been piloting it that we want to expand it based on the feedback that the teachers and and lack of concerns but we can The Wider we make this the more we can collect that information and say is there a problem and the the student perspective is really important in this because it's like are you okay with this and working forward with it and hearing from you know the parents do you have any concerns with us doing that I think that's important piece too the procedure too like again and teachers as well right are you seeing the difference in the instructional time yep because like I mean you know how kids are I mean like someone could you know I saw i' I've
273used the pouches before believe it or not it's the funniest story ever but so like you know someone could go to like 15 grab someone's cell phone right to try to run just to like joke around like again if there's any feedback of of children messing with it and like taking other cell phones like that would be important but just to be just to be clear like there's no there there's no grounds that we have right now where there could just be random searches of lockers right is that correct we absolutely do have a right to to search lockers that we actually have more rights than the police do to search lockers and I know that Mr Walsh is very well versed in that but we absolutely do have the ability to do that so
274like if you suspect that there's like a device or something like that like that just prompts you and the the team to say okay we got to go get that device we have to confiscate it call the parents and if you mean a a device that doesn't belong to the student because they're supposed to cell phone in general well they're allowed to have their cell phones in their lockers that's what the policy says yeah that's the current that's the current practice so this is evolving with with that what we know to be a reality of them carrying it on their person so it may be a recommendation that we make as you look through it with a language in conjunction with this pilot that says hey we can adapt this saying that a child either
275has to put it in their locker if a parent wants them to put it in their locker and not want wants them to disconnect or have the option of putting it in a pocket but during instruction you know that type of thing we could explore options maybe too um just to break off with that what is probable cause where you're legally allowed to search a locker yeah absolutely put your microphone on put your put your micophone [Laughter] going to tell you the wrong one now um actually School administration doesn't need probable cause that's a that's a a level that the police department needs in order to search and search a particular area house locker and this case and if the school suspect something y that could be a threat to the student body the teachers
276or general public at large those the teachers need Administration is suspicion they had the right to go and search that Locker uh wouldn't it be in conjunction with the police department we would be removed from that area and they have every right to go in that locker and go so it's not changing oh I'm sorry it's not well that's it so it's not changing that it's just basically like like you said it's adapting it's saying okay we know you got one you know put it in the pouch and then at the end of the day take it and go then you're going to your parents going to have one so you have to put it in the pouch before dinner time so that right at the and actually the idea is at the end of
277every class so they can be reconnected it's not even a daily thing there are some districts I think that are looking into these like lockers that are like the keys and it's like f and they get a code and I'm like oh I I'm not really looking I know I'm not I don't think we're looking at anything like it's costly it's timec consuming a pouch is not as expensive and it's something it serves a similar purpose yeah for that so okay and just Angel Le too just so you're I mean that's again like the the rhetoric from the state right was you can't even bring it on premises right so it's so this is a little bit more for and um just one more thing is this also happening in the in the elementary school
2783 to five or is it primarily in the middle school middle school that where we see uh well we do know that that HP you know that it's going on and we address that more directly with the parent rather than the student because that's a choice um we'll deal with more like in terms of Apple watches and things like that of nature that's a different type of challenge so we'll you know so we'll so we'll we'll we'll take one step at a time and look at the cell phones in the Middle School okay um guys let's get back on track um let's uh are you all done U Mr scales with your okay all right great thank you all right let's move on to Personnel um Dr gar if you can uh lead us with
279that yes thank you so items two through five two excuse me I have my glasses on two through eight are really FYI informations you know only right in terms of these things are coming up they're standard um moving forward with it uh except for um regarding number six I'll give an update on the 19th regarding uh that District goal as well uh the elimination of the requirement for the practice C that was something is and I connected with and and I just want to make everyone aware that there was there's a narrative about that teachers don't have to pass a test to be teachers anymore that's not true okay so there's two in 2014 the State Department of Education implemented the core practice test okay the core practice test was a result of another layer
280of assessment that teachers were getting in order to enter into the teaching program at the respective higher levels of in education right they're colleges right and it was a basic it's a basic skills test and Reading Writing and math that's really what it is so as the state as well as superintendents have been very actively engaged in conversations regarding teachers and certification programs that are the the teacher shortage is real colleges are not putting out teachers at the same rate that they are and there's many reasons and many things that there're that have gone into that factor but one of the things we've looked at is how are are is the system itself getting logged up in terms of of what's attracting them here's what I want to make sure that the board feels comfortable
