6-27-22 Denville NJ BOE Board Meeting

001and good evening it's 7 30 p.m and i'm going to call this meeting to order this meeting of the denville township board of education is being held in accordance with the open public meetings act notice this meeting was provided to the daily record and of the star ledger of morris county and has been delivered to the township clerk and has been posted on the bulletin board of the board of education office and then each of the school buildings in the district roll call please mrs wagner here mr cass here mr kim here dr aruna de tessen here dr moore here mr anderson here uh mr cappello sends his regrets for not being able to make it this evening uh we do not have a need for executive session so we'll move on to the pledge

002of allegiance please rise all right we'll move on to our agenda we have a special presentation this evening from dr forte dr carlos with charlene peterson from new jersey school boards good evening charlene and thanks for joining us virtually good evening it is my pleasure to be with you from cape may tonight so ah perfect look at the look at how productive you can be when we're on virtual meetings that's awesome well thank you for joining us we truly appreciate when you're here and uh appreciate you uh spending time with us this evening so with that i will uh turn it over to dr forte are you gonna kick it off hello everybody we're our annual recap of 20 of our previous school year and um an intro to some ideas for goals for the

003coming school year our first slide is a slide on the strategic plan and there's a note in the in the column there saying that the new five-year strategic plan will be developed in november and december so exactly november 14 28 and december 12th they will be public meetings including a public board of education meeting the board of education meeting will start at 6 30 and the strategic planning session will start at 7 30 and charlene peterson from new jersey school boards will be on the uh will be in attendance to help guide us through the process as she did the last time next slide please our district goals for 2122 were to successfully successfully transition all students and staff back to 100 in-person instruction and that we felt like that was all the strategic playing

004goals that were on there other than a short period of time where we needed to go virtual due to a actually the largest spike in covid we had since the beginning of covid we were able to successfully transition all students and staff to 100 instruction in person instruction again we did have a a period of time around the holiday break in january where we uh we basically limped into the holiday break and then after the holiday break we needed to take some time and we did have to switch to virtual for that week other than that we were able to do it so uh the next goal i'll turn over to dr cullis every year we try to have at least one of our goals focused on academic achievement which is our main one of

005our main purposes of our school district so last year's focus was on grades five through eight math and so we implemented a few different programs we brought in a program that was really targeted towards algebra instruction called math 180 and that was in specific for specific students in grades five through eight and then we also brought in dreambox which we currently are using k through eight over the summer you'll notice it's one of the summer learning assignments that students can go on to their dreambox accounts and work through all of the standards and catch up on any standards they may be missing so those were our two big purchases that went along with this goal in addition we provided virtual tutoring small group instruction small group in-person tutoring all to provide extra math instruction to

006meet this goal and as soon as we are not allowed to report back on our njsla scores until september when the reports go home to parents however we did get the initial um so i think that our work is is helping those students who are falling a bit behind then our next slide is a slide that we usually do these are just topics these are not actual goals just topics so the first one would be to create a new strategic plan with the help of the community now to me that's the most important goal we have for next year is because it it really will drive all the rest of the goals so um we could add some language that if we feel it's fit like how many members of like different groups if everybody

007felt like that was important between staff community even students anything like that um our second goal we have again is to and dr collis changes a little bit for next year or is recommending some changes due to uh more targeted and that would be increased achievement for students or not meeting grade level benchmarks and with a focus on grades k to two and six and seven ela and then the last one again a topic would be something in the rain something around cultural diversity equity and inclusion and particularly level number three would would be something most likely i mean i can't guarantee it but most likely covered in the strategic planning with the community if that is something that comes up during the strategic plan as a goal for the for the district for the

008next five years so we could um we could really stick with number one and work off there and we also could add some things in there too and with keeping in mind though that we are going to be including like we did last time we did have over a hundred community members help with our with our five-year plan so those are uh a couple a couple ideas that we had and um the last slide is just a board goal recap the board has decided to just put this off a little bit so we won't talk about the board goals recap or the board goal for next year that will be something that will take place a little bit later in the year and that was our presentation for now and now we open it up

009for some comments or anything that might help from um charlene peterson on the line thank you sure so you know one of the things that i would like to do just for the the benefit of you know any public participants that we have is just to kind of explain the importance of this work that we're doing here tonight um and you know you know as a board we say that you know it's not our job to run the schools but to make sure that they're well run working together you know with the superintendent whose job it is to run the schools so one of the our responsibilities is to help determine the what each year like what are those say three or four things we think are so important to move the district forward that

010we are going to hold the superintendent accountable by putting them in his evaluation so that's why this conversation that the board is having tonight with you know upon recommendation of ideas from the superintendent is establishing that what and then we say that these are considered district goals because they will ultimately involve everyone in the district that we are helping determine what those priorities are um then we will receive action plans from the administration telling us how they're going to accomplish the what and then we should see these focus or priorities um you know in the goals that we see with in the buildings with other staff members with the learning that's taking place in the classroom so that together we're all working together kind of like in a stair-step approach um to to move the

011district forward in alignment so that's why having this conversation tonight about you know establishing these priorities um that's why it is so important so that we are making sure that we are setting that direction and it's great that we're doing it at this time of the year so that we can develop the action plans over the summer and then when everyone comes back to school in september and we can kind of you know hit the ground running with everyone aware of what the direction is for the year um so it's important to have this conversation now and to have the board be part of this conversation um you know like you said with um this helpful input from the superintendent so i would like to turn it over to the board members now and i

012think you know that we typically will go through each one of the goal suggestions and make sure that as a board that we agree that this is you know one of the priorities that we would like to also have as one of the district goals and then if there's any other thoughts or words or concepts that the board would like to add to it um so the first one is the strategic plan and again you know i have to say that i always use denver as an example when i talk to other districts about the strategic plan just because you know it was mentioned that you had up to 100 community members and that almost never happens or rarely happens in other places so you really do you know make a point of ensuring that

013the community is involved that voices are involved and then these district goals that we set you will have noticed that at least in the previous ones from last year um that they were connected to the strategic plan um so that then is how once we haven't you know if we do agree that this is what we need to do and we have a new plan in place then that's how we carry them forward is by using them to help guide these district goals so that we are using the work of the community um to help set the direction um so having said that i'll turn it over to the board to see how board members feel or think about the strategic plan a new strategic plan as a district goal thank you shirley sure absolutely

014thank you charlene dr forte and dr colas just uh mrs wagner had a quick question go ahead please thank you um charlene if you wouldn't mind for the benefit of the public who might be watching um and just to refresh us as board members memories so we have two goals that the first second i'm sorry we have three goals but um the new strategic plan will be developed next year so if people want to have the strategic goals formulate these new goals that will be effective for the next year next school year is that right correct yes you know we have reached a point that um that the work in the previous strategic plan um you know we saw in when last year's goals were listed there were some you know it looped or mentioned

015what strategic plan goals from the previous strategic plan it was carrying out and as a district you know the plan usually has about a five or so three to five year life span um and so those districts that are conscientious about carrying it out and using it to guide their work i mean in your district's case you have these great posters made up like it really did guide the work so we now are at a point where um you know where we now need a new one that we have accomplished the things the guidance that was provided in the previous one and now we're at a point that you know we're asking um to have a new one so that we can continue to then use the new one to guide like you said to

016guide future district goals thank you very much and thanks laura i think that so when we set those goals it was back just looking at it right now they were completed on march 7th of 2017 and they were particularly written with goals for five years so 2017 through 2022 so therefore now here we are in 2022 we've had or discussed as a board having that strategic planning meeting again and for reference of folks that are in the public either watching this live or on youtube later you'll know that we use those strategic goals as a mission or a vision for the the district for the next five years and that's everything that we when we build out our district goals for annually um or anything that we're doing really it's focused on uh are are

017they within those strategic goals because that's really the vision for the community um so i think it's obviously i appreciate that dr forte brought this to the district i appreciate the public that was involved five years ago and now it's time to kind of revisit again so i'm glad we are staying on top of it and making sure that we uh complete that strategic planning once again so i did want to mention before we move on to talking about specific goals i just wanted to revisit the board goals and recap a little bit on last year and then talk about what our plan is for uh setting our goal this year a lot of times these meetings with district goal any goals kind of uh are longer meetings so in an effort to try to

018break it up a little bit i made the decision of holding off on our um our board self self-evaluation and doing the uh uh board goal at a separate meeting but just to recap because i think it's important for the public to understand and for all of us to kind of look back on our goal for 2022 that goal was to be responsible fiscal stewards of the district's resources by providing for a high quality education while maintaining the tax impact or excuse me while minimizing the tax impact and planning for the long-term needs of the district and sub-bullets within that were increased understanding usage and appropriation of reserve accounts strategies to minimize tax impact and demographic study and long-term space needs i can say with a huge amount of confidence that we accomplish that goal

019it's one of the more specific goals that we've written since i've been on the board and i think really drove a lot of what we did as a board this year the finance committee did a phenomenal job working with the business administrator and the superintendent on minimizing the tax impact we knew how important that was going to be this year we've utilized reserve accounts appropriately to to offset the tax impact as well as accomplish uh several larger projects um including the vision of having air conditioning in all of our buildings that that was kind of a project that's ongoing right now between electrical upgrades and then obviously the cost of uh installing that air conditioning in every room in the district and then finally the demographic study uh something that i know mr kim was

020really passionate about that we completed just recently a few months ago had a presentation and i thought it was really beneficial one of the more all-encompassing demographic studies and space needs studies that we've looked at and certainly gave us some vision for where the town is heading from a demographics perspective as well as uh our buildings and what we will need we haven't necessarily finalized a plan on that but i think that that's kind of our next step so i would say we've accomplished those goals and obviously i would like to open up to the board if they want to either add anything to that or kind of bring up anything that we need to continue to work on if there's anything we missed okay let's move on to potential goals for 2022 2023 and

