April 7th, 2025 Pequannock Township Board of Education Work Session

001order. Mr. Gibbs, please read the statement of compliance. In compliance with the Open Public Meeting Act, public law 1975, chapter 231, notice of this meeting has been properly advertised in the daily record and suburban trends. Its agenda has been posted at the appropriate locations and a copy has been filed with the Bquanic Township clerk. Thank you. Please call the role. Mr. Bloomer here. Mr. Sesi here. Mrs. Espazito here. Mr. Giddon here. Miss Ao here. Mr. Mcweeny will be late. Mr. Pompeo will be late. I'm here. Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. uh Mr. Mcweeny here. Mr. Peno will be late. And Mr. Senic here and Mrs. Shenton will be late. We have a quorum. All right. Thank you. Will everyone please stand for the flag salute? Good evening everyone. Welcome to our April 7th workshop meeting. Tonight

002we have a great meeting planned. First, the board would like to congratulate Mr. Brian Silapina for receiving the Robert Hope Professional Development Award from the Directors of Athletics Association of New Jersey. Mr. Silapina works very hard for Puquanic and has led our athletics department to many successes, including multiple state titles. Mr. Silpena, we appreciate your contributions to our district and we congratulate you on this well-deserved and high honor. Great job. This week is also assistant principal week, so the board would like to also thank Mr. Silina, Mrs. Milner, and Mr. Rafo for your hard work and dedication to our district. Thank you. Yeah, why not? And next tonight will board the Tonight the board will honor members of our staff that have joined the quarter century club signifying 25 years of service to the school

003district. 25 years is a long time to work in one place and it's becoming even more rare today. The board would like to congratulate all of you on reaching this milestone and to express our appreciation and gratitude for your service to our district and to our students. Thank you and again congratulations. All right, a few more. Uh, board would like to congratulate all our students who were inducted into the honor societies over the past few weeks. I was able to attend the induction ceremony for the National Honor Society on 326 and saw our very own student reps, Caitlyn and Emily Ziggler, uh, become members. Congratulations to them and all the other inductees. board would also like to congratulate Shawn Moore for being recognized as our 2025 Morris County unsung hero of PTHS. I was able

004to attend the ceremony this past Wednesday along with Dr. Poris to support Shawn and cheer him on. Uh he volunteers as one of our first aid squad members and is a perfect selection to be the unsung hero for 2025. So congratulations to Shawn and well done. And one more that I saw over the weekend that just blew me away was uh Evan Perah who's a junior at the high school was awarded the Renolier Medal. And this is an award given out first in 1916 by the Renelier Polytech Institute to recognize superlative academic achievement in science, engineering, and technology. For those that don't know, Renelier Polytech Institute, it's a great engineering school up in New York. It's educated many great engineers, including um the person that designed the Brooklyn Bridge. Uh, so Evan being inducted, Evan

005was also inducted into National Honor Society and to earn that award, National Honor Society. He had a great month. So, congratulations to Evan. Uh, other announcements. Our negotiations committee is going to meet with the PTA tomorrow again for our third meeting, working towards a new agreement. We have another meeting planned after that for later in April, and the process is going very well. The meetings so far have been productive and positive, and we're looking forward to another great one tomorrow. Veterans Wall Committee met on 328 to take a picture now that the final veterans plaques are installed and the project is fully complete. Looking back, that was an outstanding experience and I was honored to be a small part of it. Uh policy committee met on 43 and Mr. Mcweener will give an update on

006that later in the meeting. And also, you will notice that the board is wearing blue tonight to promote autism awareness. I think that our our schools do a great job of promoting autism awareness and understanding and the board fully supports that initiative and we wanted to show our solidarity with the district. And last, I want to just wish our members uh of the community that celebrate Passover a happy Passover. And with that, I'll pass the mic to Dr. Poris. All right. Thank you, Mr. Senic. Did a great job managing the feedback as well. Well done. We have a pretty good crowd here tonight. I'm gonna guess that none of you are here to hear what I have to say. So, I'm going to send it right over to Liliana. After which, we will do the

007recognition for Mr. Silapina and then our quarter century club. And then I'll do my superintendent report. Good evening everyone. I hope you all are well. We have officially closed out the marking period this past Friday and on to marking period 4, which means I'm one marking period away from having to do my own laundry. PTHS will be having our final pep rally of the year as we recognize our spring sports team this coming Friday. Spring sports are in full swings as all sports are opened up for the regular seasons this week. Good luck to everyone. Senior days are already going to be kicking off with track, softball, and boys lacrosse. Lacrosse held a leukemia awareness game on Saturday, April 5th. Money raised is going to leukemia research. Students on the district's artificial intelligence committee presented

008at a PTS faculty meeting on the ideas that are being discussed about AI use in the classroom. The students will be facilitating an activity in the next department meeting seeking input from the teachers on expectations of AI use in each department as the committee works to its policy. Congratulations to the inductees of the National Honors Society, World Language Honor Society, and the community and the Computer Science Honor Society. All three organizations held their induction ceremony over the past two weeks. Congratulations to Shawn Moore, who was the PTHs recipient of this year's Morris County Unsung Hero Award. Sean is a member of our Allied Health Academy and a member of the town EMT squad. This past week, our peer leaders held their monthly meeting, and Mr. Hazel provided some leadership training focused on relationship building, communication,

009and positive self-image. Students had a chance to reflect on their own leadership skills as well as identify ways in which they can support others throughout their high school experience. All grade nine students will be taking the NJSLA language arts test on April 29th and 30th. Allied Health will be taking the qualifier exams this upcoming week in order to prepare for the Ruckers tests. Visual and fashion merchandising and marketing classes got an office from Sierra Gallagher, PTHs class of 2015 last week. She spoke to the students about her career in the fashion industry that has included Gucci, Brooken Bell, and Cardier. Operation Smile is hosting its annual fashion show on April 9th here in the auditorium at 7:30 p.m. The cast and crew of Mean Girls are busy preparing for the show on May 1st, 2nd,

010and 3rd at 7 p.m. Tickets are available on the AMPS website and at the door. AP students are getting ready for their AP test that will start the first week of May. A special thank you to all of our teachers who have worked so hard to prepare us for and these students for the exams. For more than a hundred years, Wensler in conjunction with high schools around the world has awarded the Wensler Medal to promising secondary school students who have distinguished themselves in mathematics and science. The medal was first presented in 1916 with two purposes. To recognize the superlative academic achievement of young men and women and to motivate students towards career in science, engineering, and technology. We are excited that Evan Pah, a junior at PTHS, is a recipient of this award. Medalists who

011are accepted to WLER and enroll receive a $40,000 scholarship per year. Congratulations to Evan. We hope everyone has a great spring break. We very much appreciate the extra day on Friday and the possible extended Memorial Day weekend that you were voting on tonight. You got my vote. Thank you. And I I really like how you finished up there, too. So, it made me feel pretty good. Hey, for our first recognition uh for this evening, we're going to have Mr. Hazler speak about our recip or the state's recipient for the Robert Hope Professional Development Award. This comes from the Directors of Athletic Associations of New Jersey. And the honore, as you can imagine, is Mr. Silapina. After that, we'll recognize our quarter century club recipients and we just ask after we've um recognized all of our

012members if we just get a group picture up front together. So, the floor is yours. So, she was humble and didn't say this, but uh Liliana also committed to Ohio State University this week. So, go Buckeyes. Good evening, members of the board of education and community. Dr. Poris, I am honored tonight to be able to recognize my colleague and friend, Mr. Brian Silapina. As many of you know, Mr. Silapina is the director of athletics and supervisor for physical education and health in the district. He's incredibly active at the conference, county, state, and national director of athletic levels. He currently serves as the president of the Morris County Athletic Directors Association. And this year, as Dr. Por has said and and Brian said, has been uh Mr. Senk has been awarded the Robert Hope Professional Development

013Award by the Directors of Athletics Association of New Jersey. This prestigious award is presented annually to an individual who has made significant contributions and demonstrated excellence in professional development at both the local and state levels. Recipients are recognized for their roles as instructors and/or participants in leadership training courses. Brian has been a leader at the state and national levels, training other athletic directors on a variety of topics related to athletic programming. This year, he taught navigating the quality program assessment project and taught individuals who are interested in earning the program of excellence award at this year's director of athletics association conference in in Atlantic City. Uh we were fortunate to win this award uh two years ago and Brian was a huge part of that. It is the same conference where he was recognized in

014front of his AD colleagues for this professional development award. We are so fortunate to have Brian on our team as he exemplifies Golden Panther pride for our students, staff, and community and his AD colleagues on a regular basis. And I just enjoy working with him every single day. Congratulations, Mr. Silicon. No, I got to be in the picture. Mr. Riner, can you take the picture? Thank you. Exactly. Thank you, Mr. Silapina, and also Mr. Hazler for a wonderful presentation. And I did tell Mr. Silapina that I still hate the Eagles, and apparently he reported that within a nancond of getting back over there, which is okay. So, for the Quarter Century Club, we recognize staff members who have been with the district for 25 years. And as Mr. Senic alluded, uh, it is no small

015feat. I get to be the first presenter for this and I'm going to speak about Dwight Anderson. If you've ever if you've ever been wondering about the reasons why our buildings and grounds are so impressively kept or about the clean and organized appearance of our schools, you need not wonder any further than Dwight Anderson. He began his career in our district back in 2000 working in maintenance and quickly asserted his ability to be able to diagnose issues with remarkable accuracy and speed as well as his adeptness for fixing just about anything. When I was a teacher at the high school, we essentially figured that if Dwight couldn't fix something that that was strong evidence that the item was well beyond repair. When he moved into his current role as supervisor of buildings and grounds around

016the same time that I began this position, and I think he was actually my first hire, he did so seamlessly. He maintained a high level of expectations for his staff and still supports them to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. During the pandemic response, Dwight heard from me way more, way more often than he probably cared to, but he was always quick to respond and helped find solutions that would benefit our district, not only in the short run, but also in our long range planning. He found and continues to find creative solutions to the myriad problems that arise among our six buildings and does so with incredible patience and professionalism. I joke about how I am supposed to be the only 247 employee in the district, but it's really not funny, nor