281with and I can provide even more information about this teachers absolutely still have to pass a test to become a teacher in the state of New Jersey they have to complete a certified program as accredited they most colleges require them to maintain a minimum of a 3 sometimes it's a 275 okay and they have to pass a practice 2 exam those practice 2 exams are specialized um I myself have the English one the element I have you know those types of things in where you are speaking the C what the the reason rationale for moving it um to removing it was to really to remove some of the obstacles that teachers are facing in their current programs it does not minimize it because those core issues of Reading Writing and math are still assessed in
282their programs they wouldn't pass their courses if they couldn't read write and do math there's still it's a liberal arts education you still required to take so how many credits in Reading you have writing classes you have math classes you have all of those things so those skills are being assessed through their program of studies and then with a practice to okay now the core battery is actually the core practice is what they refer to it as is still in place for people who do not PR pass the practice to right if they struggle with with with that final exam but it's called a limited Certificate of Eligibility with stand in and it's highly regulated so if I'm gone on I'll use myself an example way back when I didn't even I listen I didn't
283have to take a core batter because I was certified a long long time ago but if you were moving through that progression and I got to my junior year and had to take my practice 2 to become a teacher of English and I didn't pass it right now that scenario would be it would default back to that practice core battery and you would have that limited Certificate of Eligibility with Advanced standing which means you and it's regulated of only certain districts that you can teach in they regulate it and say you are eligible to teach it's probably high need districts I'm sure we're looking we don't have any of that right now going in our district currently so yes it was removed for the traditional teacher trajectory as an attempt to try to free up
284the the complexities of someone becoming a certified teacher the end goal the requirements of people who and who became a teacher pre 2014 the implement a of the core battery are still there you still have to take a you have to take a certification test at the end in your specialized content area which if you're a k to6 teacher it is in um your practice test is math writing reading geography civics it's in all of the things like it's that is the core that is the elementary K to Six certification and then if you go beyond Elementary and you have 15 course credits uh uh uh excuse me content credits you can take a practice that gets you certified to teach in a Content area up to 8th grade if you have 30 or more
285content areas you're taking it and certified to teach up to high school so it's they reverted back to what was in place pre 2014 in the implementation of the core battery so if anyone has any questions or wants more information I am happy to spend another hour talking about certification should you like to do so any questions for me just one I won't take up too much of your time because I don't know um if they're in a limited capacity the term of use limited does the clock start ticking for 10 year or no you know if they get hired in a job that has a 10-year track the answer is yes but they have to you have to follow a very regimented ability for them to be able to eventually get to their practice
286they they're not indefinitely grandfathered in under that limited certificate of advanced standing I understand understand thank you great thank you for explaining that because I was one of the persons that thought that they were basically taking away H you know an extra you know testing to make sure our teachers were uh definitely well like many things we in education find out in the headlines we don't get a heads up that things are happening so you would imagine there are things like that that raise an eyebrow to people like me as superintendent around to say what's happening here so as you're looking through it that is something and we delved right into it you know our organization State organizations that I belong to we were all over like hold on a second what is all this
287being and then when it actually laid out to us we actually thought it was a good move to be able to say let's revert back and let's try to like open up the funnel a little bit for teachers to be able to achieve to become teachers okay okay great um okay moving on uh there's nothing under transportation um we're going to have our last uh public comment we'll open the floor again for the last time this evening if anybody wants to get up and come on up y y you got to put the light on yeah just hold the button bottom button Okay Kevin O'Brien 18 the enclosure I still love your energy you know you're here after 10:00 and you're still firing on all cylinders so my compliments to all of you couple of
288points um on the calendar you talked about concern about a couple of conflicts look at the positive side look at how many changes that you've made to make that possible to separate so I wouldn't be so focused on the on the negative side of the of the few that you have focus on the positives and don't worry about the other dates on transparency in your resolution that you created your spoton I could give you more and more details but I don't think I need to go there um M Mr scarper I appreciated your comment on on the uh the first amendment I went through this on I've got pretty thick skinned in doing this in 2023 uh I sat uh being stared at by a Committee Member with his M middle finger pressed up against
