March 27, 2023 Board of Education Meeting

001foreign in accordance with the open Publix meeting act adequate notice for this meeting was advertised in the record posted at the board office and filed with the city clerk I hereby call the order the regular public meeting on March 27 2023 at 6 18 PM in the media center at the high school missing will you please do a roll call um Mr brendez who is absent Mr Carroll absent Mr Coleman president [Applause] Miss Maury is not here Mr Oates is not here Mr Powell president miss Somerville president Mr Rodriguez president Mr James Vickery present we have one two three four five six presidents we have a core all right so tonight we are going to switch up the order just a little bit we're going to do a couple of our presentations first and so

002we will start with our Academic Decathlon state champs Hackensack High School uh so Mr Montesano if you'll come up foreign [Music] good evening everyone my name is Jim matisano the high school principal it's many times I guess in this job you have exciting news but this is probably some of the most exciting that I've had in my 12 years as a high school principal our Academic Decathlon team has really reached New Heights I'd like to just talk a little bit really quickly about what Academic Decathlon is and then we'll obviously get to our shining stars in a couple minutes Academic Decathlon is a High School academic Scholastic competition the competition provides students of all learning levels the opportunity to excel academically through a team competition Academic Decathlon team competition is where students match their intellects

003with students from other schools students are tested in 10 different categories art economics essay interview language literature math music science social science and speech gold silver and bronze medals are awarded for each individual events and also total team scores winning teams advance to a local competition into a regional competition and then through a state competition the state champions if they are elected are part of the National Finals Academic Decathlon again is a 10-team Scholastic competition for teams of high school students each high school team enters a team of nine students three honor students three Scholastic students and three Varsity students has a long history of its strong transition in Academic Decathlon however this year's team has gone to where no team has ever gone before the first time in school history we were Regional Champs

004and even better we were state champs and the best of all is the team is going to be competing in Plano Texas for the national tournament later this month so without further Ado I'd like to call up the coach that makes it all happen coach durso and she can introduce some of our state and Regional champions thank you Mr monisano Board of Education members Mr Sanchez um it is really such an honor to coach such an exceptional team I really had very little doubt that we would have made it this far especially with a lot of the academic Talent you see in this room so our season started off really amazing we left the regional competition as super quiz Champions which was one of the first times we'd ever done that so we were kind

005of flying on that high going into the award Center we found out at that Awards night we were Regional Champions so obviously solidifying our role in the state competition but also we had a couple members be score in the highest of all the regional decathletes that night as well and then at the state competition um we didn't do as well on super quiz so there was a little bit of a downer Vibe on that bus going home but uh that Vibe was totally turned around when they saved it all for the main events and at the awards night it's probably the most excited I've seen myself and these kids when they literally counted you know up to the winners and said you know for the first time time in their school's history Hackensack High School

006is Academic Decathlon state champions and it is really [Applause] this team of students is exceptional a lot are graduating but also a lot of returning and the future is very very bright for this team and our school so we're going to be traveling on airplanes together to Texas in about a month and taking the shell on the road outside of New Jersey so could not have been done without our uh 10 members we did have a substitution for regionals into States it was because of track uh because that student is also an exceptional track athlete so all 10 of them deserve to be honored because all 10 are you know the reason we got this far so starting with our varsity members we have Marissa Dooley come on up we have a senior Darlene parmar

007and we have Camila Rodriguez so Camilla was the highest scoring Varsity student at both the regional and the state competition [Applause] so our Scholastic members competing initially at regionals was Ayanna chape then we have senior Kira Bell and Meg Patel [Applause] and a senior he's not here right now but Justin or julaise as well and then our honors members three senior boys uh all three of them actually swept the math competition at regionals getting the bronze silver and gold medal which was really awesome um but yeah they're gonna be all the seniors but it's this is a the one group that is made up entirely of seniors so they got some big shoes to fill so starting with tomasa Doe [Applause] then Angela Valencia and then this last senior he's our longest running member he

008came on to the team as a sophomore competing virtually for the last two years so it's really awesome that he gets to you know have his first in-person year be the longest running year it gets to take it to Texas um he also was the highest scorer in the entire region and then he was the second highest scorer in the entire States but that's of every single competition level and by points he missed first place so that is David valorezo [Applause] So yeah thank you so much uh wish us luck as we head off to Texas and it's truly an honor and a privilege to be their coach so thank you I just want to conclude with one small thing Sean and Malcolm when she said it was the most exciting thing that ever happened

009I'm sure she excludes you guys yeah questions foreign next we have our Seton Hall essay contest winner so I'll invite Heather Mecca [Music] board members thank you Mr Sanchez uh congrats to the the classroom decathlon winners it's nice to see you guys congrats representative beautiful so I've been an educator at Hackensack Middle School for 26 years and one of my greatest units I believe that we study is our Holocaust studies unit and we use this unit to teach empathy to teach searching for justice and resilience and uh Seton Hall has a contest every year called the Sister Rose steering essay contest and Sister Rose was a nun who was a social activist and she fought against anti-Semitism that she discovered in Catholic Elementary School textbooks and she took her fight all the way to the

010pope and in 1965 as a result there was a document in ostreetada that was passed that overturned the way the Catholic Church um taught about Judaism and Christianity and their connection so the theme this year was searching for answers and seeking social justice and students were invited to examine sister Rose's accomplishments as well as write about how they plan to address injustices in the world that they see today now and in the future and how they plan on being a voice for equity and inclusion we had three students who won um I think one of them is missing but I guess I I'll call up the uh Muhammad please come up [Applause] Muhammad won honorable mention in the essay contest so she will be honored and celebrated at Seton Hall on April 16th in a

011celebration of Education day congratulations Taryn Coleman also one honorable mention but I do not see her here um so congrats [Applause] and lastly we have Mariana Calderon who came in first place for all middle school students in the entire New Jersey state competition and she will read her essay tonight um as practice also because she'll be doing so at Seton Hall in front of a much larger audience congratulations I'll leave the floor to you Sister Rose fought against anti-Semitism in the Catholic church as women's and was an inspiration to many people she also completely changed the lives of others due to her perseverance Sister Rose has inspired me to do many things to help others and continue doing so on sister Rose's Journey she researched the topic of anti-Semitism by studying children's textbooks it was

012highly important because it helped her conclude that the children's books were full of misinformation and against what was in the Bible I have also researched topics about racism such as reading books as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne and The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis both of these books are related to racism and how it could affect an individual's life learning about these topics is an important topic because you can help monstrous things that happen in the past from repeating themselves by using your voice Sister Rose also attended an important event to protest in Austria to prevent anti-Semitism Sister Rose knew she could end up in jail but she did it anyway which shows she is very courageous it was necessary since opinions need to be heard especially if

013people want to prevent racism like Sister Rose I also intended an lgbtq plus period to celebrate pride month I chose to support the lgbtq plus Community since they face a lot of judgment and Prejudice because of their sexual and gender identity it was very important to help and stand up for these people since nobody deserves to be judged because of what they are sister Rose's Quest has also inspired me not to let anyone's opinion change me and speak up Sister Rose on many occasions was forced to be quiet after asking about the Jews even if she was forced to not speak up she still wondered and acted on her opinions this is a very important skill to learn because many things could go wrong and it is better to fix them in the future I

014hope to be his courageous as Sister Rose and to not let anyone change my opinions but let their opinions affect mine to conclude Sister Rose was a courageous woman who fought against anti-Semitism in the Catholic church and spoke up when she thought something was unjust Sister Rose was also an inspiration to many people helping them find their true voices and what they stand for thank you foreign all of you to stay for some lovely Refreshments that have been provided over here I have to read a little section before y'all get up but then please stay and enjoy some refreshments resolved that's later yeah be it resolved at the Hackensack Board of Education determines it necessary to meet an executive session on Monday March 27 2023 to discuss legal Personnel student related matters HIV reports negotiations

015and other confidential matters and be it further resolved that these matters will be made public when the need for company confidentiality no longer exists to have a motion to go into executive session thank you Mr Powell a second second [Music] um uh Miss Cordero Alton thank you all in favor say aye any opposed and there are none thank you [Music] welcome back everyone and um seeing if you will do a roll call [Music] um so Mr pendes who is absent Demetrius Carol is absent Mr Coleman that's greater awesome present Miss Laurie present Mr Oates is absent Mr Powell is absent for now I think he's gonna call it later uh Miss Somerville present Mr Rodriguez present Mr James Vickery present so we have one two three four five six parts of here before all right

