001meeting has been provided as specified in the ACT proper notice of this public meeting was provided in the notice said notice was posted at the entrance to the board office mail to the nutly sun the star Legend of North Jersey Harold News and the Nutley Journal mail to the Nutley cont clerk advertising Nutley Sun posted on the district website uh in consideration of all here present and in recognition of the importance of these proceedings it is requested that all cell phones and Pages be turned off or silenced for the duration of the meeting have the flag salute please ALG flag the United States of America and to the rep for stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for [Music] all Mr K here Mr Riley here here MRSA here Mrs pado Mr C here
002we're going to uh deviate from our normal protocol tonight um we have commissioner Rogers with us who have been making some presentations Mr Rogers thank you Mr President and superintendent of schools and M School Board before I uh begin the presentations uh I just want to share with you how we got here tonight there were a number of students W this District that came to our office over the summertime and volunteered to help us with a host of uh of programs in particularly helping our veterans writing letters to senior citizens visiting veterans visiting senior citizens but here's my point they got here because of the hard incredible work of their parents and of the teachers of the school district you know teaching got to be a real real rewarding uh career because when you see
003see what students do outside the school district when you see them stepping up and becoming part of their Community that's a credit to every member of the school board the superintendent of schools and every teacher in this District as well as the parents what I'm talking about is character building I've seen astounding things happen with the young people in this town and we're not only talking about high school and uh middle school children but you're going to see Elementary School students here tonight receiving these certificates of appreciation so I'm giving these Awards to these students but my hats off to you all all you here I sat here you know I vowed when I left here I'd never come back never say but here I am but I'm here for a good reason Mr superintendent
004you've done a great job Mr board president you and I told the relationship that the school board has with our entire Board of Commissioners is probably the best best in at least all the years I've been here and to the teachers I don't know if there any see a few here tonight but to the teachers they're always here which we admire them for God God bless you all I mean what you're going to see tonight are students that that uh you know brought brought life you know to our veterans to disabled V senior citizens so without any further Ado I'm going to begin this whoever we kind of take turns so board members want to working way up to hand out the presentations that would be nice first uh I'm introducing Lindy Lindsay Lopez she
005works on our office she's in charge of an up Corps program that has helped put this together and this young fell Brendan Brandon CASRO he is a Nutley high school graduate he's now at a fairly Dickson University uh seeking his degree in criminal justice he came to our office most of the summer to help these young people in this project young man thank you very much he's given back to the community even now while he's in college so thank you and his mother's a teacher [Applause] Lori we do Taylor wlon Taylor come on now I'm not going to read every award because they they do say the same uh they have the same type of award but I'll read the first one so you get the flavor of what we're saying the township of Nutley
006department of public affairs military veterans and Affairs Bureau as well as n Court honors in this case Taylor wlon this certificate is awarded to the above named individual and recognition for participating in notle Corps for the year 2014 you made a lot of people happy thank [Applause] you Ashley thank you very much we appreciate everything you do Ashley job well done and I notice you in your entire family follows me on Facebook so I better be on my toes Nicole Duda K [Applause] Pavo Steven [Applause] Fidel you're learn you're going to learn from me real in fact you know I had a little notice I had a little surgery done here I walked in I said where's the camera angle so Jamie Meer to be here tonight so we'll make sure we get these oh
007kill's here Carill thank you very much thank you job job well done you covered both of me CU I'm a senior citizen and a veteran you have to take care of me pretty soon pardon me want a picture [Laughter] sure Skyler nilo well done really appreciate your mom wants to take come on thank you very much appreciate okay thank you Hy Fernandez [Applause] turn Hannah Lewis Hannah you're also here for your sister Shauna okay Alex heran Alexa [Applause] alexor we're spell right I I knew I got something wrong there job well done he didn't graduate high school wasn't avable I want to hear [Applause] that Amanda we Amanda thank you very much just get Ace get a nice [Applause] Emily [Applause] Carbone Sean Fitzpatrick I know there few things going on tonight so this would
008be the to Patrick family all there three children Sean Conor and who else was in there Kathleen [Music] Kath I believe it was Sean his mother had told me he's very uh prolific he's very good in history and so I kind of put him to the test I said let me ask you something uh do you know who fought raml in Africa man he mentioned George Patton his entire biography what div Vision he was in I mean so this young man's again accredited the school distri Brandon Castro I I I won't take up uh did we miss anybody that's important okay we all right ladies and gentlemen I want to thank you and the school board for giving us the opportunity to be here and to the students here we have about 30 or 40