289the side of his face pretty unprofessional in our town and in any Town um but that's what we had to deal with in 2024 at another affordable housing hearing we were told that there would be open public no time frame on speaking until I get up to speak um then I was repeatedly questioned by Mr Viola and then I was gabbled down by the mayor for taking too much time there was no time limit only a time limit for me with respect to U the list that you you've talked about sending this resolution out to I would suggest you include judge Linda Grasso Jones uh I can give you her address that was on the flyer that I gave ad at the Town committee meeting um on the one thing that if you if you
290really want have some fun with it involve the children from a community standpoint I did this where I lived before we had pollution in the water we had a Development coming in the sixth grade class decided that they wanted to get involved in it so they actually got together and talked with their mom and dad at home they took the community issue to home and then the kids turned around and actually wrote wrote their own letters so they became you can use it as an educational as a writing experience and a community involvement to how they can get involved and in this one scenario when BMW up in woodcliffe Lake wanted to do their corporate headquarters three three children actually came to the presentation of the planning board to challenge the attorney for the applicant
291uh they had to bring their parents along but as of 96 kids they brought it down to three or four who came with their and their parents stood behind them um but they got to speak so it was kind of a fun way to involve the children an educational standpoint and if you're going to go do a coalition on this format and get other people together let me know I was at the senior lunch today people wanted to get involved I've got the chairman of the planning board who' be delighted uh and delighted to join us when we go to that Veteran Center so if I can help anyway please let me know thank you thank you anybody else yep come on up my my butt is a little sleepy bless you all for standing
292here here um I just wanted to take the opportunity to come tonight um to meet several of you who I haven't had the opportunity to meet um so nice to meet you guys um as the incoming mayor for this year uh I am not the leaon Dan bazetta is a liaison um who was here earlier I apologize for being late uh this is probably my 30th meeting of the day um and it is very late and I know everybody wants to get moving along um um I'm just here before you to number one say thank you guys for what you're doing uh I realize this is a volunteer position I don't know if you could pay me to do this position so I just want to say thank you um I have had the opportunity
293to meet with some of you um Mr scales I appreciate the reach out um we we will be obviously meeting about affordable housing um I was a little disappointed to be perfectly Frank in the resolution that was put forward tonight um I am 100% on board with most of what was said with the disappointment in the state affordable housing mandates I've been involved not on the governing body I'm one of the newer people besides Dan bazetta who we're going to call him the youngest Committee Member um I got involved because I was sitting in these public meetings in Outrage probably the same outrage that I saw on um Brian's face when thinking about like the charter schools and stuff where you're like how is this even possible um there's a lot of things that happen
294from the state level and a lot of disappointments that I know we all have the one thing that I I disagree with this resolution on is um where it says the lack of open communication and clear planning from our local government with that being said I cannot speak to what you guys have all been involved in I can only speak of me being on the the committee for the past four years um I have always had a a wonderful relationship with the Board of Education um the business administrator and the superintendent we have been very open and transparent we've provided information and data for those of you who are new I have not had the opportunity we're one month in um I love the fact that you guys are doing an affordable housing committee I
295told Rob scales I thought it was fabulous we have been meeting an hour Township for about a year now planning for the incoming numbers of folks I feel really good about the next round of affordable housing I feel really good I don't believe we will as a Township see a shovel in the ground I don't believe you guys will see an increase in the number of kids based upon the next round of affordable housing that's what I believe whether or not that's the case that remains to be seen but with that being said I find that comment the L of transparency and open communication completely Incorrect and false and hard I think for many of you who are brand new here to to to make that statement um I do in fact believe that there
296is a deep disappointment um in a lot of what's going on in our state in our town um I hope that working together as a Township committee and a board of education any disappointment that some of you who are new May currently have um with your interactions might not be disappointment moving forward but to take a resolution and codify it and vote on it I I just I had to on behalf of the governing body of course none of which have did I speak with specifically about this but on behalf of us I I just have to challenge some of it but I have to Echo the rest in saying I I I I believe in complete open transparency and I look forward to meeting with you guys to talk about affordable housing we have
297a lot of good stuff in the works I look forward to sharing it um and we'll go from there so thank you guys again I appreciate everything that you're doing and I look forward to working together thank you for your comments wait I I don't get a round of applause anybody else before we close uh public comment uh okay we're going to close public comment um we are uh going to move to new business I'm not sure if anybody is uh has anything I have I have one thing um this is our third meeting and we have not had any minutes that we have been able to approve so I just um just to respect for being able to keep up with what we're what we're saying um I'm hoping by the next meeting we