016so we will go to our Cusack equivalency presentation if we sit here can y'all see the screen behind us because we have a screen in front of us well yeah can y'all see okay good evening everybody my name is Lauren kazmark I'm the director of curriculum here and I am presenting it shouldn't be too long I don't think I'll take too much time but I wanted to present the Cusack equivalency application so everybody's aware of our next step in this process so without where am I finding this to you what it's okay all right so just for some background information Cusack is the auditing process that we used for that the state the New Jersey Department of Education uses to check the quality of school districts districts go in cohorts so they do different cohorts

017each different cohorts each you can go to the next question foreign they do different cohorts each year and it's usually on a three-year process so Hackensack is part of the cohort one school districts for Cusack monitoring and there are those five areas of monitoring that occur every three years in each area has a series of indicators that determine the school district's effectiveness so what is the Cusack equivalency application this is the first year that we've ever been anything like this school districts that are in cohort one so districts like ours who are in undergoing Cusack this year and this is an application that's only available for two indicators within the instruction and program area so within the instruction and program area There are 16 indicators numbers one through seven are related to test score data

018and numbers 9 through 15 are related to curriculum number 16 is related to inrs so this particular application is only available for indicators four and five and the reason for this is that generally those indicators utilize growth data from the njsla the state assessment that everybody in grades three through twelve to three through eight take in the spring so those two indicators are reflective of growth on njsla and teacher Effectiveness and student Effectiveness based on a cohort of students from one year to the next so because of the interrupted testing due to covid they're using growth data from 2018-19 and comparing it to last year's njsla so they've given districts like ours the opportunity to submit an application to show that that data isn't reflective of our current growth our current population our current students

019so we are saying that we believe our indistrict measures will are a better mechanism for showing growth between 2021 and 2122 in the absence of this Federal test data that's current federal federal student and teacher test data that is current so just to give you an idea this is our 2018-19 median student growth percentile so this is the for that's the msgp is what they use to calculate this growth for teachers and students based on the state standardized test these were the total amount of points that were available to Hackensack in 1819 for these indicators it was 7.5 points so at that time we received six points for Ela and 4.5 points for math so this was our 1819 growth data as it related to Cusack so the first part of this application process was

020to gain some stakeholder feedback on what measures to use so on March 6th we sent out a survey district-wide requesting feedback on a proposal for what test scores what test data to use for this particular application people were invited to submit their comments and ideas this was done anonymously and they were able to give us feedback on whether they thought the test date as we were the tests we were proposing to use were a valid measure or whether or to give us an alternative option for a test that they you know felt would be a better measure of student growth we reviewed all that data and then we were able to take that into consideration when we put the application together so we've determined two different measures for growth data for these for based on

021stakeholder feedback and are you know looking over all of our district tests so for grades three through eight we're going to be using the reading inventory assessment and for grades five through eight we're going to be using the math inventory assessment and these are comparisons between the 2021 school year and the 2122 school year So reading inventory is an assessment that is adaptive so it measures reading ability across different kinds of texts vocabulary and comprehension but it's adaptive so that means that it meets the student where they are and then moves up or down depending on their success level on the assessment so it is but it is adaptive and therefore a second grader can be can go all the way up through High School level text complexity and vice versa so this is an

022example this is our third grade data as it relates to this assessment so we were asked by the department of Ed to break this out by subgroups so that's why you see the subgroups that are you know that were available to us anything with a total student number in less than 10 is not reported for student confidentiality so a reading inventory is measured in lexiles Lexile is a framework for for measuring this assessment so in the average Lexile growth you see those you see the average number of Lexile points that students in that subgroup have made and then the next the last two columns are the columns that we are focusing right now on because the percent of students who've made growth above 25 percent you can see because growth is just the beginning part

023is more just average growth meaning any any amount of growth that counts right even three points Four Points Five Points the percentage of growth of 25 is where we're focusing on and then the final column is let students with Lexile growth over 100 points and 100 this the assessment determines that average growth for students in the year is between 70 and 100 points so we took the high end of that and report it out you'll see those numbers at a higher rate with lower grade levels because there's generally more room for growth so as students get more proficient in their reader in their reading the level of growth will not be as great so here is fourth grade we're still pretty high we're looking at 90 percent 80 of students that are growing over 100

024Lexile points per per year fifth grade and as I said before the numbers drop slightly because as kids become better more proficient readers there's not the levels of growth won't be as high they're starting to even out on their grade level reading and then this would be sixth grade we're still seeing pretty high growth in our students in seventh grade between 7 60 and 82 percent 85 percent growth and eighth grade so just to keep in mind these are when I say eighth grade these are kids who are in eighth grade in 2021 so they're our current 10th graders okay so math so for third and fourth grade we have a issue with math with availability of math data we don't give the math inventory in elementary school math inventory is an assessment that we

025tie to an intervention program so we don't offer that Intervention Program in elementary it's not something we that's aligned with our elementary curriculum so we use in elementary to to measure Mastery of Standards unit assessments we give several throughout the school year we did not have enough students who took the Assessments in third and third grade and fourth grade to be able to compare so if we have 300 and some 300 ish students in that cohort of students when you take out anybody with absences long term or otherwise and you you're left with a much smaller number of students approximately 57. so it wasn't enough to make a a cohort of students to report this data so what we're saying here is that we have assessment data we can show the state any assessment data

026that we have but we don't have the ability to take a huge number of a huge number cohort of students and accurately report growth because not everybody has taken every assessment in these two years so for math inventory for five through eight we did have we do this assessment three times a year just like reading inventory so we definitely had you know students who had taken a test at some point in those two years that we were able to report on math inventory measures on a quantile framework and so a similar kind of a score similar to Lexile and it talks about the Readiness for math for math instruction at the different grade levels and their ability to complete complete the tasks related to the concepts and skills same situation it's adaptive so the test

027will adjust based on the student's ability so our current fifth grade our fifth graders from 2021 our current seventh graders this was their growth and under a similar structure average quantile growth meaning any gross one two points versus you know much greater numbers of growth the quantile growth framework the percentage of students who've grown above 25 in that next to last column over there and then the last is students who've grown over 130 points so quantile framework is a little different it adjusts per grade level per band so students who are in a in the fifth grade but demonstrating greater proficiency would have lower quantile growth than those who were struggling a little bit more with some of the concepts so we've taken the top number of grow of quantile points that we can for

028the range within that grade level within the grade levels and that's what we're reporting so the most points that are generally grown in a year by students in the in one of those categories is 130 so we took that top number and that's the number that we're reporting both in so our current 8th graders in sixth grade at that time still 60 70 growth current ninth graders 7th graders at that time still 60s 70s percent growth as we get higher the numbers will drop a little bit just again as kids become more proficient in the concepts the level of growth being at their grade level and their ability sort of even out and the Great and the growth isn't as great but still looking at over 60 growth in in that assessment so takeaways from

029the data what we found is that students across grades three through eight have demonstrated an average or above average growth in these assessments reading and math we've deter we feel that the reading and math inventory is a better measure of growth than the 1819 msgp data a lot of our students and staff at that time are not here or have you know moved grades it's not accurate reflection of our of our population so we are going to present this data to the state we'll submit the end of this week to for an equivalency application to determine additional points in those areas in Cusack for instruction and program you have to achieve 80 points in order to pass so and you need to achieve 40 points within the first seven indicators So currently we have 37

030points so we're hopeful that this application will give us the additional points that we can need to be able to hit that 40 and then we have all the points in all of our other areas so we should we should be able to pass so we'll submit the application at the end of this week and then we should hear from the seat in the spring all right thank you uh thank you um so I'll jump straight into it I'm going to start with the robotic support so I'm pleased to report that our comments team 7251 performed exceptionally well at the recent Eastern Bergen conference placing third out of 21 participating teams so in the tournament they formed an alliance with a second seat securing a victory in the semi-finals before ultimately being defeated in the

031final match uh our team of 15 dedicated students demonstrated their skills in autonomous programming and Driver control techniques throughout the competition so we would like to congratulate the entire team and acknowledge our seniors some of which were here today uh Daniel Leone Angelo Valencia tomasadoi David valorezo and Ethan Romero for their commitment and contributions as they prepare to become FTC alumni uh in other news both of our Destination Imagination teams have successfully qualified for the national tournament which will take place in Kansas City in late May the team is led by Mr Tom terrazano and we're excited to see their creativity and problem solving skills showcase at the national level lastly as the pre-practice period comes to an end our spring sports are their teams are preparing for the upcoming season we have teams participating