009responses from your pen panel senior citizens so what we're going to do is uh we're going to gather you after the holidays and we're going to continue to write thank you I salute you all God Bo up here for for a picture [Music] please [Music] yeah did are good how are [Music] you you very okay everybody up here congratulations everybody thank you of the Board of Education I really want to thank the parents students guys for what it's worth we're going to go we we'll what's your address [Music] I don't know it could go like [Music] are you filming right now yeah but go ahead it doesn't matter Taylor come on we're going to be going into close session so I'm going to read our um our orders and then we'll be back in in
010compliance with chapter 231 Public Law 1975 um we're going to be where at the Board of Education will be discussing manag exempt from the public discussion pursu to njsa 1042 now therefore be resolve the Board of Education recess to close executive session at this time to discuss student matters he had further resolved that the results of the discussion will be made public by inclusion on the agenda of a subsequent meeting of the Board of Education or when the reason for discussing such matters in Clos session no longer exist a motion motion all in favor a folks we're probably going to be 15 20 minutes I would hope no longer and we'll be back in session to approve the minutes thank you thank you all in favor thank you now we'll have the approval of the
011minutes MO second debie thank you correspondence no correspondence presentations yes Mr presid just following through with our strategic plan here we go and our curriculum action Team every year through program reviews we have three for this year but the first of three Mr Odell talk to us about our sociogram Mr Odell you I'll be as brief as a history teacher ever can be give you the a brief overview of the work that has been done so far with the program review uh as uh the board is familiar with the process that we go through our fiveyear process the social studies department is currently in the program review and hopefully cision part of it uh the go certainly to look at those aspects U of social stud education that might inform our work going forward specifically
012the New Jersey Department of Education model curriculum and the C3 framework I want to give a very brief description of the current social studies department and program a quick data analysis of our student performance and uh survey results and recommendations one of the things that really uh does have an impact on us is that the New Jersey Department of Education is creating model curriculum in different subject areas and for social studies they've done so based on the 2009 standards uh these standards did have a very quick uh edit over the spring which means we now have to realign ourselves with certain ctive progress indicators uh these this model curriculum also links to the Common Core which you've heard so much about and also is only done for the state mandated courses which at the high
013school would be world history us one and us2 is organized around uring understandings and key student learning objectives and each unit is each course is divided into five units with an assessment to follow those assessments were to be uh Statewide assessments uh as of this July these assment will change to Simply Be exemplars for districts to use as they went forward creating their own local assessments U speaking as a member of actually one of the state committees I tell you that the current progress is only up to unit three out of the five uh there are multiple assessment formats they link to a few key slos which are the most important parts and to the common core and regardless of how the assessment is designed there is always a writing component to it that's a
014lot of the work in the social studies Department being done to reinforce the writing program in each building another uh program that is very important is what's known as the C3 framework is a uh National program organized you see 21 states and certain major social studies organizations while New Jersey has not yet formally adopted it uh you can see the uh Department of V is looking for PR provide professional development on it we actually try to get ahead of the curve and that provide PD on that back in November uh the organizing principle is something called inquiry Arc we're trying to get our students to be curious involved Learners in matches the instructional models we have been pushing forward as a district there are four dimensions uh the first is developing the questions in the
015inquiries which goes right to student engagement uh Dimension two uh applying social studies Concepts there great fear that social studies would be overwhelmed by the common core and that simply become almost an adjunct to English Department this is trying to reinforce the very important learning that should come out of social studies the whole reason for C3 is with all that work on College and Career Readiness the feeling was there was a third C that was not being addressed Civic Readiness that one of the key purposes of education is to get our youngsters ready to be effective citizens in our democracy uh the third dimension in in Arc is evaluating sources using evidence which goes right through all the work we have been doing with teaching with documents reinforcing the reading and the writing programs and