021as always dr forte administration thank you for for bringing these to us so the first one is uh the potential goal is create a new strategic plan with the help of the community any feedback from the board on whether they like that goal or they'd like to change it or remove it uh this is james i wanted to talk about the strategic plan um first of all i i before i joined the board i actually participated in the five-year strategic plan really had a great time i had fun with it but the bottom line is there was one poignant um denville resident who really made it a mission of hers during this strategic planning session and it had to do with children's safety i think she was part of the sandy hook or she lived

022in or was close to sandy hook and when she was in our meetings during the strategic planning she made it adamant that we really talk about the safety of the children and fast forward five years later i thought that you know dr forte chief former chief wagner and everyone else did an amazing job with the district and i think because of the strategic plan as well as some other committee meetings that happened subsequent to it the board over the next five years have really focused on the safety and the security of the schools and i do feel personally that we are in a much safer place because of that so i strongly believe that number one should be a a strong goal for us as a district goal because we are definitely um experiencing the

023fruits of the strategic planning sessions five years ago um i mean it's it's the fourth goal and it says to create a safe and secure learning environment equipped with uh equipped to deliver 21st century educational expectations using efficient and sustainable facilities district-wide this was the product of the public this was the product of denville residents who had the foresight to take those current um events that was happening and then utilize that to make our schools safer and i you know i thought the administrative administration uh subsequent to that as well as uh you know with the support of the board did a tremendous job uh dr forte uh you specifically i want to thank you so um and i thought that was a direct result of the strategic plan so yes i definitely am in

024favor of this first one uh as our district goal may i share another example please um so one of the other issues that came up as a community desire was that of civics that was very present in the discussion at the time the town had the town members that participated were really interested in curriculum that went beyond what the standards were in this area so we rewrote our curriculum included much more civics now fast forward to today as you know as of 2022 we have to re do our curriculum to include a semester of civics now we already have all of that curriculum written because we wrote it before and now we're just readjusting it to make sure that it's in the right time frame because they want it one consistent semester rather than over

025three years but that was something that went beyond what the state was asking something that was important to the town we put it in our students have been engaging in these activities for five years and uh and now that's where the state is requiring as of this poll so kind of already there that was probably one of the things that i remember the most about our strategic planning was that civically minded um and empathetic citizens that was the wording that it was out of the strategic plan so appreciate the examples of how we've used the strategic plan for those of you that are uh ever looking at one of our agendas you can see that there's a bunch of references on the agenda those are typically referenced back to our goals for strategic plans so

026if you're seeing something that says reference one that's that's goal number one our strategic plan so we try to really um encompass it in everything that we do from the board and the and the districts so thank you dr carlos for that example anybody else want to comment on the first potential goal yeah i got a few comments going back to the last strategic plans that we did um some board members sprinkled themselves around sitting in on some of the sessions so a lot of citizens were questioning things that we already have been doing so it was an opportunity to get to get filled in and it goes back to our our last meeting we talked about the need for communications that there's always somebody that's missing out on what's what's going on uh but

027the community involvement is a real key piece of uh having all the stakeholders there we had a very diversified group of uh school parents so we had the ceo from st clare's we had just a wide range of stakeholders in the community which are really added uh to a very diverse commentary at that session so make sure we advertise and get a good turnout again absolutely laura looked like you had a comment thank you um i think that number one is extremely important as everyone has already mentioned and um dr forte made an interesting comment about um potentially naming some stakeholders and i think you're right on we had a large number and a variety of people at our last meeting but and i might be wrong so steve correct me if i am but

028i don't believe that we had students attend our last stakeholder meeting and you had mentioned that so i was wondering if you or sandy had a suggestion for how we might be able to include them and if so if we can add them as a stakeholder group because they were not in our last um session there was one girl that was involved but i don't remember if she was actually at the sessions she was the one that designed the logo um but yeah it sounds like we should do it i mean i know it it's a little unreasonable for us to say you know we want five students or whatever the number is and it's we don't know the schedule and it'll be a later evening and their commitments but i think that it's important

029that um with the way that hopefully parents and you know you guys will work with the teachers to find a way to include them and to get their feedback i think that that would be one stakeholder group that was not well represented at our last session i think that's a great idea and i can think of many avenues that we can do with the middle school students we have a lot of very civic minded students we have very well versed students you know i think they would like to be involved but again yeah i think you know it's a really good point laura and i think the other group that we could potentially talk about is former students right because as they become adults they may look back and realize things that impacted them so

030you know it seems like we're heading down the road of having this as one of our goals if we do um then i would uh suggest that maybe we can form a small committee meet once or twice with the administration to just kind of help form what that strategic planning session looks like i know dr forte has a tremendous amount of ideas in his head obviously things that worked last time things that we want to do different this time but it may be worthwhile to just have some of the board members get together once or twice just to kind of review it and make sure that we're all aligned with it so anybody else have any other comments on uh a strategic planning goal for our first goal i don't have anything else about the

031first goal but i think we've already mentioned two goals from our previous strategic plan so i think it might just help to review the other two so that we kind of make sure we've hit all four goals and if there's any points that we haven't met this is our last year with the strategic plan to kind of wrap it up absolutely sure so i'll mention them so goal number one is to develop a culture of learning that enables students to excel in the 21st century global community objectives underneath that goal were to create an environment of collaboration problem solving and creativity and fusing technology where applicable to encourage growth in the area of student learning and staff development second objective under that goal was to review and modify curriculum incorporating current and upcoming technology as

032needed to promote skill-based and real-world applications and the third objective underneath that goal was to develop a shared responsibility beyond the classroom as a community including peers mentors and families so i'll pause there just let's let's kind of dig a little bit into that goal and make sure that there's nothing that we feel is is it's a really good point maybe there's something we can pull out of a goal out of here so anything from that first strategic goal that anybody wants to talk about that they think we haven't hit i think there's a lot in there that we have certainly so the question is is there anything that we haven't hit or anything that you can think of as a goal that a district goal for the year that might be applicable from that

033goal cliff you look like you you seem kind of like you can't meet these you know so they don't ever end um i mean my my background kind of with research is is they have to be measurable and uh you have to be able to assess them i i don't know how you do that with some of these so it's a little hard for me to say that this any of these were checked off i mean i don't even know how you could do that but i i think they're purposely broad because they're five-year goals right and the the reality is in 2017 do you know did you expect that we were gonna have a global pandemic in 2020 right so i think the world changes quickly and can you form goals that are the

034the purpose of these goals are to help drive more specific goals right on an annual basis and i think that's where like is there anything that you look at on here and you say hey there's a district goal that i'd really like to see met that i don't think we met out of here or that is an opportunity for us to build upon so i i agree with you cliff it's it these are kind of um uh overarching but i think they're purposely done that way if i could just add to that i remember five years ago where whatever this was when we did the strategic plan i was a brand new board member and i said almost exactly the same thing to charlene peterson and charlene i'm going to put you a little bit

035on the spot and ask you if i'm sure you've had this question from board members many many times over so if you could just kind of break down for us um and to refresh our memories as well as the public kind of how um and cliff's right these are not these are not measurable goals from year to year but if you could explain briefly the process of how you take that five-year plan and break it down into measurable goals annually sure i'd be happy to so and it's not even only measurable goals annually but it's also putting a plan together that has measurable measurable components to it so the goals are as we said kind of big broad statements that have to be in effect for five years but then from those goals action plans

036are written and typically the action plans are like what are the steps we're going to do to accomplish these over the five years what kind of resources do we need what kind of a timeline is there and then most importantly what are the indicators of success so there's where that measurable piece comes in um and then as you know was just mentioned then we take those goals and then we also kind of make them come alive and use them to guide the work then when we set these district goals like let's say we did um you know move forward with the strategic plan next year when we would be having this this conversation the conversation would be looking then at the strategic plan goals and saying what things of those goals you know are we

037going to focus on for this year recognizing that it's a five-year plan so that's how as a you know as a district you make that strategic plan come to life and it's not just a document that sits on a shelf but actually is a document that guides the work of the district by using it then um as the basis in the formulation of these annual district goals then which also do have action plans and measurable pieces to them as well so as it was said the goals are setting the big direction what's the focus what are the priorities and then we leave it to the educational experts to develop the how um to help develop these goals like i said with the indicators of success and the timelines and the information that is needed to

038measure them yeah if i may um what i would add to this is um that these the strategic plan allowed us or enabled us to help make our decisions as a board as well so for example the the the word that resonates out of this one is technology did we as a board give the administration uh enough tools to expand the available technology to the students did we make decisions based off of that you know where you know from a finance committee did we want to cut corners and reduce the amount of technology are available or when it came down to the question of all right should we spend money on laptops and everything else i think the answer was uh unanimously yes so for me personally i do feel that this one was however

039immeasurable it might be we did give the administration the tools necessary to allow the students to potentially excel in a 21st century environment and the base best case scenario was the ability to have all the children uh with laptops and the technology to have school sessions from home during code right and so and if there was no wi-fi or internet available you know um dr forte made sure that those students had that available as well so i think that for me maybe there were no specific district goals that we set but it helped guide us with our decisions and you know and from a fiscal standpoint as well so yeah i think that's a good point i think there's a few other things that i think of when i see that i look at i

040know dr cullis works very closely with the high school to measure how successful our students are once they leave our district so when you talk about students that excel in the 21st century like it's a little bit tougher once they get beyond high school to track kind of how they're doing but certainly at the high school level we have a good relationship to track that um i look at other things in here like talking about developing a shared responsibility beyond the classroom as a community including peers mentors and family i think about our school of character some of the things that are beyond just the instruction and program that's required um so i i think that i think mr kim makes a good point do we make available the resources to be able to strive