032in boys volleyball Boys Tennis baseball softball track and field and golf the athletes are eager to start scrimmaging and playing an official competition soon so thank everyone for your continued support of our students and their extracurricular Pursuits uh we look forward to sharing their cheaters with you guys in the future thank you uh Mr Sanchez our superintendents report please thank you thank you thank you Ash and thank you Dr kasmark for your presentations good evening everyone please join me in a moment of silence to honor the memory of three children and three adults who were fatally shot this morning at the Covenant School in Nashville Tennessee thank you our condolences are extended out to the families and the entire Covenant School Community during this extremely difficult time how long must we continue to with these

033tragic announcements the time for gun reform is now thank you as we enter the week right before our spring recess I would like to report on a few of the happenings at Hackensack Public Schools this month we celebrated read Across America at our schools to encourage our youngsters to read more and to instill the joy of love the joy of reading in them we also celebrated women's History Month to honor the contributions of women in American history throughout the years women have been the unsung heroes of the history of our nation their contributions sometimes went unnoticed but their achievements strength and courage helped build our nation by highlighting the vital role of women in American history throughout the year it is our hope that our young women will know that there is no limit to

034what they can accomplish as long as they are willing to do work dwelling to work hard sticking with that theme I am pleased to announce that on tonight's agenda the board of education is slated to approve the hiring of one of hackensack's very own strong women Joanna espinal as the new assistant principal of Hackensack Middle School Ms espinal would you please come up and say a few words to our school community I would like to thank God for making this opportunity possible Harold Lucy Bingo who are home watching and my entire family thank you for your love and support throughout this process Mr Montesano and the high school administrative team thank you for helping me learn and grow both as a teacher and as a web supervisor to all the teachers who crossed my path

035and to the good people of Hackensack the high school teaching staff may I continue to make you proud and hold I will hold dear all that we've shared together to my former students my current students and my future students thank you for allowing me to learn and laugh alongside you as finale is forever Dr Whiting I am forever grateful for the opportunity to become an administrator once again I'm excited to join your administrative team to work tirelessly with your middle school staff and students to ensure everyone experiences success to the Armada in my life and all my family members that are no longer physically here your guidance protection and love have helped bring me here today thank you so Mr Sanchez Miss Singh board attorney the board members I vow to bring Pride to the

036Hackensack community educational passion and purpose to every corner of Hackensack Middle School under Dr whiting's leadership thank you once again for making this little guateminican proud to be a Hackensack teacher educator and student okay moving on the Arts are alive and well at Hackensack Public Schools this month the Utah student exhibition was held at the Hackensack Performing Arts Center where our young artists work was prominently displayed staying at hack pack Hackensack High School's drama club's rendition of Chicago the musical was truly phenomenal congratulations our extended out to director Casino Gaines and the entire cast and crew of The Musical for thoroughly entertaining us and all that jazz this week at Hackensack Middle School their drama club will perform High School Musical Junior Edition you heard that right High School Musical at the middle school nevertheless

037I'm looking forward to seeing the show and supporting director Mary Jones and the cast and crew After All We're All in This Together so this week we'll be inducting we will be inducting the newest members of the National Honor Society at Hackensack High School on behalf of the Board of Education we congratulate our future inductees and their proud parents as you travel around the campus you will hear the sound of lawn mowers which could only mean one thing spring is upon us and so is the commencement of our spring athletic season the sound of tennis balls bouncing the Stardust pistol firing at the track and the Ping of baseball and softball bats are music to my ears please join me and come out and support our comments moving on New Jersey Commission of Education Dr

038Angelica Allen McMillan visited this month's Bergen County superintendent's Roundtable meeting to share some of the initiatives from the New Jersey Department of Education and meet with the county superintendents the executive County Superintendent was tasked to highlight two districts at this meeting for their noteworthy accomplishments and I am proud to say that out of the 76 school districts that make up Bergen County we were one of only two districts chosen because of our work with anti-racism and Equity Ms Parchman and I were able to share some of the initiatives occurring within the district which included our sustained professional development on anti-racism and Equity our land acknowledgment ceremony and pride inclusive flag racing we were very proud to demonstrate to all what a special place Hackensack School District really is finally we are delighted to congratulate Hackensack

039High School state champion Academic Decathlon team and Destination Imagination team for advancing to their respective National Finance you continue to make us proud show the nation how Comics store and let's bring home the championship however win or lose you are still champions in our books because that's comets you will always be Among the Stars now on to the enrollment report our current enrollment is 5224 students and a total of 24 HIV investigations were completed this past month that concludes my report enjoy the break all right so um tonight normally we would move straight into public comments but um there are very a lot of people think that um School Board presidents have you know even just a little bit of power we have zero power because it's about service and not power but the one

040little thing we can do is change the agenda a little bit so I'm going to give a little residence report um because I have gotten to do several things in this month that have been very exciting so I wanted to be able to share very quickly with you what um I have gotten to to be a part of so one of the initiatives that I wanted to do this year was to start um at each School a president and principal's luncheon where I could go in and speak uh with Mr Sanchez joins me and we have the principal select just a cross-section of of kids at each school um so that I can stop dealing with adults and talk to the kids of why I even wanted to do this and so we started at

041uh February 16th we were at Jackson and then we moved at March 2nd to hillers and then the 23rd we were at Nellie K Parker and it is such a reminder of why I've spent the last three and a half this is my fourth year on this board kids are so much fun one they they say absolutely anything some of which I promised I would not repeat to the kid that told them I would not bring it in public um but I was able to to identify and and what's important for for the board is that we work at this thirty thousand you know foot approach of trying to you know map out everything is that every school specifically just has their own culture and climate that we have to take into account they just

042they are very individual schools and I think as we work to continue the work of as Mr Sanchez hires people and we approve those people that we have to take into account that schools need their own Staffing not you know a lot of times I know sometimes we have to share stuff because of money and all those things but I think we have to look at those things and look at the big picture of those things and how that impacts the schools um because they do very much have their own culture and climate um and that has been a really good part for me to see um being with the kids because you get it from a very different perspective Mr Sanchez we the one good piece is I've got to see Mr Sanchez laugh

043a lot during these um conversations with these kids um at um some of the big pieces uh the themes that I've seen at all the schools though um because I intentionally tried to make it very comfortable of just having a conversation we ordered pizza for the kids and you know and um just telling funny stories I'm letting them talk I'm talking like just you know have a irrational fear of geese like there's a whole like we just kind of talk right and uh but as we're talking I asked you know some questions like what's your favorite you know memory that you have of being it let's say hillers or Jackson and um so they kind of share that and then then at one part I asked them like if you could dream of anything that

044you could bring to Nellie K Parker what would that be you know and you know we've we've had NBA player you know people who want to have the NBA players as their basketball I mean as their um PE coats to whatever but some of the common things are they would all like to see some soccer nets at their schools um outside and um but what I found the most interesting is their desire for social emotional groups in one way or another they all spoke to that they all spoke to having some um well in most all of these classes have been third and fourth graders um but they all spoke to um having some Outlet to be able to share um in some group setting uh lgbtqia Club Group whatever um setting at their level

045and um and then just talked about like other programming they all love the dance teacher and and um class or however you know because that's also kind of a shared thing but like cooking they would love to see Cooking Class Type like so they other things to offer those involve in commonalities so it's been really good um to be able to be with kids and to to hear from them and I promised them that um I do this job so that I can um see what kids want and figure out what's what's best for them I'm going to Fairmount April 20th and then I'll move to the middle school and the high school um another piece I do want to say that we um were able to Miss Michelle Hammond Dudley did a government day

046that it was the first annual I hope we have a second and on where uh she invited government officials from kind of across the Spectrum and the kids got to learn um in in kind of real time about government and we had a fantastic breakfast homemade not it wasn't I mean Boss shows is wonderful but it was like the the teachers and or staff made and we had grits and for a southern boy that was like fantastic and they were like good grits and um and then we moved to uh they did a program and then they were um we were a panel and they asked us questions that we were able to respond to and so that was um a nice way to to spend the day with them and then um as we

047move forward we want to really be able to focus on what our kids need and what I think that um for me I spend a lot of times unfortunately fighting with adults um to either get what we need to figure out things and I think that um for my focus it's going to be hearing from children and trying to get their perspective so that we can make sure that they get what they need so thank you for indulging me on my little president's report um and we will move on to public comments um public comments All participants must uh sign in uh when it's your term please State the following your name your new municipality any group affiliation that you might be uh that might be important to us for example Union member family member

