001Miss Munos will you please introduce yourself sure good evening everyone I'm Rosa munes I'm the district interpreter and translator I'm here to help with any questions or comments you may have thank you welcome to everyone here and those of you joining us virtually to to this December 19th DOA Board of Education meeting for those who wish to provide public comment remotely a Google form was posted on the district website at 6:30 p.m. and those remote comments will be addressed in the second public comment section comos this meeting which is hereby call to order at 711 p.m. is in compliance with the notice requirements of the law public notice was posted in the office of the Board of Education and communicated to the municipal clerk and the daily record on January 10th 2023 can we please
002rise for the flag salute I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America the stand under God indivisible liy and justice for all Mr sabahu may we have a roll call Miss ESO present Miss DS present Miss gonalez present Mr Miller here miss nothing here miss Phillips here Mr Ros present Dr senner present miss mandz here miss Gales will you please read our mission statement of course working together as a community our mission is to Welcome All and provide opportunities for our students in a safe and accepting learning environment to become creative empathetic resilient and who choose to make an impact thank you so this evening I will be giving a closing year statement um so good evening a year ago you placed your trust in me to lead our board a
003year ago we committed to ensuring our board is as transparent as possible without violating the law a year ago we committed to taking a path of Greater visibility and increase Community forums a year ago we committed to creating a Citizens advisory committee a year ago I shared my hope that our board Administration and Community would collaborate in meaningful ways to ensure High student achievement a year ago I set the tone for my role as president by sharing the following quote the leader's job is not to have all the ideas it is to make sure all the ideas are heard and that the best ones win wow we may not always agree and our journey over the past year has had some bumps we have worked together to honor those commitments over the past year I
004am happy to report our board has not only honored those commitments we have faithfully impartially and justly performed all the duties of office to the best of our abilities every policy we approved and action we have taken has been based on what is best for the education of all students Mr Miller thank you for taking on the role of vice president and working closely with me over the past year to navigate the challenges challenges of our leadership roles Dr mlin it has been wonderful to work closely with you over the past year thank you for your commitment to our students staff and Community Mr crew thank you for never rejecting my calls or texts over the past year your knowledge of the law and deep passion for your work is impressive Miss shower Miss pesus
005Miss Gales and Dr serer thank you for your shining example of leadership and for Paving the way for me to fill this role fellow board members thank you you for your commitment to this board to service to community often times our work is thankless but I know each of you are passionate about education community and truly care for the well-being of our students I am forever inspired by each of you I am forever grateful for the opportunity to lead such a phenomenal group of people thank thank you from the bottom of my heart so in front of you there's a candle um please accept this candle and if you look over here at the beginning of the year um some of our students created these for us and I had them framed so please accept
006this candle and there's one uh there's a frame for each of you as a token of my gratitude finally today's meeting marks the end of service on this board for now for two board members Mr robbles and Miss Gales it has been an honor to serve alongside both of you your commitment to our board and Community is much appreciated your work on our board has left a lasting impact for years to come so with that I will recognize Mr Miller and then Dr serer thanks thank you so I am really sorry to say that this is Mr Rob's last meeting I've really enjoyed working with Benjamin over the last several years uh Benjamin came to us initially by submitting his resume for a vacated seat and finished that term before being elected to a full
007three-year term Benjamin is a community volunteer and has been very active in the Academy Street PTA he is still serving as the PTA Treasurer even though his daughter is in eth grade Benjamin has served on several board committees and recently served as chair of our newly formed and very important governance committee I know that volunteering to be a board member is very time consuming and takes time away from our families and friends we also know that it is also very rewarding to know we're making a positive impact in providing a learning environment in which our students can become successful in life I want to thank you for all the nights out that you spent uh out at the committee me meetings and the long board meetings uh I will miss the Insight that you bring
008to our board discussions and our board discussions on the use of data as a catalyst for measuring student achievement so enjoy all your free nights Benjamin thank [Applause] you Margaret me said never doubt out that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world indeed it is the only thing that ever has 6 years ago when she was elected to the do Board of Education Diana Gales became one of a small group of nine people working to make our schools the best they could be for our children while the Board of Education Works as a team Diana has been a standout board member Diana served as vice president for one year and president for two leading our board through a global pandemic during this time she set the standard for Shar leadership and
009a commitment to training that this board still values today in fact Diana earned her new board member boardsmy earned her certified board member designation and recently earned her master board member certification as well she has served this board on the finance curriculum negotiations policy M Hill ad and M Hill ad hoc committees and been chair of most if not all of these at one point or another one board member asked me to mention that Diana was integral on the negotiations Committee in ensuring that contracts were fair to all while prioritizing our students and advocating for professional development she was integral in personalizing the welcoming schools resolution for do and was a strong advocate for more communication and bilingual communication from our schools as well as being sure to live stream and record our Board of
010Ed meetings she's advocated for our schools to be available to our Rec Sports programs evening ESL classes and our track of available to our community in the evenings Diana takes her preparation for each board meeting seriously reading the board packet often on Friday night and sending out her questions to the admin and board leadership prior to each meeting her preparation and attention to detail is obvious to all Diana's Legacy extends beyond the boundaries of our two square mile town she initiated a countywide board of ed President and Vice President networking group Dober hosted the first meeting of this group and now this is a regular meeting run by New Jersey School Board Association Diana advocated for increased Mental Health Services for our students at all levels and represented our board and pres in presenting a
011presentation titled trauma informed School communities at a Morris County Schoolboard meeting additionally she helped craft a resolution supporting continued funding for our school-based youth services program this year that our board passed and sent to the State Department of Education and the governor this proposed change to funding was eventually postponed and we kept our critical school-based Youth Services Program funding in response to a tragic school shooting Diana crafted a resolution against gun violence that our board passed this resolution was sent to njsba where a Statewide task force was created resulting in a report that was presented at a county at County njsba meetings the report was also distributed distributed to legislators State education officials and Statewide organizations representing superintendents and other central office administrators teachers principal supervisor ERS ptas School business administrators and others the report
012offers local Boards of Education recommendations and suggested actions with the hope that the information would be used by Other Board of Education members to Advocate State leadership I'm sure I'm forgetting so many things that Diana has helped accomplish in her six years on the board she's been a tireless advocate for Mental Health lgbtq Plus students and Equitable and inclusive education for all students whatever their needs she she's been instrument instrumental in recognizing and celebrating the importance of our staff members advocating for transparency and improving communication in the district sometimes even serving As an interpreter at board meetings and stressing the importance of our transition to a community school model she's advocated for students at the county and even the state level and for our community as a whole as a board member thank you Diana
013for being such a great colleague and a role model as a parent and someone who loves our do children thank you for for prioritizing their needs and putting them at the Forefront of every decision you've made in the last 6 years thank you for being a part of this small group of committed citizens who has made big important changes for our do [Applause] students if there are no objections um from the board I'd like to take a 5 to 10 minute intermission there's some cake back there I'd like us to um grab some cake and um maybe have share a few words with our um outgoing board members take a look at the artwork um decide which one you want to take home um are there any objections we' be back in 5 to 10
014minutes thank you for your from meeting supposed to start at 6:30 start at 711 5 minutes into your beautiful words you're taking a break that's ridicul thank you so much for sharing we're T I'm going to ask you to calm down okay okay thank you we're taking a 5 to 10 minute intermission thank you okay we are returning from our intermission at 7:32 p.m. and moving along to public comment on agenda items only the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters to ensure fair and orderly expression of such comment each statement shall be held to a time period of 3 minutes public comments limited to items on this agenda shall be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon
015the discretion of the presiding officer please understand that public comment portions of our agenda are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board may or may not respond to public comments however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when providing comments comments may not be abusive obscene threatening or irrelevant please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections the board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students or employees please be advised that you are commenting at your own risk any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to Legal liability for defamation
016with that public comment is now open is is there any member of the public in person wishing to speak yes please state your name for the record Diane Morris I'm the president of the M Hill Board of Education and my comments this evening are related to your agenda item that is noted in the minutes you'll be approving this evening since there was a vague M Hill do report given at dover's last board meeting the mill board of education has authorized me to present to the do board and Community a more complete report on the status of Mine Hill over failed contract negotiations most issues related to the education of our students including collaboration of tuition payments all Educational Services provided to M Hill students curriculum articulation and other areas that required articulation of efforts between
017our administrators be it the superintendent assistant superintendent or building principles were resolved with minimal back and forth then then came the areas that required do to make some compromises Dover took issue and negotiations came to a stalemate here is a list of the items do was unwilling to consider Mine Hill having a nonvoting seat on the do Board of Education Mine Hill and do meeting together once a year as full boards the do board secretary sending to Mine Hill Mine Hills board secretary a copy of the board agenda at the same time do board members received the agenda before I dive into details let me give you a a little history in 1994 Mine Hill along with a number of other sending districts in the state M met with our state legislators to advance the
018position that a member of the sending District should have a seat on the receiving District's Board of Education our position was that the system in place allowed for taxation without representation I personally met a number of times with Senator Bob Martin and test ified before the Senate education committee ultimately in 1995 the law changed and M Hill was given a voting position on dover's Board of Education as a matter of fact I was that first board member from Mine Hill to sit on the do board Mine Hill retained that seat for 23 years without issue until dover's enrollment jumped so high that mine Hill no longer had the required 10% enrollment into the Dober school system and was forced to vacate the seat Mine Hill feels very strong given the fact that mine Hill sends
019nearly $2 million every year to do asking that a do board a Mine Hill Board member be given a non-voting seat on the do board did not seem to be too much to ask a seat similar to the position now held by a member of your student body this would give M Hill a voice in 1995 the njsba completed a research paper and published a report titled sending and receiving districts Partners in education in that comprehensive report among the go good practices identified is that ascending District have having not that that ascending District have a nonvoting member sit on the receiving District's Board of Education Excuse Me Miss Morris your your time is up so please uh please finish okay I'll continue it very good hi I'm Katie bartnik and I'm on the Mine Hill
020Board of Education so the do board was not willing to consider this option I forwarded to your board Diane forwarded to your board president a copy of the NJ sba's report regarding the second issue we discussed the benefits of both boards meeting once a year to discuss priorities issues and concerns this informal meeting would keep the lines of communication open do members thought their schedules were too busy and they wouldn't be able to find time for such such an annual meeting I should mention that our two board committees that used to meet several times a year has not met in more than two years clearly a breakdown of communication between the boards a final sticking point is related to Mine Hill requesting that an advanced copy of the board's agenda be sent to our ba
021during our discussions Dober felt that sending an advanced copy of the board's agenda would cause problems with other Dover School groups example given was that the do Education Association would expect the same courtesy in comparing all the groups sorry in comparing all the groups Mine Hill is the only group sending nearly $2 million to do every year and therefore was justified in a request for an advanced copy the do group did not agree with our position and declined to move on the suggestion this is more comprehensive status report of the M Hill do send receive relationship Mine Hill would like our two boards to represent a collaborative partnership in education at any point should the do board reconsider its position please reach out to Diane Morris at the May Hill Board of Education thank you
022thank you is there any other member of the public in person wishing to speak good evening Mary SRA 217 Baker Street um a couple things um hopefully agenda related um thank you um I just want to say thank you tonight um to our board members that are leaving us um to miss Mendes Mr Miller for uh your leadership on board um I know the year goes by so quickly um for us parents it's hard to keep up with this whole fiscal year calendar year situation um sometimes we feel our loss losing you halfway through the school year may I add um thank you Miss Gales for all your hard work I know it takes so many hours of your time so much dedication and I know you guys um Mr roess as well thank you