041for these types of goals and how do we measure them certainly i think we've got to go back and measure and figure out are there things that we either did or didn't hit um and and you know i was thinking of technology as you were saying technology i thought the same thing like we transitioned to online virtual learning where a lot of other districts and a lot of other places struggled with that where we did not and i think that was because of the planning that was done and the focus that was put in prior uh with technology so no and i just wanted to to kind of summarize that by saying that i think that's the perfect example is in 2017 2018 when we were writing these goals we made technology a focus not

042knowing that there would be a pandemic not knowing that we would have a need for i think we were doing well with technology and student usage at that point in time but we didn't have a need for every student to have a laptop available but it turns out that during covid we were able to make that a laptop or chromebook i should say available for every student as well as wi-fi or internet access so um i think that's a good example of that overview for the five-year plan and then the only other thing that i wanted to add was that when we go into building the goals for the administrators we will use the district goals and we have talked um about quantitative and qualitative goals for them and we usually make sure that we

043have one of each so that um quantitative goal is a measurable goal so that's more the type of goal i think that you were referencing so the board does have them and use them it's just not in that strategic plan because that five-year vision is so far out but i would agree with exactly what mr kim and mr anderson said about i feel that the district has met this goal um so maybe it's just because i'm new and you know i don't um so i i apologize if that's the case i like all the language here i mean it's like great as a as a vision it kind of excites me to read this it's just that if you're gonna take something off like i just don't know how you you know like as far

044as casting a vision this is this is great you know but if like review and modify curriculum incorporating current and upcoming technology as needed to promote skill-based and real-world applications you're going to check that off and say it's done you know like it goes on right i mean so and that's the point i think exactly cliff of it's a five-year plan right so for this five years and that's why um we're i think we're reviewing them to say hey we're coming up in our five years have we met we've done four out of five years have we met this five year goal so not that it's ever finished and we talk about our district goals the next one coming up is um improving benchmarks for um students who aren't meeting benchmarks and and closing that

045gap is that work ever done no it certainly is it but we it's an ongoing goal but we still need to make it a goal um and like you said kind of set it for the vision so i don't think it's finished but is it finished for this five this five year period that's what i'm saying only that it's finished for this or that we've met that goal and we've accomplished those tasks in the five-year period and what our next five-year goals will be is yet to be determined one thing i noticed like as i'm doing the resolutions for agenda items i try to jot down because sometimes when i'm looking to see what goal does it fit under like i know this is important for students because of x but i'm like i'm not

046sure exactly what goal so then i would write i have been keeping a log of things that may be maybe not that we have to take away from the strategic plan but i can see a few things that we might want to add because we do them but i don't really have a place necessarily i'm like i'm not sure what what that action goes under so that maybe we'll be adding more than i i don't see what we're really taking away but we also tried to cram in some language and make it one thing like curriculum and technology are all in one spot and i'm like well there's kind of some place room to play there but yeah i i might just be too concrete in the language you know when i hear met like

047it's not the same as like did did we do a good job yeah you did a great job was the goal met i don't know how you can meet an immutable goal so i'm just you know it's probably the language that that i'm just getting a little too concrete or fixated on so like because i think you know i mean from from what i've seen uh we've done a really good job with a lot of these items it's just not the same to me as saying you know we completed it you know it's like you you you carried it as far as you could for that amount of time yeah i i think you're right and i think the the other part of it is i i distinctly remember in our strategic planning five years

048ago or four years ago now four and a half years ago i guess the i remember sitting in on that meeting and being like wow there's so much information how do we come to four goals like it was just a lot and i honestly still am amazed that it came down to these four goals these you know three or four objectives per goal because it was like it just felt overwhelming uh to me personally because there was a lot of great information and great stuff that was brought out and i agree with you i think the challenge now is how do you walk away from any of these because i think they're all goals that like stay forever they're just like they they might be 10-year goals and that might be okay right and i

049think that we need to understand that to me the challenge now is going to become how do we ignore the fact that we saw these and think about other goals and and you know move beyond them or keep them how do you decide that yeah i mean i guess because i'm a i'm a new board member i get the i get this every week sandy like puts it in front of me every week so so i get to i get to look at it all the time yeah right the new and i but but that that is true because when i look at these when i keep looking at these goals i can't find anything that i want to do that i couldn't slide into one of these these four goals which is sort of

050i guess why i i think of it as not ever being completed because every time i think of something i'm like okay well that's already a goal you know it's not it's not a plan some of the specifics aren't aren't ironed out the assessments aren't in place but it's already part of the vision so it's more of a vision than a goal right i mean i think you're right i think that's the right terminology because there's not a plan for each one of these goals there's plans for our district goals on an annual basis but not for the strategic i mean the objectives are the closest thing we get to a plan but that's really just to give a little bit more direction a little bit more concrete yeah kind of what we're trying to

051get at or some of the information that was brought out social emotional learning is listed in one of these right so i think that's what it sorry laura okay um the other thing i was going to say is i think that over the years i think we've talked about goals so often as a board that we've also learned that there's things that the district or the administration will continue to do regardless of it's a goal so i agree with you that um while there's nothing within our current five-year plan that we want to remove it might not need to be the focus anymore so that might be a helpful way to look at it where um and i don't know that i even agree with this statement but i'm going to use it as an

052example is that you know security was a huge focus for our strategic plan that's something that i can i think i can comfortably say looking at this board and this administrative team that will continue to be a focus do we need to make it a strategic goal in our next five-year plan i'm not sure that's for the community to to determine right but even if we don't make that a goal i feel very confident that it will still be something that the district focuses on and and moves forward with so not checking it off that it's done and it's complete they'll still be focusing on security and keeping that at the level that we have it right now however there might be some new things that come up that the community brings up that we

053want to shift focus towards that maybe we weren't focused on the past five years i i think that's actually i think that's dr forte and i were talking before the meeting and i think that even our district goals on an annual basis the administration's going to do them anyway right i mean but it's the correct and i think that though the focus for us really needs to be these are things that are so important to the board in the administration and the public that we want to get reported back to them on a regular basis because we get action plans we get reported back so we really do follow exactly what's going on with them so yes they're like for instance when i look at the benchmark ones i literally said to dr forte do

054we need to continue to put that on every year now dr kulas then says and she's 100 right it's the most important thing we do is is instructional program and education of our students so it needs to be a focus so she's right and she changes my mind every time when i think about they really need to do it because i know she's going to do it i know dr forte is going to do it i know our our staff are going to do it on a daily basis that's what they're automatically going to do but it's got to be important for us to focus on a few individual things that we really kind of hone in on that we want to keep track of so let me move on to the second goal and

055the strategic uh plan and then we can kind of just talk about it make sure i don't know which way to go but i'll go to this one next provide a rich learning environment based on the new jersey standards that will challenge students at all level levels with a standardized system to measure growth objectives under there objective number one was to continue to provide comprehensive and challenging curriculum by differentiating academic opportunities objective number two is to implement student-centered approaches to learning using unique delivery methods to address a variety of learning styles objective number three was to expand implementation of and infuse technologies to increase student learning and the final objective under that goal was to maintain effective growth-oriented professional development any comments on either things that you feel like we've accomplished well in there or

056more importantly things that we may find as an opportunity for a goal i don't know if this falls into this category but uh one of the things as we get out of uh school and college into the workforce is uh definitely teamwork right nothing nothing gets done by an individual so where would that fall and how would you describe i'm thinking that's the closest it comes to it's a good question i think and a lot of these things we talk about i think fall under multiple multiple of these goals kind of like what doctor calls for saying but i would point to even the goal that talks about self-aware resilience civically minded empathetic citizens because those are things you need to be a good teammate and it even talks particularly about social emotional learning to

057me that's how do we have interpersonal skills and interact with each other so um i think that's the one i would probably point to the most but open i think i think it could fall under a few and we'll let me move on to that goal because we can talk through it too create an environment that fosters self-aware resilience civically minded and empathetic citizens objectives underneath that goal are number one promote global citizenship in our students number two utilize social emotional learning to enhance students capabilities to meet challenges ethically and effectively and to prepare for future successes number three to meet the needs of the whole child by providing an inclusive and enriching learning environment that encourages students to discover and develop their unique talents and abilities and the final is to foster a community

058of growth mindset learners that recognize that intelligence and talent can be developed through their hard work persistence and dedication any comments that anybody wants to make on that one this was the one goal in the strategic plan that i was really happy to see from the community and it was driven by the community i mean they were really this was important to them right i think that they recognize that yes they want academically sound they want students to learn but they want them to learn and also be in an environment that teaches them how to be good teammates how to work uh with other students how to you know be empathetic and and this is an area i think we've really really strived with in the last five years when you think about the schools

059of character awards that we've gotten the social emotional learning we brought into the district i think that you know obviously we'll talk about as we get into the strategic planning but this is actually one that i brought up to dr forte when i looked at the potential goals do we need a mental health goal coming out of the last couple years and all the challenges we've had is there another goal that we need to be really specific on to support the emotional health of our students so just something to kind of chew on if the board thinks it would be needed or appropriate i think it may be something we need to think about yes i think that's really the power of the five-year plan is that we never would have expected that we would

060have met those technology goals as well as we did if we didn't have a pandemic because we have everybody from preschool to eighth grade i mean certainly our middle school was there our fourth and fifth graders were getting there but i'll tell you pre-k to three learn so much so quickly that i mean in this five-year plan will technology be the focus probably not the main focus right because i think we've grown so much in that area but maybe now it's mental health maybe we see okay now there's a more glaring need in another place but yes all those things will still be worked on but certainly we would not have to do the amount of work we did in technology over the last five years in the next five years i mean that's what