048of a trustee or any other affiliation uh each member has a limit of three minutes disclaimer when the buzzer goes off I'm going to say thank you and that is your cue to stop uh please direct all comments to me as the presiding officer and all responses will be uh held to the end of the public participation so let's go good evening everyone my name is Joe Dorsey writing and I'm the very proud principal at Hackensack Middle School there are two things that I wanted to mention the first is we have been celebrating our students with our aim assemblies achieving in the middle and it was a wonderful display of bright passion and purpose at Hackensack Middle School and so we were able to see how our students are excelling academically and so grateful to

049have Mr Vickery come and also our superintendent attend because our students are achieving Way Beyond the middle and we want to have every opportunity to expose them and Shout them out and shine on them as great as they are so I wanted to mention that and then I would also be remiss if I did not stand before you to say thank you for trusting in our leadership at Hackensack Middle School it is always my desire to bring only the best to our students because that's what they deserve and we had a we had a wonderful team inclusive and now we're passing the mantle with your support to miss espinal and alone we can do very little but together we can do so much and that is what we're trying to do at Hackensack Middle School

050with with much pride which with much passion and with much purpose and I believe that Miss espanol will be a wonderful addition to our team with your heart with for your desire to do what's best for children with your knowledge by being Hackensack resident and I know The Best Is Yet To Come for Hackensack Middle School so thank you so much anybody else in the room everybody on online can folks hear me okay yes we can hear you hi everyone uh good evening Joanna Hackensack resident I'm here to speak on C10 resolution to enter into the agreement with Bergen County Tech so that they can join our swim team due to decline in enrollment first I want to commend the staff who have been working hard to support the swim team and ensure that they

051are competitive now I've heard that this is somehow the consequence of Maywood leaving our district our district has had several years to prepare for their departure and I urge you to make sure that our district and our sports teams are not dependent on another school district Maywood left our district by their by by our own doing and it would be our responsibility to come up with solutions that don't continue more of the same well this agreement may be a good solution for this moment it is not a solution for the larger problem of the need of hack and sex swimmers I haven't I have not heard from this board or this District leadership mentioned that there's a decline in enrollment in the swimming team or any other sports or activities has an assessment been done

052to ensure that all of our programs are not at risk by Maywood leaving I urge you to do this and then work with the school community at large to ensure that our Hackensack students are not negatively impacted many of us alumni can tell can tell you that for too long we've been told that our district only did well because of Maywood and we've been giving a chance to prove that that notion is wrong all you need to do is proper planning and engage with the community on Solutions I've also heard that the goal is to make this team more competitive the only way to do that is to start swimmers young almost 10 years ago members of the black community in town came to this board asking for the pool to be opened up to

053our kids black and brown children are less likely to know how to swim compared to their white counterparts Maywood has a community pool and a school program a swimming program where many of the students learn how to swim in a young age that is how many strong swim teams are built a pipeline of students who can learn how to swim early and who can swim year round replacing Maywood with swimmers from Bergen Tech swimmers will only continue to perpetuate the idea that our hackensack's kids cannot measure up to other neighboring communities we've already lost the Y we are one of the few districts that have a swimming pool so I urge you to look into ways to expand our swimming program to include our children across the district into the elementary schools this is what

054we do for football soccer baseball and other sports we wouldn't be resorting to other districts to filling needs in those Sports so let's support the swim support the swim team and continue to ensure that our community gets the resources they need and that we use the resources we have like the school the pool that we actually have in our town and lastly I'll ask you all to please I understand that many of you are very new to the school district to your positions but I ask you to explore people in your community who will tell you the history of our district of our Sports and ways that we can maybe support our community to have better programs that will benefit everyone so let's start them young and let's get better swimmers that are from Hackensack

055and not elsewhere thank you foreign hi this is Bridget um I was watching the budget that was done on March the 15th and I just wanted to ask a question um when Miss Lydia was speaking she was speaking about the um I guess the monetary portion of it and she broke everything down the question for me is is it truly in need of a stalker Dome at the middle school and why are we so president to get this Soccer Dome I know the cities Soccer Dome or whatever they were having down in Johnson Park has been put on hold for the city so um if we don't have the monetary at this time can we just hold back maybe and kind of revisit this when we do have the monetary for this project and maybe

056we can put this money um to other use for things that may be needed for our children um so that's that's basically it really thank you so much thank you anybody else online okay good evening can you hear me yeah yes hi Donald West hea president Hackensack president and teacher just wanted to um give a couple of uh thanks and shout outs um I want to thank you uh Mr Victory Mr Sanchez for the visit recently you were just mentioning the initiative my student came back to class he was very very excited and also felt like uh she had been heard so um it really is something that you all are kind of just redoing this and actually coming into the schools to see what is happening and what is taking place um I want

057to thank Mr Vickery and Mr Sanchez for coming in and reading to my class um on that last part that first Friday for a read Across America I want to thank Miss Mowry for acknowledging that uh for responding to the email letting me know that she was not able to make it but miss Marlene Somerville is going to get the proverbial gold star because not only did she come read to the student she came back the next day with two boxes of Krispy Kreme Donuts so um just letting you all know that that might be a real bribe there but thank you so much Miss Somerville and all of you and my last thanks is on behalf of my Association members Mr Sanchez Miss marks and the entire SEL committee and Community thank you for

058the um SEL day on the last 12 30 dismissal it was appreciated and really did a lot for for morale and for um just giving us a sense of somebody sees how hard we're working and um and know that those days mean a whole lot so have a great evening everyone and happy Easter and Passover to everyone take care uh good evening um I'm Tom terzano I'm from Hackensack High School and I am um the resting I'm wearing two hats tonight the first one is uh as a coach um involved with Destination Imagination so I want to thank you for uh the kind words um that were shared early earlier in the uh the evening um it's nice to be recognized it definitely feels like we fly under the radar a little bit and it's

059um it's important that teams like Academic Decathlon and Destination Imagination uh in our school end up getting some uh recognition so I appreciate that the the other hat that I'm wearing is uh as part of our teachers unions um you know health and safety committee and uh I just wanted to sort of you know remind everybody in the community it's important to take care of your your mental well-being um now as a person who's you know working in the building um you can see pretty often how important like uh you know what Miss Westchester shared with us and scl day would be you know to be able to refresh to catch to get a little breathing room um from the the daily pressures of a fairly demanding job um I do know that when I

060look at the faces of many of the professionals that work in the district um some jobs can be extremely taxing and Incredibly challenging and so it's uh it's important that the community at large recognizes not only the hard work that we do but also the importance of having a support system for the many professionals on our staff that um you know have to be at their best every single minute that they're you know in a situation of employment you know they have to take care of our kids but they also have to take care of themselves and anybody in a life-saving situation will automatically offer up that um if you are not sound yourself then you're not really in the best position to be able to take care of others and we aim to be

061our entire membership and to be the best they can be on a daily basis um those are my uh two bits of thoughts again thank you for recognizing our academic programs in town we really really appreciate that and then secondly uh everybody be careful and mindful of your uh of your health not just the physical aspects but also the mental aspect thank you thank you hi good evening kasim Gaines Hackensack I just wanted to take a moment and thank Mr Sanchez for including um Chicago high school edition in his superintendent's report I appreciated the All That Jazz reference and now that I know that you uh are a fan of musical Illusions we'll have to get you on stage next year for the musical and have you make a cameo um but I did just

062want to also acknowledge and recognize that today is World Theater day and it is a nice sort of opportunity to um have that nestled in between the high school show this weekend and the Middle School show which I believe is on Wednesday and Thursday of this week um if you've never been to Hackensack Middle School show I certainly encourage you to go this week and support that program um Miss Jones and her students work very hard as we do at the high school they are certainly deserving of your support and I um I did just want to really congratulate the students of the drama club for this weekend um we were at the Hackensack Performing Arts Center and over 700 people made it to the show this weekend over four performances which is one of

063our best attended um shows since I have been with this program for the last Dozen Years we had um administrators Mr Sanchez Miss parchment Mr martisano Miss Lozano Miss hope sepian other administrators as well I don't want to leave anyone out um we had uh the mayor was there with his wife um it was it was really a nice Community event lots of Staff lots of alumni lots of retirees even former board members were there um so I just want to thank everyone who came I want to thank trustee Mori for coming out and supporting the students this weekend and certainly encourage everyone to support the Arts in Hackensack um as well I want to Echo what Mr chairzano said about how nice it is to have Destination Imagination and act deck um supported and