017is it a secret that Dwight holds the same status as well. Sorry about that. Though I try to stay reasonable, I appreciate that I can contact him anytime and unfailingly get a quick and intelligent response. Even when he's in some remote outpost in Maine or elsewhere, it doesn't matter whether it's something on one of our playgrounds, in the schools, or even another issue with my 53-year-old boiler. Dwight will provide thoughtful feedback and expects nothing in return. Our district is better as a consequence of Dwight's work, and we truly appreciate him. Dwight Anderson. Good evening. I have the distinct pleasure in honoring Miss Misaro who is the assistant to the business administrator for her 25 years of service with the Popic Township Board of Education. Miss Misaro began her career with the board office on June

0184th, 2000. She holds a bachelor's degree of science in business administration from the American Intercontinental University and associate degree in business administration from County College of Mars. She completed her education requirements with the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials in anticipation of one day becoming a school business administrator. When hired at the Bquanic, she was held the position of bookkeeper for two years and being promoted to the assistant business administrator. Prior to that, she held positions as an accounting manager for four years, an accounting assistant for six years, and a tax specialist for a period of time. In her spare time, Miss Misario enjoys spending time with her family and friends and especially her dog Winston. She also enjoys yoga class, weight training, gardening, and baking, of which the port office can attest to

019her being an excellent baker. She looks forward to the time she can spend with her grandchildren who live in South Carolina. Miss Arrow has been a tremendous asset to the board of education and is extremely accurate in her work and provides a sense of confidence throughout the board office. She is always willing to help those with questions regarding board related activities including food service. I personally would like to thank her for her hard work and dedication to the school district as she is a member of the board office dream team from an administrator standpoint standpoint, excuse me. The dream team consists of those staff members who know their job extremely well and contribute to the success of the board office and the school district. Congratulations Oh Tonight I'm honor Tonight I'm honored to recognize a

020man whose name has become synonymous with integrity, dedication, passion, and Golden Panther pride. Mr. Jeff Debell. For the past 25 years, Mr. Debell has been more than just a physical education teacher and coach in our district. He's been a mentor, a role model, and a constant reminder of what it means to lead with heart and purpose. Whether in the classroom, on the field, or on the court, Mr. Debell carries himself with a quiet strength and unwavering character that has left an indelible mark on generations of students that he has served. Mr. Mr. DeBell began his career at Eastern Christian School where he taught elementary and middle school physical education for seven years before coming back to the place he calls home. A proud PTHs alum of the class of 1988, Mr. DeBell joined the district

021staff in September of 2000, traveling between all the elementary schools before settling in at North Boulevard where he spent 13 years before making the move to PTHs. As a teacher, his lessons have always extended well beyond the curriculum. He's taught students the value of hard work, respect, and perseverance. In his classroom, every student knows they are seen, heard, and believed in. And that belief has helped countless young people grow into confident, capable adults. As a coach, Mr. Debell has brought that same passion and integrity to the sidelines of basketball, soccer, and softball. His impact has never been measured solely by wins or losses, but by the character of the athletes who played for him. He has built teams rooted in trust, discipline, and mutual respect. He's coached with heart, held high standards, and celebrated every

022player's growth on and off the field. He's been a part of a state sectional championship and boys basketball, earning over 300 wins as a head coach. He's been part of multiple county, section, and conference championships as an assistant to Mrs. Goodwin and the softball program. Mr. Debell has also been running the triple threat basketball summer camp through parks and wreck for years, providing opportunities for our younger students to learn the game, but most importantly to have fun. My son was fortunate enough to attend his camp for many years and his love for basketball is due to coach Debell. But perhaps what stands out most about Mr. Debell's unwaving uh is Mr. Debell's unwavering pride in being a Golden Panther. He embodies our core values. He leads with humility. He shows up every single day prepared,

023passionate, and present. One of the highlights of my day is just getting to have a conversation with Mr. Debell. Whether it's about our families, sports, school, or even Army football, I walk away feeling positive, supported, and cared about. It's just a small example of how how for the past 25 years and hopefully many more he has poured his heart into this community with ever asking anything for in return. In asking to reflect upon the past 25 years, Mr. Debell emphasized how wonderful it has been to see students move through the district from kindergarten all the way to grad to the graduation stage at PTHs. To see them mature has been so rewarding. He also spoke about the relationships he has built beginning in elementary school as he was able to feed off their energy to

024high school where he has made it a purpose to be a role model. One of the greatest joys is having a student come back to visit him because it's never about those wins or losses but about the relationships he has built over the years. Mr. Debell, your legacy is woven into the fabric of this school and our community. It's in every student you've inspired, every colleague you've uplifted, and every athlete who walked a little taller because of your belief in them. We thank you for your service, your leadership, and above all, your example of what it means to be a Golden Panther. Congratulations on 25 years of excellence. Coach Jeff Debell Good evening. I'm absolutely delighted to celebrate Miss Kathleen Araji and her incredible 25 years of service to the Bquanic Township School District. Even

025though I don't think she's here tonight, although she did respond yes. However, perhaps with the weather, uh she had something come up. Uh with over 30 years of experience as an educator, Kathleen has made a remarkable impact at both North Boulevard and Hillview as a special education teacher. These dedicated educators often go unnoticed, but they truly are the unsung heroes of our district. Kathleen has undoubtedly touched the lives of hundreds of students throughout her career, consistently helping them recognize their successes and strengths, especially those facing challenges. Kathleen started her journey at William Patterson University and spent her early teaching years at Seville Middle School prior to joining Puquanic. Over the years, she has taught students in grades 1 through eight across all subjects. She inspires her students to be their best selves, emphasizing that it's

026not about perfection, but about doing your personal best. Students and parents appreciate Mira's approach to the whole child, and her students consistently demonstrate growth relative to individualized goals. If you walk into Miss Araj's room, you'll see differentiated lessons for the students that help them meet with success and build confidence. Kathleen embodies a spirit of helping others and personal improvement both in and out of the classroom. Kathleen's passion for fitness and nutrition shines through her work in various gyms where she has instructed fitness classes and sold memberships. Even with a new hip, Kathleen is still pressing forward and living a physically fit and healthy lifestyle. She impresses us all every day and could probably kick most of our butts over at Hillview. Kathleen is a proud and dedicated mom to two children, Taylor and Teddy. She

027passed down the teaching bug as both of them have pursued education careers in their adult lives. We have enjoyed having her son Teddy sub for us over the years. Kathleen has given so much of herself to the district. In addition to teaching, she has participated in Title One tutoring, extended school year, and other types of opportunities to work with struggling students. Throughout her career, she has been able to successfully manage all different types of students and always manages to find the good in every day and in every student. Kathleen is truly the cornerstone of our special education team at Hillview. Her extensive knowledge, collaborative spirit, and fun-loving nature make her highly respected among her colleagues, and her ability to find humor in any situation helps everyone feel at ease. The appreciation from her students and

028their families speaks volumes about her dedication. It's such a privilege to know and work alongside her. Congratulations on this incredible milestone in your career. Good evening. First, I'm going to honor Jamie Dean, who's dedicated 25 years of her life to shaping young minds, and we are so grateful for everything she has done for us at North Boulevard and in the Puquanic Township Schools. Jaime has been lucky enough to work or attend each of the five schools in the district. During her time attending PTHs, she took a child development class which sparked her interest in teaching. The more she learned about children, the more she realized she wanted to have a positive impact on students lives. Jaime's teaching career started at Steven J. Jer School where she had the unique opportunity to work under the same

029principal who had been her own fourth grade teacher. After two years of teaching fifth grade, she spent six years teaching second grade until she was transferred to North Boulevard to teach first grade. After that first year, she switched to second grade in 2009, where she has been ever since. One of Jaime's greatest strengths is her ability to build strong, supportive relationships. She works closely with parents to ensure every child receives the support they need, and she's known for incorporating modifications and strategies that help each child thrive. No matter the challenge, Jaime has always gone above and beyond to make sure every student has the best chance to succeed. When asked about her favorite part of teaching, Jaime shared her love for the aha moment, the instant when a student's face lights up as they understand

030something for the first time. She also enjoys the creativity each student brings to the classroom, and she finds joy in reading to them, watching their faces light up as they get lost in a good story. Jaime's favorite memories include space day from years ago and more recently the wax museum, which we happen to have tomorrow, where she loves seeing the students come to life as a historical figure. Beyond the classroom, Jaime has also contributed to our school community in meaningful ways, particularly through her involvement in the Sunshine Club. If you want to know one of the ways she's involved, you can ask me later why I'm wearing all black tonight. We had a an underground spirit week going on right now that she was one of the ones who initiated. She's been a source of

031support for her colleagues, always thinking of ways to brighten their days with thoughtful gifts and celebrations. Jamie, thank you for your 25 years of dedication, passion, and care. We are truly lucky to have you as part of our school community. Congratulations on this milestone. Um, unfortunately she's not here tonight, but I promised her that if she was watching, she would get to listen to this later. Um, the next person I'd like to honor um is to celebrate the dedication and service of Patty O'Hara, who has devoted 25 years in the Puquanic Township School District. Throughout her career, Patty has kept Puquanic Township students moving through physical activity. Patty's role as a physical education and health teacher has spanned all five schools in the district, impacting students from preK through 12th grade. She has been instrumental

032in fostering a love for physical activity, pushing students to do their best and inspiring them to embrace the benefits of staying active. As she shares, one of the most re rewarding parts of teaching for her is seeing students truly engage in friendly competition during games and the excitement that builds as they strive to improve each time. One of Patty's contributions has been her organization of field day each year. She takes pride in making it a special event for students. The kids have so much fun when the teachers and staff play with them. One of Patty's favorite memories is from field day during the pandemic because all the staff were involved in every activity. The kids had the best time because all the staff were pushing them to do their best at each activity and making

033it even more competitive. This year, Patty went above and beyond by working with another teacher to organize a successful food drive for the local food pantry, showing her deep commitment to supporting the community beyond the classroom. She's also known for helping her colleagues by providing incentives for students and offering extra planning time when she recognizes the need for it. Her generosity and thoughtfulness are truly appreciated. Teaching has taught Patty to embrace flexibility and go with the flow no matter the challenge. And that her ability to adapt is something we all admire. Patty, on behalf of the entire school district, thank you for your 25 years of dedication, passion, and support. We're lucky to have you on our team. Congratulations. Today we also we also have the special honor of celebrating another teacher who has spent