016mention for the end product uh that the students can communicate conclusions and where appropriate take informed action that they will be the kinds of citizens we want them to be that simply a Model B inquiry Arc looks like and you see that unlike the New Jersey standards which are very history Centric this very clearly tries to identify work in Civics economics geography history and there are pendencies for other subjects such as sociology anthropology and psychology our current program uh it's based on various reviews and revisions we've done from 2010 or earlier especially some of the early uh Elementary programs were done much earlier uh key is that it's in a format that the teachers do not find very usable this is one of the key pieces of feedback that we received as they go forward
017you know planning looking to work on their instruction or their assessment so one of the things we to look at uh instruction does occur in every year of our K12 sequence we start to infuse the technology and as we get into the Upper Elementary grades there are scarcity of external benchmarks in social studies we are not a state assess subject so see a lot of our data is internal uh one thing we will link to is the AP scores and the elementary program we're based on what's pretty much called an Expanding Horizons curriculum if you can picture a series of Centric circles working out from knowing about myself to my family to my neighborhood to my world uh but what we've tried to do uh in conjunction with the what the state has asked for
018is Infuse actual history content into those Expanding Horizons uh when that particular curriculum was designed the then State social coordinator used to constantly make the phrase one more trip to the firehouses I'm going to cut it and we have taken him at his word and tried to infuse more actual social St content into the curriculum if you look at grade six we actually began our transition into the middle school level uh when this curriculum was done we were anticipating a Statewide assessment in grade eight there are three strands in the state standards and we wanted to make sure we hit every strand prior to that anticipated assessment which has since been delayed uh so grade six it's heavy on the C strand 6.3 and that kind of transitions us into the middle school where we
019hit the next two strands uh grade seven focuses on strand 61 which is United States history up to reconstruction and grade eight is the first part of a two-year world history sequence uh grade eight will get up to about uh the year 1500 CE and then the students trans uh transition from there across the street to the high school where they pick up the modern world these are our high school offerings the three state mandated courses uh you see we have four AP offerings and a host of elect design books uh looking at our data and some of benchmarks we can look at uh we want to make sure that we actually align with uh external benchmarks when we can and in this case the AP scores you see that some of our courses align
020some up with them and others not quite as much and so we feel we want to do some more work on that and try to uh better align ourselves we also put out a Sur many of you may have received it through Naviance U asking for input as to the program I just want to take you very quickly this will be available on the website I will not make you look at every slide but I want to address a few of them our feeling is that we want to be an excellent district and so we want to know that our scores are from eight or higher so looking at how many of our respondents came in seven or lower and every one of those somewhere between 5050 and 70 some felt that there was room
021for improvement uh this particular one uh Global perspectives happened to actually be 63% of the respondents felt that we could do a little more work there one of the ones this one is actually the one that came in with the highest score for you know doing well and it reflects the work that has been done by the social studies Department they've been working very hard on teaching with documents reading for bias and uh perspective and so that one came in a break even of 50% you see most of the columns are up to the right and of course we do want to one areas we want to uh grow is teaching the students to use data and quantitative analysis that in a heavily partisan age they can get their own data that they're not relying
022upon you know whatever is given to them by the media that they can analyze themselves to that end we're actually pioneering program called mapline uh actually part of the we are the district Pion ing for the rest of the country as this company tries to break into the market and um they can take the data learn to put in spreadsheets they can heat map it look for relationships and conclusions and so the quantitative analysis we're trying to push forward our recommendations we do want to review the sequence again K to four and further Infuse some more um actual social stud content into the Expanding Horizons includes economic Concepts which uh can be taught at a very very young age to that end we have a program called virtual economics 4.0 uh we do want to