064something that I would like for us to sort of consider as a district is perhaps having some way to celebrate World Theater day in the district moving forward um whether it's through some sort of joint um perhaps presentation at the board meeting next year for the middle school and high school or even find a way to get the elementary schools involved but I do think that we need to model for our students especially our younger students that there are activities for them to get involved in in addition to Athletics once they get to middle and high school thank you could you say one more it's a really good go ahead hello hello we can hear you hi my name is Tracy panasaka I'm a teacher at nelake Parker School a parent um and uh alumni

065um the suggestions for swimming I think were phenomenal from Joanna Kaya trying to start um inviting Swimmers at a younger age I know the open pool probably helps that but I don't know if it's publicized enough that community members know about it um I know on the moms group people are asking like why doesn't Hackensack have a town pool not a school issue but we could probably utilize that pool more than it is being used um congratulations to miss espinal and her appointment as assistant principal at the middle school and I think the school business that you guys are doing are phenomenal because the best input that we're going to get is from the kids themselves um I did have a few questions about the agenda um I know you probably can't answer me directly

066but I'll just put it out there uh c23 there's a program slated for the Pre-K at ecdc from uh paid for by the city of Hackensack clean communities litter abatement Grant um and I was just wondering if that's gonna be offered to the Pre-K students in all schools because it's my understanding that ecbc is a program not a school so it's unfortunate if kids that are located at other buildings are missing out on something that's being provided to the kids at ecbc um c19 there's a climate change pilot Grant and I was just curious what that is aimed towards if it's going to be used towards the future ready um program or if it is already slated for something else in other initiatives um I did notice that there are two new math programs coming

067in and I saw Consultants being hired for illustrative mathematics for five to twelve but I didn't see any training listed for the reveal math program at the elementary level um so I'd just like to know if the same type of training or a different type of training would be provided to the elementary school teachers um D6 there was a line item about transportation and it identified a few groups of students but it did not identify bilingual students um I was wondering if that issue is already being addressed if bilingual students that are going to schools other than their home school are going to be receiving transportation um and that's it thank you for everything you guys do thank you that's it all right anybody else in the room before we close down the comments thank

068you that's okay that's okay thank you um Mr Sanchez before I start addressing some of the other ones do you want to address some of the last from this did you write those down because I missed the second one so I did um so C2 I'm sorry c22 uh the ecdc um Hackensack things Community litter abatement Grant I don't know if Dr kasmark has anything she could share about that and actually the question revolving the grant that Rich Del Vecchio also put in for if you can speak to that as well I believe that was c19 I think they're all mine okay um the preschool Grant from the city of Hackensack is just for ecdc the elementary schools do participate in assemblies that happen at their school a teacher at ecdc was able to secure

069that opportunity for the ecdc students so it's just happening at ecdc it is something like if it goes well it's something we can consider we do generally push everything out from the preschool to all of the schools but inevitably there are things that happen at the elementary schools or if that don't happen at ecdc you know ecdc in the past has never really had a field day you know assemblies that we put into the you know to the elementary schools that ecdc doesn't get to be a part of so sometimes things just work out that way generally we do do programmatic base things for preschool but that assembly is just a preschool ecdc thing for this year and then if it goes well we can work with them to either come back through District funding

070or to um see if the city would you know has the funding to expand the grant to the elementaries the climate change pilot is through the New Jersey Department of Education they pushed that out to school districts a few weeks ago it was a really small Grant it was a really small application that I submitted March 10th it's for sixty six hundred dollars it's um the state hasn't given us much information about additional funding they're calling it a pilot so that leads me to believe that there would be an opportunity for more funding later on potentially competitive or not it's slated to as a pilot to take place at the middle and high it's going to be in seventh grade and biology and environmental science at the high school and the teachers are going to

071work with groups of students to um to look at flooding in the city it's supposed to be a real world problem and we used to mitigate it through planting so the money is going to trees and plants and things like that um and they're working with Kean University on on that project so if that's a really short timeline Grant it starts April 1st and ends June 30th so it's happening soon um what was the last oh math so election math is part of the adoption that happened at the middle school this past year and so that's continued training additional training that was board approved because it wasn't sleep it wasn't previously part of the initial implementation reveal math is on the board agenda as an adoptive program for the next school year it does come

072with teacher training um as part of it and then similar to what happened with illustrative we can always add on so we have a call with a company this week to discuss the training prior to the end of the school year for the elementary teachers but you wouldn't see the approval of any training on the agenda because it's coming as part of the adoption of the map that's all roped into the same costs thank you thank you and then the last thing I guess was the question regarding Transportation um but I'll tell you what transportation is the district provides transport Transportation as required by law we have to be very cautious with um courtesy Transportation once you offer courtesy for one you have to offer courtesy for all so um we we provide all Transportation

073as mandated by law um so I'll kind of address the others before we move on to our um uh agenda items it has been nice to um be at the middle school for the assemblies uh I get to go as uh because I try to hit more than one I go as the word president and then I go as a parent because I have one child I don't know but one child that um is um participates in um that assembly and I will tell you it works because we have a child who had goes from hating school to now like our focus is to make this trip and that is why we go to school these days is to to function to make that trip so whatever works um so um Funplex is a lot

074of fun yeah right last time we went skating which I'll give y'all a whole nother for those of us who grew up in 90s and 90s it was an embarrassment to see what they have to wear arm braces now and have these Walker looking things that's a whole nother conversation but um they're going to the Funplex this time and so it is that incentive is working um and and then congratulations Miss espanol um and and it's um it's always nice to hear um good things about ourselves and it's nice to hear um that especially when you said as certainly as you did The Vow that you're making to this board and to this community um and that's much appreciated uh Miss Calle called in and was specifically talking about the swim team and uh I've

075had lots of conversations about that because uh that's concerning to me too one um big because we do have this gorgeous facility that we want to use and she's absolutely right our uh and I say r as a white man and that has multiple races of children are black and brown counterparts do not have the same opportunities when it comes to swimming and so we I do think that that we can explore as as a board uh uh lots of ways and that may be um opportunities with the city that may be opportunity I mean there's lots of things that we can think about of how we can how and what we can offer to to our our students and figure out how to better utilize that pool um and when it comes to our

076our team our swimming team we do have to like we do want to always consider how we are raising up our athletes and and how we're getting them engaged from an early you know perspective you know as early as we can so that they are ready when they are when it's time for them to to take part in that sport so um thank you for the the comment that gives us um a lot to think about again our work is from a high level and so what we want to do is strategically figure that out and and then um go from there um I'm going this is not meant to be disrespectful she called herself Bridget so I want to offer the sexy Bridget called in and um talked about the soccer dome I just

077want to be I want to clarify that it is not a sucker Dome um it is a what we call it is a bubble um and so I will speak to someone who is not well let me say it this way of all the humans that are breathing in this space I'm the most unathletic of them in the room I could care less about what happens inside of the bubble what I care about is what will happen in the scheduling at the middle school and the impact that that will have for our students and how we will absolutely change the face of how that Middle School will run it will change the game sports like a little Sports it will change the game over there matter of fact when we had an assessment done several

078years ago the one thing that they talked about is if we could get the one thing that they even did a uh a mock-up of was where we could add a gym because that's the one area that we don't have enough of we we have two cafeterias we have but it's the space that if we can get a second space then it can change how everything is scheduled over there which will make the life of everybody over there much better so that is what um for me matters it is not specific to any sport it is not specific but what it will do is it will you know it will enable us to utilize that for classes and it will enable us also to utilize it at for um the kids during winter Went For

079Recess when we when they are stir crazy and it's making the adults you know impatient it will also um enable us to have a stream of Revenue um for to um for people to rent at night because we will also uh said Bubble will come with lights um and so there's lots of things um why while it is um important it has zero to do with anything to do with any other body in this town it um this is something that we have looked at talked about dreamed of to figure out how to make that build that space for the Middle School the best it can be for our kids and nobody else it's about Hackensack Public School District alone um it's a good day when Donna West calls in and says thank you and

080um that and there's nothing else that um she needs to address with us so thank you Miss West um the donuts comment is noted um I will do better next year and whatever uh trustee Somerville brings in I will up it by one game yeah another Sports reference we all game on um and then um uh the World Theater day um I appreciate that coming now we're talking my Lane World Theater day um so I I appreciate that um and I think that that is absolutely um something that we should think about how we can acknowledge that may I suggest a musical number by the board uh today faculty families everybody's game absolutely um and then you answered um the last we've already done the last comment so all right thank you all if I