03425 years in the Pquanic Township School District, Mrs. Dana Wolo. Dana's career has spanned many roles and grade levels, each one marked by her dedication to student success. She began her journey teaching fourth grade for many years and transitioned to MLSP for a few years, then returned to fourth grade, moved to third grade, and now has returned to MLSP at North Boulevard School. In each of these roles, Dana's love for teaching has remained constant and her ability to adapt to the everanging landscape of education has been constant as well. One of Dana's greatest strengths is her ability to work with data. She uses it not just as a tool for assessment, but as a guide to ensure that every student receives the support that they need. Whether it's pulling small groups for targeted instruction or

035finding in innovative ways to meet her students where they are in their learning, Dana's approach to teaching is always student- centered. She sees the big picture not just for her classroom but for the entire school and works collaboratively to support create a supportive learning environment for all. This year Dana has taken on a new role along with mentoring and assisting her colleagues across grade level classrooms. She remembers what it's like to be a classroom teacher and her guidance has helped others improve their practices and support their students. Her generosity with her time and knowledge is a testament to her dedication to the success of everyone around her. Dana's passion for teaching shines bright in the subject she loves. math, science, creative writing, and poetry. She believes in the power of hands-on activities and experiments to

036help students discover new concepts. Dana also loves seeing her students grow as writers and develop a love for reading. Watching them find books that ignite their imaginations. Dana, you've touched so many lives through your creativity, patience, and dedication. Your ability to build relationships with your students and meet them where they are has made a lasting impact. Thank you for 25 years of service, and we look forward to many more. Congratulations. Good evening. It is a great pleasure to be here to honor Mrs. Kristen Zerdan and our other dedicated educators for their 25 years of service to the students and community of Puquanic. Mrs. Zerdan is currently a first grade teacher at SJG and has been at SJG for the last seven years. Prior to teaching at SJG, she taught second, third, and fourth grade at

037Hillview School in Puquanic and also taught in Orange, New Jersey at the beginning of her career, where is where I started my career. We're very thankful that all those experiences led her to first grade at SJG, where her students thrive because of her wellplanned student centered lessons. Mrs. Zerden does a wonderful job differentiating for all the needs of her students. When asked about why she chose the profession of teaching, Mrs. Mrs. Zernan shared that she has always loved working with children ever since she was a babysitter at age 11. She enjoys seeing kids grow as individuals and loves being part of helping them develop academically, emotionally, and socially. She particularly enjoys when students she has taught come back to share their successes with her, which shows them how much she had they have grown since

038elementary school. In her spare time, Mrs. Erden's passions are her family, reading, and animals. She loves family time with her sons Christopher and Matthew and her husband David. I am sure some of that time is spent taking care of all of their animals. The Zurans foster animals for adoption and also have many pets. She currently has two dogs, two cats, a rabbit, and a turtle, which seems like a lot, but through our conversations, I think the numbers have dipped a little bit this year. Mrs. Certain I can say that every student in your care knows how much you care for them. Each student in your classroom is inspired and believes that they could achieve anything that they set their minds to. Congratulations on 25 years and I look forward to many, many more years together

039at SJG. This is Kristen Zeren. something that's very nice about these events, at least from my perspective, is I get to work with all of the people who are being honored and I also get to work with principles who I think did a phenomenal job with their presentations. So, I really appreciate your efforts there. Um, and something else that's really cool, just looking out over the crowd as well is, uh, we have a few different items, and I'll get into my report in a moment. We have a few different people who are listed for, um, approval tonight in the personnel part of PMC, which is unusual. Typically, we don't have action items during the personnel side of a workshop meeting, but um in full confession, when I was uh interviewing interviewing Miss Shaleri, um it

040was those usually 20 minutes or so, I think we got so engaged and I was feeding off her energy, we ended up talking for about 40 45 minutes and I was like, "Oh yeah, we're going to approve you on on the 7th." And right after we were done, I realized, "No, no, we're usually done on the 28th." And I couldn't call her back and be like, "Um, we're going to change course." Uh, but seeing that you're here just tells me that that that energy is authentic and for lack of better words, awesome. Um, and then I'm really excited also that we are going to be approving um, both Mr. or Coach Oliver Gray and Coach Gino Flurry for their respective positions as well. And um, I'm not going to say that I buckle under peer

041pressure, but Mr. Hazel was making very convincing arguments about why they should be on his action items for this meeting as well. So, um, just want to say in advance, congratulations, and I'm glad I caved to the pressure. So, as far as my my actual report, uh, just a few items to to, uh, discuss. Uh, many of which have already been covered either by Liliana or by Mr. Senic. And first one for me is unsung heroes. Uh, congratulations to Shawn Moore, whose commitment to community extends well beyond our town. Also being involved in international endeavors. It was a really nice event over at Mars Nolles High School. I was glad uh that we we were able to have a really nice contingent from his family. I know Mr. Foglier was there as was Mr. Senic.

042Uh tonight also we have an um an item about our updated school year calendar for this school year. Uh we are per the vote of our staff and students. We are giving back the Friday before Memorial Day as well as the Tuesday after Memorial Day. And then I actually got a chance to choose a day and that is uh uh April 21st. So schools will be closing April 21st as well. Uh this has also been discussed but I want to echo the sentiments that the National Honor Society and World Language Honor Society induction events were beautiful events. They were studentdriven um and really celebrated true accomplishments. So proud of our our students staff who all made uh those events such wonderful events. We also had an opportunity to get a picture with the Veterans Wall

043Committee and then a reception at the American Legion. It was really wonderful to meet up with the group and we truly appreciated the hospitality of the um of everyone at the Legion. I think that that wall is going to stand as a great testament to the power of this community. Uh had a shared services meeting a couple weeks back. Uh we added Pompton Lakes to the mix of the school districts with whom we're looking to work. Uh Mr. Fogler was there for that as well. I'm just pointing that out cuz he's seated over there. And our primary focus was to look at out of district transportation and though Pompton Lakes is not in our county um they're still sending kids to a lot of the same schools um to which we're busing our children. So,

044what we're looking to do is be able to find ways to find overlaps in our routes along with um our friends in Montville, Bon, and Lincoln Park in order to try to realize transportation savings uh across all the districts that are in our little ad hoc consortium. The kindergarten placement process has begun. Uh Dr. Shler, who's seated over there, has been a part of that as well. Uh when we first met on March 25th, we had 109 students, which seemed a little light. that's gotten up to 116 students as of this morning. Um, and just as a frame of reference, last year when we began the placement process on March 26th, that was 2024, we were at 117. So, we're not too far off. And right now, we have 146 students in our kindergartens. Uh,

045we are going to meet later on this week to review the current placements and start to work towards finalizing where we're going to place the kids. I did include something in my newsletter just encouraging people if they haven't already signed their children up to please do so. Um as it helps our process and it also helps us place your kids as close to um as close in a school that's as close to your residence as possible. Um the later the more you wait the harder it gets for us to accomplish that. Uh we also had our first meeting of the Quanic Culture Committee. Uh Mr. Mweeny is the board rep for that. It's a small group, but we're looking to accomplish at least three or four cool things in school year 2526. And I will

046admit, I keep calling it the culture club. Um, which has a reference to a pop band from the 80s. I'm waiting to hear Mr. Tumble for us or what was it? Mr. Hazler's blissfully unaware of the fact I can't multitask. Um, I'm talking. I'm sorry. Oh. Oh, that's you. Apparent apparently I can't make eye contact either. So, all right. That's I don't know if you're falling on the sword form. Uh we did an AI podcast um late last week. We're looking to get that edited and pushed out at some point this week, but it was great. I was with six very articulate students who brought really great insight and energy. I learned an awful lot from them. And I know Liliana had mentioned it, but they also spoke at a faculty meeting in this room

047um and provided from what Mr. Dr. Hazler's told me some really good input and we're able to answer questions for the staff and I'm really excited for them because in my years as an educator I've never seen students have input in the development of policy and these guys actually will. So they're really at the foundational level they're working on the AI plan which is going to inform our policy. But it's really exciting. U Mr. Gibbs is going to speak more about it, but we met um with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection back on April 1st regarding um our plans for Seven Industrial Road. Uh the NJ rep was very helpful even though his news wasn't quite what we wanted to hear regarding the dry access route. Um my recommendation is that we continue

048to move forward with the board of education office purchase. We're going to have to pivot in our plans for the preschool or special education program that we had been hoping to put in there. Um there are rules that they require us to abide by and unfortunately they don't work in our favor. Finally, we have spring break coming up. You may have heard that begins on Friday. Um and my requests perhaps even demand to everyone is take the opportunity to rest, relax, and recharge. Um got a lot a lot of school year under our belts thus far, but um still a lot more to go. So let's make sure that we give ourselves a chance to be refreshed and recharged in time for that last quarter of the year. concludes my report. Thank you, Mr. Gibbs.