023so much I know you guys all do it from the bottom of your heart U to represent our community our students your own children um I mean we all live here in town so I just want to say a big thank you so I I know you said you you you all say it's a thankless job we are all very thankful our students are too um and it and it shows on a day-to-day Bas basis you know what goes on in our school system um there are bad things but you know we see it and it's you know little bits at a time and I just want to also add and say gracias to the board which means thank you um for having taken into consideration um reaching out to our community our Spanish speaking
024community and adding that little bit of Spanish message to anybody in town we had a Spanish speaking only uh Community member last meeting uh that needed that translation and it's just a little bit of a welcoming um I am I came to this country as an immigrant and I couldn't imagine being a parent only speaking Spanish coming into the system I mean our children go through it they're very resilient but as parents it's so hard so Gra from the bottom of my heart for um represented our community thank you good night I'll see you later thank you is there any other member of the public wishing to speak good evening um susha 346 West Clinton Street in Dover U this is going to seem as if this was a setup but honestly it was not
025but coincidentally I was going to mention that this is an anniversary of of sorts for myself um for Mine Hill and for the school district for the Dober School District um in 2017 on this very day December 19th was my final board of education meaning after 14.9 years um we had a I I've seen the video just recently just to remind myself and we had a wonderful meeting of everyone saying beautiful words so to hear them here again tonight for each other is is fabulous my issue has to do with the old business that's on the agenda in reference to the discussion of 7 North Sussex Street as a least location for educational purposes for uh do students in 2017 at that December 19th meeting there were members from the your voice group that had
026just been recently elected so they were members elect of the GPS team um they sat in the front row of the meeting we were in the media center and there were some loud expressions of concern over actions that the do Board of Education was taking that they may be falling into the category of lame duck and the term ultraviolet transparency was stated numerous times that we were not taking ultraviolet transparency in AE that we had December 19th 2017 that vote was the culmination of 24 years of litigation between the Dober school district and the Mine Hill School District we had to answer and we had delayed the answer the state of New Jersey Department of Education on whether or not we were going to Dover was going to appeal a decision that the state made
027and that state was state decision was that mine Hill district students could leave they did not have to stay in do after 24 years of litigation and after Consulting Mr cro we decided we did not want to spend one more Penny on fighting something like this it was up to Mine Hill to send their students where they wanted we wanted to give them the the freedom the numbers of students were dwindling because they were being forced to come to do and they were seeking other educational opportunities so we voted and the vote was a positive to not file an appeal with the state and that caused the reaction from the GPS team who were just newly elected that we were not being ultraviolent and that we were acting under lame duck after 24 years and
028at the time one of the the board member elect asked the question what brainstorming had we done excuse me Mr CH your time is up so please finish up thank you what brainstorming had we done to come to that conclusion well we had 24 years of brainstorming number one to come to that vote number two we there board members were not cohorted into a decision my point for this is board members that may have to make decisions whether it be tonight or in the coming future in regards to more lease property please be ultra file it and transparent with your decisions please do your work in front of the public so that we don't have to guess what's going to happen do your work in front of the public discuss with the public and discuss
029also with all Town agencies that may be involved in a decision like this thank you thank you is there any other member of the public wishing to speak it's on the agenda y yep Oswaldo orama 361 East McFarland Street Dover New Jersey Town resident all my life 58 years um I just want to speak uh um in reference to the Newberry buildings I hear through the press that the board of education is thinking of leasing space there I want to say um that 100% against against it because it's going to create havoc in the town of do right now especially with the parking spaces I know that something like this if it's got to be renovated has to go through the planning board and um building and all these kind of um permits you just
030can't say I'm going to rent it without first making sure that you have the the legality the permission from the town to do what you want to do so I would I would suggest that before you take any decisions on this you have serious discussions with the construction with the building department with the zoning department with the police department and it would serve you well to inform all the citizens taxpayers like myself we shouldn't be just um notified when things are already happening people should be aware of these things before you make the decision um and it's ironic for it it really bothers me to know that I went to the board meeting Alman meeting back in June when they proposed selling it I was at the final um vote there when they sold it
031to Capital One Investments they gifted the building for $2.5 million a building that in my expertise and I have a little bit because I have done a lot of investments in do at that time was probably worth between 8 and 11 million the town of Dover gifted away to Capital Investments for 2.5 million I was there I dis I displayed outrage against this sale I actually made the comment that if they would pause it I would gather up a couple investors and I would buy the property because $2.5 million four or five guys here in Dover we could have easily kept that building to Dover residents but no the board went along they sold it for 2.5 nobody on this board of education went there to oppose that sale nobody there and that was only
032a year and a half ago maybe nobody there had the vision to say wait Dober don't sell the building we can probably leas in the future with so many students coming to do nobody came here to to to protest it I did it went into death ears because 5 minutes later they sold it for 2.5 and the guy Bennett the Town Administrator whoever he was who ironed out this deal he he he in turned resigned that same night once he ironed out the deal and I said that I should have a crystal ball because I said once this thing is signed over this guy's out of here cuz he don't care about over just like that it happened I get I guess I'm I'm pretty good at predicting nobody from this board had the vision
033of going there and United with me and with other taxpayers and stop this sale and now you want to enrich the people who literally stole that building from over because at 2.5 million they they sto it from us taxpayers because remember nothing belongs to you guys this is all taxpayer citizen stuff this building the chairs you sit down the meetings you hold everything you you know you work for us all of a sudden we we we work for you or we depend on you no it should be other one service to the public should mean the public excuse me sir your time's up so please finish up I'm going to try to finish up real fast please yeah give me the same courtesy you gave the other lady that's exactly what I'm doing okay thank
034you so what I'm saying is you guys have to be very careful when you think about spending the taxpayer money I'm tired of paying so many taxes I don't just pay property taxes I pay business taxes GTI tax tax sales tax income tax I I go to the gas pump I pay 50 cents tax tax tax tax tax tax and all that tax tax tax tax it's all our money including your own maybe you got more money than me so it don't matter if you pay a lot more but I'm very protective of my tax dollars I'm asking you guys stop this leasing stop it before ends up in courts and litigations and more taxpayer money because this is the wrong thing to do for the taxpayers of Dover you're going to put do in
035Havoc parking as rough as it is um students on blackwall street with all these people sometimes drunk over there hanging around million Towers you know the quality of life of do hasn't been that great in the past couple of years can you imagine our students going between walking down the sidewalk and and bumping into these guys that see a nice teenager girl probably a high schooler and the and the guy goes like this wow wow Mita you know you know stuff like that our kids are going to have to endure thank thank you sir that is not the proper place for the school think about it would you have would you want your daughter walking down blackwall street and having to encounter these people thank you sir let's stop it stop that no deal figure
036out where to build a school somewhere else or maybe keep them here a second shift thank you sir we've let you go way over thank you thank you hey have more respect respect for the citizens of Dover I don't like what you guys did 40 minutes late talk for 5 minutes and pat pat your HS Pat yourselves on the back and then take a 10 minute 15 minute break not nice you've made that point twice show some respect and we'll respect you more thank you sir I'm not mad speak Maryann Mador 111 South Salem Street I have a you move the microphone a little closer okay I have a few concerns about your that better Maryanne Mador 111 South Salem Street thank you I have a few concerns about the seven North Sussex a space
037of good Solutions were addressed in former meetings about the use of existing the existing School in the evening for night school at a time when the economy is so poor and citizens are so stressed for cash we need to start centralizing rather than decentralizing in order to conserve I also have a comment about the state requirement to graduate it is 120 credits when I looked online and if this is still accurate do requires 140 credits so it exceeds by 20 credits uh districts such as chadam botin for example randoff require the 120 credits why not scale this back and help make our students more successful that 20 credits in a more in a population that is balancing between work and school seems a bit excessive to me uh I also want to comment that somebody
038else I'm going to piggyback on what someone else said that our downtown is already congested parking is at a premium this lease will add more stress to this situation and make an already bad situation worse as a matter of fact I've had to stop going to my chiropractor in town because I can't find parking what other venues have been looked at what other Solutions can you or have you thought of and discussed another thing that concerns me is that if any of these students um require a pair of professionals will we be needing to hire more or will those pair of professionals run with those students to the new location and if they are um needing an aid or a pair of professional is this the least restrictive environment for those students thank you thank
039you is there any other member of the public wishing to speak Jim do 261 West Clinton Street do uh unfortunately I was unable to come to a previous meeting but I want to thank Miss Phillips for reading my comments into the record regarding the uh former Newberry building and over and I think the problem here is that we need to get to the root of the cause while I understand that we have or we need additional space uh for for students we need to get to the root of the cause and that is the amount of children coming into Dover School District the verification process in my opinion is not working and it's not working because we have a tremendous amount of stacking and overcrowding and over I think most of you you are aware
040of it um we see vehicles that are coming into our town dropping children off at homes and then being picked up and brought to the school and so we know that that parents are bringing kids to the do school district that don't live here and so I think that's the originator that's the root of the cause and that needs to be looked at address verification my concern with the Newberry building as I expressed in my comments before um is that this this Board needs to work to create a comp apprehensive plan with the town of over to my knowledge I spoke to the chief of police yesterday and no one from this board has reached out to them you have a traffic engineer here tonight to discuss traffic flow in the downtown area but no
041one has spoken to the police department regarding parking regarding traffic and regarding congestion no one has spoken to the building department in the town of do about talks to turn Basset highway in between Warren and Sussex into a cafe Zone and vacating that street that may not be a street next year and so those talks are happening as we speak and so you need you need to work together with the town of do if you're going to lease space in the downtown business district and I don't see that happening now so my request to this board tonight is to either create a committee that's going to work with the town of over and the planning department to create a plan that works for both the Board of Education and the towned over CU right now
042it's not working there's no communication between this board and the town officials and I don't think that's proper planning in my opinion you're it's you need to have a proactive approach and not a reactive approach once you lease that building and you invest taxpayer money in the renovations of that building it's going to have a trickle down effect to the to the quality of life in our community and I need this this Board needs to recognize that so please take the time don't don't have a knee-jerk reaction because you need classrooms space work with Town officials let's create a comprehensive address verification system through code enforcement and let's look at a plan together that will work for our community thank you thank you is there any other member of the public wishing to speak Alexander
043dowy town employee professional planner 22 Fremont Montclair uh I just want to start off uh vice president Miller it's good to see you uh I'm a professional planner I work in do I actually uh am employed by the town I do code enforcement work I see what we all think we know I see it firsthand I will tell you it is a concern I think the verification uh address policy is is it's a good idea it's a start it's a conversation starting to move in that direction I want to stay behind the scenes it is a downtown business district it is an Basset Highway Redevelopment plan when we look at that plan we can see the delineation of that that boundary District uh it comes in Cuts back mid block and jumps back out to
044to grab this parcel that's in discussion here for the leasing for the school the reason is because at one point we had a school there we had a higher institution you know in there the whole plan behind that is to help retain what we have have with the Berkeley school I'm going to throw some numbers out there you guys know what these numbers are this is your census data 74% of the town's population has a high school graduate are higher 18.1 has a bachelor's degree are higher those numbers get significantly smaller 4% post grb the idea by allowing a school in the Basset Highway was simply to encourage and retain that higher institution and and to help promote and grow the commun Community collectively I will say I'm concerned as a city planner I've been
045working with the OPA office of plan aacy for a very long-term 10-year comprehensive State endorsement uh Mr Miller is is a part of that committee to oversee that we're wrapping this up we will be in under State endorsement for planning and one of the plans is to consider that that stretch of Pass highway behind the school as a plaza pedestrian plaza where we can Zone this uh you know amenity for the community restaurants cafes Etc Basset Highway behind crowers is 9.6 Acres of continuous asphal the Redevelopment plan is robust that one day as a planner I have to see long term that will be home to the highest density in Dober when we talk about expanding jobs and opportunities do as the one gentleman said this is you know a community it's a business district
046you know this is a county road we are a moris county we should be promoting drob growth and employment opportunities and providing more amenities for a growing community and not taking that away as a planner I am concerned about the impact it will do to the downtown from a circulation standpoint as a planner I'm tasked with looking at things uh Beyond just land use how do I create more parking how do I create free flow of traffic what other organizations canot get involved dot Etc Transit um one this building was up for sale your downtown talks about Transit oriented development putting people next to your businesses amenties at your doorstep people next to Transit getting that um you know hustle and bustle sidewalk activity putting a school down there is going to take that away