081made it you went to swimming and actually Scott Davis is here we did some swimming at the middle school this year as well correct yeah so we have been strategic about you know right so exactly so absolutely so so what I'll say is that we haven't been sitting down on our hands we've actually been looking strategically of how to make things better and and and we had started with the swimming program for a while at the middle school level can we do more sure we could do more for every sport and we continue to do that just look at the agendas actually I think in September thank you and I do believe it's it's critically important let's let's face it we have a beautiful swimming facility multiples in Bergen County do not even have a

082swimming facility um so for us to have it we cannot lose this team we're committed to supporting this team so um we'll keep working um all right so let's move on to our uh resolutions we will start um with personnel Mr Coleman leadoff personnel uh move for the approval of personal actions 8.1 a through o all right can I have uh we have a motion by Mr Coleman can I have a second please second thank you Miss Somerville uh roll call please yes Mr pendejo is absent Mr Carol is absent Mr Coleman yes yes Maury yes Mr Oates is absent Mr Powell is absent yes yes sorry okay thank you yes Mr Rodriguez yes Mr James Vickery yes okay so motion passes A1 to a zero all right thank you and moving on to I

083did not my bad thank you that's why we have you here um let me backtrack I am sorry to approve um our minutes uh be it resolve the fact Board of Education approves the regular minutes and closed session minutes of February 27th in the special meeting of March 15 2023 you can have a motion to prove our minutes thank you a second a second no no we'll take Mr Palace tell me some of them I have seen for March 15th okay she wasn't here all right thank you now moving on to uh uh the we have no policies from first reading or second reading so we're moving on to see uh Miss Mari yes okay so I bring forward uh C1 to c23 I would like to just highlight a few things on the agenda

084so seat six is the approval for the panel discussion between Hackensack High School criminal justice class and the following local members of our law enforcement on March 1st um C8 is agreement for the bubble show plus school to perform an outdoor Bubble Show on June 6 at no pasta C10 is the New Jersey state interest Scholastic Athletic Association um created The Cooperative sports program to provide opportunities for participation when the school has declining enrollment in a particular program Hackensack School swimming girls and boys program is experiencing defining enrollment and it is the approval of the participation of Hackensack High School girls and boys swimming program to the njsiaa girls and boys swimming with Bergen County Technical High School as per the attached agreement the term of this agreement shall be from July 1st through June

08530th of 2024. um and C11 April 27th is designated as the annual take our children to work day um this day is an opportunity for Children and Youth to learn about the world of work the challenges their parents face and how the school work they do today will help them in the future and as for participating children between the ages of 8 to 18. c19 is the approval of the climate change pilot grant that Dr kasmar spoke about and c23 is the approval of the district submission of the equivalency application to Cusack for cohort one districts and I bring forward C1 through c23 for your approval all right thank you so miss Mori made a motion can I have a second all right any discussion um for C10 just taking into consideration the concerns that

086have been brought up here with them um is there any way possibly to um request that it doesn't automatically renew them like I'm wondering is the best way to go about ensuring that the program is thriving and and that we are looking to at some point go back to being Hackensack swimmers is it something that we don't necessarily want to just renew but have evaluated on an annual basis as well to ensure that it's moving in the right direction if I may so actually it is an automatically renewal but either side can opt out at any time that's actually within the agreement yeah that's that's what I read is that it's an automatic renewal but we can opt out from here to deal within the agreement within the languages agreement either side can decide that

087we don't want to continue at any given year right 90 days before 90 days is up right or coming upon the 90-day Mark of the annual um if it's something that's not being automatically renewed it's something that's getting reviewed and there's been talk about keeping the program going ensuring that we are nurturing and affording younger students in Hackensack the opportunity to swim I'm just wondering if the automatic renewal means that it'll just happen automatically and nobody will really look at it the way that the community sounds like they want it to be looked at okay so would you like to make an amendment okay that's what it was well what would you like to amend it to um I would like it just not like I feel like there should be a review it says

088each either party has 90 days right to opt out or discontinue maybe add that at the 90 day that 90 day Mark we're also reviewing where we're going how's it look what are we doing so if you look at the attachment that we were provided the attachment gives a greater breakdown of what's expected and again since the cost is going to be resting squarely on Hackensack for the program aside from transportation it might be something that we want to keep looking at okay so um if I may I'm fine with whatever the board wants to do just understand that at tomorrow's meeting Bergen Tech is passing the same agreement so if we don't do it I need to inform them because they if there's an amendment to the agreement they're going to want to review

089it that's all I'm saying so we can I just want to put that out there so what I thought what I think though um so but here's the thing is this agreement and our resolution don't necessarily our resolution doesn't mean the same thing to Bergen Tech as this agreement does so if our Resolute if we just add into our resolution that we that we internally are going to review prior to the 90-day window each year that does not impact this agreement that's that's an internal thing for us see what I'm saying Mr Sanchez correct yeah I do I mean it's a it's a misdominium question I mean it makes sense to me um either way it really comes down to we just have to provide them with 90 days written notice that means we can

090provide them with the years written notice if we wanted right but but I'm saying for the board's purposes what what she's requesting is that we put in a trigger to make sure that we're renewing it each year or reviewing it each year because we don't want to find ourselves in a pattern of we're forever Bergen Tech Hackensack if if we find ourselves with 40 kids and that are swimmers and I I totally understand um if if the board desires that Mr Armenia would like to make a suggestion to the resolution language when does the swim team swim like what what time oh so when it's the winter season so swim season just just finished so 90 days written notice and it doesn't have to be you know written notice ahead of July 1st by the

091way of reading this it's just 90 days written notice inside today to terminate the agreement um that you do it at the conclusion maybe maybe the board meeting after the conclusion of the swim season so that you can discuss it this following year uh coach Davis can you my concern is the timeline can you speak to the timeline of July 1st like so does this have to can we push this off or is this yes please sorry no worries thank you thank you I'm trying to clarify this okay yes now um if we decide to amend this and we decide to push this out will it affect ing it to be approved by the state yeah that needs to be approved by the state by April 15th okay so this is like the last surround

092yeah so this like if we're gonna make an amendment we have to to do it and pass it tonight I believe also that the state every two years also reviews it so it's it's an automatic review but the state also reviews it until it becomes I think four years in and then it's then it's up to us so the state does have a two-year review process and I agree with you like let's say we get this middle school program going and we got 20 boys 20 girls in five years or so yeah we should split across but for right now in two years we will not have a swim team as it is so that's why we're trying to combine and we've also had a infrastructure already built in with birken Tech students that uh

093are either from Hackensack Rochelle Park Maywood this was the last year with Maywood um part of our swim team and it's worked um and that's why we've chosen American Tech so uh we can do the uh review process is totally fine but um we should push this forward especially because Burger Tech's on board as well yeah I definitely don't want to stop the process it's not something I want to stop I just want to ensure that it's something that is only at some point it's going to benefit we I want what I'm hearing tonight is that we want to ensure that we're getting kids in the program that are coming from Hackensack and we want to make sure that they have a home where we're not going to have to worry about of course oh

094but we're in this program and you know at some point we do want it to go back of course so if that's what everybody wants that's my that's my suggestion but again it's not something that would be Bergen tech review it's something that the board can get your opinion on get teachers opinion on and we take it through review is it worth it to continue but if that's just my thought and you agree that you're fine with the two-year that you're saying the state of New Jersey will do I know that it'll be the same review process that I'm thinking of but that's that's fine timeline is just to suggest that if you are going to require this board to take a second look every year at this and make sure that it's something they

095want to continue with in terms of timing I would do it after the swim season this would be perfect for the 90s July 1st or 90 days to July 1st which is April second so it would be at the March meeting that way if you are going to terminate it there's time to terminate it and but if you are going to terminate it it's not going to impact the morale of the current some team that's currently so I mean so could could we amend it to the to say that um that each year in March an internal review will happen to see if this agreement is still needed basically I mean it's fine it's fine with me especially if we're talking about changing the resolution language and not having to go back to the other

096District yeah this is just the resolution agreement listen at the end of the day we we welcome our neighbors but like we want to be our own team I mean that's the goal for all of our Sports programs a thousand percent and I believe the state would like to see every school district have their own sport program but not at the expense of certain kids not being able to participate in any sport any given sport that's why these co-ops exist and we're used to Coop with uh with uh Paramus for happy right and that dissolved I have no idea how strong the hockey program was but when I first arrived we had one student left that student graduated end just to know I am wearing my hockey shirt there you go from 2003. I went

097to college um and we've had a lot of swimmers come out of Hackensack it hasn't always been language so we're trying to build that up we have one of the best swimmers in the state right now for mackensack and Jaden Alice and we had Brianna Williams uh and yeah so we we have a lot and we we have the middle school program we have a couple of solid 7th and eighth graders coming up so hopefully we can get back to that but for right now we need to help what we can do right now and until we hopefully get back into you know Hackensack strong and they don't have a team so we're just helping their swimmers as well to be part of something as well yeah so it right we can write it in