049Do you have a report? Yes. Good evening. The 2025 20226 school year preliminary budget was submitted to the county and the state on Monday, March 17th in accordance with state guidelines. On Monday, March 24th and on March 28th, the school district received two upper requests. one for a list of items purchased from 2020 to 2025 and the other was for some video footage of an accident at the local library. The business office complied with both requests on April 2nd in accordance with state guidelines as mentioned by Dr. Poris on April 1st. Dr. Poris, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Strausser, the school's architect, Mr. Curtis and the school's who is the school's engineer and I met with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to discuss the building at 7 Industrial Way. The outcome of the meeting will

050be discussed later on tonight's FFA discussion section of the meeting. On Thursday, April 3rd, the county business administrator and the county superintendent approved the school bit school district's 2025 2026 budget. Finally, this is just a reminder that if you haven't submitted your financial disclosure statement to please do so as soon as possible as the deadline is April 30th. Thank you. Thank you. That brings us to our first opportunity for public comment. Members of the public may speak for a maximum period of 5 minutes by the clock during this portion of the meeting. They may speak on any agenda item only. Seeing nobody coming up to the mic, I'm going to close that and move on to approval of our action items. And up first is PMC. Miss Shettton, would you please move the items under

051PMC? Absolutely. I'd like to move PMC 186-25 through PMC 198-25. Second. Any questions or discussion? Mr. Gibbs, please call the RO. Mr. Bloomer, yes. Mr. Sesi, Mr. Kitten, is that mine? I said yes. M IO, Mr. Mcweeny, yes. Mr. Pompeo, yes. Mrs. Chanton, yes. Mrs. Espazito, yes. And Mr. Senic, yes. Motion carries. Right. Thank you. Mrs. Espazito, would you please move the items under CIS? Sure. I'd like to move CIS I'm sorry, hold on one second. CIS CIS75-25 through CIS-78-25. Second. Any question or discussion? Mr. Gibbs, please call the RO. Mr. Bloomer, yes. Mr. Sesi, yes. Mr. Gon, yes. Mr. Skeo, yes. Mr. Mcweeny, yes. Mr. Pompeo, yes. Mrs. Shenton, yes. Mrs. Espazito, yes. And Mr. Senk, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Mr. Bloomer, would you please move the items under FFA? Wasn't prepared. Hold

052on. There we go. I'd like to make a motion to move FFA 137-25 through FFA 144-25. Any question or discussion? Mr. Gibbs, please call the RO. Mr. Bloomer, yes. Mr. Sesi, yes. Mr. Mr. Gitten, yes. Miss Ao, yes. Mr. Mcweeny, yes. Mr. Pompeo, yes. Mrs. Shenton, yes. Mrs. Espazito, yes. And Mr. Senic, yes. Motion carries. Okay. Miss Akea, would you please move the item under other? Sure. I'd like to move one item under other O-10-25. Second. Any question or discussion? Mr. Gibbs, please call the RO. Mr. Bloomer, yes. Mr. Mr. Reesi, yes. Mr. Gon, yes. Miss Ao, yes. Mr. Mcweeny, yes. Mr. Pompeo, abstain. Mrs. Shanton, yes. Mrs. Despazito, yes. And Mr. Senic, yes. Motion carries. Right, that brings us into our workshop items. First up is PMC, and there's two items to discuss, school

053performance reports and a staffing update. Thank you, Mr. Senic. Um so we actually split up the school performance report portion of u the discussion portion between both PMC and CIS and I think this particularly relevant because uh Mrs. Vanskull really manages CIS side of things. I'm I'm more responsible for the PMC but we see tremendous amount of overlap as it as it pertains. And with that said too feel free to jump in. We're not we're not big on waiting turns here. Listen, I I had one of our principles telling me to bunt before, so I mean, we're we're we're pretty informal sometimes. All right. Um, so Miss Vansel and I have met um to review results for for each school. Um, we had an initial look at the embargoed results, which then became public last

054week. Um, and I really enjoyed it because we really got into the information that is behind the data. Instead of just looking at the surface saying, "Okay, this is good, this is not good, or this is some nebulous point in between." We really wanted to dig deep and figure out what is the narrative behind the the data points. Um really important too that as we broke down our analysis for each school that we're not looking for blame. I think blame is for the short-minded and stupid. We want to focus on identifying problems so that we can then start to find solutions. Um and as far as the the communication, I sent out the letter to the community on Friday as part of my newsletter. If it looked very boilerplate, um it's because it is. It's

055the exact format that the state gives you. I keep their formatting generally intact, even though I don't really like it. Um and then we will most likely be referring back to the performance reports when we do our data presentations in October. Um the data that's in these performance reports reflects the um state testing data largely that we reported on back in October. Um, it also has information about um, chronic absenteeism. And something that we did not discuss back in October, but I'm sure that Mrs. Spans will get to is it includes growth metrics as well. And that's really important because proficiency is great. You want all your students to pass, but sometimes a student who doesn't pass is still demonstrating growth. And that's that's a large part of what our responsibility is is to help

056make sure that that happens. Um, so what what she'll get into probably more in the um CIS portion is what we feel our role is and we're going to be meeting with the principles this week um to break down the data for them and start to work with them on ways that they can break the information down to their teachers and the super supervisors are going to be involved in this process as well. But we want the information to be presented to the staff in a way that they can readily use. Um, if you give somebody a big fat packet of data and it's so unusable, it becomes a complete waste of paper and time. We want to make it as smooth and streamlined and and effective as we can. I think I'm stepping on

057your toes here. I think I'll just wait for the workshop partner for my for CIS. Got it. To finish up. We'll stay in our silos. Yeah. Got it. And then the the other item I have in there, and by the way, any questions or comments for the board on this portion of one one question. Is there anything that you saw that you were surprised by, either good or bad? Wow. Um yeah, I mean there there were there were some good there were some good outcomes we saw that um I hadn't necessarily anticipated where we could tell that um targeted instruction had hit the mark. Um there there was there was some I'm I'm thinking of an example off the top of my head where we saw um our students who were English language learners um

058at the elementary level and and their performance uh at a few grade levels was astonishingly strong and that's the that's kind of stuff that you that you really like to see. Um something that I commented to Mrs. advance school about is that was a surprise but not a good one is seeing um a pronounced gap in achievement amongst middle schoolers by gender. Um our our females at PV are outdistancing our males by by quite a bit in in ELA. Yeah. Yeah. And not so much in math, but in Yeah. In science, we we're seeing the reverse effect, which is interesting because in the younger grades, in like fifth grade science, they're about equal. And then in middle school, there's a there's a gap. And then back up to high school, 11th grade, they're back closer

059to equal. So, it's an interesting thing to look at. Yeah. And uh we're going to obviously we're we're keep digging into it. It's a lot of it's a lot of fun for us because um I think we're we're coming at things from slightly different angles, but both very passionate about the data and and I have to give her a lot of credit. She's introduced me to um certain ways of breaking down information that I hadn't previously engaged with. So, it's been very enlightening for me and I'm I'm really excited about it. I love a good spreadsheet. Yes. Your use of conditional formatting is Shaleriesque. It is. It's spectacular. Dr. Sliry introduced me to conditional formatting several years ago, but it's um but surprising. I'm going to be thinking about that one. You're probably going to

060get an email on like Friday afternoon or something like I have the answer now. Awesome. But I'll think on that one. Um as far as staffing, uh just a couple quick notes. Um we have a French ESL position that is currently vacant at the high school. We're using a provider assuming they get approved called LLN to ensure that we have as seamless a transition in instruction as possible for our students. Uh much credit goes to Dr. O'Keefe as well as Mr. Hazler and Manscol and Mr. Gibbs for working together to make that happen. Uh after spring break, we're going to have staffing meetings with the principles to review um what their staffing needs are as well as bless you. Um as well as to review performance particularly amongst non-tenure staff members. Um we've already begun

061the process of interviewing for anticipated openings. Um and anticipated opening is one that comes about as a consequence of someone retiring. Um so we're we're looking to fill those and bless you. And um something that that I've observed is that we are finding that there is a stronger market right now of um teaching candidates than what we've seen in recent years, which has me feeling very optimistic. And then um looking ahead to next month on May 1st, um I know Mrs. Vans is heading down to the job fair down at Ridge High School. Um and are you bringing you bringing a sidekick with you? To be determined, but hopefully. Got it. Got it. Yeah. And and I think that's a great thing, too. We we have a few few giveaways. Um I've been advised that

062I have no understanding whatsoever of presentation. So I you need a tablecloth or a banner for these kinds of things. And you have to have cool chashks, branding, marketing, chashki. Yes. So it's better that it's in her hands than mine. Um any questions about staffing or All right, moving on to CIS. Three items. An AI committee update, uh, high school voter registration, and again the school performance reports. I'll just start. I can start you. Okay. Um so pretty much um the thunder of this week um how we had the students actually meet with the sta the faculty has already been shared. So just a couple of things Mr. Shay is doing a fantastic job of leading the district AI team. Um when he started the process he developed three subcommittees on the team ethics and

063obstacles policy and planning and tools and best practices. So he basically split us all up and um we're all working on different uh components um just gathering information, having conversation, giving each other feedback and really thinking through what does it mean to have AI in a school district. Um so a couple areas is policy um the capacity of our teachers to increase uh their knowledge of AI. We're probably having to catch up with a lot of what the students are already doing. Um how does it impact uh how we work with the community? Um and then awareness like what's our shared vision as a district moving forward with how we want to work with this. Um out of the we had a meeting last I want to say the 26th or 27th. Um and from

064that two things came out. We established a draft of Pquinics AI literacy and guidelines document. It's a one-pager that is going to help drive information that will be available on our district website. Um Mr. Poris has or Dr. Portoris has a lovely version of it. right there. Um, and the other piece of that is we're developing a Google site um that will be ha that will have information for students, parents, and staff with resources since everything AI is going to be changing very quickly. Um, a Google site is really easy to update um as things as tools come and go. Um, so that kind of fits nicely with our idea of having a a policy and um plan that is flexible. So um the other thing that came out is um this whole shared vision

065working with the team, the teachers, the students um administration is that we want a shared vision of how it can be used in the classroom. So an assessment scale is an important piece of this um similar to a stoplight where red would be like no AI is allowed. Again, Dr. report with the Vanna um has a scale that we're looking to it's in draft form which is why I didn't copy it and bring it one for you all but um similar to the stoplight red would be no AI is allowed to be used on an assignment up to the enriched level where students can use the assessment or can use AI for all things um to help them with the assessment or the assignment. So, um, what the we had great I think there was

066five of the six high school students were in the meeting and it was great. They were sitting up front. They pretty much led the conversation about the scale and how they viewed it. Um, how important it is that teachers and and students understand it from the same perspective and also how different departments might want different scales based on their assignments. out of that um the students said hey why don't we go talk to the teachers so at as mentioned already um at the high school um faculty meeting um the five students got up and they talked to the teachers presented the draft scale and then at the April 22nd department meetings the students are going to come back they're going to break off into different departments and ha and actually have conversations with the departments

067um to get feedback on the scale. Um so I think that is just awesome um and amazing. Um and then the students were part of Dr. Poris's podcast. So um we're really excited about the collaboration happening between all the stakeholders in these meetings um and especially the student voices helping to drive the work and I attended that meeting and um I know Mr. MW is going to give an update, but I was myself was just floored on the intentionality that went into this and looking under like every rock and making sure that you have this idea covered from every direction, how people are allowed to use it, educating the students versus the teachers. The amount of thought that's gone into this and how well it's being developed was really impressive to me. So, great job.