047your time's up so please try to finish up we we talk about school safety promoting the community you know when we draw a th feet away from this school and what that drug free school zone concept looks like there are many bars there are many you you know um institutions and amenities that don't fit that narrative in fact there's a bar right behind this property the long-term approach was to have this come into play where Berkeley could expand and be an institution and and have roots in the do community I would encourage the Board of Ed to work with the municipality to work with planners to come up with a comprehensive plan to fit your need and to fit the community needs holistically in a holistic approach I thank you for your time is there
048any other member of the public wishing to speak seeing none public comment is now closed um you know one of the things that we learned coming out of the failed referendum is that the community wanted to see the process of things that we are exploring we have not made made a decision um and we have had presentations on this very matter um we're just exploring um and what you see on the agenda tonight is um we're going to have an update on the traffic study there's no decision made we're not voting on anything um we are merely exploring an option and we have explored various options and do do only but so big so we are quite honestly running out of options um offsite so I just wanted to convey that we have not made
049a decision we're not trying to hide anything not on my watch I can share that with you um so but thank you for sharing your um viewpoints and opinions um on this matter because it's important because you are um the community you are um taxpayers and we recognize that um Mr dhy did I say that right dhy yes can you please before you leave share your contact information with our superintendent um so I think it's important that we connect at some point um Dr McLaughlin uh there was a comment about a graduation credits um is there anything you can speak to um in reference to that and why we as a district um have the 140 Benchmark and not the 120 yeah it has been a uh a longstanding policy in Dober to have a
050local credit requirement uh we have discussed uh actively in our policy committee about uh revising that um there are Pros and cons to that uh issue it's still a u it's it's certainly not a done discussion uh it's one that that will continue to have we do have I would say a pretty substantial list of students each year uh over the last several years that we do graduate who have met the 120 requirement and not the local requirement uh usually there's a discussion recommendation from the high School principal to me I bring that to the board and have that authorization uh to meet the state requirement but uh it it continues to be something that we're looking at um there again there are some merits to having a higher credit total from a philosophical point
051of view some some um people may feel that it uh denotes a higher demand there are many districts that have a local requirement um but it it is again uh something a discussion that is not we're not done having thank you Dr mlin um we're going to move along to the approval of minutes is there a motion to approve the minutes from October 17th November 7th and November 14th motion moved we have a motion by Miss Gales is there a second second we have a second by Miss nutty is there any discussion Dr serer yes um Miss Mendes uh I noticed on the board minutes I think I'm uh speaking specifically of the November meeting although I I did not write that down um none of the board members questions or comments as well as
052responses from the admin were included in those and I do think this is a change from our past president and I do think it is important to capture those I know they're abbreviated but to still capture those for members of the public that may want to refer back to a meeting in that format as opposed to to uh watching the video again so in the future I would I personally would like to return to um documenting questions comments and responses thank you uh Miss Gales yes um I wanted to clarify I see that the October 30th special meeting minutes were included in the board packet but they're not on the agenda um to vote on so I wanted to make sure that that is um um that that is accurate or if it's an error
053um so we did receive the actual October 30th minute but it's not on the agenda meeting yep October 30th there was a special meeting yeah it's not the agenda we can uh what on the next agenda we can add it to this one so we can do either um add it yeah we can add it if the board's comfortable that they read them we could amend the motion to include October 30th has everyone read them so do we want to amend the motion Miss Gales would you like to amend your motion sure I can amend motion um to include October 30th minutes to um this agenda item second all in favor say I I any oppose okay so the um motion by Miss I'm sorry before we go to that Mr sabahu um are you
054able to um capture some of the information Dr serer was referencing yes definitely get okay thank you um so we are have a motion by Miss Gales as amended and a second by Miss nutting Mr sabahu may we have a roll call vote please miss esero yes Miss DS yes Miss Gales clarification we are voting on the amendment or the actual approval of minutes no you already voted on the amendment got it I abstained from October 30th minutes as I was not present yes to everything else Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Mr oblas yes Dr sen yes Miss mandz yes we are moving along to Communications there are no hboard Communications I am aware of is there anything that I missed no seeing none we are moving moving along to the
055student representative to the board report Miss Calderone Alvarez good evening I want to start off by sharing a couple details regarding the prom for the class of 2024 the senior student council came up with various themes such as an evening in Paris Enchanted Forest the Jazz Age and A Star is Born and then opened up a voting among the senior body although there was a close tie between enchanted forest and the Jazz Age Enchanted Forest ended up being the most voted most of the details for the dance have been executed as planned with the venue of meow Wood mayor secured moving on the week of December 11th was of great importance for the seniors at do high school since 14 colleges visited for instant decision day some schools present included calwell University Fairley Dickinson University
056keing university Cen Hall University and William Patterson University among others in addition senior portraits also took place everything was very organized with each student attending their appointment scheduled prior to the day of the pictures another important announcement is that the class of 2024 will be part of a new tradition which will be senior wall handprints this will be set up tomorrow December 20th in what used to be the senior entrance during students lunch periods after eating lunch seniors will line up along the glass of the media center Wing waiting for their turn to leave their mark on the wall and sign under it students will have different choices of colors which will include black orange and either white or gray this is very exciting news not only for the class of 2024 but for the
057classes to come since it allow seniors to have their own area that represents their class as a whole unfortunately as the school year comes to an end the wall will have to be washed in order to allow the upcoming classes to leave their marks it is no secret that the student council is of great importance for do high school since it is formed by Young leaders who want to make a difference not only within the school but for the do community as well which is why Mr Nunes wants to make a few adjustments to the organ organization currently there are officers within each class's student council so the aim for next year is to have student government elections where a single president vice president secretary and Treasurer will be elected to guide the body as
058a whole other plans for the the upcoming school year include signing do high school up to be part of the New Jersey Association of student councils this is a student leadership organization that hosts workshops to instill skills and knowledge as well as provide resources to help our student council members and advisers become more active within the school talking about student council there was a meeting on December 7th during the school day where members of from all grades contributed ideas for the 2023 is last Spirit Week this final the final schedule that was presented to the to the student body and staff is as follows Monday was Christmas theme pajama day that unfortunately could not take place since school was cancelled Tuesday was ugly sweater day Wednesday is dressed according to your class where freshmen are
059reindeer sophomores are snowmen juniors are gingerbreads seniors are Santa and staff are elves Thursday is dressed up as your favorite Christmas movie day and Friday is Tiger spirit I want to end off by recognizing that this is the last board meeting of the Year 2023 I am thankful for this year that is quickly coming to an end I am very grateful for having the opportunity to be present in most of the board meetings in exception to those that took place during the summer and the one that was cancelled due to a snowstorm thank you board members for the example you set for for us not only as professionals but as human beings as well tonight I want to address Miss Mendes Mr Miller Miss Gales and Mr robz in particular I want to thank you
060for your leadership for working hard for our students and our community for always being respectful to the public and understanding I really enjoyed listening to your questions and ideas during the presentations and reports since it really reflects your interest and passion for your job you were all vital in my term as student representative receiving me with a warm welcome and making me feel special at the end of my term without knowing I would be back Miss Gales and Mr robbles I wish you the best in your future endeavors and just know you will definitely be missed lastly I wish not only for you board members but for our whole Community the happiest holidays May this New Year bring the best for each and every family thank you thank you Miss C donon Alvarez for that
061informative um and heartwarming report are there any any comments or questions based off um her report Miss Gales thank you for your acknowledgements Miss Calderon it's been a pleasure working with you thank you okay so we are moving along to administrative reports Dr mclin thank you I'd like to begin tonight by uh just recognizing a few people who are in the audience uh Mr Lou Renshaw is our new director of Safety and Security um he's uh asked to be a regular part of the meetings and it's just another way of him uh becoming familiar with the district and uh for the board to become familiar with him uh and he's made some great efforts uh in his very short time with us already I also want to acknowledge our uh five students from Pope John
062uh our AP students here who as uh part of their AP project are studying local government and have decided uh to come to the DOA Board of Education meeting uh to advance their knowledge in that area so it's great to have you and thanks for choosing to be here with us on Thursday November the 30th our high school mentoring program with the L and touch kicked off for the 2023 2024 school year the Big Brothers Big Sisters workplace mentoring program includes sessions that are hosted by the bbbs staff where students from Dober High School learn about the corporate workplace through present presentations tours information sessions and most importantly being matched with a mentor who is a staff member from deoe sessions occur on Thursdays twice a month and students will learn about a wide range
063of opportunities at a corporate workplace and will build a relationship with their Mentor the students engage in workshops for career Readiness including College information sessions resume building and interview skills snacks and refreshments are provided as well as time for mentees to connect with their mentors and all youth are enrolled and supported by a big brother's big sister's staff member and a do high school chaperon at this time we have 20 students enrolled in this exciting program with uh openings for two additional students on Friday December the 8th Maryann Gibbs and I had the privilege of visiting each school to share the news of selection of each of our educators of the year and Educational Services providers of the Year building administrators joined us for their respective schools I'm proud to share the names of the
064following honores Erin metzer Matthew tally Kathleen Kina Deborah saen Michelle Wright jadua Elaine Renaldi Diamond Del Russo Jack Kane Matt Walter Patricia Edgar and ginger Kos saala honores will be formally recognized at an upcoming Board of Education meeting on Wednesday night December the 13th John crout Pete campanano and I presented to the town planning board regarding the modular units at northover elementary and East over Elementary I'm happy to share that the planning board voted unanimously and positively on the project with no recommendations I'd like to congratulate the cast and crew of um the Dober High School of fall production entitled she kills monsters our high school productions are always so impressive and generate such enthusiasm among our school Community I would like to thank all for their dedication the staging of a play is incredibly
065hard work I encourage all who visit do high school and those of you who are here tonight to visit the hallway along our Auditorium to see the recently hung gallery of theater Productions over the years at do high school to see the rich array and Rich history of plays that have taken place here I'll also take this occasion to announce that our spring musical will be Wizard of Oz and uh we will be inviting 10 students from each of our elementary schools in the fourth and fifth grade to try out for that cast so we we expect to have 30 elementary students in addition to our high school students uh join us for that production so that's exciting and uh I am looking forward to it as I'm sure many are I'm pleased to share
066with you an exciting update about our commitment to academic excellence and Student Success I am referring to our high impact tutoring project uh Dober public schools has been awarded the high impact tutoring Grant from the New Jersey Department of educ ation in the amount of $173,000 a significant achievement that will definitely benefit our students the funding from this grant is being utilized to launch the high impact tutoring program a program that will provide tutoring services in both mathematics and in language arts and it will be led by our own dedicated do Public Schools teaching staff tonight's agenda includes the approval of 54 of our teachers as District tutors these educators will play a crucial role in delivering highquality personalized instruction to our students additionally we will be approving 10 teachers as building coordinators these coordinators
067will work closely with our director of curriculum and instruction to implement a tutoring program that's tailored to the needs of our students the program is expected to launch on Tuesday January 16th and run through Wednesday June the 5th that represents 20 weeks of focused intensive tutoring we anticipate that this program will enable us to provide tutoring services in both language arts and math to approximately 600 do school students grades K through 12 students who are selected to be a part of the tutoring programs and grades K to8 can expect to receive their slips during the first week break back from 2024 and high school students will be uh provided with a schedule of tutors when they return in mathematics and in language arts we're very excited about the potential of this program to enhance our
068students learning experiences and outcomes and that completes my report for this evening thank you Dr mclin are there any comments or questions based off of his report seeing none Mr sabahu thank you we are moving to the third party 43b Administration Services uh starting with January 15 payroll uh this service uh collects all the 403b accounts so we do just uh one payment and this eliminates the mistakes on the perel side uh our negative lunch Balan is going up uh we are trying to bring that down but new rules regulations made us so limited so to proceed with anything uh so I'm asking all the parents and Guardians to uh help with that if you if you receive the letters or any calls from the board office please try to pay your launch balances this