098the language I have no issue with that but it's implied reasonable and we could do it at the March meeting every year because that's afterwards we'll see how it went just in March but at every point they're not you guys find issues where you may need to make changes sure gaps where you may need to fill in you know or corrective actions that you may need of course so I presume you're not just for you guys oh there's a lot more yeah if I may if we reach 50 kids it would probably be unmanageable for us to have any Partners so yeah I always said it but yeah so yeah exactly no my only thing is I just want to make sure we're not using language right as an Arbiter for us doing the right

099thing perfect yeah that's always yeah okay all right so thank you coach Davis uh engaging with us in that so now um we are at an amendment so um we need to motion so you meant a motion for an amendment can I have a second to that Amendment correct can you read the amendment yeah let's read the amendment first it further resolved sorry that in the march of each school year but in March of each school year that the agreement remains in effect the board shall review and consider the health of the District swim program and whether continuation in the agreement is necessary and appropriate is that it's good obviously a program further in the direction that they would like to see it happen where we can get more swimmers involved yeah so all of

100that during that period okay perfect so several of the letter family no because it will automatically renew unless terminated right under the terms and so this is just an additional be it further resolved requiring you to review the program in March make a determination as to whether or not it's appropriate to consider that way if it's not you can choose to terminate all right so can I have a second to that Amendment Mr Coleman thank you seconded the amendment um so can we do a roll call on the amendment it's a roll call on the amendment uh Mr birthday is absent Mr Carol is absent Mr Coleman yes Mr Alton yes Miss Murray yes Mr Oates is absent Mr Powell yes Somerville yes Mr Rodriguez yes Mr James Vickery yes motion to immense C10 passes

101all right now we're moving on to um Finance now we've got to go through the rest of them sorry now moving on back to um the original C1 through 23. we've already had we did the motion and the second so now we can do a roll call in there okay Mr Coleman yes Miss Cordero Alton yes Miss Mori yes Mr Oates is absent Mr Powell yes Miss Somerville yes yes Mr Rodriguez yes Mr James Vickery yes okay so C1 to c23 passes with C10 amended thank you it is too late now uh now finance and budget Mr Rodriguez yes I like to bring forth emotions D1 through D16 uh it seems like a lot it's mostly budgetary issues and some like um Google of like senior stuff yearbooks um uh performing Bank rewards but I

102want to highlight something really cool uh I want to highlight D14 where um we are accepting donations in the form of aesthetic uniforms of Adidas of 25 000 for the high school football team I think that's awesome um and yeah I like to motion bring forth motions D1 through d16. all right can I have a second second thank you Mr Somerville roll call please Mr Mendez who is absent Mr Carroll is absent Mr colon yes that's Greater Austin yes Miss Murray yes Mr Oates is absent Mr Powell yes Mr Rodriguez yes Mr James Victory yes do you want to be 16 passes all right uh now uh Mr Roderick is again for um buildings and grounds emotions E1 through E5 highlighting E2 which is the uh Paving for the high school students parking which most

103of you who are here uh probably agree that that needs to get done so uh E1 through E5 all right can I have a second exactly thank you Mr Coleman uh roll call please Mr Mendez who's absent Mr Carroll is absent Mr Coleman yes Miss Cordero Alton yes Miss Mori yes yes Mr Rhodes is absent Mr Powell yes Somerville yes Mr Rodriguez yes Mr chance Victory yes motion you want to eat five passes all right foreign community relations we um that meeting is coming up so we don't have anything to report their old does anybody have any old business that they need to bring forth tonight all right any any new business all right board comments um Mr Powell or comments please sir hello sir how are you thank you I'll be quick I just

104want to thank everyone for coming out and thank Ash for is uh eloquent student report as always thank Miss cosmark for your report very thank you very much for that thank you the students who wrote The Essence I'm gonna see them all and uh the decathlon team you guys are awesome exemplary you know and it's a it's a good motivation for the other students coming forward and I'm so proud of you all I know how well you have done and continue the good work you've had a bright great future ahead of you are thank um I just want to thank Mrs Sanchez very superintendent report fan protective for your always doing a great job keeping us out there you know keeping everyone calling in and uh that's everything that you do thank our business administrator

105Miss thing I don't know uh I met the new HR later today uh just want to welcome you welcome aboard thank you for choosing Hackensack School District it's a great district and we welcome you with open arms thank you and we look forward to working with you board attorney is always keeping us in line keeping us on our toes we are always learning from you you know what's right what's wrong you know ethics and everything you know thank you again and I think our custodians thank Mrs Sanchez administrative team for the great work you do it's not easy describe you called in and I want to thank you for your phone call what you mentioned about this swim team was uh that was awesome you have you made some great points just want to thank

106you for that thank you Mr Gaines for the work you do with our kids you're awesome and what you do and I'll try to take up an invite to attend uh possibly on Thursday and I want to thank uh Mr Bob tourism hope I said his name correctly if I butcher it I'm sorry please correct me uh you mentioned Mental Health I'm very big on mental health so I'm glad you actually touched on it for some people it's a very sensitive issue but mental health today is uh just it's huge it's everywhere it's on all the jobs in our homes it's in our environment it's Global so many people are struggling to mental health and a lot of young people not just old people it's a lot of young people are suffering from mental health

107issues and it comes in different forms and I just want to say I you know I'm big on it and I do a lot of reading on it I empathize with all that are going through it I'm you know I wish I could do more uh there's nights I just stay awake just thinking about what's going on today in in the world you know Society in our schools with everyone who's suffering from mental health mental health hits All Families from all walks of life and as we continue to struggle through it we just want to pray together a family that prays together stays together let's all come together and try to help each other through these difficult times that we're going through and just pray as you look and see what's going on you look

108at the news and you see what's going on today it's it's just mind-boggling what's going on but people do have there's a lot of issues out there a lot of people are struggling and internally and we just have to come to Goods with it and realize that we you know they need help we need help and all families need help and let's just pray together so we all can get to these difficult times it's raining drive safely please get home safe and to our board members once again I commend you for the good work you do and it's not easy coming out on a Monday a lot of us are busy with jobs families but thank you again uh for making the time and coming up and serving the community and get home safe guys

109and uh have a good night thank you bye thank you Mr Powell Miss Somerville so I am going to ask you guys and Dodge me for a second right so I have something here that I wrote so I just wanted to hear me in this story get closer so I just wanted to take a moment right um this month-long cello to talk about women's history month so this month-long celebration is a time to honor women's contribution throughout history and acknowledge their struggles in their quest for equality during women's history month we reflect on the many achievements of women in all areas of life and recognize the courage and determination it took to fight for their rights and the rights of others by learning about the accomplishments of women everyone can gain a greater appreciation for

110their contributions and the obstacles they have overcome for me recognizing women history month is important because the focus is on acknowledging that progress has been made but much more work still needs to be done so I want to take this opportunity to honor the women who have made a difference in my life my grandmother my mother my sister and my daughter I would also like to show my appreciation for again fantastic women teachers and administrators who put everything into our students and the district please know that every day should be women's History Day that women's rights are human rights and let us continue to fight for a more just and equal Society so I'm going to leave everybody with this quote by Molly cook right women should be celebrated daily but the month dedicated to

111female empowerment is extraordinary it doesn't just honor the iconic women who have changed history but encourages new generations of females to dream big and to know that anything is possible so Dr kasmark you've presented for the second time she's still here so thank you again for that appreciate it uh happy that you dumbed it down for me so again thank you for that um Mr Sanchez has always you know thank you for the superintendent's report Miss espinal so a congratulations welcome I personally am always touched by people who feel things deeply because I think that's really important for our kids right they really need to understand that people have an emotional connection to the jobs that they do that it's really important to them because then it resonates right emotions are important so again you

112know you choked up appear you almost made me choke up right and I don't want to cry on camera it's pretty ugly so I'm just going to say congratulations and you know keep up the good work and if you bring that level of emotion to your students then they're the better for it um the Arts at Hackensack unfortunately and like with the phone I apologize for getting up and going back and forth I miss the Arts because I actually have a really sick parent that I'm dealing with and the hospital is calling constantly to ask questions so again no not meaning to be rude but you know I apologize so I miss the Arts because I actually had to go out of the country had a parent fly back it was a little bit you