068Yeah, that that was a fantastic synopsis especially with the you know AI scale and um it's very helpful. I I mean uh Mr. Sheay has done a fantastic job of gathering resources from around the country um all these examples. So we were kind of presented with you know a variety of ways other districts have approached this and we're able to kind of just take what we like and throw out what we didn't like and it definitely helped the process move along pretty quickly. Um and then importantly for the board on the policy side, we're moving along with the process. We should have something this summer um where we can get it into place for September because um the input from the the the students and the the administration has definitely it's been a great committee

069to be part of. It's it's moving along very quickly. So that's it. And one comment I'll make too, it's it's a lot of fun for me because I get to hear it from a lot of different groups and how appreciative each group is of the contributions of others. So I might hear from Matt Sheay how appreciative appreciative he is of the board's work and then I hear from the students how appreciative they are of the teachers. And it's just it's really nice. Um there's a tremendous sense of of purpose and of mission and of trying to be thorough and um it it's been a tremendously positive exercise and I look forward to what we're going to be able to present um and have approved in time for the upcoming school year and definitely shout out

070to the teachers because we got some great teachers giving insight on the committee as well. Um so I think it's really good collaboration high school voter registration. So, the New Jersey Department of Education and the New Jersey Department of State um invites the New Jersey high schools to participate in New Jersey high school voter registration week, which happens to be this week. This week celebrates youth civic engagement and encourages all eligible 17 and 18 year olds to register to vote. And high schools have up until May 20th to complete these activities. Um this is based on an actual high school voter registration law which requires high school administrators to to distribute voter registration materials um and uh describing the role of citizenship um the importance of voting to all eligible high school students prior to

071graduation. So, um, because of, uh, just the where our spring break falls and everything, we're actually PTHs is going to actually run a high school voter registration drive for the students after spring break. Um, that'll be Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, the April 23rd through 25th. It'll be during the unit lunch, and it's being led and organized by Dr. O'Keefe and Miss Cohen. So the AP government students and marketing students um will participate in gre creating information pamphlets and materials as well as running registration tables and then we'll tell the state we did it. Um and then last any questions on that? Okay, great. Um and then last is school performance reports. Um just to build off of what Dr. Portoris um has mentioned. Um so I love doing I love data. I think it's fun

072to do deep d deep dive and I like to come across things that other districts aren't talking about because they just haven't maybe had a moment to really dive into what is spreadsheets that the state provides a ton of stuff in spreadsheets but they don't really tell you how to use them or how to find the information. So it's like a gold mine. You're just like digging for stuff and it's just to me it's fun and interesting. So, um, the school performance reports provide detailed information on different things like demographics, student growth and performance on state assessments, participation in AP classes and tests, attendance, and other data points and narrative information. So, we're pulling that information into snapshots because they're long documents. So, to sit there and just walk through every document, um, not everybody

073has time to do that. So basically we started by um sitting together and reviewing each school's all these different all these different items in a snapshot format. Um and we reviewed each school's summitive rating which is based on ELA and math proficiency scores, ELA and math median student growth percentiles, attendance, graduation rates and progress towards English language proficiency though not all schools are measured by each of those things. Obviously graduation rate only pertains to the high school. Um so one goals coming out of this is how can we improve each school's summitive rating because it's pretty much a weighted you get a weight um the growth percentiles um is 50% of the summitive rating. So that was one area we're like hm maybe this is an area we can work on. So, after going through

074um starting to dig into the spreadsheet data that I can pull um from behind the scenes, um I'm confident that what we need to do is focus on student growth from one year to the next as measured by these student growth percentiles or called SGPS. Um we're analyzing each student group to determine in depth how students are performing at the different grade levels tested. um for the SGPS in particular are grades four to seven in math and grades four to eight in ELA. So um that's a particular data point that we can use in those grades. Um but we're also looking K to3. We've brought on Dibbles to help identify early literacy areas for intervention gives us more data points. So we're looking at different things in different areas but particular for the school performance

075report the SGP is an important uh metric. Um, so we're going to use the data provided by the state in addition to some other data that we've been able to collect from assessments to identify how we can change and or improve our classroom instruction to support student growth. I really believe if we focus on growth and not scores, the scores will follow. So every student can grow whether they were um you know it whether they did did or did not pass the NSLA. We can get everybody moving forward in a direction that is up. Um our summitive ratings are going to increase because again it's 50% of our rating. So it's not necessarily just about the proficiency scores. Um so we're meeting with the principles this week to review the reports in detail by school.

076We'll discuss how various student groups are performing and how we can use this data to create a plan to increase student achievement across the board. And then next steps will be to meet with supervisors and teachers to develop action steps to move toward those goals. Um, and basically that's kind of the goal. I'm looking at this, right? Am I looking at that? She's looking at it. There's no I'm sorry. There's no student growth for the high school though. If I'm looking at the performance reports on the link that you guys shared, there's no growth for the high school. There's only how did the students perform on the assessments. Is that correct? Yes. So, as I mentioned, the student growth is only for grades four to seven, I'm sorry, and grades four to eight. That's a

077particular metric. Okay. So, it's not Okay. Okay. Is uh All right. So if you look at um PV or HV SGP um I mean I could look at SJG who didn't and it would be under accountability. I'm just saying I could look at SJG because you could so you have student growth and then under accountability you can see where the metrics um come together for the summit of rating. It's really interesting to see how like the difference between the English and the math. It's it's very interesting but I can see so for example I'm on um PV and they have the growth um and then they have how they performed on Okay. I mean we're below the state standard for um attendance. Oh 7 in a good way. I'm sorry that's a positive like we

078are um below in that. So that's really good. I mean, what kind of growth do we want to see? Like, what's an average state growth? Are we thinking like 50%, are we thinking like it just depends on higher? Okay, so basically there's um three levels. This actually goes down to the student level. So there's low growth where a student so the way the SGPS work in a nutshell is each student performs on the NGSA starting in grade three and then they are matched with a peer group not necessarily from this district across the state. They're matched with peers who perform similar to how they do. Then the next year when they take the test, the state analyzes each of those students against each other and they're given a score and the score is between 1

079and 99. So if they perform between 1 and 35, they're listed as low growth. If they 35 to 65, I think it's 35 to 65 is typical growth and then 65 plus is high growth. So we want to move students out of low growth into typical to high. So, it's not necessarily that we're looking as a district to hit a certain marker like 50% or anything like that. We're looking at each student individually to see that they have moved better than they did the year before. So, our low grow now, the low growth is funny though because you can have students who scored 850 Yeah. on the state test, but they may because they're paired with other students who scored 850. And as long as they they perform the next year better than the 30

080kids that they're paired with, then they will have high growth, typical or low growth. So the low growth can be a little funny. That's why you want to look at the individual students and not just the growth itself. Um, and then if we're looking at individual students paired with our I Ready data, our other NJSLA individualized data and we're looking at interventions and supports that are specifically targeted to those students, that to me is how we're going to help them succeed and grow um not just on NJSLA, but in all academics. Thank you. Yeah. And that and I'm glad you asked that question too about the growth because um what you just finished with there, Emry, is really important to me as well that to keep in mind that the NJSLA or the NJGPA, whichever

081level we're looking at, that's one metric of a much larger picture. But if you're demonstrating growth in that metric, it stands to reason that you're going to be demonstrating growth elsewhere. And that's something that um when we have Miss Bellardino presenting to the board at our April 28th meeting, something that she's gonna be talking about is our internal metrics for ELA and how we are tracking student growth or if in the absence of growth, what are we doing about it? And I I'm not sure if we've really talked about Dibbles as a as a tool. Can you just give a quick overview of that? Sure. Um, and just on before I forget on the other piece, um, I think the bigger picture is that growth mindset is it's not just about a test or anything,

082it's about students having a growth mindset. It's about teachers having a growth mindset. It's kind of all of us together as a culture having a growth mindset of, you know, how can we get better every day? And if we can build in conversations with students that help them track their own goals, um, even better. That is a life skill that every student should benefit from. Um so Dibbles is uh the dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills and it is the it's a series of one minute assessments um that we can use from grades K to 8. Um we're going to be util right now we have um instituted in grades one and two um and basically there these little one-minute assessments that tell us how students are progressing in phological awareness phonics skills. So,

083for example, the kindergarten assessments, there's two assessments, one minute each. One is letter naming fluency and um phological um fluency. So, and then in first grade they have nonsense word fluency and oral reading fluency. So, these indicators help us identify where students may be struggling. It's very interesting because you can actually have a student who seems like they are a fluent reader and they're compensating but in the PSF which is the funological fluency they may score as an int need of intensive support which means we actually need to go in and support a student there um because once they hit the higher levels of multi-elabic words and trying to decode they don't necessarily have the skill to do that because they whatever reason they've been doing a really good job of compensating and learning how

084to read without that skill. So, we want to get in there and get that uh remediated before we move forward. So, it's a lot about finding those phonics levels interventions or phonics level needs so we can provide the intervention and support and we need to do that before third grade. All right. Anybody else? All right. One more thing on CIS. I'm pretty jacked up that we're sending the uh the band back to uh Yankee Stadium again on 65. I saw that. That's great. Uh next up is FFA and we have two items to discuss. Something that we alluded to early in the meeting during both uh Dr. Portoris and Mr. Gibbs reports the uh situation with Seven Industrial Road and then the NJ D appeal process. seem like I was trying to punch you on

085that one. Um, yeah. So, to to get back to the point I I briefly addressed earlier, uh, we had a meeting. It involved, um, a civil engineer from L2A Land Design, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Gibbs, one of our architects, Mr. Shower, uh, Mu Patel from the D, and I was there as well. Um, I have shared my notes with the board. Um, I did my best to take notes as I was going. Um, we're we're in this conversation, we're talking about a lot of things that are not in my um my background, my wheelhouse, if you would, but tried to represent it as well as I could, but um to to just narrow it down to summarize it for for a viewing public that um the building is is currently being used as office space and

086is designated as such and it's perfectly fine as such. Um if we were to put in um school-based activities, it would get reclassified as a um critical space or critical building, which um changes the requirements um for being in a flood area hazard. And the flood area hazard um guidelines actually are move are changing again this year, but um changed in 2023. And as far as the floor, the first usable floor of the building, it would have to be, I believe it was 179 ft above sea level, were that first usable floor is at 182. So that wasn't an issue at all. The the ground floor is 172, but that's essentially um it's essentially pillars that have drywall on them. It's not used for anything other than you can get on the escalator. It's the