069going to help a lot because at the at the end of the year if these are not paid and there's a certain amount we have to move money from the general fund which is going to be taken away from the instruction um the good news is uh we received $2.6 million outstanding tax Lev payment from Victor Garden Township uh this won't change anything in this year's budget but it's great to receive it as an outstanding item since it will increase our cash balance we did an RFP request for proposal for teacher Aid Staffing Services interestingly we didn't receive any proposals currently we are using Delta t uh for stuffing services for teacher aids and we will will using the one we are currently in uh hand for the rest of the year uh our state
070Auditors are starting work on our state mandated year school audit they are planning to come to the district after New Year I will meet with our food service manager and food service director tomorrow to go over the summer food service program corrective action plan to make sure next year's uh summer food service program runs smoothly when we don't have any findings we get a couple of findings but nothing major so it doesn't require uh board appro either that's thank you Mr sabahu are there any comments or questions based off his report Miss Gales um if a family receives a letter or a call from the board office and they cannot cover the old lunch balances is what should the family do and who can they contact uh when you said all lunch B they cannot
071we always make payment plans we help with that we have Miss Gloria aspina in the board office she helps uh and my recommendation also you can qualify for free and reduced lunch please fill out the applications uh going forward you're going you're not going to accumulate any balances but we we make payment plans and we try to help as much as we can can you say the name again of who they should contact Gloria is Gloria Opa Gloria Opa thank you are there any other comments or questions misso those lunch applications are they physical applications or do they have to go online and fill these out they could do either or so do they have to request the actual paper application if they need if they need it or is it readily available in the
072school office as far as I know we have online Genesis system um right yeah online launch applications they could just go online I'll fill out the application online my only reservation is that some of our families for one reason or another um are if they're not able to complete that application online so what is their recourse they can come to the business office uh we can help can they call and request one to be sent with their student or we we can we can sign the application with the student okay thank you are there any other comments or questions we are moving along to Boe reports Mr Miller any updates from the Morris County Education Services Commission no just business as usual nothing new to report thank you Miss Phillips legislative report I have nothing
073to report today thank you Miss nutting Morris County njsba report yes I attended the Mars County meeting in the beginning of the month of December um they gave us a basically a um Mrs DS was there with me and our two new um upcoming board members for uh January we were there plus uh Mine Hill actually there was mine Hill um board members there too as well we all sat around we actually had a situation that we all had to go back to our tables and discuss and try to see where everybody would kind of think of a situation and how we can all come to a you know a common uh agreement to work some a situation out so next meeting is in February and it's uh online so hopefully he'll see some of
074my uh future board members there thank you Miss nutting uh Mr Miller delegate assembly report yes um I attended the delegate assembly on Saturday December uh 2nd as the District representative at in Mera County uh the first part of the meeting New Jersey school boards talked about some of the things they advocated on our behalf for uh through all the school districts throughout the state uh one of the things they talked about is revamping some of the training that they're offering uh School boards particularly in governance um they talked about the New Jersey school board connection which is a website that I encourage everyone to sign up for if you log in into your school board's account you uh look up n jbsa connection and there's a wealth of information it's sort of like a
075a chat room where uh IND individual board members throughout the state will post questions and and answers to different things it's a a very uh great site to be part of uh they talked about how they advocated for this year's school budget with additional stabilization Aid additional extra extraordinary special education Aid preschool expansion Aid and funding for mental health services so they were at the Forefront of all of that um they are working to bring uh board members and lawmakers together throughout the state to work on some of the common issues that we're all having um and they're trying to Advocate at the federal level as well uh the the main business of the delegate assembly is to vote on resolutions that come forward that can help us with governing um throughout uh the state
076uh all of the um actions that um could help improve what we need to do there were 26 resolutions that were submitted but only four came before the delegate assembly so uh resolution one was from the playing field Board of Education they proposed a revised policy language seeking the ability for school districts to classify students as excluded from cohort as it relates to the graduation cohort coding for students who have exited the respective school system but whose location cannot be verified following due diligence as it relates to The Graduate we rate classification so the school board resolutions committee agreed that this should be approved and help us with those counts and that resolution was approved the second resolution was also from the planfield Board of Education and they proposed that additional policy language supporting a
077statutory provision that would allow non-english-speaking Career and Technical education Educators who are skilled Craftsmen to obtain certification through either traditional or alternate measures where such teachers are paired with an English-speaking co- teer in lie of the alternate measures contemplated in existing statue and specified in regulation the res resolution seeks that Educators be permitted to satisfy the alternate measure by pairing in the classroom with an English-speaking co- teer now that was something that I voted yes for but unfortunately it failed there were a lot of discussions back and forth but it was just U 55% voted no so it was very close for our district and for other districts this would have been very helpful it's very hard to find skilled people that speak English or Spanish for that matter that are certified in a in
078a particular skill but it would have been helpful for for our district the third resolution uh was from the Essex uh County School boards Association and the resolution had concerns about banning books and guidelines for evaluation and selection of instructional materials in New Jersey Public Schools basically they remov the Banning books piece from it because that's a little controversial but basically leaving it up to the the school boards to make that determination B based on the Constitution and all the laws that currently exist and that that passed once they changed uh the wording um and the fourth resolution um had to do with um the Franklin Board of Education proposed additional language supporting its belief that the state must support School District pre-employment practices procedures by assuming responsibility for school district access to data resource
079resources that effectively and thoroughly document prior employment histories of individuals who conduct um who whose conduct implicates the physical or emotional abuse of children so basically they're wanting to make sure that the state helps provide resources to school districts so that we can have better background checks for individuals when um we are trying to hire uh folks because some of that information may not be prevalent to local districts when you're trying to do your search and and additional resources would be necessary to help with that so that was also approved and that concludes my report Mr Miller thank you for that um thorough report and for representing do at the delegate assembly we are moving along to administrative approval is there a motion to approve items a through e and the hand carry addition of
080item F still moved second we have a motion by Miss nutting a second by Miss Phillips is there any discussion Dr Ser um that will the safe return plan be posted in both English and Spanish uh it contains the following statement in English uh quote parents who would benefit from an oral translation can request this service by contacting the district registar but that's useless if they can't read that statement yes that will be uh it will be translated will be posted and I can also add that this is the last required installment of the safe return plan that was instituted during Co thank you and my second question is um the preschool code of conduct uh appeared the draft when I read it on uh Sunday appears to be in draft form the discipline rubric
081is missing and the colorcoded pyramid model chart is missing if it was meant to be included thank you uh I I will ask for that reference to be on there the um the code of conduct is actually the period pyramid model it's a little confusing at the preschool level because you don't have disciplinary consequences for that age of student um so uh but we can certainly enhance that uh it is a u we were notified and um it was kind of a uh accelerated process to put that together because we were notified it's part of our qac process uh previously uh because we worked through pyramid and the pots model um which go along with our program we didn't have a preschool code of conduct uh and I guess as preschool has become more prevalent
082they've added some requirements that we only recently became aware of um we scheduled for our uh our Q qac review in January but we will make sure that um that those references are embedded in there thank you there any other comments or questions seeing none we have a motion by Miss nutting a second by Miss Phillips to approve items a through e including the addition of item F under administrative approval Mr sabahu may we have a roll call vote please miss Estero yes Miss DS yes Miss Gales yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Mr oblas yes Dr sener yes Miss mandz yes Personnel Miss nutting on on the motion upon the recommendation of the superintendent the board approves the following Personnel resolutions 1- 16 with the hand carry changes to one
083and three second we have a motion by Miss nutting was that you miss Phillips and a second by Miss Phillips is there any discussion Miss Gales just wanted to um two things best of luck to those staff members that are retiring thank you for your service from this great profession um I also wanted to ask um in regards to number six um if you could uh I guess Dr ml if you could describe the duties of the positive behavioral interventions and support roles please so that uh that particular position works with students uh who are identified who require um specific um reinforcement in terms of Behavioral uh areas and uh the the idea uh behind this is that uh we we see in addition to the disciplinary actions that we sometimes have to take it's
084much more important to have a strong remedial uh program so uh having uh individuals who are um who are able to uh get involved in programs that work with students on proactive positive supports uh PBIS which is a program that we are uh all of our schools are working on uh really uh we believe will pay much greater dividends so uh the PBIS program is multifaceted it uh it involves um a multitude of effort uh and it requires individuals who can uh carry that out at the school level so I think everyone who's listed there are for North over so this is for their their particular PBIS program one follow-up question um for these um staff in these positions are the this they're so I know they hourly workers so they're only coming in for
085that PBIS position or do they have other responsibilities this would be uh individuals who work for us who are engaged in this program and for the hours that they work in this program would be compensated at the contractual rate of $38 thank you Miss ASO um I have two questions um Dr mclin can you explain um the change of um assignments for um it's an item number two um Matthew Kinski from director to supervisor if you may I'm not sure if you can talk about it is it okay if I do that what was the specific part of the question I realized it's a Personnel item it is personel item well it's a Personnel item but what's this what was the question it's a title change so they want to know well you could just
086describe the title yeah yeah it's based on certification oh okay yes all right and um now with the new two the two hires we have for the community Lea on are we fully staff on that department okay thank you any other discussion seeing none we have a motion by Miss nutting a second by Miss Phillips to approve the items under Personnel including the hand carry items Mr sabahu may we have a roll call vote please miss ESO yes Miss DS yes M galez yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Mr robas yes Dr Senor yes Miss mandz yes moving along to negotiations Miss nutting okay normally we don't do an approval no there's no resolution there's no resolution at this time so we're not going to approve that but I would say
087that we did have a meeting no November 2nd of November the 16th the 21st and the 7th um with the administrators we did come to an intensitive agreement and we are working on our Mo MOA at this point in time it hopefully will be on the next agenda which yes which should hopefully be on our next agenda so thank you Miss nting um we are moving along to governance Mr Ras thank you um the governance committee met on December 12th and we discussed a few topics including the new file storage methodology it's a system called board dos that will hopefully be implemented in sometime in the New Year and that will give uh easier access to the meeting agendas and in preparation ation of any documentation and keeping of minutes and policies and regulations for
088the district so the current system will be uh changed into that one we also discussed a proposed change to professional development anything under $150 will not require approval from the Board of Education while this is not any part of any policy it's just a practice we are uh recommending that this uh be okay to continue in this way or to not require approval for anything under $150 we also talked about interpretation at Board of Ed meetings uh we want to provide an update of that 20 headsets for listening to simultaneous interpretation have been purchased and they will be hopefully implemented in the new year as well maybe by the February or March meeting um also uh Professional Services for that for those headsets for somebody to simultaneously interpret through the headsets will be a separate
089service from the in-person interpretation that we will have here during the Board of Education meetings and also we'll be coming up with some guidelines for the community and for the board to know how to proceed with interpretation at Board of bed meetings so I'm going to say some of these things in Spanish because I know it has to do with interpretation just so that the Spanish speaking Community is aware uh of some of these changes um dep IND we also discussed uh adding Spanish instructions to the agenda document which I've see on page 24 it's already there so we have the full disclosure of the public comments already implemented in today's agenda on page 24 I'm going to also mention that in Spanish and then we also talked about the Spanish close caption on YouTube
090channel for our live stream and there is a video that our communication director prepared that has those instructions and that will be posted to the website as well as it will be shared I'm hoping at a future maybe we could share at one of the future meetings here Dr mclin so the community can see that as well um and I'll uh translat as well so YouTube and last we also talked about um new board member onboarding um and preparing a a document that that sort of gives the guidelines for new members and how to bring them on to the board um and actually we had a meeting on Monday yesterday uh with the two board members who are oncoming in January to share that document and give him some guidelines as to some things that