023explore additional elective options in the high school our current offerings tend to favor the honors track and we want to get some more offerings for every student to pursue social studies content we would like to see the inquiry Arc being a part of every course and certainly anchor our AP courses to next AP items uh for the curriculum again we have to realign our cpis uh we do want to work oning understandings and cenal questions to facilitate the planning once again the inquiry Arc and C3 framework uh we do want to look at the current sequence and maybe model R is more on the model curriculum and perhaps all low more time to look at modern America also update our K12 curriculum apps and assessments terms of Staffing uh given the current projections of the
024configuration committee from the Strategic plan they feel that we may need at least two more teachers to keep our current course offerings going and if we do pursue those electives at least one additional teacher the middle school has just made a transition to the Middle School model and we hire two new teachers to uh to accomplish that and we' like to see that maintained certainly want to infuse the technology so that we do have the 21st century citizens that we want our students to become and given the age of our materials we do have to look at you know what materials we are offering our students and this is our fiveyear Outlook uh very similar chart as we go through the process we're currently in year zero right now as you can see thank you
025very much Mell appreciate the work that your um your group has put into this I'm sitting in on the U AC government committee meeting with Mr D and Mr it was very comprehension Association thank you for that technical support um Mr Odell thank you very much just while he's here to recognize that the board again Mr Odell this year was recognized by his colleagues as uh the supervisor of the year in social studies for the state of New Jersey so congratulations his year zero through year four is exceptionally similar to our years one through five in in our strategic planning curriculum team again just another example of that work supported by the budget supported by the staff thank the teachers for sure but making sure we're focusing on all of our curricular areas I know
026Mr Odell has waiting patiently through this process chopping at the bid to get social studies up on the Block and so we're here and we're happy we're here so thank you very [Music] much um as part of an annual requirement um we need to make sure that we're we're having a Public Presentation each year um on the measures that we use to protect ourselves our state our information technologically and so to do that we have Mr V meister and Mr leine that um in order for us to comply with the child Internet safety or child internet protection act there there number number of things that we need to do as a district number one is to have a internet content filter uh and the second one is to have a policy that talks about Internet
027safety so um we we do use a a internet content filter use a system called um light speed which blocks out um unnecessary content while uh stud students are browsing the internet um teach kids have come across the blue screen that comes up when to sites that aren't that are blocked by the filter um the other thing is the Internet safety policy it's it's policy number 2361 talks about um what we have in place and the processes in place to students that's available on dist cares to read um you made adjustments based on the am not this Cas we're talking specifically web accessing out um violence pornography obviously school and appropriate material while making sure that material that is appropriate for school at the appropriate grade level can be made Ava it also has the
028ability for teachers who sign to override some of those categories U case art classes where Sometimes some of the contents may hit a filter and yet is appropriate for a class that is available for and one of the things that our filter does provide is in you know exploring the bringar own device um environment that we're we're looking towards allows us to have students log into the network using their username passw and apply the restrictions to I think that would be a concern if we start to have students bring in their own devices how do we um how do we limit their use of their private device in our school technologically we can limit the use when they're connected to our Network somebody brings a device that's connected to a s Network at that point
029Sol but on our property using our using their own equipment and working on our program we can limit their use on What U I think part of what we do is is teach Internet safety proper proper usage um to go to thank you I question so on the filtering so do we follow what's being the new thing that's being searched and then block it as we find it do we that subcribe service that does that their business is to locate things that should be blocked that are new and have and then they you you block it on the filter or they no they automatic so it's the service the filter is the service repaying for was live that answer the question that's thank you some of that sometimes comes from us communica to our administrators
030to Mr B to let them know that we're seeing a lot of this all of a sudden we can request things to be added to it as well and then will show for the other my so we're paying for service that's actually live monitoring being reactive before we do find things that we can think that St that we maintain right that's what I need thank you and if there's site if there's a site that that someone needs to go to then we can certainly open it up thank you very much a brief report brief short concise um want to thank to teachers for being here to off like that Mrs cor's here every every meeting ni but she's with friends today thanks everyone for coming out even some of our M schal staff members who