061i think yeah i think cliff is the expert here but for me when i saw the word resilient i mean i think that's that comes to my mind right it's i just recently heard a podcast a hidden brain is an amazing podcast how uh this little kid who was a sort of hearing impaired so he was considered considered not so intelligent when he was a little kid and he was held back in class and whatnot and he goes on to become a psychologist who does a research on standardized testing in amazing work and to me the word that kept coming back was how did he bounce back after every single person around him told him he was dumb somehow he just totally believed in himself from a very young age how do we build that

062into every child right to be able to believe in themselves that they can do it right no matter what the world tells tells them right to me that word resilience i don't know if you can beef it up more within this course maybe extract something more specific out of it so i think we could probably table that as an option for a district goal issue or at least maybe incorporate that's another option too we'll take a look and see if it fits in so let me move on to the final um strategic goal to create a safe and secure learning environment equipped to deliver 21st century educational expectations using efficient and sustainable facilities district-wide objectives underneath that goal include continue to assess and improve internal and external school safety and security during and after our

063after school hours number two continue to upgrade improved facilities to be cost effective energy efficient and sustainable number three continues to strive for maximum efficiency and balance in use of facilities across the district and the final objective is to continue to address maintenance needs when enhancing existing facilities and planning for the elimination of the use of rentals and substandard instructional space any comments mr cass would you like to comment on this one this might be the mystery i'm highly familiar with it and i was uh like to brag about it we we've made tremendous strides in upgrading our facilities and athletic field up in valley view so uh and as we use the words continue continue continue to continue on all four items there um a lot of these goals are just a it's a

064work in progress and when barbara the luna was here she said well you know number 30 on the list ended up a number in the top 10 and got done and then whatever it is 5 10 15 years later uh you know it goes back on the list on the top it'll go down down the bottom so it's uh it's never ending i'm sure people will be here a couple hundred years from now hopefully talking about the same thing with the facilities that you have to have to stay on top of them there was a article in the daily record today about the former advocates of schools in particular and the deplorable condition they are in newark and patterson i mean and they're talking about trailers that we had or learning cottages was the politically

065correct term that they've been in for like 20 years and they're falling apart um so now i don't know didn't have a lot of specifics there did they have a five-year plan strategic plan and how much did they chip away on on you know but the the leaky roofs etc so it it's very important to keep the facilities in in good shape it's really key to learning it's very disruptive when you have a leaky roof and you've got wastebaskets in the gym and the floorboards warping and everything so it's always a an ongoing goal and we've made just a tremendous amount of progress with that and always remind the public a referendum so far to do millions and millions of dollars of work and then the saint mary's uh leasing is really a tremendous opportunity

066that came across our our way and we were able to do it again without a referendum and i believe it was around 700 000 we put in that building to upgrade it get up to speed so uh did a good job so i look forward to keeping that goal churning mr cash here i think your comment about it it's always it's always needed is uh is spot on i i would say when i came on the board i would have never thought that we were ever going to talk about air conditioning in every room in the district and i would have said we need computers we need a field we need you know like there's a lot of things we need and like air conditioning for you know 20 days a school year or something

067like that was just not something that was on my personal priority list nor probably the district but now it is right because we've been able to do all those other things we we didn't have we we had probably five million dollars in roofs we had to do when i joined so um there's been a lot of work done here i think we are always looking for the next opportunity um i think uh we're we've been able to take a deep breath but i don't think i've before i read this statement today i can't remember the last time i heard substandard instructional space used and that was a term that was used probably five times a meeting for several years yep so it's something that we we will continue to look at and obviously with the

068demographic study that we looked at it's going to be something that's probably not going to go away as we look at additional uh building within the town and potential growth of students and everything like that but um i don't personally see anything from this year board goal that would be i'm sorry district goal that would be important to pull out of here unless somebody else sees something okay so we've gone through all them uh thank you mrs wagner for that idea i think that was really helpful for us to kind of check in and i think the only thing we pulled out and let me know if anybody else has any other ideas is potentially a mental health addition to a goal or a separate goal anybody have anything else they want to bring up

069i'd like to revisit number one and maybe include the wording for uh to communicate to the community the upcoming strategic planning sessions that we're gonna have so that we um if if not meat exceed the attendance that we had from the last uh from five years ago so yeah i think there's two ways we can do that i think in the past we've um kind of put like sub-bullets under a goal or um there's obviously action plans that come from the administration so that's certainly and i think always it's important that we bring up stuff like that that's and you know as we build out a goal everybody on this board probably has an idea in their mind about how to implement that so whether it's tonight or even shoot an email to dr forte

070about you know hey within that goal that we talked about i'd really like to see this or that um i think that's really helpful for dr forte to create those action plans so that's a really good point mr kim um so are we is everyone good with create a strategic plan as being uh one of our goals for this year okay so we will keep that as kind of goal number one if you want to list it that way um and charlene speak up if if you want to kind of take the ball and run with this it's up to you how you want to facilitate moving forward here no i mean i think that it's important like i said we're to the point of the board having a conversation on it um and so

071you know you're doing exactly what needs to be done of giving all the board members the opportunity to weigh in thank you please feel free to always jump in if you have an idea you've had a great experience and knowledge across multiple boards so if there's something you see as a best practice we're always open to hear um so next uh goal and uh as dr kulla said obviously academics and instruction program being uh foremost on our agenda increase achievement for all students who are not meeting grade level benchmarks and there's a note about grades k through two and six seven ela dr coles did you want to add a little bit to that those are the areas that we're revising the curriculum and bringing in new materials that we've already approved new materials for

072those grades so we we knew there we know there's a some concerns so we wanted to make sure that we were buying materials and revising the curriculum to address those particular grades so every year we kind of look at a different area we continue doing the things we're doing but we have to put we put more energy and revising focusing on one particular area and it's ela in those grades okay anybody from the board have any questions comments agree disagree with that goal dr cole is you um so we last year's district golds was focusing on grades five through eight math do you think that the tools that you put in place or the curriculum you have in place is enough to continue for another year or should we carry that over also for uh

073district goal for this year i'm not sure you have to make it a goal but i definitely will continue doing it i mean we already purchased those items again and we don't have enough data right now to be able to compare anything so i definitely want to at least do one more year to make sure that i mean i'm getting i can see the data of one year i can hear from what the teachers are telling me that they feel like those students are progressing farther and faster towards algebra um but that's antidotal you know so yes i mean i don't it's up to you if you want to make it a goal but certainly we'll continue working on those so dr calls i just want to ask a question generally about we we've had

074this goal i think going back five years um in one way shape or form maybe slightly different wording or different focus obviously how do we uh is there a spot that we're getting into like how how do we get into the spot where we have students are the students declining or is it just like how do we how do we get ahead of this i guess is my point like without getting to the point of having to let them decline and i don't know if they're declining but how do we how do we get ahead of it is it something we can do to try to reinforce earlier or anything we can do to try to get ahead of the curve i think we could probably even revise that goal to be that we're getting

075students two benchmarks so it's not just students who have gaps i mean we're just the things that we're putting in place are to get the students where they need to be for grade level not just the kids that are behind so we could revise the language on that to address that it's really for all students it's also pushing kids forward in those grade levels that are beyond the standards so i think it i mean we could play with some words there about that really what we're doing is addressing the curriculum and the focus the academic focus in those grade levels it's not just the kids that are behind and going back to cliff's point i don't want to water down the goal but i also you know we've got students that are probably and are

076accelerated in advanced courses and how do we push them right i think we've talked about this before right we don't want to just focus on the students that are maybe not meeting but how do we push the students all across the spectrum higher all curriculum is written for all students and then we try to find ways that okay if they're individual needs because it really doesn't matter even if they're on grade level there's always some standard that isn't their strongest you know so we're still always working which that's one of the greatest things that i have i've enjoyed about dreambox is we went across and you can see every grade level what what standard and what grade level the student's on so they may be way ahead in some standards and a grade level behind

077in one standard you know so it's rare that you find a student that's excelling in every standard or you know so it's kind of always this across the board some below some on some above um so i think we're always just constantly working towards meeting the standards and providing interventions for students that need assistance filling gaps and also interventions to push them forward so maybe we could just kind of play with the wording on that and the other i guess it's more the focus is just the content yep got it any other comments from the board our ideas like it don't like it i like making it it broader the language that dr khal has suggested so that it's um clear when you read the goal that we're focusing on all students i think that

078in the past we struggled with the language because excuse me i think we tried to make this goal in particular the most measurable goal that we could so um we're constantly playing that back and forth game so it sounds like maybe this year we're going back to making it broader which of course makes it less measurable however i'm confident that dr kullis is constantly processing the data and we'll report back on that when she can for us does that give dr forte dr calls enough to kind of build out a goal from there okay all right so let's move on to the third possible goal which is cultural diversity equity and inclusion thoughts on this one the only thing i want to say i don't really have any specific thoughts on number three but i

079think at this point i think we've all identified that number one and number two are must have goals for the district for the year so then i think it's time for us to look at how many goals do we want to have before now you know we've discussed mental health and i don't know if there's any other things that haven't come up yet tonight that we want to add but i think now is the time to talk about anything else and then kind of whittle it down so obviously number three is certainly a potential i would think that mental health is something that we want to throw out there as a potential goal and then are we happy with three do we want you know do we feel strongly about this potential number three and

080mental health that we want four goals so again how many goals do we really want to have in one year and i think that number three could include i mean because there's no language really there yet the mental health piece too so i think that that is really um the encompassing piece that students their mental health uh in the social setting right that there's a lot of issues that go with that so it could go under that goal since there's not really it's just a very broad category and and i went back just quickly to look on our web page to look so it looks like 17 18 18 19 i think even 1920 we had like a mostly four goals sometimes three we've whittled that down the last couple years because certain things have

081been super important right i think 2020 2021 was about like you know obviously the pandemic and then the last year has been really about getting the students back in so i think we really wanted to allow the administration to focus on some more specific goals but three to four is where my mind's at i think the more specific you are the better um at the same time let's also remember that we've whittled down some of the like we've eliminated merit goals for some of our administrators so it allows them some additional time to probably focus on on some of this these are once again these are things that the administration is going to do my only comment on this one specific goal and i'm okay with three or four i guess is i guess my