091they should be aware of as they joined the board in January and it was uh well received and I think it's a great um continuation of some of the efforts that have been started a while ago to have uh resources for new board members as they joined the board and that concludes the governance committee report thank you Mr robes is there any discussion uh Miss Alis yes um I was wondering Miss Mendes if we could uh clarify a few things um from the committee meetings um the governance committee meetings I've read um I'm going to State a quote that was um in the minutes and um could we share the reasoning for shortening the instruction in Spanish and not the equivalent full translation it says in the minutes Spanish instruction in agenda document recommend we
092have a shortened version of the public common disclosure in Spanish could we talk a little bit about um the reasoning for that shortened disclosure in Spanish only it doesn't say in English is there anyone from the governance committee that'd like to share the thought process behind that Mr to that yeah we were talking about the comment that um Miss Mendes or any board president might read right before the public comment section perhaps not reading that full disclosure fully in Spanish if it's already in paper available to the commit to the community so they can just see there and just mention a brief of that version but again that's to the discretion of the board if they decide that they still want to fully read the full disclosure in Spanish they can do that but that
093was the thought process behind that thank you I appreciate that it makes a difference right it it it read as if we were cutting short a translation so it's in addition to what's in right writing um only the oral part would be shorten thank you um I wanted to ask um the YouTube um uh Spanish language captions are they available live or only in the recorded version does anyone know uh Miss sis does anyone know back there you can so it is live and um I have a question and I honestly I don't know if anyone can answer it and has the historical knowledge I know that there was a point and and Mr Roes you mentioned we purchased headsets I know that there was headsets that the board had bought years ago I believe
094uh uh maybe when Miss shower was here um that Mr kenon used to um interpret do we know what happened to those headsets why did we have to buy new ones I know that they tend to be expensive uh those were asked about several years ago they are not on the premises Mia and and it's at this point with the way technology changes I'm sure it's much better to have these they do work through a frequency so uh I I think it's really uh it's not a tremendous expense right now great to hear I appreciate the information Dr serer yes could I ask um this is a kind of a two-part question about the same thing in regarding the um not requiring board approval for PD that costs less than $150 um what is U
095Mr roblas mentioned this isn't a policy what is our I guess this is for Mr crout what is our legal obligation in regards to approving PD um and then the second question is the the reasoning behind this I personally like to see I would I I mean I guess I could imagine a situation where I wouldn't approve um professional development recommended by our Administration but um generally I like to see where our teachers are going and what they're doing because it's generally a great breadth of different programming to benefit our students so can I take part of that that part of the question uh the the reasoning behind doing this outside of the fact that it isn't required is that uh oftentimes we've had to say no to PD because of the timing of the
096request so you may get oftentimes announcements about PD that come out um before the time of of the board meeting so uh at this point we've been denying those uh rather than coming to the board with retroactive which we try uh not to do uh in regard to providing the board with information uh we can still Supply the board with information about PD whether it's board approved or not that would be wonderful yeah I I think from a from a a legal requirement standard unlike certain types of things that that legally require board approval professional development is largely a a factor of uh contract and uh contract and board policy so uh you know I think it's it's something that could be worked out as as to how the board would like to do it
097is there any other discussion seeing none we are moving along to student achievement and curriculum Dr Ser um our committee met on December 5th uh in addition to the committee we had Mr Carl in attendance um we had a really jam-packed meeting with a lot of really interesting stuff so uh I'm the chair I get to pick and choose but a lot of PD uh for a lot of teachers in a lot of different grades um that was pretty amazing um New Uses a new technology called literably which helps um teachers uh with a formerly tedious process of determining students um literacy level or their reading level now uh program does that to free up the teacher to actually meet the needs of the students at the level they are at which they are um
098we're offering AP Computer Science principles next year um and that is thanks to a $5,000 Grant um we have been uh was really happy to hear that Administration was uh had had language with dual language teachers um that program is very demanding for our teachers and so looking at ways to um support the teachers in those demanding positions so I was very happy to hear that uh um apparently the teachers in those positions had suggestions um some of which our Administration was able to meet just one of uh one example is uh more time to plan and so the Administration has worked it out where those teachers get that time um we've applied for a dual enrollment Grant which would allow us to offer um three new courses and eventually more um with various um
099local colleges and universities to benefit our students uh we've already talked about the high impact tutoring um launch and I we the my favorite part of the meeting was getting to see um what the teachers see with I ready and Link it so we've spent quite a bit of money we've heard Lots about um what I ready does and how it helps our students and so Mr Carl uh projected and presented to us um what our teachers see when um students do work in IR ready and it's really quite amazing and so it keeps both data from uh it presents in a very userfriendly format um information on where uh a particular student or I guess groups of students but if you're a classroom teacher where your students are at that moment um it shows
100where they've been how much they've accomplished um it creates a learning path for the students so wherever they are it helps the teacher with that but it also does it appears to do some work um B uh sort of behind the scenes and um we have data now to show Mr robas this is for you um we have data now to show that students who do more than 30 minutes worth of work um I is it per week or per night per week um show significant growth in English language arts and math uh students that do less show um uh average growth but this program is allowing our students to make some of those um advances that you know that they lost perhaps due to covid um I also wanted to acknowledge one of the
101things that came up is if a student goes home or students go home tonight for example and they work on I ready um the teacher ERS can come in in the morning and open up I ready and get a report on what the students have done um over the night and a projected learning path and I think that's amazing because it allows them to tailor that day's lesson to where the students are um but I also want to acknowledge that this is not something that I have any experience in doing and it's an additional requirement um that we are asking of our teachers and so obviously I I think we can all see the benefit of a teacher getting really immediate data from this program and being able to use it to um differentiate for
102our students but it it is an additional ask on behalf of our teachers and so I want I just really felt strongly that we should acknowledge that extra work that they are doing on behalf of our students um that concludes my report um sorry too many windows open I would move that we approve items 1 through seven under student achievement and curriculum second we have a motion by Dr serer a second by Mr Miller is there any discussion Miss Haso I don't have any questions but I do want to commend our district for their continous support for future teachers um I it seems like we're like approving a lot of student teachers and um I think that's wonderful given the fact that there's a shortage of teachers in in our state so thank you Dr
103s um I wanted to congratulate um Miss Beckle if I'm pronouncing that correctly uh we received notifications that she applied for and received an Explore Learning fra educator Grant in the amount of $2,295 so that's amazing um for her children and I don't know if that applies to other children in that grade um I had a question I uh we received a list of more than 500 books that were disposed of from the Dober High School library um there were many on the list that were very old um but there were also some classic novels um is there a plan and funding to purchase an equal amount of books to put back in to maintain the collection yeah our circulation increases every year so we we replenish the the shelves uh you know on a
104continuous basis thank you any other discussion seeing none we have a motion by Dr serer a second by Mr Miller to approve the items under student achievement and curriculum Mr sabahu may we have a roll call vote please miss ESO yes Miss DS yes M Gales yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Mr oblas yes Dr senner yes Miss mandz yes we are moving along to community relations Miss Phillips so the community relations committee met on December 12th Dr mlam was also at that meeting along with Mr Ari levit the district's communication coordinator during our meeting they shared with us a number of changes and initiatives that are under underway many of which fall in line with some of the conversations and recommendations we have had from the citizens Advisory Group I
105did share some of this with the citizens advisory members via email earlier today and wanted to share some of these items here as well uh Mr robas has already shared the information about the equipment that's been ordered and the YouTube videos in addition uh Mr levit had shared that he is working on some parent engagement and parent education videos and programs that will be offered both in English and Spanish he shared a sample of one of those videos with the committee and I think everyone would agree that it was put together quite well I think there will be a positive reaction to that uh so that is something that will be coming in the new year there's also a project underway to create a master calendar for the entire District that would be housed on
106the website um obviously that's a pretty significant undertaking a lot of schools a lot of events but that is something that he's also working on and that should be ready to be launched in the early part of 2024 for an update on citizens advisory committee we did not meet in November we did have a meeting scheduled but we canceled it because at the time I had shared with the group that since the community relations committee would be meeting with the communication coordinator and since so much of what we discussed in citizens advisory has to do with communication it made sense to hold off one meeting with them until we had some feedback from the communications coordinator I did share like I said these updates with citizens advisory committee members this morning reminded them that our
107reorganization meeting is January 2nd and that some of the committee members will some of the board committee members will change so they'll plan to have a meeting once the new board of education committee members are appointed so some at some point in probably late January or early F February and then one last thing um that I wanted to Circle back on since I did mention it at our last meeting citizens advisory members had asked about adding an acknowledgement to the report cards and having a followup if a parent does not review their parents does not review their child's report card I did discuss this with Dr mlin he shared with me that the district is able to see when a parent has or has not reviewed their child's report card and there are plans underway
108right now um in an effort to ensure that parents review their child's report card there will be some family engagement initiatives that will be launched right after the next report cards go out um to engage the parents to ensure that they're logging into Genesis showing them how to log into Genesis if they don't know how making sure that they acknowledge that they review the report card acknowledge it if they have any questions about that um so that is also underway and Dr mcin will share more details on that when that is actually ready to be launched uh right around the time that second second marking Peri second marking period report cards are released and that concludes my report thank you Dr s um a a comment I think to Dr McLaughlin uh based on what
109Miss Phillips said um I did not know that I had to go in and look at the report card I just look at the grades a couple times a week and I know what my child has so I'm failing as a parent um is there a way to actually send the report card in an email so that it's like look it's the end of the marking period these are your child's grades yeah we probably could but if if if a parent is logging on like if you're logging on you you see the report card so the key piece is the logging on and what what we do we definitely know is that we have work to do in regard to engaging our parents in the parent portal uh We've made progress last year several uh
110principles had that as their one of their primary goals for the year and we're continuing to to work through that we had great success this year with our opening day forms much more success than we've had in the past even with the paper forms uh so we know that if we hit it right and and and find the way to do that that that our parents can and will you know engage uh in in that activity so um you know what we need to do is uh continue to make sure that the importance of the report cards is understood the importance of the other information that's in the portal is understood and uh and I think that some of the plans for this for the second marking period um and just to share a little
111bit of what that may look like is is is a week of come in and see your child's report card which I which would be um also time that we can through parent engagement funds that we have through Title One provide amilies you know with uh with meals at that time because it is for many of them during the dinner hour so if they're coming from work uh they don't have to give that up to to come and uh at the same time as showing them how to do that I expect that we would be helping those parents to register online it is the report card is easily seen on phone we do know from some of the survey work that um Mr levit has been doing that the vast majority of our parents access
112their online information through their phone so um we'll concentrate on that and and show parents both uh both device applications while they're there with us thank you any other comments or questions no so we are moving along to policy and um the chair of the committee Miss St has so graciously um allowed Miss Gales in her last meeting to provide her last policy report so miss Gales thank you Miss DS it's one of my favorite committees so I appreciate um Miss DS you letting me do this um so we are um the first policies that we're re reviewing it is uh in number one I want I have I'm sorry I had a different plan than the agenda so I apologize for that give me one second 4 3324 and 4324 the changes are based
113on enhancing the protection of privacy rights for staff visitors and students Administration recommends for the board to have the option language to help support the district committee members inquired about policy uh superseding state law and recommended Consulting with the District Council on um policy 5 uh 5111 Strauss Esme is this is recommended by Strauss Esme Administration recommends options that are considerate of the current limited space in the district continue to guide for migrant students option for staff to enroll their own children is not recommended at this time unfortunately the district does not have the extra space to accommodate this Administration also recommends not to admit F1 J1 students um unfortunately for the same reasons um stated before policy 5116 the change is in the language from homeless child to homeless child and youth change from
1141 to 2 year when there is a natural disaster or terrorist attack in policy 8500 Rewritten to reflect a comprehensive guide it abolishes 8440 and 8550 um they are Administration is um recommending option two to have a program in place receiving a meal regardless of payment and policy 8441 is our own change on page one it reviews The Head Nurse um removed and in place will say nurse will drive student so that we are removing the nurse will drive student from um the page one now up to our regulations five uh regulation 5111 it is already reviewed policy the code of change um regardless of immigration status students will be enrolled in the district and this supports the policy in regulation 5116 it supports the homeless policy which provides definitions if we go to item