113know crazy so I promise to try to attend the ones that are upcoming but I'm so sorry I miss Chicago it's like one of my favorite plays ever so next time hopefully next year Miss West um the donuts weren't a bribe I I I I'm not telling the truth it wasn't a bribe it kind of reminded me that I was that parent that used to always show up for the reading and honestly as much as I love my kids God I hated that I hated showing up sitting in the class feeling like a daring headlight sometimes you didn't even know what you you know you were actually doing so it was nice to be able to come back you know and with no ties no attachment to the room just kind of come in the

114kids were wonderful her kids were great so I really appreciate the invitation to come and you know if it's there again next year be happy to show up Dr Whiting good luck on your new addition hope everything you know um goes well for all the other people I won't go over each one individually but for everybody that calls in like I say you know I not just call in but show up in the room right it's important to see faces especially for a person who struggles to remember faces and names sometimes I appreciate people coming up showing up in the room right so we can always see you know your point because sometimes like I said emotions matter and talking to somebody on the phone you can kind of understand where they're coming to but

115actually seeing them physically seeing their reactions seeing the effort that they put into the conversation the commentary I think is you know very very important so again thank you everybody for coming out you know people of the good work and hopefully I will see you guys at the next meeting in April thank you Miss Mari full speech um I do love looking into the audience and it's all women okay power to us women being out here being out here tonight no the swim coach was here [Music] it's women's history month every day right every day it's women's History Month I also wanted to you know again reiterate um congratulations to the cathlon team to the essay contest whatever oh um Justin all welcome um highly recommended you know we're all we're all rooting for you

116in the middle school dear leadership um uh ashes reports to the report thank you so much Ash uh the Hackensack drama club did a phenomenal phenomenal job I am not Arts person but I do you know when I hear good reviews and people tell me hey you need to show up I showed up on Sunday and I was blown away the singing was top-notch singing the dancing the props the performer the just the passion I was actually sitting next to a grandma to one of the actors and every time she came out she was like oh she started crying and I just started crying and I was like why am I crying and it was just such a wonderful touching um performance and even at the end you could tell who were seniors because then

117they started crying of how emotional they were it was it was such a wonderful experience um and lastly the comments about you know just our Sports in general um I do feel that there there is always waves of certain sports that do very well and then sometimes they kind of just die out and we do definitely need to stay on top of it we need to start with our younger students you know keep offering it at the elementary school swimming should be open to the public I don't know how well it's publicized um but it's not as much as it should be um and also you know I'm wearing my this is actually my brother's hockey shirt when he was on the hockey team and I heard a comment someone said oh we have a

118hockey team and I'm like well don't we have a hockey team you know and it's sometimes it's one of those things that it just kind of Fades away and I don't want those things to fade away you know they're so important swimming is a life skill that everyone should I don't know how to swim but I mean everyone should know how to swim but I don't know why I don't know why but it's it's super important for our students to just get that Foundation it's like there should be a prerequisite I don't know how it's still offered at the high school as a class um so it should still be involved in at least taken once um hockey even field hockey field hockey when I went to school was huge it was one of those

119sports that every girl wanted to be a part of and now we can't get enough girls to enroll in the sport so we really need to revisit it and try to push it in elementary school as as much as we can um and I hope everyone has a wonderful spring break use it as a mental health week or use it to clean your home clean your room um catch up on whatever it is you need to do or enjoy it on a vacation um have a great evening everyone and have a wonderful spring break thank you next week four days okay I'm not going to repeat what everybody here has said tonight everything was fabulous um congratulations to uh everyone moving up in their positions um you guys have an amazing support team you really

120do and and I appreciate that a lot I think it speaks about the possibility that you are going to have um so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna keep going on with with all of that what I am going to do though what I am going to do is I am going to promote the um the fashion show that's coming up for our 2023 graduates um they don't pay me to do this so I am going to say though uh you know the senior fashion show taking place at the Marriott Glen point it is going to be on Tuesday April 25th I know kind of like inconvenient a Tuesday right but you still have to work the next day so that's the whole point is that it's inconvenient right but it goes for a good

121cause uh let's try and make our seniors um in this first year coming up and out of you know hopefully getting out of this pandemic let's try and make this a Monumental event for them they've been through a lot everybody's getting outside now um let's let's support them and show them that we appreciate them and we knew they could do this and um by by getting your tickets and showing up it's it's going to be a fabulous event I'm going um and I'm going to be sparkling I am bedazzled myself just because I don't get dressed up enough um so I'm I'm gonna make the dazzling so please join me um and I'm sure the PTA would really appreciate it so that's it thank you all right Mr Coleman thank you I don't have much

122to add but miss Somerville that was an awesome speech it uh really encapsulated what this month is all about and uh thank everyone for coming out this episode that's that's been all uh we look forward to all the great things you're going to do uh I kind of lost a little bit of my you know proud dad moment with my my kid did not show up so I apologize to miss Meck I should have done more to make sure that she was here but I know but uh you know I I I wanted to you know thank teachers or principal you know I I you know it's not something that you brag about my kid performed last month in the Black History Month thing but I always tell people you know your kids 90 of

123how your kids turn out they were born that way there's almost nothing you can do about it but that 10 percent parents teachers School your peers you support them motivate them you challenge them and that 10 can make all the difference in the world so I can't brag on my kids I have awesome kids luckily they're born that way but I thank the teachers I thank the school we're giving these opportunities for my kids and I look forward I don't know if you're going to be there April 16th or anyone else but I look forward to hopefully she'll be there to actually I'm gonna stop last night she'll be the next time yes I'm just going to reiterate everything while this trustee said um touch on what uh trustee Maury said uh the uh I

124know that uh Mr Whiting and Mr Sanchez have been working on um getting kids included more earlier in the uh Middle School working with the rec program together to kind of make sure that everything kind of assimilates and works together and and it's something that's a work in progress but we must make it a focus you mentioned field hockey it's one of those things one of those you know one of those groups teams that it is being you know uh swimming we need to you know support it so we are working to you know try to solidify an earlier start to All Sports it's a big undertaking um but it it's on our radar um uh I gotta say I love the uh the energy of this meetings when we first started uh to how

125it's gone today is just full of positivity and hope and I think we're doing the right things to work for the future um it's it's um very obvious to say that there's a lot there's a lot to be proud of in this comic Community uh and a lot to look forward to so I think you all that came out thank you everybody that called in and we'll keep moving forward thank you so um so to all the the Academic Decathlon team and the essay winners from The Seton Hall essay contest the robotics team the Destination Imagination you know that's the exciting part of what we do um we are we that's the part we love to get to be able to say y'all are awesome and we're thankful that you're a part of you know

126the excitement of our schools and um so congratulations and and keep up the good work um Dr casual thank you for another um presentation um but thank you um and then I will say to the the rest of you um I I too notice that the section right in front of me is powerful women who and and I'm and I'm looking to everyone when I say that because I look at someone who ran against me in an election I look at someone who is a role model to the rest of the Educators in this room sitting on the front row I look at someone Miss Adams who I had to sit across the negotiation table from which is no easy to eat um I I look at Dr Whiting who has led other administrators in

127a building that has from a parent perspective that's what I will speak to who has turned that the energy of that building around um I look at assistant superintendents who for I don't want to age any money but for decades we'll say for years um have um who have led with a student Focus I I think of Miss Martinez who I have watched um come out and single-handedly um well there are two of you actually about Heather whoa okay yes so I'm looking at all of you I'm talking about the whole section so yes in this one we'll make t-shirts I know right but the the work that you do for our kids powerful the the Legacy that you leave is powerful for you I have single-handedly watched you on the front steps of our

128school holding the door with your foot handing me papers speaking to another parent in Spanish and multitasking to about four different parents um so the power that you all hold in this space is not forgotten and it's not um it is seen and I want you to know that and is appreciated and to you that sit on this board we do this work with you and you um are appreciated and the work that you do um is also seen and we can't do it we do it as a team there's no one that is higher or lower than anybody and missing I mean I mean technically I guess Robert's in charge but we know that we know that you run the district and keep it um keep us all um um from a going to

129jail and B um keeping everything so that we can without you our kids don't get what they need and I've said this before I've never been in a space in a private meeting with you where you have not always brought it back to children and that is something I will always respect you for and we are thankful for you because you do literally keep us from going to jail so um thank you all um can I have um a motion to adjourn I will emotion all right all those in favor say aye aye good night all right good night Scott thank you for joining us and Scotty yes sir hey I didn't get a chance to give a personal tell Miss Espanola said congratulations I forgot her okay I think I please tell her for

130me thank you so much