031may be here under their own decision making or just because they married to the teacher OD I received an interesting piece of information did you write something about Mr Alexander H I did can you explain a little that to the board um I was uh I was lucky enough to have a research article that I wrote while I was in graduate school I I approved it over the course of the last two years and uh had it uh published by a peer edited journal the by the New York State Historical Association if I can add just one thing that has actually be referenced in other articles that are now showing up other Scholars are picking up his work congratulations that's actually how it came to my attention is not the article itself but that other
032people were using the article and part of their argument and I didn't even know that yet congratulations again thanks to all the teachers for being here sing with staff recognition um something we want to share is that Mr bar Raymond was actually featured um in the holiday of the Montclair magazine for his un service work and obviously his instrument playing um he's been all around playing with some of the greates but this was nice because it was really about giving back and it's nice to see our teachers not just here but out in the community like our students um just contributing to you know things that make this this this community great um student recognition we had the Patriot pen essay contest um essay was submitted by T lock from the an school um which
033is now CH it's been chosen District wide to uh compete for the the contest across multiple districts so again congratulations to in pling today competition goes all the way up to the National level where the winner receives $5,000 room for D um I know it's been a while between since our last meeting we had our our with our Communications action team our parent meeting on assessment specifically Park uh a number of board members were there we had a fantastic turn on a couple hundred parents and community members for some great conversation the not better online so if anyone's interested in following upe please please do so we also had our ASL B parent meeting which Mr Mater is running is continuing to run trying to get more people involved in those conversations to make sure
034we're supporting each Community within our larger Community um also had middle school students talk about presentation and our community action team not Communications not but now Community um a nice example was Mr rogers's work um with our students but the idea of our community action team is to get the learning and action of our students outside of school so they're contributing and participating in L Community um members of the middle school here um did a research project on our system of government in the township of Nutley which is somewhat unique but the commission form of government working with the various Commissioners doing research and they actually made um interdisciplinary presentations for an audience that included our a number of our commissioners um really getting their learning out having interesting conversation and I will say it
035was interesting um with our commissioners about how the how the government here in notle operates and uh why it's beneficial for our for our for our community so nice example includ the teachers for making that happen as well as Miss um on Tuesday previous Dr bani Mrs Christian T um met with leaders of our skip team just update the board again those are the state required panels that are in each in each school um there to make sure that we are appropriately following the state process for observation um we met with them just to review presentations that had happened on our November 4th training as well as answer questions and to try and ensure as best you can the information is getting out to each building and that that information as consistent as possible because
036that's critical we want to congratulate Mr vilio and uh all of the people at the high school guidance Department as well as Administration faculty and staff um on December 4th uh we held yet again our instant decision day um there were 229 College acceptances given out in that one day alone to our students um including colell college felici and William Patterson Centenary seat Hall NGIT fairly dickon uh in cane um students saved over $122,000 uh not having to put through the application fees um they saved uh over $3,500 in act fees for reporting um scholarships were offered um we had guaranteed first year scholarships of over a million and a half dollars and projected fouryear savings um of just under six and a half million just from that day so congratulations it's a lot of
037work on the High School site to put that together um I did get over there to see your counselors they were running around like crazy um but the kids everyone has smiling things they used literally every office they could find to make sure the college admissions counselors give me kids one-onone uh it really is a great day I recommend U getting over there just to see the Mayhem but again it really worked out benefited our students so congrats and thanks to them professional development both in science and language arts continues um at this point in time through our re Workshop plan has been a number of tear it has background music for this one um but my is at this point every single element teacher has begun their tier training in workshops we're moving through