082comment on it i don't know if dr forte has any opinion on that i think i think we could either build the mental health piece into number three or we could have three and four either way i think it's fine i don't do you feel the same way sandy board could build it either way because we're trying to think of it as an scl goal and we're like okay what are the seo topics that we're talking about and definitely mental health is embedded in there and should be blatantly set in there you know we certainly can put it right in there because that is really important charlene can i ask you what what do you see from other districts as far as number of district goals we're talking maybe three or four is there kind

083of a sweet spot that you see amongst other districts that would be it i mean we definitely recommend the districts like our tool even only goes up to five our evaluation tool because we think that's too many and it's very rare that a district has five goals so three to four is where most are and it's for the you know for the reasons you just you know mentioned before of just making sure that you're really focusing on those things that are absolutely the most important because when we start adding too many different areas to focus on we're diluting the areas that really need that important focus so to stay at three and four would be ideal thank you um i i personally think that and i think we obviously have to get some wording around

084number three because that was the only comment i was gonna make is it's just some it's words right now we need to kind of figure out some wording for that or at least maybe push it back to dr forte and see if he has some some suggestions but i personally feel like cultural diversity equity and inclusion and social the mental health portion they're both so important i think we should have two specific goals meaning push it out to four goals this year i think when you think about goals thinking back to what cliff had mentioned you know smart goals the first thing is specific i think if we add in social emotional learning into cultural diversity equity and inclusion it's kind of like well you just shove those together to try to make three goals

085instead of four so i i think they're both really important this year i think and i don't look at the other goals and think we can pull anything off i mean strategic plan we all agree is important the uh increased achievement or the academic goal i think is extremely important that's the most important thing we do and the other two are just so important right now i don't see any way to avoid putting them as separate goals but but i'm open to ideas or suggestions if anybody has any when i looked at the strategic plans here uh number three the goal says create an environment that forces self-aware resilience civilly-minded empathetic citizens uh that to me cultural diversity equity and inclusion would be part of that um you know i could debate it either way

086where it should be a standalone goal but i think um you know promote global citizenship in our students is very broad uh based and encompassing up a lot of things um and the uh the mental health um you know which is really important in today's school environment um that uh you know could almost be part of a goal number four from uh 2022's future plan create a safe and secure learning environment equipped to deliver 21st century educational expectations etc and the mental health is certainly part of that and we also you know we're just not starting to talk about this we've been talking about this for years and we've already done a lot with counseling and professional people on staff and professional people on hand vendors if you will counselors on call and we have

087the uh the hook up with st claire's and everything so we've made great strides with the mental health and there's more to do and the way the country is today in the world is today probably something that's got to be on the radar screen all the time every year so i would be an advocate for um the goals three and four and i don't have language for either but i think i have two words that would help us and i think you pointed out the first one is we if we base number three um or whatever do mental health first if you want to build a mental health goal build it around around the word resilience and if you want to take number three and use the word acceptance and you know instead of talking

088about every sub-category and every um group it's just teaching acceptance and you know if you can build two goals around those two words that's my recommendation for both of those categories um are we voting on this today no so what we'll do is uh give some feedback and dr forte keep me honest here we'll give some feedback on on what the board feels and then usually dr forte will take that back come up with some specific wording we can help if we've got some ideas but otherwise usually dr forte come up with some good wording run it by the board and then we'll vote on it usually at the next meeting or when is that news you voted on yes well typically we do this in july and then vote out in august but now

089we're in june so it'll probably it'll probably still be august it could be it could be july but it might be august so we've still got a little bit of time we can talk about either in committee or even at the next board meeting that gives us another kind of meeting to talk about it to tweak if there's any ideas or suggestions we're not voting on this tonight so fantastic um i am in favor of four as well i do think the mental health portion is just as important i agree i love ms wagner's suggestions about including the words real resiliency and acceptance uh and yeah i think between three and four more language uh once we hash out what the language should be um it should be uh some very concrete goals for 2022-2033

090so in in 1920 we had a goal it was to expand the social emotional learning and mental health program and the evidence was that we started the program with sinclair so we could build off that if if you guys think that that's uh the wording we're looking for yeah i think it's got to be even a little bit bolder right in other words we've we've we've built a program you guys done a phenomenal job on building a a program for this we got to take it to the next level it's there's there's enough of a need that we've really got instead of just saying we had a partnership with st claire's what are we doing with that what what else can we do with either that or find another opportunity i'm not i'm not sure

091what it is but i think we've got to do more and we've got to really up our game when it comes to that i think there's a need for it in the community and within our schools yeah i think the only way it's going to really be helpful is if it's built into the curriculum itself um you know into the classrooms it has to get folded in otherwise it becomes sort of a one-and-done you know it's sort of like you probably all have had experiences like that's where you have like a little lesson plan you move on and it's it's out of your out of your head um as opposed to and there's opportunity as i've i've seen the new reading curriculum for was it um seventh grade um and there's there's social learning built

092into it but it's well i don't wanna go into i i think it'll take a lot to to get the teachers to do it in a way that's going to be effective but um but it's it's pretty cool but i think you know it needs to be kind of worded that way kind of put out there that this isn't something that you do on the side but it's it's folded into everything and it's already started i mean that's the great thing about the you know you see it in the the the way that lake views uh hallways are are labeled and there's a lot that's there it just just needs to sink a little deeper and i think from a board perspective cliff we were glad um when you joined the board because this has

093been a conversation the board members have had prior to you sitting on the board was that we wanted to do more but we're not mental health care professionals and we don't know like mike said we want to do more and we need to step up our game but we as a board don't know how to direct the administration to do so so i think we'll be leaning on you as a board heavily for that direction i'll do my best um for me i i think part of it has to do with training the staff and whether or not there's any form of recognition that they can you know learn i mean so is there opportunities where we can further develop the staff where they are more sensitive to it or they have the tools necessary

094to recognize any challenges that students might have emotionally again this is assuming for me this is assuming that there's currently not a lot of training being done so if if there is then you know then i just simply need to be enlightened but if there isn't then are there are there is a research that could be done or is there uh training that could be given to the staff so that they have more tools to one recognize and to if not assist maybe help the parents and the child by assigning them the appropriate tools or the professionals that might be uh needed so at least those are my thoughts we yes we have been engaging in the last two years significant pd and we actually have a relationship with a group called welcoming schools for

095the next three years and we just got the grant i told you i put in for it in january we did get accepted for the ywca to provide the um some workshops for parents so we're definitely working on those things it gets here's where it gets tricky because we know that we have such a diverse group of students with a lot of different needs so we're training staff to be prepared for what each kid brings to the table because there's a lot and then it's sometimes those are the issues that we that parents question us on and say well you shouldn't be learning that you know teachers shouldn't be knowing that because they might tell the kids this but we're trying to prepare our teachers for every scenario that they may come across right and

096so that's why we value it the teachers need to know you know this year we did um just the end of the year we just did some work on students that uh with acceptance with gender you know so those are kinds of things the teachers need to know about um so that they can watch for signs and of mental health issues or of struggle or of need you know so that's where i that um when you see the work that we're doing i'm so grateful that the board has always been supportive because our we have taken it as we need to learn as much as we can to help and include everyone and deal with everyone's needs but i know that there will be conversations that people come to you and say and ask why

097are the teachers having that pd that shouldn't be in schools necessarily but we have been providing those so that they are prepared and i think that's where our strategic goals come in because i can point to them and say that's what the community wanted right the community wanted that included in our schools not just academics but social emotional learning and all those things that was feedback from the community not from the board of the administration so i you know i think that's where we kind of point back to and really focus on and i i personally think our staff does a phenomenal job i and the administration i mean the pd that we provide to this i wish we had more opportunities for pd and i know we do the best we can we utilize

098every minute of those pds we can um but i think that that is really listen art our staff is and correct me from wrong but there are there are classes in education in college and everything has been not focused on some of these things that's not been a focus there you know that if we can help them build out how um how they can support our students both beyond the academics and really to the point of social emotional learning or supporting them in cultural diversity things like that but you're right it's a super sensitive subject to some so i'm guessing that many of our staff members almost avoid it in a way that they want to do it but they don't want to get themselves into a spot where they say something where they're being

099accused of doing something inappropriate or listen there's times when i don't know what to say i'm going to be honest as an adult like do i call you you know what name or how do i address this or you know it's just there's a lot of questions out there so i think the more education we give it but i can i could say i you know from a board perspective we certainly support our staff and so i mean part of me feels like is this would this goal be specific about pd it's probably too specific i mean to i guess it's probably to try not broad enough i think there's a lot more we can do with it than just providing pd to the staff but certainly that's probably part of it in both those

100goals both cultural diversity and the social emotional learning or the mental health side i think pd and staff education has to be a big part of it yeah absolutely and the great thing is our staff is so receptive and at first sometimes they've been a little nervous when they're the topic but we have gotten such great relationships and presenters right because we did really did research who were the groups that we wanted to work with and their their focus on on how they're presenting the material and the staff is just so grateful afterwards they're so grateful of you know i really i'm so glad that you shared that information or allowed us to you know because we wanted to learn about it we didn't know how to go about it so i think it's good

101that's great to hear there's sort of a second kind of topic that came up here that's something that i've been thinking a little bit about i mean some some people you're never going to be able to assuage i mean that's just but there is sort of this sense of distrust you know that you know if if i if i really if i really trusted the person who's teaching my kids i would feel more comfortable and i'm just thinking like parents today i've noticed across the board for the most part seem to be want to be more involved but the schools are a little more remote now due to security and well covet in particular but i've i felt it and noticed it myself i feel a gap you know even being on the board and