115number three the policies listed there 52 40 those are are this for our second no these are our first reading item three is second reading mhm yes so that's why I don't have those open this because it's the second reading oh there's two threes just so you know oh there are and I wanted to highlight uh policy 5530 uh regulation 5530 policy 5421 and policy 5430 these policies are for review which is policies that are not ready for board consideration but rather a discussion of possible changes was um presented for policy and um regulation 5530 the substance abusement there's adjustment of language to reflect detectors punitive policy shifting to best practices with the collaboration and networking of other professionals and districts shifting to a proactive changing model for example moving away from in school suspension
116to in-house service combination of tiger rep and student assistant collaborating um needed for tier one tier two or three three interventions committee members suggested a change in language in the title and across the entire policy from substance abuse to substance use slm misuse regulation includes guidance to Educators on Handle With Care multiple observable practices there's also a um review of the grading system in policy 5421 bringing pulses and minuses into the pluses and minuses into the grading system to differentiate GPA for each letter grade and then class rank for policy 5430 with the changes of the grading system the class rank will be impacted with the tiered system to more accurately reflect the weight of different kinds of classes like honors or AP there was a policy for discussion that was presented by one of
117the board members which is policy 8820 um it is not um on our agenda I believe for consideration but the um committee um had a discussion on this policy the majority of the committee members voiced agreement to the suggested change by the board member um via email in language um to this policy committee members discussed the below language to be in line with our board's current culture and administrators at its appropriate timing to update the policy as recommended by Strauss Esme so I am assuming this will be on for vote um for our uh next meeting um I'll read the language really quickly um and it is on the policies um committee uh minute so I encourage all board members to take a look there for the Board of Education the highest form of patriotism
118is reflected in a curriculum that is thorough complete and balanced recognizing that this history of our nation and historical figures is complex sometimes difficult and even tragic whereas it is our duty and stated policy as a board of education to Foster an environment of inclusivity cultural sensitivity and critical thinking am among our students ensuring they are equipped with a comprehensive understanding of the past we encourage and protect our Educators in the performance of their duties to provide balanc and historical accurate account of history and Society history that is based upon primary and contemporary resources vetted research and other public publicly available unbiased sources will result in a balanced and comprehensive curriculum that recognizes the contributions of all cultures and peoples while acknowledging the dark chapters of History so as to foster a more comprehensive and
119empathetic understanding of the world and with this I conclude my report and I move that we approve number one two five with the correction of the number we have a motion by Miss Gales is there second we have a motion by Miss sales a second by Dr serer is there any discussion Dr s I had a question about policy 5421 and when this policy change would take place this would be effective with the 2425 school year thank you if I may just add um I know that sometimes there's questions on abolished policies and regulations which is the last section number um four that should be five abolished policies and regulations have been replaced with active policies and removal um of the recommended language thank you is there any other discussion seeing none we have a
120motion by Miss Gales a second by Dr serer to approve the items under policy Mr sabahu may we have a roll call vote Please Mr yes M STS yes M Gales yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Mr robas yes Dr sener yes Miss mandz yes moving along to finance and Facilities Mr Miller thank you uh finance and Facilities held a meeting on November 20th and we will again hold a meeting on the 20th of December this Thursday um so at the last meeting we talked about a number of facility uh updates um uh there were a number of them I'll try to read through them quickly um we had work at Belmont Street uh compressor new compressors and Air Handlers were installed we had new LED lights installed at East over
121the back parking lot the classroom trailer deck was painted by the tennis court over here gas line replacement completed at North do uh the basement demo uh project at Academy Street was completed there was a roof repair at do High School uh the baseball and football field uh sprinkler systems were winterized uh there's going to be replacement swing set at North Dover uh there are fencing repairs at East do Academy Street and um another roof repair at northover uh 16 new whiteboards were installed at East over classrooms um where electronic whiteboards did not exist a new water main pipe fittings were installed at Eastover hallways were painted at uh Academy Street uh storm drains were replaced at North do and new scoreboards were installed at the middle school gym uh future projects um a high
122school generator to be installed so that boilers as far as hot water emergency lights and the kitchen can continue to operate if there's a power outage um looking uh at the possibility to partner with the towned over since the school is a shelter for Emergency Management uh the Middle School roof replacement uh is something that will need to happen uh in the future it's currently between 25 and 30 years old and a walk-in freezer for the high school right in back of the cafeteria um uh will be purchased and installed at a cost of 65,000 which be covered by the cafeteria fund um and Mr uh Sabah Hulu talked about some other Finance uh items that uh were completed he also reviewed the prek budget uh to seek efficiencies and uh is presently exploring a
123new account accounting personnel and payroll system so with that I would like to make a motion that we approve items 1 through 18 which the 17 and 18's on the hand carry 17 is um has text to replace the text on item number 11 we have second we have a motion by Mr Miller a second by Miss Phillips is there any discussion Dr s and then miss Gales okay um I'd like to acknowledge the donation of books uh from Mr Coniglio that was a very generous donation um I have a question about check I sent this question uh with my other question um I believe it's check 8717 um could you please clarify the purpose of that payment uh which one which number is it I could can you tell me the item number again
124please uh it's check 8717 or um it is PO number it's really tiny 3950 please oh yeah uh that's the tror reimbursement for Miss mandes for the the workshop for the workshop yeah you can get the mileage reimburse and certain expenses you I understand in the past it's been um indicated as uh board travel and conferences so that was my confusion thank you yeah and this through the GSA rates yes thank you um and then I had a question about our food service balance being very high again um although it seems like something was paid because the O the November balance is less than the October balance um so are there has there been work done for which there are payments that haven't been made yet uh do we have a plan for these funds
125because I know this is something we always get uh there's always a finding in the audit because our food service balance keep more than three months of operation expenses for food service so uh we don't have that much yet and as the negative L balances are going up uh it's it's going down and also as Mr Miller said we're doing the walk in free uh for the high school uh we're estima 65 but uh that was estimated I think almost like a year ago so it might be even more for that and we can also buy some equipments okay thank you um Mr sabaho if you could u in item number 13 can you define stale checks um please and how does the board reach this situation the stale checks are the checks are not
126uh claimed uh we get the uh invoices from the vendors and we send the checks some sometimes they are they they don't deposit and sometimes the business uh bu is not is not in service no more so we try to reach out to them and after 6 months they can deposit checks anyways so if you can get any response and these are the checks from the treasury report which from 2020 so it should be every six months uh VA supposed to check and take it out from list or issue the um replacement checks so I'm trying to catch up on the things so perfect thank you how long um I know you said six months for them to cash it um how long do you have to do the replacement checks is it the same
127amount or is it after those six months yeah our checks always 90 days but as far as I know Banks don't deposit any checks after six months thank you any other discussion seeing none we have a motion by Mr Miller a second by Miss Phillips to approve the items under finance and Facilities including the hand carry items uh Mr sabahu may we have a roll call vote please miss ESO yes Miss DS yes Miss galz yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips uh yes with an exstension from payments to any bills to vendor 1950 Mr Mr oblas yes Dr sener yes M mandz yes we are moving along to informational items so our board will reorganize as long as the weather permits on January 2nd of 2024 um use of facilities we have
128a winter wonderland fundraiser o that seems exciting um and then yes could I just ask what the proceeds of that fundraiser would be used for and then could I I did not I apologize did not send upcoming training could I report on that now after I get the answer to my first question thank you yes and and actually um I've informed the building principal that we don't have to approve facilities for our own um fundraisers so uh this is on there already so it didn't off um but those are used to offset uh end of the year big field trips uh and to those kind of cost awesome thank you um for the board members uh there are four coming four njsba training sessions coming up in the next uh two months or so um
129one is very interesting I reached out to miss Peterson um they're offering an online board leader Master Class series um and I with Miss Mendes's permission or I will send it to her first first um this is an Innovative and comprehensive online board leader Master Class series designed to empower and equip current and aspiring Board of Education Leaders with essential leadership skills and expertise so this is actually virtual it's taught uh in the evenings over the course of five months there's five different um sessions um and it's taught by one of the field of Representatives and I believe a former superintendent so it seems like a really good opportunity um if current or upcoming board members are interested um there is the new board member orientation weekend in Princeton on uh January 19th and the
130through the 21st uh I think all of us that attended that three-day session found it incredibly invaluable uh I still pull out my binder to reference things that I know I learned then um if uh any of us coming back onto the board or who didn't get our board training done um although there is new legislation R um about when you have to do that um in February there is the mandated training day that is both in Trenton and virtual and then as Miss nutting alluded to on February 8th will be the virtual Morris County board meeting um roundtables thank you Miss Mendes and I apologize I will do better at sending these earlier thank you um where were we uh old business so we are going to um further consider the seventh 7 North
131Sussex Street property um we are going to start with I think the traffic study right yes and Miss we have John uh uh corak here from uh the Stonefield engineering and design group that did our traffic study so welcome and thanks for being with us great thank you for having me yeah great thank you for having me um again name is John korak with Stonefield engineering um traffic engineer retaining to prepare a traffic investigation report can you get a little closer I'll do my best there we go again my name is John corak with Stonefield engineering um we're brought on to do to to conduct or prepare a traffic investigation report specifically associated with this site um at 7 in North Sussex Street and of course as part of this report we're not here to
132make that decision of should this site be implemented by uh by the board and by the school for use but rather understand the feasibility of it and provide recommendations from a traffic engineering perspective as it relates to the shuttling of students as it relates to uh pickup drop off procedures the timing and the routes that uh buses should take so without diving too deep into the study just want to cover a few key points coming out of that study um one the the main criteria um for our analysis considered that the students would arrive at Dober high school and then be busted to the Newberry building location um so it it would would not involve the sort of pickup and drop off operation that's experienced at the high school today at the newb building location
133I think that's key because we've all seen a lot of the congestion and and just typical School operations that occur at the high school it's you know that's that's standard protocol at just about every High School in New Jersey but with you know in the downtown traffic area we want to make sure that we're limiting the number of vehicles and using school buses is the way to do that um the other component of this I think is the Ral and dismissal times looking to avoid in the morning um really that Peak window of about 7:35 to 7:50 either having students arrive early and be bust early or be bust after that arrival period for the high school and then dismissal out of the Newbury building really looking to get it done before 225 uh because
134that is that is when you could get the students back to uh this high school campus before the the queuing of vehicles waiting for dismissal occurs um as part of this uh what has been uh discussed was the the staging or loading on Basset highway I think that this is the ideal location that has been presented um because it is the Lesser travel roadway and routing to and from the high school does not involve uh any of the buses utilizing Blackwell Street which does experience congestion at different times a day um but in order to do that there are five parking spaces along Basset Highway that should be considered for either temporary loading restrictions or completely restriped and that's something that would need to be taken up with uh mayor and councel as part of
135you know changes to that roadway that falls to their jurisdiction um with that there's there's a handful of other recommendations whether it's related to crossing guards um within the traffic study but I'm happy to answer any questions um related to uh you know our our investigation and and and recommendations for implementation should the board proceed forward with uh with this location thank you very much for sharing that um Report with us Mr Miller so um when I review the report um the timing for the students departing the high school and getting out you really only have minutes and it doesn't seem like logistically that it's very feasible for us to guarantee that the buses are going to arrive or depart part before the oncoming traffic and I know that this morning at 7:35 uh traffic
136was queued all around Route 15 and the the bus route that was proposed the crossroads are all blocked because of traffic so even if the buses did depart they're not going to be able to get onto the roads to be able to get to the location downtown so I don't know if there's any alternatives but it it seems seems very problematic and U just having a few minutes one way or the other could actually cause uh horrific traffic jam with those buses and the the cars uh going to the high school and also to North over um it you see that as a real concern because really only a few minutes could cause a lot of headaches for the neighborhood yeah so I think that the traffic volumes uh on any given day can fluctuate