087escalator, the elevator. Um so we there was no issue there. Where we ran into an issue is the concern about what's called the dry access route that if there is flooding um that needs to be 1 ft above what they consider to be the 100year elevation and the um the parking lot and egress out to industrial road um didn't satisfy that requirement. Um this was this was news to me and I will say rather unfortunate news. Um so that the absence of the dry access route puts us in a position where we can't put um school based school activities in there. Running a running a district is not considered a school activity. Therefore this the board office is perfectly fine. Um the rental space for the current tenants perfectly fine as well. And we could

088find other uses for that third floor. And I hope I'm not stealing all your thunder on this Gordon. the second floor um as we currently see it would stay as um space for the tenants which would be a revenue source for the district. It's very unusual for school districts to have a consistent revenue source. So that's something that I'm excited about especially because we're losing consistent revenue from um the post office property. And then the third floor, we would need half of it for the board offices. We need a home um and this is a really good amount of space for it. and then the other half could be designated for another um district related purpose. The second floor would be considered taxable um as that would be revenue generating. Third floor um would not

089be as it would be um board of education usage. So um I wrote up and and shared with the board and I know you guys received it what u my recommended next steps um given my unfortunate history with real estate as a school administrator. first with the church property and now with this not so great development um I I understand if there are any questions but um we're confident that what we have in place moving forward is outstanding and then we'll continue to explore options so that if we um are able to expand prek what would that take and we know that seven industrial unless we find a way to elevate the parking lot which you actually could do um be very expensive but you could do it but what what are the other options

090we can explore um to try to bring some type something something close to universal prek into our district. So that was my first question was what is the cost of elevating that? We don't know right now. I didn't get into that because it would take a minimum of a year to get through the process the appeal process with the department of um uh environmental protection. We can't hear anything. I think you could because you would then you're going to set the foot now the entrance of the building, right? And you would have to elevate it above you'd have to elevate it to what? 4T. 4T. So you'd put the parking lot 4t higher than the entrance to the building. So at that point now you're saying that you're building a staircase up to the second

091floor almost and the parking lots and you're kind of surrounding the building with lands. I I don't even think raising it the parking lot is an option. Yeah, raising the parking lot's just going to move the water to somebody else's parking lot and that's not No, Sam, that's that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is just that because of the front door of the building's at a certain elevation, like you can't make the parking lot higher because then you'll go down into the building, you'd have to like make it the parking lot higher, then you go up into the second floor, which doesn't seem Well, it could be done. I mean, it could be done, but it's Yeah, it would be talk about doing things like that shouldn't be done, right? But it could

092be done. the appeal process would take a year. And when putting Mr. Patel's feet to the fire, he uh he said most likely it would not go through. If we tried to appeal it as it is right now, but if we were to raise the parking lot and make configurations to the building to make it more conducive, that's a process. But he said it would take a while and you know and and a lot of money. Exactly. Right. Yeah. I got the sense and Mr. Patel was very good about um giving us generalized answers. Um, the sense that I get is that the process is deliberately ownorous and expensive for appeals and that's a great way of dissuading people from from following through with it. Um, he did stress at the end too and I

093might have been reading too much into things um but that he reiterated there's no issue if it's an office space because um DP would see that as something that's um lawfully existing. So, if one option is to rent the second floor, um because I have two questions in in in my head, what could we do with the second floor besides rent it? And I think the architect would have to tell us like what are the possible solutions that we could, no pun intended, solutions architect would have to tell us what the possible solutions are for that floor. But then if we were going to rent it, how much tax would we pay on it? What would be the expected revenue of it? What would be the cost of it? Like I would like to see

094an analysis of that so that way we know which direction we're going in if we choose to do that. Okay. Well, anybody who's going to rent the space is going to pay their fair share of the taxes. We don't pay taxes. We would go before the board or excuse me, go before the town and get that appealed in the fact that we don't are tax exempt. So a quarter of the building basically would be tax exempt. The other three quarters is paid by the tenants. It's not paid by us because we're taxfree, right? We'll be part of the rent. Yeah. Be incorporated into their rent, right? Some places do what's called a triple net, which whereby you're paying a separate fee just for the taxes, just for the cams, the common area maintenance, and any

095insurance issues. So, we could do something like that. I have to look at their current leases as to how it's structured. But since the financial statements that were shown to me are showing there's a profit, obviously, that's already taken into consideration the taxes and all the insuranceances. Yeah. Yeah. Um, go ahead. I was going to say, um, I know you said the third floor would be the board office, but in the second half you say would be used for potential district, um, things. I mean, would we possibly just consider just also making half of the third floor rentable income to get more income? Because I mean, I'm struggling to think of what we could really even put there if we can't use it for the, you know, if we can't use it anyway during the

096day, what else would we use it for? Oh, absolutely. I I actually would prefer using it as a rental space to get more revenue generated for the district right now. Down the road when tenants leave, we can make other adjustments, but for right now, we really need to start bringing in revenue. Um we're losing revenue at the the current board office. Um and this is the time to make a move if we're going to make a move. Yeah, we'd have uh six tenants in the second floor and then you could have a potential another three upstairs, right? And then we have four. You could have another four upstairs. Yeah, there four. So, 10 tenants and then we take up the space for the office. Correct. So, I have some questions which I do not expect

097answers for now, but may maybe you would be able to let us know. What is the rental revenue now? Um I can answer that. So, that's actually um I put something in backup and the um the breakdown of the last year's uh profit and loss for that property is is um it's tucked into a link on that, but the um the overall net income for that property for that second floor was uh 95,000 last year. Okay. Um what is the square footage of the current board of ed office? And again, 2200 square feet. 2200 square feet. Okay, so it's pretty small. Um, sorry. What What And you're going to hate this question, but what would it cost to add a board office to PV school? Well, you're talking about $6 million. Six million. Yeah. Yeah.

098And that's something that makes this significantly more than purchasing this building is my question. Yeah. And just quick thing, um, I think Greg, you had a question about Yeah. I'm sorry. Point of order. We can't hear anything down here. We We can't hear any of the discussion. I can't hear you guys either. Yeah, I'll be the intermediary. So, uh Tim was asking about No, Sam was asking about the square footage of the current board office and I believe Gordon said it was 2200. Correct. Um and something else that came up too was to Oh, yeah. Yeah, Sam was asking about if if we were to add a board office to one of the existing buildings, and I'm sure any one of the five principles would love to have me on site all day every day,

099but it it would most likely run us to the tune of about $6 million. And um part of that is based on just prevailing wage and and what it costs to to add anything on to an existing structure. Something that makes this property very appealing to us is that almost everything's already there and ready to go. And what's not there and all ready to go is a precondition of the sale that it has to be outfitted a certain way. Um so by having that in place, we're actually we would actually realize a pretty incredible savings because the prevailing wage is probably a 500% markup on on labor. So that by itself is something that by the way the the term I was looking for as I was scrambling it we would be making the purchase

100with as improved property the third floor and the as improved would be the board office. Is there any is there any liability with renting to people? Like is there any kind of I mean there's got to be a reason why you know school districts don't do things like this would buy buildings and then and then rent out floors for revenue. I mean it seems like something that's not a bad idea but I'm wondering like is there any legal liability to that? Sure. So anytime you're a landlord in the state of New Jersey it's going to come with the fair share of legal challenges. New Jersey is a very tenant friendly state regardless of it's commercial or residential. Um there is no legal prohibition against it. I will say that. Um but obviously you're going to

101have situations where your insurance company's going to want to have something to say particularly regarding the levels of coverage that your tenants are going to have to um to h hold and what you are named as additional insured on as well as the fact that they're going to have something to say about you and how you occupy the b the the building. um you they're going to want to make sure that they're having a toll hold on what your policy says, particularly regarding the site. So, your policy is going to have to be structured specifically based on what their needs are for ensuring that there's adequate coverage both in you occupying it and then serving as a a landlord. Yes. Um, you see this more in context of a board renting out a space to

102a private contractor, Boys and Girls Club, or a a some educational facilities is where you more so normally see it. Um, but the idea of renting it out to private businesses is not completely un unfamiliar, at least to me. Um, it's just school districts kind of operate in their own sphere and a lot of people don't like to be involved in the commercial real estate business. So, that's part of the reason why you don't see it so often. What about like upgrades to the building? If like one tenant leaves and another tenant comes in and like codes change, we be obligated to like update Yes. things like that. Yes, you are obligated the same way that a a private individual would be as a commercial landlord. You would be required to know all of the

103requirements um regarding code changes, zoning changes, everything that's related to owning the actual property and serving as a landlord. That would be the board's responsibility. But as a landlord with a tenant, any new tenant coming in and they require special configurations in the building, that's on them. That's not on us. So, they're going to pay for that just like we're paying for it. we would base for going into the building. Um, again, this is the way my brain works, but I apologize ahead of time. What What is to stop us from buying a house in town for a million dollars in the residential/commercial area and just having the board office be an off-site house, you're going to find a house that's got close to 2200 square feet. It would have bathrooms in it already, whatever

104you need probably. It would have a kitchen. It would have, you know, I mean, not that you need a tub, but I mean, you you're talking about you could buy a really nice house in town for a million dollars and that's half of what we're spending for this. And then you guys would have a board office, not on any campus. You know, I would say, for example, an old doctor's office or an old lawyer's a lawyer's office or a doctor's office or something like that that might be for sale. Dentist's office, something to that effect. Yes, that was actually taken into consideration. But there's actually three items involved here. It's not just a board office. It's obviously we need a new board office. We also have lost rental. We've also lost income. We need to

105replace that income and we need to generate income. 2627 is going to be a rough year. we don't start planning now, things are going to get rough. So, I'm just giving you a warning as the BA, we need to plan now for the future. The third thing is the preschool. Let's say our preschool expands and we need space. We don't have it. We can't afford to build on the building. Well, we can look into the private sector and getting a building, rent it, but now we have rental income coming in to help offset some of that rental expense going out for the preschool. So now we have more options open to us. So we've went over your opt or your idea Sam as far as you know looking at housing. We actually did look at

106one which was a total mess but um when we went over the numbers we went over different ideas. This was the way to go. It really is. And if we're going to move on this, we have to move on it soon because the capital lease, in order for the owner to finish what needs to be done, we need to get going on this by the end of this month. In order to get it done by the end of June. Now, the cost to fit up that top floor, $264,000 nonprevailing wage rate. That's unheard of, but he can do it. But we have to get it done with before the end of this year. Next year I cannot use capital reserve to do that function because capital reserve is already geared towards buying the building. Totally

107fitted up, ready to go. It's a unique opportunity. Um Gordon, just two thoughts on that. Um and kind of piggybacking off what Jackie was saying. Jackie, the tenants would have to carry Sorry, this is cutting in and out. The tenants would have to carry renters's insurance. No. Absolutely. So there would be another layer of coverage there. It wouldn't be like all on No. And that's I apologize if I wasn't clear that they would have to have an insurance policy the same way that a normal commercial or residential renter would have. We would be named as additional insured on that. So there would be that level of protection, but obviously your insurance carrier is going to have something to say about it and some considerations that they're going to want you to carry as well. Right.