102i'm just wondering maybe this is part of that communications um but there may be an answer in there that's that's even beyond just saying you know this is what the community came up with but a way to really try and build a little bit more of a connection to feel more connected um you know i it's it's i i had to kind of fight just to get into the my son's camp you know to kind of see you know it was like a you know so it's it's harder to see where our kids are at and um you know i have a younger kid maybe you know i said you get they get older you kind of kind of forget but um there's still a little kind of like mother henish stuff going on and

103um and it's harder to feel that kind of kind of connection and i do think the staff is wonderful and if there was some way to kind of work on that and again i also recognize i don't want to put more burden on the staff you know because a burnt out teacher isn't good for anybody or burnt out you know and i i get that so i don't know what the what the answer is i think it would take some creativity but um i think that there's there's some there's something there because i i've heard it from other parents too this sort of feeling like the school is in iowa and somewhere off in the distance so my words not theirs like waxing a little poetic apologize it's actually interesting you say that you feel

104like the public wants to get more involved because sometimes i i feel like they wish they were right and and right i feel like sometimes it's hard to get them to come out right there's got to so there's got to be an engagement from some side or the other right it's got to be meet in the middle the staff and i think our staff wants to do more but obviously what can they do and then i think the public sometimes it's like i mean even like open house like even a back-to-school night sometimes i'm like wow how do people not come to it like this is an environment but i i think some of that is is uh you know those assessments that again from that communications person side is some of these things just

105they don't work for a reason you know there's a timing issue people work longer hours now um multiple kids i mean i've we've struggled to get to places because we have two young kids um it's always a split you know and and sometimes we look at the times for things i'm not necessarily saying the school but just in general it's like oh like how how do we even do this or why is it at that time you know so i don't know that again there's there's reasons behind it and i think that with some creativity maybe some more but this may all come out in the community too i mean it would be exciting if it did so i don't know if i'm jumping the gun i don't know where these things fall but so

106if i could just add i don't think that you're jumping the gun i think that it's important for this year and i think you kind of hit the nail on the head when you talked about communications it's another piece that the board has been talking about for several years and um we were able to the administration was able to take action on it but i think that if we linked communication in with um however the administration is going to write these goals that we're um you know that you're planning to have resiliency built into the curriculum i'm just using very broad language right now and then communicate that to the community and then for the other goal um you're having acceptance built into the curriculum and you're communicating that to the community i don't know

107if that's too much for one goal you know commute doing it and communicating it but i think that both are important because i think you're right not through people's schedules and needs but also through covid people have felt isolated from the world right from one another so from their child's school is certainly understandable so i get that um and that's why i think that we've identified that communicating with the community that right yeah is so important um so i think that if we can link those two somehow into that goal three and four that we'll be doing the students a service but the parents as well and then like mr anderson said being able to point to the goal and when we're asked well why was that a discussion in my child's classroom well it

108goes back to resiliency which is a goal here and we're communicating it with you and the staff and that's you know that's the reason that it was done so if you guys at the administrative team think that that's workable then that would be my suggestion yeah and i think you know cliff you actually bring up a good point as i'm sitting here thinking there's a there's a lot of things that we did pre-covered that we can start bringing back right we used to bring people in like i know math was a big push right so come in and talk to your elementary student elementary students class about how math is important in your profession whatever it might be right we had chefs that came in and talked and and other professions that came in so

109i think there's like as i'm thinking it's it's about diversifying all the different things right there's things during the evening there's things during the day there's things that are fun there's things that are so you're right we need to we need to continue to open the buildings more and more and just get back to some of the things we did before and i know we still did some of it but how can we continue to push the envelope on looking at those and expanding it so and i just want to add that um i i don't think that this is a um this is just a note i think that we're feeling as parents i mean i've my lakeview student now is going into fifth grade and i remember being much more in the buildings

110when she was in kindergarten and when my older students were in kindergarten but times have changed so it's also about giving the administration the time to change the policies appropriately i mean you know covet has changed so much just this year that they didn't know okay well all the all the class parents can come in no you can't come in no you i mean it's based on the coveted numbers at the time so we have to give the staff and the administration the time to keep the policies create the policies that are keeping our students as safe and our staff as safe as possible but also like you said getting more more and more back to normal as as quickly as we can so i think we've landed on four goals it sounds like um

111and i know we've talked a little bit on obviously the first two are are kind of set uh the next two need a little bit of work on the wording but dr ford did do you have enough to kind of build out some goals from there so this is what i have for uh the last two the second two goals so um something around acceptance of all people and something around mental health wellness for staff and students and include the word resilience now we'll work on the wording exactly that's that's the basic overall idea i have for three and four okay that sounds good to me so do either you or dr cullis have any feedback about adding in those three and four um communicating that to how we're doing that to the community do

112you think that's adding too much into a goal we probably need to communicate all of them so i would say charlene did you have any other feedback no i think you know that it were kind of wrapping up here at a good point at one point i was getting a little worried maybe from the board perspective that we were delving a little bit into the how um and sometimes we have to make sure that we're you know keeping our focus on kind of that bigger picture in the what but i think as we're wrapping it up here i think that that you know that the board did that that kind of set the what of the the direction of the four different areas good well thank you charlene i appreciate it um i think we're

113good on this section anybody have anything else on the goal setting they wanted to bring up before you move on can we just make a note for um strategic goals that there were some things mentioned tonight that we should keep in our minds for when we go to set strategic goals like future space needs mental health and potential measurement of that goal and ongoing facility and security are things that we all touched upon tonight that really fall under not this year's goals but strategic goals so one of the the first thing we're going to do when we do our strategic plan after we do the board meeting we're going to we're going to have a update on the status of the district like 2022 and a recap of of how we did on the strategic

114plan over the last five years at that point that's where these types of things should come out like what are the things we need to work on going forward so i i feel very confident that those things are going to be said in in those kinds of presentations the one thing and and charlene let me know what you think but the one thing i always focus on in the strategic planning or at least think about is i almost don't want to give too much direction because i want to hear from the public as to what they think is important and maybe it's different it's almost like i think the strategic goals are like the community's goals the district goals are our goals that we use from the strategic plan to kind of give a little

115bit direction to the administration on it so i agree with you i think the recap of how we're doing dr forte and some of the things that you're thinking about for the future at a high level or is important but i don't want to give too much like they're kind of the community's goals but certainly do you agree with that so yeah so basically you're both kind of right and saying the same things that it's important that we give the community information that it needs in order for the community to have informed discussions so so it's important they have that information but it not be directive and say like we think it should be this and we think it should be that but we want to give you information so that when you have conversations

116they can be informed conversations about you know where you think we've been and where you think we need to go perfect okay but thank you laura it's a really good point and i think we can probably encompass both of those so um okay so charlene thank you very much for your assistance it's always great to see you virtually and enjoy cape may and thank you for coming on we appreciate it thank you it is my pleasure good night everyone good night good night and we'll move on so uh at our july 18th meeting we will have a presentation on our 2021-2022 full-year hiv ssds presentation uh from dr forte um so let's move on to superintendent's comments dr forte okay one second okay so a couple quick announcements we have uh our projects are moving

117forward everything's moving along we do have a draft of our lrfpa for part of the district that's long range facilities plan we will share that with the board as soon as possible and the back to school night schedule for 22 23 at morris knowles will be doing their back to school nights on september 22 and 29th valley view will be september 15. riverview is september 14 and late view is september 21. this is also my last board report and it'll be in the next one if you want to see it you could also look at this document as well and some of our orientations we have our new staff orientation will be august 22-24 our valley view orientation for students august 25 riverview is august 2 9. lakeview is august 30th and our staff convocation

118our annual staff convocation will be august 31st from 1 to 3 p.m at ccm and normally we do it in the morning but this year is their first day of school and they asked if we could do it in the afternoon so we are going to have our staff convocation in the afternoon and the staff will meet with their in their buildings first thing in the morning on the 31st and then go to ccm um we also had a there was a rec an article in the daily record this past week about our [Music] um what are those rooms sensory rooms sorry the sensory rooms that we're very proud of in our district and um unfortunately the um reporter i i i it showed both sides of it whether or not it was positive and

119negative the headline they chose was very negative if you read the whole article it did show both sides that there was and you know that's responsible journalism that if there's if there's evidence or research out there that supports something and evidence of research out there that that that goes against it right i mean that's that's responsible it's unfortunate that that the article was really based on riverview even though it was on in a national really after some national research he did and then also that the editors chose to have the very negatively slanted headline um and you know i i talked to the reporter who has been very good to our district over the years and i i just said i felt like it was unfortunate because it's a it's a source of pride for

120our district and just like we had just had some conversations it is it is difficult to quantitatively measure a lot of the things we do that doesn't mean it's not doesn't have value and i mean how long did we just spend on the mental health of the students in this conversation and and if there's a way to reduce some anxiety for students especially during these difficult times um we're all for it and some of the things weren't even really true like for example it wasn't just a taxpayer dollars that was it was funded through pta grants so um we stand behind it sandy and i we we we see it right our educational experts see the advantage of it can we say like because of this there's less of that or there's less of this

121we might be able to make some statements like that but i really feel strongly that in this time the reduction of anxiety of students and staff is is super important and uh we'll stand by that all the way to the end and i don't know if sandy if you want to chime in i just know that our principal miss theodoropoulos was was was pretty upset that that had such a negative slant and and really because of the headline and uh the the um the reporter did say that he doesn't get to choose the headlines that the editors do but um the problem is a lot of people don't take the time to read the whole article so you're just looking at the headline and not really seeing the whole thing so i just wanted to