137especially in those few minute periods what we've analyzed and and looked at as part of the traffic study is and going through that data that we've collected is analyzing these Peak periods that are are more of like a must of void and um you know as an increased factor of safety as as we continue to break away from the arrival period and dismissal period you have lesser traffic volumes um throughout that bus routing area certainly if there's condition itions on Route 15 or on McFarland that um you know that cause different traffic jams that that's sort of the nature of the state highways through this area but um you know as you continue to spread further away there's it's a greater factor of safety if you will from you know congestion periods based on the
138lower traffic volumes um that we've counted and experienced so I know the Assumption was for buses but if if the student population was at the capacity we would need additional buses so how how do the additional buses play into your assumption on the the arrival and departure I'm assuming that um that could possibly eliminate the time period that they could get there without being impeded right so the the four bus is based on a 200 student capacity um if if the building can accommodate additional students beyond that and accommodate or or and handle that additional busing would be needed on Basset Highway in this loading area the the length of roadway between um Sussex and Warren really only accommodates four buses so it would either need to stack side by side which is not ideal
139ideal or stagger the arrivals and dismissals if you're above that 200 student Mark is there any other discussion Mr R um and the report states that you guys did two dates of analysis is it the norm to only do two dates to review traffic or is that something that because of a shortened timeline or why those only uh two dates you selected great so good question um in in this industry it's it's actually very common to only use one date um but we did have you know we did have a short timeline here in terms of of preparation of the report and we did have count scheduled for um that week before Thanksgiving so a week before the counsil were conducted but there was an issue with um the the data that was collected basically
140wasn't collected and was not usable for us so unfortunately it was down to two instead of three um but and I would say 95% of the applications I work on uh as a traffic engineer um we're using one day of of weekday data for for a project and it stays relatively consistent um you know at the traffic volumes from day to day as slight modification but um by and large the DAT is reliable thank you any other questions no okay um do we our Architects are also here um do we have any questions we'd like to ask them in this moment or no Dr say um we received the uh I don't know what it's called the report with the proposed changes to the work being done by the landlord is it possible because I
141um I was working I didn't have time to read it for you to just give a synopsis of anything that is different from what we've heard in the past can I request a different microphone good evening everyone is that on yes thank you Doctor um uh the majority of the change or the most of the biggest change is the adding of the interior stair Tower there were uh less than a half a dozen interior walls walls that were removed to take two smaller rooms and make it a larger classroom uh other than that those were those were the major changes so I knew all of that from your previous presentation so there was nothing in this new I I'm looking at the lease exhibits draft there's nothing new of significance in this draft no not
142to my knowledge okay thank you are there any other questions Miss um not specific this time um for anyone I think for us as board members um I know that in the Public's comment section um it I perceive that um our community may not be as informed as we think they are um I think kudos to ourselves um I think we've done the best that we can um to uh be open and in every one of our meetings so I think I will encourage those that were here earlier and are no longer here for the discussion um to go back to our meetings um this has been these gentlemen are no longer strangers um we know you from almost every single meeting um every one of you has done awesome in asking questions and holding
143everyone accountable um I think we have done the best that we can to consider this um 7 North Sussex Street property or Newberry I don't know which is the right one um I think we need to really think about the greater good of our students the well-being and then their educational success um I know that money is an issue I know that we live in a town that um a referendum was not passed um I also think it's important for us to um as board members to really hone in all the Alternatives we're talking about leasing and we're talking about trailers putting our children in trailers yet again we just had some approval that I couldn't share the ex excitement about putting kids in trailers unfortunately and so if we're talking about 200 students for
144this lease and and and we don't consider that and or we can't consider that um where are we going to put um more space for more more kids in the same amount of space that may come yes it is may be a stacking issue that yes we can certainly um hone in on what we do with um residence checks but it's really out of our hands when it comes to how many kids are coming into the district because we have to educate them no matter the number um and so I I ask um I say all of this because I think we need to make sure that um we are considering the Alternatives and the downfall of those alternatives for the education of our students Dr s I did have one more question uh the
145proposal uh we have a list of questions that we've asked and one of the responses um indicated that we would need three to purchase three new buses that's a significant expense um I wanted to know um would this could we recoup the cost of those three buses in any way I know that we are um spending money right now on shared service agreements to get our students to various places so would those three buses help save money in that area and or might they be a source of Revenue as we provide shared services Resources with our new buses for other districts I have to say and um you know our business administrator might be in a better place to uh make the statement but from what I've seen from our uh the work that our
146present buses are doing I don't think that we would be in a position to take on any roots from another uh we're we're we're pretty maxed out our drivers drive their day and then they drive beyond their day um we have a small Fleet to begin with um and actually the estimate that I provided to the board was based on Contracting for three buses I mean you could all you could probably save money in the long run by by buying them and hiring drivers uh but uh just so that you know that's that's where I got the figure from thank you any other questions or comments Miss n um it's a comment that constantly comes up and I just want to kind of ask the question I know I didn't send it in advance but
147it was also mentioned I guess before um looking at other options besides this option um trailers how many students if we did have to go that route now knowing that I know a lot of us don't always agree on that route for our students how many trailers would you need to house 200 students to put on our property in limited areas that we do have up here um how many could we actually place up here um the other thing would be looking at the seven um looking at that building also what would be the fact if we staggered the time to be after the time of 7:50 to do like a 8:00 start time and considering maybe doing their first period at the high school as a gym or a study hall what would be
148that as a difference without kind of taking out the sports complex out of the equation how would that be okay uh few few aspects of that question so I'll try to tell me if I don't catch it wall um each modular unit based on what we presently have been purchasing has two classrooms that would have a capacity of 25 students per classroom uh so you're looking at um per modular unit 50 students who can be accommodated in two standardized classrooms um I would really need to work with our architect to see what locations because it's not just space you also have to look at availability of hookups um and uh what what groundwork might have to be done um I only throw this out there as a possibility not as a proposal we have um
149held off on repairing our tenis courts in the event that we need that area I'd have to ask our architect how many uh and he hasn't done the work so I'm not going to put him on the spot tonight to say how many um modular units could fit the there uh we would also need most likely to retain the um trailers that we're currently using for the high school health classes uh and those are in use all the time uh and used to house the business office and the transportation department and um buildings and grounds uh so um those would have to remain in place and they're in good shape and and we we certainly can do that um so if you're looking at 50 you know you uh you'd be looking at one well
150the two that are presently there you know so that's that's 100 100 students that you can accommodate and then for every trailer that you'd add it would be another 50 so uh one thing though in keeping that those trailers in place um for the high school we've used them intermittently we've used them for North over and we've used them for the high school um we continue to talk about the high school but I do want to emphasize our bigger our even bigger issue is Elementary space and um we are adding two modular units one at Eastover when at North over um that will give us absolutely space that we we could fill up right now it doesn't really relieve class size um and we do um we do have to make some changes we're currently
151struggling with some spaces that um that we have been told by the town have to be moved out of the spaces they're in in the elementary schools um that's basically fire code and I'm not sure where we're putting those if we had those trailers today we would be moving those classes right in there um you asked about modul units there was another piece of your question staggering schedule staggering oh the schedule um yeah one of our most overcrowded places is fed uh we certainly could look at having students begin their day in fiz Ed with maybe a a zero period but one of the most overcrowded places in the high school is the gym so uh and we you know we we don't have another space to put those kids you know the as I
152said we have health classes there but they wouldn't have been in the gym for health class anyway they would have been in regular classrooms study hall I do have to say we are really working hard not to put kids in study hall because they need their credits they don't get any credits for study hall um and study hall unfortunately uh has become necessary because of a lack of classroom space and and places to put kids but uh we are we have worked hard to really bring that number down uh and to get as many kids into credit earning classes as possible Dr sner um Dr mcclin I thought I understood you uh your answer to miss nutting's question and then I got confused so she asked you how many trailers would be necessary to house
153the 200 students that we'd like to house at the Sussex Street Building um I thought you said four because each trailer would hold 50 but then you brought the two trailers that were previously the business office that are being used for health classes so my understanding is that those are not up for moving students out because they're already occupied all day so the bottom line answer is in order to kind of recreate the plan that we had with North Sussex Street by using trailers we would need to build or locate for additional trailers we would need we would need four we would need four trailers for 200 students that can include the uh the students who were presently in those trailers because our plan was to vacate those and again use them for North over
154um they're going to be needed either way we do it it's really kind of just mixing where we provide the relief so it provides you with flexibility but the bottom line is for new trailers and could could I ask I um I know I've heard this number but I'm not remembering it what is the approximate cost of a new trailer about 750,000 is that right yeah something like that so all of them is going to be over $2.5 million before yeah it depends on the conditions before you guys get ahead of yourselves so so one or two or three things one you need to bring utilities to the site that's a complete unknown in terms of electric service two each unit comes with two individual toilet units we don't want our children leaving the building
155leaving the trailer going to the high school and back so each unit will have two individual units one for each classroom those units also need to be serviced and we need to Pro provide utilities of waste and water to the building and waste from the building those costs you you I don't get into I caution you about it's 700 trailer times this you really you've got a lot of unknowns before you even even go to that point Thank you just I just want to caution everybody thank you and so Mr Sabah Hulu the number you're quoting is just for the trailer just to purchase those okay thank you Mr Miller I believe the the cost based on Academy Street it's about a million dollars for each trailer set for utilities and everything it comes out
156to something like that so we would be talking about 4 million yes compared to what we also don't have a lot of financial um knowledge of of a new Barry right we have some but there's still some things that we don't know specifically the amount of what's going to you know end up being so if we're talking about the the dollar right at the end um right of the same for $200 students right we're talking about the same 200 students um I think we need to be very wise in how we're spending that money for those 200 students but the investment in the trailers could last that you can utilize them for 15 up to 20 years so the investment is uh pays off over the long run any other discussion okay Mr robas I
157think it's important for us as a board to to also make a comment about recognizing the administration and the staff who have worked very hard at trying to come up with various ways to tackle this challenge I know it's from the start I think we were very clear that this is not an ideal situation with the exploration of the Newberry building or any trailer or any other things that we've seen um so I I want to personally recognize the time that's been invested by the staff the efforts that they do to try to improvise spaces that are not there I know it's it's challenging and I think uh us as parents have said many times that we want more for our students but at what cost and uh as a parent as a taxpayer I
158definitely don't want to see my tactics go up but I also want a good education for students so I think uh we need to recognize that at some point something needs to give um and I think um the other thing I think it's important is to understand that there are things that um the administration is trying to do and we may not think that it's the best or we might think that there might be other ways but in my time here at the boy I haven't seen the town really step up and offer any alternatives any opportunities for the district to collaborate to find space in the town has been the Board of Education and the administration really doing the leg work so I would hope that in the future I see more of the
159Town stepping up of the representatives of the town to do more for the school district uh because that's what our our school district needs and this and I I really hope that as much has been said here today more is put into action by the town administrators and other people in the community rather than just criticize what the board of education is doing and trying to do and the administration for the students of our community thank you Benjamin are there any other um comments or questions is there any other old business Miss G all um I would like to leave it as last I see that there's like get assembly report so if you want to get to did that I was going to say we did okay all right I just wanted to make
160sure I just wanted to take a a few minutes and thank I am grateful and privileged for the trust that the over voters placed in my role as a public officer during the past six years in which I've learned greatly from those that mentored me supported a platform of inclusion and also from those that did not I learned even from those that changed their minds along the way extrem these experiences taught me that a shared leadership culture not only means sharing evenly the workload but also recognizing that Opening space to other community members is also a trade of an emotionally intelligent leader My Hope Is that others have the opportunity and priority to also contribute to our school Community with Equitable education access in their Forefront which in turn is beneficial to our entire School