108Okay. Thank you. I just wanted that clarification. And then um coming back to Sam's comment, it just sort of as far as housing goes, it just sort of made me think from the income standpoint earlier in the year, I think it was during our retreat, um Helina uh or maybe Chris were speaking about uh you know, servicing the special education population that we having coming up, the 18 to 21. Um, and I didn't know if like that was a potential area to use a floor of the house to have that extension and have that as revenue. Floor of a building, a floor of if we did a house, if we would have purchased, if we did a house, serve as the 18 to 21 population, um, because I know that's tough to find. Well, depending

109on the house you're looking at, if you're looking at just a residential house, you're going to have to go before the zoning committee and have them reszone the property to making it uh, inherently beneficial. And that is tough because the town is now losing revenue. Okay, so that's not an easy proposal. And then secondly, you'd have to find a building big enough or a house big enough that would house what you're suggesting the 18 to 21 year olds plus the board office. That's a pretty good size home. Big ass. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I do have one statement. Um, Plaza 23 is now a vacant two-floor building. Have we looked at that opportunity as something that might work? M and I believe they have a liquor license there, too. Stop. It's not officially for sale yet,

110but not for Well, there's a sign out there now. And SP not planning on buying it. I spoke to them. I'm just saying it's a vacant building. I know there's a real estate. I don't know if it's a for a lease or for sale, but I'm just saying it's now a two floor vacant building in town, which are hard to come by. So, right. Actually, I haven't seen anything that's for sale other than there's a um hardware store, a very large one down close to 7 Industrial Road, but they want like $4 million for it. I think that's it. Yes. Yeah, it's huge. They have huge warehouse, great building, great property, but that's a lot. I believe it's it's a strip next to it. You're going to be the same. You have to go through

111the same issue. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Plaza 23. We looked at a um we looked at a map. Uh this is courtesy of I think the civil engineer. It's pretty interesting. But it's it's almost like you could trace a straight line of boulevard um and then a little bit to the left and right which more or less west parkway and um turnpike but just see like where where you could actually expand on a building or or have something that would be um a critical building and it's a it's a narrow swath going up there. Um, and then one other quick thing about the 18 to 21 that we had actually hoped for, but it was pretty quickly shot down was whether the 18 to 21 program if we could put that in seven industrial because it's

112outside of the general K to2 parameters but um the guy asked would you be conducting school activities? Well, yes. Uh but we we we had um we had hoped we sold it as a life skills program because you know you could set it up like an apartment so the kids learn certain things whether it's using a kitchen, whether it's doing laundry, whatever it might be. So um that is something that we we do still want to investigate. Thank you guys. Y a question for Jackie. You mentioned that the our insurance company could possibly require the renters to add things to their policies. Did you So, we couldn't control their policies. We could establish what we would accept as policy limits. But what I'm saying is the our insurance company would require us to have certain

113terms within our policy that govern how we carry our policy and then move forward in operating the building. Of course, right? If somebody hurts themselves in a communal area, we're liable. They fall down the stairs, we're liable. They fall in the hallway, we're liable, right? And particularly, obviously with it being in the the flood plane that it is, they would want you to have some terminology related to that as well. What's the the time frame as far as like when you're planning to put this on the agenda for a vote? I'd like to put it on the agenda for a vote at the end of this month. So, we would have to set up a capital lease and then we'd have to establish the payments that would be paid to him between now, which we

114have retroactive from January to June 30th. That would take care of fitting up the building, holding the building ready for us to either purchase it in July or August, whenever he's done. I mean, we've been working on this for almost seven months. So, it's time we either are going to do it or we cut him loose because I can't keep stringing him along every board meeting. He asked me every after every board meeting, "How did it go?" I said, "Well, you know, I keep stringing him along." So, I think we're at the point we have to make a decision. A lot of things have changed though since this was first proposed. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So, it's not like we've been mulling over the same idea. We've actually been mulling over an idea that keeps evolving

115into something different. So we need time to consider that and we also need good quality information to you know answers to the questions I guess that we've been discussing now. Absolutely. Um in order to make a good decision. Sorry you definitely answered this at a meeting. Oh sorry. No go. I just you definitely answered last time. How many tenants are there currently? Six tenants. Thank you. Are there any other questions? I did have one more question just uh and again it doesn't have to be today. What's the difference in revenue versus the post office today and with these tenants? Post office today is zero. They stopped paying us um December 31st, 2024 in accordance with the 40-year lease. So now it's none. Zero with the with Do you want to pick up? I was just

116say the the last pay the last five years were 55 per year because it was on a graduated program where it went up about five grand every fifth year. Any other questions? I think we should do something similar to kind of what we did already, which is make up another list of questions for everybody that they might not be thinking about now and you guys can respond to it. Um because yeah, I think that's what needs to happen. If anyone else has any other ideas of how to factf find in order to make a decision on this, I mean one way or the other a decision is going to be made. So it's at this point trying to decide what information we're going to ask for in order to base our decision on. So to

117me it's like we make up the list of questions and then get the answers and then we decide. Can we I guess one of the questions I would have is can we contact our insurance company and say hey this is what we're looking to do. What are your requirements from us? Already done it. Don't forget the building is already in existence and in operation. So it's not like we're buying a building that's vacant and we're starting from scratch. The building already has insurance. I investigated the flood insurance which was cheap. It's $1,500 a year because the building was built for a flood. Yes. Nothing gets flooded. I think I think my major area just to put out there my major area of concern is I definitely understand that we need the income and that we

118need a place for our board office. However, I think I am pretty um I think everybody knows my opinions, thoughts, and feelings about the preschool expansion. So my concern is what's going to happen when we need to when our time is up for PA and we need to house our preschoolers somewhere like we're not going to have the capital reserve money to then purchase another building or or are we going to have those finances? What are what are we looking in the long run for all of these preschoolers? That's that's what my issue is. Right. As I stated before, we're going to be generating revenue, which means that we could rent another space. Okay? We're not draining our capital reserve to zero. By the time we sell the par uh the uh board office at

119the post office, we'll have about 2 million in capital reserve afterwards. So, it's not like we're draining it down to zero and we have nothing. I would never do that. That's not a good idea. Gordon, um, what happens if we don't purchase this with that? Like what do you do with that money? You invest money. Gordon, were you finished answering that question? Yeah, pretty much. Okay. I just want to make sure because you kind of jumped in on him answering Danielle's question. Well, let me ask Danielle. Did that answer your question or? Yeah. So, essentially, if PA comes up, we're going to look for an outsource program. That That's what the game plan is. My I just want those. We will have $2 million left in the capital reserve if we need to use it

120for something else. And then we'll also if PA comes up, we will then outsource the um site essentially. That's what the game plan would be. Correct. Correct. And you'd have to budget it. I mean, if we don't buy this property, we did not budget to lease property next year for the board office. We budgeted to buy the building. Okay? I can't use capital reserve money for rent. Cannot be done. That's for capital improvements. So if you decide not to, which is the board's prerogative to do that, things are going to have to be cut in order to meet in order for the board office to be able to move somewhere and pay rent. So that's something to consider. Also, my opinion is that's still a no-brainer. Thank you, Gordon. You're welcome. Sam, you got a

121question? Sam, you got a question? Yeah. Um, I almost forgot my own question. If we don't purchase it and we h you what happens with that money? It just gets it's our money. It just gets invested whichever way through. If you don't use the capital reserve money for the spec specified purpose, it stays in capital reserve. It does not go out. Okay. Right. Okay. So, but we could then go look for someplace different. You could remember you have this up. Well, I mean, but I mean, we were the main reason behind this was the preschool. And now if there's no preschool, it's a different story. I I think I mean, well, I beg to differ. The main reason for this to get started was the board office lease was up. That that's what started it.