122point that out to the board and um and maybe sandy if you want to i think i hit most of it but you might have something else right and the article wasn't necessarily the people that were discussing possible downsides of sensory rooms do not know how we use it or what we're doing right so um that's just however they have experienced it i will say um the fact that our rooms are really focused on teaching kids how to self-regulate that can be used not just in a sensory room that can be done at home or you know in their classroom anywhere i mean i think those that is an incredibly important skill it does go along with resiliency we need to teach them to be able to read their own body language and know what

123kinds of things they can do about it so i think it's incredibly important and it's you know it's very valuable and we have seen anecdotal evidence from parents and everyone that are just really happy with what they have seen and how they have seen their children grow so we'd be happy to share with anyone that can come and visit the room and we can explain how we use it at any time dr forte i'll just make a quick comment that speaking from the board we have 100 trust in our staff so if our staff think it's the right thing we support them and we thank you for putting it in place and we've personally seen presentations from staff members here to the board showing the benefit of it and talking about the advantage they've seen

124for students and the focus they've seen so um whatever you know experts uh they've quoted or have opinions from our experts or our staff and i believe in them wholeheartedly appreciate that thank you sorry that's it for my comments thank you dr forte assistant superintendent's comments dr coles do you have any yes so today we started our summer programs and it was a very exciting day it felt like the first day of school it was so much energy we have approximately 300 students in our program so we lakeview was full a very smooth start considering it was the first day and all we asked for was please don't rain during dismissal and it poured during dismissal so we had to get like the kids out lined up in the hallways it was hilarious we're like

125that's all we ask for um but it went great we have a lot of middle school students are helping out we you know it just really was wonderful to see the older kids and the little kids there and them so happy only being out of school a few days and to be back and excited about it it was wonderful so that goes through august uh was it 4th august 4th okay the family life curriculum presentation will be at the august board meeting so august 22nd so those that are interested i will try to put together the presentation prior and maybe even have some opportunities for parents to come on it before the actual presentation excuse me for sixth grade or families rising into sixth grade the ela and math placements will be available on genesis

126by july 8th when they are ready i will send out an email we're just in the process rolling over genesis and and getting those things up but they just take a few weeks to get all of the data loaded for placements um for the sixth grade and the presentation which is on here on the on the addendum is the courageous connections and that is a presentation that's based on brene brown's work so it's one of the bernay brown trainers who is coming to work with our staff on vulnerability and resilience which i think that was ironic for eight hours on july 5th and 6th so teachers i had surveyed them earlier in the year to see who would be interested in me bringing in this trainer if you're familiar with brene brown's work it's amazing

127and you can google and go on youtube and even see clips of her work it's pretty great but it's one of the trainers that will be in and it will be those two days so there's about 25 staff members who are coming in to do that but it's open to any of our staff this concludes the assistant superintendent's report thank you dr collis mrs karasi any business administrators comments supporting the strategic planning planning uh goal number four uh for tonight's uh resolutions we have two resolutions on the finance to deposit funds into the capital and maintenance research reserve this resolution must be done typically in june anytime during june uh per the statute on the department of education that concludes my report thank you mrs gorowski and we're going to move on to our first

128open public comment discussion for agenda items only note we see i see no one in the public so i'm not going to read the entire statement but i'm going to open our public comments section at 9 10 p.m and just remind those that are watching virtually if you'd like to make a comment in the future or even at our meeting this evening you can come in person at danville town hall we have two public comments sections one at the beginning of our meeting and one at the end of our meeting seeing no one come forward i'm going to close our open public comments section at 9 10 pm and move on to our agenda okay under old business action to be taken mrs wagner would you mind moving us through old business certainly um i

129would like to move under old business a b and c which are treasurers of school monies and board secretary report from may of 2022 education reports report of student enrollment report of health office of may 2022 and kim k hibb case bv 21 22-12 and minutes from the work session and executive session of the may 9th 2022 meeting as well as regular session and executive session of the may 23rd 2022 meeting all second thank you mrs wagner mr cass any questions comments seeing none roll call please mrs wagner yes mr cass yes mr kim yes doctor abu nadassen yes dr moore yes mr anderson yes all right under a new business action to be taken this evening best back to you mrs wagner for personnel please if there are no objections i would like to

130move under personnel items one which are a through bear with me as i flip it's very long all the way through to fff on the regular agenda and then i want to bring your attention to the addendum which has item ggg um which includes a number of um new hires resignations and um summer hires as well as some notable move across the guides and i just want to highlight them so bear with me so there are one two three four um staff members moving across the guide which for any public watching is um means that they have obtained additional education um so they're being rewarded i'll shock him and just for clarification mrs wagner items one through i know you noted the addendum but i apologize so if it's okay with mr cass and uh

131the rest of the board we also have items uh two through eleven which um include leaves as well as an agreement with blue titan and notably um mrs garasi's and dr kullis's contracts for the 22-23 school year mr cash you're good with that okay thank you i know that mrs growlski was not going to let that go without her contract being approved thank you mrs wagner mr cass any questions comments no i wanted to welcome there's a lot of new hires as well it looks like so welcome to the district any other questions comments see non-roll call please mrs wagner yes mr cass yes mr kim yes dr abu nadassen yes dr moore yes mr anderson yes and under instruction program since mr cappello is not here dr moore would you mind moving us through

132instruction and program sure i'd like to move under instruction program it doesn't look like there's anything for item one item two is uh adopting the revised reading and writing units for study uh units of study for k through 2 and reading units of studies 6 through 8 at the cost of 101 566. i believe there's also an addendum and there's item number three which is a personal development presentation second thank you dr warren thank you mr kim any questions comments seeing non-roll call please mrs wagner yes mr cass yes mr kim you asked dr abu nadassen yes dr moore yes mr anderson yes uh dr rooney just hassan would you mind moving us through policy please there are no objections i'd like to move under policy revisions um items number [Music] item number one we

133have several policy revisions um [Music] for safety plan for health care settings record keeping for health care settings um title one district-wide parent and family engagement title one school parent and family engagement uh student intervention and referral services examination for cause uh 3161 and also p 4161 maintenance and repair p 7410 and r7410 facilities maintenance repair scheduling and accounting and emergency and crisis situations cooperation with law enforcement agencies p 93 22 and regulations 93-22 board member participation using electronics and student supervision after school dismissal all being frustrating second thank you very much any questions comments on policy seeing no questions or comments we'll ask for a roll call please mrs wagner yes mr kim yes miss i'm sorry mr cass yes dr abu nadassen yes dr moore yes mr anderson yes all right mr kim

134would you mind moving us through finance please sure i'd be happy to i motion that we move tonight section d finance as a block numbers 1 through 19 calling to uh calling uh bringing to the attention of the board uh specifically numbers two and three as ms karowski mentioned uh which will which are resolutions to fund any uh excess revenue or funds into our reserve accounts as well as number six which is the increase of the price of milk to .44 cents 44 cents as well as numbers 15 and 16 uh 15 being the installation of curb ramps on cooper road which is going to be a joint collaboration between the township of denville and the board of education as well as approving horizon staff resources to provide temporary personnel for next year next school

135year second thank you mr kim and mrs wagner any questions comments um i'd like to update the board with regards to the reserve accounts i think this year is going to be a really impressive year we will it looks like we're on pace to be depositing about 1.4 million back into reserves however eight approximately 850 000 of it is basically excess funds from projects that were taking funds from reserves anyway so maybe over budgeting on uh capital projects that essentially wasn't being used and will be just basically being redeposited back into reserve accounts so essentially what we're looking at is about 0.56 or 564 000 of excess funds from the operating side that we're just putting back into reserves so it's definitely under a million uh and it's a a good trend that we're in

136or you know and we're in a good trend and um the next fiscal year which we've already voted on i think will be even tighter which means the next budget that we vote on we might not have a lot of room so we'll keep an eye on that and finance committee but essentially yeah i think that this is a great number that we're looking at uh for depositing back into reserves i just want to make um clear that this numbers was off as of may 2022 we still have not looked at the june numbers and there's other pieces that come into this um access surplus at the end of the year uh all the revenues other miscellaneous income that we put in and grant as well so this 500 000 might be two more or

137less but again it's not a final number yeah uh mr karowski is absolutely correct that's um that is from may numbers from our may finance uh committee meeting or no june committee meeting reviewing maze numbers but yeah it shouldn't deviate too much from those numbers but yeah i think uh unless there's another half a million dollars that that were which i don't think right exactly so but yeah i think we're trending in the right direction so thank you for clarifying that ms gross are you including all the revenue that we're going to get from grants that you applied for as well no that's why i was clarifying that these numbers do not include additional revenues such as grants and and other uh additional income that we brought in this year so the board is sensitive

138to adding money like not spending the money we budget for basically right that's that's what we've been talking about so we want to make clear that that it's if the numbers are higher it's not because we didn't because we over budgeted and had extra money it's because we worked hard to find other money to come in that was going to actually replaced money that was earmarked for a project like for example the hvac project that at um valley view where we got a 550 570 000 grant to cover something that we were going to pay for so when what we'll do is when it's time not yet once we know after the audit damaris will put together like all right this is money from the budget this is money that was like um that was

139budgeted for projects that were coming out of reserves but they're going back in because the project came in under and then another category of these are all the grants that we received as well to to uh that are going to end up going to reserves uh thank you for clarifying that i completely agree with you dr forte um if you are going to list out those grants then i would strongly recommend if those grants are for capital projects or if they're for operating uh grants you know what i mean so because essentially like the hvac that you mentioned dr forte that was money coming from reserves anyway so that just essentially would go back into reserves which is a separate line item that i mentioned i think it's also important to highlight this now uh

140before we get any of those grants because we're not budgeting for those grants right so um this is just another sort of highlight or example of saying that we're not too far off from the budget you know half a million dollars is essentially what i think both of you are arguing and i think that just sort of mentioning it now before we get the grants to sort of give us a baseline it gives us an idea of where we are so um that's why i thought it might be important to mention in new york you're absolutely correct these 500 000 is not counting additional revenues grants fema tuition revenues uh facility rentals all those additional income will be part of the depositing to the reserves in addition to this five hundred thousand dollars mike can