161Community during my participation on this board I was only one part of a robost team that supported Equitable access to all student with expansions in services and programs that promoting their academic success and ensured their health in mental social and emotional domains I am confident the new team will continue to work towards further Equity with high in sensitivity and inclusivity to the diverse needs of all do students while also prioritizing the important contributions of all the staff and Educators AKA our hero employed in this District thank you for this wonderful opportunity to give back to my do community as a public public volunteer I see our new board members in the audience and want to wish them along with the current and reelected board members continued unity in our district Mission and accountability practices reinforced
162by the district goals while allocating the necessary time in conducting nonpartisan intense policy development responsibilities thank you all for your volunteer time and sacrifices from all your families while dedicating hours in supporting the education of our do children thank you Miss Gales I I am freezing I don't am I the it's like a tundra here right now and when I first walked in it was so warm and cozy I don't know what happened um I like to also make a stay Mr um I also want to thank current board members who have uh have been able to serve with and those who exited while I was serving and those who served long before me uh from whom I've learned through comments and feedback and shared experiences uh thank you for your role in what board
163of education is all about it's one of those things that until you're in it you have no clue what it's like what it takes how much sacrifice it takes and so I appreciate the opportunity I got to do this um I'm grateful for my wife and my my daughter who uh right now they're just hoping I get home soon and uh they're looking forward to uh what's going to come in 2024 but uh all kidding aside I'm really grateful for the opportunity I've had to be closer to the administration to the staff to the students it's meant the world um and uh I really have cherished this experience I really I'm grateful for the community who's come out during the board meetings who've approached us or approached me outside of the board meetings um it's
164also an opportunity to get to know some of the people that we live with some of the people that grew up in our schools um so I'm grateful for that opportunity and I also hope for the new board members that they enjoy it and I'm looking forward to seeing them also be successful um I know that they can be and they will be and I look forward to seeing what new things will come from the district and the the new things that they will put forward for our students and as I said in my previous comment I just hope that there's more collaboration I know that in the board space I've seen a lot more collaboration recently so I'm grateful for that and I hope that the town and the community is willing to collaborate
165uh more I've seen that in the community engagement group that we've started and I think that's a great step forward and uh as a community member and parent who plans to stay here for the long term I look forward to continue to be engaged and see my daughter get into high school next September and what the district can provide for her in an educational spaces I'm excited about that so uh I look forward to that as well and thank you uh for expecting a lot from us board members because that's really what you should do and I hope that you feel like the board uh members are accessible and willing to listen and maybe not always agree but we are at least willing to listen and uh I'm looking forward to being that Community member
166on the other side now again not for the first time but again to uh hold the rest of our board members accountable for what the work that they have to do so thank you great thank you can we have one final um Standing Ovation for Miss Gales and Mr [Applause] roblas is there any other new business Miss Miss menis I'm not sure if I if I'm doing this the right way um but I I have a comment I would like to recognize and commend our um student athletes for for a great fall season um it I mean they represented our district um with pride and and great sportsmanship and I also want to commend our cheerleaders who were actually awesome this year so thank you can we not forget the ban thank you um for
167that recognition Miss s I'm sure um the entire board agrees and Echoes those sentiments is any other new business no seeing none we are moving along to public comment the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters to ensure fair and orderly expression of such comment each statement shall be held to a time period of three minutes public comments not restricted to items on this agenda shall be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the discretion of the presiding officer for those who wish to provide public comment remotely a Google form was posted on a district website at 6:30 p.m. remote comments will be read by a member of the Board of Education the Board of Education will alternate
168between in-person and online comments please understand that public comment portions of our agenda are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board may or may not respond to public comments however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when providing comments comments may not be abusive obscene threatening or irrelevant please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections the board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students or employees pleas please be advised that you are commenting at your own risk any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to Legal liability liability for
169defamation with that public comment is now open is there any member of the public in person wishing to speak hello again Susan shower 346 West Clinton Street in do um I I wanted to comment first of all on I did watch the planning board meeting the town planning board meeting the other night so I did see Dr mclin there I did see uh our town our board attorney there Mr crud and I did see our architect there I did not see the district buildings and grounds director um and I do not see the buildings and grounds director here tonight although I wouldn't know what he looked like if I did see him cuz I haven't seen him since he started working here at any of the meetings to give a report on what's going on
170it would be nice to hear from the expert that we pay to run that department to hear about construction projects um and answer some questions live so I hope the board keeps that in mind the second thing that uh Dr mclaughin mentioned at the meeting which sounds very bad when when you hear our our district leader say that we have over 900 students unhoused I understand what that means the community does not and with no explanation as to what an unhoused student is that sounds like we have kids sitting in the parking lot on milk crates um I know that's not the case I know the definition of an unhoused students I hope that all of the board members know know what that definition is but um in looking online to the last annual comprehensive
171financial report that was filed by Dover and received by the state of New Jersey as of February of 2023 for the year ending 2022 the actual capacity for each school is within capacity in fact some of the schools are quite a good number underneath capacity except for the high school that I believe was 98 students then and North Dover was 24 students then at that closing number which would be in June of 2022 um I did not see that new report on file yet there's a couple of school districts that have not filed yet it is due I believe December 31st ours was late last year I hope that it will be timely this year and I'm looking forward to seeing what the capacity number is then um not including our preschool students that are
172out of the building and not including the 70 students that were on that list that are out of the building that still left us at 3148 which is a consistent number since 2017 the difference that would be crucial for the board the superintendent the architect anyone to start explaining to the public is the difference between building capacity functional capacity and unhoused students those are three totally different things functional capacity is what we do with the space that we have um there was a a a an explanation by a board member a couple of meetings ago when we started talking your time's up so please try to finish thank you um and and was was talking about overcrowding a minivan that has seven seas in and putting nine students in it well actually that's not what
173it is so it's confusing so when we get upset with community members members that don't feel like they have enough information perhaps they don't have the right information so explaining the difference between those three things so they can understand that we are no longer using the same space that has the same amount of students in it in the same way because we have brought students back to the district we are educating students that have different challenges that we did not have several years ago the community needs to understand that and we also have to change the attitude of all or nothing it's either this or we don't have another plan if that was not the attitude during the referendum if we had an a option and a b option we could possibly be looking at
174construction here at this high school right now solving some of these problems but we didn't it was an all or nothing and that's how the the community took it all or nothing well then I'm not going to do it for you so I know it's hard to understand sometimes yes Mr Cruz thank you the the attitude of the public but that's it and I did want to thank the board members who are leaving Miss Gonzalez Mr robas thank you your your speech was absolutely spoton and I hope that you take away more than what you brought to the board initially and you have learned tremendously and I do appreciate it thank you and happy holidays thank you Miss shower um nothing online Okay so thank you Mary savra 217 Baker Street um I'm I took
175a few notes after um addressing the seven or Sussex Street exploration right now um as far as the traffic study that was um done um there was no mentioning of um the buses passing along the fire department through that block Zone uh there was no mentioning I'm not sure if the traffic studies for automobiles only meaning just you know traffic as far as cars and the school buses uh there was no mentioning of pedestrian analysis um I know there was an understanding mentioning um that the students were going to walk over to the end of baset for sports or health and there was no mentioning about that for as far as pedestrian you know they're going to be walking over there um I'm not sure if High School at that age require Crossing cards is
176that something that's going to be addressed and um move on um sorry I only have three minutes uh Miss Gales just mentioned also how you guys only have certain information to go by and the public has I mean this is the public that you most of the times get to address issues like this uh this is about I believe the third meeting on this exploration the meeting I checked on my phone it might be my uh technology but the live meetings I cannot put captions on it meaning I cannot put Spanish subtitles on it so I cannot see them live your current agenda for tonight at the end of the presentation it remember the agenda is a PDF file so it cannot be translated unless copied and paste to mention that uh we were exploring
177this exploring this once again there's no mentioning that you need to go back to two meetings ago to watch the the presentation from the high school administrators and our Architects about the exploration uh there's no Spanish presentation yet so the public cannot come over here with questions I mean there's nobody online right now asking anything um we had um previous uh public comment earlier um letting us know that perhaps there hasn't been any communication with Town administrators or Police Department about you know traffic coming downtown with three school buses now um I'm sorry um another recent public comment mentioned um explaining to the public I'm quoting that um no explanation to the public the parents need to know that was in my opinion also why the referendum failed you letting only parents of students you
178know via School news and and and so on letting them know what's happening you have voters and community members that don't have children in the district that don't know what's going on right now and parents alone of students or of high school students that might not know about this whole exploration about somebody mentioned about the our our our female students maybe walking downtown coming across those issues with you know homelessness and and and the drunk next to the bar excuse me ma'am your time's up so please please try to f um yes so it's just a few of the questions that you know come to mind as a parent as a community member as driving downtown uh going by the fire department that that big block we have that fright train that goes on every
179so often there was no mentioning of that so it it's just a few points again I'm sure everybody has questions but it needs to be presented thank you good night thank you nothing else online right is there any other member of the public wishing to speak seeing none public comment is now closed um sorry Dr mclin can you talk a little bit about um the definition of an unhoused student unhoused is the term that the Department of Education uses uh when they're analyzing the long range facility plan the square footage and how many students are recommended within that St uh square footage when they use the term unhoused it being students who don't fit into that square footage so um I apologize if that kind of Finds Its way into my lingo uh I'll be
180more conscious of using a term that that that makes sense but basically it's an overpopulation of students uh per building and um as uh as Miss Sher mentioned uh it's also important you know to continue to emphasize that school tools are used differently than they were used back when I went to school so um as we uh have advanced in our uh disability related education and our intervention work um there are different size groups that are that are actually mandated for those types of classes so you might have a typical siiz classroom that only eight or 10 students can be in uh uh when speech therapy is being provided there's a space that has to be provided for that when there's uh Orton Gillingham or a reading specialist working with the student Etc um I
181know the board is well aware of this and our and our public who who is very active is aware of it too but um I continue to be concerned that we have an obligation to provide Library services at each of our buildings it's actually a qack requirement um however our library at uh East over uh which only um has been serving East over and not the Middle School School presently has six classes in it uh so we're you know that's where we are in terms of our functional capacity for space and we'll continue to look at options uh as as several people have mentioned none of these are great options and um and ultimately you know hopefully for for for a bigger better solution you know in the future and and learning on how we
182can present that and um and gain as much support as POS possible um by providing things that our community says okay you know this this fits with us and we understand and you're giving us an opportunity for Choice here I I do want to mention if it's okay because I think it's important to mention when we first started looking at this property the Newberry property we did uh a walk through um actually I wasn't there but our buildings and grounds person was there our business administrator we did a walk through with every Town department head so they were all a part of this initial consideration and actually Basset Highway came up uh at the suggestion of the fire department uh in terms of um vehicles and how they would be exiting so I do want
183to a mention that we we remain eager to work with the town if it that's in an increased capacity we are um happy to partner uh with the town I do meet with the Town Administrator the past Town Administrator with the present town administ ministrator uh we work very actively with the chief of police with with Captain sper and the other people from the fire department um so that that's uh you know part of what we understand you it has to happen thank you for that Dr mclin um are there any other comments before we before I entertain a motion to adjourn no seeing none is there a motion to adjourn uh what time is it at 10:05 so moved we have a motion by Mr Miller is there a second second we have a
184motion by Mr Miller a second by Miss Phillips all in favor say I any oppose good night everyone please help clean up if you can and if you haven't taken a frame take one