298can um have some minutes to start approving I don't know Brian I don't know if you want to add anything in regards to communication with the minutes you know it's just a fair point uh while we go through we cover a lot and to be fair it's been north of four hours so and we we know that these minutes are extensive but they are the public record and we do want to make sure that they're codified sooner than later especially for voter folks that are voting on it memories are short uh it's very very challenging to ask someone to go back and approve a set of nine minutes or nine meaning minutes which has happened before late last year so if we can please let's keep it on top of priority I know it's it
299could be cumbersome but uh even if if it's a first shot at it we have to make some updates to it so be it but let's just try to get on top of that we can't go nine8 s which we've had last year so um I appreciate that comment on that too I don't I mean again I don't know the rules and regulations of of what we can and cannot do but um from a technology perspective I can give you just you can submit this entire recording to um Ai and AI can produce the transcript for us within 15 minutes I don't know what the law says about that if we have to have a human do it obviously but would it make it easier if there's like a physical transcript that can be presented
300and then you I guess you could just use that would it speed up the process I just don't know it works sure so I can actually speak to that there there we have a policy about minutes right and we can we're really from a Time perspective the draft minutes with all votes are put up the next day they're there there so your votes are recognized in public the next day in draft minutes and we do that with that's done right away so we look at they listen to the recording that's in there the details of the conversation we have adapted based on the cow to be able to use technology to be able to do that it still requires a review for accuracy because with all of the information that's coming you saw the minutes
301that were from December we utilize that there's a lot of detail and information in there plus the videos are posted so in terms of referencing although the videos are not minutes if there a specificity I do agree with you with regards to the accountability the votes themselves what was voted on what was passed is up within 24 hours in the draft minutes it always has been it's been a practice the detailed minutes are what's coming after the fact so to your point it almost is like a revision it's like here's the skeleton the outline of what was done with the important parts of the votes with the more detail that comes so we do appreciate the boards patients we are trying to capture the majority of things and I know in working with Mr morasco
302and his office staff to help support that we are utilizing technology to do exactly with what you're talking about yeah it's a lot of work so yeah appreciate it no of course of course because we we want to support that without a doubt um uh anybody want to add any other new business before we close for executive okay Mrs Ramirez yes I have a couple of things um first I'd like to request that we resume stating the mission statement at the beginning of each meeting we have not done that thus far this year um I think it's important that that is stated um as it's included in our agenda um the second thing I would like to say is that I you know I really hope that we continue working as a committee of a
303whole um I think that that provides great transparency for the public they can see everything they they can see this back and forth I know these meetings are long and they are late um but it's important I think for the public to see that one of the biggest complaints I heard several years ago moving into this town campaigning and when I first got on the board was that there's so much that goes on behind closed doors and the public doesn't get to see that and I think it's a really important component so I know there are some reasons why we need to have things done behind closed doors um I think from a a Time perspective um you know of course if we want to fine-tune some things in finance committee but it is important
304to have the public see all of the work that goes into things like our budget presentation and um so I I really do hope that we do as little as possible unless it's a Safety and Security or confidentiality issue um that we do that in the public meetings um we're live stream so I know that uh some of our um uh residents do like to come to our meetings but if it gets too late they can always leave and they can resume it um online so um I just hope that we still do that and third uh Brian spoke tonight about free speech and not limiting public comment this evening board president Angelique limited my time as a board member so I only hope that this is not what we are to expect of our
305board leadership moving forward that's all that I have from your business thank you okay anybody else anybody else for new business okay we are going to um move to Executive session live stream will be um uh ended at this point um so if anybody uh has anything else um I'll take a motion to move to into executive session motion oh I'm sorry um we will be going into executive session for legal matters and uh Personnel confidential Personnel matters and and no action will be taken thank you 10 minutes okay well we the meeting will last about 20 minutes God willing motion to move into executive session motion second thank you [Music] I'm gonna go grab some food I'm starving go and then one of which one the um no in terms of bringing the J
306RC yeah whether it's a club yeah is the next to reach out to our high school program I so that I have uh love to i' love professional IED to she put me in contact with Brian which I Brian said absolutely out to him want so I want to him don't oh yeah I'm sorry I want to get up any