122The preschool came into it. The income aspect of it also came into it. So, it's three aspects of this project, this process. board office, loss of revenue, and preschool. I I personally just don't like the idea. Two of those immediately. You see what I'm saying? No, I I understand that. I just uh I don't know if I want to get into the renting business, being a landlord. I'm not I'm not really sold on that. And the fact that Jack says that nobody else. We've been landlords. You've been loan the the property to the post office for the last 40 years since 1985 government. So what is your fear? It's not a CPA who says you know what I don't need this anymore. I'm going to work from home. It's not a psychologist or or a

123a lawyer. I mean there was the US post office. If we weren't getting our money I'm sure there was a way that we were going to get our money. in this situation, if somebody just stops paying rent, I mean, what are we going to do? We're gonna send Ronnie after them? I mean, what are we gonna do? So, Gordon, something I want to clarify that that that I think you just said related to uh the building if we don't purchase it, the budget is set up for next year to purchase it. So, if we don't purchase it and then we would then have to go rent someplace for the board office, we can't use that money that we were going to purchase the building with to pay rent. Correct. So, therefore, you would have to

124look into the budget to find money to pay rent for the board office while the money that we were going to use to purchase the board office sits in capital reserve. That is correct. Unless we find another place to buy for roughly the same amount of money in a short period of time. Yes. I think um Mr. Sonic's idea of getting another document together to list some questions out is definitely needed um because I think there's a lot of questions remaining on this property, especially since it's been kind of moving back and forth between a, you know, preschool and now it's just a board office and we can't use it for some things because at the end of the day, we you know, we're we're purchasing a property here for 2.6 2.6 million. um that

125you know that's our that's the town's money, that's our our taxpayers's money. Um and we're purchasing a building to become a landlord, not for any educational purpose. Um I don't know if you know if we were to if we would have our all of our questions answered by the next board meeting, perhaps we could move it, but I don't know if we can get there that fast. I don't think we could we could go to the town and say, "Hey, we did this with with your money on just to have a board office. I know there's revenue involved and it's important, but it's a big it's a big price tag. All right. Anything else on this before we move into policy? And I guess the the appeal process was related to to this as well,

126right? That's correct. Yeah. And I I I I could I could tell you you don't want to go into the appeal process with the DP. No, it's just a I've been there. You don't want to be there. That would be a complete waste of time. Way too strong. All right, we finally made it. Policy. M. Mcweeny is going to give us an update on the uh the meeting that we had. Okay. Uh we had a policy committee meeting on April 3rd uh where we discussed uh all of the policies that are listed on the agenda. Let's pull it up. Um I think they're in the same order. I sent a note out to the board today of a readout from the policy committee. Oops, I'm still not there. [Music] Um so yeah so the the

127items we discussed I think they're in the same order field trips. Um the reason we brought up field trips is um we're discussing the expectation that students take uh district provided transportation to and from field trips unless it's a a local event like PV park day. Um, this I think comes up every year when there are uh I guess it's the Dorney Park uh trip most particularly where a lot of kids find other ways home with parents of course um from the PB park day and uh it's uh a little hard to manage. So uh I think the the proposal is to revise the policy to put in additional wording about um taking uh transportation to and from field trips. Should I just run through these and then we can discuss? Okay. Uh athletic competition.

128Um uh we the talking about 2431 athletic competition. Um student athletes our student athletes are sorry question. Okay. Uh student athletes are required to meet certain standards for attend and attendance and a academic performance. We want that to apply to all students who uh are participating in extracurricular activities including homeschooled students. So uh we're looking to amend 2431 to include amendments with language about standards and evidence of academic performance for homeschooled students. Um grading system 2624 there's uh a lot of it is outdated. Um I think the example that Dr. Porters brought up was that it said we should parent teacher conferences prefer pre-K to four. Obviously, it's pre-K to five. Um, that's when the fifth grade used to be at the middle school. Um, we also discussed more frequent and timely updates from teachers

129to parents, especially for students who are falling farther behind. And also, we discussed uh that teachers should also provide timely feedback on assignments and assessments to help students understand uh where they stand uh and understand their progress. Um, so we're going to look at that and uh update that update that for more timely uh readouts to parents and students. Um, 3218 um, Dr. Boris, I might need your help here. It has something to do with the wire requirement. Yeah. And so 3218 and 428 are essentially the same policy. One is for teaching staff, um, one is for sport staff. And um in this situation, if a staff member um needs to be sent out for screening or confirming for um suspicion of being under the influence, um the there the regulation is pretty good about

130breaking it down, but not so much in the policy. But we need to have a step in there about um if someone is sent out to a facility, a testing facility, that the superintendent is responsible for sending the physician the results to the district physician who will review it and confirm. Um, there also needs to be mention of the workplace impairment paperwork. This is something that the state added uh about two years ago when when marijuana was made legal. This was something that was tethered to that that we had to have workplace impairment forms that are filled out by administrative staff if there is suspicion that somebody is at work under the influence. Then finally, and this is what uh Mr. Mcweeny was referring to the workplace impairment recognition expert which would simply enough be

131one of our nurses. Um the abbreviation is a wire and that person um would need to see the person as part of the screening process um as an on-site determination about whether there is enough to warrant sending out for testing. So, a lot of this just has to do with compliance and and the one item that I brought up about the paperwork coming to me before it goes to the physician is procedural. Okay. Uh 511 eligibility of residents and non-resident students. Uh the committee discussed what happens if a district has a wait list for a program uh such as a pre-K program and I think the consensus was that uh the Quanic counter presidents have received first priority for district programs before accepting students from outside of the district. So looking to revise that policy

132accordingly. Um the other ones couple of the next ones were just wording and uh revisions um use of school facilities. I think we discussed this previously too. um adding a fee for the use of tennis courts um to the to the table of facilities that we rent out. Uh and I think we also asked Dr. Poris to check to make sure that our our facility fees are on par with other districts. Um management of prediculosis or headlice. It's gross but it's not really an illness. um but to just to revise the procedures to simplify the notification process um for uh basically the school nurses and teachers so it's not as ownorous. Um and uh last one was uh 8601. Uh this is well for it's also poorly written as well. Uh it's confusing, but basically

133this is the form that parents f uh fill out when they're uh giving permission for their their child to go home. Um either by being picked up by somebody or going home by themselves, like riding their bike home. Um so we're going to clean up the form, make it a little easier to understand. Uh parents can also pick more than one choice, which isn't really clear on the form. And then one of the things we're looking at is um ride share programs. Uh I don't think children can use it in New Jersey. Although I sent Dr. Poris an example of an ad that I received on my Uber app. Um uh but ride share programs may come into play soon if they are permitted in New Jersey where students could a parent could send an

134Uber to pick up a car and we don't have any wording in our policy for that. I would assume right now if an Uber show showed up to pick up a child, it would be a it would be a no-go. Um so we would have to Yeah. The only exception there would be is if the Uber driver was one of the people listed on form 8601 as somebody who's qualified to pick them up, which is exceedingly unlikely to the point of being impossible. Yeah. And I think that's that's all we covered in the in the policy committee. I think there are other couple other other items listed on the agenda. Dr. Poris. Yeah. And and one other is uh just that last one on the agenda, the 9181, which is the volunteer athletic coaches and

135extracurricular activity advisors. Um this is something that is also part of compliance. Uh Mr. Riner had been at a presentation through NJPSA, which is principles and supervisors association. Um they brought up how it's required in policy to include language about Title 9 training as well as um we we call it the safe sport model which is which is following certain um detection for um abuse or other concerns for our young student athletes or kids who are involved in extracurricular activities. So we'll just make sure that we are in full compliance with that. All right. Any other discussion on policy? Okay, that brings us to the end of the workshop and to the second opportunity for public comment. Since there's nobody here, there's no one to comment from the public. So, I'm going to close that

136and move into unfinished business. Any board member have any unfinished business? Any new business? How about board member announcements? Sure. Um, quickly, uh, I attended the National Honor Society ceremony here at the high school. It was amazing. It's a really, really nice ceremony. Always impressed every time I've attended it. It's something I actually look forward to um, every early spring. So, and congratulations to those students. That's it's a lot of hard work um, goes into earning that earning that award. Um, I also attended the New Jersey School Boards Association Women's Leadership Conference. It was amazing. It was very cool. Um, it was an excellent workshop. It was a really nice day of networking, um, of sharing perspectives of, you know, sharing the perspectives of of women leaders. Um, you know, some of the challenges that

137they face and ways to strengthen their leadership. They had a um, business clothing drive, which was really cool. So you could bring some used clothing that's more business attire including accessories and they would pass those along. Um met a lot of great people actually um attended my own director's um workshop which was fantastic. Really super interesting fact. When we think of education we think that most most of our teachers are female right? We have very few, not very few, but definitely way less male teachers than we do female teachers. Interestingly enough, only 36% of the superintendent throughout the state of New Jersey are females. Um, cuz I just think I know, but I just I don't ever think of like like that. It is more than the than the country. The country only has 24%.

138So, um yeah, still it was just to me it was it's kind of disappointing but um it is disappointing. Yeah. But um it w it was an interesting fact that I had never looked at before. Um but it was it was great. I hope that maybe Cara and Tina could join me next year. Um thank you Gordon for signing me up for that. Um I think that was Oh, uh CPAC will be having a technology um presentation on April 24th. Thank you. Um I have a few. Um on March 20th, I attended uh the PV 8th grade ELA guest speaker. It was um Mr. Was his first name Gerald. Jerry. Jerry. Mr. Jerry Zach. um he came in and spoke about his family's experience through the Holocaust. Um his family were survivors of the Holocaust

139and I don't even know what word to put as what this presentation was. I like like moving is not the right word there. I mean, there's so many different ways to describe his presentation and it was um impactful doesn't even do its justice, but um he spent a lot of time researching every moment that his family um went through where they were uh throughout Germany. Um, you know, he he touched in 40 minutes. He touched a lot of he he just gave us a lot of information. Um, I I could have stayed for every session and listen to him over and over again, but it it was um an unbelievable story. Um it's one of those events that one of those stories that no matter what you're dealing with, it's not as bad as what

140his family um went through. And uh I I really hope the students got as much out of it as I did. And I want to thank um Miss Candace McAffrey who was the teacher who who put this together through her contacts of MA. It it was really interesting. It was um and I forget exactly which parent it was from our district works in Mawa. Yes. Heard him speak and mentioned it to Miss McCaffrey who then contacted him and I don't think you're going to find a more generous spirit than Mr. Zach. He he was unbelievable about how willing he was to come out here on very short notice and he he's looking forward to coming back again next year. But yeah, it was Mrs. McAffrey with the assist from one of our parents. Yeah, it

141was amazing. He had he had audio uh from interviews of his own family just like reliving the days and the like like certain days. They knew dates, they knew times, they knew they knew there's there's things tattooed into their brain from from that hell that they lived. And it was just it was unbelievable. I I took a lot of pictures of his presentation, of course, asked him if that was okay. And um it it was if he does come back, I would recommend trying to find time to to see him. Um other than that, there was um got to go to the veterans wall for one more gathering. Uh we took a picture of everybody who was an inkind donor and on the committee um with a nice little social event at um uh American

142Legion Post 450. So, thank you for hosting that. That was a fun time. Anybody else? Okay. Uh we do have reason to go into executive session tonight where we will discuss student matters and big surprise acquisition of property. Uh no action will be taken and we will adjourn from there. Next meeting will be April 28th here at the high school. That meeting will include a public hearing and presentation of the 2025 2026 budget. So I urge everyone to come out and ask any questions that you might have. Is there a motion to go into executive session? Motion. Second. Second. All in favor? Any opposed? Good night everyone.