038that um and with science Mr B trying to keep our [Laughter] teachers you call but just looking to stick our strategic plan our teachers have taken on a great deal one of the major switches to Lev in teaching a science ear new science program um the board has invested in that kind of professional development where teachers are receiving multiple times a year training just on the unit they're about to teach prior to active teaching so point of our Focus try to make sure we are as prepared as possible so thanks to Mr vany and the staff foric tournament Dr W and I have the opportunity to see our elementary students in action and where they in action um some rousing Renditions of pieces of literature I want to thank Mrs Woods Murphy Mrs molas Mrs
039Oakley who L the process District wide all students and parents who spent hours preparing those pieces um at each school um we had competitions those competitions led to the district competition and we have a number of our students moving on in the county so congratulations to all of them um the actual competition countywide take place on the 16th and uh prior this I some of our high school students served as our own internal judges U these were students that had participated in friend prior and it was nice talking to them the experiences that they had but also coming back as judg as they felt comfortable Circle great for them um our coret another good piece of news for the 54th year in a row performed seasonal music for nle RO um on the direction of
040Mr Valley's uh with Mr Riley's support it really was a terrific concert in the middle of the day they provide they performed a number of Staples that have been consistent for 54 years as well as some new pieces so stretch themselves and as always sounded incredible so just really kudos to our students um and to the staff and music department moving away from those pieces re-registration to update the board as of now our registration office is still finalizing the work from last week's face to face um thanks to Mr VI Meister uh we have currently 191 students who have yet to be registered um letters will be going outes as well as phone calls being made to those houses letting them know that they do not schedule a face to- face appointment during our regular
041operating hours um that on Mon a week from today they'll be receiving notice that their students will be disolved in TR January 5th other they'll have until the break and then they will not be um based on the response we get from those I'll then update the board as of now we've successfully re-registered every student minus those grade levels that we had exited because of recent registration um we're down to months so thank you Mr V for system um certainly Mr Ferrar M Bo they're the work in the office as well as the other staff members that the board was still will to hire we were M if you gone over there Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday last week line all the way to the gym so thanks that workk um continue our updates on strategic
042plan the character action team uh continues their work coordinate the activities within the district our Communications action team I mentioned a number of their efforts recently and you just saw U Mr a strong example of what our curriculum action team is doing um qap on the agenda for final approval with our initial DPR reports and we're expecting to be visited as of now February 17th um for our our official visit and again just as a reminder we have the VA coming from count we have the academic officer coming from Hudson County Union County sorry and then we have um our governance and personel coming all way down in mon count so that would be interesting some important upcoming dates our NJ cap parent information session for elementary parents our parents of elementary students January 6th
043um and a number of NJ capap trains happening the end end of January I just want to wish everyone um as I sum up a happy healthy end to 2014 happy Hanukkah this we merry Christmas happy holidays hope everyone's safe and [Applause] Mr thank you today we conducted the payroll verification process and I would just like to extend my thanks to all of the building secretaries principles Miss council Mrs Torres and Mrs Hollywood for their assistance with this process and more importantly to all of the staff for their cooperation and making the process go very smoothly please don't forget those are actual live checks so make sure you get to the bank and cash them um this is a process that we have to conduct every 3 years so we're good for a while uh
044also want to report that as of today we have installed plywood barriers along Franklin Avenue uh across the oval so that will diminish any salt from hitting the bleachers throughout the winter season season and uh that work was done by our in-house buildings and ground staff so thank you to Mr Nicollet for getting to that as quickly as possible and that's my report thank you committee report thank you Mr President the academic committee met on Tuesday December 9th Mr Odell presented the social studies program review that you saw here tonight Mr Riley presented the fine and performing arts program review as well as suggestions for future program changes Mr Riley will present his work during the January board meeting uh Dr Reed and Mr lordier presented the findings from the Middle School youth survey Public