141i just make a comment of course um i think for in the future when you have all the numbers and everything it'll be interesting to see um the number that you're going to deposit this year versus that number last year with all of those things pulled out and then you know we typically look at it as a percentage of the total budget but i think that it would be good to be able to look at it as a percentage of the operational budget and not you know count in um the capital projects and such that you know so that you can really look at what percentage of the operational budget or what wiggle room you truly have thank you mr kim any other questions or comments on finance before we vote seeing non-roll call please

142mrs wagner yes mr cass yes mr kim yes dr abu nady tassin yes dr moore yes mr anderson yes all right moving on to operations mr cass please under transportation we have two items to move for the board approval uh one point one is that the board approved the use of district school buses to transport students from learner limited little learner at an hourly rate of seventy dollars per hour on the dates listed below um all the trips are the same throughout the summer high view farms space farm sky zone and the turtle back zoo the item 1.2 is for the board to approve the joint transportation agreement with hundreds of educational service commission for the upcoming school year uh about 303 59 625.50 route 307 60 nine sixty thousand nine hundred thirty three dollars

143and eighty five cents a route 308 sixty one thousand five hundred ninety one dollars and eighty five cents under buildings and grounds we have a number items for work being done at our schools the first one is uh to approve quotes number 96298 with a wb manufacturing company to renovate and install new cabinets and other miscellaneous items at the valley middle school band room in the amount of forty two thousand five hundred thirty two dollars and eight cents and we're going to use maintenance reserve funds for that uh the next item is to approve attach quote 95908 with our rfs commercial to remove and install new light fixtures with diffuser lenses at the valley middle school band room the amount of 13 626 dollars and 91 cents again using maintenance reserve funds uh next one

144is to approve quotes 96300 with wwe manufacturing company to renovate install new cabinets and other miscellaneous at the valley view middle school art room and the amount of sixty four thousand twenty six dollars and eighty cents using maintenance reserve funds next one is to prove attached quote 95908 with rfs commercial to remove and install new light fixtures and diffuse lenses at the valley view middle school art room and the amount of thirteen thousand six hundred twenty six dollars and ninety one cents using maintenance reserve funds next one is to approve the submission of the anticipated facility request for the 2022-23 school year to the morris county superintendent of schools the dental board of education does not anticipate applying for charges of use and or dual use for the upcoming school year next item the board

145asking the board to approve the attached quote from rubber cycle llc with new jersey contract 16-fleet zero zero 131 for the removal and replacement of the damaged rubber playground a lakeview school the amount of 140 888 dollars and 80 cents using maintenance reserve funds and next one is the board approved cash from landscape management designing company for landscaping services district wide and the amount of thirty eight thousand one hundred eight dollars prorated for the upcoming school year and the last one is that the board approved to reject the but received june 15 2022 from eacm corp for the valley view middle school hvac project 27-1090-ish second thank you mr cass and mrs wagner any questions comments if i could ask two questions um so on 2.3 um is that for the back lot where like

146behind the building where that rubber is lifted up it's for the uh kindergarten playground the back one is going to be turned into a grass playground and the front one is pretty worn out and we need to keep it that way too because of the preschool handicap class up there and we looked at a bunch of other options but it's really the right thing to do and it's over 20 years old no it's it's great i think that that the number there for the back it doesn't make sense but for the front certainly and then um damaris if you would mind just explaining and i apologize if you have in a previous meeting uh the bid rejection we went alphabet for the valley view hvac project with the grant and we received only one bidder

147and the amount was over a million dollar we did uh we are still working with another contractor a co-op vendor and his price was high but it was not as high as this one bit thank you sure and damaris can you just remind me what that project entails like what are we what are we replacing the hvac or upgrading which areas with the valley view hvac grant we are upgrade changing the cafeteria hvac the rooftop and also the band room and the art room hdac to improve the air quality in there okay thank you and i'm sorry another question about so that's the grant you just received for 570-ish approximate thousand dollars thank you so damaris will i guess that'll get run through the finance and operations committee on kind of what the plan is

148moving forward with that project we have a committee meeting july 9th i want to say yes it will be discussed during that committee what's how we're going to be moving forward excellent thank you you're welcome i just want to say thank you for um going out for the bid process with that because i know it's lengthy but i know sometimes in the past you guys have brought us the co-ops prices and then you know as a board we've questioned it and said let's go out to bid so here you already have that those numbers and only one bidder so um thank you for going through that process uh miss uh gorowski just to just as a clarification it looks like uh our finance and buildings and ground meeting will be on july 18th before our

149board meeting right yes i'm so sorry okay july yes 18. great thank you for clarifying that any other questions or comments for operations seeing on roll call please mrs wagner yes mr capello i'm sorry mr cass yes mr kim yes dr abu nadassen yes dr moore yes mr anderson yes all right we'll move on to the good of the cause committee reports correspondence discussion items we'll start off with the board meeting highlights dr ford did you have any put down i have goal setting 2223 and strategic planning 2022. any other ideas maybe the beginning of the summer program sure anybody have anything else you want to add this is going to be probably the end of july so it'll be after the next board meeting by the time we put this out so i'm just

150uh trying to keep it a little vague because it's not i'm not sure what we're gonna have out there yet well if the summer one is too late then maybe the um the the project that we're going to be doing with uh the township addendal on the curb ramps on cooper route yeah i have the summer one in there too just saying that the summer program started but if we could add the uh the rehab of that crosswalks everybody know that crosswalk it's um the law is that they have to have the landing space so the town won't redo the crosswalk unless we have the landing space so we agreed to share the cost we'll pay for the one on our property they'll pay for the one on their property but i think it we

151all felt like it was very important because it's used probably like 10 times a year at least for people who park to overflow that park over there and have to cross i think i use it 10 times a year it's used much more than that excellent um and then discussion on strategic planning logistics dr forte were you okay if we formed kind of a quick subcommittee meet once or twice just to go through some of that logistics does that make sense do you want to uh do it with both committees both standing committees or do you want to have um yeah i think that's fine a couple reps for me so we could just put it on the agendas for everybody perfect okay yeah that'll work anybody have anything else for the good of the

152cause just a correction the family life presentation will be at the august board meeting but that's the 15th and i said the 22nd um dr 14 mentioned the staff convocation on august 31st i wanted to let the new board members know that that's a really great event that the administration holds it's almost like a prep rally to start off the new school year um mike might michael making a speech to the teachers and i know dr forte does and there's usually a guest speaker there so i highly recommend it to the board members to attend the staff convocation we have a great keynote randy what's randy's last name steve dr forte but um i could look at that pawn he's a great inspirational speaker so i think you'll really like it while we're waiting can

153we um i know we mentioned the finance committee meeting do we have a time for our next meeting i apologize i haven't looked for imp and i'll have to get to the committee because i know where many of us are going on vacations okay so i'll email you guys and see what will work that's what i just wanted to let you know i won't be here the next board meeting dietrich randy yeah randy diedrick so that's actually a good question because we're getting into this summer is i will not be here at our next meeting either so just want to ensure i know i spoke to mr cappello he will be here he's on vacation this week i'm going to be on vacation that week so i just wanted to make sure we don't run

154into an issue on a quorum so anybody else have a conflict for the next meeting i believe it's july 18. good okay perfect thank you yes correct and then what the next one is august 15th if you want to ask about that one good point anybody have a conflict on august 15th i will not be here and by that time we could have the policy that allows people to call in too yeah i was actually wondering if we're going to have it for the next meeting because i'll be uh i'm going on a cruise but we'll be in port on that evening so my wife would probably kill me but we're gonna be in a u.s port not overseas on that night if anybody um do me a favor just for the summer if anything

155changes just shoot me an email and let me know if the meetings you're not going to be at that way we can just verify we usually don't run into a problem but just out of abundance of caution i'd prefer not to find out the evening we arrive steve do we have one meeting in september is that correct yes we do i can look it up on september 12th according to mr kim so it was i was actually going to mention this the denville education foundation is working on their schedule for the year they've got actually um they may shift off of the golf outing so and if they do that golf outing they move to october anyway um so i don't think it conflicts with um with the beating but they're actually also planning a

156second uh event i'm gonna let them kind of announce it before i bring it but it's pretty exciting and uh be really fun event for the uh district so i'm hopefully by the next meeting be able to kind of announce it officially and from a personal perspective i'll mention congratulations to the denville baseball 13u team they won tonight district championship i just got a text message from my wife so very exciting so mostly that's a bunch of our seventh and current eighth graders going to high school so pretty uh pretty cool actually there's i know there's multiple teams that did win i think the 11 u's may have also won last night also so it was supposed to be in denville but the fields were closed so they had to move so i didn't get

157to watch it um anybody have anything else for good of the cause seeing none we'll move on to our second open public comments section which i will open at 9 39 p.m and once again just as a reminder for anybody who would like to make a comment in the future we do live broadcast our meetings on google meet um however comments are uh would would be taken in person all of our meetings currently unless otherwise noted are in denville town hall and we encourage folks to come out and uh listen and participate in the meeting if they'd like seeing no one uh come forward i'm gonna close our second public comment section at 9 40 p.m dr forte do we have a need for executive session yes we do um security and student matters okay

158and just uh before we move on with that i will note that there will be no action taken post-meeting uh all of the items for action have been discussed and with that uh mrs wagner would you mind moving us to executive i move that we can be in an executive session in accordance with section eight of the open public's meeting act the purpose of this closed session will be to discuss would you say security and legal student matters security and legal matters um security student matters and legal matters minutes of this session will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists second thank you mrs wagner mr kim all in favor aye any nays none any abstentions none we're in executive session at 9 41 pm