045Presentation will be made in conjunction with Middle School staff at the January board meeting uh Dr volani reviewed the 201516 qac district score report and also the 1516 academic calendar including the proposed professional days um other subjects discussed included math Jing program fiveyear budgeting process professional development and field trips right Mr car uh finance committee met on December 10th uh we spoke about the final billing on the bleachers and the high school roof uh painting of the flag Pooles which uh should start this Wednesday sat right weather committee um we also discussed the 20145 budget as well as the 20156 budget uh we discussed the finance resolutions and tonight's agenda as well as cusac we covered the um we talked about the lease for our buses um transfer removal with the township and uh review
046The District calendar for the 2015 16 school year thank you the administration committee also met on December the9th we talked about the technology update which was presented tonight we talked about the athletic program we also discussed qac um we dealt with the academic calendar for the upcoming year uh we dealt with some uh recommendations for hire some job descriptions we have a legal update and then we review the um policies that you'll see on tonight's agenda any other committee reports did not come to the portion of our meeting where we allow members of the public to address the board in this section we allow questions or comments on only the resolutions addressed in tonight's agenda our board regulation allows 20 minutes for these communications each person should be limited to 3 minutes and we ask
047you to try to stay within this requirement speakers may may speak more than once only after all others wishing to speak on a topic has been heard all statement will be directed to me as a chairperson no one may address board members individually please be reminded that if your statement is too lengthy personally directed abusive obscene IR relevant or redundant your participation may be terminated please remember to we state your name and address each and every time you address the board the first person can come forward see none m d will you take the um academic resolution please yes Mr President i' like to discussion call please Mr yes Mar yes Mr CL uh yes I'm 1 through three no it's a four yes yes on one through three no on number four Mr yes
048M yes Mr take Administration res I'd like to move Administration Administration resolutions through discussion roll call please Mr yes Mor yes Mr yes Mr Riley yes Mr yes Mr SC yes Mr kin yes Mr Finance please Finance [Applause] resols discussion roll please yes Mrs yes Mr CL yes Mr R yes M yes Mr yes Mr yes Mr can you take off pleas yes Mr President I move personel resolutions one and two as second discussion Mr yes yes Mr yes Mr Riley yes m r yes Mr yes Mr kazinski yes we now come to the time we accept questions or comments on all School related matters our regulations allow 30 minutes for this Communications again each person should be limit to 3 minutes we ask you the statement in this requirement as I stated earlier all
049statements will be directed to me first person can step forward hearing none you you I know you want to say something so go [Applause] ahead one here speak well that's it's different it's quiet tonight for a change yeah so be quick uh Alex Rubin 354 Hillside have uh over the weekend I distributed a uh packet to to all of you uh board members Mr Las Miss y um and I would like to read the uh the letter portion of it into the record if I may um I I don't see a reason I don't see a reason for that all the board members received the email we're perfectly cognizant of what what your concerns are if you'd like to give a copy of it to the paper that's your privilege I guess okay so so
050I don't need to read it in for you I don't yeah it's it's not an issue for us The Other Well since I'm heing I may as well okay so this is addressed to the board and um it opens I would like to raise the issue of the par test refusal uh which is not opt out uh as was the case in the NJ ask but is a direct refusal to participate in the experimental unproven Federal Assessment program many parents in the in the district have opted their children out of the NJ ass over the years for a variety of reasons and never experienced a hostile response as they are now getting from the park tests many informed parents around the state realize that the Common Core Curriculum and park testing are bad long and
051dangerous on so many levels thousands have signed petitions attended board meetings as I am um and will attend the State Board of Ed meeting in Trenton on January 7th to bring the case to recommend abolition of this unproven dangerous Federal federally funded experiment within our state several states have pass legislation to revert off the common core standard and Virginia Texas Minnesota Nebraska and Alaska are states that have had the good sense to never go on the dangerous curriculum furthermore several states that adopted the curriculum are not administering the park exams Florida in Arizona are examples as such and New York has put a 5 delay on implementing the tests the NGA your teachers union uh succeeded in getting the governor to commission a panel to review the park and present recommend recommendations whether to proceed
052with the unproven experimental program the state Commissioner of Education presented a guideline uh to the districts to not provide alternative settings for students whose parents choose to refuse the test effectively imposing punitive punishment upon them by forcing them to sit and stare at the computer during the time of the test Boards of vet around the state have adopted resolutions respecting parental rights to refuse State testing for their children and provide a productive alternative setting for those not taking the test attached in that packet uh our resolutions from Bloomfield our neighbor in the county and Delan from October 7th and December 8th respectively that support and respect parental rights to choose how their children will be assessed academically in the most appropriate manner for them furthermore the Delan Education Association presented a well articulated thoroughly detailed
053position paper on why the park assessments are wrong and to urge their board to adopt the resolution that they did it is also attached as an attachment um and I urge you our elected board to adopt a similar resolution in support of parental rights to choose whether our children will participate in this unproven Federal experiment and to not impose punitive measures against it there is an update Monclair Board of Ed is voting on a similar uh policy to support uh the parent parent parental rights to refuse the tests as we speak tonight uh and there are others you know that I didn't want to make a whole dissertation on that we appreciate we appreciate your input um there has been some discussion we've all received your emails and um I appreciate your concerns will we
054see an update in future um meetings you know about that there will be some discussion about it I don't know if um if will be an update but there it will be some discussion about it okay now um I've taken the liberty of sharing this letter with social media you know the nutly you know uh social media pages and U one of the groups uh is putting together a petition that they they will present to you uh so sometime in the near future so this is the beginning of the wave thank you thank you anyone else wish to be heard any old business to come before the board I to I haven't been receiving the that that's helpful with a busy schedule that we have to find out who's transition I was going to do
055that but coming for where's the plan uh our parents Advisory Group we met last Thursday evening um some of the things discussed were Staffing updates professional development going on districtwide as well as we discussed the the park and actually went through some some uh Park test questions with the parents uh next meeting is scheduled for January right any new business coming forward Mr so uh I'd like to speak about our uai concert um if anybody's intance and Mr Riley opened it very well and I won't go through all the different teachers and programs but um you know I have to talk about our string program you know we B A String teacher on is our going into our third year I think um we had tremendous if you had heard the solo by one individual
056the things that go on they've started a once a week set on the kids on time a seven period kind of like string lab like we have the jazz band that gets together on their own time and puts it together was phenomenal um the concert band uh the Jazz lab which they work on again on their own um was just really phenomenal when you got to the cor aletes the chamber singers in the choir if you were sitting there listening to it and please it was taped I don't have our schedule it's going to go up on our Channel upload it as we speak right now upload as we speak thank you because I've been pushing for that uh multiple times thank you appreciate it um but uh please go on listen to the music
057that are students in this District um if you listen during one of the choirs um and I've never even seen a drum that Nick so used before that he sat on a square box but heard him play while the choir was performing it was truly excellent and our program is really excelling and I I wanted to acknowledge that also on calendar uh one other update I'd like like to give you you know um hockey president of the club but our hockey program for the first time ever is 4 and0 starting the season they're tied for first place with six points it's the best we've ever done early in the year our JV program is at 2 and0 um being very successful and uh um the school board has been very active in building that program
058here and I just wanted to thank everybody uh they hear me talk about it all the time but we truly get support our kids are out there really excelling um I'd like to thank uh Joe Mr D also came in sport at our sale and um Mr van Martin for our fundraiser and it's been a great time and to everyone else uh one last thing our mics are disappearing little by little I keep hear and we're getting them um I wanted to bring that up and say Merry Christmas to everybody thanks for coming to the board meetings this board really works very hard um I hope you do watch us on set on our local access station and see what's being done for our students and how our students are pering thank you thank you
059I also had the pleasure of attending a uh fundraiser um for Spring Garden school over at Barnes & Noble and um the fifth and sixth grade choir performed there and um they were impressive it it was a nice crowd it was a nice turnout and and our children did an outstanding job so again uh I also want to wish everybody Merry Christmas Happy New Year happy holidays and anyone else like to say anything if not where is the board of educ I'm sorry happy birthday happy birthday take in the Board Room for whereas the Board of Education will be discussing matters exempt from public discussion pursuit to njsa 10 board- 12 now therefore being resolved the Board of Education resar proposed executive session at this time can discuss stud matters he had further resolve that
060the results of this discussion would be made public by inclusion on the agenda of a subsequent meeting of the board of education for one of the reasons for discussing such matters in post section no longer exist make a motion motion second second all those in favor thank you realize